libraries. As yet, periodical literature was not; and the art of printing seems long to have preceded the art of reading. It did not occur to those generations that books were intended to be read by people in general, but only by the select few. Whereas now, reading is not only one of the luxuries, but absolutely one of the necessaries of life, and we no more think of going without our book than without our breakfast; lunch consists now of veal-pies and Venetian Bracelets-we still dine on roast-beef, but with it, instead of Yorkshire pudding, a Scotch novel-Thomas Campbell and Thomas Moore sweeten tea for us—and in "Course of Time" we sup on a Welsh rabbit and a religious poem.

We have not time-how can we ?-to trace the history of the great revolution. But a great revolution there has been, from nobody's reading any thing, to every body's reading all things; and perhaps it began with that good old proser Richardson, the father of Pamela, Clarissa, and Sir Charles Grandison. He seems to have been a sort of idiot, who had a strange insight into some parts of human nature, and a tolerable acquaintance with most parts of speech. He set the public a-reading, and Fielding and Smollett shoved her on-t -till the Minerva Press took her in hand-and then-the periodicals. But such periodicals! The Gentleman's Magazine-God bless it then, now, and for ever!-the Monthly Review, the Critical and the British Critic! The age had been for some years literary, and was now fast becoming periodical. Magazines multiplied. Arose in glory the Edinburgh, and then the Quarterly Review-Maga, like a new sun, looked out from heaven-from her golden urn a hundred satellites drew light-and last of all," the planetary five," the annuals, hung their lamps on high; other similar luminous bodies emerged from the clouds, till the whole circumference was bespangled, and astronomy became the favourite study with all ranks of people, from the king upon the throne to the meanest of his subjects. Now, will any one presume to deny, that this has been a great change to the better, and that there is now something worth living for in the world? Look at our literature now, and it is all periodical together. A thousand daily, thrice-a-week, twice-a

week, weekly newspapers, a hundred monthlies, fifty quarterlies, and twenty-five annuals! No mouth looks up now and is not fed! on the contrary, we are in danger of being crammed; an empty head is as rare as an empty stomach; the whole day is one meal, one physical, moral, and intellectual feast; the public goes to bed with a periodical in her hand, and falls asleep with it beneath her pillow.

What blockhead thinks now of reading Milton, or Pope, or Gray? Paradise Lost is lost; it has gone to the devil. Pope's Epistles are returned to the dead-letter office; the age is too loyal for "ruin seize thee, ruthless king," and the oldest inhabitant has forgotten "the curfew tolls."

All the great geniuses of the day are periodical. The Scotch novels-the Irish novels-the English novels--the American novels-the Family Library-the Library of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge-Napier's History of the Spanish War-Tytler's History of Scotland—Chalmer's Civic Economy-but what is the need of enumeration-every work worth reading is published in numbers, from the Excursion-being a portion belonging to the third part of that long, laborious, and philosophical poem, the Recluse, by William Wordsworth-down to the first six books of that long, laborious, and unphilosophical poem, Nineveh, by Edwin Atherstone.

What donkey was the first to bray that the annuals, the subject of this our monologue, were introduced into this country from Germany? Gentle reader, did you ever see a German annual or literary almanac ? We beseech you look not at any one print, if you do not wish to die of laughing-to fall into guffaw-convulsions. Such a way of making love! But you know better-you know that the annuals are a native growth of the soil of England, springing up, like white and red clover beneath lime (a curious fact that) wherever the periodical ploughshare has drawn its furrows. Import what seeds, germs, roots, or plants, you choose from Germany; sow them; dibble them in; and in a week, it matters not whether the weather be wet or dry, they are all dead as David's sow. We want none of your German horticulture, or agriculture, or arboriculture in Britain. Let us grow our own flowers, and our

own corn, and our own trees, and we shall be well off for fragrance, for food, and for shelter.

But lo! arrayed in figure of a fan, and gorgeous as spread-peacock-tail-the annuals! The sunshine strikes the intermingled glow, and it threatens to set the house on fire. But softly-they are cool to the touch, though to the sight burning; innocuous is the lambent flame that plays around the leaves; even as, in a dewy night of fading summer, the grass-brightening circle of the still glowworm's light!

Singular! They have formed themselves into classes beneath our touch-according to some fine affinities of name and nature; and behold in one triad, the ForgetMe-Not, the Souvenir, and the Keepsake.

When

One word embraces them all-memorials. "absent long, and distant far," the living, lovely, loving, and beloved, how often are they utterly forgotten! But let something that once was theirs suddenly meet our eyes, and in a moment, returning from the region of the rising or the setting sun, lo! the friend of our youth is at our side, unchanged his voice and his smile; and dearer to our eyes than ever, because of some slight, faint, and affecting change wrought on face and figure by climate and by years! Let it be but his name written with his own hand, on the title-page of a book; or a few syllables on the margin of a favourite passage which long ago we may have read together, "when life itself was new," and poetry overflowed the whole world! Or a lock of her hair in whose eyes we first knew the meaning of the word depth" applied to the human soul, or the celestial sky! But oh! if death hath stretched out and out into the dim arms of eternity the distance-and removed away into that bourne from which no traveller returns the absence -of her on whose forehead once hung the relic we adore in our despair-what heart may abide the beauty of the ghost that, as at the touch of a talisman, doth sometimes at midnight appear before our sleepless bed, and with pale, uplifted arms waft over us-so momentary is the visionat once a blessing and a farewell!

66

But we must be cheerful, for these are cheerful volumes, and they are bound in smiles. Yet often "cheerful

thoughts bring sad thoughts to the mind," and the eye slides away insensibly from the sunshine to the cloudshadows, feeling that they are bound together in beauty by one spirit. Why so sad a word-farewell? We should not weep in wishing welfare, nor sully felicity with tears. But we do weep, because evil lies lurking in wait over all the earth for the innocent and the good, the happy and the beautiful, and when guarded no more by our eyes, it seems as if the demon would leap out upon his prey. Or is it because we are so selfish that we cannot bear the thought of losing the sight of the happiness of one we dearly love, and are troubled with a strange jealousy and envy of beings unknown to us, and for ever to be unknown, about to be taken into the very heart, perhaps, of the friend from whom we part, and to whom we breathe a sad, almost a sullen, yet still a sweet farewell? Or does the shadow of death pass over us while we stand for the last time together on the sea-shore, and see the ship with all her sails about to voyage away to the uttermost parts of the earth? Or do we shudder at the thought of mutability in all created things, insensate or with soul-and know that ere a few hours shall have brightened the path of the swift vessel on the far-off sea, we shall be dimly remembered-alas! at last forgotten, and all those days, months, and years, that once seemed as if they would never die, swallowed up in everlasting oblivion ?

7*

THEODORA.

(Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 1830.)

It must be a heavenly life-wedlock-with one wife and one daughter. Not that people may not be happy with a series of spouses, and five-and-twenty children all in a row. But we prefer still to stirring life-and therefore, oh! for one wife and one daughter! What a dear delightful girl would she not have been by this time, if born in the famous vintage of 1811-the year, too, of the no less famous comet! But then-in spite of all her filial affection, speaking in silvery sound, and smiling in golden light, she would, in all human probability, have been forsaking her old father this very month; without compunction or remorse, forgetting her mother; and even like a fair cloud on the mountain's breast, cleaving unto her husband! Such separation would to us have been insupportable. Talk not of grandchildren, for they come but to toddle over your grave; -as for son-in-law, they are sulky about settlements, and wish you dead;—every man of feeling and every man of the world, too, knows that his last day of perfect happiness is that on which he sees his only daughter a bride.

But let us not run into the melancholics. We wishnotwithstanding all this--that we had now-one wife-one single wife-and one only daughter. Ourselves about fifty-my dear some six summers farther off heaven-and my darling, "beautiful exceedingly," on the brink of her expiring teens! Ay, we would have shown the world "how divine a thing a woman might be made.” child would have seemed-alternately-Una-Juliet-Desdemona-Imogen; for those bright creatures were all kith and kin, and the angelical family expression would, after

Our