teries, was not useless in her day. Admirable indeed is the adaptation from age to age of outward supplies to man's inward wants; admirable the provision, in every period, of material out of which imagination may shape that which is needed to supply the real want of a period; and we should say that in nothing is this shown more strikingly than in the gradual clearing away of the unknown, in proportion as the known world becomes more various, more rich in stirring interests, more likely to stimulate mental enterprise, and strongly to influence the moral energies. Mrs. Radcliffe's material

world is gone;

For now where may we find a place
For any spirit's dream?
Our steps have been on every soil,

Our sails on every stream.

In her day, castles and convents, and mighty nobles and wicked monks and abbesses, could be planted in fiction all over Switzerland and Italy; tyrants might be torturing vassals, and women might be buried alive every day, for aught that could be demonstrated to the contrary; and peasants were always dancing on the vine-covered hills. Even nature had a trick or two played with her. It was always full moon in Mrs. Radcliffe's pictures; she never did things by halves. Now we should say that the then living world of England was, on the whole, the better for these things; and that, judging by those novels of the time which portrayed actual English domestic life, it was better that fiction should withdraw men and women out of their own realities, and take its materials from a romantic and comparatively little known world. Clara Reeve, and Mrs. Radcliffe, and the authors of the Canterbury Tales, did not merely shun polluting things, but were themselves poetical and elevating.

We are half unwilling to mention Miss Burney, whose talent we allow; yet we must confess that, in spite of applauding Dr. Johnson and plain literal George the Third, we never can read a chapter of Evelina, or even Cecilia, without disappointment and disrelish. The common run of her

characters is not merely a local and conventional one, but it seems to us divested of those touches of truth and nature which in the hands of higher writers often dignify what is in itself mean. Her portraits are portraits with little of soul: they are hopelessly low in tone, and deficient in the higher traces of imagination. There are exceptive passages in Camilla, though the importation of Johnsonian sentences quenches our dawning pleasure; but the character of Sir Hugh Tyrold, booby as he is, has in it some very beautiful touches.

Time would fail us were we to enter on the religious novels-on Cœlebs, and the productions which followed, from the pen of Miss Hawkins, Mrs. Brunton, and several others. In quite another strain, Miss Ferriar had exceeding great merit; and we need not do more than mention the names of Miss Edgeworth and of Jane Austen.

Let us move on to our own times. Here the field is so extensive that our difficulties of selection increase. Only to enumerate the principal female novelists who have been at work for the last twenty or twenty-five years is something startling. In that time we have had at least three or four able novels per annum, not to mention others of respectable promise. We have had Lady Dacre, Mrs. Marsh, Mrs. Gore, Miss Martineau, Lady Georgina Fullerton, Lady Ponsonby, Mrs. Norton, Miss Mulock, Mrs. Gaskell, Currer Bell, Mrs. S. C. Hall, the authoress of Mrs. Margaret Maitland and of Adam Græme, Miss Jewsbury, Miss Kavanagh, and the unknown author of Rose Douglas. As English we may not lay claim to Mrs. Stowe,and yet how much of Saxon origin in Uncle Tom, and also in the clever novels of Elizabeth Wetherell and her sister!

We could wish, however, that some of our lady writers were not so damagingly rapid and frequent in their gifts. Mrs. Marsh, for instance, most of whose first volumes are generally good, but who is so apt to fail as she proceeds.

May we not venture to add that,

as all authors have power over their own works till they are made over for good or evil to the trader, they would be doing a good deed if they would inform themselves beforehand of the manner in which their productions are to be sent into the market. It cannot, we are sure, be a matter of indifference to a sensitive woman whether her name is to usher forth a fair or a scanty allowance, in quantity and quality, in proportion to price. It must surely be painful to her if she knows that the eyes of readers are angrily wandering over a wide margin, a straggling mode of printing, and those other devices of which the public is often made to complain, while remarkable and very pleasing contrasts are occasionally exhibited. Not wishing to make any invidious remarks on what we dislike, we will only give one instance of what we think commendable generosity to the public, in a tale entitled "The Heir of Redclyffe," recently published in two volumes. We are not now noticing its literary ability, and are quite uninstructed as to its authorship, whether male or female-it would do honour to any pen-but also it deserves to be singled out for its generous allowance of matter-it contains as much as four volumes of our ordinary novels, furnished at less than half the price.

Every one knows that the last glowing summer inspired several of our best lady novelists to write, and that we, in the past winter and present spring, have been profiting by their labours. Among the rest we should have liked to read the name of the authoress of " Deerbrook;" for, though Miss Martineau wanders widely (too widely) abroad, we know that she loves and appreciates fiction, and we feel the great, though somewhat peculiar, merit of what she has accomplished in that department. Looking in vain for her, however, we must thankfully (though not unquestioningly) receive what has been given us by others. The authoress of Jane Eyre, of Shirley, and now of Villette, stands in our minds very much where she did. She may have become a little more cautious --she does not so deeply offend-but we cannot with truth say that we think her tone higher. She does not rise, as we hoped she would; she is as fresh, as suggestive, as full of originality as ever-and an original book is

rare enough in these days to be highly prized. There are parts of Shirley, the least popular of her works, which show that she has more feminine perception of character than either Jane Eyre or Villette betokens. Nevertheless, in Shirley, even more than in the others, the predominant impression is that it is un-womanly. Can the authoress live among wives and mothers?

Miss Mulock also has appeared again. Of her no complaint can be made similar to that we have just uttered; all she writes is not merely pure, but purifying. We do not think she is possessed of the talent of Currer Bell, but she is a beautiful, engaging, elevating writer. Her first novel, "The Ogilvies," did not, we think, promise very much, but in "Olive" there are noble scenes and exquisite touches. In the whole range of our fiction, nothing seems to us more beautiful than the picture of the artist and his unselfish, devoted sister, or of the improving, gentle Mrs. Rothesay, in this book; and in "The Head of the Family," Ninian Greame and his Lindsay, their guardian care of the young family committed to their charge, the contrasts in their position, as, one by one, their pleasures and cares are withdrawn, are surely delightful pictures. Miss Mulock errs, however, we think in dealing too much and too long in secret loves and needless restraints. She makes deep and silent attachment too much the burden of her song, and this is the more curious, as she deprecates the false morality thus induced, in “The Ogilvies.” A novelist should take care not to remind the reader too often how soon and pleasantly a tale might come to an end, but for these foolish scruples and overstrained sacrifices on the part of the heroes and heroines. In "Agatha's Husband," the scrupulous concealments of moneyed difficulties by a husband from his wife, have the effect, we think, of almost destroying the interest of both characters.

There are two or three other novels of last year, written by women, of which, had we time, we should like to say something. The American ladies, in particular, are coming out delightfully in this department; for instance, "The Wide, Wide World,” “Queechy,"

and "Glen Luna," are promising books. The most striking of our English female novels seems to us however to be "Ruth," by the authoress of "Mary Barton."

It is impossible to deny that many good people are aggrieved by "Ruth." There is no disguising that a girl who has taken her place among the fallen is finally raised to the level of a real and most exemplary heroine. This is the fact lying at the foundation of the novel. By what management can this have been made bearable to strict and

severe readers?

By no management at all, we should say. It must, we think, be allowed to every woman, be she novelist, or simply wife, mother, and housekeeper, to have formed some sort of opinion on cases of this kind which may have come before her; cases in which she may have witnessed various shades of better feeling-have known of more or less extenuating circumstance have been more or less convinced of the evil consequences of unmitigated exclusion and severity. Now, if one who has received a strong impression on these points be, like Mrs. Gaskell, prompt to clothe her thoughts in language, to tell out her feelings (because nothing seems to her so directly to the purpose) in the form of a tale, she does no more than give simple utterance to her own aspect of a truth-she does not exclude other views, other sides of a questionshe merely presents one real living picture, which she justly thinks the world, in its great purity and wisdom, may, if it is true to nature, be the better for knowing. A strong conviction of the evil of putting aside the once frail, as beings who can scarcely be named without danger of contamination a certainty that this swells the number of sinners, and tends to corrupt society more and more, is the one idea present to her mind, and under it she writes. That some, and those among very true lovers of their kind -very excellent, admirable people, by no means overstrained in their general views of moral questionsshould recoil from both the subject and Mrs. Gaskell's way of treating it, does not surprise us; but we think their view somewhat narrow and oppressive.

There is another part of the subject which is very painful; from it however we may not shrink; and, happily, there are good and strong men who allow the injustice of merely punishing the delinquents of one sex, however repentant, however desirous of return, with perpetual exclusion-while not the betrayer only, but the actual deserter of the betrayed woman is scarcely less welcomed by society after than before his offence. Here again then Mrs. Gaskell has strongly felt a deep and painful truth, and has written under its influence.

This is the sum of the whole the tale tells by implication the author's views of the evil of closing summarily the doors of mercy and hope; it points out the danger of driving merciful people into falsehoods, and, at the same time, the author shows, with all her might, the short-sighted, confusing, evil nature of all such expedients-how they detract from the merit of a generous act, and by fixing the censor's eye upon the means, steal away for a time sympathy with the end. As for the execution of the work, nothing really can be more beautiful. Mrs. Gaskell's language is the perfection of easy, simple, womanly grace; her wit is irresistible. Nevertheless, we do not think her always alike successful in the management of the story. We think that it would have been more true to paint Ruth as both more alive and less simple. She ought not to have gone astray from stupidity or from fear, but with all her poetic love of beauty should have been less passive, more enkindled -more of the woman in short; ensnared from within as well as from without, though still possessed of a young heart's delicacy. At the same time we are far from insensible to Mrs. Gaskell's difficulty. Had Ruth erred from passion rather than from ignorance, scenes must have been constructed in accordance with that view, and then we should have had the usual objectionable draggings through dangerous mazes of sentiment and suffering, which a pure writer would of course much prefer shunning altogether.

Passing to the more lengthy process of poor Ruth's misery and recovery, if we were asked to point out that part of the succeeding narrative which we could decidedly wish had been other

wise framed, it would be the continuance of the deception on Ruth's part, after the scene on the sea-shore, in which her seducer re-appears. From this moment must be dated her own independent mental and moral efforts: till then she has been a passive instrument in the Bensons' hands, but now a new life is breathed into her. She herself resists temptation-she herself from this time takes her destiny into her own hands; and growing out, then and there, with that new existence, should have been born, we think, an abhorrence of the lie, and a determination to have the truth known at all cost. How the story might have been told it is not for us to say; we have faith in the authoress, in her rich resources and dramatic powers, and believe she would have wrought out her conclusions with triumphant power; as it is, though nothing can be more masterly than the scene on the actual discovery of the deception, the character of Ruth is not raised as it might have been if the disclosure had been voluntary. She bears the treatment she receives nobly; but one cannot forget that it is a compulsory endurance, however accepted and improved.

It is impossible to notice all the opposing opinions we have heard and read on other parts of the narrative, -we shall merely advert to one. It has been gravely said that Ruth should not have rejected her seducer's late and desperate offer of marriage. From that opinion we give our unqualified dissent; no such woman, we think, could ever have accompanied such a man to the altar, there to plight her solemn vows before God and man.

Much exception has been taken to the characters of both Benson and Bradshaw. We have little sympathy in the ordinary objections made to either of them. They are fine studies, and deserve most careful examination. Thurston Benson is a man of whom many good people say that it is nearly impossible such an one could have been a party to deceit. They cannot surely have taken into account all the antecedents. He appears at no part of his career to have been a strong, wellexercised man. With a weak, ailing frame, habits of dependence on others have early been nourished in him, and

a studious, contemplative, poetical turn of mind has been fed by his way of life; of the kindest possible nature, the sterner parts of religion do not lay hold on him; mercy and tenderness are all his thought. The harshness he has both witnessed and experienced in Mr. Bradshaw, the great man of his mighty small world, yet further drives him to the side of lovingkindness. Then, as a minister, let his real position be fairly stated. Mr. Benson conducts the worship of a Dissenting congregation, and is looked upon with respect and regard; but, as is generally more or less the case among such congregations, with great familiarity and considerable contempt for his judgment in worldly matters. He is not, except by the already civilised and softened, a man to stand in holy awe of. He is far more what we might call a class-leader, than an appointed ordained minister of God's word. Such a man, so placed, if he has extraordinary gifts, may awaken a wide and strong interest; his people may be proud of him. He is their minister-their Mr. Benson. But, take an ordinary, average case; suppose too that ill-health both lessens his chance of a change and sheds languor over the frame, this minister will grow passive, and get into the habit of being tutored. Portions of his independence will be lost-particularly sister or wife will be infected with the fear of espionage, and this will re-act on himself. He grows nervous and cowardly; not probably in the matter of preaching and proclaiming his religious views, for there the perpetual habit of acquaintance with his Bible, the service to which he is vowed, the immediate end of his lifewill keep him awake and alive, and we do not think his error would be that of faithlessness to his convictions. On the contrary, were you to test his love of truth by some kinds of trial, to place before him a false object of worship, a creed which his conscience disowns-though martyrdom were on one side and every worldly advantage on the other-you would find him firm and upright. But should he meet with a very singular call for the exercise of his benevolence, and thereupon the image of his congregational leader arise also clothed in its stern terrors, what will be in all probability his course? In many cases, in most in which the character has been