To say any thing about Novels may seem entirely superfluous. As it may appear to the reader, that to eulogize this class of literary productions is altogether a matter of supererogation, so, on the contrary, to enter the lists against them, or to attempt in any degree to injure their fair fame, either openly or by the covert attacks of a more insidious foe, may be chargeable in his eyes with presumption and culpable audacity. That what affords him such rapturous pleasure, pouring into his mind such exquisite joy, should meet with cool contempt or stern disapprobation from others, creates in him a feeling of astonishment, not to say disgust. Not to admit that there is nothing so charming, so delicious, nay, so instructive even, as a dear, delightful novel, will, to the habitual readers of these works, argue impudence in the very first degree. Like the hero of Cervantes, we shall be the recipients, consequently, of only blows and bruises for our pains. "Who would have thought," quoth Sancho to the Knight of la Mancha," that those huge back-strokes your Worship dealt so heartily to the unlucky would be followed, as it were post haste, by such a mighty tempest of blows, as just now discharged itself upon our shoulders!" If in our chivalrous crusade against novels, therefore, borne off from the conflict into which our Quixotic zeal had carried us, we finally escape, with our spirited Rozinante, and any ghastly scars remain as proofs of our adventurous prowess in so dangerous a strife, it will not be deemed in any way singular or surprising. It ought, indeed, to produce but little wonder that censure bestowed in however careful a manner on many of the novelist's productions, should excite animosity or disagreement: it is rather what we might expect. A diseased body loathes medicine: so does a distempered mind, and any thing of a sanitary nature is quite apt to meet an unwelcome reception. The novel-reader is surrounded by the mere creations of fancy, and when you violently dispel these, it is like the bursting of a bubble: all its colors and bewitching splendors vanish in air, and the mind falls suddenly down, frightened and shud

dering, upon the hard earth of tangible facts and realities. Such a transition from the unsubstantial to the actual is frequently not very pleasant, and to awake from the gorgeous brightness, the iris-hued but illusive dreams of fiction-land to the colder shadows and less balmy atmosphere of every-day life, is so seldom agreeable, that the reader of romance very naturally feels strongly averse to return from his rambles in this enchanted region to a matter-of-fact and prosaic world. "How cruel," he exclaims, "thus to disturb my pleasure in this unequaled tale! I surely thought myself in a very paradise of sweets; I fancied that I dwelt with the gods in Elysium, so delirious was my joy." Surest indication this, that the subject stands in need of speedy rescue, and that further delay may be not simply hazardous,

but fatal.

I am far from venturing the assertion that the perusal of fiction can never benefit the mind; still less inclined am I to say that the imagination should never be allowed the exercise of its appropriate powers, or to inculcate the notion that it exists in us only as a dangerous enemy, as an evil spirit, which, like the demons of the New Testament, must be exorcised and anathematized even at the expense of bodily contortion and distress. It is, on the other hand, indisputably, in our opinion, the crowning gift of man's intellectual nature-the very summit and keystone of its magnificent arch. The whole fabric would be incomplete without it. Remove this, and it is like robbing an ancient temple of its statues, breaking its marble vases, demolishing its hallowed shrine, defacing its delicate moldings, and destroying its costly paintings: there remains nothing save bare and unsightly walls. Such a view of this province of the mind, involves a reflection upon the wisdom of God, who, it is to be presumed, has designed that there should be harmony here as elsewhere, since we may believe he creates nothing in vain. It is therefore an arrogant and impious assumption to maintain that the imagination is not to be fed with its own proper food, to the extent its Giver intended it should be; and it would be altogether gratuitous on the part of any to throw discredit upon what, rightly considered, is one of our most precious endowments. Thus we exculpate ourself from any such grave charge as this. But it is not this moderate exercise of the faculty under consideration, that we have in view at present. We repeat, that we are nowise disposed to enter a universal protest against fictitious works, as if we thought them productive of nothing but evil; but we wish to make our meaning understood. With a rare and suitable indulgence we have nothing to do; but there are vast numbers not merely of the unrefined and shallow multitude, but of those claiming superior cultivation and higher sources of amusement, both among the younger portion of society and in the ranks of the middle-aged, who spend hours and days, I may say, months and years, in the giddy and feverish excitement of following the glowing and ingenious tale, artfully contrived to heighten at every step the reader's emotion, and to inflame his already too sensitive nature, till it kindles with the hot flashes of inordinate passion and irrepressible desire. The supply

too is entirely equal to the demand. The rabies legendi is fully met by the cacoethes scribendi, and yet the plague spreads wider and faster, and the press, from its iron lips, breathes incessantly the very malaria inducing moral disease and death. Every taste is catered to, every craving satisfied. The epicure is pampered with delicate bits and choice dainties suited to his fastidious appetite; the man of less refinement is served with coarser fare, while the pure sensualist and glutton banquet voraciously and with hideous relish on Dumas, George Sand, and Paul de Kock. And as if these were not sufficient, there is last of all a class of so-called novelists, whose works can not be even alluded to without a blush, villainous in point of style, faulty in execution, vile in language, and crammed with impurity in every chapter and line. Now it is not our design to weary the patience of the reader by offering to criticise this feature in their character, nor to repeat observations on their moral tendency, sufficiently trite already, but rather to look at the novel as a work of art; to ascertain if possible, what, considered artistically, it ought to be, in order to any just claim to acceptance or praise.

Now it is obvious that the novel is altogether a creation of the mind; that is, in its groundwork, in that which constitutes its distinguishing characteristic, and gives it its peculiar rank. Wholly intellectual in its conception, it has no necessary connection with, or dependence upon, fact. Its actors are embodiments of the imagination, independent in respect to time or place; its story is a narration of possible or conceivable events; its incidents are probable contingencies following each other in some particular mode, varied, of course, at the writer's option, but all proceeding according to the general laws of rational action; its catastrophe is the consummation and grand climax of the whole, and its conclusion the consequent and suitable finale of the plot. A novel, strictly deserving the name, should possess all these in combination, and must besides adapt its representations invariably to the actual workings of human nature in real life. Otherwise it is unnatural; has no congruity, no self-agreement, and is not conformable to any known principles or laws. It is not enough that the novel have the general appearance of verisimilitude; that, in the main, it seems to have an air of probability, if, in point of fact, this is not the case. It must, in its delineations, conform rigidly to the standard of reason, so that when human beings are set forth as acting in a concerted plot, loving, hating, actuated by jealousy or stung by remorse, they must never fail to conduct themselves in a manner consistent with their assumed character, nor vitiate by an inexplicable behavior all pretensions to truthfulness, and so, like a bad play, be rejected, because, to the common sense of men, it is absurd and improbable. There are, in fact, numerous and striking points of resemblance between the Novel and Drama, and it may be well to notice for a moment this correspondence more particularly. The Novel may be considered a sort of extended Drama, without the artificial division, formally announced, into distinct acts or scenes. Both are purely ideal, springing from the imagination