The meeds of the sage, ivy-crowns, me among

The high gods of Olympus enrol,

While light Nymphs, and Fauns, a Satyrical throng,
Seclude from the vulgar my soul;

If neither Euterpe refuse me, in sooth,
Her lute (which I greatly require);
Nor sweet Polyhymnia, noted for truth,
Deny me the loan of her lyre.

If among lyric poets me kindly you place,
Set free from "terrestrial bars,"

So high I shall soon raise my venturesome face,
As to mix with the circle of stars.

NOVELS.

DIOGENES.

AMONGST the many features of this century, not the least marked is the flood of literature of every description which is pouring continually from the Press. History, Poetry, Travels, Biographies, Novels, stream into light, filling every nook and corner of Great Britain with knowledge, it may be of good, it may be of evil. The education of the lower classes, which has been so loudly cried for of late years, is no doubt to be considered an object to be ranked amongst the highest which Englishmen can ever

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pursue. At the same time great care is needed, lest the blessing should become a curse; lest instead of making our countrymen more fully Englishmen, we should raise them indeed in intellectual power, but debase them in moral excellence, till they lose the high standing they have hitherto maintained, and till England herself, like America, become only too liable to anarchy and confusion.

It is not our purpose, however, to discuss the advantage or disadvantages of the spread of literature as a whole, but we shall say a few words on that branch, which we last mentioned.

In the first place then, when we consider the history of novels, the various changes they have undergone strike us with astonishment. And yet though various, they are the precise changes we might have expected, if we had compared this branch of literature with poetry. For just as we see that the poetry in the earliest times of a nation is generally confined to ballads, and simple expression of feelings, and as we see this gradually fining away and becoming more speculative, until it reaches the height of refined theoretical poetry, that we see so much of in this century; so in the history of novels, we shall find the same stages, the same course of refinement, the same steps in degeneration or improvement.

In a short article of this sort it would be useless to think of touching on the ancient use of fables, from which, we take it, novels have their rise; for ever since the time of Jotham, and we may believe even before that time, fables have been used as a means of turning the attention of erring man to his faults, without raising in his mind that unpleasant feeling, which open advice would cause.

The first novel known in England was we believe one

entitled "Cyrus ;" a book of great length, and to our modern notions, of but little interest, but at the same time like the old ballads, containing here and there a passage of stirring eloquence. This was followed by numbers of the same class, all taking their rise no doubt from those tales of romantic chivalry which had spread their influence far and wide over Europe, during the early part of the middle ages; and as was natural from the quantity of matter which could be obtained, swelling sometimes to an enormous size, although, because the interest could not be kept up. so long, they generally, by the very increase of their size, became entirely useless, and at this distance of time unreadable. After some interval, an interval in which men were too much occupied with the welfare of their country to think of novels, sprung up those peculiar romances, of which style Richardson was the father, which dealt with life in a most stiff and mannered style; treating, in fact, of life upon stilts. That there was a certain degree of excellence in this style of novel writing there can be no doubt, but at the same time the attention was distracted by the mannerism, the interest was abated by the length, of books out of which, as Sherlock observes, there might have been made works the most entertaining and most useful that ever were written. In Richardson's novels, however, we see a great increase of care devoted to the consideration of the moral character of man, and a greater desire displayed to improve the morality of the time for which he

wrote.

Passing on, the next great step we meet with is found in the novels of Sir Walter Scott; perhaps the most finished delineator of the outside character, both moral and physical, that ever lived. It is in Scott's novels more

especially that we find that ready appreciation, and that delicate delineation, of suffering greatness amongst the lower classes; it is by his novels that we feel our hearts most drawn out from ourselves, and feel obliged to give our sympathy to the characters we find therein described. And yet it is not the harrowing interest which has been given to suffering by later writers, but rather a gentle enlistment of our sympathies in behalf of some weak mortal who has sinned and who has suffered, but whose sins and whose sufferings are not such as to require awful descriptions of dreary dungeons, dim lamps, excruciating tortures, or dying groans. There is too, in the Waverley Novels, a vein of humour underlying the surface, and running throughout, and lending yet another fund of amusement to those admirable books. It is this intermixture of quiet fun in all Sir Walter's works which give such an appearance of life to the whole; we do not feel that the novel is untrue; we feel that it may well be true, nay, even is true, when we read of "Baillie Jarvie," hanging by his coat-tail to the tree; or of "Cuddie Headrig," with the hot water pouring down his neck; or of "Guse Gibbie," with his helmet bobbing over his eyes, and his great spurs involuntarily beating a tattoo on the flying horse's ribs.

The next class of novels we shall mention makes a still further step; a great step, but yet one fraught with much evil as well as much good. The class we mean may be well represented by Jane Eyre. These novels have advanced a step further than Scott's, inasmuch as they go deeper, they speak of the inward causes, they analyse the secret springs of action, and are eminently self-conscious; in a word, they are fit companions of the speculative poetry

of the present age. That these novels do much harm there can be little doubt, leading as they do to a morbid state of mind, eagerly on the watch for its own faults, and not bent on avoiding those faults by fleeing from temptation, and busying itself in the thorough performance of its proper duty.

Lastly, we come to that class of novels which led us first to the subject, the Railway novels of the present day. At every station on every railway these novels are met with; at many stations they are the only books offered for sale; that they bring some good to mankind, and not unmixed evil we shall presently see. The good which is obtained from these cheap novels is to be found rather amongst their writers than their buyers; authors can by this means publish their books cheaper, and obtain a more ready sale, and thus many poor writers who would otherwise have been unable to publish, unable to gain a name, and therefore unable to obtain a living, are enabled to earn their bread, and in some cases to gain well deserved distinction. The bad, on the other hand, is very clear; the publishers are too apt to sell bad and exciting novels, because they are more readily sold, and thus, much evil, or at least no good is spread abroad.

And yet on the whole we are inclined to look upon works of fiction as beneficial, because they afford a pleasing and oftentimes instructive relaxation to more anxious business, they lead our minds beyond the every-day thoughts which crowd into them, they excite our sympathy with suffering, and above all, they cause us more clearly to estimate the various feelings which swell across our own hearts, to perceive the evil to which our course of thought, the good to which another, may lead.

B.