"There was something so pleading and innocent in her pale troubled face, so pathetic in her tone, that Philip's anger, which had been excited against her as well as against all the rest of the world, melted away into love; and once more he felt that have her for his own he must at any cost. He sat down by her and spoke to her in quite a different manner to that which he had used before, with a ready tact and art which some strong instinct or tempter close at his ear supplied.

“Yes, darling, I know yo' cared for him. I'll not say ill of him that is-dead-ay, dead

and drowned-whatever Kester may saybefore now; but if I chose I could tell tales.' "No! tell no tales; I will not hear them,' said she, wrenching herself out of Philip,s clasping arm. They may misca' him for ever, and I'll not believe them.""

A few days later, when Philip comes entreating her forgiveness for a starving wretch whom her father had succored to the saving of his life, and whose evidence had hanged his benefactor, she turns round on him furious. "I've a mind to break it off for iver wi' thee Philip. Thee and me was never meant to go together. When I love, I love, and when I hate, I hate; and him as has done harm to me, to mine, I may keep fra striking, fra murdering, but I'll niver forgive!" They are married, a child is born to them, and soon after Kinraid reappears, and all Philip's baseness is laid open to his wife, who makes a vow in her wrath, never to hold Philip for her lawful husband again, nor ever to forgive him for the evil he had wrought her, but to hold him as a stranger, and one who had done her heavy wrongs. How God takes her at her word, and suffers no peacemaker to intervene but death, is the rest of this pathetic story-as true as it is pathetic, and as beautiful as true.

"COUSIN PHILLIS,' is less remarkable for story than for consummate grace and delicacy of execution. Here we escape the shock of soul-destroying sorrow; we breathe sweet country air amongst good people who live above the temptations of an evil world; people to whom God has given neither riches nor poverty, but a full measure of content; who live laborious days, rising with a prayer, lying down with a blessing. The characters are few but instinct with vigor and action. First there is the teller of the tale-Paul Manning, an engineer, married, middle-aged-who gives it as a

beautiful sad memory of his 'prentice youth, when he lodged in a little threecornered room over a pastry-cook's shop in the market-place of the county town of Eltham, and had for his master a fartravelled, clever fellow, named Holdsworth, whose talk was like "dram-drinking," and himself one of the most loveable and delightful of men. Then there is the family at Hope Farm--Minister Holman, his wife and their daughter, the Cousin Phillis of the story, a stately, gracious young woman, in the dress and with the simplicity of a child." So young Manning thinks when he sees her, on his first visit to the farm, and finds her father in the fields at the end of the

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day's harvest work, closing it with a psalm, "Come all harmonious tongues," sung to "Mount Ephraim" tune. It is a lovely picture.

"The two laborers seemed to know both words and music, though I did not; and so did Phillis: her rich voice followed her father's as he set the tune; and the men came in with more uncertainty, but yet harmoniously. Phillis looked at me once or twice with a little surprise at my silence; but I did not know the words. There we five stood, bareheaded, excepting Phillis, in the tawny stubble-field, from which all the shocks of corn had not yet been carried-a dark wood on one side, where the woodpigeons were cooing; blue distance seen through the ash trees on the other."

We might multiply citations of such tender, suggestive scenes, for the whole story is a series of them, but we will refrain. Cousin Phillis goes through a great sorrow, but God will not suffer her heart to be broken, and everybody_tries to console her. The farm-servant Betty --one of Mrs. Gaskell's typical rough, sweet-natured creatures-gives her some excellent advice when she sees her in

tears.

"Now, Phillis,' said she, coming up to the sofa; we ha' done a' we can for you,

and th' doctors has done a' they can for you,

and I think the Lord has done a' He can for you, and more than you deserve, too, if you don't do something for yourself. if I were you I'd rise up and snuff the moon, sooner than break your father's and your mother's hearts wi' watching and waiting till it pleases you to fight your own way back to cheerfulness. There, I never favored long preachings, and I have said my say.'

"A day or two after Phillis asked me,

we

With "WIVES AND DAUGHTERS" bring our reviewal of Mrs. Gaskell's works to a close. It was the last of them. She had but one chapter to write when death arrested her cunning hand, and the tale was left unfinished, though not so incomplete but that we can discern how happily it would have ended had she been spared to work it out. In this story of every-day life her literary art attained its highest excellence. The moral atmosphere is sweet, bracing, invigorating; the human feeling good and kind throughout. We do not hesitate to pronounce it the finest of Mrs. Gaskell's productions; that in which her true womanly nature is most adequately reflected, and that which will keep her name longest in remembrance. generation has produced many writers whose books may live long after them as pictures of manners in the reign of good Queen Victoria; but we call to mind none save Mr. Thackeray, Mr. Dickens, George Eliot, and Mr. Anthony Trollope, in their best moments, to whom the future will be so much indebted for its knowledge of how we lived and moved in the middle of the nineteenth century,

as to Mrs. Gaskell.

This

As for the tribe of authors to whom the catch-penny nick-name of "Sensation Novelists" is indiscriminately applied (let them be never so dull,) we make little account of their chance of enduring reputation. Their figures are out of drawing, their accessories are out of keeping; antic gestures stand for passion, blotches of red and black paint for color. The majority of their works remind us of nothing so much as those frantic essays at art which throng the walls of the Pantheon Bazaar, or delight young men and women from the country in the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussaud's WaxWork Show. They are a fashion-like enameled faces, dyed hair, hoop-petticoats and chignons. They have their admirers, people who, like themselves,

never went, save in imagination, across any threshold in Belgravia, but who are flattered in the notion that they have a monopoly of all the virtues and graces, while the vices and furies reign exclusively amongst the nobility and gentry. Miss Braddon, herself an adept in sensation-writing, has revealed to us, in her novel of "The Doctor's Wife," the secrets of their workmanship, and has told us that they have been promoted from the ranks of the cheap low-class magazines, which were quite unknown to Mr. Mudie's library and polite readers a dozen years ago. We can believe it on her authority, and we shall not be sorry when the rage for them in society dies out; for though we feel sure that good household morality, such as the authors of "John Halifax" and the "Chronicles of Carlingford" supply us with, is more widely read and approved than these florid romances, the latter do attract many readers, and spoil their taste for what is better.

We cannot, for instance, imagine any one enchanted with the adventures of Lady Audley and Miss Gwilt turning with relish to Mrs. Gaskell's "WIVES AND DAUGHTERS.” Sweet Molly Gibson, loyal, unselfish, duty-loving, duty-doing, would seem, by comparison, a mere bread-and-butter miss. Cynthia, the incarnation of a flirt, who cannot help charming, who changes her lovers as easily as her gloves, who subsides into successful matrimony without any obliteration of her spots, or any change of her disposition, would suggest only lost opportunities for "blood-and-thunder" writing. Those who could study the passion of Mr. Bashwood without sickloathing of heart, would find no delight in the company of Mr. Gibson and of Squire Hamley and his sons. And yet what excellent company it is! how purifying, how vivifying! We may cite again here, with special force, the dictum of the old French court-moralist and philosopher with which we began our article. As we read this every-day story, our minds are raised, noble sentiments inspire us, we know we are receiving benefit, and we seek no other rule for judging the work; it is good, and done by the hand of a workman.

There are characters in this book as

difficult to portray as ever novelist at tempted, and Mrs. Gaskell's success in portraying them is as great as ever novelist achieved. We have no wish either to add or to diminish-they are perfect in their strength and in their weakness people whom we know and think of as if they were our personal acquaintances. We love Molly, and are satisfied that she and Roger Hamley were born for each other; we have not the heart to be angry with Cynthia-nay, we sympathize in her prejudice against a husband who would keep her always on moral tiptoes, straining to be more purely good than complex nature meant her to be. Mrs. Gibson is odious in her selfishness and doublefacedness, but the character rings true to life from first to last. Indeed, all the women are natural from the rigid old countess, her sensible daughter Lady Cuxhaven and her brusque daughter Lady Harriet, to poor, suffering Mrs. Hamley, and the group of village gossips, Mrs. Goodenough, Mrs. Dawes, the Misses Browning and their neighbors. And if the women are excellent, the men are no less admirable. We do not know that it has ever been charged on Mrs. Gaskell that she drew her characters from the life, but they are all so distinctly individualized that a real model might have sat for each portrait. And there is a complete gallery of them to study. Mr. Gibson, the country doctor, shrewd, sarcastic, disappointed in his frivolous wife, is good, but better are Squire Hamley, the Tory of old lineage, and his despised neighbor, the Whig Earl of Cumnor, whose family dates no higher in county annals than Queen Anne's days; and best of all are the brothers Osborne and Roger Hamley, so dissimilar, yet so clearly akin; the elder, like his mother, beautiful, poetical, with a strain of his father's wilfulness; the younger, strongfeatured and rugged like the Squire, laborious, most generous and tender, fulfilling all the hopes that Osborne had disappointed, bearing his own grievances like a man. Mr. Preston is well painted too, insolent, handsome, boastful, redeemed by a vein of honest passion; and for "lad love " red-headed Mr. Coxe, who begins with a desperate caprice for Molly, and after two years of absence and fidelity, forgets her in a week under NEW SERIES-Vol. VI., No. 1.

the fire of Cynthia's charms, is without a rival.

We shall not endeavor to give any outline of this every-day story, for the merit of it is that it carries out its name it is a story of such simple loves and doings and sacrifices as we see around us; it progresses by days and weeks and months and years as our lives progress; it is not rounded into any completeness of plot, though each event grows out of its predecessors as inevitably as real events grow, and brings about its natural results, in the fulness of time, such as we anticipate will be brought about. But we will quote one of its most salient and beautiful passages to show that the genius which created Mary Barton and Ruth, Margaret Hale and Mr. Thornton, Cousin Phillis and Sylvia Robson, had lost none of its fire, none of its force when its work was suddenly arrested by death.

Rodger Hamley is going away to Africa on a scientific mission, and coming to bid the doctor's family good-bye, he cannot resist the temptation to tell Cynthia he loves her, and the following scene ensues between the fortunate coquette and poor Molly as soon as he has left the house.

"Molly saw him turn around and shade his eyes from the level rays of the westering sun, and rake the house with his glances-in hopes, she knew, of catching one more glimpse of Cynthia. But apparently he saw no one, not even Molly at the attic casement; for she had drawn back when he had turned, and kept herself in shadow; for she had no right to put herself forward as the one to watch and yearn for farewell signs. None came-another moment-he was out of sight for years.

"She shut the window softly, and shivered all over. She left the attic and went to her own room; but she did not begin to take off her out-of-door things till she heard Cynthia's foot on the stairs. Then she hastily went to the toilet-table and began to untie her bonnetstrings; but they were in a knot and took time to undo. Cynthia's step stopped at Molly's door, she opened it a little and said, 'may I come in, Molly??

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Certainly,' said Molly, longing to say

No' all the time. Molly did not turn to

meet her, so Cynthia came up behind her, and putting her two hands around Molly's waist, peeped over her shoulder, pouting out her lips to be kissed. Molly could not resist the action-the mute entreaty for a ca

2

ress. But in the moment before she had caught reflections of the two faces in the glass; her own, red eyed, pale, with lips dyed with blackberry juice, her curls tangled, her bonnet pulled awry, her gown torn-and contrasted it with Cynthia's brightness and bloom, and the trim elegance of her dress. 'Oh! it is no wonder!' thought poor Molly, as she turned around, and put her arms round Cynthia, and laid her head for an instant on her shoulder-the weary aching head that sought a loving pillow in that supreme moment! The next she had raised herself, and had taken Cynthia's two hands, and was holding her off a little the better to read her face.

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you?'

Cynthia, you do love him dearly, don't

"Cynthia winced a little aside from the penetrating steadiness of those eyes.

"You speak with all the solemnity of an adjuration, Molly,' said she, laughing a little at first to cover her nervousness, and then looking up at Molly. 'Don't you think I've given a proof of it? But you know I've often told you I've not the gift of loving; I said pretty much the same thing to him. I can respect, and I can admire, and I can like, but I never feel carried off my feet by love for any one, not even for you, little Molly, and I am sure I love you more than-'

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'No, don't!' said Molly, putting her hand before Cynthia's mouth, in almost a passion of impatience. 'Don't, don't—I won't hear you -I ought not to have asked you-it makes you tell lies.'

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Why, Molly!' said Cynthia, in her turn seeking to read Molly's face, what's the matter with you? One might think you cared for him yourself.'

"I?' said Molly, all the blood rushing to her heart suddenly; then it returned and she had courage to speak, and she spoke the truth as she believed it, though not the real actual truth. 'I do care for him; I think you have won the love of a prince amongst men. Why, I am proud to remember that he has been to me as a brother, and I love him as a sister, and I love you doubly because he has honored you with his love.'

I was so surprised when he began to speakso' and Cynthia looked very lovely, blushing and dimpling up as she remembered his words and looks. Suddenly she recalled herself to the present time, and her eye caught on the leaf full of blackberries-the broad green leaf, so fresh and crisp when Molly had it gathered an hour or so ago, but now soft and flabby and dying. Molly saw it, too, and felt a strange kind of sympathetic pity for the poor inanimate leaf.

"Oh! what blackberries! you've gathered them for me, I know,' said Cynthia, sitting down and beginning to feed herself daintily, touching them lightly with the tips of her fingers, and dropping each ripe berry into her open mouth. When she had eaten above half she stopped suddenly short.

"How I should like to have gone as far as Paris with him,' she exclaimed. 'I suppose it would not have been proper; but how pleasant it would have been. I remember at Boulogne' (another blackberry) 'how I used to envy the English who were going to Paris; it seemed to me then, as if nobody stopped at Boulogne but dull, stupid school-girls.'

"When will he be there?' asked Molly. "On Wednesday, he said. I am to write to him there; at any rate he is going to write to me.'

Molly went about the adjustment of her dress in a quiet, business-like manner, not speaking much; Cynthia, although sitting still, seemed very restless. Oh! how much Molly wished she would go. Perhaps, after all,' said Cynthia, after a pause of apparent meditation, we shall never be married.'

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6

"Why do you say that? said Molly, almost bitterly. You have nothing to make you think so. I wonder how you can bear to think you won't, even for a moment.'

"Oh!' said Cynthia, you must not go and take me au grand sérieux. I dare say

I don't mean what I say, but you see everything seems a dream at present. Still, I think the chances are equal-the chances for and against marriage, I mean. Two years! it's a long time; he may change his mind, or I may; or some one else may turn up, and I may get engaged to him; what should you think of that, Molly? I'm putting such a gloomy thing as death quite on one side, you see; yet in two years how much may happen?'

"Don't talk so, Cynthia; please don't,' said Molly, piteously. 'One would think you did not care for him, and he cares so much for you.'

"Why, did I say I did not care for him? I was only calculating chances. I am sure I hope nothing will happen to prevent the marriage. Only, you know it may, and I thought I was taking a step in wisdom, in looking forward to all the evils that might befall.

I

Or the books published this season, there will be none, I think, more widely read than Mr. Hepworth Dixon's "New America." And, before I enter on the subject matter of this article, let me here congratulate Mr. Dixon on a success which is not only unquestionable, but well deserved. He has accomplished a task which is by no means an easy one. He has written a book about America, having the unusual merit of being at ouce amusing and instructive, true as well as new. We have had enough, and to spare, of comic views of TransAtlantic life; we have had a certain number, though not too many, of grave and thoughtful works about the New World; but the former have been too light, and the other have been too dull. With every respect for the ability of Mrs. Trollope, Mr. Dickens, or Mr. Sala, and their imitators, I may fairly say that the English public would know considerably more about America if their books had never been written. The

real truth is, that America is the most trying subject in the world for a professional litterateur to write about, especially if he happens to be in the comic line of literary business. Paradoxical as the assertion may appear to the ordinary English reader, there is very little opportunity for light writing about America. Some few years ago, a friend of mine, who was about to cross the Atlantic on a book-making errand, came to talk to me before his departure concerning his plans. Like all persons who have never visited the States, he was convinced he should find no lack of matter to describe, and remarked to me that he meant to do what never

had been done before-to describe the common life of Americans. "For instance," he said, "I shall give an exact description of a New England dinnerparty." My answer was, that the idea was excellent if he had been writing for Frenchmen, but that, as an American dinner-party was the exact fac-simile of an English one, a description of it would possess no special interest for English readers. My friend, I need hardly say, left me convinced that my powers of observation were extremely limited; but before he had been a week in America, he discovered that the old country and the new were very much alike-too much alike, indeed, for the purposes of the descriptive writer. In truth, all the elaborate and ingenious theories which were propounded during the late war for the edification of our newspaper readers were based upon the assumption that Americans were fundamentally dif ferent from Englishmen ; and the reason why all these theories proved so lamentably and ludicrously wrong, lay in the fact that the assumption in question was radically false. If critics could once make up their minds to recognize the simple truth that Americans are neither more nor less than Englishmen placed under conditions of climate, government, and institutions, other than our own, the American question, so to speak, would present singularly little difficulty of solution. There is infinitely less difference between Chicago and Southampton than there is between Dover and Calais, though the former are separated by twice as many hundred miles as there