interests the student who carefully studies it. Two songs are introduced in the play, one of which, "The End of the Rebel Stenko-Rezin's Love," is a charming lyric, and shows how great and varied were Sir Arthur's gifts.

"Oulita" was something more than a tragedy intended just to be read or acted, and then laid aside. Were anyone to take up Sir Arthur's works, and to fall into the error of thinking that they were to be hurriedly read and at once forgotten, he would do the author injustice and lose the point of his works. Sir Arthur's works are intended to teach great moral lessons, to expose the cankers eating into modern society, and substituting fresh and dreadful evils for those which advancing civilisation has swept away. As a mere narrative, “Oulita" is remarkable for the very fine characters introduced. "Oulita," herself, the "Count," the "Princess," and the "Small Wise Man," cannot fail to delight the reader. But the tragedy had other objects; it exposes the awful evils of slavery, and shows the horrors of an irresponsible, absolute government, with its machinery of secret police, and its cruel punishments.

PRAW

YOR

I have already referred to Sir Arthur's success in a third field of letters-kindly biographical notices of eminent men whom he had personally known. There remains a fourth and last branch literature, the one in which his success was still greater, and with which his reputation will always be associated. It is difficult to give a name to this kind of literary work. Anyone who has read "Friends in Council." "Companions of my Solitude," "Conversations on War and General Culture," will know their peculiarities. They are not merely a succession of moral essays-they are not dialogues; but they really consist of essays followed by dialogues. But this is not all; the parties in these wonderful conversations are real, living persons; each well-defined and natural, and distinguished by little peculiarities which are unmistakeable. The friends who there converse are all scholars and well-bred gentlemen, broad-minded, liberal, benevolent men, full of high principle, gentlemanly feeling.

What may be taken to be the first of a series, now extending over eight or ten little volumes, was a work published in 1841, and containing sixteen essays, one of some length, the remainder exceedingly short. To this book he gave the name of "Essays written in the Intervals of Business." The fifteen short essays are all well written, and deal with a variety of subjects, such as Advice, Secrecy, Party-spirit. They are full of kind wisdom and thoughtful reflections. The last essay is on "Organisation in Daily Life," and is followed by an interesting conversation

on the essay itself. That conversation is in every respect admirable, and showed the peculiar bent of the author's mind.

In 1847 Sir Arthur published a work called "Friends in Council," the plan of which is singular. The writer is supposed to be an aged clergyman, named Dunsford, who meets to pass summer evenings with two old college pupils-Ellesmere, a barrister; and Milverton. The last reads some essays of his own composition, dealing with important questions, such as War, Hatred, Education, Slavery, Population, and then the writer, his friend, and his old tutor proceed to discuss the essays. There is nothing surely more touching than the sweet, mild temper of old Dunsford; more curious than the clear, vigorous intellect of Ellesmere; more pleasing than the benevolence and wisdom of Milverton.

In 1850, appeared "Companions of My Solitude," in which Sir Arthur, this time under the form of Milverton, discusses some great social problems. Conversations are here and there introduced between Dunsford, Ellesmere, and Milverton; but the most striking part of this charming work is the touching account of a poor German maiden, given by the sarcastic Sir John Ellesmere. There is something so full of pathos in what the great barrister says that the object of the writer, in introducing this incident, is more than accomplished. I know few things more beautiful than this little sketch of Gretchen, the kindly, thought ful, refined German girl.

Nine years later Sir Arthur published two more volumes of "Friends in Council." It had been said that he could not possibly allow each personage to write essays, which should at once be seen to be in keeping with the character assigned to the writer. Sir Arthur, who no doubt had seen the challenge thrown down, went over the same ground again, and ran the tremendous risk of being bis own rival, of pushing his efforts too far. But such was the force of his genius that he more than triumphed. The second series of Friends in Council" is far superior in every respect to the first.

But Mr. Midhurst, a slow diplomatist, is added to the group of friends who re-appear in the second series; and two young girls are introduced-Blanche and Mildred, the cousins of Milverton. The essays are still finer, the conversations still more animated than anything that had before come from Sir Arthur's pen. Midhurst, Dunsford, Ellesmere, each writes an essay perfectly in keeping with the man, and Sir Arthur silenced his critics at once and for ever.

The second series of "Friends in Council" is also supposed to be written by Dunsford, who acts as the chronicler of what is

read, said, and done, and in this series has more to do than in the former, for he has to relate the incidents of a continental tour, which the whole party went, as well as to recount his own love story, and very beautiful the latter is. The old clergyman goes a walk with Mildred, and tells her how long, long years before, when he had just taken the highest honours at the University, his own heart was nearly broken by a love disappointment. He, who seems to have so little romance in him, had entertained a tender, reverent admiration for a beautiful girl, whom he hoped to make his; but she, though he did not know it, had set her heart elsewhere, and not knowing of-perhaps, not even suspecting his love for her-told him that she was going to marry her cousin Henry, Mildred's father.

And since then one work after another has come from his pen; one essay after another; and he has again and again introduced long, wise conversations by an ever-increasing circle of friends. in council. Here and there, in all his works, are touching incidents. In almost every page some wise remark, so full of truth and justice, delights the cultured reader. A novel, too-"Realmah," has come from his untiring pen. And a few years ago he published in "Good Words," a "Conversation and a Story," fully equal to anything he had ever written. And quite lately, before that busy hand ceased from its labour of love, a book, "Social Pressure," has been given to the world, as remarkable as any of its many predecessors.

Sir Arthur is undoubtedly discursive, and, as I have hinted, there is not that fierce energy in any of his works which rouses the reader into instant action. As a master of the suggestive form of essay he ranks deservedly high. I mean that his works abound in sentences containing great truths, suggesting all manner of subjects for reflection, and the reader every moment feels tempted to pause and think out for himself what has only been hinted at.

Perhaps it will be objected that Sir Arthur's characters may be rather wanting in energy and earnestness: perhaps the conversations are a little too well balanced, the conflict of opinion not decided enough; but, after all, this may be one of the greatest claims he has to the admiration of posterity. Everyone can take up any one of his essays and read it with deep interest and great profit. There he will find everything that can be said pro and He cannot fail to get good, though he seems to be at liberty to form his own opinion; for Sir Arthur, though writing calmly and judicially, wrote always so truthfully, was so free from prejudice, that in all his works the truth comes prominently out, and

con.

cannot fail to impress and influence the reader almost in spite of himself.

There are passages in this great man's works in which he hints, and with truth, that many of the persons whose sole object in life is to get a seat in Parliament might with advantage be replaced by other and abler "men from the world of letters. Many will wonder whether he, who knew so much of politics, and was so generous, would have succeeded there. Here, in England, the laurels which adorn the great writer's name, are much coveted, and are worth much; but they do not take the form of great Parliamentary honours, as in France and the United States. The illustrious English author may obtain a baronetcy, or still more rarely a peerage, but he cannot hope for a seat in the Cabinet, unless, like Gladstone, Disraeli, Lytton, and Macaulay, he has done enough in public life to entitle him to such an honour irrespectively of literary fame. Whether Helps would have made a good and energetic Secretary of State is doubtful, though he would have succeeded quite as well as many of those who have held the office. But he would have been an acquisition to either House of Parliament, and he, to whose wisdom and ripe scholarship England owes " Friends in Council," would, in the councils of the nation, have played an useful and honourable part, and been guided by a feeling of responsibility many members of Parliament know nothing of.

THE WATER TOWER:

A STORY OF THE FIRST ROYAL LANCASHIRE MILITIA.

BY MRS. HIBBERT WARE,

Authoress of "Dr. Harcourt's Assistant," "The Hunlock Title Deeds," &c

CHAPTER LV.

"Tis but thy name that is my enemy."

Romeo and Juliet, act ii.

MRS. NORRIS and her children were assembled in the dining-room of the house in Georges-square, one bleak snowy morning in January. Breakfast was laid, and they waited only the appearance of the head of the family to commence their meal. But as was often the case, Norris was late, and so each individual was whiling away the time in his or her own fashion.

Mrs. Norris was forwarding preparations, by putting the sugar into the cups, whilst she consulted the timepiece every minute, and at length made the remark, "I shall begin breakfast without your father, if he does not come soon."

Five years have elapsed since Teresa Ayleworth came from Tanner's Close with her cousin to his house in Georges-square. Even then, Mrs. Norris had began to look faded and worn out, but now she has aged still more, and very quickly. Her face is haggard and her eyes sunken; she is very thin, and has all the appearance of a person in rapidly-failing health, her temper, too, has become querulous and peevish. From being a very strong and active woman, she had tallen, or was rapidly falling into, a state of great weakness and debility; a consummation probably brought about by more causes than one: successive losses of her children, except Mark, added to her voluntary severe labours in the cause of science, when travelling about the wildest and remotest spots with her husband, and continued exposure to wind and weather, at all times and seasons of the year, were at length working fatal effects on her constitution, though Norris himself was, as usual, the last to perceive it.

Flora, now a fine tall girl of two and twenty, was scanning the nautical intelligence in the pages of the Scotsman, which always possessed the greatest interest for her.