not exist. It was a noble and humane object, and in a degree successful. From the Ledger the gradation is easy to the magazines, and from the magazines to the quarterlies, and from the quarterlies to the classics. Certainly these periodicals bring the old authors to the knowledge and notice of thousands who would otherwise never hear of them. It was Addison's criticisms of Milton that reintroduced Milton to the English public, and Macaulay's criticisms of Addison have led throngs back to the Spectator. Many who cannot afford to buy books may get a tolerable knowledge of their contents from an able review. Without the review, it would not be that they would buy the book, but they would have no knowledge of it whatever. There are also books which one does not care to read as a whole, but of which one wants a bird's-eye view, so that the synopsis of a judicious reviewer is often more valuable than the book itself; while the necessity of presenting a condensed, yet comprehensive, an interesting, and, at the same time, valuable view of a subject, benefits the writer. The amount of thought, study, research, genius, spread out, or rather concentrated, weekly, monthly, quarterly, before the public, is astonishing. It is true that future investigations may make mischief with many of our closely-reasoned conclusions. The brilliant discovery of to-day may be thrown entirely into the shade by the brilliant

discoveries of distant to-morrows; but such a shall be will be only the counterpart of many a has been. The arguments of the fifty-paged quarterly reviewers cannot be more entirely refuted than those of the many-volumed mediaval philosophers. Indeed, if truth could be precipitated like a metal held in solution, we question whether a single number of a modern monthly, bought for twentyfive cents, does not sometimes contain as much of it as whole book-shelves of the old fine-drawn ecclesiastics.

At the same time, there is danger lest reading conduce to frivolity. A diet composed exclusively of Lady's Books and Gentleman's Magazines is only one remove from starvation. A man is not necessarily intelligent because he reads his county newspaper. He who stops there will scarcely be rewarded for having begun. The only difference between some readers of newspapers, and those who read nothing, is that the former know the gossip and scandal of the country, while the latter know only the gossip and scandal of their own village. The only difference between some readers of magazines and those who read nothing, is that the former have filled their lives with milk-andwater romancing, and unmitigated snobbery, while the latter have never deviated from the bread and butter of their homely circle; and though the snob is unquestionably higher than the clod, both are so far below the true man, that the difference between them is scarcely perceptible.

But for any danger that may happen to literature, no one need give himself the smallest concern. Literature was made for man, not man for literature. Whatever ministers to human needs has a right to live. Whatever innocently amuses, comforts, instructs, strengthens, has its justification in its work. There is no divine right in the twelve books of the epic which does not equally inhere in the Poet's Corner of the village newspaper. The ponderous volume whose immortality consists in lying in state "in every gentleman's library," may have less influence in building up a noble manhood than the vigorous leader in Tuesday's paper, which nobody reads on Wednesday. The book which solaces the weary mother while rocking the cradle, or from which the household drudge catches a page of sunshine or sympathy while standing over the cooking-range, waiting for the milk to boil,the book in which the day-laborer finds an assurance of human brotherhood, or the humble mourner a glimpse of the silver lining of his cloud, does just as high a service and makes just as good an excuse for being, as the "standard work" whose name is on the tongue of every would-be critic, and whose contents are perhaps mastered by a hundred scholars in a hundred generations. The ennobling of man is a better thing than the ennobling of literature. The ennobling of man, first or last, is the ennobling of literature. The process be hidden, but the result is sure. The streams

may

run underground, but they mingle. No good thing is cast into the river of humanity but it shall rise again, in some far-off fountain of song or saga. The book which leaves its mark on the human soul, helping to fashion it for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, or to deform it into a haunt for devils, is the immortal book, whether its name go securely down the centuries or pass away with spring's first violets.

XXI.

WORDS FOR THE WAY.

W

HEN any patriotic person groans under the pressure of the war, he may find his account in reading such a ece book as Fanny Kemble's Journal of her Plantation Life in Georgia, or in looking at certain well-authenticated photographs of the backs of negro slaves who have come into our lines, photographs taken and exhibited for the purpose of giving infallible proofs of the tender mercies of slavery as seen in welt and scar. The book can scarcely be called pleasant summer reading, and as specimens of art the pictures may not compare favorably with the "Heart of the Andes," or Bierstadt's "Rocky Mountains"; but as a specific for heart-sickness contracted by hope of victory long deferred, I know nothing better. The war for which three months seemed an age, has dragged its slow length along three years and Good people there are, lovers of their country, but lovers also of quiet, haters of strife

more.