may indulge the delicious selfishness of love with a more conscious en

joyment.

John Wayre and Milly rather shone at the occupation. He paraded his peculiar dry style of humour; Milly was lively and suggestive— her remarks, though carelessly laughed out, seldom missing their aim. Altogether it was a very pretty dissection-their friends looking the operator seriously in the face from their embossed frames with a ludicrous serenity or a pompous frown.

Miss Brown's behaviour, morcover, left nothing to be desired. She dozed during the tender passages of the conversation; she woke to a gentle little neigh of appreciation on the jokes-deprecating, indeed, the ill-natured ones with a little airy shaking of her cap. But there was in her disapprobation that peculiar involuntary applause which encourages rather than dissuades naughty children. These were Arcadian hours, and the clocks are fast in Arcadia, as we all know well. Suppertime came, and Milly did justice to the oysters and Moselle just as if she had not denounced them. It was so easy for the luxurious little lady to preach economy, but we sagely doubt that she will ever live to practise it. It grew late, and it was time to say good-night. Then Milly felt that the moment was come-that soft moment of parting— when a woman may unlock any mortal secret in her lover's bosom by a kiss.

"Show me the papers in the drawer."

Mr. Wayre only shook his head and laughed.

"The next time you come," he said, "I promise: there now; it will be sure to bring you here again."

"Is this your gratitude for my coming to-night? Do give me a peep; I shall really be offended if you don't. I vow I will never come again. Now, aunt, does he not look guilty? I will see those papers," she said, stamping in playful anger.

Then John Wayre drew her over once more to the fire, and took up his parable thus:

66

Once, Milly, in the days of the Plantagenets, there was one called Hubert-"

"Son of Mother Hubbard," said Milly, with a pout.

"He married a wife whilst he was yet a poor student-"

"More fool she," interpolated Milly.

"No, she was not, for they were not a twelvemonth married before he began to coin; he gave her bonnets full of money and precious stones."

"Ah, that's true happiness," said Milly; "a great improvement on the poor student. Did he tell her his secrets when she was dying to know them?"

"He wouldn't do that."

"Then he was a brute," cried Milly.

"She had every thing she could wish," urged John; "but she couldn't rest.”

"Of course not," said Milly; "and I hope she didn't let him.”

"She went quietly to work, Milly, and slipped, in on him in his workshop; when, lo, a great bubbly fiend was floating before him on the smoke of his furnace-presiding over the process of turning pieces of lead into pure gold ingots. The poor wife lost her peace of mind from that day forth."

"Oh, you are trying to frighten me," said Milly, with a shade of weariness; "but you told me you wrote reviews for the papers, John."

"Well, is not that the black art?" said John Wayre, laughing heartily. "There I sit at my desk, and the bubbly fiend hangs in the air before me, and a three-volume novel of pig-lead is put into the crucible, when out come three golden sovereigns to me, and I transfer them immediately to your pocket."

"How delightful!" said Milly; "give me my money."

"You shall have it when the charm is complete. Now you have the secret; that writing is only a little notice of a book, to be printed in the papers next week; and the oracle would depart from it, if any one knew who wrote it. Come: I'll put you into your cab."

He

Wayre wrote extensively for the periodicals, and possibly adapted his style to each; but for this statement I cannot positively vouch, because an article that appears in the vast drift of anonymous literature is like a ring thrown into the sea-sunk and lost for ever. was a light arm upon the Saturday Review, and received numbers of books from its editor throughout the year. Upon one of them he is at present engaged, and it becomes our particular business to stand by his side.

CHAPTER XIX.

AND A CERTAIN MAN DREW A BOW AT A VENTURE: A SATURDAY REVIEW,

In this literary struggle for existence there are men carnivori, and men and women graminivori; both species have mouths to be fed. Who can justly blame the first for devouring the second if it be their nature and habit to live by prey?

The scarified author, indeed, may hint at personal malevolence sharpening the fang, and may rumour about some tale of a slight sustained, or a jealousy awakened, in certain quarters, and hence the attack; but this is, after all, the mere writhing of tortured vanity. Cynicism is effective, marketable, and characterises certain periodicals. Reviewers are bread-makers as well as novelists, and must adapt themselves to their organ by assuming its tone. To elect a scapegoat to a class, and sacrifice it pro publico bono in a frisky popular sort of way in the cause of a principle, has besides a dignity, a breadth, a philosophy about it, which divests the proceeding of all wantonness or spite, and enlists the sympathies of the masses.

The most attractive manner of opening this kind of attack has quite passed into a recipe. We relate, perhaps, an anecdote or fable, which by its anticipative vagueness stimulates curiosity; or we cull from biography some witty remark, commencing our article thus: It has been said, &c.; or, We remember once, &c. This little blind is a pretty dramatic trick, which leads up neatly to our theme, and will never grow old; it renders the reader more impressionable, and deftly cheats him into attention.

For some paragraphs then, whilst applying the homely text, we assume the weighty tone of an Edinburgh Review, and deal broadly with principle; we command with our critical eye a whole section of literature, whether it be fiction with an object or without, sensation, or sentiment. Viewed in its collective bulk, we acknowledge a certain claim to serious notice, not for a moment to be accorded to a contemptible individual of the class. Having thus exhibited in a crystal essay of twenty lines the calibre we could bring to bear upon a worthy theme, we pass to the light business at once; we pose ourselves in a crispy janty attitude, like a worldly old bachelor in a nursery, or rather like the wolf in bed with poor little Red Riding Hood; we trifle gaily with the high-wrought feelings of our victim by an affected friendship, soon, however, evincing our carnivorous nature by a sort of sly indulgent cruelty preparatory to making a meal of him. Virulence we never employ; virulence, we are aware, is a sort of equivalent to praise, and might sell an edition; we are never virulent.

We may show a little whimsical petulance now and then, which will best escape in such phrases as "we must really protest;" or, "in the name of common-sense;" and so forth. These little remonstrances are peculiarly gratifying to the reader, and worrying to the helpless victim. Thus the duck-hunt proceeds, and the shores resound with applause. A large amount of misrepresentation is quite legitimate, for it must not be forgotten that we are illustrating a principle, and our author is a mere diagram on the slate, drawn to be sponged out. We score for quotation some exuberance of verbiage occupying one or two paragraphs in 900 pages; these will afford amusing pabulum for at least a column of our review, and give the reader an impression that the whole work is built of such bricks.

If the author has been mad enough to expose himself in person by an ingenuous preface, offering his wares to our notice with a timid recommendation, the opportunity is irresistible, and we review the preface instead of the book. How deliciously do those meck pages cut up, wrung forth from woman's misgiving and blind hope! True, the preface is not the book; but then it is so droll to pull the author's nose gratuitously whilst we are paid to judge his ware.

Thus and thus we smile a book to death, and lark fatally at the author with the security of a monkey upon a lofty branch, till we leave him with a horrible sense of exposure, as if he found his points were loose in the open highway.

This is the popular review for my money-to this alone will I subscribe. It shall be my relish at breakfast; it shall minister to my latent selfishness and secret jealousy; it is such sweet flattery to me to see others reviled.

In this class of writing would I joyfully engage to-morrow, had I but the chance; for it pays well and is very easy.

At about eleven o'clock John Wayre seated himself at his desk, and finished off with great facility the following neat article. We have shortened it with remorse.

A SATURDAY REVIEW.

"We remember once passing through Greenwich fair,-on pleasure bent, and being invited in to see the merry show by a very lugubrious dame. Whilst she announced her treat, she argued that we should not miss it, because she was a widow; whilst she bade us to step in, as stimulus she offered us the lively intelligence that her infant was dying of hooping-cough. Now the comic panorama was one thing, and the sick infant was another. If we were expected to take a peep for charity, it had been better to have given her a sixpence, and escaped in haste; but if she had any faith in her show, why should she thrust her troubles between us and our expected treat, which should have stood upon its own merits?

There is a well-known class of callow literature-including youthful poems, first novels, and such works as are only printed at the earnest intercession of friends-which invites perusal in the same deprecating key. The rule holds good in all. A nervous preface, baited with some pretty bit of pathos; the author in the foreground inviting you to gaze upon his blighted home, his tender youth, and generous ambition, when we only wish to see his book.

A Reed in the Wind is thus plaintively laid before us in a tone which positively gives an air of cruelty to the mildest censure, and converts just condemnation into absolute homicide. The authoress-for her style betrays her sex-opens with an appeal to mercy; she hints of surrounding troubles, of suppressed bodily and mental pain. She gives us to understand that the volumes are a bequest to her children, which she hopes will some day yield them succour when the mother's hand is still and cold. Now all this may be touching and effective in its proper place; we have every inclination to treat such disclosures per se with respect. If the public are expected to purchase the book for charity, let it be clearly so understood, and we are silent; but whilst the ware is offered on the ordinary mercantile conditions, for its intrinsic value and use, we must protest against this sort of anticipative whine-this appeal before the footlights, alike unjust to the critic and the public.

'I am unhappy,' cries this candidate for favour; 'pray laugh at my jokes. I am very ill; kind public, pray take an interest in the diversion I provide for you.' We do not indeed question the lady's depression,

when she had completed such a work as A Reed in the Wind; indeed, we can in part comprehend it. Magna pars fui, sighs the critic, as he closes the last volume. But what have the lady's domestic circumstances to do with the question at issue between us and the public, which is simply this-the literary value of her work? Let her consider how unjust would it be, should another three-volume novel, with equal claims to her own, receive a whit worse treatment, because her rival came forward with smiles and in prosperous case. We shall take leave, therefore, to deal with the work submitted to the public on its own merit, and respectfully decline any foreign considerations of pity.

A Reed in the Wind is a novel of a rickety constitution. There is a nervous excitement in the style, as if it were striving to live out its natural life by jerks, and died in the third volume of exhaustion. A thin-flowing, female declamation pervades its pages,-an atmosphere of feverish amiability, which fails to enliven the flats of the first and second volumes. Sometimes, indeed, we are bound to confess, a rather pretty thought occurs, or a nice feminine sentiment, which leads us to hope for some feature in the work to elevate it above its class; but we look in vain. The aptitude of the author is evidently for padding; here she is at home; but, we are sorry to add, it only throws into more comical relief the pasteboard passion and sword-lath violence with which she has so needlessly troubled her quiet soul. The dialogue, perhaps, we might praise, considered irrespectively of the characters from which it is supposed to proceed; but there is no delusion overlying the blameless prattle; we feel, from first to last, that the authoress is reciting for her puppets with much complacency behind the scenes.

The conversation of the hero, indeed, is exceptional to this rule; this gentleman being in utter outlawry to all recognised nature, and indulging himself in language which must, in calm retrospect, have very much shocked the amiable mind of the author. Albert Morris is a marked specimen of the ladies' hero; that gentleman Frankenstein, who seems to infest their fancies and their three-volume novels. In his softer moods he is a perfect Shelley, with a squeeze or two of a Voltaire for flavour. In his gloom he is a sort of mawkish Mendoza, costumed and posed like the banished lord.' The originality of this particular portraiture rests upon the admission that the gentleman is ugly; and in this respect he presents a variety of the usual showy article.

But the magnificent saucy creature with the deep eyes, the eloquent passion, the charming infidelity in love, is much more agreeable to read of, and we scarcely thank the authoress for such appendages to our favourite as green eyes,' a heavy under-lip,' and the shoulder of a Danton.' No doubt it is very human to be ugly; we have, notwithstanding, no inclination to decide upon this claim alone, whether the present specimen be more human than his class. The gorilla may possess the true hippocampus major of the human brain, and thus claim nearer kindred to us than the chimpanzee; but for us we repu