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tion he explores, and traces the mixed influences of good and evil. In Pelham he shows us a nature kind, gallant, and thoughtful, twisted by manners into foppishness and levity. In Clifford we have a youth, by birth a gentleman, bred to be a robber. In Maltravers we have a thoughtless pleasure changed into a serious man, and a cool, dignified statesman. In Aram we have an amiable, gifted. scholar contrasted with the malignant murderer. In Morton Devereux we soon discover a deep plot of live lurking under the calm, sedate mien of the schoolboy; and in Vivian we have a haughty, self-sufficient misanthropy, transformed by filial affection, and wiping out past sins by a devoted career on the field and a glorious death in battle. Having carried contrasts to their utmost extremes in their characters, he finally bursts the bonds of nature and gives us an ideal contrast in Margrave in the Strange Story, a man at whose perfect physical development we are charmed, and at whose utter heartlessness we shudder.

This fondness for bringing extremes together is everywhere evinced. In Night and Morning we see it in that scene of Philip Beaufort's death. He portrays first the ruddy-faced, light-hearted Philip, prancing along on his high mettled horse-a picture full of delight and animation; and then Philip Beaufort, thrown, and bleeding, and in an instant dead. How solemn and beautiful are these reflections after that vivid scene of life.

"What a strange thing it does seem that that very form which we prized so charily, for which we prayed the winds to be gentle, which we lapped from the cold in our arms, should be suddenly thrust from our sight, an abomination that the world must not look upon-a despicable loathsomeness, to be concealed and to be forgotten. And this same composition of bone and muscle that was yesterday so strong-which men respected, and women loved, and children clung to-to-day so lamentably powerless, unable to defend or protect those who lay nearest to his heart; its riches wrested from it, its wishes spat upon, its influence expiring with its last sigh! A breath from its lips making all that immense difference between what it was, and what it is."

But there are many contrasts more striking than these. The reader of the Strange Story will never forget the horror that crept over him when Margrave, while sporting with the squirrel suddenly grows angry, and dashes the little animal from him.

Rienzi is the "chef d'œuvre" of Bulwer, and is as fine a specimen of the historical novel as the English language produces. The events of that Revolution, which for a moment delighted Petrarch and Italy, and seemed destined to restore to its pristine glory the "eternal city," are clustered around Rienzi, who was its master spirit. In this work there shines the highest genius. The picturesqueness of the descriptions brings the scenes before us with wonderful vividness, and remind us of those charming pictures in the tales of the Crusaders. The pen of a Scott has never surpassed the graphic sketches of Italian scenery, of the collisions of the feudal lords, or of

the desolation that blighted the land when the plague settled down upon Naples. But beyond this, there is displayed a higher poweran eloquence which flies through the veins like liquid fire, and infuses itself into the fountains of the heart. Like the skilled harper, Bulwer sweeps his fingers over our heart strings, and brings out music from each and all.

While perusing this splendid production we never once think of the author, or ourself; we only feel an intense interest in the fortunes of the great tribune. The characters that move around him are all Italians in their lives and hates, in their acts and utterances, we see the fiery southern nature-but who it is that pictures them, whether he be Greek, or Turk, Jew, Gentile, or what not, we never see, or think. Nina di Raselli, Walter de Montreal, the young Page, and Cecco del Vecchio, seem to have been the work of Nature herself. Narrowness of space forbids to do justice to this matchless book; but it is a novel that infuses the most exalted sentiments, that invests with fascination a most interesting epoch of history; in a word, that aims at all the noble ends of romance, and attains them with a splendour of execution, equalled only by the conception. Rienzi is in itself enough to have embalmed the fame of the author forever. Rienzi and Bulwer are names which are joint heirs of glory; for it is impossible that the writer could have so sympathized with that daring hero without having in his own bosom something akin to his spirit.

Take Bulwer all in all, he is head and shoulders above every Englishman of his times. His genius, rare in any single respect, is still more rare when we think of it as excelling in so many. There is a genial humor, worthy of Charles Lamb, in some of his books, in others there is satire as sharp as Swift's, and there is more wit in one of his witty pages than is generally met with in a volume. As a photographer of English life he has no superior. Thackeray has portrayed middle life, Dickens low life; but Bulwer has ranged throughout the society of England, and given us all its varieties, from the lord to the tinker. To have read Bulwer is to have seen the English people as well as it is possible to see them through the spectacles of books.

No English novelist has united in one person such exquisite fancy, such pleasantry, such wit, such pictorial power, such burning eloquence, such imagination. He is, indeed, "a prince amongst his equals, the first of his craft." We can only contemplate the collection of rare productions which have sprung up in the fertile soil of his mind, as we would some favored land wherein were gathered together the sturdy evergreens of the north and the luxuriant, brilliant plants of the tropics; where the dark green of the spruce and fur stood in happy contrast with the delicate magnolia and the golden orange; a paradise of the intellect, as it were, where every taste might find its gratification.

NOTE. We regret that the author has not included within the range of his criticism the later works of the great English novelist,

for it is impossible almost to conceive that the human intellect can advance beyond those magnificent creations of "Zanoni," "What will He Do with It," "The Strange Story," etc., which crown the column of his colossal literary genius.-EDITOR.

ART. VII.-TERRIBLY IN EARNEST.

THIS is a pet phrase of Mr. Carlyle's, and one which he has brought into vogue and made quite popular. To be in earnest, to apply ourselves seriously and industriously to whatever we undertake, is a moral duty, and the dictate of common-sense. Lord Chesterfield well remarks, "that whatever is worth doing, is worth doing well." Earnestness, carried further than this, ceases to be a virtue and becomes a vice. Indeed, all moral qualities pushed to excess become criminal.

In the physical as in the moral world, excess is evil, nay poisonous, and destructive of life. Feed man or any other animal on one kind of food for a length of time, and it will kill him. Not because it is given in large quantities, but because it is given without its antinomes, that is, food possessing opposite qualities. Everything in the moral and in the physical world is evil in itself, evil in the abstract, for then it exists in the greatest possible excess. Everything is good in the concrete, when properly compounded or balanced by its appropriate antinomes. It certainly takes two or more, nay very many, wrongs to make a right. The homely phrase, "overly good," is an admirable one, and should be adopted into polite language, for it is needed, and we know none other that will supply its place. Men are eternally riding moral hobbies, practising to excess, and pushing to extremes, some one virtue to the neglect of all others. Such men become conscientious villains, the worst, most dangerous and most mischievous of all villains. Such was the Jesuit Ravaellar who assassinated Henry IV of France, and the Puritan Fenton who murdered the Duke of Buckingham. Such Guy Fawkes and his coadjutors, the actors in the vespers of St. Bartholomew, the judicial murderers of Charles I and Louis XVI, and the Puritan Fathers who hung Quakers and witches. Such were Brutus and Cassius and Cato and old John Brown, and Booth, who, but the other day, murdered Mr. Lincoln. Such were the Greeks who gave the hemlock to Socrates and the Jews who crucified Christ. Such also were the Crusaders, who disturbed and upheaved Europe and Western Asia for two centuries. In fine, all of the greatest and darkest crimes recorded in history have been perpetrated by men "terribly in earnest" blindly attempting to fulfill, what they considered, some moral, political or religious duty.

Were we asked to define "The Right," we should say it consisted in "moderation." All excesses are criminal, and none so criminal as those committed conscientiously in the too eager pursuit of some

laudable end. Earnestness often begets blind fanatic zeal, that overlooks the incidental consequences of its conduct, and inflicts a thousand direful evils in the hasty and inconsiderate pursuit of some problematical good. Such, when men cool down and contrast the cost, will the late abolition war upon the South be found to have been. Fanatic zeal, most "terribly in earnest,' "careless and reckless of the millions of lives, not only of the whites but of the poor negroes whom it proposed to benefit, that were sacrificed in that war, and never stopping to inquire whether the national debt they were accumulating might not virtually enslave both the laboring whites and the manumitted blacks, harked on the dogs of war with demoniac fury, resolved to burst asunder the ties that bound the slaves to their masters at all and at every cost.

So much of bloodshed, of starvation and of crime were 'scarce ever before crowded into the history of a four years' war. The fanatics who brought it about, conducted it and urged it on, see all this as plainly as we do. Such are the latest evil results of terrible earnestness. Not one good result has, as yet, been attained, for the liberated blacks continue to perish by thousands from hunger or from crime, whilst the whites vainly attempt to govern and sustain them.

We mention these things more in sorrow than in anger; for we, too, for the last six years, have been "terribly in earnest," and rendered miserable by the bad passions that such earnestness begets and fosters. Anger, jealousy, malice, hatred and thirst of revenge when much indulged in, disturb and destroy all human happiness; yet these consuming passions are the legitimate fruits of such a war as we have been engaged in, and of such a violent and heated political controversy as we are still engaged in. Both North and South are all too "terribly in earnest" to distinguish clearly right from wrong, or to pursue a course calculated to promote our own or our country's good. We have had more than a year since the war ended, wherein to cool down, and to begin, at least, to restore amicable and friendly relations; yet we fear that the hatred between the sections is far greater now than whilst the war was raging. This intense mutual hatred begets and encourages many other evil passions, disturbs our happiness, clouds our judgments, and makes us much worse men than we should be in the absence of such passions. Love, friendship and benevolence, in their exercise on proper objects, purify men's morals, elevate their sentiments, and promote and enhance their happiness. Not only at home may we find abundant opportunities for the exercise of these virtues, but, at the North, also, much is to be found to excite admiration, and to inspire love and friendship. If we were only half as busy in looking out for good men and friends in that section as we are in hunting up enemies and bad men, we might profit greatly by the change of tactics. The Conservatives of the North, no matter what their political denomination, might all be conciliated into friendship and good-will towards the South did we indulge in less

indiscriminate abuse of that whole section. Even such distinguished Radicals as Gerret Smith, Horace Greeley and Henry Ward Beecher, evince much magnanimity of feeling towards us, and obviously now entertain no malicious hatred and no spirit of cruelty or revenge for our oppressed and down-trodden people. They deserve the more credit, that, retaining their political opinions, they have moderated and mollified their feelings.

We should imitate the example of such men as these; and whilst maintaining our rights and defending our opinions in a fearless and manly way, we should be equally solicitous to applaud those who are disposed to render us justice, as to censure and expose those who wrong and oppress us. Even in censuring and exposing the wicked and the corrupt, we should preserve our tempers and indulge in no abusive epithets. Ridicule is the most effective weapon with which to assail fanatics, and to employ ridicule successfully, one must keep in a high good humor.

It is not at all improbable that, even now, the Conservatives outnumber the Radicals at the North, and may oust them from office at the next Congressional election. Sure we are that the Radicals cannot much longer stand up under the weight of an enormous and increasing national debt, heavy and oppressive taxation, a large standing army in time of peace, negro suffrage and negro equality, a dissevered Union, and a Constitution broken, disregarded and thrown aside. Worse than all, four millions of strong and able negroes, paying little or no tax to a Government that has incurred a debt of three thousand millions to liberate them; but, on the contrary, costing the whites, directly and indirectly, not less than fifty millions a year, under Radical rule, in petting, spoiling and corrupting them. The present party in power cannot much longer stand up under such weights as they have volunteered to carry. In the meantime, it will be most dignified and most politic for the South to bear with quiet composure all the injustice, wrong and oppression which their terrible earnestness and malignant passions may hurry them on to inflict. Give them rope enough and they will surely hang themselves.

Our institutions are of English origin, and our people of English descent. Unconquerable, uneradicable elasticity and vitality have ever distinguished English institutions and love of liberty. Magna Charta and her various statutes, intended as assertions and recognitions of the immemorial prescriptive rights and liberties of Englishmen, though frequently disregarded and violated by usurping and tyrannical monarchs, gained renewed strength and vigor from each violation; were time and again reasserted, recognized and acknowledged by succeeding monarchs, until to-day Magna Charta, the Writ of Habeas Corpus, the Bill of Rights, and all the other muniments of English liberty are more firmly fixed in the affections of the people, and more distinctly recognized and observed by Government, than at any former period. Our Constitution is little more than the unwritten Constitution of England reduced to writing. It

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