' And since,' she adds, books of fiction are a kind which thousands will continue to write and tens of thousands to read, I have endeavoured to do my little part towards blending with amusement some of those serious reflections which, in the often shifting scenes of a restless life, have occupied my own mind; not without earnest longings that I myself were among those who are already prepared to receive truth without fiction, light without clouds, good without alloy.'

The sentiment and feeling here expressed, will at once procure for the Author the esteem and commendation of the reader. Her purpose is excellent; and in reference and with limitation to that purpose, we are prepared to bestow very high commendation upon her performance. To the class of readers for whom they are specifically designed, these tales are well adapted to convey much salutary instruction, without injuring the love of the intellectual appetite, already accustomed to stimulants. All that we fear, and feel it needful to make the subject of caution, is, that such works as the present should be inconsiderately put into the hands of individuals for whom they are not indended, and to whom they are likely to do more harm than they can possibly do good; those whose simplicity of mind has not been vitiated by eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and to whom the premature knowledge of evil, which the lessons of the moralist sometimes impart, is at once a surprise and an injury.

We need not guard ourselves against being supposed to entertain the notion, that the minds of young persons who have been the most carefully guarded against contamination, will be found guileless and pure. In the native innocence of the human heart we are no believers. But we do know that there is such a thing as purity of imagination,—that this may be long preserved,that it is one of the most precious prerogatives of youth,-that when lost, it is never to be restored,-and that knowledge of the world is but a poor compensation for that loss. Further, we know that the evil knowledge imparted by the fictions of the moralist has, in many cases, been the first means of disturbing that purity of imagination, by suggesting thoughts which are met, indeed, by abhorrence, such as the writer might wish to awaken, but which survive the salutary emotion, and leave a stain behind. We are not speaking of works the direct tendency of which is doubtful as to the lessons they convey. Our remark is meant to apply to moral and religious tales of the highest character; to many of the admirable stories of Mrs. Sherwood, to Miss Taylor's Display, to many productions of similar merit and excellence. We do not condemn either the works or their writers. think they have done much good; but we are convinced that they have also done some harm, owing to their being indiscriminately recommended.

We

It is a familiar saying, what is food to one, is poison to another.

This is quite as true in respect to mental, as to bodily nourishment. The tendency of a work very much depends upon its adaptation to the reader. The same work that scarcely stirs a sluggish imagination, ministers dangerous excitement to an active one. Those who have been fed with the sincere milk of the 'word,' may be poisoned with the stimulants which to others are medicine. Miss Stickney's views on this subject are not, we are persuaded, very different from our own. She is 'willing to allow that fictitious writing is the most humble means of moral instruction; though earnest in maintaining its utility, especially on the ground that it finds its way to the dense multitude who 'close their eyes upon the introduction of purer light. Upon this ground, we also freely admit its utility. We wish only that its restricted purpose should be borne in mind. Nothing can be more admirable than the motto which the Author has inscribed upon her title-page, and which, applied as a caveat to such works, expresses all that we would convey by these observations.

Would you judge of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of pleasure, take this rule: Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off your relish of spiritual things;-in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind ;—that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself.'

It may have been remarked, that, in the discharge of our critical vocation, we have sometimes bestowed a passing notice upon works of light reading, of a far more equivocal description; such as tales and novels, the writers of which scarcely aim at a higher purpose than amusement, yet which have obtained our testimony to their literary merits. But in these cases, we have felt that no one could be misled; the character of such productions, and the class of readers they were intended for, cannot be mistaken; and it would be out of place to insist upon such considerations as the apology of the present Writer has suggested. Of such publications, we speak simply as literature: of works like the present, we must judge as means of education and vehicles of moral instruction; entitled, indeed, to far higher commendation, but yet, with that warmer praise, it is the more necessary to blend the language of caution. In the former case, we simply tender our homage to talent, without always yielding our approval. In the latter case, where our praise involves recommendation, it seems necessary to qualify the opinions we give, less as critics than as guardians.

The present volume contains four tales: The Hall and the Cottage. Ellen Eskdale. The Curate's Widow. Marriage as it may be. They are skilfully imagined, and beautifully written, displaying an acquaintance with the human heart and with society that must be the fruit of much self-knowledge, combined with ex

tensive observation. We presume that the Authoress cannot be a very young person, for the knowledge is that of maturity. We shall give a few extracts, which will at once exhibit the skilful delineation of character and the admirable sentiment with which the volume abounds, and at the same time, without any further comment, illustrate some of our preceding observations.

From this time she never spoke again of Frederick Langley, nor made the least allusion to any circumstances connected with him. She was quiet and peaceful, and resigned to die ;-to die, but not to live.

It appears an easy and a pleasant thing, to the soul that is weary of the toils of mortality, to lay down the burden of the flesh, and soar away into a higher realm of purer and more etherial existence; and thus, no sooner is the future shrouded in darkness, than to die becomes the choice of the sentimentalist, in preference to a patient endurance of the ills of life.

'Anna Clare had felt for a long time that she was gently and gradually passing away from the world, or rather that the world was losing its importance, and even its place in her visions of futurity; and, therefore, she concluded that death must be at hand: yet, had she fondly pictured to herself one scene before the last, and dwelt upon it with a childish intensity of interest; a scene, in which her lover should return, and beholding her altered form so wasted by sickness and sorrow, should listen to her parting prayers, and let her last admonitions sink deep into his heart. For this she had made frequent and earnest supplications, and for this she had felt willing to die; and, perhaps, if the truth were fully known, she had appropriated to herself some little merit for the generosity of the sacrifice, and had been somewhat charmed by her own disinterestedness of feeling,-a disinterestedness that was sorely put to the test, when she found that he, on whom she had bestowed so much concern, had chosen for himself another companion through the pilgrimage of life; and that, if its rough passages were to be smoothed for him by a female hand, that hand must not be hers. Night and day, this humbling truth, with all its heartless and dreary accompaniments, was present to the mind, until death became no longer her choice, for to her it seemed impossible to live.

To go forth again into the wilderness, after having pined in the desert;-to set sail again upon the stormy ocean, with frail bark, and doubtful pilot, with trembling compass, and shattered mast ;-to meet again the crosses, and disappointments, and vexations of life; with hopes that have been blighted in the bud, and desires that have failed, and patience that has not had its perfect work, requires more true fortitude, and resignation to the divine will, than to draw back from the brightest earthly prospects, and sink into an early grave: and yet so it was with the miserable invalid, that her disease made no progress, and she found herself, after the expiration of the winter months, not only alive, but evidently gaining strength; and painful duties, which in her weakness she had set aside as utterly impracticable, now came crowding upon her in terrible magnitude and hated reality. And then

VOL. IX.-N.S.

3 K

the indescribable gloom, and darkness of that little chamber, in which she first arose from her sick bed, and looked out again upon a world, which presented nothing to her perverted eye but an interminable waste of barrenness.

How little do we know ourselves! Anna Clare had imagined, that in the calmness with which she had welcomed the approach of death, there was mingled no inconsiderable share of willing submission to the will of a gracious and overruling Providence; but where was that submission now; Alas! it had only been conditional; for no sooner was the decree gone forth, that she must live, and not die, than her heart was torn with repining, and her cup of wretchedness was full.

There is nothing more selfish than melancholy; and lamentable it is to find, that the sentimental world have invested this absorbing malady with a kind of interest which makes it rather sought than shunned by vast multitudes of young ladies who, too indolent to exert themselves, hang their heads for weariness; grow sallow for want of exercise, and sigh for want of fresh air; who read novels for want of rational excitement; fall in love for want of something else to do; fancy themselves heroines because they are, in fact, nothing; and drawl out, to troops of confidential friends, long histories of imaginary troubles, because they know no real ones. The victims of this disease may be known by their perpetually babbling about pains and palpitations. Nerves occupy their attention when they wake, night-mare when they sleep, and self always. Their dearest friends may sicken and die, they are too languid to nurse them: a miserable population may be starving around, they are too delicate to feed them; afflictions, privations, and crosses, may be sent amongst the circle in which they exist --they "have a silent sorrow," so deep-seated and overwhelming, that they can neither pity nor relieve them; and they would rather give a lecture on their own distresses, than listen to the rejoicing of a multitude. If they escape the temptation of a sinful world, to which their minds are peculiarly open, from having had raised up in them a false appetite, a craving for unwholesome food, it is but to drag on a neglected, weary, and loathed existence, and to arrive at the confines of the grave without having gathered one flower to sweeten it; and to look forward into eternity without having insured one rational ground of hope to glimmer in the gulf of darkness.

Such is the history of the last stage of the existence of many a melancholy young lady; who, while she was young, might very beautifully have hung her harp upon the willows, and the world at first might have sighed over its silent chords, and pitied the mute minstrel: but neither a silent harp, nor a mute minstrel, will long engage the sympathy of the world. We must either play for its pastime, or labour in its service. Its stirring communities extend not their patronage to any quiescent member, and if we will sit down by the way side, while our more energetic companions pass on, the inevitable consequence will be, that we shall be left behind, if not actually trampled under their feet.'

Anna rushed into the house, and finding Mary alone, threw her arms around her neck, and playfully kissing her forehead, “There,"

said she, "I have borne it well! For once in your life, Mary, give me one word of unqualified praise, for I have been walking in the garden with Sir Frederick Langley, and never did the sainted mother of a convent carry herself more distant, or more erect.

"Then I will say you are a good girl," replied her friend; "or rather, a wise and prudent woman."

"So wise and prudent, Mary, that if you were not married, we would establish a community of holy sisters, and I would be the lady abbess."

The rigid moralist may probably be astonished that any credit should be due to Anna, for having resisted the temptation of flirting with a married man; but let us pause a moment, to consider what flirtation is.

Flirtation may be the idle frolic of an innocent girl; but it too frequently is a game deeply played by a designing and self-interested woman. It may be carried on at all ages, and by all classes of society, in all scenes and circumstances of life: in the court, and the cottage; the crowded theatre, and the house of prayer: by the miss, and the matron; the flaunting belle, and the fanatical devotee, who casts up her clear eyes with the solemn asseveration that she knows no sin. Deformity does not preclude the possibility of its existence, nor beauty divest it of its hideous reality. Flirtation may raise or depress the snowy eye-lid, and distort the wrinkled cheek with smiles; add sweetness to the melody of song, and soften the harsh tones of discord; flutter in the ball-room in its own unblushing character, and steal under the mask of friendship upon the private peace of domestic life, like the serpent when it coils its vile and venomous folds within a bower of roses. And for what great purpose does flirtation thus work its way as a pest upon society? Its sole object is to appropriate to itself, that which it has no power of returning; too frequently robbing the faithful and devoted heart of the rich treasure of its best affections, and offering in repayment the distorted animation of a jaded countenance, the blushes of mimic modesty, the forced flashes of a faded eye, and the hollow smiles that simper on a weary lip.

Had Anna Clare been possessed with the demon of flirtation, she would have raised her eyes to those of Sir Frederick, with exactly the expression which she knew (and what woman with fine eyes does not know?) would have gone nearest to the source of long buried feeling. She would have sung that silly ballad again, perhaps with trembling and hesitation, but still she would have sung it, or have tried to sing it; and then towards the close of the performance, her eyes would have been cast down, and a tear might have stolen from beneath their long dark lashes, and her voice grown gradually more plaintive, until at last it died away in a kind of distant melody, leaving her quondam lover and herself in the most exquisite reverie imaginable; from which she would most probably, at last, have started with a pretended effort at self-mastery; and then, as she rose to leave the arbour, and while Sir Frederick stooped for her guitar, she would have pointed to the blue ribbon, by which it was wont to be supported on her fair shoulder, saying, it was the same which he gave her when in Scotland, and that she cherished such memorials of past pleasure, as all that her existence