Do you ever turn aside from your wellbeaten track, on the highway of practical life, to loiter for a while in the flowery vales of romance? Tell me, Mr. Editor of a political daily, do you ever unwrinkle those stern brows of yours over the playful pages of a well-written novel? I greatly fear me, that men so engrossed with the actual world must become hardened to the beauty of the ideal.

What you must lose of relaxation, in this want of relish for the fanciful, excites in me a sort of respectful pity, that your taste should have been so vitiated by wholesale dealings with public quarrels-political, financial, and civil; public dangers-hair-breadth escapes, and awful catastrophes. But for that large class of people, always heard excusing themselves for being caught in the field of light reading, I feel an impatience verging on contempt. "I'm merely glancing over this nonsense," say they, "because everybody is silly enough to talk of it." Now, I can't at all enter into that sort of false shame. I enjoy a good novel in its proper time and place, just as well as a good lecture or a good sermon.

To me, it represents the human character exactly as a good portrait or a good statue does the human form; and it is as much a work of art as either. Indeed, I cannot see why a well-constructed, welltold fiction does not imply as much genius, and that of as high an order, as does a well-copied landscape. What there is of creative faculty, is alike in both instances; and the descriptive power of a man who paints a world in colors, should not rank above his who represents the same world with equal vividness in words.

The study of human nature has a great fascination for me; and whether pursued through my own observation or other people's experience, I esteem it always advantageous and improving. We were created social beings, and are all more or less dependent on one another: how important, then, does it appear, that each of us should learn the lesson of adaptation to the rest.

VOL. XXIII-12

Now, it is my humble opinion, that those pictures of mankind which good romance writers give us, are auxiliaries as valuable to those who would avoid the shoals and quicksands upon which others have run, as is his chart to the mariner endeavoring to steer safely past the Scylla and Charybdis of the straits of Messina. The characteristics depicted exist just as really as does the rock or the whirlpool; and the author copies them, not from his imagination, but from his memory, just as faithfully as did the navigator who explored the seas and noted his discoveries on the map.

Of practical men, we deem his skill the nearest approach to the miraculous, who dissects the pericardium and explains to us the wonderful problem of the blood's circulation; but certainly he reveals no more careful observation, or studious research, and I question if he be any more a public benefactor, than is that man-the so-called visionary, who passes the boundary of the visible, and lays bare the secret recesses of the mind; teaching us about the intricate workings of the reason, the affections and the will.

These may be mistaken ideas; but upon such is founded my respect for romances. Thus it is, that the same mind, which plunges so eagerly into historical facts, enjoys just as heartily a well worked fiction. But there must be very few people whose views coincide with mine, else our publishers would launch into the great sea of reading a better sample of this class of books. It is strange-considering that the world of fiction is built upon experiences of life in its multitudinous phases, and since the Yankee is acknowledged to have peered into more corners of the earth than the representative of any other nation-that novelists do not seem to flourish upon American soil. It is strange that we have to cross the ocean in search of pastime; and that we must depend upon Bulwer to stir up our thoughts, Thackeray to help us laugh, and Dickens to trouble the fountain of

our tears. With us, the pen, except so far as it follows fossilized tracks or chronicles the revolutions of far off planets, wages political warfare or perplexes some already vexed question of theology, seems to have been relinquished by master minds, in favor of weaker vessels, who have neither the ability to conceive, nor the courage to express anything original. Nearly all our fictions come from the timid, trembling hand of women, who exercise their highest ambition in copying plots from the long ago used-up models of half forgotten predecessors. There are "Queechy;" "The Wide Wide World;" "Dollars and Cents;" and "My Brother's Keeper," having all the same bread and milk flavor, and stamped with a school girl's dream of some overwrought divinity of a hero, that most miraculously forms and fashions and moulds an insignificant apology for a girl into "a perfect woman nobly planned." Then, too, everybody remembers many a book, that turned out to be the mere abstract of "Jane Eyre," in foreign costume; not to dwell upon the class of volumes whose name is legion, that grew out of the furor for "Uncle Tom's Cabin"-all of which were really copied from Mrs. Stowe's fancy, and bore but one mark of originality--the name in which they were recorded among newly born books.

In England, young writers are already preparing to fill the places which old ones will soon leave vacant; but here, no one has yet made good the loss of Cooper; and Hawthorne's is now almost the only prolific imagination which has made itself famous at home and abroad.

After all this disquisition, it would scarcely surprise you to look into the big trunk with which I started from New York a piece of luggage less than half made up of clothes, and more than half filled with books; not weighty books either, for I have a most merciful disposition, but such as all the world include under the head of "light reading. I will mention them in the order in which they happen to have been read, and perhaps you will recognize some old friends. All are supposed to have been written with no other aim than the amusement

of the reader; but some of them are much better calculated to school the patience, than to please the fancy.

But stay-I had almost forgotten to tell you that this literary mood of mine is an expiation. Last winter was a gay winter for me; and the turning day into night consequent upon turning night into day, kept my book-shelves dusty, and left my thoughts in danger from moth and rust. But I quieted my conscience with great promises of making the long summer days atone for wasted winter ones; made pretty plans of rural hours with favorite books, read beneath the spreading branches of friendly shade trees; and when the July sun smiled on my anticipations, started off to realize them with more hope than chance of success. For, in picturing to myself the land where the Indian warriors roamed two hundred years ago, I forgot how busy white hands had ever since been in pruning and leveling trees, and I actually had the simplicity to believe that pine groves still flourished where forests used to wave. Imagine, then, my disappointment, on finding that civilization around the Aboriginal House had uprooted every trace of the wilderness, so that not even the shadow of a tree remained, to screen one's eyes from the dazzling white sands! For a while the books were left in obscurity, and only silks, laces, ribbons and gewgaws, saw the light; but I reconciled myself to circumstances with the reflection, that our wonderful exemption from mosquitoes must be attributed to the absence of shrubbery.

So, one morning, after wandering on the sea shore until I was tired of sloops, schooners, and sea-weed, I retired to my room, emptied sand enough from my slippers to make a little private beach of my own, drew a chair to the window within sound of dashing waves, and opened "Sir Amyas Leigh." The man who wrote "Alton Locke," "Glaucus," and "Hypatia," might be expected to brighten any subject upon which he chose to look; and this story of Queen Elizabeth's time, illustrative of the gallantry and chivalry of England's proudest days, is not wanting in the fascination

which ever follows Charles Kingsley's gifted pen. It is written in the same style with some books that were very popular two or three years ago "The Household of Sir Thomas More," and "The Life of Mary Powell, afterwards Mistress Milton"-only that "Sir Amyas Leigh" purports to have been rendered into modern English.

Next in order came "Grace Lee"-a story exactly suited to those enthusiastic, excitable dispositions, that love to be wrought up to the highest pitch of anxiety, and then gracefully brought down to the most complete state of satisfaction. The interest is so well sustained throughout, that after becoming familiar with Miss Kavanagh's intellectual characters, and truly original plot, one is quite unfitted for the ordinary sentimental books of the day.

Therefore, it was not wonderful that "The English Orphans" should have seemed commonplace to me, though it certainly is a curiosity, as containing more funerals than anybody ever before attended in so short a space of time. Girls of the age at which it is customary to believe in "the luxury of grief," would revel in so doleful a romance; but it wearied me so much, that when about half through the book, I was obliged to stop and rest with an unburied corpse on my hands. The fact is, actual life sufficiently develops my capacity to suffer, and leaves me no tears to waste over imaginary sorrows. It is the muscles which produce smiles that I desire to have exercised when I enter the world of romance; and those were appealed to but once in all the long story of the "English Orphans." The poor monomaniac, Sal. Furbush, whose insanity was greatly aggravated by the grammatical errors of her companions at the alms-house, at length determined to write a book for their instruction; but her philanthropic intentions were frustrated at the outset, by a perplexity of which rational people would never have thought.

She had resolved to manifest to the world her absolute forgiveness towards her quondam enemy, the proprietor of the establishment, by dedicating to her

this work of a lifetime; but the person in question had passed the age after which it feels awkward to address as Miss," and she exacted from every body around her, the more respectful title of "Mrs. Polly Grundy."

Now, poor Sal., in spite of the wicked tricks that kept her shut up for correction the greater part of the time, was at heart exceedingly sensitive, and instinctively shrank from hurting anybody's feelings. Again and again she repeated to herself the dedication, to see how it would sound; but the book was lost to the world, because of a sudden query which arose in her mind, and which all Sal's poor wrecked intellect was unable to reason away. She asked herself if the name "Mrs. Polly Grundy" would not excite the wonderment of the public as to who, what, and where, was Mr. Polly Grundy! And so for fear of bringing upon the woman she wished to compliment more obloquy than honor, the crazy grammarian abandoned her darling scheme of educating her fellow-paupers.

Another miserable book, which many people have been deluded into buying, on the recommendation that it was written by the author of "Heartsease," and "The Heir of Redclyffe," is called "The Castle Builders." It is a religious novel, the whole edition of which should be distributed among Episcopal Sabbath schools; for it is, in effect, a dissertation on the subject of "Confirmation."

But the most harrowing thing which I ever remember to have read, is Miss Pardoe's "Jealous Wife." In saying that, I have shown how true to life it must be. One meets too many jealous wives in the social circle, to be otherwise than revolted by such a title; and for a time I refused to make so disagreeable an acquaintance in the fictitious world. But reminiscences of Miss Pardoe's pleasant style finally conquered my repugnance, and I found this a book which, once opened, could not be closed until the end. The whole force of the author's great knowledge of life and character, has been brought to bear upon the heart's most corroding passion; and most vividly does it set before the reader that warni

which all suspicious people greatly needthat our very fear of ill often creates the very ill we fear.

But I forbear to weary you with the long list of stories which I have more recently worried through, and hasten to speak of "Peg Woffington"-the book of the season.

The fame of Thackeray grew out of the humorous light in which he reflects life; and Dickens built his upon those wonderful transitions from the pathetic to the ludicrous, of which only very elastic natures are capable. But Charles Reade gives us, at the very same moment, sunshine and storm. Racy, piquant, witty, while overflowing with sensibility, he keeps us perpetually laughing through our tears, until every page of his charming book dazzles us with its rainbows. He never makes use of mummies, under the resurrection influence of wires and galvanism, but of characters that have living, breathing human natures like our own. Few authors do justice to the whole range of subjects which they attempt to handle. Nearly all have one or two pet characters, upon which they exhaust all their abilities, and in whom they quite lose sight of those lesser lights that are merely introduced as tools for the development of certain results, but upon which, nevertheless, hangs the completeness of the whole plot. Not so Mr. Reade. The artist, whose masterly hand drew the fine proportions of Peg Woffington's character, copied nature just as truly and carefully, when he came to deal with the half-starved children of inefficient, poverty-stricken Triplet, that were "crying because there was no breakfast for breakfast."

It has been my misfortune, frequently in life, to come in contact with people who had outlived the age to which their opinions and feelings belonged, and could not be reconciled to the enlarged views of a more advanced era of civilizationpeople, who wanted future generations to bow down to the narrow laws of their own time; who were always fighting with every modern improvement, and to limit everybody's perceptions to the contracted sphere of their own old

they, "have we of telegraphs and railroads-did not our fathers live and die without them?"

This trying experience of mine may account for my enthusiasm as regards Mr. Reade's delineation of Colly Cibber, the superannuated critic comedian, whose infatuation for the past kept him forever quarreling with the present. Of all this man's boasted contemporaries only Bracegirdle was left; and because she was dead to the stage, he refused to use his pen, which had written some of the best comedies of his day.

"May we not hope for something new from Mr. Cibber's pen, after so long a silence?" asked one of his admirers.

"No," was the characteristic reply. "Who have ye got to play it? Don't misunderstand my question; I know your dramatis persona; but where are your

actors?"

Perhaps the best scene in this book, which as a whole is too good to render the task of selection easy, is that in which the inimitable Peg triumphs over the bigoted prejudices of Colly Cibber, the bitter envy of Kate Clive, and the contemptuous slurs of innumerable wouldbe rivals-turning all these disagreeable critics into admiring friends-by an hour's unpractised play.

This once famous Bracegirdle, who was the sine qua non of Colly Cibber's admiration, for whom he lived, of whom he raved, and by whom, I regret to say, he also swore, had agreed to re-visit, upon a certain night, that green-room where she had once moved the leading spirit.

Woffington, Clive and Quin, with others who had succeeded her in public favor, were assembled to do honor to their illustrious predecessor. Old Cibber was descanting to them, with his usual unwearied enthusiasm, upon the power of the only real actress he ever acknowledged, when a woman, answering to his description, with the addition of several marks of age, entered the room in a green velvet gown, which Cibber well remembered as part of the costume in which Bracegirdle used to play the "Eastern Queen."

He sprang forward to receive her, with the respect due to his idea of a great actress; while every body else rendered her such obeisance as youth is wont to pay where gray hair and toothless jaws appear. Cibber opened the conversation with his usual croaking over the degeneracy of the times; but his auditor refused to sympathize in his lamentations. She thought it all the better for everything that nothing was as it used to

be.

Yet, she rather interceded with him for the present, than ridiculed his prejudices of the past, as other people always did. She soothed his irritation; she comforted his regrets; she renewed his youth.

They had recitations and declamations, after the fashion of their day. They sang old songs together, and danced minuets. But, over exertion at length did its work, and the astonished spectators were reminded of the years that separated them from her, by groans of pain issuing from the just now laughing lips of Braccgirdle. Cibber was full of apprehension, the women pressed around with remedies, and after a while the poor sufferer seemed to find relief. Raising her sad, earnest eyes tenderly to the face of her old companion, she said slowly, gently, but impressively, "At three-score and ten, this was ill done of us, Colly. You and I are here now, only to cheer the young up that hill which we climbed years ago. Every dog must have his day, and we have had ours."

Her voice was so kind, and her face so benign, that strangers loved her, and no one was surprised to find the polemic greatly moved. His heart softened, his eyes filled, and from his lips fell the exclamation, "She makes us laugh and cry just as she used!"

At that instant the trappings of Bracegirdle fell off, and Peg Woffington emerged from the ruins!

Half an hour before, Cibber had challenged her to play something in which he could forget saucy Peg Woffington, and be sensible only of the character she assumed; and now, as she washed the

gray from her hair, the wrinkles from her skin, and the dark sticking-plaster from her teeth, she exclaimed, "This is my idea of an actress; better it Cibber and Bracegirdle if you can!"

Is this not of itself a complete little comedy? You should read it in the original to feel, as I do, that it is such an one as only Mr. Reade could have surprised you with. But you will find his dramatic power equally great in another province; for the more advanced pages lead you into the region of tragedy.

I might go on to the closing scene and show you how beautifully the author proves that woman's forgiveness can conquer even a woman's hate, and that perfect simplicity can defeat the most accomplished artifice; but I would rather leave you to find it all out for yourself.

Meantime, for fear of being called an enthusiast, I must qualify my praises of Mr. Reade's book, with the confession that the last part does not equal the rest. It seemed to me that in the closing pages, the author had followed some such injunction as a friend of mine received from a negro on the plantation, at whose dictation she often wrote letters to his absent children, "Now, Miss Sarah, do please put a little 'ligion in at the end;" for the pious vein is evidently assumed, while in the more worldly atmosphere with which the book commences, the style is happier, because the writer is more perfectly at home.

The orators of old time impressed upon their pupils this maxim, "That which you would have go to the heart must first come from the heart." It were as well for writers now to learn a similar lesson; for it is every author's experience, that to please himself is the surest way of pleasing other people.

I have dwelt much on "Peg Woffington," because it seemed to me a most unique production of a most promising imagination, and because the life of an actress is a subject not very winning to the ear of an American public. If I have thereby attracted the attention or excited the curiosity of a single indi