Let us now turn our attention to the vessels of the United States navy. In this department has the navy greatly increased within a few years. To give the reader an idea of our navy, we append the following statistical account of the vessels, giving their class, tonnage, number of guns, name, and station, which cannot but be of great interest to all who are interested in the affairs of the nation. We will give them in the following table:

SHIPS OF THE LINE—6.

Alabama 84 guns, 2,663 tons. New Orleans 84 " 2,805 " North Carolina 84 " 2,633 " Ohio 84 " 2,757 " Vermont 84 " 2,633 " Virginia 84 " 2,633 "

Of these, the Alabama is on the stocks at Kittery, Maine, the New Orleans on the stocks at Sackett's Harbor, and the Virginia on the stocks at Boston. The Vermont is store ship at Port Royal, South Carolina, while the North Carolina and Ohio are receiving ships at Boston and New York. The Pennsylvania, 120-gun ship, was destroyed by the rebels at Gosport, Virginia, last year. This class of vessels are the most ineffective we have in the service, the Ohio being the only one which has done good service.

SAILING FRIGATES—6.

Brandywine 50 guns, 1,726 tons. Potomac 50 " 1,726 " Sabine 50 " 1,726 " Santee 50 " 1,726 " St. Lawrence 50 " 1,726 " Independence[2] 50 " 2,257 "

The Brandywine, Independence, and Potomac are used as receiving and store ships. The Sabine is at New London recruiting, the Santee is in ordinary at Boston, and the St. Lawrence is attached to the East Gulf Squadron.

SAILING SLOOPS—21.

Constitution 50 guns, 1,607 tons. Constellation 22 " 1,452 " Cyane 18 " 792 " Dale[3] 15 " 566 " Decatur 10 " 566 " Falmouth 2 " 703 " Fredonia 2 " 800 " Granite 1 " —- " Jamestown 22 " 985 " John Adams 18 " 700 " Macedonian 22 " 1,341 " Marion 15 " 566 " Portsmouth 17 " 1,022 " Preble 10 " 566 " Saratoga 18 " 882 " Savannah 24 " 1,726 " St. Marys 22 " 958 " St. Louis 18 " 700 " Vandalia 20 " 783 " Vincennes 18 " 700 " Warren 2 " 691 "

BRIGS—4.

Bainbridge 6 guns, 259 tons. Bohio 2 " 196 " Perry 9 " 280 " Sea Foam 3 " 264 "

Of the sailing sloops and brigs the following are in active service: Saratoga, coast of Africa; Mediterranean Squadron, the Constellation; the West Gulf Squadron, Portsmouth, Preble, and Vincennes; Pacific Squadron, Cyane, and St. Marys; St. Louis on special service; the Dale and Vandalia in the South Atlantic Squadron; the Constitution, Macedonian, Marion, and Savannah, as school and practice ships; the Falmouth, Warren, and Fredonia as store ships, and the sloop of war, Decatur, in ordinary. In the West Gulf Squadron are the brigs Bohio and Sea Foam; in the East Gulf Squadron is the brig Perry, while the Bainbridge is at Aspinwall.

TRANSPORT SHIPS—14.

Charles Phelps 1 gun, 362 tons. Courier 3 " 554 " Fearnot 6 " 1,012 " Ino 9 " 895 " Kittatinny 4 " 421 " Morning Light 8 " 937 " Nightingale 1 " 1,000 " National Guard 4 " 1,046 " Onward 8 " 874 " Pampero 4 " 1,375 " Roman 1 " 350 " Supply 4 " 547 " Shepard Knapp 8 " 838 " William Badger 1 " 334 "

The ships are divided as follows: The Supply and William Badger are in the North Atlantic Squadron; the Ino, the Onward, and Shepard Knapp in the South Atlantic Squadron; the Fearnot, the Kittatinny, and Morning Light in the West Gulf Squadron; the Courier is used as a store ship at Port Royal, the Charles Phelps as a coal ship, and the Roman as ordnance vessel at Hampden Roads, Virginia.

TRANSPORT BARKS—16.

Amanda 6 guns, 368 tons. Arthur 6 " 554 " A. Houghton 2 " 326 " Braziliera 6 " 540 " Ethan Allen 7 " 556 " Fernandina 6 " 297 " J. C. Kuhn 5 " 888 " Jas. L. Davis 4 " 461 " Jas. S. Chambers 5 " 401 " Kingfisher 5 " 450 " Midnight 5 " 386 " Pursuit 6 " 603 " Release 2 " 327 " Roebuck 4 " 455 " Restless 4 " 265 " Wm. G. Anderson 7 " 593 "

In the East Gulf Squadron are the barks Amanda, Ethan Allen, Jas. L. Davis, Jas. S. Chambers, Kingfisher, and Pursuit. In the West Gulf Squadron, the Arthur Houghton, J. C. Kuhn, Midnight, and W. G. Anderson. In the South Atlantic Squadron the Braziliera, Fernandina, Roebuck, and Restless, while the Release is a store ship in the Mediterranean. To these may be added one barkantine, the Horace Beals, of 3 guns and 296 tons, employed in the Western Gulf Squadron.

SCHOONERS—8.

Beauregard 1 gun, 101 tons. Chotank 1 " 53 " Dart 1 " 94 " G. W. Blunt 1 " 121 " Hope 1 " 134 " Sam Rotan 2 " 212 " Sam Houston 1 " 66 " Wanderer 4 " 300 "

In the Potomac Flotilla is the schooner Chotank. The G. W. Blunt and the Hope are in the South Atlantic Squadron; the Dart and Sam Houston in the West Gulf Squadron, while the Sam Rotan, Wanderer, and Beauregard (the last named captured from the rebels) are in the East Gulf Squadron.

YACHTS—2

America: South Atlantic Squadron. Corypheus: West Gulf Squadron.

These vessels are used chiefly as tenders and despatch vessels.

MORTAR SCHOONERS—18.

Arletta 3 guns, 199 tons. Adolf Hugel 3 " 269 " C. P. Williams 3 " 210 " Dan Smith 3 " 149 " Geo. Mangham 3 " 274 " Henry Janes 3 " 261 " John Griffith 3 " 246 " M. Vassar 3 " 182 " Maria A. Wood 2 " 344 " Norfolk Packet 3 " 349 " Orvetta 3 " 171 " Para 3 " 190 " Racer 3 " 252 " Rachel Seman 2 " 303 " Sophronia 3 " 217 " Sarah Bruen 3 " 233 " T. A. Ward 3 " 284 " Wm. Bacon 3 " 183 "

Of these eighteen mortar schooners, five are at Baltimore, two in the North Atlantic Squadron, five in the West Gulf Squadron, one in the East Gulf Squadron, four in the Potomac Flotilla, and one in the James River Flotilla.

We have thus given the statistics of the sailing vessels of the navy. We now give a table of the steam vessels of all descriptions in our navy, which are the most valuable auxiliaries we have. It is probably the most effective steam navy in the world, and in its department of huge iron-clads cannot be excelled even by the navies of the old world. The steam vessels of our navy may thus be enumerated:

STEAM FRIGATES—9.

Colorado 48 guns, 3,435 tons. Niagara 34 " 4,582 " Powhatan 11 " 2,415 " Minnesota 48 " 3,307 " Mississippi[4] 12 " 1,692 " Princeton 8 " 900 " San Jacinto 12 " 1,446 " Saranac 9 " 1,446 " Susquehanna 17 " 2,450 "

The Niagara, one of the finest screw frigates in the navy, and which, with the Colorado, is now repairing, is noted for being connected with the Atlantic cable expedition, as well as for conveying the Japanese embassy home. She is the pet of the navy, and great credit is due the late George Steers for such a splendid specimen of naval architecture. The Powhattan, Minnesota, and Mississippi are attached to the South Atlantic Squadron; the San Jacinto to the East Gulf Squadron; the Susquehanna to the West Gulf Squadron, and the Saranac to the Pacific Squadron. The old Princeton is the receiving ship at Philadelphia. Of these steam frigates, six are screw, and three sidewheel.

STEAM SLOOPS—10.

Brooklyn 24 guns, 2,070 tons. Canandaigua 9 " 1,395 " Dacotah 6 " 997 " Hartford 25 " 1,990 " Housatonic 9 " 1,240 " Lancaster 22 " 2,362 " Oneida 9 " 1,032 " Pensacola 22 " 2,158 " Richmond 26 " 1,929 " Wachusett 9 " 1,032 "

The Brooklyn, Hartford, Housatonic, Pensacola, Richmond, and Oneida are in the West Gulf Squadron; the Canandaigua in the South Atlantic Squadron; the Lancaster in the Pacific, and the Dacotah and the Wachusett in the West India Squadron.

STEAM GUNBOATS—40.

Conemaugh 8 guns, 955 tons. Crusader 6 " 545 " Cambridge 5 " 858 " Chippewa 4 " 507 " Cayuga 6 " 507 " Chocura 4 " 507 " Huron 4 " 507 " Itasca 4 " 507 " Kanawha 4 " 507 " Kennebec 4 " 507 " Kineo 4 " 507 " Katahdin 4 " 507 " Mohawk 7 " 459 " Mohican 6 " 994 " Mystic 4 " 451 " Marblehead 4 " 507 " Monticello 7 " 665 " Miami 7 " 630 " Naragansett 5 " 809 " Ottawa 4 " 507 " Owasco 4 " 507 " Octorora 6 " 829 " Pawnee 9 " 1,289 " Pocahontas 5 " 694 " Pembina 4 " 507 " Penobscot 4 " 507 " Panola 4 " 507 " Penguin 6 " 389 " Pontiac 8 " 974 " Seminole 5 " 801 " Sciota 4 " 507 " Seneca 4 " 507 " Sagamore 4 " 507 " Sebago 6 " 832 " Tahoma 4 " 507 " Unadilla 4 " 507 " Wyandotte 4 " 458 " Wyoming 6 " 997 " Wissahickon 4 " 507 " Winona 4 " 507 "

Of these gunboats, some of them rated as steam sloops of the third class, twelve are in the South Atlantic Squadron; five in the North Atlantic Squadron; ten in the West Gulf Squadron; three in the East Gulf Squadron; two in the Potomac Flotilla; one in the East Indies; one in the Pacific; one at Philadelphia; and five under repairs at the different navy yards.

AUXILIARY STEAM GUNBOATS—47.

Anacostia 2 guns, 217 tons. Aroostook 4 " 507 " Albatross 4 " 378 " Currituck 5 guns, 193 tons. Perry 4 " 513 " Barney 4 " 513 " Clifton 6 " 892 " Ellen 4 " 341 " E. B. Hale 4 " 192 " Fort Henry 6 " 519 " Genesee 4 " 803 " Huntsville 4 " 817 " Hunchback 4 " 517 " Harriet Lane[5] 4 " 619 " John Hancock 3 " 382 " Jacob Bell 3 " 229 " Louisiana 4 " 295 " Mercidita 7 " 776 " Montgomery 5 " 787 " Mt. Vernon 3 " 625 " Maratanza 6 " 786 " Memphis 4 " 791 " Norwich 5 " 431 " New London 5 " 221 " Potomska 5 " 287 " Patroon 5 " 183 " Paul Jones 6 " 863 " Port Royal 8 " 805 " Saginaw 3 " 453 " Sumter 4 " 460 " Stars and Stripes 5 " 407 " Somerset 6 " 521 " Sachem 5 " 197 " Southfield 4 " 751 " Tioga 6 " 819 " Uncas 3 " 192 " Underwriter 4 " 331 " Valley City 5 " 190 " Victoria 3 " 254 " Water Witch 3 " 378 " Wasmutta 5 " 270 " Western World 5 " 441 " Wyandank 2 " 399 " Westfield 6 " 891 " Yankee 3 " 328 " Young Rover 5 " 418 " Yantic 4 " 593 "

Six of these auxiliary steam gunboats are in the Potomac Flotilla; eight in the West Gulf Squadron; thirteen in the North Atlantic Squadron; nine in the South Atlantic Squadron; four in the Eastern Gulf Squadron; one in the West India Fleet; one at San Francisco, and five in ordinary.

TRANSPORT STEAMERS ALTERED INTO WAR VESSELS—58

Alabama 8 guns, 1,261 tons. Alleghany 6 " 989 " Augusta 8 " 1,310 " Bienville 10 " 1,558 " Florida 10 " 1,261 " Flag 9 " 963 " Hatteras 3 " 1,100 " Jas. Adger 9 " 1,151 " Keystone State 9 " 1,364 " Kensington 3 " 1,052 " Massachusetts 5 " 1,155 " Quaker City 9 " 1,600 " Rhode Island 7 " 1,517 " R. R. Cuyler 8 " 1,202 " South Carolina 6 " 1,165 " Santiago de Cuba 10 " 1,667 " State of Georgia 9 " 1,204 " Tennessee 1 " 1,275 " Cimmerone 10 " 860 " Connecticut 5 " 1,800 " Dawn 3 " 391 " Daylight 4 " 682 " Delaware 3 " 357 " Dragon 1 " 118 " Flambeau 2 " 900 " Issac Smith 9 " 453 " Mahaska 6 " 832 " Morse 2 " 513 " Planter 2 " 300 " Satellite 2 " 217 " Shasheen 2 " 180 " Sonoma 6 " 955 " Thos. Freeborn 2 " 269 " A. C. Powell 1 " 65 " Alfred Robb 4 " 75 " Ceres 1 " 144 " C[oe]ur de Leon 2 " 60 " Cohasset 2 " 100 " Ella 2 " 230 " Eastport 8 " 700 " Henry Brinker 1 " 108 " Hetzel 2 " —- " John P. Jackson 6 " 777 " John L. Lockwood 2 " 182 " Leslie 2 " 100 " Mercury 2 " 187 " Madgie 2 " 218 " O. M. Petit 2 " 165 " Pulaski 1 " 395 " Resolute 1 " 90 " Reliance 1 " 90 " Rescue 1 " 111 " Stepping Stones 1 " 226 " Teaser 2 " 90 " Vixen 2 " —- " Whitehead 1 " 136 " Young America 1 " 171 " Zouave 1 " 127 "

Most of these auxiliary altered steamers have been purchased and refitted for naval service. A number of our ocean mail steamers have been purchased by the Department, such as the Augusta, Florida, Alabama, Quaker City, Keystone State, and State of Georgia; while others have been taken from our rivers flowing into the Atlantic, on which this last class of vessels were formerly plying. In the South Atlantic Squadron are fifteen of this class of transport steamers; fifteen in the North Atlantic; four in the Western Gulf; one in the East Gulf; one in the Brazil, and three in the West India Squadrons. There are also twelve in the Potomac Flotilla; one in the Western Flotilla; two supply steamers; and three in ordinary; with one receiving ship. In the Potomac Flotilla is the captured rebel gunboat Teaser. The De Soto may also be added to this class, carrying 9 guns of 1,600 tons, and at present attached to the Western Gulf Squadron.

We now call the attention of the reader to that most formidable class of vessels in our navy,

IRON-CLAD STEAMERS—15.

The iron-clads of our navy are divided into two classes—the river and ocean steamers, as also steam rams. We will first notice the ocean class:

Galena 6 guns, 738 tons. Monitor[6] 3 " 776 " New Ironsides 18 " 3,486 " Roanoke 6 " 3,435 "

The Galena and Monitor have been well tested in the present war, but the Galena at present is considered a failure. The New Ironsides, now on special service, is said to be one of the most formidable iron-clad vessels in the world. Of the iron-clad river steamers, we enumerate the following:

Benton 16 guns, 1,000 tons. Baron de Kalb 13 " 512 " Cairo 13 " 512 " Cincinnati 13 " 512 " Carondelet 13 " 512 " Essex 7 " 1,000 " Louisville 13 " 468 " Lexington 7 " 500 " Mound City 13 " 512 " Pittsburgh 13 " 512 " Tyler 9 " 600 "

The Galena is in the North Atlantic Squadron; the New Ironsides in special service; the Roanoke repairing in New York; and the river iron-clads are attached to the Western Flotilla.

IRON-CLAD RAMS—12.

General Bragg 2 guns, 700 tons. Gen. Sterling Price - " 400 " General Pillow 2 " 500 " Great Western. - " 800 " Kosciusko - " —- " Lafayette - " 1,000 " Little Rebel 3 " 400 " Lioness - " —- " Monarch - " —- " Queen of the West[7] - " —- " Switzerland - " —- " Simpson - " —- "

Six of these rams, though finished, have not received their armament. They are all attached to the Western River Flotilla. Five of these were captured from the rebels, and one was purchased.

OTHER VESSELS NOT CLASSED—22.

Iroquois 9 guns, 1,016 tons. Kearsage 7 " 1,031 " Tuscarora 10 " 997 " Wabash 48 " 3,274 " Clara Dolsen — " 1,000 " Choctaw — " 1,000 " Conestoga — " —- " Darlington — " —- " Ellis 2 " —- " Eugenie — " —- " Gem of the Sea 4 " 371 " Gemsbok 7 " 622 " Judge Torrence — " 600 " King Philip — " —- " Michigan 1 " 582 " Mount Washington— " —- " Magnolia 3 " —- " Oliver H. Lee 3 " 199 " Philadelphia — " —- " Relief 2 " 468 " Stetten — " —- " Ben Morgan — " 407 "

Among these vessels unclassed, are one steam frigate, three steam sloops, eight ocean and four river steamers, three barks, one schooner, and one mortar schooner.

UNFINISHED VESSELS OF THE NAVY

STEAM FRIGATE—1.

Franklin 50 guns 3,684 tons.

STEAM SLOOPS—7.

Lackawanna 9 guns, 1,533 tons. Ticonderoga 9 " 1,533 " Shenandoah 9 " 1,378 " Monongahela 9 " 1,378 " Sacramento 9 " 1,367 " Juniata 9 " 1,240 " Ossipee 9 " 1,240 "

STEAM GUNBOATS—28.

Puritan (iron-clad). 4 guns, 3,265 tons. Tonawanda 4 " 1,564 " Tecumseh 2 " 1,034 " Onondaga 4 " 1,250 " Ascutney 8 " 974 " Agawam 8 " 974 " Chenango 8 " 974 " Chicopee 8 " 974 " Eutaw 8 " 974 " Iosco 8 " 974 " Mattabeeset 8 " 974 " Mingoe 8 " 974 " Mackinaw 8 " 974 " Metacomet 8 " 974 " Otsego 8 " 974 " Pontoosac 8 " 974 " Sassacus 8 " 974 " Shamrock 8 " 974 " Taconey 8 " 974 " Tallapoosa 8 " 974 " Wateree 8 " 974 " Wyalusing 8 " 974 " Lenape 8 " 974 " Maumee 4 " 593 " Com. Morris 1 " 532 " Com. McDonough 6 " 532 " Calhoun 4 " 508 " Com. Hull 3 " 376 "

IRON CLAD OCEAN GUNBOATS—22.

Dunderburg 10 guns, 5,019 tons. Dictator 2 " 3,033 " Monadnock 4 " 1,564 " Miantonimah 4 " 1,564 " Agamenticus 4 " 1,564 " Canonicus 2 " 1,034 " Manhattan 3 " 1,034 " Mahopac 2 " 1,034 " Manayunk 2 " 1,034 " Catskill 2 " 844 " Camanche 2 " 844 " Lehigh 2 " 844 " Montauk 2 " 844 " Nantucket 2 " 844 " Nahant 2 " 844 " Patapsco 2 " 844 " Passaic 2 " 844 " Sangamon 2 " 844 " Weehawken 2 " 844 " Moodna 2 " 677 " Marietta 2 " 479 " Sandusky 2 " 479 "

IRON CLAD RIVER GUNBOATS—12

Catawba 2 guns, 1,034 tons. Tippecanoe 2 " 1,034 " Chickasaw 4 " 970 " Kickapoo 4 " 970 " Milwaukee 4 " 970 " Winnebago 4 " 970 " Tuscumbia 3 " 565 " Ozark 2 " 578 " Osage 2 " 523 " Neosho 2 " 523 " Indianola[8] 2 " 442 " Chillicothe 2 " 303 "

The most formidable class of these unfinished vessels are the iron-clad gunboats. Of these are four of immense size, viz., the Puritan, Tonawanda, Tecumseh, and Onondaga. The mammoth iron-clad of all is the enormous Dunderburg, carrying 10 guns of from fifteen to twenty inches in calibre, and having a tonnage of 5,019 tons. The Dictator is another immense iron-clad. Of the river Gunboat Fleet, the Catawba and Tippecanoe stand as first class, carrying heavy nine and eleven inch Dahlgren guns.

The building of these ocean iron-clads is at the following places: Nine of them are building at New York; three at Brooklyn; one at Portsmouth; two at Jersey City; four at Boston; two at Chester; two at Pittsburgh; one at Brownsville, Pennsylvania; and one at Wilmington, Delaware. The river iron-clads are built at the following places: Five at Cincinnati; six at St. Louis; and one at Mound City, Illinois. Of the first-class steam gunboats, eleven are building at New York; four at Boston; two at Portland, Maine; two at Portsmouth, New Hampshire; one at Bordentown, New Jersey; one at Brooklyn; two at Philadelphia; one at Chester; and two at Baltimore, Maryland.

The other vessels building in the yards are as follows: the steam frigate Franklin, at Portsmouth, New Hampshire; the steam sloops Juniata, Monongahela, and Shenandoah, at Philadelphia; the Lackawanna and Ticonderoga, at New York; and the Ossipee and Sacramento, at Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

There are a large number of contracts out for new gunboats and steamers, which, when completed, will make us the most formidable navy in the world. In conclusion, we will give to the reader the following table, classifying the vessels now in our navy, and giving statistics of their tonnage and the number of guns which they carry:

RECAPITULATION.

Vessels. Guns. Tons. Ships of the line 6 504 16,124 Sailing frigates 7 348 14,161 Sailing sloops 24 372 21,151 Brigs 4 20 999 Transportation ships 16 64 11,420 Transportation barks 16 91 8,468 Schooners 8 12 1,081 Yachts 2 — ——- Mortar schooners 18 52 4,316 Steam frigates 9 199 21,673 Steam sloops 10 161 16,205 Steam gunboats 40 200 24,783 Auxiliary steam gunboats 47 209 23,875 Transport steamers altered to war vessels 58 240 36,170 Iron-clad ocean steamers 4 32 8,435 Iron-clad river steamers 11 130 6,640 Iron-clad rams 12 7 3,800 Other vessels not classed 14 9 3,788

Unfinished Vessels of the Navy.

Frigates 1 50 3,684 Steam sloops 7 68 9,669 Steam gunboats 28 184 35,160 Iron-clad ocean gunboats 22 58 26,955 Iron-clad river gunboats 12 33 8,682

The total number of vessels of all classes in the navy, is 376, having a tonnage of 307,234 tons, and carrying 3,038 guns of heavy calibre.

With these statistics, compiled from 'official' sources, we conclude this article, and in our next shall take up the subject of naval gunnery in the United States.



THREE MODERN ROMANCES.

'GUY LIVINGSTONE,' 'SWORD AND GOWN,' AND 'BARREN HONOR.'

This terrible power of fictitious invention, wherewith God has endowed man, and which now-a-days we take readily enough, without comment, is yet the growth of comparatively modern times, the development within a few centuries of a new faculty. The Greek never solaced his leisure with the latest tale of a gifted Charicles or Aristarchus, and the grave Roman would have been as much startled by a 'new novel' as by the apparition of a steam engine. The famous Minerva press was the first mighty wellspring whence gushed the broad and rapid torrent of cheap fiction. This perennial fountain has long ceased to flow, yet has its disappearance left no unsatisfied void. The procreation of human kind has failed to support the elaborate theory of Malthus, but had the sage philosopher transferred his calculations from the sons of men to works of fiction, then indeed he might stand forth the prophet of a striking truth. The extensive plain over which this flood is spread seems even to be extending its limits, and a spongy soil of unlimited capacity is ready ever to absorb the fresh advance of waves. It is indeed striking to observe how authors and men of talent have increased, so vastly out of all proportion with other classes of men. Observing it, the political economist may well shout 'Io triumphe!' for that even in so delicate and intangible a matter as intellectual gifts, the famous doctrine of supply and demand is so thoroughly carried out. We raise, however, no hue and cry after 'poor trash.' Neither have we the blood-thirsty wish to run to ground the panting scribbler, or to adorn ourselves with the glories of his 'brush.' Let those who countenance him by reading his works, and who can reconcile the purchase thereof with their consciences, answer to their fellow men for the inevitable consequences. But it must be confessed that there is in this department a sad want. All readers of moderate discrimination must have felt it painfully. In the literature of fiction we need organization. How do we know a good tea from a bad? Is it by the universal consent of the good people of China—by a democratic 'censeatur' of the celestial nation? Not at all. Every variety is tasted by men who rinse their mouths after each swallow, and the comparative merits are gauged and graduated by adepts, who make it the sole business and profession of their lives. A similar process we need in fiction. The old system of criticism in reviews and magazines worked well in its day, but it won't do now. The era of the old-fashioned novel critic has gone by. He knows it, and his voice is seldom heard. Even a numerous body, working promiscuously and without conjunction, could not accomplish much. The only manner in which the requisite result could be brought about would be by a regularly organized set of men, working under direction and regulated by authority, like the body of tax assessors or national judiciaries. Such a corps should be trained to their work as to a profession like that of law or medicine, having brotherhoods in every publishing town or city, working together and subordinately, like the order of the Jesuits. They should test every work before it was given to the public, and brand it with precisely its mark of real merit. And thus might be accomplished a most inestimable public service. In France such a system might be practicable, and not hostile to the spirit and institutions of a nation accustomed to have everything, even to the play programmes of the theatre, regulated by the powers that be. But in America, home of democracy and fatherland of individual independence, such a scheme, so invaluable though so impossible, must, we fear, ever remain a tantalizing vision. As it is, of course many a man of real ability is drowned in the rushing waves of multitudinous authors, and his works pass undistinguished to that unknown grave which gapes so mysteriously in some hidden recess of the universe, and silently swallows yearly the vast masses of printed paper which has done its brief work and been thrown by read or unread, forgotten. It is to assist in the rescue of a struggling author from this yawning abyss that the present article is sent forth, a plank in the shipwreck.

Who may be the object of our present criticism, we must confess we know not. Whether it be a brother man, or whether our words of praise may win us the kind regards of a 'gentle ladye,' we can only conjecture. Our process must be in rem, not in personam. 'It'—for thus perforce we must speak of our Unknown—weareth an iron mask of inscrutable mystery, as complete as that of the all-baffling Junius. The field, however, of speculation is open to our wandering reflection. Herein we guide ourselves by natural signs, the configurations of the stars and the marks of the soil. We judge from the mould in which the favorite male characters are cast, and from the traits invariably bestowed upon the heroines, also by the general choice of scenery, by the groupings, the 'properties.' Upon such authority of intrinsic evidence we have no hesitation in pronouncing the writer to be a man. Certain novel-writing ladies indeed are given to depicting most royal heroes, types of the ideal man, glorified beings endowed with every charm of physique and of spirit. Such find an irresistible fascination in allowing their fancy to run wild riot and poetic revel in contemplation of a wonderful male creature, so graceful, so beautiful, so strong, so brave, so masterly, so bad or so good as the case may be—a spirit of chivalry incarnate in the perfection of the flesh. They cannot build a shrine too lofty, nor burn too generous store of incense before this exalted one. The man, as he reads, smiles. Such a brother has never been born to him of woman—never since the days of Adam in paradise, neither ever shall be. The fair votaress standeth without the vail of the temple, nor have its mystic recesses ever disclosed to her scrutinizing vision actual 'Man.' Let us not however harshly dispel such illusions, neither drench with the cold flood of unnecessary ingenuousness the glowing embers of myrrh and frankincense. Occasionally, perchance, some sinful human, conscious within himself of no demerits beyond his fellows, may repine at passing comparison with this shadowy conception. But as a general rule, it is wise enough to tolerate such pleasant vagaries of worshipping woman. Of this fair description are the proud statues which look out upon us in Apollo-like majesty from the galleries in 'Guy Livingstone,' 'Sword and Gown,' 'Barren Honors.' Guy, Royston Keene, and Alan Wyverne, are such fanciful delineations, such marvels of bodily glory and chivalrous spirit. They might be drawn by a woman. The accompaniments are in admirable keeping; and the whole scenery is gotten up to match, and most unexceptionally. Our characters are dissipated upon a scale suited to the heroic age and the primeval constitution of the race. They gamble quite en prince, and carouse most royally. They have a capacity for terrible potations, should mischance or crossed affections so incline them; yet they can seldom plead the latter excuse, for we are given to understand that woman-kind are born to be their helpless slaves and victims. They are perpetually doing deeds of terrible 'derring-do;' upon the backs of unmanageable steeds they leap limitless chasms and the tallest of walls; they gallop to death in battle and dispel ennui in midnight conflicts with desperate poachers. Such scenes are quite within the scope of some feminine imaginations, but scarcely such a power of description as that wherewith we have them here set forth. Women thrill sometimes at fierce tales of stalwart knock-down struggles, many of them will back fearlessly the most mettlesome of thoroughbreds; but when it comes to talk thereof, they strive in vain for adequate power of language. The best words and the strongest sentences will not come. These demand the clarion roundness and ring essentially masculine—very virile indeed. The muscular gripe of a man—not the white, tapering fingers of any maiden—held the pen which wrote so gloriously of Livingstone's terrible riding, of Royston Keene's bloody sabre charges. We know it by unerring instinct, as we could tell a morsel of the smooth cheek of the damsel from the grizzled jowl of man.

But as usual, the crowning glory of most anxious labor is to be sought in the female characters. These are nearly all of the majestic, haughty, and queen-like caste—tall, imperious beauties, empresses of society, to whom men are slaves, and life a triumphal march of unbroken conquests. So it is at least until they meet some one terrible subduer of woman—a Guy or a Keene—in whom they recognize masterhood, and the right and power to reign. With the last stateliness of royalty these magnificent presences glide through the proud pomp and pageantry of their surroundings, graceful as swans, faultless in classic form, and face as white as Grecian marbles, domineering as sisters of Caesars, violet eyed, statuesque, cold upon the chiselled surface, but aglow with the white heat of feeling and forceful passion beneath. How blue are their clear veins interlacing beneath a crystalline skin!—for their blood is a more sublimed fluid than that which waters the clay of ordinary humanity. They have with them an unutterable glory of conscious power, the magnificence of a perfect, God-given nature, such a haughty spirit of rivalless dominion as might have swelled the soul of a Jewish queen, monarch of Israel, ruler of God's chosen people in the day of their unbroken pride, when she felt that none greater than herself dwelt upon the globe. But with inevitable tread approaches the universal moral which points the tale. The measured step of the godlike hero echoeth along the corridors. The royal maiden, hearing the ominous tramp, is cognizant of an unwonted thrill and a sensation unfelt before. Her prophetic instinct telleth her too truly that her wild independence is concluded, that the day of bondage and of fetters has dawned, that the inexorable One, who alone in all the millions of created men is able, is even now present with, the gyves of her slavery in his hand. But the denouement is never at the bridal altar. Our host entertaineth us with no loves of Strephon and Phillis, nor leads beneath shady arcades to a vine-clad cottage, wherein is love and rich cream and homemade butter. The three sisters, the dread Moirae, in their darksome cavern, spinning the golden thread of destiny, reel from their distaff no bright soft film of wedded happiness. The polished metal, many times refined, would never show half its qualities were it not subject to unwonted tests. We suffer according to our powers of endurance, and are tried according to our gifts. Else why are the powers and the gifts given to us by a Providence which never wasteth, nor doeth in freakish negligence. The yoke of love is not weighty enough to bow sufficiently the curving neck. With a love which cannot be satisfied comes the mighty temptation to sin and disgrace. Even into this black chasm our beauties look with steady eye, and meditate the step. It is a part of their self-sustaining nature and towering spirit to wreak their own will. Once let them give their love to man, and it is the passion of their lives. Of gossip and the wagging tongue of scandal, and of that vague, shadowy phantom, reputation, they reck not. These unsubstantial fleeting barriers are dissipated in an instant before the mighty breath of their omnipotent passion. Their love is the great fact of their lives. Why should it yield to less powerful sentiments, to inferior satisfactions. If the laws and sentiments of the commonalty of mankind oppose, why gain the lesser, palling pleasure of a fair character among our fellows whom we care not for, and lose the one joy of existence? Such, in all three of these novels, to a greater or less extent, is the theory of action of the female characters.

They are however rescued from the last degree of actual crime in each case by the good taste of the author, feeling that such chapters had better not be written voluntarily in fiction, or perchance by his love for his proud maidens, whom he cannot taint with degradation in act, even if the sin upon their souls be wellnigh as black in the eyes of a strict judge, arbiter alike of the seen and the unseen. Such are hardly the conceptions wherewith the brain of a cultivated woman would teem. It were too glaring treason to her sex and to her own nature. Although it must be said that there is no word of coarseness or bold suggestion of wickedness to be found upon any page. So far from it, we scarcely find recognized the crime to which the maidens are tempted, and we half-ignorantly wonder at the existence of compunctions, excited at we can scarcely say what. But the author knew probably well enough, and if she were one of the sisterhood of women, then must she be isolated and at enmity with them all. Her hand is against every woman's and every woman's hand against her.

Perhaps there is a fault in the tone of these novels. This may have been inferred by some strict moralists from the preceding paragraph. But they have indeed not the slightest trace of impropriety about them. They are not tainted in the slightest with the insidious viciousness of French novels. Their fault arises from rather an opposite tendency of mind and a different train of feelings. They are of the world, worldly. They are cold and sarcastic; they inculcate self-sufficiency, and preach to man to be a tower of strength in himself, not always in the praiseworthy Christian way. There is no single word of scoffing or disrespect for religion, no slur upon it whatsoever. Only we are aware, as by an instinct, that in the circle of our characters it is wholly ignored. In their world it is not an agent, whether for themselves or others. It is as unrecognized a system as is Mohammedanism or Buddhism with ourselves. The heroes have all 'seen the world' in the most thorough and terrible sense of those words. For them virtue and vice are much alike. Their wills are iron. They fix their eye upon their goal, and straight thereto they firmly march over the obstacles of precipices, through the blackness of quagmires, crashing athwart laws, customs, and conventionalities, as elephants calmly striding through underbrush. They disregard the prejudices of the world equally for evil and for good. And a moral independence which might furnish forth the most glorious of martyrs in invincible panoply is quite as likely to assist a hardy sinner. The sneer and sarcasm and contempt are for the conventionalities of the world, for the belief of the mass of mankind in right and wrong, and for the customs and habits which the republic of humanity has established for better assistance in the paths of virtue—as if, forsooth, such were vulgar because common, and to be despised by the mighty because useful to the feeble. This is not the proper spirit for the satirist. If he wields his pen in support of such a theory he will do more harm than good. A conventionality is not necessarily bad or contemptible merely as such. Not a promiscuous and indiscriminate slashing, but a careful pruning is the proper method in the garden of society. The indiscreet hand will cut what it should leave, and leave perhaps what might have been better sacrificed. The artificial trellises whereon we train our feeble virtues, which may hardly stand by their own strength, must not be shattered in a general slaughter of weeds which have taken root and nourishment in the rank soil of fashionable etiquette. Let us not dash the image from the altar, nor quench the fire at the shrine, before we have another idol and another shrine to give to the old worshippers, who must worship still. Such reckless iconoclasm is too dangerous. It is in this point of discretion that our author is most reprehensible. The moral tone of his works might have been improved had his independent tendencies been rather more judiciously indulged. There is, however, one character of loveliness and purity almost sufficient to leaven the whole mass and to dash our entire reprehension. In all the scope of our novel reading, nowhere do we remember to have met a more exquisitely charming character than that of fair Constance Brandon. Every charm of spirit and of person is lavished upon her. At the same time she is conceived with faultless taste. No feeble extravagance offends our feelings; no tinsel or affectation thwarts our admiration. The execution is worthy of the thought, which is simply beautiful. The portrait is like Raphael's divinest Madonna, with the changing radiance and velvety warmth of life thrown into the matchless face. Why could we not have had more such, instead of such indifferent domesticities as La Mignonne?

When we say that none of these three novels are destined to pass into the eternal literature of the language, we pass no very harsh or damning judgment. Men of the highest powers must bow to the same decree. Our author, though his thews and sinews are stalwart, is yet hardly cast in the mould to indicate such excessive vitality. He can hardly trouble the stride of those lordly veterans of the turf, Scott or Thackeray; yet without exertion spurning the rearward turf, he clicks his galloping hoofs in the faces of the throng of the ordinary purveyors of fiction. His fancy is exuberant; his imagination brilliant, florid, verging at times almost upon the apoplectic. But the cognate mental member, invention, is most sadly destitute of free and sweeping action. His plots are of the simplest, and betray indubitably a numbness or imperfect development of the inventive faculties of the brain. People who read novels for the denouement, who ride a steeple chase through them, leaping a five-page fence here, a ditch of a chapter there, and anon clearing at a mighty bound a rasper of some score or more paragraphs, resolute simply to be in at the death in the last chapter, anxious to see the wedding torches extinguished, and the printer setting up 'Finis'—such would find little satisfaction in 'Barren Honor,' almost none in 'Sword and Gown.' Reading these works is like passing through a wondrously beautiful country. But it is not the indolent beauty of southern climes, to lounge through sleepily in a slow-rolling travelling carriage. You must ride through it on the proud back of a blooded steed. Canter, run, if you like, when the ground is fit and the spirit moves, as often enough it may; but do not fix your eyes upon any distant gaol, and time your arrival thereat. Enjoy what is close at hand. Admire now the blue glories of the proud hills, recumbent in careless grace of majesty in the indolent sunlit atmosphere; gaze then into the sombre depths of solemn retreating forest; tremble anon in the black shadow of the fierce rock beetling over your bridle way; and fill your rejoicing being with the fresh-distilled vigor of the springy step of your charger on the turf. It will put bounding manliness into your sluggish civilian blood. Read each page, each chapter for itself; or regard it as one handsome marble square in the tesselated pavement of a haughty palace, not as a useful brick in the domestic sidewalk, which is to carry you straight to a homely destination. Observe the description of scenes, how powerful! the delineation of character, how fascinating! and be pleased with the luxuriance of the style and the gorgeous drapery of language wherewith so royally the thoughts are robed.

Our author is not true to nature—he is extravagant, high-wrought. Nobody ever met his heroes or his heroines in real life, nor lived the scenes told of in his poetry. His men and women are the men and women of an enthusiastic fancy; his scenes and incidents are the scenes and incidents of our romantic dreams. We know none so lovely as ethereal Constance Brandon; we never gazed into the violet-flashing eyes of a Cecil Tresilyan; none of our friends are quite prototypes of the omnipotent 'Cool Captain;' they betray neither the athletic chivalry of Livingstone nor the winning beauty and high-souled nobility of generous Alan Wyverne. We never saw such models, for such never quitted their ideal essences to become incarnate in the flesh. But why need this be an insuperable objection? We don't find Achilles any the less interesting because we doubt the ability of any degenerate modern to calmly destroy such outnumbering hosts of his fellow beings, and send such a throng of warrior souls to hades without scath or scar to his invulnerable self. Ivanhoe got out of some very awkward scrapes by the exertion of a prowess quite exceptional in such a 'light-weight.' The extravagance is not glaring enough to discompose us. Surely a tolerable proximate approach to possible existence ought to satisfy a not viciously captious critic. We are reading of shadowy beings: why should not the facile mists be permeated with a somewhat subtler light, and melt into somewhat airier forms of perfection than we have been accustomed to catch imprisoned in the substantial dulness of the flesh? If we will only choose, we may revel in the company of somewhat glorified mortals. It may be a luxury to us, if we will not be jealously illiberal and envious. It is pleasant to emerge from our little chintz-furnished parlor, and lounge in castles of dimly magnificent extent, where we are sure to meet the choicest society; where some order their mighty hunters from the capacious stables, and others go out to drop a stag, or run a fox, or bag a few pheasants in the preserves, just to get an appetite for dinner, from which stupendous meal, tended by hosts of velvet-footed menials and florid old-family butlers, resplendent ladies rise to retire to gorgeous drawing rooms of any draperied dimensions we may choose to fancy, leaving perhaps a score of gentlemen guests to quaff cobwebbed wines in unstinted goblets. Why isn't it pleasant to linger sometimes in these royal abodes, and to saunter in the endless lawns and forest glades of the rich and the great, where we may encounter ladies rather handsomer and gentlemen rather haughtier than they are generally made in our own circle? Let us not be captious, but agreeably appreciative.

In a short sentence in one of the opening chapters of 'Sword and Gown,' our author proclaims probably the intention, certainly the result of his literary labors—to produce a string of beautiful cameos, with just thread enough of story to string them upon. This task is done, and well done. The classical allusions are numerous, and seldom can we blame one as out of place. Generally they are wrought into beautiful little pictures, complete in themselves. He manages them with wonderful dexterity, never making too much of them, nor dwelling upon them too long; but with his masterly skill in language he handles his words as a painter his colors, and now we have a bold royal sketch, cloudy outlines of gigantic proportions, shadowy scenes of indefinite grandeur, done with a few strong, words and magnificent adjectives; and now a little paragraph, charming in its exquisite daintiness, like a miniature rarely done upon the face of a costly gem. It is in this word-painting that he is surpassingly admirable. Delineation, description, portraiture are his forte. The same quality of mind which gives dreams of princely men and divine women seems to have brought also a generous endowment of warm, rich words, wherewith to do justice to the imaginings. All the beauty, dignity, and glory of English logography seem to be his: he marshals an array of adjectives and phrases which seem all of the blood royal of our munificent mother tongue. Oftentimes his page sounds like the deep-rolling anthem of a mighty cathedral organ. Might and music are in his syllables; and without sifting his sentences for a noble thought or a beautiful idea, we may be pleased by the stately tread of their succession, and their rich harmonious cadences.

The scenes are apt to be rather melodramatic. Wonderful passions work wonderfully. Eyes flash, lips are set, cheeks grow pale, quite often. Great coolness, vast powers, are continually displayed; yet they are well displayed, after the fashion of gentlemen, not of bravoes or villains or highwaymen. He handles thunder and lightning, the terrific weapons of the mighty Jove himself, in a very haughty, Jove-like manner, it must be confessed. He isn't afraid of singing his fingers with the thunderbolts, but seizes them with the familiar gripe of unquestionable authority. In a glorified language he paints glorified visions. Very little of the calm domestic sunlight of the working noonday glimmers among his pages, but a perpetual, everlasting gorgeousness of deep-colored sunset radiance. For merit of style all these novels are well worthy of commendation and of study. Education and extensive reading have preserved them from faults of gaudiness and meretricious ornament. They are chastened by good taste and regulated by gentlemanly cultivation. They are written by a scholar, and not by a scribbler; and while reading their magnificent pages we need have no misgiving that we are admiring the flashy ornaments of wordy or half-educated mediocrity. Far the best of them is also the first, 'Guy Livingstone.' The poorest is 'Sword and Gown;' this has the feeblest plot, in fact a mere apology for a story, and contains more passages which seem unfinished, and what on a second reading would scarce have satisfied their own writer. 'Guy Livingstone,' though not faultless, is a work of power, talent, and brilliancy. Guy himself is an Olympian character, sketched upon the scale and model of a Torso, a giant in his virtues and his vices and his frame—but exaggerated with such tact and ability that even the impossible hugeness charms and fascinates. The feats of the hero in the dance and carpeted salon, on his mighty hunter leading the breakneck chase, carry us away with all the heat and ardor of sympathy; nor do we stumble in our companionable excitement over any unwelcome snag of commonplace thought or vulgar daring. Constance Brandon, as we have above intimated, we consider a splendid masterpiece—a woman lovely as the imagination of man fondly likes to dream, with every winning grace of manner and amiable charm of purity. She is the finest character and the fairest face beyond all compare in the gallery; and the scenes in which she figures are the most able, the most moving, and the most unexceptionable in every point of view, of all that our author has given us.



MILL ON LIBERTY.

Any work from the pen of John Stuart Mill will arrest the attention of readers and thinkers wherever the English language is spoken, and, indeed, wherever the spirit of inquiry and improvement has aroused the intellect of man. This author has proved himself a veritable instructor and benefactor of his race. His writings have been always grave and valuable, addressed to the understanding of men, indicating arduous study on his own part, and eliciting reflection of the profoundest character in the mind of his reader. In his well known work 'On Logic,' published twenty years ago, he exhibited the highest capacity for abstract speculation, and placed himself by the side of Aristotle and Bacon in the rank of philosophers; while that 'On the Principles of Political Economy,' more practical in its aims, entitles him to the reputation of an able and enlightened statesman.

Last year we had published in this country, a treatise from the same fertile pen on the subject of 'Representative Government,' which, however, was subsequent in the order of composition to that which has just now appeared in the United States from the press of Ticknor & Fields, of Boston. Both these productions, that on 'Representative Government,' and that 'On Liberty,' are valuable to the American people, teaching lessons important to be learned even by them. From the nature of our institutions, and especially from the vainglorious sentiments too generally entertained by us, we are apt to consider ourselves so well versed in the principles of civil liberty and of representative government, as to be incapable of learning anything on these subjects, especially from English writers. Unfortunately, recent events are calculated rudely to disturb our self-satisfaction, and to arouse within us a serious distrust, not indeed of the principles embodied in our institutions, but of our practical ability to carry them out to their legitimate results, and thus to enjoy, fully and permanently, the advantages of the system of free government of which we have always been so boastful.

It is perhaps natural that the mass of the American people should conceive the whole of liberty as comprised in the privilege of voting, and its substantial benefits as being fully secured by the popular form of government. This, however, would be an inconsiderate conclusion, involving a most pernicious error; and so far is it from constituting any important part of the discussion, that in the whole of Mr. Mill's work, there is scarcely more than a glance at this aspect of the question. The liberty which the author investigates and commends by the most unanswerable arguments, is not that which is embodied in political institutions, so much as that which results from the liberal and enlightened spirit pervading and controlling the social organization. It is not the power to choose representatives and to make laws, but it is rather the privilege, in all proper cases, of being a law to one's self, and of representing in one's own individuality the peculiar ideas and capacities which each one is best fitted to unfold and develop for his own good without injury to society. Political tyranny, at this day, is by no means the chief danger to which men are anywhere exposed; and that subject has been so thoroughly understood in modern times, that books are hardly required now to be written upon it. It is social despotism—the tyranny of custom and opinion—which chiefly enlists the intellect of our philosophical and interesting author, though he does not fail to lay down the true limits of the legislative authority as well. He is thoroughly versed in the history of 'the struggle between liberty and authority,' which he says 'is the most conspicuous feature in the portions of history with which we are earliest familiar, particularly in that of Greece, Rome, and England. But in old times this contest was between subjects, or some classes of subjects, and the government. By liberty was meant protection against the tyranny of political rulers.' This struggle has been carried on for ages, until it has now come to be an axiom, universally received in civilized nations, that government is instituted solely for the good of the governed. And in the progress of amelioration and improvement, it has been supposed that the popular principle of universal suffrage, with frequent elections, and consequent responsibility of political agents, would effectually prevent the exercise of tyranny in governments; and this especially when governments are instituted under written constitutions, with powers limited and clearly defined therein. The people, through their chosen representatives, wielding the whole power of the national organization, could not be expected to tyrannize over themselves. Experience, however, soon proved that the tyranny of the majority in popular governments is to be guarded against quite as carefully as that of despotic rulers in any other form of polity. For, says Mr. Mill, 'when society is itself the tyrant—society collectively over the individuals which compose it—its means of tyrannizing are not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries.' The obvious truth of this statement needs no elaborate attempt at illustration. In all the departments of thought and action, of opinion and habit, the power of society over its separate members is tremendous and unlimited, sometimes penetrating 'deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself.' It would not be difficult for any man of intelligence and observation to recall instances, within his own knowledge, in which this arbitrary power of the community has been most unjustly exerted to oppress and injure individuals. The injury and oppression have been none the less, because their operation has been silent, attended with no physical force or legal restraint, but reaching only the mind and heart of the sufferer, crushing them with the moral weight of unjust opprobrium, and torturing them with all the ingenious appliances of social tyranny.

The remedy for this sort of despotism—the most dangerous of all, if not the only danger to be feared in civilized communities and in liberal governments—is not to be found in laws or constitutions, but in the enlightened liberality and trained habits and sentiments of society itself. 'Some,' says Mr. Mill, 'whenever they see any good to be done or any evil to be remedied, would willingly instigate the government to undertake the business; while others prefer to bear almost any amount of social evil, rather than to add one to the departments of human interests amenable to governmental control.' And, upon the whole, he thinks, 'the interference of government is, with about equal frequency, improperly invoked and improperly condemned.' The only device which Mr. Mill proposes, as the effectual means of counteracting this sort of tyranny, either political or social, is the establishment of a rule or principle, by which the limits of authority over individuals shall, in both cases, be strictly and philosophically defined. He does not undertake to say how this rule is to be enforced—by what sanctions, or by what authority it can be made effectual for the protection of individual rights. But as the evil to be remedied is one arising chiefly from the errors of public opinion, the corrective would naturally seem to be the inculcation of sound principles and just sentiments, infusing them into the social organization, and gradually enthroning them in the public conscience. The bare announcement of truth, in a matter of such transcendent importance, is an immense progress toward the goal of improvement. Principles, well founded and of real value, once understood, will eventually make their way. With all the errors of society, and the wrong-headed stubbornness and selfishness of humanity, with the immense obstructive power of established interests, the haughty despotism of old opinions, and the petrified rigidity of social customs, the solvent energy of truth nevertheless will penetrate every part of the imposing fabric, and gradually undermine its foundations. Underlying the whole, there is a broad foundation for improvement; and there is a natural tendency in society to seize upon and appropriate good, whenever fairly exhibited to its view and placed within its reach.

As embodying the general purpose of the author, and the principle which he seeks to establish, we give the following passage, in his own words:

'The object of this essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion. That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear, because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him, must be calculated to produce evil to some one else. The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.'

This statement has the great merit of being, at least, perfectly clear and definite. In some particular cases, the principle may be difficult of application; but in the principle itself, as defined in this passage, there is not the slightest uncertainty or indistinctness. The author is very careful, however, to except from its operation all persons who are not in the maturity of their faculties, as well as all those backward nations who are not capable of being improved by free and equal discussion. The condition of society in which alone this liberal maxim will be safe and appropriate, must be that of a people so far elevated and enlightened, that persuasion and conviction are the most powerful means of improvement. Wherever is to be found an advanced civilization, with all the complex moral and social relations which grow out of it, there the necessity for physical force will be found to have declined. Public opinion will have acquired great authority, if not absolute control; and the rights of individuals will require, for their protection against the overpowering weight of the social combination, all those safeguards against possible tyranny, which can only be afforded by the general acceptance of the liberal principle just quoted. The social authority must be educated and restrained by its own willing recognition of individual rights. As the power most likely to be abused for purposes of oppression is that of opinion and custom, too often operating silently and insidiously, the corrective is only to be applied by the establishment of a counteracting spiritual authority, in the bosom of society itself, at all times ready to utter its mandate and to proclaim the inviolable sanctity of individual liberty, within the limits fixed by enlightened reason and conscience. In the earlier stages of civilization, or in societies of more simple and primitive character, individual development has not reached the point which either requires such principles or admits of their application. The merely physical life of such people can hardly give rise to these questions: political power and actual force necessarily occupy the place of those subtle and all-pervading moral and social influences which prevail in the subsequent stages of progress. As men become more enlightened, they become also more capable of self-control, and are consequently entitled to greater liberty of action. Sooner or later, the necessity for conceding it to the utmost limit of the principle stated, will be fully acknowledged.

But it is notable that the author does not attempt to maintain his dogma on the ground of right or morality, but solely on that of a wise and broad utility. He foregoes all the advantage he might obtain in the argument by resorting to the moral considerations which sustain it. It is better for the real interests of society that individual members should enjoy the largest measure of liberty; and if this be not equivalent to the assertion that it is also their right, upon the plainest moral grounds, it is at least certain that the two principles are coincident in this case, as they will be found to be in all others, where the real interests of mankind are concerned. So true is it, that what ever, in a large sense, is best for the permanent advantage of any society is, at the same time, always right and consistent with sound moral principles.

In a matter of such vital importance as that of human liberty, which, in the language of another eminent writer, 'is the one thing most essential to the right development of individuals, and to the real grandeur of nations,' it was necessary that its foundations should be made so broad, in any correct philosophical analysis of its nature, as to comprehend the whole field of human activity. Accordingly, Mr. Mill includes within its proper domain the three great departments: consciousness, or the internal operations of our own minds; will, or the external manifestation of our thoughts and feelings in acts and habits; and lastly, association, or cooeperation with others, voluntarily agreed upon, and not interfering with the rights and liberties of those who may choose to stand aloof from such combinations. In reference to the first of these, which asserts the undoubted right to enjoy our own thoughts and feelings, with absolute freedom of opinion on all subjects, Mr. Mill remarks that 'the liberty of expressing and publishing opinions may seem to fall under a different principle, since it belongs to that part of the conduct of an individual which concerns other people; but being almost of as much importance as the liberty of thought itself, and resting in great part on the same reasons, is practically inseparable from it.' But, in truth, the right of expression, which does not properly come under the head of consciousness or thought, but under that of will or action, is the only one of the two which at this day is of any practical importance. The idea of controlling thought or belief has, in effect, been everywhere abandoned. Indeed, it may be questioned whether any such control ever has been or could have been exercised; for thought itself could never be known except through some outward manifestation. It was therefore the expression which was punished, and not the inward consciousness. Opinions, it is true, have too often been the avowed ground of oppression and persecution. Men have been injured in various ways, on account of their known or suspected belief; even in modern times and in communities claiming to be free, political disabilities, social reprobation, and the stigma of disqualification as witnesses have been imposed upon persons entertaining certain views on theological questions. But these persecutions may have compelled the suppression or disavowal of obnoxious opinions, and may have made hypocrites; they never changed belief, or produced any other conviction than that of wrong and outrage. The soul itself is beyond the reach of any human authority, not to be conquered by any device of terror or torture.

Difference of opinion is unfortunately the ground of natural aversion among men; and it requires much enlightenment and liberal training to enable society to overcome this universal prejudice and to inaugurate complete and absolute toleration. 'In the present state of knowledge,' says Buckle, the historian, 'the majority of people are so ill informed, as not to be aware of the true nature of belief; they are not aware that all belief is involuntary and is entirely governed by the circumstances which produce it. What we call the will has no power over belief, and consequently a man is nowise responsible for his creed, except in so far as he is responsible for the events which gave him his creed.' It may be doubted whether the majority of people are quite so ignorant as Mr. Buckle here represents them; for the conflict between beliefs is rather the result of feeling or passion than of judgment. Because men who differ in opinion hate each other, it does not follow that they must therefore deny the right to freedom of thought, or maintain that belief may be changed at will. The red man and the white man may cordially hate each other; but it would hardly be accurate to say that the former denies the right of the latter to his color, or thinks him morally responsible for it. Yet men are quite as much responsible for the color of their skin as for the character of their honest convictions, and they have almost equal power to control the one or the other. In truth, the hatred arising from conflict of opinion is not the offspring of thought, but of emotion. It is chiefly a derangement of the affections; not so much an error of the reason. The most unenlightened man has the innate conviction that he is entitled to his peculiar belief, because it is impossible for him to admit any other; nor is it at all natural or necessary that one individual should question the sincerity of another's opinion on any subject, because it differs from his own. Intolerance in this particular has been the result mostly of interference and usurpation—the consequence of that theological despotism to which men have, in some form or other, in all ages, been more or less subjected.

It is not, therefore, the liberty of thought and belief that Mr. Mill finds it necessary to defend, in his exposition of the first division of the subject; but it is only that of expression and discussion—the liberty of the press—the right to make known opinions upon any subject, and to produce arguments in support of them. In this country, it may be supposed to be wholly unnecessary to investigate this subject, inasmuch as the liberty of the press is here maintained to the most unlimited extent. So far as the mere legal right is involved, this is undoubtedly true; the established laws interpose no impediment to the expression and publication of opinions, except those indispensable regulations which are intended to preserve the public peace and morality, and to protect private character from wanton injury. We have no reason to fear any invasion of the liberty of the press—any political interference with the right of free discussion—unless in times of great public danger, or, as Mr. Mill says, 'during some temporary panic, when fear of insurrection drives ministers and judges from their propriety.' But there is a despotism of society, in this country as well as elsewhere, which, independent of law or authority, often imposes silence on unpopular opinions, and suppresses all discussion, by means of those ten thousand appliances and expedients adopted by communities to express displeasure and to command obedience. Even, however, if there were not the slightest evidence of intolerance in the country, if the rational principles of liberty were universally acknowledged and practised upon, it would still be most useful and interesting to follow this author in his admirable discussion of the subject. It would be a matter of no little importance to understand the rational grounds on which the great and acknowledged principles of liberty are actually founded, and to see the perfect frankness and fearlessness with which this philosophic author follows the doctrine to its extreme but inevitable conclusions. For instance, Mr. Mill does not hesitate to say, 'if all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.' And this position is maintained not solely or chiefly on the ground of injustice to the person holding the obnoxious opinion, but because the forcible suppression of it would do even greater injustice to those who conscientiously reject it. For if the opinion be true, its establishment and dissemination would benefit mankind; and even if it be false, it is equally important it should be freely made known, inasmuch as it would contribute to 'the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth produced by its collision with error.' Besides, no man can certainly know that any opinion is true, so long as anything which can be said against it is not permitted to be presented and freely discussed. Liberty is the indispensable atmosphere of truth. Without it, truth will as surely languish and die, as animals or plants will perish without air. All great improvements have been accomplished only through the conflicts of adverse opinion. Progress is change, and if all discussion is prohibited, change and improvement are impossible.

It is interesting also to see the unlimited scope allowed to this bold doctrine, and the fearlessness with which it is applied to subjects usually deemed sacred and forbidden to all question or controversy. The existence of a God, the certainty of a future state, the truth of Christianity—all these are the proper subjects of free discussion and untrammelled opinion, quite as much as any other questions, however unimportant or indifferent. It becomes the devoutest Christian to hear discussions on these transcendent subjects without the least ill will or intolerance toward the adversary who may thus endeavor to shake his faith in those sublime truths which he holds indisputable and more sacred than all others. It is doing the highest possible service to the doctrines to attack them; for if they be sound and true, they will certainly survive, and be all the more glorious for having passed safely through the ordeal. Christianity itself was more vital and effective in its earlier stages, when fighting its way into existence against all sorts of persecutions, than it has ever been since in the palmiest days of its power. When its doctrines are no longer questioned, it will cease to be a living spirit controlling the hearts of men. It will be a cold and formal thing, resting on the general acquiescence, but no longer exhibiting its all-conquering power in the active effort to overthrow opposing creeds.

No genuine liberty can exist, until the community shall have reached that elevated condition of liberality and wisdom which will gladly submit its most cherished sentiments to the analysis of unsparing logic, and that without the least effort to punish, in any way, the daring attempt to undermine its faith. The champions of truth will be strengthened by the encounter with error; weak and false arguments, which really injure truth, will give way, and the solid foundations of impregnable logic will be substituted in their place. It is impossible to overestimate the service done to a good cause, by exposing it fearlessly to the worst attacks of its enemies. 'The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer doubtful, is the cause of half their errors. A contemporary author has well spoken of 'the deep slumber of a decided opinion.'' And another author enthusiastically exclaims: 'All hail, therefore, to those who, by attacking a truth, prevent that truth from slumbering. All hail to those bold and fearless natures, the heretics and innovators of the day, who, rousing men out of their lazy sleep, sound in their ears the tocsin and the clarion, and force them to come forth that they may do battle for their creed. Of all evils, torpor is the most deadly. Give us paradox, give us error, give us what you will, so that you save us from stagnation. It is the cold spirit of routine which is the nightshade of our nature. It sits upon men like a blight, blunting their faculties, withering their powers, and making them both unable and unwilling to struggle for the truth, or to figure to themselves what it is they really believe.'

The chapter which Mr. Mill devotes to this subject—the liberty of discussion and publication—is thoroughly exhaustive in its character. It presents the question in almost every light in which it is desirable to see it, and successfully meets every objection which can be made to his doctrine. For the first time, a logical and philosophical exposition of the great principles of liberty is presented to the world, and that too in a most readable and attractive form. The work is calculated to do immense good. It places liberty on a rational foundation, and dispels every doubt which might have been entertained by the timid, as to the safety and propriety of permitting free discussion on those points of belief which are too often held to be beyond the domain of investigation and argument. We do not pretend, here, to give anything like a synopsis of the grounds assumed, and the reasonings adopted by the author. A full and correct idea of these can only be obtained from the book itself. But before leaving this part of the work, we cannot forbear quoting a passage on this subject from an essay by Henry Thomas Buckle. Even at the risk of prolonging this article beyond its proper limits, we quote at some length, on account of the vast interest of the topic and the different notions which too generally prevail as to the propriety of its discussion:

'If they who deny the immortality of the soul, could, without the least opprobrium, state in the boldest manner all their objections, the advocates of the doctrine would be obliged to reconsider their own position and to abandon its untenable points. By this means, that which I revere, and an overwhelming majority of us revere, as a glorious truth, would be immensely strengthened. It would be strengthened by being deprived of those sophistical arguments which are commonly urged in its favor, and which give to its enemies an incalculable advantage. It would moreover be strengthened by that feeling of security which men have in their own convictions, when they know that everything is said against them which can be said, and that their opponents have a fair and liberal hearing. This begets a magnanimity and a rational confidence which cannot otherwise be obtained. But, such results can never happen while we are so timid, or so dishonest, as to impute improper motives to those who assail our religious opinions. We may rely upon it that as long as we look upon an atheistical writer as a moral offender, or even as long as we glance at him with suspicion, atheism will remain a standing and permanent danger, because, skulking in hidden corners, it will use stratagems which their secrecy will prevent us from baffling; it will practise artifices to which the persecuted are forced to resort; it will number its concealed proselytes to an extent of which only they who have studied this painful subject are aware; and, above all, by enabling them to complain of the treatment to which they are exposed, it will excite the sympathy of many high and generous natures, who, in an open and manly warfare, might strive against them, but who, by a noble instinct, find themselves incapable of contending with any sect which is oppressed, maligned, or intimidated.'

The most interesting, and perhaps the most remarkable part of Mr. Mill's book, is that which he devotes to individuality as one of the elements of well being. Having very fully discussed the question of liberty in thought and expression—the right of controlling one's own mind, and of making known its conclusions—he proceeds to apply the same principle to the conduct and whole scheme of human life, maintaining that every man ought to be entirely free to act according to his own taste and judgment in all matters which concern only himself. The sole condition or limitation which society may rightfully impose upon the eccentricities of individuals, is the equal right of all others to be unmolested and unobstructed in their occupations and enjoyments. Every man is endowed with faculties, capacities, and dispositions peculiar to himself, there being quite as much diversity in the mental character of men as in their physical appearance. It is this infinite diversity of thought and feeling, as much perhaps as anything else, which distinguishes man from the lower animals. It is of the utmost importance to the progress of society, for it is only by departing from the common path, and pursuing new and untried modes of existence and action, that improvements are gradually made. If there were no disposition on the part of individuals to deviate from the ordinary customs which have descended from generation to generation, it is evident there would never be any important change in the modes of human life nor in the institutions of mankind, and if there could be any improvement at all, it would be extremely slow and unimportant. It is the peculiarities of individuals which alone can furnish the points of departure for new modes of action and new plans of life. Hence it is not less the right of individuals than it is the interest of the race that every one should not only be permitted, but should even be encouraged to follow the dictates of his own genius, with the most perfect and unlimited freedom consistent with the peace and security of other men. Each one of the numberless buds on a full-grown tree is the germ of another individual precisely similar to the one from which it is taken. But if new trees are propagated from these buds, they will exhibit not the slightest diversity in character from that of the parent stock. It is only from the seed, original centres of vitality and individuality that new varieties are produced and improvements obtained either in the flower or the fruit. So in human society: if each life is only an offshoot from the main body—a mere bud from the parent tree—with no diversities in character, and no salient points of original activity, it is evident that men would remain substantially the same from generation to generation, and society would stand still forever. Such, it is well known, is the case in those Eastern nations in which a rigid system of caste prevails, the same positions and occupations descending from father to son, without the possibility of one generation escaping from the fatal routine to which its predecessor was subjected.

Hence it is that Mr. Mill, with great earnestness, insists that 'there should be different experiments in living,' and 'that the worth of different modes of life should be proved practically, when any one thinks fit to try them;' for, he continues, 'where not the person's own character, but the traditions and customs of other people are the rule of conduct, there is wanting one of the principal ingredients of human happiness, and quite the chief ingredient of individual and social progress.' Undoubtedly, that man who acts in conformity with his own nature and disposition, if they do not mislead and betray him, will have greater satisfaction and enjoyment than he who is constrained by the opinions or authority of others to pursue courses not conformable to his taste and judgment. That which men naturally incline to undertake and ardently desire to accomplish, is usually that which they are best fitted to do, and which will give the most appropriate exercise to their peculiar faculties. It is evidently the general interest that every individual in society should be employed in that peculiar work which he can best perform. More will be effected, with less dissatisfaction and suffering. And obviously, no better mode can be devised to put every man to the thing for which he is capacitated by nature, than to give full scope to his individuality, under the multiplied and powerful influences which liberal education and elevated society are calculated to exert in impelling him forward. The effect will be not only to do more for society as a whole, but to make superior men by means of self-education. 'He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice. He gains no practice either in discerning or desiring what is best. The mental and moral, like the muscular powers, are improved only by being used. The faculties are called into no exercise by doing a thing merely because others do it, no more than by believing a thing only because others believe it. If the grounds of an opinion are not conclusive to a person's own reason, his reason cannot be strengthened, but is likely to be weakened by adopting it: and if the inducements to an act are not such as are consentaneous to his own feelings and character (where affection or the rights of others are not concerned), it is so much done toward rendering his feelings and character inert and torpid, instead of active and energetic.'

Against these views, and, indeed, against the great body of valuable thoughts so admirably presented in this work, no rational objection would seem to be fairly adducible. But there are some very striking passages liable to a very different criticism—passages which, if not founded on actual misconception of facts, are, at least, so exaggerated in statement as to require very material modifications, both as to the existence of the evil they allege and the remedy they propose. Mr. Mill complains of the despotism of society as having utterly suppressed all spontaneity or individuality, and reduced the mass of mankind to a condition of lamentable uniformity. He thinks this evil has not only gone to a dangerous extent already, but that it threatens a still further invasion of individual liberty with even greater disasters in its train. It is better, however, to let Mr. Mill speak for himself in the following passages:

'But society has now fairly got the better of individuality; and the danger which threatens human nature is not the excess but the deficiency of personal impulses and preferences.' * * *

'In our times, from the highest class of society down to the lowest, every one lives as under the eye of a hostile and dreaded censorship.' * * *

'I do not mean that they choose what is customary, in preference to what suits their inclination. It does not occur to them to have any inclination except for what is customary. Thus the mind itself is bowed to the yoke; even in what people do for pleasure, conformity is the first thing thought of; they like in crowds; they exercise choice only among things commonly done; peculiarity of taste, eccentricity of conduct, are shunned equally with crimes; until by dint of not following their own nature they have no nature to follow; their human capacities are withered and starved; they become incapable of any strong wishes or native pleasures, and are generally without either opinions or feelings of home growth or properly their own.'

And so, speaking of men of genius as being less capable than other persons 'of fitting themselves, without hurtful compression, into any of the small number of moulds which society provides in order to save its members the trouble of forming their own character,' he continues:

'If they are of a strong character and break their fetters, they become a mark for the society which has not succeeded in reducing them to commonplace, to point at with solemn warning, as 'wild,' 'erratic,' and the like; much as if one should complain of the Niagara river for not flowing smoothly between its banks like a Dutch canal.'

Mr. Buckle also bears testimony to the same effect in the following language:

'The immense mass of mankind are, in regard to their usages, in a state of social slavery; each man being bound under heavy penalties, to conform to the standard of life common to his own class. How serious these penalties are, is evident from the fact that though innumerable persons complain of prevailing customs, and wish to shake them off, they dare not do so, but continue to practise them, though frequently at the expense of health, comfort, and fortune. Men not cowards in other respects, and of a fair share of moral courage, are afraid to rebel against this grievous and exacting tyranny.'

Now, we are decidedly of opinion that the expressions used by both these eminent writers are altogether too strong. We think it is true, both in Europe and America, that whenever the masses of society recognize a man of real genius, they are ever ready to welcome him with all his peculiarities—not merely to overlook his ordinary eccentricities, but to pardon grave offences against morality, and even to imitate his errors. It may well be that the multitude are not quick to distinguish superiority; though with the proper information and opportunity of judging, they seldom fail instinctively to appreciate great qualities, especially if these be such as relate to practical life, or artistic development, rather than to abstract and speculative science. Men addicted to pursuits of the latter kind, make their merits known more slowly; but when they are known, they command unbounded respect in society.

The real difficulty, unfortunately, is, that the vast majority of men are not gifted with marked individuality, or great genius. They do not break through the trammels of custom, not so much because these trammels are strong, as because their impulses are weak. Whenever a man of real energy appears, the crowd separates before him, the cobwebs of custom are brushed away as he advances, and the world receives him very generally for what he is worth, and too often for more. That impostors and pretenders frequently succeed in deceiving society, is owing to the fact that it is ever anxious and ready to receive and reward its benefactors.

But even Mr. Mill himself recognizes the wisdom of paying due deference to the experience of mankind, and of considering established customs as prima facie good, and proper to be followed. He admits 'that people should be so taught and trained in youth, as to know and benefit by the ascertained results of human experience,' and that 'the traditions and customs of other people are, to a certain extent, evidence of what their experience has taught them; presumptive evidence, and as such, have a claim to his deference.' From all which, it is plain that there is a just medium between what is recognized and established, and what is newly proposed as a substitute for the old. The masses of mankind are incapable of judging between the value of prevailing usages and novel practices; much less are they capable themselves of striking out new paths fit to be followed by their fellow men. The true difficulty then is the want of energetic individuality and original genius, rather than the want of a field for the exhibition of their power, or an opportunity for their exertion. It cannot be denied, however, that there is a certain inertia in society, requiring no little exertion to overcome it, even in the case of unquestionable improvements. But this is unavoidable, and at the same time most fortunate for the safety of mankind; for otherwise, we should be subjected to perpetual changes and sudden convulsions, which would make even progress itself a doubtful good.

There is also another important aspect in which this question may be advantageously considered. No one doubts that cooeperation in society contributes vastly to the increase of human power, production, and happiness. Unanimity in sentiment promotes harmony, and contributes to prosperity. Nor will it be denied that if truth could be certainly attained upon any point whatever, it would be desirable that it should be universally recognized and accepted. Undoubtedly, if any man in the community should be disposed to dispute that truth, he ought to be permitted freely to do so; but we cannot see that this opposition would be better than his acquiescence. Now, the problem is to reconcile the degree of unanimity and cooeperation which is requisite for the full exertion of social power, with that amount of individuality which would be useful in promoting a progressive change. Spontaneity or originality is disintegrating in its immediate tendency. It disturbs the order of society, though, in the end, on the whole, it is advantageous. Thus we have the tenacity of old habits and prevailing sentiments on the one hand, tending to the harmony of society, and enabling all its members to cooeperate in the great works which make communities powerful. On the other hand, we have the sporadic and disturbing efforts of individual genius, ever seeking to withdraw the social current into new channels, and eventually, through many trials, errors, failures, and triumphs, alluring and leading it into better paths. It is not good for society that either of these conflicting forces should gain the decided ascendency; nor do we believe with Mr. Mill, that the preponderance at the present time belongs to the former.

As to the influence of fashion, which is evidently alluded to in the passages quoted, that plainly stands on a different and peculiar footing. It has a double power to enforce its decrees. The one is economical and commercial—the power of capital to control productions, and the advantages of producing largely after a few forms or patterns; the other is the social or psychological influence—the natural sympathy among men which induces uniformity of dress and habit. Extravagant excess often rules. Yet there is never wanting in the public of all civilized countries, a disposition to adopt improvements when they contribute to the general convenience, economy, and happiness; and we believe, on the whole, the tendency is to become more and more rational every day. Besides, a certain degree of uniformity is desirable in this as in all other things. No little loss and inconvenience would ensue if the fancies of every individual were permitted to run riot, and no man's taste were modified by that of his neighbor, or controlled by the general inclination. It is impossible to conceive the motley and discordant mass which a community of such people would present.