FROM 1790

solemnity of the hour, is not in a state of such lofty resolution as those who, by joining hearts, are laying their joint hands on the whole wide realm of futurity for their own. The statesman who, in the moment of success, feels that an entire class of social sins and woes is annihilated by his hand, is not conscious of so holy and so intimate a thankfulness as they who are aware that their redemption is come in the presence of a new and sovereign affection. And these are many-they are in all corners of every land. The statesman is the leader of a nation, the warrior is the grace of an age, the philosopher is the birth of a thousand years; but the lover, where is he not? Wherever parents look round upon their children, there he has been-wherever children are at play together, there he will soon be-wherever there are roofs under which men dwell, wherever there is an atmosphere vibrating with human voices, there is the lover, and there is his lofty worship going on, unspeakable, but revealed in the brightness of the eye, the majesty of the presence, and the high temper of

the discourse.

THOMAS MILLER.

Mr

The MILLER is one of the humble, happy, He was industrious self-taught sons of genius. brought up to the trade of a basketmaker, and while thus obscurely labouring to consort with the muse and support a family,' he attracted attention, first by his poetical effusions, and subsequently by a series of prose narratives and fictions remarkable for the freshness of their descriptions of rural life and English scenery. Through the kindness of Mr situation of a bookseller, and has had the gratifica. Rogers, our author was placed in the more congenial tion of publishing and selling his own works. Miller's first prose composition was, we believe, 4 Day in the Woods, which was followed (1839) by Rural Sketches, both being somewhat in the style of Bloomfield's poetry-simple, picturesque, and cheerful in tone and spirit. His first novel was Royston Gower, 1838, which experienced such a reception as to induce the author to continue novel-writing. His second attempt was hazardous, from the associations it awakened, and the difficulty of painting historical characters of a distant age; it was entitled Fair Rosamond, or the Days of King Henry II.

There was an evident improvement in the author's style, but the work, as a whole, was unsatisfactory and tedious. In 1840 he plunged again into a remote era of English history, requiring minute knowledge and practised skill to delineate with effect: his Lady Jane Grey, a Historical Romance, is defective in plot, but contains some interesting scenes and chaThere is,' says one of Miller's critics, a picturesqueness in the arrangement and colouring of his scenes-an occasional glimpse, now of pathos, now of humour, quaint and popular, but never vulgar-an ease in the use and combination of such few historical materials as suffice for his purpose, which

racters.

put to shame the efforts of many who have been

crammed in schools and lectured in colleges-and af

ford another evidence that creative power is like the the mansion, the basketmaker's shop and the literary air and the sunshine-visiting alike the cottage and gentleman's sanctum.' Miller's next appearance, in 1841, evinced still more decided improvement: Gideon Giles, the Roper, is a tale of English life, generally of humble characters, but rendered inte. resting by truthful and vigorous delineation. 1842 Mr Miller came forward with another novelGodfrey Malverin, or the Life of an Author, detailing the adventures and vicissitudes of a country youth who repairs to London in quest of literary fame and

In

The Happy Valley.

It was a valley filled with sweetest sounds,
A languid music haunted everywhere,
Like those with which a summer ere abounds,
From rustling corn and song-birds calling clear,
Down sloping-uplands, which some wood surrounds,
With tinkling rills just heard, but not too near;
Or lowing cattle on the distant plain,
And swing of far-off bells, now caught, then lost again.
It seemed like Eden's angel-peopled vale,

So bright the sky, so soft the streams did flow;
Such tones came riding on the musk-winged gale,
The very air seemed sleepily to blow,
And choicest flowers enameled every dale,
Flushed with the richest sunlight's rosy glow;
It was a valley drowsy with delight,
Such fragranc

se floated round, such beauty dimmed the

sight.
The golden-belted bees and waved along;
The trees slept in the steepin ader-song,
The tall silk grasses ben sunbeam's glare,

And took its own free course witingsters throng,
The dreamy river chimed its a care:
Until the valley throbbed beneath the
Amid the boughs did lute-tongued
And echo echo chased through many
And shapes were there, like spirits of

Sent down to see the summer-beauties; And feed their fragrant mouths with s Their eyes peeped out from many a brs; And their fair forins made light the t

The very flowers seemed eager to card, Such living sisters, and the boughs, l Clustered to catch the sighs their pear

heaved.

One through her long loose hair was b and peeping,
Another high a pile of flowers was he
Or throwing, with raised arm, the l

Her coy glance on the bedded-greens
Or looking love askance, and when

Then blushed like timid daybreak we dam
She pulled the flowers to pieces as
sighed,
Looks crimson on the night, and the

Half

Her

drawn.

g

gain's with

Or

With wild-wood songs the lazy hobeag looking at her shadow in the broc

laughing eyes mocked every seri Trying to frown, then at the effort

Her

She threw in flowers, and watched the 'Twas as if Love stood at himself ro Then at her beauty looked, then sang

-the not alle francing white, like streams in sunny

3.

e such forms as, imaged in the night,

n our dreams across the heaven's steep blue; Man, the closed lid sees visions streaming bright, do beautiful to meet the naked view;

e faces formed in clouds of silver light. Women they were! such as the angels knewch as the mammoth looked on, ere he fled, cared by the lovers' wings, that streamed in sunset

e with -tongueu eneath the

red.

MR J. L. PEACOCK.

his gentleman has written some lively, natural, h many i humorous novels-Headlong Hall, 1816; Nightpirits of re Abbey, 1818; Maid Marian, 1822; and Crotchet er-beautitle, 1831. These were republished in 1837 in one s with sume of Bentley's Standard Library, and no single many alume of fiction of modern production contains at the tore witty or sarcastic dialogue, or more admirable er to caetches of eccentric and ludicrous characters. ghs, Iramatis persona are finely arranged and diversified, peaand are full of life, argument, and observation. From the higher mood' of the author we extract one short sketch- -a graphic account, in the tale of 'Maid Marian,' of freebooter life in the forest. het I am in fine company,' said the baron.

as be

he l

hen

enst

as

His

"In the very best of company,' said the friar; in the high court of Nature, and in the midst of her own nobility. Is it not so? This goodly grove is our w palace; the oak and the beech are its colonnade and th its canopy; the sun, and the moon, and the stars, are its everlasting lamps; the grass, and the daisy, and the primrose, and the violet, are its many-coloured floor of green, white, yellow, and blue; the Mayflower, and the woodbine, and the eglantine, and the ivy, are its decorations, its curtains, and its tapestry; the lark, and the thrush, and the linnet, and the nightingale, are its unhired minstrels and musicians. Robin Hood is king of the forest both by dignity of birth and by virtue of his standing army, to say nothing of the free choice of his people, which he has indeed; but I pass it by as an illegitimate basis of power. He holds his dominion over the forest, and its horned multitude of citizen-deer, and its swinish multitude or peasantry of wild boars, by right of conquest and force of arms. He levies contributions among them by the free consent of his archers, their virtual representatives. If

HORACE SMITH.

they should find a voice to complain that we are

tyrants and usurpers, to kill and cook them up in their assigned and native dwelling-place," we should most convincingly admonish them, with point of arrow, that they have nothing to do with our laws but to obey them. Is it not written that the fat ribs of the herd shall be fed upon by the mighty in the land? And have not they, withal, my blessing?-my orthodox, canonical, and archiepiscopal blessing? Do I not give thanks for them when they are well roasted and smoking under my nose? What title had William of Normandy to England that Robin of Locksley has not to merry Sherwood? William fought for his claim. So does Robin. With whom both? With any that would or will dispute it. William raised contributions. So does Robin. From whom both? From all that they could or can make pay them. Why did any pay them to William? Why do any pay them to Robin? For the same reason to bothbecause they could not or cannot help it. They differ, indeed, in this, that William took from the poor and gave to the rich, and Robin takes from the rich and gives to the poor; and therein is Robin illegitimate, though in all else he is true prince. Scarlet and John, are they not peers of the forest?-lords temporal of Sherwood? And am not I lord spiritual? Am I not archbishop? Am I not Pope? Do I not consecrate their banner and absolve their sins? Are not they State, and am not I Church? Are not they State monarchical, and am not I Church militant? Do I not excommunicate our enemies from venison and brawn, and, by'r Lady! when need calls, beat them down under my feet? The State levies tax, and the Church levies tithe. Even so do we. Mass! -we take all at once. What then? It is tax by redemption, and tithe by commutation. Your William and Richard can cut and come again, but our Robin deals with slippery subjects that come not twice to his exchequer. What need we, then, to constitute a court, except a fool and a laureate? For the fool, his only use is to make false knaves merry by art, and we are true men, and are merry by nature. For the laureate, his only office is to find virtues in those who have none, and to drink sack for his pains. We have quite virtue enough to need him not, and can drink our sack for ourselves.'

HORACE SMITH.

MR HORACE SMITH, one of the accomplished authors of the Rejected Addresses, was one of the first imitators of Sir Walter Scott in his historical romances. His Brambletye House, a tale of the civil wars, published in 1826, was received with distinguished favour by the public, though some of its descriptions of the plague in London were copied too literally from Defoe, and there was a want of spirit and truth in the embodiment of some of the historical characters. The success of this effort inspired the author to venture into various fields of fiction. He has sub

sequently written Tor Hill; Zillah, a Tale of the Holy City; The Midsummer Medley; Walter Colyton; The Involuntary Prophet; Jane Lomax; The Moneyed Man; Adam Brown; The Merchant, &c. "The Moneyed Man' is the most natural and able of Mr Smith's novels, and contains some fine pictures of London city life. The author himself is fortunately a moneyed man. Mr Shelley said once, "I know not what Horace Smith must take me for sometimes: I am afraid he must think me a strange fellow; but is it not odd, that the only truly generous person I ever knew, who had money to be generous with, should be a stockbroker! And he writes poetry too," continued Mr Shelley, his voice rising in a fervour of astonishment-"he writes poetry and pastoral dramas, and yet knows how to

if, instead of employing an amanuensis, to whom he dictates his thick-coming fancies,' he had concentrated his whole powers on a few congenial subjects or periods of history, and resorted to the manual labour of penmanship as a drag-chain on the machine, he might have attained to the highest honours of this department of composition. As it is, he has furnished many light, agreeable, and picturesque books-none of questionable tendency and all superior to the general run of novels of the season. Mr James's first appearance as an author was made, we believe, in 1822, when he published a History of the Life of Edward the Black Prince. In 1829 he struck into that path in which he has been so indefatigable, and produced his historical romance of Richelieu, a very attractive fiction. In 1830 he issued two romances, Darnley, or the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and De L'Orme. Next year he produced Philip Augustus; in 1832 a History of Charlemagne, and a tale, Henry Masterton; in 1833 Mary of Burgundy, or the Revolt of Ghent; in 1834 The Life and Adventures of John Marston Hall; in 1835 One in a Thousand, or the Days of Henri Quatre, and The Gipsy, a Tale; in 1837 Attila, a romance, and The Life and Times of Louis XIV.; in 1838 The Huguenot, a Tale of the French Protestants, and The Robber; in 1839 Henry of Guise, and A Gentleman of the Old School; in 1840 The King's Highway, and The Man at Arms; in 1841 Corse de Leon, Jacquerie, or the Lady and Page: The Ancient Régime, and A History of the Life of Richard Cœur de Lion; in 1842 Morley Ernstein;

*Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries, by Leigh Hunt.

in 1843 Forest Days, Eva St Clair, The False Heir, and Arabella Stuart. We have in this catalogue some seventy or eighty volumes. "There seems, says a lively writer, 'to be no limit to his ingenuity, his faculty of getting up scenes and incidents, dilemmas, artifices, contretemps, battles, skirmishes, disguises, escapes, trials, combats, adventures. He accumulates names, dresses, implements of war and peace, official retinues, and the whole paraphernalia of customs and costumes, with astounding alacrity. He appears to have exhausted every imaginable situation, and to have described every available article of attire on record. What he must have passed through-what triumphs he must have enjoyed-what exigencies he must have experiencedwhat love he must have suffered-what a grand wardrobe his brain must be! He has made some poetical and dramatic efforts, but this irresistible tendency to pile up circumstantial particulars is fatal to those forms of art which demand intensity of passion. In stately narratives of chivalry and feudal grandeur, precision and reiteration are desirable rather than injurious-as we would have the Imost perfect accuracy and finish in a picture of ceremonials; and here Mr James is supreme. One of his court romances is a book of brave sights and heraldic magnificence-it is the next thing to moving at our leisure through some superb and august procession.'

REV. G. R. GLEIG.

The REV. G. R. GLEIG, chaplain of Chelsea Hospital, in the early part of his life served in the army, and in 1825 he published his military reminiscences in an interesting narrative entitled The Subaltern. In 1829 he issued a work also partly fictitious, The Chelsea Pensioners, which was followed next year by The Country Curate; in 1837 by The Hussar, and Traditions of Chelsea Hospital; and in 1843 by The Light Dragoon. Besides many anonymous and other productions, Mr Gleig is author of Memoirs of Warren Hastings, a work which certainly has not added to his reputation.

W. H. MAXWELL-C. LEVER-S. LOVER.

Various military narratives, in which imaginary scenes and characters are mixed up with real events and graphic descriptions of continental scenery, have been published in consequence of the success of the Subaltern. Amongst the writers of this class is MR W. H. MAXWELL, author of Stories of Waterloo, 1829; Wild Sports of the West; Adventures of Captain Blake; The Bivouac, or Stories of the Peninsular War; The Fortunes of Hector O'Halloran, &c. MR C. LEVER is still more popular; for, in addition to his battle scenes and romantic exploits, he has a rich racy national humour, and a truly Irish love of frolic. His first work was The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, which was followed by Charles O'Malley, the Irish Dragoon; Jack Hinton, the Guardsman; Tom Burke of Ours; and Arthur O'Leary, his Wanderings and Ponderings in many Lands. Mr Lever's heroes have all a strong love of adventure, a national proneness to blundering, and a tendency to get into scrapes and questionable situations. The author's chief fault is his often mistaking farce for comedy-mere animal spirits for wit or humour. MR SAMUEL LOVER, author of Legends and Stories of Ireland, Rory O'More, Handy Andy, L. S. D. &c. is also a genuine Irish writer, a strong lover of his country, and, like Moore, a poet and musician, as well as novelist. The scenes of war, rebellion, and adventure in Mr Lover's tales are related with much spirit.

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. JAMES FENIMORE COOPER, the American novelist, has obtained great celebrity in England, and over all Europe, for his pictures of the sea, sea-life, and wild Indian scenery and manners. His imagination

James Fenimore Cooper.

is essentially poetical. He invests the ship with all the interest of a living being, and makes his readers follow its progress, and trace the operations of those on board, with intense and never-flagging anxiety. Of humour he has scarcely any perception; and in delineating character and familiar incidents, he often betrays a great want of taste and knowledge of the world. When he attempts to catch the ease of fashion,' it has been truly said, he is singularly unsuccessful.' He belongs, like Mrs Radcliffe, to the romantic school of novelists-especially to the sea, the heath, and the primeval forest. Mr Cooper, according to a notice of him some years since in the New Monthly Magazine, was born at Burlington on the Delaware, in 1798, and was removed at an early age to Cooper's Town, a place of which he has given an interesting account in The Pioneers. At thirteen he was admitted to Yale college, New Haven, and three years afterwards he went to sea-an event that gave a character and colour to his after-life, and produced impressions of which the world has reaped the rich result. On his marriage to a lady in the state of New York, he quitted the navy, and devoted himself to composition. His first work was published in 1821, and since that period he must have written above seventy volumes. Among them are The Pilot; The Pioneers; The Spy; The Prairie; The Last of the Mohicans; The Red Rover; The Borderers; The Bravo; The Deer Slayer; Eve Effingham; The Headsman; Heidenmauer; Homeward Bound; Jack o' Lantern; Mercedes of Castile; The Pathfinder; The Two Admirals; The Water Witch; Wyandotte; Ned Myers, or Life before the Mast, &c. Besides his numerous works of fiction, Mr Cooper has written Excursions in Italy, 1838; a History of the American Navy, 1839, &c. In these he does not appear to advantage. He seems to cherish some of the worst prejudices of the Americans, and, in his zeal for republican institutions, to forget the candour and temper becoming an enlightened citizen of the world.

HALIBURTON.

MR HALIBURTON, a judge in Nova Scotia, is the reputed author of a series of highly-amusing works illustrative of American and Canadian manners, abounding in shrewd sarcastic remarks on political questions, the colonies, slavery, domestic institutions and customs, and almost every familiar topic of the day. The first of these appeared in 1837, under the title of The Clockmaker, or the Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick of Slickville. A second series was published in the following year, and a third in 1840. Sam Slick' was a universal favourite; and in 1843 the author conceived the idea of bringing him to England. The Attaché, or Sam Slick in England, gives an account of the sayings and doings of the clockmaker when elevated to the dignity of the 'Honourable Mr Slick, Attaché of the American Legation to the court of St James's.' There is the same quaint humour, acute observation, and laughable exaggeration in these volumes as in the former, but, on the whole, Sam is most amusing on the other side of the Atlantic.

W. HARRISON AINSWORTH.

Mr W. HARRISON AINSWORTH has written several picturesque romances, partly founded on English history and manners. His Rookwood, 1834, is a very animated narrative, in which the adventures of Turpin the highwayman are graphically related, and some of the vulgar superstitions of the last century coloured with the lights of genius. In the interest and rapidity of his scenes and adventures, Mr Ainsworth evinced a dramatic power and art, but no originality or felicity of humour or character. His second romance, Crichton, 1836, is founded on the marvellous history of the Scottish cavalier, but is scarcely equal to the first. He has since written Jack Sheppard, a sort of Newgate romance, The Windsor Castle. There are rich, copious, and brilTower of London, Guy Fawkes, Old St Pauls, and liant descriptions in some of these works, but their tendency is at least doubtful. To portray scenes of low successful villany, and to paint ghastly and hideous details of human suffering, can be no elevating task for a man of genius, nor one likely to promote among novel readers a healthy tone of moral feeling or sentiment.

SAMUEL WARREN MRS BRAY-ALBERT SMITH

HON. C. A. MURRAY.

In vivid painting of the passions, and depicting scenes of modern life, the tales of Mr SAMUEL WARREN, F.R.S. have enjoyed a high and deserved degree of popularity. His Passages from the Diary of a Late Physician, two volumes, 1837, contain many touching and beautiful stories; and his Ten Thousand a Year, though in some parts ridiculously exaggerated, and too liable to the suspicion of being a satire upon the middle classes, is also an amusing and able novel. MRS BRAY, a Devonshire lady, and authoress of an excellent tour among the mountains and lakes of Switzerland, has written a number of historical and other novels-De Foix, or Sketches of Manners and Customs of the Fourteenth Century, 1826; Henry de Pomercy; The Protestant, a Tale of the Reign of Queen Mary; Talba, or the Moor of Portugal; Trelawney of Trelawney, &c. An English novel, Caleb Stukeley, published anonymously in 1842, is a vigorous and interesting work, though in some parts coarse and vehement in style. The Adventures of Mr Ledbury, by ALBERT SMITH, and The Prairie Bird, by the HONOURABLE C. A. MURRAY, may be mentioned as