the wild goat, in these prosaic days, would not find a footing. These extravagances melted before the dazzling creations of Scott, and a fourth class of fiction delighted the world." We have no purpose here to attempt to illustrate or eulogize the genius of the great novelist; but we must remark, that one service rendered by Walter Scott to this class of literature, has perhaps not been adequately estimated; and that is, his having contributed to purify it. Even the moral and semireligious novels of the last century can now scarcely be allowed to lie upon our tables. There has been recently, we say it with pain, a tendency in some quarters to the commission of sins against taste, similar to theirs, but we fear without the palliation of that moral purpose which our older writers, strangely enough, thought to accomplish by it. Whether this be the natural out-pouring of bitter waters from a bitter fountain, or whether it be specially and deliberately prepared to meet the requirements of those who have been nourished on what Mr. Willmott terms "the politer wickedness of the French lady who calls herself a man," we know not. But we do heartily desire that we may meet no more of it. In allusion to offences of this sort, on the part of some of our celebrated novelists of an earlier period, Mr. Willmott justly remarks: "To say that they... have their sting drawn by the moral, is like telling us to live tranquilly over a cellar of combustibles, because an engine with abundance of water is at the end of the street." Our next extract will not be particularly grateful to some of our most popular writers of fiction: “But the hastiest observer cannot fail to remark that in gay, as well as in graver efforts, our cen tury is the era of revised editions. Richardson, Smollett, and their contemporaries, come out in clever abridgments, adapted to the changes of taste, and under various titles. Old friends revisit us with new faces. Amelia has watched the dying embers for a dozen husbands since Fielding left her; and uncle Toby's mellow tones have startled us down a college staircase, and through the railings of counting-houses in the city. Gentlemen and heroines from whom we parted years ago, with slight respect for their attainments or morals, have now taken a scientific or serious turn. Lovelace is absorbed in entomology, and Lady Bellaston is a rubber of brasses.' Perhaps the last appearance of the modern novel writer is in the character of the preacher; with an aim beyond that of morals only, which we have been wont to consider as the boundary of his legitimate influence. The design, of course, is to represent so vividly those necessary truths of man's spiritual existence, which transcend mere morals, as to lay hold on the conscience, which has hitherto been insensible to the exercitations of the manner pulpit. So far the intent is good; and, in some instances, the skill of the writer has enabled him (we want an epicene pronoun here) to work out the idea in a greatly superior to that in which a particularly disagreeable and fortunately small class of books-the old religious novel-was wont to shape its ends. But it may be doubted whether the very people for whose especial benefit this style of composition is intended, will not skip all the sermonizing, or, if it be so interwoven with the texture of the book as not to be easily separable from the story, Morals, we throw it aside altogether. know, may be illustrated and recommended most effectually in compositions of this nature. class, we may name Miss Edgeworth's "Helen." We know nothing better adapted to arrest that tendency to slight deviations from veracity, to which many are inclined, and which some are disposed to excuse. might, also, allude to another recent phase of fiction, that of the psychological novel, with a tinge of the religious element, as one that, in very able hands, is capable of much effect. As one of the most excellent of its We We do not, however, hold it essential that works of fiction should have a direct moral purpose to serve. The mind requires relaxation and amusement; hours of weariness and pain, and of that mental languor which is the result of long-continued overstrain of the mental faculties, have to be beguiled. And if these can be accomplished innocently, by sketches of life and manners varied by pleas ing incident, such as might be met with in the real world, and which would then please and interest us; by the products of pure imagination, or by the play of fancy, we imagine that no unworthy end has been realized. Mr. Willmott apparently differs from us in And we have no quarrel with him for so doing. We hope we may take it as an evidence that he does not often require such solace. this. In considering the objects of prose fiction, he deems that its usefulness is in proportion to the predominance of its poetical or romantic element, and cites instances in support of his opinion. It has been urged against works of this class, that they exhibit such a disregard of harmony between the means and the end, as is entirely opposed to the maintaining those sober views of the relation between the two, which are essential for the practical purposes of life. The objection is pleasantly and wisely dealt with. One of the most absurd of its kind, in the rich-uncle-from-India style, is given in brief, and then "Suppose this adventure, in all its absurdity, to be really written and read, who is likely to be injured by it? Is it worth a moralist's trouble to work himself into a frenzy, and say that his indignation is excited at the immoral tendency of such lessons to young readers, who are thus taught to undervalue and reject all sober regular plans for compassing an object, and to muse on improbabilities till they become foolish enough to expect them?" "Present the pleasantest features of poetry and fiction; the majesty of the epic: the moving accithe romance. .... The historian has one addents of the drama; the surprises and moral of vantage over the poet. He is not obliged to look abroad for shining illustrations, or corresponding scenes of action. His images are ready; his field of combat is inclosed. He wants only so much vivacity as will supply color and life to the description. Read the meeting of Cyrus and Artaxerxes in Xenophon. A white cloud spots the horizon; presently it grows bigger, and is discovered to be the dust raised by an enormous army. As the cloud advances, its lower edge of mist is seen to glitter in the sun; spear, and helm, and shield shoot forth and disappear, and soon the ranks of horse and foot, with the armed chariots, This is the splendor of grow distinctly visible. the epic; it is Homer in prose." "In the first place, it may be denied that one "For an instance of the dramatic in history the young man in a million ever built his hopes of reader may go to Dalrymple. Dundee, wandering prosperity or love upon recollections of visionary about Lochabar with a few miserable followers, is relatives in Benares. Even real uncles are for- roused by news of an English army in full march gotten when they never return; and, secondly, it to the pass of Killicranky. His hopes revive. He is not to be assumed that the remote contingencies collects his scattered bands and falls upon the enof life ought to be rejected as hurtful. The im- emy, filing out of the stern gateway into the highprobabilities of experience are many, the impossi- lands. In fourteen minutes infantry and cavalry bilities few. The rich kinsman may not arrive are broken. Dundee, foremost in pursuit as in from India to make two hearts happy; but circum- attack, outstrips his people; he stops, and waves stances do fall out in a way altogether contrary to his hand to quicken their speed; while he is expectations; helping friends rise up quite as pointing eagerly to the Pass, a musket-ball pierces his armor. He rides from the field, but, soon strangely as apparitions of Nabobs from the jungle; and the dearest chains of affection are dropping from his horse, is laid under the shade of sometimes riveted by means scarcely less astontrees that stood near; when he has recovered from ishing, and certainly not more anticipated than the the faintness, he desires his attendants to lift him magical cheque of the dreamer. Instead, there-up, and, turning his eyes to the field of combat, fore, of starting from a romantic danger, I am inquires, How things went?' Being told that inclined, under proper limitation, to welcome a all is well, he replies, with calm satisfaction, romantic advantage. It is something to keep theThen I am well,' and expires." spirits up in so long and harassing a journey; and even the pack-horse goes better with its bells." "Fiction, like the drama, speaks to our hearts by exhibitions. Mr. Allworthy was acting a sermon upon charity, when the gentle pressure of the strange infant's hand on one of his fingers, outpleaded in a moment the indignant proposal of Mrs. Deborah to put it in a warm basket-as the night was rainy and lay it at the churchwarden's door; Corporal Trim's illustration of death, by the falling hat in the kitchen, strikes the fancy more than a climax of Sherlock; and the Vicar of Wakefield' in the prison is a whole library of theology made vocal.” There is one essential for the enjoyment of novel reading that it should be taken in extreme moderation. The young ladies and young gentlemen who devour whole circulating libraries, and yet cannot get amusement enough out of it, will do well to "make a note" of this. Mr. Willmott writes of poetry like a genuine lover of it. But we can only refer to those essays, as we want to have a word on history, which Here "Every circumstance heightens the catastrophe. His bed is the wild heather, shut in by a mountain bastion, of which the gloom is broken by frequent flashes of random guns. The Pass stretches in dreary twilight before us. The sound is in our ears of a dark river foaming among splintered rocks,-ever tumbling down, and losing itself in thick trees, while the eagle utters a lonely scream over the carnage, and sails away into the rolling vapors." This is picturesque writing. Mr. Willmott occasionally falls into the error of expressing himself in a manner too uniformly curt and pointed. A just intermixture of sentences of brief energy, in which the idea is as it were darted at the reader, and those in which it is more deliberately conveyed, the medium of thought being converted into a separate, independent source of pleasure, forms the most pleasing style. We do not like our music to be all staccato passages; the flowing melody must intervene to give these their full value. History is considered in its pleasurable, moral, and educational character. In this latter, we may speak of it as perhaps one of the most richly instructive studies to which the attention can be directed: one from which the largest amount of such knowledge as may be brought to bear upon practical life, may be reaped by the intelligent and thoughtful sudent. The nature of man is, in all ages, the same. There is no signal variety, save in adventitious circumstances, in the cycle of human events. Those who borrow no light from the past, will not see clearly into the future. In the present, they must walk with uncertain step. With regard to political life, a subject of much interest to us all just now, it appears to us that, without a competent knowledge of the past, derived from history, it is all but impossible for a man, whatever other qualifications he may possess, to form any intelligent opinion on the various political questions submitted to him. Without it, he must be in entire ignorance of how often those combinations of political events, which to him appear new, have already presented themselves in national life, and been treated, perhaps, in vain, or with but temporary benefit, by that very remedy, or class of remedies, which he is now assured, and believes because he is pertinaciously assured, to be specific in the case. He must be at the mercy of others, be content to take his opinions ready made; or, what is worse still, in his unfurnished condition, make what must be called haphazard opinions for himself. It is, however, to be added that, without some mental discipline, such as we have before alluded to, some acquaintance with the art of thinking, which has to be patiently learned-we are no more intuitive reasoners than we are intuitive politicians-he will be utterly unable rightly to deduce from his historical reading those lessons of instruction which it so abundantly yields to the logically-trained mind. For their complete eduction and application, a discriminating, weighing, and reasoning intellect is essential. And this, unlike "reading and writing," does not "come by nature." There are some passages, good both as to manner and matter, in the essay on biog raphy; but we have not space for any of them. Nor from another interesting one on the literature of the pulpit; a fruitful subject, did he pursue it at length, to so thoroughly sympathizing a reader of old sermons as Mr. Willmott is. Latimer's strong, homely diction; Donne's "manifold style;" the crabbed, yet learned composition of Andrewes, something like a bad translation of a difficult foreign tongue, wanting in the auxiliary parts of speech; Taylor's architecturally piled-up sentences; the copiousness of Barrow; and the exercitations of a host of others, whom we may not stay to characterize, would all by turn attract and charm him who deems that "in every Christian land the learned mind has poured its choicest gifts into theology." One well-known name among our English divines furnishes him a subject for the following beautiful sketch of the scholar's life. Bishop Hall, like his contemporary, Milton "was up in summer with the bird that first rises, and in winter often before the sound of any bell. the cloud for rest, and the sunshine for toil. His first thoughts were given to Him who made While his body was being clothed he set in order the labors of the day, and entering his study besought a blessing for them upon his knees. His words are: Sometimes I put myself to school to one of those ancients whom the church hath honored with the name of Fathers; sometimes to make them classical; always to God's Book.' those later doctors who want nothing but age to The season of family devotion was now come, and this duty heartily fulfilled, he returned to his private reading. One while, as he tells us, his eyes were busied, and then his hands, or contemplation took the burden from both; textual divinity employed one hour, controversy another, history a third; and in short intervals of pensive talk with of learned research for future use. his thoughts, he wound up the scattered threads Thus he wore out the calm morning and afternoon, making music with changes. "At length a monitor interrupted him. His weak body grew weary. Before and after meals, he let himself loose from scholarship. Then company, discourse, and amusement were welcome. These prepared him for a simple repast, from which he rose capable of more, though not desirous. No book followed his late trencher. The discoveries and thoughts of the day were diligently recollected, with all the doings of hand and mouth since morning. As the night drew near he shut up his mind, comparing himself to a windows in the evening. He said that the student was miserable who lies down, like a camel, under a full burden. And so, calling his family together, he ended the day with God, and laid him down to sleep, took his rest, and rose up again, for He sustained him.” tradesman who takes in his wares and closes his denial, or grudging recognition of personal virtues. Yet the wide gulf touching things political and things polemic, that stands between him and the majority of those who are accustomed to dwell upon our pages, will not, we feel assured, prevent their joining in that fine-spirited eulogy, both on his genius and his personal excellences, which those whose lives have been passed in literary antagonism to his have already pronounced over his tomb. The cold depreciatory estimate, the grudging recognition, have been reserved for others who, entering into his labors, have not deemed it unmeet to employ pages to which some of his best powers were dedicated, as the vehicle for their ungenerous treatment of his memory. The genial love of the true scholar for the quiet companions of his solitude has perhaps rarely been more exquisitely expressed than in that beautiful little poem of Southey's, originally designed for his colloquies, beginning "My days among the dead are passed, A poem recently illustrated by a most astounding criticism pronounced upon it by Wordsworth, who objected to the poetical phrase, "casual eyes," on the ludicrously prosaic ground of its being the glance, not the eyes, that was "casual"! The emendation suggested was in perfect keeping with the objection-"Where'er these eyes I round me cast;" an expression to whose deliberate truth certainly no exception could be taken. Mr. Cuthbert Southey gives the finishing. touch to this rich little narration, by regretting that his father had not had the opportunity of profiting by the poet's strictures! Such a criticism belongs to the class of the severely literal. It reminds us of a similar one passed by an ancient gentlewoman upon Mrs. Hemans's pleasing little poem, The Dial of Flowers; in which the line, "Like a pearl in an ocean shell," was, on the authority of her critical judgment, restored to what she deemed its true reading-"Like a pearl in an oystershell;" pearls being, as everybody knew, except, perhaps, unfortunate Mrs. Hemans, ordinarily produced by that amiable_fish. "Great Homer nods!" But what a pity to chronicle it. The Accountableness of Authors is touched upon in a serious vein. None can be too much so for such a subject. It is one on which, we doubt not, all implicated in it have, at times, mused with feelings of even painful intensity. A manuscript letter of Anna Maria Porter's that came under our notice some years ago, showed the writer to have been penetrated with it. A Parting Word closes the volume. And with it we bid Mr. Willmott a very cordial farewell. GOOD WINNING HANDS.-The American, leg is likely to have such a successful run, that an ingenious inventor is trying his hand at a false arm; for he declares that enterprise and talent can always find elbow-room. There is no doubt that if he succeeds in producing the article he contemplates, and can offer a good practicable arm, the public will take him by the hand with the utmost cordiality. The Railway Companies will be excellent customers, for their difficulty has always been that a man has by nature only one pair of hands, while a railway servant is expected to do the work of at least twenty. If by any new invention the directors may be able to take on an unlimited number of extra hands without employing one additional man, the great object will be achieved of getting the work of some ten or a dozen pair of hands performed for a single salary. Another branch of the expected demand for false hands will arise from public meetings and elections; for where it is important to have an imposing show of hands, to be able to hold up a dozen or so, in stead of a single pair, will become a very valuable privilege.-Punch. From the Dublin University Magazine. 1 DIVINATION, WITCHCRAFT, AND MESMERISM. Ir seems strange that so obvious a case as that of Barlaam and the monks of Mount Athos has not been brought into the mesmerical collections of pièces justificatives. The first compiler of the authorities on which it rests is Ughelli. The story is told in modern language by Mosheim, by Fleury, and by Gibbon at the years 1341-51. In taking the version of it by the last, (Decline and Fall, c. 63,) we shall run least risk of being imposed on by over-credulity. "The Fakirs of India and the monks of the Oriental Church," says the complacent philosopher of Lausanne, "were alike persuaded that in total abstraction of the mind and body, the purer spirit may ascend to the enjoyment and vision of the Deity. The opinions and practices of the monasteries of Mount Athos will be best represented in the words of an abbot who flourished in the eleventh century. 'When thou art alone in thy cell,' says the ascetic teacher, shut thy door and seat thyself in a corner: raise thy mind above all things vain and transitory; recline thy beard and chin on thy breast; turn thine eyes and thy thoughts towards the middle of thy belly, the region of the navel; and search the place of the heart, the seat of the soul. At first all will be dark and comfortless; but if you persevere day and night you will feel an ineffable joy; and no sooner has the soul discovered the place of the heart, than it is involved in a mystic and ethereal light.' This light, the production of a distempered fancy, the creature of an empty stomach and an empty brain, was adored by the Quietists as the pure and perfect essence of God himself; and as long as the folly was confined to Mount Athos, the simple solitaries were not inquisitive how the divine essence could be a material substance, or how an immaterial substance could be perceived by the eyes of the body. But in the reign of the younger Andronicus these monasteries were visited by Barlaam, a Calabrian monk, who was equally skilled in philosophy and theology. The indiscretion of an ascetic revealed to the curious traveller the secrets of mental prayer, and Barlaam embraced the opportunity of ridiculing the Quietists who placed the soul in the navel; of accusing the monks of Mount Athos of heresy and blasphemy. His attack compelled the more learned to renounce or dissemble the simple devotion of their brethren; and Gregory Palamas introduced a scholastic distinction between the essence and operation of God." Gregory illustrated his argument by a reference to the celestial light manifested in the transfiguration of our Lord on Mount Thabor. On this distinction issue was taken by the disputatious Calabrian, and the result was the convocation of a synod at Constantinople, whose decree "established as an article of faith the uncreated light of Mount Thabor; and, after so many insults, the reason of mankind was slightly wounded by the addition of a single absurdity." Of the truth of facts so long and openly discussed, there can be no question. The monks of Mount Athos did indeed put themselves into a state which may with safety be called one of mental lucidity, by fixing their eyes intently on a point. Mr. Robertson who used to induce the mesmeric sleep by causing his votaries to fix their eyes on a wafer, had better precedent than he supposed for his practice; and Miss Martineau, who, in her artificial trances, saw all objects illuminated, has been unconsciously repeating a monastic method of worship. The contemptuous indifference of Gibbon for once arises from defect of information; and when in a note he observes that Mosheim "unfolds the causes with the judgment of a philosopher," while Fleury transcribes and translates with the prejudices of a Catholic priest," himself gives a luculent example of the errors of philosophy, and of the often unsuspected approach of prejudice to truth. Mosheim's observation, notwithstanding the damaging approval of Gibbon, is not without its value. "There is no reason," he says, "for any to be surprised at this account, or to question its correctness. For among the precepts and rules of all those in the East who teach men |