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with equal haste all other productions, whatever their subjects and whatever their merits. The effect of such a habit is to deprive them selves of all the advantage which long dwelling upon and familiar acquaintance with works of worth is calculated to give; nor think this an inconsiderable loss. For with compositions of merit at least, Wisdom's fruits hang in plenty only upon the boughs of sheltering contemplation, and are never found upon those of barren, unproductive superficiality.

The efforts of a few devoted to the study of the severer sciences, may have prevented the worst results among us; but would we know how little intellectual culture novel reading imparts, or even how powerful it may be to retard all advancement in science, it can be learned, we think, from the stationary condition that China has held for so many ages. Though this nation more than twenty-five centuries ago reached a degree of refinement, which in some respects has not been surpassed even by the most enlightened of the present day; though learning is held in the highest respect and made the passport to the honors and offices of state; though the elementary studies are in the reach of all, and pursued by all, yet they have scarcely passed the threshold of knowledge, and since the time of Confucius, the cotemporary of Herodotus, have made no perceptible improvement. Though acquainted with the art of paper-making more than seventeen hundred years ago, and of printing nine hundred years before it was discovered in Europe, they have never produced a printed book that an American would deign to read. And though the Mariner's Compass was invented by them twelve centuries ago, they have never applied it to its most appropriate use, that of navigation, but creep along their shores from headland to headland, like the most ignorant of barbarous tribes. At first view it seems truly surprising that they should have thus stopped midway in the progress of civilization, and fallen into a lethargic sleep which no stimulant can make them throw off. But when we learn that nearly all their literature, of which they have an untold quantity, is nothing but novels; that the lives of their scholars are of course spent in reading these, and the wisdom of their philosophers derived from this source alone, our wonder is much lessened, or rather we wonder that they have accomplished so much. It is true other causes may have contributed to retard civilization among them. The easy dispositions of the people and the peculiar influences of their government have no doubt had some effect; yet, had their minds been made vigorous by the decipline of mathematical studies and philosophical pursuits, instead of the erratic flights of imaginative geniuses, is it too much to say it would in a great measure have counteracted these and advanced them long ere this to a much higher standard of intellectual excellence? We might contrast with the Chinese, had we time, the high perfection which Grecian and Roman literature reached while such a thing as fictitious narrative was hardly known among them; and it would be an inquiry well worth making if the very absence of such productions did not contribute somewhat to that high perfection; but we hasten on to another division of our subject, and would inquire whether novels have any efficacy in cultivating the plastic powers of the mind?

We are willing to admit that good taste is susceptible of the highest improvement, by the habitual contemplation of whatever is beautiful in the works of nature or the creations of art; but we deny to the major part of novels, at least any power that tends to that result. They are apt rather to be of a low and debasing character. Their effect is to pollute from contact with impurity and vice. But their supporters contend that even though they have an immoral tendency, yet for all this, they may extend the excursive powers of the mind; that they may benefit and strengthen the imagination.

We know that man's mind is contracted within narrow bounds; that he cannot often frame conceptions to equal the soul's high desires; that even his hopes, when they endeavor to sustain themselves aloft, want consistency, and like pillars of smoke in the thinner air

"Melt and dissolve and are no longer seen."

But is it true that this can be remedied and the imagination formed by culture? Has man the ability to throw around himself this chain, "Woven of flowers and in sweetness dipped?"

Can he by his own exertions raise his thoughts till he holds high communion with all existence in earth and heaven? If so, why does this power prevail more in youth thap in manhood? Why does the child of nature surpass the inhabitant of cities? or ruder periods of society the more cultivated? Or even granting it can be strengthened, is the studied phrase, the rounded period, the poor and vapid thoughts of novels to do it? Those repetitions wearisome of sense

"Where soul is dead and feeling has no place?"

We answer, no; but that this spirit, if caught at all, must be caught from nature's scenes in their rude majesty and sublimity; from the bright visions and lofty dreams of poetry; or from the inspired language of the prophets, spoken from lips of coal in words leaping like bolts from the brooding tempest.

But there yet remains the more momentous consideration with regard to our subject, the immoral influence of novels; though it is so obvious as to require but a passing glance. It is well known that the most hasty perusal of any written production leaves a lasting impression upon the heart for good or for evil, which Time itself cannot obliterate. Especially is this true when what we read coincides with the vicious propensities of our own corrupted natures. Man cannot abstract himself so as to be wholly insensible to extraneous influences. His mind is not like a mirror; it cannot reflect what is impure and contaminating, and be itself unpolluted. It cannot, like the moonbeams, dance upon a dung-hill and retain its original purity and brightness. Such being its condition, it becomes a matter of vital importance, that nothing but what is virtuous be brought in contact with it. And how seldom can we assert this of novels. It is one of the means by which they excite interest, to contrast virtue and vice. The character stained with every crime and every sin that the author's fruitful brain could conceive of, is compared with a being so perfectly good and angel-like, that all must

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despair of ever imitating such excellence in their daily life and conversation. Nor is this all. However difficult it may be to handle immoralities in such a manner that they shall not infect; yet the manifestation of an honest indignation by the author will do much towards it. Did he treat vice with such rebuke and severity, that while the reader was walking in the burning furnace of temptation, we could feel it might serve as a guardian angel to shield and protect him, the case would not be as bad. But how different from this is the fact! The crimes of the hero or heroine are usually so softened down by the glowing sophistry of the writer; their enormities are set off with so many palliating circumstances, that we are ready to forgive them all, and even pronounce them virtues. Surely our own good resolutions are shaken, we more feel our inability to toil up the steep and rugged path of virtue, when we are taught to believe that iniquity is rewarded; that every praiseworthy quality is overcome with defeat, and its possessor tortured with misfortune, till finally relieved by death.

However great the injury of novels as a class, that sentimental kind introduced by modern refinement, is even the most pernicious of them all.

Conceived by the perverted imaginations of French libertines and English debauchees, it is the high embellishment with which they cover and adorn sin, that seduces and deceives the heart. Pretending to lead vice forth to sacrifice upon the altar of virtue, they decorate the victim in such rich and guady garbs as completely to hide her repulsiveness. By such abuse of their powers, they make their minds flaming volcanoes, ravaging and devastating the world with the lava of destruction far more fatal in its effects than any of the burning eruptions of Ætna. The pernicious influence of these productions, hanging like a mildew on the healthful springtide of the soul, is even now felt by thousands upon thousands in the world. Many an inhabitant of prisons, if not occupant of the gallows, can trace their first onset in the career of crime to the impressions left upon their minds by reading Paul Clifford; the whole aim and tendency of which is to subvert the foundation of all law and government. And what may be the effects upon the glowing imagination of childhood, of reading even our own Cooper-comparatively harmless as he may be-one of the most gifted of our young countrymen dangling from the masthead of the Somers, executed for a crime at which humanity shudders, bears witness.

If such then are the effects of romance in one form and another, let it teach us caution. With such light to guide, let us not risk our health in that region of the world of literature, which even though it produces fair flowers, has them in close proximity to noxious weeds and poisonous plants.

THE TWO SPIRITS.

A STREAMLET glided through a sunny vale,
Its muttered music trembling on the air
Like distant echo of despairing wail,

Or voice of winds within their rocky lair.
Around it blossomed flowers, oh, how fair!

Which drooped to touch the thin and sliding spray,
As travelers, tired and faint 'mid desert air,

Bend frantic to the flow of waters gay,

Which wind through some oasis green their careless way.

And there, upon the moss-o'er-knitted ground,
Wrapped in the shadow of an oaken tree,
Lay Ernest, lost in dreamy maze profound,
A victim chained of Fancy's witchery.
Bright scenes rose up, all beautiful to see,

And fairy voices sported to his ear;

How full his heart with light, elastic glee!— Anon came gloom, like spell-controlling Fear, Athwart the rays of gladness, dancing sunny-clear.

A form angelic, from the watchful sky,

Came floating downward through the furrowed air; A stifled lustre dwelt within her eye,

In wanton tresses fell her raven hair

Around a face impressed with calm despair.

So, like the dark-winged, spectre-haunted Night,

In beauty sad, but beauty passing fair,

She came adown the azure-arched height,

Sweet notes of song enchanting all her pensive flight.

SONG.

The drowsy breath of evening

Is gliding through the trees,
And dallying with the ringlets
Which float o'er silent seas.
A filmy veil of darkness

Surrounds the throne of Day,
And Night, in dusky chariot,
Is hasting on her way.

It is the hour when Nature
Puts off her sportive mien,
And in a mood of sadness

And thoughtfulness is seen.
The hour when spirits wander

From their chosen spirit-home,

Though the world, in distance glimmering,

All viewlessly to roam.

For the sun is charmed with visions

In the arms of wily sleep;

Nor yet has Luna risen,

Her tireless watch to keep;
The stars have hid their faces
Behind the screening sky,
And so, upon our pathway,
There looks no envious eye.

Thus, o'er earth's varied regions,
Our footsteps oft have strayed,
Through valley and o'er mountain,
Through desert-plain and glade ;
From where the billowy ocean
Raves ever at the main,
To where his brother ocean

Repeats the boisterous strain.

Alas! a dreary world, a weary world is this;
It beareth not a flower of pure and perfect bliss,
It is an island lonely, swept round on every side
By tedious waves of sorrow, a never-resting tide.

Man toileth on to Wealth, to Wisdom, or to Power,
He builds his altar proud, and worships for an hour.
E'er stretching after phantom joy his dizzy eyes,
Till poor, weak, ignorant, and all unblest he dies.

Trust not his love! trust not, though words be ne'er so warm,
Like sleeping wave he'll change, when comes the angry storm.
Give not thy love to him! one selfish mite to gain,
He'll treat thy heart-drawn treasure as a bauble vain.

Oh, if thy soul be yearning after happy peace,
Think not to sate it where contentions never cease.
Look not 'mid scenes the haunt of sin and woe,

For Virtue's winning grace or Pleasure's joyous glow.

But in some pleasant valley,

Some lone, sequestered spot,
Where Sin waves not his sceptre,
And Care is all forgot,
Where Nature smiles the sweetest,
In her robe of glory drest,
And man, with noisy conflict,

Comes not to break her rest,

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