Now these, although they have passed current in the world for some thirty years, are in reality poor lines, and the sentiment they intend to inculcate is contemptible. Byron lived long enough to know the value of money, as his correspondence with the late Mr Murray most abundantly testifies—indeed, I question whether any author ever beat him at the art of chaffering. If it be a legitimate matter of reproach against an author that he writes for money, then heaven help the integrity of every profession and trade in this great and enlightened kingdom! What else, in the name of common sense, should he write for? Fame? Thank you! Fame may be all very well in its way, but it butters no parsnips; and, if I am to be famous, I would much rather case my renown in fine linen than in filthy dowlas. Let people say what they please, the best criterion of every article is its marketable value, and no man on the face of this earth will work without a reasonable wage.

Your first and great purpose, therefore, is to make money, and to make as much as you can. But then there is another kind of purpose, which, if I was sure you could comprehend me, I should call the intrinsic one, and which must be considered very seriously before you obtrude yourself upon the public. In other words, what is to be the general tendency of your work? "Fun," I think I hear you reply, "and all manner of sky-larking." Very good. But then, my dear friend, you must consider that there is a sort of method even in grimacing. There is a gentleman connected with your establishment, who is popularly reported to possess the inestimable talent of turning his head inside out. I never saw him perform that cephalic operation, but I have heard it highly spoken of by others who have enjoyed the privilege. But this it is obvious, though a very admirable and effective incident, could hardly be taken as the groundwork of a five-act play, or even a three-act melodrama; and, in like manner, your fun and sky-larking must have something of a positive tendency. I don't mean to insinuate that there is no story in Silas Spavinhitch. He is, if I recollect aright, the younger son of a nobleman, who falls in love—at Astley's, of course—with Signora Estrella di Canterini, the peerless Amazon of the ring. He forsakes his ancestral halls, abjures Parliament, and enlists in the cavalry of the Hippodrome. In that gallant and distinguished corps he rises to an unusual rank, utterly eclipses Herr Pferdenshuf, more commonly known by the title of the Suabian acrobat—wins the heart of the Signora by taming Centaur, the fierce Arabian stallion; and gains the notice and favour of royalty itself, by leaping the Mammoth horse over nineteen consecutive bars. Your manuscript ends at the point where Spavinhitch, having accidentally discovered that the beautiful Canterini is the daughter of Abd-el-Kader by a Sicilian princess, resolves to embark for Africa with the whole chivalry of the Surrey side, and, by driving the French from Algiers, to substantiate his claim upon the Emir for his daughter's hand. There is plenty incident here; but, to say the truth, I don't quite see my way out of it. Are you going to take history into your own hands, and write in the spirit of prophecy? The experiment is, to say the least of it, dangerous; and, had I been you, I should have preferred an earlier period for my tale, as there obviously could have been no difficulty in making Spavinhitch and his cavaliers take a leading part in the decisive charge at Waterloo.

Your serial, therefore, so far as I can discover, belongs to the military-romantic school, and is intended to command admiration by what we may call a series of scenic effects. I an not much surprised at this. Your experience has lain so much in the line of gorgeous spectacle, and, indeed, you have borne a part in so many of those magnificent tableaux in which blue fire, real cannon, charging squadrons, and the transparency of Britannia are predominant, that it was hardly to be expected that the current of your ideas would have flowed in a humbler channel. At the same time, you must forgive me for saying, that I think the line is a dangerous one. Putting tendency altogether aside, you cannot but recollect that a great many writers have already distinguished themselves by narratives of military adventure. Of these, by far the best and most spirited is Charles Lever. I don't know whether he ever was in the army, or bore the banner of the Enniskillens; but I say deliberately, that he has taken the shine out of all military writers from the days of Julius CÆsar downwards. There is a rollocking buoyancy about his battles which to me is perfectly irresistible. In one chapter you have the lads of the fighting Fifty-fifth bivouacking under the cork-trees of Spain, with no end of spatchcocks and sherry—telling numerous anecdotes of their early loves, none the worse because the gentleman is invariably disappointed in his pursuit of the well-jointured widow—or arranging for a speedy duel with that ogre of the army, the saturnine and heavy dragoon. In the next, you have them raging like lions in the very thick of the fight, pouring withering volleys into the shattered columns of the Frenchmen—engaged in single-handed combats with the most famous marshals of the empire, and not unfrequently leaving marks of their prowess upon the persons of Massena or Murat. Lever, in fact, sticks at nothing. His heroes indiscriminately hob-a-nob with Wellington, or perform somersets at leap-frog over the shoulders of the astounded Bonaparte; and, though somewhat given to miscellaneous flirtation, they all, in the twentieth number, are married to remarkably nice girls, with lots of money and accommodating papas, who die as soon as they are desired. It may be objected to this delightful writer—and a better never mixed a tumbler—that he is, if any thing, too helter-skelter in his narratives; that the officers of the British army do not, as an invariable rule, go into action in a state of delirium tremens; and that O'Shaughnessy, in particular, is rather too fond of furbishing up, for the entertainment of the mess, certain stories which have been current for the last fifty years in Tipperary. These, however, are very minor points of criticism, and such as need not interfere with our admiration of this light lancer of literature, who always writes like a true and a high-minded gentleman.

Now, my dear Smith, I must own that I have some fear of your success when opposed to such a competitor. You have not been in the army—that is, the regulars—and I should say that you were more conversant in theory and in practice with firing from platforms than firing in platoons. I have indeed seen you, in the character of Soult, lead several desperate charges across the stage, with consummate dramatic effect. Your single combat with Gomersal as Picton, was no doubt a masterpiece of its kind; for in the course of it you brought out as many sparks from the blades of your basket-hilts, as might have served in the aggregate for a very tolerable illumination. Still I question whether the style of dialogue you indulged in on that occasion, is quite the same as that which is current on a modern battle-field. "Ha! English slave! Yield, or thou diest!" is an apostrophe more appropriate to the middle ages than the present century; and although the patriotism of the following answer by your excellent opponent is undeniable, its propriety may be liable to censure. Crossing the stage at four tremendous strides, the glorious Gomersal replied, "Yield, saidst thou? Never! I tell thee, Frenchman, that whilst the broad banner of Britain floats over the regions on which the day-star never sets—while peace and plenty brood like guardian angels over the shores of my own dear native isle—whilst her sons are brave, and her daughters virtuous—whilst the British lion reposes on his shadow in perfect stillness—whilst with thunders from our native oak we quell the floods below—I tell thee, base satellite of a tyrant, that an Englishman never will surrender!" In the applause which followed this declaration, your remark, that several centuries beheld you from the top of a canvass pyramid, was partially lost upon the audience; but to it you went tooth and nail for at least a quarter of an hour; and I must confess that the manner in which you traversed the stage on your left knee, parrying all the while the strokes of your infuriated adversary, was highly creditable to your proficiency in the broadsword and gymnastic exercises.

But all this, Smith, will not enable you to write a military serial. I therefore hope, that on consideration you will abandon the Algiers expedition, and keep Silas in his native island, where, if you will follow my advice, you will find quite enough for him to do in the way of incident and occupation.

Now let us return to the question of tendency. Once upon a time, it was a trite rule by which all romance writers were guided, that in the denoÛment of their plots, virtue was invariably rewarded, and vice as invariably punished. This gave a kind of moral tone to their writings, which was not without its effect upon our grandfathers and grandmothers, many of whom were inclined to consider all works of fiction as direct emanations from Beelzebub. The next generation became gradually less nice and scrupulous, demanded more spice in their pottage, and attached less importance to the prominence of an ethical precept. At last we became, strictly speaking, a good deal blackguardised in our taste. Ruffianism in the middle ages bears about it a stamp of feudality which goes far to disguise its lawlessness, and even to excuse its immorality. When a German knight of the empire sacks and burns some peaceful and unoffending village—when a Bohemian marauder of noble birth bears off some shrieking damsel from her paternal castle, having previously slitted the weasand of her brother, and then weds her in a subterranean chapel—or when a roaring red-bearded Highlander drives his dirk into a gauger, or chucks a score of Sassenachs, tied back to back, with a few hundredweight of greywacke at their heels, into the loch—we think less of the enormity of the deeds than of the disagreeable habits of the times. It does not follow that either German, Bohemian, or Celt, were otherwise bad company or disagreeable companions over a flagon of Rhenish, a roasted boar, or a gallon or so of usquebÆ. But when you come to the Newgate Callendar for subjects, I must say that we are getting rather low. I do not know what your feelings upon the subject may be, but I, for one, would certainly hesitate before accepting an invitation to the town residence of Mr Fagin; neither should I feel at all comfortable if required to plant my legs beneath the mahogany in company with Messrs Dodger, Bates, and the rest of their vivacious associates. However fond I may be of female society, Miss Nancy is not quite the sort of person I should fancy to look in upon of an evening about tea-time; and as for Bill Sykes, that infernal dog of his would be quite enough to prevent any advances of intimacy between us. In fact, Smith, although you may think the confession a squeamish one, I am not in the habit of selecting my acquaintance from the inhabitants of St Giles, and on every possible occasion I should eschew accepting their hospitalities.

I have, therefore, little opportunity of judging whether the characters depicted by some of our later serialists, are exact copies from nature or the reverse. I have, however, heard several young ladies declare them to be extremely natural, though I confess to have been somewhat puzzled as to their means of accurate information. But I may be allowed en passant to remark, that it seems difficult to imagine what kind of pleasure can be derived from the description of a scene, which, if actually contemplated by the reader, would inspire him with loathing and disgust, or from conversations in which the brutal alternates with the positive obscene. The fetid den of the Jew, the stinking cellar of the thief, the squalid attic of the prostitute, are not haunts for honest men, and the less that we know of them the better. Such places no doubt exist—the more is the pity; but so do dunghills, and a hundred other filthy things, which the imagination shudders at whenever they are forced upon it,—for the man who willingly and deliberately dwells upon such subjects, is, notwithstanding all pretext, in heart and soul a nightman! Don't tell me about close painting after nature. Nature is not always to be painted as she really is. Would you hang up such paintings in your drawing-room? If not, why suffer them in print to lie upon your drawing-room tables? What are Eugene Sue and his English competitors, but coarser and more prurient Ostades?

Oh, but there is a moral in these things! No doubt of it. There is a moral in all sin and misery, as there is in all virtue and happiness. There is a moral every where, and the veriest bungler cannot fail to seize it. But is that a reason why the minds of our sons and daughters should be polluted by what is notoriously the nearest thing to contact with absolute vice—namely, vivid and graphic descriptions of it by writers of undenied ability? Did Life in London, or the exploits of Tom, Jerry, and Logic, make the youth of the metropolis more staid, or inspire them with a wholesome horror of dissipation? Did the memoirs of Casanova ever reclaim a rake—the autobiography of David Haggart convert an aspiring pickpocket—or the daring feats of Jack Sheppard arrest one candidate for the gallows? These are the major cases; but look at the minor ones. What are the favourite haunts of the heroes in even the most blameless of our serials? Pot-houses—cigariums—green-rooms of theatres—hells—spunging-houses—garrets—and the scullery! Nice and improving all this—isn't it, Smith?—for the young and rising generation! No need now for surreptitious works, entitled, "A Guide to the Larks of London," or so forth, which used formerly to issue from the virgin press of Holywell Street. Almost any serial will give hints enough to an acute boy, if he wishes to gain an initiative knowledge of subjects more especially beneath the cognisance of the police. They will at least guide him to the door with the red lamp burning over it, and only one plank betwixt its iniquity and the open street. And all this is for a moral! Heaven knows, Smith, I am no Puritan; but when I think upon the men who now call themselves the lights of the age, and look back upon the past, I am absolutely sick at heart, and could almost wish for a return of the days of Mrs Radcliffe and the Castle of Otranto.

Now, my dear fellow, as I know you to be a thoroughly good-hearted man—not overgiven to liquor, although your estimate of beer is a just one—a constant husband, and, moreover, the father of five or six promising olive-branches, I do not for a moment suppose that you are likely to inweave any such tendencies in your tale. You would consider it low to make a prominent character of a scavenger; and although some dozen idiots who call themselves philanthropists would brand you as an aristocrat for entertaining any such opinion, I think you are decidedly in the right. But there is another tendency towards which I suspect you are more likely to incline. You are a bit of a Radical, and, like all men of genius, you pique yourself on elbowing upwards. So far well. The great ladder, or rather staircase of ambition, is open to all of us, and it is fortunately broader than it is high. It is not the least too narrow to prevent any one from approaching it, and after you have taken the first step, there is nothing more than stamina and perseverance required. But then I do not see that it is necessary to be perpetually plucking at the coat-tails, or seizing hold of the ankles of those who are before. Such conduct is quite as indecorous, and indeed ungenerous, as it would be to kick back, and systematically to smite with your heel the unprotected foreheads of your followers. Nor would I be perpetually pitching brickbats upwards, in order to show my own independence; or raising a howl of injustice, because another fellow was considerably elevated above me. In the social system, Smith, as it stands at present, has always stood, and will continue to stand long after Astley's is forgotten, it is not necessary that every one should commence at the lowest round of the staircase. Their respective fathers and progenitors have secured an advantageous start for many. They have achieved, as the case may be, either rank or fame, or honour, or wealth, or credit—and these possessions they are surely entitled to leave as an inheritance of their offspring. If we want to rise higher in the social scale than they did, we must make exertions for ourselves; if we are indolent, we must be contented to remain where we are, though at imminent risk of descending. But you, I take it for granted, and indeed the most of us who owe little to ancestral enterprise and are in fact men of the masses, are struggling forward towards one or other of the good things specified above, and no doubt we shall in time attain them. In the meanwhile, however, is it just—nay, is it wise—that we should mar our own expectancies, and depreciate the value of the prizes which we covet, by abusing not only the persons but the position of those above us? How are they to blame? Are they any the worse that they stand, whether adventitiously or not, at a point which we are endeavouring to reach? Am I necessarily a miscreant because I am born rich, and you a martyr because you are poor? I do not quite follow the argument. If there is any one to blame, you will find their names written on the leaves of your own family-tree; but I don't see that on that account you have any right to execrate me or my ancestors.

I am the more anxious to caution you against putting any such rubbish into your pages, because I fear you have contracted some sort of intimacy with a knot of utilitarian ninnyhammers. The last time I had the pleasure of meeting you at the Ducrow's Head, there was a seedy-looking, ill-conditioned fellow seated on your right, who, between his frequent draughts of porter, (which you paid for,) did nothing but abuse the upper classes as tyrants, fools, and systematical grinders of the poor. I took the liberty, as you may remember, of slightly differing from some of his wholesale positions; whereupon your friend, regarding me with a cadaverous sneer, was pleased to mutter something about a sycophant, the tenor of which I did not precisely comprehend. Now, unless I am shrewdly mistaken, this was one of the earnest men—fellows who are continually bawling on people to go forward—who set themselves up for popular teachers, and maunder about "a oneness of purpose," "intellectual elevation," "aspirations after reality," and suchlike drivel, as though they were absolute Solons, not blockheads of the muddiest water. And I was sorry to observe that you rather seemed to agree with the rusty patriot in some of his most sweeping strictures, and evinced an inclination to adopt his theory of the coming Utopia, which, judging from the odour that pervaded his apostolic person and raiment, must bear a strong resemblance to a modern gin-shop. Now, Smith, this will not do. There may be inequalities in this world, and there may also be injustice; but it is a very great mistake to hold that one-half of the population of these islands is living in profligate ease upon the compulsory labour of the other. I am not going to write you a treatise upon political economy; but I ask you to reflect for a moment, and you will see how ludicrous is the charge. This style of thinking, or, what is worse, this style of writing, is positively the most mischievous production of the present day. Disguised under the specious aspect of philanthropy, it fosters self-conceit and discontent, robs honest industry of that satisfaction which is its best reward, and, instead of removing, absolutely creates invidious class-distinctions. And I will tell you from what this spirit arises—it is the working of the meanest envy.

There never was a time when talent, and genius, and ability, had so fair a field as now. The power of the press is developed to an extent which almost renders exaggeration impossible, and yet it is still upon the increase. A thousand minds are now at work, where a few were formerly employed. We have become a nation of readers and of writers. The rudiments of education, whatever may be said of its higher branches, are generally distributed throughout the masses—so much so, indeed, that without them no man can hope to ascend one step in the social scale. This is a great, though an imperfect gain, and, like all such, it has its evils.

Of these not the least is the astounding growth of quackery. It assails us every where, and on every side; and, with consummate impudence, it asserts its mission to teach. Look at the shoals of itinerant lecturers which at this moment are swarming through the land. No department of science is too deep, no political question too abstruse, for their capacity. They have their own theories on the subjects of philosophy and religion—of which theories I shall merely remark, that they differ in many essentials from the standards both of church and college—and these they communicate to their audience with the least possible regard to reservation. Had you ever the pleasure, Smith, of meeting one of these gentlemen amongst the amenities of private life? I have upon various occasions enjoyed that luxury; and, so far as I am capable of judging, the Pericles of the platform appeared to me a coarse-minded, illiterate, and ignorant Cockney, with the manners and effrontery of a bagman. Such are the class of men who affect to regenerate the people with the tongue, and who are listened to even with avidity, because impudence, like charity, can cover a multitude of defects; and thus they stand, like so many sons of Telamon, each secure behind the shelter of his brazen shield. As to the pen-regenerators, they are at least equally numerous. I do not speak of the established press, the respectability and talent of which is undeniable; but of the minor crew, who earn their bread partly by fostering discontent, and partly by pandering to the worst of human passions. The merest whelp, who can write a decent paragraph, considers himself, now-a-days, entitled to assume the airs of an Aristarchus, and will pronounce opinions, ex cathedrÂ, upon every question, no matter of what importance, for he too is a teacher of the people!

This is the lowest sort of quackery; but there are also higher degrees. Our literature, of what ought to be the better sort, has by no means escaped the infection. In former times, men who devoted themselves to the active pursuit of letters, brought to the task not only high talent, but deep and measured thought, and an accumulated fund of acquirement. They studied long before they wrote, and attempted no subject until they had thoroughly and comprehensively mastered its details. But we live under a new system. There is no want of talent, though it be of a rambling and disjointed kind; but we look in vain for marks of the previous study. Our authors deny the necessity or advantage of an apprenticeship, and set up for masters before they have learned the rudiments of their art, and they dispense altogether with reflection. Few men now think before they write. The consequence is, that a great proportion of our modern literature is of the very flimsiest description—vivid, sometimes, and not without sparkles of genuine humour; but so ill constructed as to preclude the possibility of its long existence. No one is entitled to reject models, unless he has studied them, and detected their faults; but this is considered by far too tedious a process for modern ingenuity. We are thus inundated with a host of clever writers, each relying upon his peculiar and native ability, jesting—for that is the humour of the time—against each other, and all of them forsaking nature, and running deplorably into caricature.

These are the men who make the loudest outcry against the social system, and who appear to be imbued with an intense hatred of the aristocracy, and indeed with every one of our time-honoured institutions. This I know has been denied; but, in proof of my assertion, I appeal to their published works. Read any one of them through, and I ask you if you do not rise from it with a sort of conviction, that you must search for the cardinal virtues solely in the habitations of the poor—that the rich are hard, selfish, griping, and tyrannical—and that the nobility are either fools, spendthrifts, or debauchees? Is it so, as a general rule, in actual life? Far from it. I do not need to be told of the virtue and industry which grace the poor man's lot; for we all feel and know it, and God forbid that it should be otherwise. But we know also that there is as great, if not greater temptation in the hovel than in the palace, with fewer counteracting effects from education and principle to withstand it; and it is an insult to our understanding to be told, that fortune and station are in effect but other words for tyranny, callousness, and crime.

The fact is, that most of these authors know nothing whatever of the society which they affect to describe, but which in truth they grossly libel. Their starting-point is usually not a high one; but by dint of some talent—in certain cases naturally great—and a vivacity of style, joined with a good deal of drollery and power of bizarre description, they at last gain a portion of the public favour, and become in a manner notables. This is as it should be; and such progress is always honourable. Having arrived at this point, not without a certain degree of intoxication consequent upon success, our author begins to look about him and to consider his own position—and he finds that position to be both new and anomalous. On the one hand he has become a lion. The newspapers are full of his praises; his works are dramatized at the minor theatres; he is pointed at in the streets, and his publisher is clamorous for copy. At small literary reunions he is the cynosure of all eyes. And so his organ of self-esteem continues to expand day by day, until he fancies himself entitled to a statue near the altar in the Temple of Fame—not very far, perhaps, from those of Shakspeare, of Spencer, or of Scott. One little drop of gall, however, is mingled in the nectar of his cup. He does not receive that consideration which he thinks himself entitled to from the higher classes. Peers do not wait upon him with pressing invitations to their country-seats; nor does he receive any direct intimation of the propriety of presenting himself at Court. This appears to him not only strange but grossly unfair. He is one of nature's aristocracy—at least so he thinks; and yet he is regarded with indifference by the body of the class aristocrats! Why is this? He knows they have heard of his name; he is convinced that they have read his works, and been mightily tickled thereby; yet how is it that they show no manner of thirst whatever for his society? In vain he lays in scores of apple-green satin waistcoats, florid cravats, and a wilderness of mosaic jewellery—in vain he makes himself conspicuous wherever he can—he is looked at, to be sure; but the right hand of fellowship is withheld. Gradually he becomes savage and indignant. No man is better aware than he is, that not one scion of the existing aristocracy could write a serial or a novel at all to be compared to his; and yet Lord John and Lord Frederick—both of them literary men too—do not insist upon walking with him in the streets, and never once offer to introduce him to the bosom of their respective families! Our friend becomes rapidly bilious; is seized with a moral jaundice; and vows that, in his next work, he will do his uttermost to show up that confounded aristocracy. And he keeps his vow.

Now, Smith, to say the least of it, this is remarkably silly conduct, and it argues but little for the intellect and the temper of the man. It is quite true that the English aristocracy, generally speaking, do not consider themselves bound to associate with every successful candidate for the public favour; but they neither despise him nor rob him of one tittle of his due. The higher classes of society are no more exclusive than the lower. Each circle is formed upon principles peculiar to itself, amongst which are undoubtedly similarity of interest, of position, and of taste; and it is quite right that it should be so. You will understand this more clearly if I bring the case home to yourself. I shall suppose that the success of Silas Spavinhitch is something absolutely triumphant—that it sells by tens and hundreds of thousands, and that the treasury of your publisher is bursting with the accumulated silver. You find yourself, in short, the great literary lion of the day—the intellectual workman who has produced the consummate masterpiece of the age. What, under such circumstances, would be your wisest line of conduct? I should decidedly say, to establish an account at your banker's, enjoy yourself reasonably with your friends, make Mrs Smith and your children as happy as possible, and tackle to another serial without deviating from the tenor of your way. I would not, if I were you, drop old acquaintances, or insist clamorously upon having new ones. I should look upon myself, not as a very great man, but as a very fortunate one; and I would not step an inch from my path to exchange compliments with King or with Kaisar. Don't you think such conduct would be more rational than quarrelling with society because you are not worshipped as a sort of demi-god? Is the Duke of Devonshire obliged to ask you to dinner, because you are the author of Silas Spavinhitch? Take my word for it, Smith, you would feel excessively uncomfortable if any such invitation came. I think I see you at a ducal table, with an immense fellow in livery behind you, utterly bewildered as to how you should behave yourself, and quite as much astounded as Abon Hassan when hailed by Mesrour, chief of the eunuchs, as the true Commander of the Faithful! How gladly would you not exchange these soufflÉs and salmis for a rump-steak and onions in the back-parlour of the Ducrow's Head! Far rather would you be imbibing porter with Widdicomb than drinking hermitage with his Grace—and O!—horror of horrors! you have capsized something with a French name into the lap of the dowager next you, and your head swims round with a touch of temporary apoplexy, as you observe the snigger on the countenance of the opposite lackey, who, menial as he is, considers himself at bottom quite as much of a gentleman, and as conspicuous a public character as yourself.

And—mercy on me!—what would you make of yourself at a ball? You are a good-looking fellow, Smith, and nature has been bountiful to you in calf; but I would not advise you to sport that plum-coloured coat and azure waistcoat of an evening. Believe me, that though you may pass muster in such a garb most creditably on the Surrey side, there are people in Grosvenor Square who will unhesitatingly pronounce you a tiger. And pray, whom are you going to dance with? You confess to yourself, whilst working on those relentless and impracticable kids, that you do not know a single soul in the saloon except the man who brought you there, and he has speedily abandoned you. That staid, haughty-looking lady with the diamonds, is a Countess in her own right, and those two fair girls with the auburn ringlets are her daughters, the flower of the English nobility, and the name they bear is conspicuous in history to the Conquest. Had you not better walk up to the noble matron, announce yourself as the author of Silas Spavinhitch, and request an introduction to Lady Edith or Lady Maude? You would just as soon consent to swing yourself like Fra Diavolo on the slack-rope! And suppose that you were actually introduced to Lady Maude, how would you contrive to amuse her? With anecdotes of the back slums, or the green-room, or the witticisms of medical students? Would you tell her funny stories about the loves of the bagmen, or recreations with a migratory giantess in the interior of a provincial caravan? Do you think that, with dulcet prattle of this sort, you could manage to efface the impression made long ago upon her virgin heart by that handsome young guardsman, who is now regarding you with a glance prophetic of a coming flagellation? Surely, you misguided creature, you are not going to expose yourself by dancing? Yes, you are! You once danced a polka with little Laura Wilkins on the boards at Astley's, and ever since that time you have been labouring under the delusion that you are a consummate Vestris. So you claw your shrinking partner round the waist, and set off, prancing like the pony that performs a pas-seul upon its hinder legs; and after bouncing against several couples in your rash and erratic career, you are arrested by the spur of a dragoon, which rips up your inexpressibles, lacerates your ankle, and stretches you on the broad of your back upon the floor, to the intense and unextinguishable delight of the assembled British aristocracy.

Or, by way of a change, what would you say to go down with your acquaintance, Lord Walter, to Melton? You ride well—that is, upon several horses, with one foot upon the crupper of the first, and the other upon the shoulder of the fourth. But a hunting-field is another matter. I think I see you attempting to assume a light and jaunty air in the saddle; your long towsy hair flowing gracefully over the collar of your spotless pink; and the nattiest of conical castors secured by a ribband upon the head which imagined the tale of Spavinhitch. You have not any very distinct idea of what is going to take place; but you resolve to demean yourself like a man, and cover your confusion with a cigar. The hounds are thrown into cover. There is a yelping and the scouring of many brushes among the furze; a red hairy creature bolts out close beside you, and, with a bray of insane triumph, you commence to canter after him, utterly regardless of the cries of your fellow-sportsmen, entreating you to hold hard. In a couple of minutes more, you are in the middle of the hounds, knocking out the brains of one, crushing the spine of another, and fracturing the legs of a third. A shout of anger rises behind; no matter—on you go. Accidents will happen in the best regulated hunting-fields—and what business had these stupid brutes to get under your horse's legs? Otherwise, you are undeniably a-head of the field; and won't you show those tip-top fellows how a serialist can go the pace? But your delusion is drawing to an end. There is a clattering of hoofs, and a resonant oath behind you—and smack over your devoted shoulders comes the avenging whip of the huntsman, frantic at the loss of his most favourite hounds, and execrating you for a clumsy tailor. "Serve him right, Jem! Give it him again!" cries the Master of the hounds—a very different person from your old friend the Master of the Ring—as the scarlet crowd rushes by; and again and again, with intensest anguish, you writhe beneath the thong wielded by the brawny groom—and, after sufficient chastisement, sneak home to anoint your aching back, and depart, ere the sportsmen return, for your own Paddingtonian domicile.

Now, Smith, are you not convinced that it would be the height of folly to expose yourself to any such unpleasant occurrences? To be sure you are; and yet there are some dozen of men, no better situated than yourself, who would barter their ears for the chance of being made such laughingstocks for life. The innate good sense and fine feeling of the upper classes, prevents these persons from assuming so extremely false and ridiculous a position, and yet this consideration is rewarded by the most foul and malignant abuse. It is high time that these gentlemen should be brought to their senses, and be taught the real value of themselves and of their writings. Personally they are objectionable and offensive—relatively they are bores—and, in a literary point of view, they have done much more to lower than to elevate the artistic standard of the age. Their affectation of philanthropy and maudlin sentiment is too shallow to deceive any one who is possessed of the ordinary intellect of a man; and in point of wit and humour, which is their stronghold, the best of them is far inferior to Paul de Kock, whose works are nearly monopolized for perusal by the flaneurs and the grisettes of Paris.

Take my advice then, and have nothing to say to the earnest and oneness-of-purpose men. They are not only weak but wicked; and they will lead you most lamentably astray. Let us now look a little into your style, which, after all, is a matter of some importance in a serial.

On the whole, I like it. It is nervous, terse, and epigrammatic—a little too high-flown at times; but I was fully prepared for that. What I admire most, however, is your fine feeling of humanity—the instinct, as it were, and dumb life which you manage to extract from inanimate objects as well as from articulately-speaking men. Your very furniture has a kind of automatonic life; you can make an old chest of drawers wink waggishly from the corner, and a boot-jack in your hands becomes a fellow of infinite fancy. This is all very pleasant and delightful; though I think, upon the whole, you give us a little too much of it, for I cannot fancy myself quite comfortable in a room with every article of the furniture maintaining a sort of espionage upon my doings. Then as to your antiquarianism you are perfect. Your description of "the old deserted stable, with the old rusty harness hanging upon the old decayed nails, so honey-combed, as it were, by the tooth of time, that you wondered how they possibly could support the weight; while across the span of an old discoloured stirrup, a great spider had thrown his web, and now lay waiting in the middle of it, a great hairy bag of venom, for the approach of some unlucky fly, like a usurer on the watch for a spendthrift,"—that description, I say, almost brought tears to my eyes. The catalogue, also, which you give us of the decayed curry-combs all clogged with grease, the shankless besoms, the worm-eaten corn-chest, and all the other paraphernalia of the desolate stable, is as finely graphic as any thing which I ever remember to have read.

But your best scene is the opening one, in which you introduce us to the aËrial dwelling of Estrella di Canterini, in Lambeth. I do not wish to flatter you, my dear fellow; but I hold it to be a perfect piece of composition, and I cannot resist the temptation of transcribing a very few sentences:—

"It was the kitten that began it, and not the cat. It isn't no use saying it was the cat, because I was there, and I saw it and know it; and if I don't know it, how should any body else be able to tell about it, if you please? So I say again it was the kitten that began it, and the way it all happened was this.

"There was a little bit, a small tiny string of blue worsted—no! I am wrong, for when I think again the string was pink—which was hanging down from a little ball that lay on the lap of a tall dark girl with large lustrous eyes, who was looking into the fire as intently as if she expected to see a salamander in the middle of it. Huggs, the old cat, was lying at her feet, coiled up with her tail under her, enjoying, to all appearance, a comfortable snooze: but she wasn't asleep, for all the time that she was pretending to shut her eyes, she was watching the movements of a smart little kitten, just six weeks old, who was pouncing upon, and then letting go, like an imaginary mouse, a little roll of paper, which, between ourselves, bore a strong resemblance to two or three others which occupied a more elevated position, being, in fact, placed in a festoon or sort of fancy-garland round the head of the dark girl who was so steadfastly gazing into the fire. But this sort of thing didn't last long; for the kitten, after making a violent pounce, shook its head and sneezed, as if it had been pricked by a pin, which was the case, and then cried mew, as much as to say, 'You nasty thing! if I had known that you were going to hurt me, I wouldn't have played with you so long; so go away, you greasy little rag!' And then the kitten put on a look of importance, as if its feelings had been injured in the nicest points, and then walked up demurely to Huggs, and began to pat her whiskers, as if it wanted, which it probably did, to tell her all about it. But Huggs didn't get up, or open her great green eyes, but lay still upon the rug, purring gently, as though she were dreaming that she had got into a dairy, and that there was nobody to interfere at all between her and the bowls of cream. So the smart little kitten gave another pat, and a harder one than the last, which might have roused Huggs, had it not observed at that moment the little pink string of worsted. Now the end of the little pink string reached down to within a foot of the floor, so that the smart little kitten could easily reach it; so the smart little kitten wagged its tail and stood up upon its hind-paws, and caught hold of the little pink string by the end, and gave it such a pull, that the worsted ball rolled off the girl's knee and fell upon the head of Huggs, who made believe to think that it was a rat, and got up and jumped after it, and the kitten ran too, and gave another mew, as much as to say, that the worsted was its own finding out, and that Huggs shouldn't have it at all. All this wasn't done without noise; so the tall girl looked round, and seeing her worsted ball roll away, and Huggs and the kitten after it, she said in a slightly foreign accent,

"'Worrit that Huggs!'

"All this while there was sitting at the other side of the fire, a young girl, a great deal younger than the other; in fact, a little, very little child, who was sucking a dried damson in her mouth, and looked as if she would have liked to have swallowed it, but didn't do it, for fear of the stone. Now Huggs was the particular pet of the little girl, who wouldn't have her abused on any account, and she said,

"''Twor'n't Huggs, aunt Strelly, 'twore the kitten!'

" 'Eliza Puddifoot!' replied the other, in a somewhat raucous and melo-dramatic tone—'Eliza Puddifoot! I is perticklarly surprised, I is, that you comes for to offer to contradick me. I knows better what's what than you, and all I says is, that there 'ere Huggs goes packing out of the windor!'

"The child—she was a very little one—burst into a flood of tears."

Now, that is what I call fine writing, and no mistake. There is a breadth—a depth—a sort of chiaroscuro, about the picture which betrays the hand of a master, and shows how deeply you have studied in a school which has no equal in modern, and never had a parallel in former times.

Almost equal to this is your sketch of the soirÉe at Mr Grindlejerkin's, which is written with a close observance of character, and, at the same time, an ease and playfulness which cannot fail of attracting a large share of the popular regard. Your hero, Mr Spavinhitch, has distinguished himself so much by throwing a somerset through a blazing hoop, that at last he receives the honour of an invitation to the hospitalities of the Master of the Ring.

"I can tell you, that an uncommonly fine man Mr Grindlejerkin was, with a stout Roman nose, only a little warty, and black whiskers curling under his chin, and a smart little imperial that gave quite a cock to his countenance, and made him altogether look a good deal like a hero. He was dressed in bright bottle-green, was Mr Grindlejerkin—that is, in so far as regarded his coat, which was garnished with large silver buttons and a horse's head upon them: but his trousers were of a light-blue colour, a little faded or so, and creased, as if they had been sent out a good deal to the washing, and had come home without having been pressed carefully through the mangle. He had evidently been drinking, had Mr Grindlejerkin, for he leaned against the fireplace in a sort of vibratory manner, as if he were not very sure of his own equilibrium, and couldn't trust it. However, he did his best to welcome Silas, which he did with an air of patronising affability, as if he wished him to understand that he was not to be considered as letting himself down by inviting a voltigeur to his table.

"'Now, Mr Spavinhitch,' said Mr Grindlejerkin, 'glad to see you, sir, or any other rising member of the profession. May I perish of the string-halt, sir, if I do not consider you an eminent addition to the Ring! Your last vault through the hoops, sir, was extraordinary; upon my credentials, quite! It reminded me much of my late esteemed friend Goggletrumkins. Ah, what a man that was! Did you know Goggletrumkins, Mr Spavinhitch?'

"Silas modestly repudiated that honour.

"'Ah, sir, you should have known him!' replied the stately Master of the Ring. 'That was indeed a man, sir; the gem of the British arena. His Life-guardsman Shaw, sir, was one of the finest things in nature: quite statuesque, sir; it was enough to inspire a nation. You are, perhaps, not aware, sir, that he used to sit as a model for the Wellington statues?'

"'Indeed!' said Silas.

"'He did, sir,' continued Mr Grindlejerkin solemnly, 'and the boast of Astley's now lives in imperishable marble. But I forgot: you do not know my lady. Mrs Grindlejerkin, my cherub—Mr Spavinhitch, one of our most distinguished recruits.'

"Mrs Grindlejerkin was a tall lady, with black treacly hair, a good deal younger than her lord, to whom she had been only recently united. She was married off the stage, which she had ornamented since she was three years old, when she used to appear as a little fairy crawling out of paste-board tulips, and frighten, by the magic of her rod, some older imps in green, who used to shoulder their legs like muskets, and go through all sorts of strange diabolical manoeuvres. Miss Clara Tiggs, such was her virgin name, then rose to the rank of the angels, and might be seen any evening flying across the stage with little gauze winglets fastened to her back, by aid of which it is not likely that she could have flown very far, if it had not been for the cross-wires and the cord attached to her waist. But she looked very pretty, did Clara Tiggs, as she fluttered from the side-wings like an exaggerated butterfly, and rained down white paper flowers upon the heads of imploring lovers. But she soon got too heavy for that business, and having no natural genius for tragedy, and being rather too splayfooted for the ballet, and too stiff-jointed for the hippodrome, she became one of those young ladies in white, who always walk before the queens in melodramatic spectacles, and who keep in pairs, and look like the most loving and affectionate creatures in the world, because they always are holding one another's hands. And it possibly might be this appearance of sisterly devotion which induced Mr Grindlejerkin to pay his addresses to Miss Clara Tiggs; for Miss Clara Tiggs never appeared in public except linked to Miss Emily Whax, another nice young lady, who was always dressed in white, and who carried around her neck a locket, which was supposed to contain the hair of a certain officer who always took a considerable number of tickets for her benefit. Such was Mrs Grindlejerkin, who now saluted Mr Spavinhitch with a pleasant smile.

"'Clara, my own dear love,' said Mr Grindlejerkin after a pause, 'can you tell me what we are to have for supper?'

"'La! Mr Grindlejerkin,' replied the lady, 'how should I know? Sassengers and pettitoes, I suppose. It's very odd,' continued she, addressing Silas—'it's very odd, but Mr Grindlejerkin always does ask me what he is to have for supper!'

"Silas didn't think it was odd at all, for the same idea had just been floating through his mind; but as he did not think it would be right to say so, he merely smiled, whereupon Mrs Grindlejerkin, who was a good-natured body in the main, smiled too, and Mr Grindlejerkin began to smile, but checked himself, and didn't, because it might have been thought that he was letting down his dignity. So he contented himself with ringing the bell, and directed the servant-girl who answered it, rather ferociously, to bring him a tumbler of rum-and-water.

"'Ha! Bingo, my buck, how are you?' cried the Master of the Ring to the principal clown, who now entered the apartment, and who, being a personage of much consideration and importance in the theatrical circles, might be addressed with any kind of familiarity without a compromise of official reserve. 'How are ye, Bingo? Well and herty, eh? Won't you take a drop of summat?'

"'I will,' replied the clown in a melancholy voice, well corresponding to his features, which, when the paint was washed off, were haggard and malagugrious in the extreme. 'I will; but I am not well. Spasms in the heart, kidneys, merry-thought, and liver. A silent sorrow here. Age brings care. I thank you. Stop. I like it stiff.'

"'That's my rum 'un!' said Mr Grindlejerkin. 'Drown dull care in Jamaikey. But here is the Signora Estrella. Madame, you are most welcome!'

"Silas felt the blood rise to his temples. And so at last he could meet her, the lady of his heart, the bright star of his boyish existence, not in the feverish whirl of the arena, beneath the glare of gas, surrounded by clouds of sawdust and the gazing eyes of thousands, but in the calm sanctuary of private life, where, at least if he could find the courage, he might pour forth the incense of his soul, and tell her how madly, how desolatingly he had begun to love her—no, not begun, for it seemed to him as if he had loved her long before he ever saw her: as if the love of her were something implanted in his bosom before yet he knew what it was to undergo the agonies of teething; long before, like a roasting oyster, he lay in his silken cradle, and squared with tiny and ineffectual fists at the approaching phantoms of time, existence, and futurity. It seemed to him as though the doll, with which, when a very little child, he had played, had just the same dark lustrous eyes, with something bead-like and mysterious in their expression, which lent such an inexpressible fascination to the countenance of the beautiful Canterini. That doll! he had fondled it a thousand times in his baby arms: had called it his duck, his dolly, his wifikin, and numerous other terms of childish prattle and endearment: had grown jealous of it, because, when his little brother kissed it, it did not cry out or show any symptoms of anger, and so, in a mad moment of rage and remorse, he had struck the waxen features against a mantelpiece, and shivered them into innumerable fragments. What would he not have given at that moment to have recalled the doll! But it could not be. The fragments had been long, long ago swept into the dust-hole of oblivion, and though they might afterwards have been carried out and scattered over the fresh green fields, where there are trees, and cows, and little singing-birds, and flowers, they could not be—oh no, never—reunited! But the lady, the Signora! no rude hand had marred the wax of that countenance; for though very, very pale, there still lingered beneath her eyes a touch of the enchanting carmine.

"'The Signora,' said Mr Bingo. 'Fine woman. Grass though. Decidedly grass. All flesh is, you know.' And with this remark the mimic resumed his tumbler.

"The Signora turned her dark lustrous eyes upon Silas, and instantly encountered his ardent and devoted gaze. She did not shrink from it; true love never does, for it is always bold if not happy; but she grew a shade paler as she accepted that involuntary homage, and, with a graceful wave of her hand, she sunk upon a calico sofa.

"'The sassengers is dished!' said the pudding-faced servant-maid; and the whole party, now increased by the addition of Mr Jonas Fitzjunk, who did the nautical heroes, and Whang Gobretsjee Jeehohupsejee, the Brahmin conjurer, who talked English with a strong Aberdeen accent, besides one or two other notables, adjourned to the supper-room.

"'Signora, sassenger?' said Mr Grindlejerkin.

"'If you pleases; underdone and graveyless,' replied the beautiful foreigner.

"'Oh, that I were that sausage, that so I might touch those ripe and tempting lips!' thought Silas, as he reached across the Brahmin for the pickles.

"'Can the buddy no tak' a care!' cried Jeehohupsejee; 'fat's he gauen to dee wi' the wee joug?'

"'Hush, conjurer!' cried Bingo. 'Eat. Swallow. That's your sort. Life is short. Victuals become cold.'

"'Mr Grindlejerkin!' screamed the helpmate of that gentleman suddenly from the lower end of the table. 'Mr Grindlejerkin! I wish you would come here and stop Mr Fitzjunk from winking at me!'

"'Mr Fitzjunk!' thundered the Master of the Ring, 'do you know, sir, that that lady has the honour to be my wife? What do you mean by this conduct, sir? How dare you wink?'

"'Avast there, messmate!' said Fitzjunk, who always spoke as if he were in command of a Battersea steamer. 'Avast there! None of your fresh-water and loblolly-boy terms, if you please. Shiver my binnacle, if things haven't come to a pretty pass, when an old British sailor can't throw out a signal of distress to one of the prettiest craft that ever showed her sky-scrapers where Neptune's billows roll!'

"'Oh, Mr Fitzjunk! but you did wink at me!' said Mrs Grindlejerkin, considerably mollified by the compliment.

"'I knows I did,' replied the representative of the British navy. 'The more by token, as how I ha'n't got nothing here to stow away into my locker; so I shut up one deadlight twice, and burned a blue fire for a cargo of pettitoes to heave to.'

"'Was that all, sir?' said Mr Grindlejerkin, still rather sternly.

"'Ay, ay, sir!' replied the tar.

"'Then I shall be happy to drown all unkindness in a pot of porter, sir.'

"'Good!' said Mr Bingo, 'Right. Harmony preserved. Glad to join you. Cup of existence. Gall at bottom.'

"'I beg your pardink, sir,' said the Signora looking full at Silas, who was seated exactly opposite—'I beg your pardink, sir, but vos you pleased to vish anythink?'

"'No, lady!' replied Silas blushing scarlet. 'No, lady, not I—That is—'

"'O, very vell!' observed the Signora; 'it don't much sicknify; only I thought you might vant somethink, 'cos you vos a treadin' on my toes!'"

I shall not, my dear Smith, pursue this delightful scene any further. It is enough to substantiate your claim—and I am sure the public will coincide with me in this opinion—to a very high place amongst the domestic and sentimental writers of the age. You have, and I think most wisely, undertaken to frame a new code of grammar and of construction for yourself; and the light and airy effect of this happy innovation is conspicuous not only in every page, but in almost every sentence of your work. There is no slipslop here—only a fine, manly disregard of syntax, which is infinitely attractive; and I cannot doubt that you are destined to become the founder of a far higher and more enduring school of composition, than that which was approved of and employed by the fathers of our English literature.

You work will be translated, Smith, into French and German, and other European languages. I am sincerely glad of it. It is supposed abroad that a popular author must depict both broadly and minutely the manners of his particular nation—that his sketches of character have reference not only to individuals, but to the idiosyncrasy of the country in which he dwells. Your works, therefore, will be received in the saloons of Paris and Vienna—it may be of St Petersburg—as conveying accurate pictures of our everyday English life; and I need hardly remark how much that impression must tend to elevate our national character in the eyes of an intelligent foreigner. Labouring under old and absurd prejudices, he perhaps at present believes that we are a sober, unmercurial people, given to domestic habits, to the accumulation of wealth, and to our own internal improvements. It is reserved for you, Smith, to couch his visionary eye. You will convince him that a great part of our existence is spent about the doors of theatres, in tap-rooms, pot-houses, and other haunts, which I need not stay to particularize. You will prove to him that the British constitution rests upon no sure foundation, and that it is based upon injustice and tyranny. Above all, he will learn from you the true tone which pervades society, and the altered style of conversation and morals which is universally current among us. In minor things, he will discover, what few authors have taken pains to show, the excessive fondness of our nation for a pure Saxon nomenclature. He will learn that such names as Seymour, and Howard, and Percy—nay, even our old familiars, Jones and Robinson—are altogether proscribed among us, and that a new race has sprung up in their stead, rejoicing in the euphonious appellations of Tox and Wox, Whibble, Toozle, Whopper, Sniggleshaw, Guzzlerit, Gingerthorpe, Mugswitch, Smungle, Yelkins, Fizgig, Parksnap, Grubsby, Shoutowker, Hogswash, and Quiltirogus. He will also learn that our magistrates, unlike the starched official dignitaries of France, are not ashamed to partake, in the public streets, of tripe with a common workman—and a hundred other little particulars, which throw a vast light into the chinks and crevices of our social system.

I therefore, Smith, have the highest satisfaction in greeting you, not only as an accomplished author, but as a great national benefactor. Go on, my dear fellow, steadfastly and cheerfully, as you have begun. The glories of our country were all very well in their way, but the subject is a hackneyed one, and it is scarcely worth while to revive it. Be it yours to chronicle the weaknesses and peculiarities of that society which you frequent—no man can do it better. Draw on for ever with the same felicitous pencil. Do not fear to repeat yourself over and over again; to indulge in the same style of one-sided caricature; and to harp upon the same string of pathos so long as it will vibrate pleasantly to the public ear. What we want, after all, is sale, and I am sure that you will not be disappointed. Use these hints as freely as you please, in the composition of that part of Silas Spavinhitch which is not yet completed; and be assured that I have offered them not in an arrogant spirit, but, as some of our friends would say, with an earnest tendency and a serious oneness of purpose. Good-by, my dear Smith! It is a positive pain to me to break off this letter, but I must conclude. Adieu! and pray, for all our sakes and your own, take care of yourself.