And with reference to all three rules, remember that they are to be interpreted by the light of common sense, and you will hardly need the following remarks:—

It is alike uncomfortable and useless to a child to be perpetually waylaid by a moral. A child reading "The Pilgrim's Progress" will omit the occasional explanations of the allegory or resolutely ignore their meaning. If you want to keep a poor child on such dry food, don't mistake your own reason for doing so. It may be eminently proper, but it is very uncomfortable to him. If you want children to enjoy themselves, let them run about freely, and don't put them into a ring, in picturesque attitudes, and then throw bouquets of flowers at them. But, if you will do so, confess it is not for their gratification, but for your own.

If you choose to try the dangerous experiment of writing "instructive" stories, beware of defeating your own object. You write a story rather than a treatise, because information is often more effective when indirectly conveyed. Clearly, then, if you convey your information too directly, you lose all this advantage.

Perfection is as intolerable in these as in any other stories. We all want, especially children, some amiable weaknesses to sympathize with. Thus, in "Ernest Bracebridge," an English story of school-life, the hero is a dreadfully unpleasant boy who is always successful and always right, and we are soon heartily weary of him. Besides, he is a horrible boy for mastery of all the arts and sciences, and delivers brief and epigrammatic discourses, being about twelve years old. However, the book is full of adventure and out-door games, and so far is good.

After all, a child does not need many books. If, however, we are to have them, we may as well have good ones. There is no reason why dulness should be diverted from its legitimate channels into the writing of children's books. Let us disabuse ourselves of the idea that these are the easiest books to write. Let us remember that the alphabet is harder to teach than the Greek Drama, and no longer think that the proper man to write children's books is the man who is able to write nothing else.

The Simplicity of Christ's Teachings, set forth in Sermons. By CHARLES T. BROOKS, Pastor of the Unitarian Church, Newport, R. I. Boston: Crosby, Nichols, & Co. 1859. 16mo. pp. 342.

The name of the author of this volume has long been known as that of an accomplished man of letters. Successive volumes of poetic versions, chiefly from the German, had, by their various merit, gained for him a high rank among our translators, when four years ago, in 1856, by a translation of "Faust," he set himself at the head of living authors in this department of literature. It is little to say of his work, that it is the best of the numerous English renderings of Goethe's tragedy. It is not extravagant to assert that a better translation is scarcely possible. It is a work which combines extraordinary fidelity to the form of the original with true appreciation of its spirit. It is at once literal and free, and displays in its execution the qualities both of exact scholarship and of poetic feeling and capacity.

This work, and the others of a similar kind which preceded it, were the result of the intervals of leisure occurring in the course of their author's professional life as a clergyman. While the wider world has known him only through these volumes, a smaller circle has long known and loved him as the faithful and able preacher and pastor,—as one to whom the most beautiful description ever written of the character of a good parson might be truly applied; for

"A good man he was of religioun, That was a poure Persone of a toun: But riche he was of holy thought and werk; He was also a lerned man, a clerk, That Cristes gospel trewely wolde preche, His parishens devoutly wolde he teche.

* * * * *

And Cristes lore and his apostles' twelve He taught, but first he folwed it himselve."

And it is in this character that he now comes before us in the volume which is well entitled "The Simplicity of Christ's Teachings."

It is a misfortune that the qualities which distinguish most published sermons are not such as to recommend them on the score of literary merit. The volumes of religious discourses which are worthy to hold a place in literature, when judged by the usual critical standard, are very few. A very large proportion of those which are continually appearing from the press deserve no remembrance, and fortunately have no permanence. They are addressed to a special class of readers,—a class generally neither of highly cultivated taste, nor of acute critical perception. Their writers are rarely men of sufficient talent to win for themselves recognition out of their own narrow set. What in the slang of the day are called "sensation" sermons are no exception to the common rule. Their momentary effect, depending upon exaggeration and extravagance, is no indication of worth. We should no more think of criticizing them in a literary journal, than of criticizing the novels of Mr. Cobb or Mr. Reynolds. Some of the causes of the poverty of thought and of the negligence of style of average sermons are obvious. The very interest and importance of the subjects with which the preacher has to deal oftentimes serve to deaden rather than to excite the mind of one who takes them up in the formal round of duty. The pretensions of the clergy of many sects, pretensions as readily acknowledged as made, save them from the necessity of intellectual exertion. The frequent recurrence of the necessity of writing, whether they have anything to say or not, leads them into substituting words for thoughts, platitudes for truths. The natural weariness of long-continued solitary professional labor brings mental lassitude and feebleness. The absence of the fear of close and watchful criticism prevents them from bestowing suitable pains upon their composition. These and other causes combine to make the mass of the writing which is delivered from the pulpit poorer than any other which passes current in the world,—perhaps, indeed, not poorer in an absolute sense, but poorer when compared with the nature of the subjects that it treats. It is by no means, however, to be inferred, that, because a sermon is totally without merit as a work of literature, it is incapable of producing some good in those who listen to it. On the contrary, such is the frame of mind of many who regularly attend church, that they are not unlikely to derive good from a performance which, if weak, may yet be sincere, and which deals with the highest truths, even if it deal with them in an imperfect and unsatisfactory manner. And, indeed, as George Herbert says, good may be got from the worst preaching; for,

"if all want sense, God takes the text, and preacheth patience."

Unquestionably, however, there is too much preaching in these days; too many sermons are written, and the spirit of Christianity is less effective than if the words concerning it were less numerous.

It is a rare satisfaction, therefore, to find such a volume of sermons as that of Mr. Brooks, which, though not possessing the highest merit in point of style, are the discourses of a thoughtful and cultivated man, with a peculiar spiritual refinement, and with a devout intellect, made clear by its combination with purity of heart and simplicity of faith. The religious questions which are chiefly stirring the minds of men are taken up in them and discussed with what may be called an earnest moderation, with elevation of feeling and insight of spirit.

Goethe's Correspondence with a Child. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1859.

The immediate cause of the republication of these letters is the recent death of Bettina, the child with whom Goethe corresponded. Though this fact, and the beauty of the volume, may quicken the sale of the work, and draw out fresh encomiums on its excellence, it has long since passed the critical crisis and taken its place as one of the most remarkable series of letters which the public have ever been invited to peruse. Something of the marvellous vanishes from them, however, when we find that the title, "Correspondence with a Child," is a misnomer; Bettina having been, in truth, twenty-two years of age when she first visited Goethe. Yet while this important circumstance abates much of the wonder with which we once read her thoughts and confessions, they really become all the more valuable as studies in human nature when we learn that they are the exhalations of a heart in full flower, and one upon which the dews of morning should not linger. The poet had reached the age of sixty when this tide of tender sentiment, original ideas, and enthusiastic admiration began to flow in upon him. Their first interview, as Bettina describes it, with singular freedom, in one of the letters to Goethe's mother, will be found a useful key, though perhaps not a complete one, by which to interpret the glowing passion which gushed from her pen. That the poet was pleased with the homage of this sweet, graceful, and affectionate girl, and drew her on to the revealing of her whole nature, is readily perceived. But when we inquire, To what end? we should remember, that, like Parrhasius, Goethe was before all things an artist; and furthermore, the correspondence of time will show that from this crowning knowledge the "Elective Affinities" sprang. It may be that her admiration was for his genius alone; if so, she chose love's language for its wealth of expression. Were it so received, it could not but be regarded as a peerless offering, for she was certainly a kindred spirit. There are many rare thoughts and profound confessions in these letters, which would have commanded the praise of Goethe, had they been written by a rival; and coming, as they did, from a devotee who declared that she drew her inspiration from him alone, they must have filled his soul with incense, of which that burned by the priest in the temple of the gods is only an emblem. To be brief and compendious on this book, it appears to be a heart unveiled. German critics throw some doubts on the literal veracity of the book; but it belongs at any rate to the better class of the ben trovati, and among its leaves, the dreamer, the lover, and the poet will find that ambrosial fruit on which fancy loves to feed, but whose blossoms are so generally blasted by the common air that only the few favored ones have had their longings for it appeased. In imagination, at least, Bettina partook of this banquet, and had the genius to wreak on words the emotions which swept through her heart.

Sir Rohan's Ghost. A Romance. Boston: J. E. Tilton & Company. 1860. pp. 352.

It is very plain that we have got a new poet,—a tremendous responsibility both for him who will have to learn how to carry the brimming vase of Art from the Pierian spring without squandering a drop, and for us critics who are to reconcile ourselves to what is new in him, and to hold him strictly to that apprenticeship to the old which is the condition of mastery at last.

Criticism in America has reached something like the state of the old Continental currency. There is no honest relation between the promises we make and the specie basis of meaning they profess to represent. "The most extraordinary book of the age" is published every week; "genius" springs up like mullein, wherever the soil is thin enough; the yearly catch of "weird imagination," "thrilling pathos," "splendid description," and "sublime imagery" does not fall short of an ordinary mackerel-crop; and "profound originality" is so plenty that one not in the secret would be apt to take it for commonplace. Now Tithonus, whom, as the oldest inhabitant, we have engaged to oversee the criticism of the "Atlantic," has a prodigiously long memory,—almost as long as one of Dickens's descriptive passages,—he remembers perfectly well all the promising young fellows from Orpheus down, and has made a notch on the stalk of a devil's-apron for every one who ever came to anything that was of more consequence to the world than to himself. His tally has not yet mounted to a baker's dozen. Accordingly, when a young enthusiast rushes to tell Tithonus that a surprising genius has turned up, that venerable and cautious being either puts his hand behind his ear and absconds into an extemporary deafness, or says dryly, "American kind, I suppose?" This coolness of our wary senior is infectious, and we confess ourselves so far disenchanted by it, that, when we go into a library, the lettering on the backs of nine-tenths of the volumes contrives to shape itself into a laconic Hic jacet.

It is of prime necessity to bring back the currency of criticism to the old hard-money basis. We have been gradually losing all sense of the true relation between words and things,—the surest symptom of intellectual decline. And this looseness of criticism reacts in the most damaging way upon literature by continually debasing the standard, and by confounding all distinction between fame and notoriety. Ought it to be gratifying to the author of "Popular Sovereignty, a Poem in Twelve Cantos," to be called the most remarkable man of the age, when he knows that he shares that preeminence with Mr. Tupper, nay, with half the names in the Directory? Indiscriminate eulogy is the subtlest form of depreciation, for it makes all praise suspicious.

We look upon artistic genius as the rarest and most wayward apparition among mankind. It cannot be predicated upon any of Mr. Buckle's averages. Given the census, you may, perhaps, say so many murders, so many suicides, so many misdirected letters (and men of letters), but not so many geniuses. In this one thing old Mother Nature will be whimsical and womanish. This is a gift that John Bull, or Johnny Crapaud, or Brother Jonathan does not find in his stocking every Christmas. Crude imagination is common enough,—every hypochondriac has a more than Shakspearian allowance of it; fancy is cheap, or nobody would dream; eloquence sits ten deep on every platform. But genius in Art is that supreme organizing and idealizing faculty which, by combining, arranging, modulating, by suppressing the abnormal and perpetuating the essential, apes creation,—which from the shapeless terror or tipsy fancy of the benighted ploughman can conjure the sisters of Fores heath and the court of Titania,—which can make language thunder or coo at will,—which, in short, is the ruler of those qualities any one of which in excess is sure to overmaster the ordinary mind, and which can crystallize helpless vagary into the clearly outlined and imperishable forms of Art.

It is not, therefore, from any grudging incapacity to appreciate new authors, but from a strong feeling that we are to guard the graves of the dead from encroachment, and their fames from vulgarization, that the "Atlantic" has been and will be sparing in its use of the word genius. One may safely predicate power, nicety of thought and language, a clear eye for scenery and character, and grace of poetic conception of a book, without being willing to say that it gives proof of genius. For genius is the shaping faculty, the power of using material in the best way, and may not work itself clear of the besetting temptation of personal gifts and of circumstances in a first or even second work. It is something capable of education and accomplishment, and the patience with which it submits itself to this needful schooling and self-abnegation is one of the surest tests of its actual possession. Could even Shakspeare's poems and earlier plays come before us for judgment, we could only say of them, as of Keats's "Endymion," that they showed affluence, but made no sure prophecy of that artistic self-possession without which plenty is but confusion and incumbrance.

So much by way of preface, lest we might seem cold to the very remarkable merits of "Sir Rohan's Ghost," if we treated it as a book worth finding fault with, instead of condemning it to the indifferent limbo of general eulogy. It is our deliberate judgment that no first volume by any author has ever been published in America showing more undoubtful symptoms of genuine poetic power than this. There are passages in it where imagination and language combine in the most artistic completeness, and the first quatrain of the song which Sir Rohan fancies he hears,—

——"In a summer twilight, While yet the dew was hoar, I went plucking purple pansies Till my love should come to shore,"—

seems to us absolutely perfect in its simplicity and suggestiveness. It has that wayward and seemingly accidental just-right-ness that is so delightful in old ballads. The hesitating cadence of the third line is impregnated with the very mood of the singer, and lingers like the action it pictures. All those passages in the book, too, where the symptoms of Sir Rohan's possession by his diseased memory are handled, where we see all outward nature but as wax to the plastic will of imagination, are to the utmost well-conceived and carried out. It was part of the necessity of the case that the book should be conjectural and metaphysical, for it is plain that the author is young and has little experience of the actual. Accordingly, with a true instinct, she (for the newspapers ascribe the authorship of the book to Miss Prescott) calls her story a Romance, thus absolving it from any cumbersome allegiance to fact, and lays the scene of it in England, where she can have old castles, old traditions, old families, old servants, and all the other olds so essential to the young writer, ready to her hand.

We like the book better for being in the main subjective (to use the convenient word Mr. Ruskin is so angry with); for a young writer can only follow the German plan of conjuring things up "from the depths of his inward consciousness." The moment our author quits this sure ground, her touch becomes uncertain and her colors inharmonious. Character-painting is unessential to a romance, belonging as it does properly to the novel of actual life, in which the romantic element is equally out of place. Fielding, accordingly, the greatest artist in character since Shakspeare, hardly admits sentiment, and never romance, into his master-pieces. Hawthorne, again, another great master, feeling instinctively the poverty and want of sharp contrast in the externals of our New England life, always shades off the edges of the actual, till, at some indefinable line, they meet and mingle with the supersensual and imaginative.

The author of "Sir Rohan" attempts character in Redruth the butler, and in the villain and heroine of her story. We are inclined to think the villain the best hit of the three, because he is downright scoundrel without a redeeming point, as the Nemesis of the story required him to be, and because he is so far a purely ideal character. But there is no such thing possible as an ideal butler, at least in the sense our author assumes in the cellar-scene. The better poet, the worse butler; and so we are made impatient by his more than Redi-isms about wine, full of fancy as they are in themselves, because they are an impertinence. For the same reason, we forgive the heroine her rhapsodies about the figures of the Arthur-romances, but cannot pardon her descents into real life and her incursions on what should be the sanctuary of the breakfast-table. The author attributes to her a dash of gypsy blood; and if her style of humorous conversation be a fair type of that of the race in general, we no longer wonder that they are homeless exiles from human society. When will men learn the true nature of a pun,—that it is a play upon ideas, and not upon sounds,—and that a perfect one is as rare as a perfect poem?

In the prose "Edda," the dwarfs tell a monstrous fib, when they pretend that Kvasir, the inventor of poetry, has been suffocated by his own wisdom. Nevertheless, the little fellows showed thereby that they were not short of intelligence; for it is almost always in their own overflow that young poets are drowned. This superabundance seems to us the chief defect in "Sir Rohan's Ghost." The superabundance is all very fine, of the costliest kind; but was Clarence any the better for being done to death in Malmsey instead of water?

This fault we look on as a fault of promise. There is always a chance that luxuriance may be pruned, but none short of a miracle that a broomstick may be made to blossom. There is, however, one absolute, and not relative fault in the book, which we find it harder to forgive, since it is one of instinct rather than of Art. The author seems to us prone to confound the terrible, (the only true subject of Art) with the horrible. The one rouses moral terror or aversion, the other only physical disgust. This is one of the worst effects of the modern French school upon literature, the inevitable result of its degrading the sensuous into the sensual.

We have found all the fault we could with this volume, because we sincerely think that the author of it is destined for great things, and that she owes it to the rare gift she has been endowed with to do nothing inconsiderately, and by honest self-culture to raise natural qualities to conscious and beneficent powers.



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