"I am not a friend of the convict's. I will be plain with you, I am not accustomed to the thing few men are; but I will make no mistake, and will go through with it if I have life. Permit me to depart, accepting the offer of my services; and no earthly objectnothing but sickness or death shall prevent my returning at day-break."

He was accordingly suffered to go, and the jailer returned to his luke-warm bed to lie awake considering whether he had been tricked and deceived by some friend of the convict's. He determined that if any person of acknowledged abilities or qualifications in his line of business should make his appearance, at once to secure his services, without reference in any way to what had taken

THE work-day world toils on in its accustomed course. There is buying and selling, faint-hearted love and mercenary marriage. The world frets, and struggles, and schemes, and toils. The sublimity of life is dashed by bathos, and its poetry marred by prose. Our fleets are on the deep, our armies are on their march. In hundreds of homes throughout the empire, there are hearts beating anxiously, and eyes which tears have dimmed; and yet the world wags on, and the butterfly floats in the summer air-young beauty flutters tremulously with the expectation of approaching triumph, for the season is at its height. Meanwhile, from Gallipoli, the correspondent of the Times thunders forth bitter complaints of indifferent rations. The stocks rise and fall; Odessa is cannonaded; Osten-Sacken discovered to be an intolerable liar; and the Guards are airing their bear-skin caps in Turkey. What careth the novelist? So long as a sufficient audience remains, he quietly pursues his peaceful calling, undismayed by the crash of arms, or the cloud which looms so darkly in the uncertain future

"Si fractus illabitur orbis,
Impavidum ferient ruins."

Well, and why should we not? People must be amused, notwithstanding

the misconduct of the Emperor of all the Russias. But there can be little doubt that, at this particular season, the caterers for their entertainment are less numerous than heretofore; and so much the better, for the incessant reite. ration of old ideas, and of topics which a long use had rendered familiar, was become a serious evil. The manufacture for the use of the libraries is far less flourishing. Whether it be that the public taste is improving, the bookseller grown cautious, or the advent of the war has had its effect, we shall not stay to determine; but certain it is that, in this year, the labour of the reviewer is one of comparatively easy performance.

It was the fashion, some years ago, to inculcate certain truths under the guise of fiction. We were taught domestic economy, the principles of taxation and government, by Miss Martineau, and fashion by Mrs. Gore, while the late Chancellor of the Exchequer demolished a political opponent, holding him up to the contempt and scorn of all future ages. Nor was the use of fiction confined to the discussion of secular affairs; it invaded the regions of theology. Grave topics, upon which the most eminent and learned divines agreed to differ, were handled in a sprightly manner by the novel writers of the day. The

Jesuit was unmasked, and displayed in all the frightful deformity of his nature, an object to be avoided by the fathers of families, and the instructors of ingenuous youth. There was no safety anywhere; the whole fairy realm of fiction was hollow with mines of allegory; a masked-battery lurked behind a Gothic ruin; and the most flowery path over which you could tread, led you to some labyrinth connected with a disputed point of divinity or political science, in which you were left to flounder hopelessly without a clue.

To works of this description we entertained (and we have never hesitated to express it) a very decided objection. Stories, which have for their professed aim and object the inculcation of what is called a moral lesson, are simply a bore-a literary nuisance, to be abated. The recurrence of an indisputable truth at certain pauses of the narrative, the sedulous enforcement of it by every situation and incident, are anomalies never to be met with in real life, and, therefore, out of place in fiction. Not that we would be understood to object to the inculcation of such truths in their proper place; they should, however, wear an air of vraisemblance, and be, like the moral lessons of life, manifold and complex hinted at, but not forced on the attention; left to be gathered by the reader, rather than forced on his notice at every page.

The author of the novel now before us* has contrived to hit the proper point. While not professedly didactic, his story contains elements of instruction, and, apart from the very startling revelations it makes, connected with literature as a profession, enforces, less directly than by inference, truths which are inculcated through the medium of a tale, the incidents of which cannot fail to arrest the attention of every reader.

The fortunes of the chief actor, Ernest Glynn, place him in a variety of situations, only to be surmounted by patient labour and resolute self-control. Thrown upon the world at an early age, without any other means of support than his own energies and talents, he fights his way through difficulties which would have crushed any inferior spirit,

cess.

and wins at last the guerdon of sucSo far as the plot of the story is concerned, it consists simply of the vicissitudes of an eventful life-the incidents being less the result of any action on the part of the hero, than of the conduct of those with whom he is brought in contact, from his mischief-making cousin down to Edge the publisher. Every one with whom Ernest is brought into collision crosses his path but to impede his progress. Success in life is often the result of very different qualities. The conciliation which disarms an opponent and wins an enemy to become a friend, has been found a useful instrument in the hands of somewhile in other cases it is not unfrequently wrested from him who uses it, and turned to his own destruction; nor are the moral uses of adversity of much value unless they inculcate the lesson, that self-reliance is the best and the safest quality with which we can fight the battle of life. The support and countenance of friends is undoubtedly useful, if it can be obtained without any forfeiture of self-respect; but the hand which might have assisted the struggling swimmer to land, is not unfrequently withheld, or stretched out to him only when he has gained the shore without its help; and this seems to have been the case with Ernest Glynn. Ilis misfortunes, to adopt a national mode of expression, commenced almost before he was born. His father, after having spent whatever little patrimony he had, made a clandestine marriage, and died, leaving him to the tender mercies of his granduncle, in whose affections he is for some time supplanted by the craft of an intriguing and unprincipled cousin. Driven from home by these circumstances, he tries his fortune in America; and finding his efforts not attended with success, he returns to England. The author has thus, it will be seen, abundant opportunity for entertaining and instructing his readers, of which he never fails to avail himself. The first scene in which the chief personage of the story appears before us, is in connexion with a meeting of the Mormonites, which is thus graphically described:

"The apostle had entered a fruitful field long left to fallow in rauk luxuriance. Ig

norance the most profound, superstition only to be matched in the dark ages, and an absolute unconsciousness of moral restraint characterised the entire mass of the peasantry; and as a plague rises in the haunts of poverty, but spreads to richer abodes, so the infection was gradually attacking their superiors. In this remote spot no good Samaritan ever came, Bible in hand, to pour the oil and wine of religious truths into souls perishing by the wayside. The people were left in the wilderness, and there was no Moses at their head; what wonder that, in their desperation, they danced and sang round the calf of Mormonism. The heresy, at first springing up like a weed, had struck its roots down into the soil like an oak. True, its more repulsive features were not yet unmasked. The English flock, therefore, had some excuse for their credulity. There is a craving in the human mind for religion; and if left without it, men will turn nature herself into a fetish. To the benighted peasantry of the west the new creed, preached by pastors as homely as themselves, appeared, in their spiritual destitution, to be a message from heaven; and though its earliest adherents were the lowest poor, it quickly soared higher, and brought down several proselytes from the grades above.

"Got a rare cold day for him to go in stream,' observed a sturdy, athletic labourer to a stolid farmer who stood next to him. 'Her be uncommon weakly, too.'

"If's for the good of her soul, we mun't fret about body,' answered the farmer, sullenly.

"Sartin, that's about it,' remarked an asthmatic old dame, shivering before the keen east wind, and whose well-worn scarlet cloak, wrapped closely round her, and peaked nose and chin almost meeting at their extremities, gave her a very witch-like appearance.

"Farmer Clinton, who was remarkable for his taciturnity, took no notice of this address.

"If water's chill, we'se know what make it wairm,' observed a gaunt blacksmith. 'Morcover, I'd sooner unny time stiarve o' cold than burn in everlasting fire.'

"Here another old woman, who had approached, unobserved, uttered a groan-

"Ah, bless us, sister Joil, how 'ee make I stairt!' cried Thirza.

"Joil Bird-for such was the old woman's strange name-drew down her face, but said nothing.

"Ugh,' pursued her weird sister, 'how he do wrought in me. I could strip stark, and jump in stream for sport.'

"You'se make no such work here, my woman,' cried the blacksmith; 'so an ye feel the leaven in ye, go your ways aff.'

"Thirza hailed his threat with a laugh ringing out like a shriek

"You's old Tom Withers,' she exclaimed, 'I'se have 'ee aff, too, brother Tom. Now I go, and you'se nail a horseshoe an my body to keep he away.'

"Joil had just come to a pause when

the folds of the tabernacle were thrown aside, giving egress to Elder Trevor — a tall, lank, bald-headed man, with gloomy protruding eyebrows, and a hare lip, who was followed by a figure that might have passed for Orson, so completely did it realise humanity in a state of nature. This strange being, who immediately became the centre of all eyes, wore no clothing but a girdle of goat-skin fastened by a cord round his loins, and by his dress and functions claimed to represent John the Baptist. Coarse brown hair fell in matted locks over his shoulders; his eyes were almost buried under their shaggy brows, and a mustache and beard covered his lips and chin. His ill-shapen limbs, partly overgrown with hair, heightened the repulsiveness of his aspect, and gave him more the appearance of a satyr than a saint. But, to the vulgar eye, his very hideousness was a mantle of sanctity, and he was instantly recognised as Noah Snow, the missionary from America, and one of the twelve apostles.

"The apostle was only a step in advance of the convert-a young girl enveloped in a woollen cloak, the hood of which was drawn over her head, partly shrouding her face, though affording a glimpse of features which, if pale and abstracted, were both pretty and interesting. She was accompanied by two women, one on either side, by whom, according to the tenor of the Mormon formu lary, she was supposed to be presented to the Church. An old man, bearing a long white rod, in imitation of the rod of Aaron, and ranking in the community of saints as a deacon, closed the procession.

"At the brink of the stream the party paused, and the bystanders, on a signal from the deacon, gathered round, when Elder Trevor mounted a low stool, and, amidst profound silence, wrestled with himself in prayer, denouncing the stubbornness and wickedness of the world, and extolling the holiness of the saints, whom he commended to the especial protection of the Deity, concluding with the recital of a hymn, well known to the assemblage, and which, being rehearsed by the elder, with an harangue referring to the occasion which had brought them together, and then expatiating on the general prospects of the faith. These, not without reason, he declared to be full of promise; and confidently anticipated the approach of a millennium, when the Latter Day Saints would have the world at their feet. Though wild and vehement, his language manifested both tact and ability, and was eminently calculated to impress an ignorant and credulous audience. The subject-matter, too, entirely coincided with their tastes and wishes; making no reference to the duty owing to God and man; to the obligations of morality or the precepts of religion; nor, on the other hand, seeking to soothe the sorrows and trials of life by the assurance of a glorious futurity - all its boasts, all its hopes, were of the present, and

the preacher enlisted the sympathies of his hearers through their temporal and earthly interests. Finally, he spoke of the Mormon settlement in America of its rapid progress and constantly-increasing resources— -describing, in terms exaggerated but striking, the fields and vineyards, woods and plantations, farms and pastures, of a land flowing with milk and honey, which he represented to be the immediate result of the Lord's blessing on his saints. And, more than all, he dwelt on the glories of its chief city, the New Jerusalem, which had sprung up as by enchantment in these once pathless solitudes, and of its world-renowned temple, whither all mankind must one day go up to worship. For more than an hour did the fanatic hold forth, becoming more and more excited, till at last he raised his voice to a distressing pitch, while his eyes gleamed with a lurid light, strongly suggestive of insanity. Every word, however, of the oration told sensibly on those to whom it was addressed, and when he got down, exhausted, there was not a soul present but thought he had been listening to the voice of an Elias.

"After an instant's pause, the apostle walked deliberately into the midst of the stream, and awaited the convert, who, now denuded of her cloak, and wearing only a long bathing-dress, followed him into the river. He seized her arm, as with timid, hesitating steps she approached, and drew her towards him, till the water was above her waist. Then he immersed her head, and was drawing back towards the bank, when his foot stumbled, and they fell together beneath the surface. For a moment they splashed about in the water, which became a perfect whirl around them, like another Bethesda; but at length the apostle succeeded in regaining his feet leaving his convert invisible.

"Miss be sunk, I do think,' observed Jock Davis, the labourer, to farmer Clinton; 'I'se jest pul off my smock, and help the 'postle out wi her.'

"Do, lad,' replied the farmer, aroused from his apathy, and stepping to the brink of the stream.

"Stand back!' cried the fanatic, observing their purpose. What would you do? Can't you observe, with your eyes open, what a miracle is here; the young woman's possessed, and the serpent's coming out of her. I see him now, with his lightning-blazing orbs raging like fire. How he would have tripped me up only for the grace within. Well, I could now find in my heart to give him forty stripes save one; but he's casting loose!-he's coming out!'

"But hadn't he best lift her head up a bit?' asked the uneasy father.

"No, I say,' returned the American; 'if you meddle, you'll undo all. Let him alone, and he'll soon have enough. Yea, this is truly a miracle.'

VOL. XLIII.-NO. CCLVIII.

"A miracle!' echoed the deluded crowd; their eyes rivetted on the troubled water.

"Don't you see the poor creature's drowning?' cried a voice from the opposite bank; and, without waiting to observe the effect of his words, the speaker plunged into the stream, and raised the girl in his arms."

The adventures which befall Mr. Glynn in the New World, which he visits in search of fortune, are smartly told, and look like pictures drawn from life. We wish we could make room for the sketch of the table d'hote at the great hotel; or, what is, perhaps, still better, the graphic picture of the auction mart, where Ernest was so fortunate as to obtain his first employment in America. Having come in contact with a variety of characters-all of them, from the republican judge down to the Blouser, racy of the soil-the hero of the tale falls in with his old acquaintances, the Mormonites; and the chapters which contain his additional experience of this strange sect are among the best in the second volume. although abounding in striking situations, and full of graceful and poetic language, that portion of the story which attracted our attention the most powerfully is contained in the third volume.

But,

Having returned to England pretty nearly in the same condition, so far as fortune is concerned, in which he left it, Ernest Glynn sets himself to work to procure a living and, faute de mieux, like many another friendless and penniless gentleman, has recourse to his pen. He tries the periodicals in the first instance, but without success. It is tolerably well known that those small banks in which the sons of genius make their earliest deposits, are often hermetically sealed against the approaches of new-comers. There was nothing to be had in that quarter. Next came the Press-the great refuge of aspiring but unmoneyed men-its doors remained closed likewise. In this emergency, when his patience was exhausted by repeated failures, his courage had nearly given way, and famine was staring him in the face, Ernest meets an old acquaintance who obtains for him an engagement upon one of those bad, cheap periodicals, which are the pest of literature. Until we had read this book, we had but a faint idea by what process they were got up-by whom they were read-or, more won

3 c

derful still, by what financial operation their resources were supplied.

It would appear that a cheap journal of this class exists principally by its connexion with several other smaller fry of the same description. The Sovereign, as that one was called upon which Mr. Glynn obtained the employment of sub-editor, was printed in one of the small courts off Fleet-street, at an office known by the name of the Slush Pot, an appellation which exactly hit off the peculiar mode in which this journal was manufactured. The type used for one paper served ultimately for the whole, being transferred from one to the other in succession; so that, in fact, the news in each journal was the same, while it preserved its own set of leaders, critiques, and advertisements. Thus, by mutual accommodation, by constantly borrowing each others vitals, these half-dozen cripples were able to hobble on together, when they would have died of inanition alone; and circulation was not of much consequence, when the printing cost so little. We quote this passage, as nearly as possible, in the author's own words, and if any of our readers should wish to satisfy themselves as to its authenticity, it will be found written in the thirty-second page of the third volume. Upon such a journal as is thus described, the unfortunate hero began to work; he had, in a word, to write the whole paperreviews, leaders, news, every particle of which it was composed. Miraculous to relate, he succeeded in raising it from the condition of hopeless obscurity in which it lay. A leading article was quoted one day in the House of Commons-printed next morning, of course, in all the daily papers. The sale rose; the Sovereign, like Lord Byron, wakened, and found itself famous. The opportunity was not to be omitted; it was eagerly pounced upon, bought with bills which had never been taken up, but were from time to time renewed. The Sovereign had maintained its ricketty existence upon fictitious capital. So at last it was sold; the bills were taken up with the proceeds, and a handsome balance, after the transaction was finally closed, remained on the credit side of the vendor's account. But the worst remains to be told. When the desired end was gained, the man who accomplished it was dismissed. Ernest,

through whose labour, industry and talent, the object had been accomplished, was coolly informed that his services were no more required, and defrauded of the trifling balance of his salary.

Thus deprived of his means of subsistence, the unfortunate hero, upon whom troubles more than those of Job seem to have fallen, becomes the prey of a certain Mr. Edge, a purveyor of fashionable novels in the west end of the town. One portion of this section of the story we must let him tell in his own words: it is quite marvellous:—

"Besides his famous ledger, Mr. Edge kept a book of smaller dimensions, known among the initiated as the Black Book' perhaps in reference to its cover, but which, in a moment of convivial freedom, a wag of the establishment had designated 'the book of all work,' inasmuch as it contained the names and addresses of all such persons as were likely to do work under prices, forming a sort of Caligula's list of victims, cheap printers, cheap engravers, cheap bookbinders, cheap translators, and, last and least, cheap authors.

"The parsimonious principle was carried out by Mr. Edge, in all his arrangements. The paper-maker, insisting on a fair price, was required to supply the very cheapest paper; the printing was done in one of the suburbs by a cheap printer, who, employing only apprentices, of course did it badly; and the binder was paid at so low a rate, that the covers of the books, instead of being a good stout board, were little thicker than paper, falling off with a tumble. How the system was maintained in reference to authors has already been intimated, and it bore no less stringently on the literary employés of the establishment, who, though very severely tasked, received a remuneration barely sufficient for existence. In fact, the only thing appertaining to Mr. Edge that was not cheap, was books, and for these he demanded famine prices.

"One morning Mr. Edge was engaged in turning over the leaves of the Black Book, running his eye down each, as he came to it, with a searching glance. A hack of twenty years' standing, after labours which would have shamed Hercules, had just become blind, and Mr. Edge was under the necessity of parting with him that is, of turning him out on the world, without any acknowledgment for his long and faithful service in the house, with himself and predecessor, to live or perish as he might. It was necessary to procure some one in his place, who would keep to the work, and whose talent and appearance would reflect credit on the establishment; and Mr. Edge's keen eye already rested complacently on the name