distinction commonly lies. They neither stimulate thought nor stir any passionate emotion. If they make us wiser, it is indirectly and without attempting it, by making us more cheerful. The purely literary charm of neither of them will alone authorize the place they hold so securely, though, as respects the "Angler," this charm must be taken more largely into account. They cannot be called popular, because they attract only a limited number of readers, but that number is kept full by new recruits in every generation; and they have survived every peril to which editing could expose them, even the crowning one of illustration. They have this in common, that those who love them find themselves growing more and more to love the authors of them too. Theirs is an immortality of affection, perhaps the most desirable, as it is the rarest, of all. I do not mean that there are no books in other languages, and no other books in our own, that invite to a similar intimacy and inspire the same enthusiasm of regard. "Don Quixote and "Elia" appeal to the memory at once. But in both of these there is also the sorcery of genius, there is the touch of the master, as well as the shy personal attractiveness of the writer. In the two books of which I have been speaking, what primarily interests us is the unconscious revelation of the authors' character; and it is through the kindly charm of this and a certain homely inspiration drawn from the sources of every-day experience that they tighten their hold upon us. Nature had endowed these men with the simple skill to make |