like the soldiers of Vespasian, who were indebted for the victory in a night engagement with the Vitellians to the long shadows which the rising moon threw before them. It has been a common policy with powerful nations, when entertaining designs on the liberty of a neighbour, to pretend that the weaker state stands in need of their assistance, and then to exact subserviency as the price of protection. This has been too much the course pursued by the philosophy of the schools towards the religion of the Scriptures. Sound philosophy and sound theology are one, and the best means of protecting Christianity against the mischiefs of a false philosophy is to demonstrate its just relation to the true.

ART. IX. Of Fiction. Vols. I. & II. Smith's Standard Library.

THE love of fictitious narrative has its principle in human nature. The child listens with breathless interest to stories told by his nurse; the schoolboy amuses himself in hearing or relating tales of wonder or terror; the youth devours narratives of love and adventure; and even the old man has by no means lost all his interest in the memory of such things. This attachment to fiction arises partly from the active nature of the imagination, which is always attracted by the wild and wonderful: and thus we are disposed to look on feigned scenes rather than real ones, as generally presenting something more to interest and excite than is found in the ordinary course of events. All this is only analogous to the operations of our minds in solitude. The scenes which memory recalls are not accurate pictures of the past, but that loose and general resemblance to it which we see in fiction. Our views of the future are not of the future that will be, but enchanting visions brighter than reality, and such as will never happen. The present, which is a mere point, occupies only a small portion of our thought. We live in the past and the future, in ideal worlds of our own creation. The substance of our thoughts is fiction. The schoolboy's hopes, the lover's paradise, the poet's visions, the merchant's gains, the monarch's ambition, all are fictions. We are such stuff as dreams are made of.'

As in these day-dreams we are the heroes of our own romance, it will not be difficult to account for the interest which we feel in the vagaries of our fancy. But we also hear or read of imaginary adventures, in which we ourselves have borne no part, with scarcely a less degree of interest; and we account for this

on the principle of Terence-as men, we sympathize with everything that is human. Present to us the natural and lively picture of a human being in prosperity or distress; show us the working of his passions, or place before us the rapid and fearful changes of his life, and we cannot be uninterested, for we have feelings within us which echo every one of his, and we make his adventures our own. It matters not whether the subject of the fable be a king or a slave-whether the adventures be those of the field and the flood, or the common events of domestic life; only let them be faithfully depicted, and we sympathize. Our interest is in man, independent of adventitious circumstances. It is not, then, a matter of wonder that all nations have their story-tellers. In ancient times, and in most countries, the effect of the fable was heightened by the aids of poetry and music, which increased its power to enchant the hearer. But simple fiction also has charms for the rudest minds, and the caravans of the East alleviate the fatigues of their journey by this means. Seated beneath the palm-trees, and around the well of the Desert, they forget the burning sands, and are transported in fancy to fertile fields and inhabited cities. It was not unnatural in Chaucer to make his pilgrims to Canterbury lighten the tedium of their long journey from London, or in Boccacio, to represent the ladies and gentlemen in Florence as dissipating their fears in the time of the plague, by reciting imaginary adventures. The chief unnatural thing in these cases is, that so many persons should be gathered together capable of furnishing such fictions.

The character of story-telling varies in different ages and nations. In the East it is gorgeous in description, agreeing with the pomp and magnificence of Oriental architecture, and the ostentatious profusion of Asiatic wealth, accompanied by wild legends of genii and magicians, with their charms, and talismans, and incantations, the perfect model of which is to be found in the Arabian Nights' Entertainments.' Among the European nations something of the same kind was prevalent a few ages since, derived probably from the Saracens in Spain, the absurdities of which have been immortalized in the story of the renowned Don Quixote. During the ages of chivalry, the hero of romance was a gallant knight devoted to his lady love, always ready to splinter a lance in honour of her beauty, and who everywhere performed prodigies of valour. In our own times, fiction usually describes scenes, and characters, and manners, with which we are familiar. Thus each age, as well as every country, has its own peculiar fashion in this department of letters. This is strictly natural. As the manners and customs of remote ages take less hold on our sympathies, a high degree of genius

and consummate judgment are necessary to render them powerfully interesting.

In the great field of literature, fiction is a department by itself, and not the least important, when we consider its attractiveness and its influence. Modern works of fiction are of two classes, the romance and the novel, besides, perhaps, a variety of nondescript tales which belong to neither division. The modern romance, unlike the ancient, is not filled with adventures bordering on the supernatural, but it is still somewhat removed from the ordinary course of human affairs. In its very essence it implies something of extraordinary adventure, and presents incidents which are possible, and sufficiently natural to be probable, but not common. These are generally connected with historical events, many of which are so startling as to exceed the wildest flights of imagination. The novel deals with common scenes, and professes to depict man in his every-day actions. To make this portraiture of familiar scenes interesting, however, there must not be wanting of those changes of circumstances, and those influences of human passions, which, however constant in their operation, are sufficiently powerful to excite the attention, and sometimes sufficiently wonderful to absorb and entrance the mind. And, as in the commonest scenes of life the passions are as much at work as they are in the region of romance; as love, jealousy, hatred, and revenge, may be found in every town and village; as every variety of excellence, and every shade of villany, may be met with under all the modifications of human society; it is evident that the novel, though dealing only with that which is common, may equal the romance in interest.

The rapid multiplication of such works renders attention to them on our part imperative. There are myriads of minds around us on which no other productions of the press exert so great an influence. It is not a little of the welfare of general society that depends on the character of such publications; and though we do not share in all the alarm of some persons on this subject, we can respect their fears, and unite with them in deploring the consequences sometimes attendant on such reading. We would not, however, follow the example of those well-meaning people who condemn all works of fiction without having read one of them; nor would we, on the other hand, undertake to appear as the indiscriminate apologists or advocates of such literature. There is no need, as Dr. Adam Clarke is said to have done, to commend the Waverley novels from the pulpit. There is always a sufficiently strong disposition, especially in the young, towards this kind of reading. Few things can be more lamentable than the condition of the mind which looks to such

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confectionary articles as to its chief food. Even supposing the lesson conveyed to be good, the medium, in this case, through which it is presented, is adapted for the most part to the weaker, and not to the stronger faculties of our nature. There are sluggish minds to which a little well-assorted reading of this nature may be highly useful; but the quick, the imaginative, the sensitive, should be warned off from it, just in proportion as they are seen to be capable of living in it, and of living to nothing higher. Every one knows that such works are read by all classes, and by not a few in every religious connexion; and as this is a direction of the public taste which cannot be prevented, it devolves on the public moralist to abate the evils and to augment the good of the state of things which he finds to be unavoidable. This may be best done by distinguishing between the wholesome and the unwholesome in works of this description, and by treating the subject with enlightened candour. Indiscriminate fulminations may confirm the habit of novel-reading where it has become vicious, but can never suffice to correct it. Milton, giving an account of his early studies, says, 'Others were the smooth Elegiac poets, whereof the schools are not scarce. Whom both for the pleasing sound of their numerous writings, which in 'imitation I found most easy, and most agreeable to Nature's part in me, and for their matter, what it is, there be few who

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'know not, I was so allured to read that no recreation came to me better welcome. Next (for hear me out now, readers) that I may tell ye whether my younger feet wandered, I betook me among those lofty fables and romances, which recount in solemn cantos the deeds of knighthood founded by our victorious kings, ' and from hence had in renown over all Christendom.**

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In order to assist the judgment of the inexperienced, we will take a rapid survey of the novels and romances of modern times, and endeavour to determine the character and influence by which they have been respectively distinguished. This must be done, however, not by an examination of individual works, for which we have not space, but by viewing them in classes.

The first division to which we think it necessary to pay any attention, will include most of the works of prose fiction published in the eighteenth century, and these we shall denominate the novels of the old school.

The great names of this period are Fielding, Smollett, and Richardson, who, as is usual with original and successful authors, had a multitude of imitators, most of them immeasurably in

* Apology against a pamphlet called a Modest Confutation of the Animadversions upon the Remonstrant against Smectymnuus.

ferior; while some, as Holcroft, Cumberland, and others, made a near approach to the excellence of their models. The literary merits of Fielding are of the highest order. His Tom Jones is so faultless in its plot, and in the truthfulness of its characters, that it has been deemed a perfect prose epic. Smollett has excellencies almost equal to those of Fielding; but instead of the wit of the author of Tom Jones, he substitutes a low and coarse humour, while his portraits are caricatures. But, amidst a great diversity of style, one characteristic belongs to all the novels of this period-a grossness of description which would not be tolerated in our day. There is the same absence of delicacy which we find in the drama of those times. If the stage and the novel may be regarded as a fair representation of the manners and morals of their age, we cannot judge very favourably of the virtue of our ancestors, while we find reason to congratulate the present generation on the change for the better which has taken place. And, making due allowance for the influence of custom in modes of speech, and charitably admitting that there may be certain freedoms of this kind which do not reach to the total corruption of the heart, we cannot help thinking that the ladies who were accustomed to read without a blush the gross passages which occur in our old plays must have lost most of that delicacy which is one of the greatest charms of woman. And still further, if the speeches which in our old comedies are put into the mouths of the female characters give any correct idea of the conversation general among the women of the time, we must entertain a low opinion of their virtue. Yet some of these plays, full of offences against decency, were dedicated to ladies of rank. In the present day, nothing would be deemed a more unpardonable affront. The novels of the old school bore the same general character, perhaps not quite equalling in grossness the dramatic compositions of Wycherley, Congreve, and Farquhar, but sufficiently impure to offend all delicate minds.

The indecencies in the works of Fielding and Smollett were not of that superficial kind which belongs merely to fashion and external manners: they were crimes against virtue itself. The course of Tom Jones is one of unbridled profligacy. He revels in the most abominable vices. These are described with great minuteness of detail, and the actions for which the scoundrel hero should have been banished from all respectable society are treated as harmless peccadilloes, or as the natural scrapes of a young man of spirit. And, in the works of this age, not only is the hero accomplished in vice; but another character, such as Master Blifil, is generally introduced as his foil, whose mouth is filled with wise saws and moral sentiments, and he is the hypocrite and