most annoying;" but the tiger at home | know that Shakespeare read the romances would be a great sight, from an earth- of his time, and turned his reading_to skimming balloon, or Prince Hassan's account, much to the world's profit. Bycarpet. As in Corea, so in the Malay ron enjoyed anything in the shape of a peninsula, the tiger is an object of great story without regard to its literary merit. dread and reverence. The Malays speak Coleridge detested "fashionable "novels; of these animals in whispers only, believ- but he heartily admired the robuster proing that souls of men departed dwell in ductions of Marryat and the author of them; and in some places they will not "Tom Cringle's Log." Crabbe was not kill a tiger, unless he is a very mauvais su- at all particular as to style or subject, and jet indeed. The Malay's version of the rarely let a day pass without devoting an wehr-wolf myth is that some men are ti- hour or two to novel-reading. Leigh gers by night and men by day. They Hunt, too, owns to a gluttonous appetite wear tigers' claws to avert disease, use of the same kind, his taste being so caththe liver, dried and pounded, as a medi- olic, that he goes into raptures over the cine, which is worth twice its weight in exquisite refinement of heart exhibited in gold, and set the centre of the "terrible the Chinese novel “In Kiao-Li," when eyeballs" in gold rings to be worn as sending it to his friend Dr. Southwood charms. Whether one liked or did not Smith, winding up his eulogium with: like the ape as an inmate would regulate "The notes marked T. C. are by Carlyle, one's enjoyment of the domestication of to whom I lent it once, and who read it that animal in the Malay country, but that with delight." it is a wonderful creature is not to be denied. The Malays are passionately fond of pets, and of all the nice things which travellers and residents in their peninsula have told us of this interesting people, nothing is more charming than this testimony of Miss Bird's: "They have great skill in taming birds and animals. Doubt less, their low voices, and gentle, supple movements, never shock the timid sensi tiveness of brutes. Besides this, Malay children yield a very ready obedience to their elders, and are encouraged to invite the confidence of birds and beasts, rather than to torment them."

From Chambers' Journal.
THE CHARM OF FICTION.

WHEN Lord Beaconsfield's Madame Phoebus expresses her belief that nothing in the newspapers is ever true, her sister adds: "And that is why they are so popular, the taste of the age being so decidedly for fiction." So decidedly, indeed, that we wonder a society for the suppression of fiction has not been started by those who deem romance-reading to be a vile, pernicious indulgence. Perhaps the Gradgrinds are in the right. It may be foolish, it may be wrong, to waste one's sympathy on the joys and sorrows of imaginary heroes and heroines; but those who do so have the consolation of sinning in an admirable company of poets, priests, and philosophers; of men who write his tory, and men who make it.

Little though we know about him, we

Gray, who was fond of novels, thus wrote of them: "However the exaltedness of some minds-or rather, as I shrewdly suspect, their insipidity and want of feeling or observation — may make them insensible to these light things, I mean such as paint and characterize nature, yet surely they are as weighty, and much more useful than your grave discourses upon the mind and the pas sions, and what not." Cowper held novelists to be writers of drivelling folly; but even he confessed that the "Arabian Nights" afforded himself and Lady Hesketh a fund of merriment, never to be forgotten.

Writing in her old age, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu tells her daughter she is reading an idle tale; not expecting wit or truth in it, but thankful it is not metaphysics, to puzzle her judgment, or history, to mislead her opinion. Mrs. Thrale's daughter liked her judgment to be puzzled, loving metaphysical works better than romances. Dr. Johnson pronounced her choice as laudable as it was uncommon, but would have had her like what was good in both. Johnson himself, in this matter, preached as he practised.

Although the prince consort declared he should be sorry that his son should look upon the reading of a novel, even one of Scott's, as a day's work, yet he thought his tutor should allow him to read a good novel, as an indulgence. For himself, novels of character, rather than incident, had an irresistible charm. The early masterpieces of George Eliot took great hold of Prince Albert's imagination and memory, and he delighted in quoting Mrs. Poyser,

5

whenever apt occasion offered. So highly
did he appreciate "Adam Bede," that he
sent a copy to Baron Stockmar. "It will
amuse you," wrote the prince, "by the
fulness and variety of its studies of hu-
man character. By this study, your favor.
ite one, I find myself every day more and
more attracted." After reading Charles
Kingsley's "Two Years Ago," the prince
wrote to his daughter the princess Vic
toria: "The poet is only great by reason
that he is great as a philosopher. Two
Years Ago,' a book which you, I think,
have read, has given me great pleasure,
by its profound knowledge of human na
ture, and insight into the relation between |
man, his actions, his destiny, and God.”

Many statesmen and politicians have
wooed and won forgetfulness of public
cares in the pages of a novel. Fox,
Burke, and Canning loved fiction wisely
and well. Guizot acknowledged to a
weakness for novel-reading, preferring
above all others the stories written by
Englishwomen, and comparing Miss Aus-
ten and her successors to the galaxy of
dramatic poets of the great Athenian age;
while Sir William Molesworth found for
eign novels more to his liking, and was
never tired of perusing them. Fenimore
Cooper's imaginative portrayals of Indian
life had a never-fading charm for Presi-
dent Adams; while Daniel Webster was
all for Charles Dickens, and enthusiasti-
cally told his countrymen that his favorite
author had wrought more good in England
than all the statesmen Great Britain had
sent into Parliament.

Mrs. Radcliffe and Miss Porter were the beloved romancers of Thackeray's young days. "O'Scottish Chiefs,"" exclaims he, "did we not weep over you? O Mysteries of Udolpho,' didn't I and Briggs Minor draw pictures of you?" Smollett and Fielding were so much to Thackeray's mind, that he held even their imitators dear; but his love for bygone novels did not prevent him appreciating those of his contemporaries. He pronounced the production of the "Christmas Carol" to be not only a personal kindness to every man and woman reading it, but a national benefit; a compliment Octave Feuillet would not have deemed at all extravagant, holding as he did that good novels and pure novels went hand in hand in the history of nations; a good novel often exercising the functions of a literary thunderstorm, clearing the atmosphere of noxious vapors, and turning the thoughts of a misguided people into better channels. No wonder the enthusiastic Frenchman pitied the young ladies of ancient days, and thought they must have had a dull time of it, with only the hexameters of Virgil and Ovid to satisfy their craving for literary recreation. Yet there are people who think the writing of a novel something of which a man should be ashamed. "Haven't you written a novel?" asked a Taunton voter of the opponent of a newly appointed official, eliciting the stinging reply: "I hope there is no disgrace in having written that which has been read by thousands of my fellowcountrymen, and which has been transEven novelists themselves have been lated into every European language. I keen devourers of works of fiction, not trust that one who is an author by the for the sake of gathering hints therefrom, gift of nature, may be as good a man but out of pure love for such reading. as one who is master of the mint by the Scott could not leave a word unread of a gift of Lord Melbourne." What manner book with a story in it; he was a devout of novels the author of "Vivian Grey" worshipper of Miss Edgeworth; and de- wrote is known to most. clared Jane Austen's talent for describing Literary preferences, like love preferthe involvement, and feelings, and charac-ences, are unexplainable. We like beters of ordinary life, was the most won-cause we like. Macaulay's biographer derful thing he ever met with. He could, says of him that the day on which he he said, "do the big bow-wow business himself with any one; but the exquisite touch which rendered commonplace things and commonplace characters interesting was beyond his powers." Washington Irving deprived his nights of sleepless ness of their tediousness by the aid of Anthony Trollope. Miss Mitford never lost her love for the romances of her youth. As a boy Dickens revelled in "Gil Blas" and "Don Quixote; " and in his manhood he read Hawthorne with delight, and had plenty of praise for George Eliot.

detected, in the dark recesses of a Holborn bookstall, some trumpery romance that had been in the Cambridge circulating library in the year 1820, was a date marked with a white stone in his calendar. He exulted over the discovery of a wretched novel called " Conscience," which he owned to be execrable, as triumphantly as if it had been a first folio edition of Shakespeare with an inch and a half of margin. Why is it?" he asks in his diary, "that I can read twenty times over the trash of and that I cannot read Bulwer's works? It is odd; but of

66

all writers of fiction who possess any tal- But Mr. Froude notwithstanding, it is ent at all, Bulwer, with very distinguished not only young imaginations that yield to talent, amuses me least." Bulwer, how the beguilements of romance. Eldon was ever, conquered him once, for he sets as interested in sentimental stories when down: "On my journey through the Pon- he had gained the goal of his ambition, tine Marshes, I finished Bulwer's Al- as when he was young enough and roice.' It affected me much, and in a way mantic enough to compass a runaway which I have not been affected by novels marriage. To the last, Romilly delightthese many years. Indeed, I generally ed in the romances of Charlotte Smith. avoid all novels which are said to have Jeffrey was well on in years when he much pathos. The suffering which they cried over Paul Dombey's death, blessed produce is to me a very real suffering, Paul's creator for the purifying tears and of that I have quite enough without he shed, and declared he had been in them." Theodore Hook relished nothing love with him "ever since_little_Nell,” better with his wine than novels of a seri- and did not care who knew it. Nor was ous cast; and was so fond of "Gil Blas," Daniel O'Connell a callow youth when he that he made a point of reading it every vowed never to forgive Dickens for killyear. He would cross-examine Sir Henry ing the heroine of the "Old Curiosity Holland's children in the most minute Shop." It must, however, be conceded details respecting Sir Charles Grandison that Dickens possessed a power of raisand Miss Byron, and could have done the ing a personal attachment for his characsame with regard to the "Pride and Prej-ters that was unique.

udice" series, of which he said there were no compositions in the world ap. proaching so near to perfection; a eulogium Whately and Whewell would readily

have indorsed.

From The Academy.

BOROUGH.

Ipswich: July 24, 1883. IN searching the files of the Ipswich Journal for some particulars as to the picture referred to in my letter in the Academy of July 21, I came upon the following brief history of Gainsborough. From Sir Philip Thicknesse's "Life of Gainsborough we learn that the then proprietor and editor of the Ipswich Journal was an intimate friend of the great artist; and, as the subjoined article was in all probability written by him, it will have a special value and interest at The extract is verbatim the present day. from the Ipswich Journal of August 9, 1788. WM. KING.

Bishop Thirlwall's greatest pleasure A CONTEMPORARY NOTICE OF GAINSwas reading a novel in an open carriage while travelling. Dr. Hook was ready to read one anywhere and under any condi tions. Mackintosh soothed himself "before court" and refreshed himself after it by reading "The Old Manor House;" and so dreaded arriving at the end of De Staël's "Corinne," that he prolonged his enjoyment by swallowing it slowly that he might taste every drop. Sir William Hamilton preferred novels of the Radcliffe type; while Mary Somerville in the sunset of life spent her evenings over conversational stories, "her tragic days being over; " in accordance with Mr. Froude's dictum, that as we grow old, the love-agonies of the Fredericks and Dorotheas cease to be absorbing, as the possibilities of such excitements for ourselves have set below the horizon, and painful experience of the realities of weekly bills and rent-day induce us to take the parental view of the situation. "A novel which can amuse us in middle life," he says, "must represent such sentiments, such actions, and such casualties as we encounter after we have cut our wiseteeth, and have become ourselves actors in the practical drama of existence. The taste for romance is the first to disappear. Truth alone permanently pleases; and works of fiction which claim a place in literature must introduce us to characters and situations which we recognize as fa

miliar."

Memoirs of the late Mr. Gainsborough, the celebrated painter who died on Saturday last, aged 61, of a cancer in his Neck, caught by a Cold a few months since, whilst attending Mr. Hastings's Trial.

Mr. Gainsborough was born at Sudbury in Suffolk, in the year 1727: his father, on his outset in life, was possessed of a decent competency; but a large family, and a liberal heart, soon lessened his wealth to a very humble income. The son, of whom we speak, very early discovered a propensity to painting: Nature was his teacher and the woods of Suffolk

.

rooms in Pall Mall, for expression, character, and beautiful coloring, is of inestimable worth. His Majesty's praises of this picture made Mr. Gainsborough feel truly elate; and the attention of the Queen, who sent to him soon after, and commissioned him to paint the Duke of York, were circumstances that he always dwelt upon with conscious pleasure and satisfaction.

his academy; here he would pass in soli- | possession, and several others of a like
tude his mornings, in making a sketch of description, give him a very peculiar char-
an antiquated tree, a marshy brook, a few acter as an artist over every other disciple
cattle, a shepherd and his flock, or any of the pencil. The landscape of the
other accidental objects that were pre- Woodman in the Storm, finished about
sented. From delineation, he got to col-eighteen months since, and now at his
oring; and after painting several land-
scapes from the age of ten to twelve, he
quitted Sudbury in his thirteenth year,
and came to London, where he commenced
portrait painter; and from that time never
cost his family the least expense. The
person at whose house he principally re-
sided, was a silversmith of some taste;
and from him he was ever ready to con-
fess he derived great assistance. Mr.
Gravelot the engraver was also his pa-
tron, and got him introduced at the Old
Academy of the Arts, in St. Martin's
Lane. He continued to exercise his pen-
cil in London for some years, but marry-
ing Mrs. Gainsborough when he was only
nineteen years of age, he soon after took
up his residence at Ipswich; and after
practising there for a considerable period,
went to Bath, where his friends intimated
his merits would meet their proper reward.
His portrait of Quin the actor, which he
painted at Bath about thirty years since,
will ever be considered as a wonderful
effort in the portrait line.

The high reputation which followed, prompted him to return to London, where he arrived in the year 1774; after passing a short time in town not very profitably, his merits engaged the attention of the King. Among other portraits of the Royal Family, the full length of his Majesty at the Queen's house will ever be viewed as an astonishing performance. From this period, Mr. Gainsborough entered into a line which afforded a becoming reward to his superlative powers. All our living Princes and Princesses have been painted by him, the Duke of York excepted, of whom he had three pictures bespoken: and, among his later performances, the head of Mr. Pitt, and several portraits of that gentleman's family, afforded him gratification. His portraits will pass to futurity with a reputation equal to that which follows the pictures of Vandyke; and his landscapes will establish his name on the record of the fine arts, with honors such as never before attended a native of this isle.

He was frequently fond of giving a little rustic boy or girl a place in his landscapes: some of these possess wonderful beauty: his Shepherd's Boy, the Girl and Pigs, the Fighting Boys and Dogs, the one with Figures in Sir Peter Burrell's

His mind was most in its element while engaged in landscape. These subjects he painted with a faithful adherence to Nature; and it is to be noticed they are more in approach to the landscapes of Rubens, than those of any other master. At the same time we must remark, his tree, foreground, and figures, have more force and spirit; and we add, the brilliancy of Claude and the simplicity of Ruysdael appear combined in Mr. Gainsborough's romantic scenes. The few pictures he attempted that are stiled seapieces, may be recurred to in proof of his power in painting water; nothing certainly can exceed them in transparency and air. But he is gone! and while we lament him as an artist, let us not pass over those virtues which were an honor to human nature.! Let a tear be shed in affection for that generous heart, whose strongest propensities were to relieve the claims of poverty, wherever they appeared genuine! If he selected, for the exercise of his pencil, an infant from a cottage, all the tenants of the humble roof generally par ticipated in the profits of the picture; and some of them frequently found in his habitation a permanent abode. His lib. erality was not confined to this alone, needy relatives and unfortunate friends. were further: incumbrances on a spirit that could not deny; and owing to, this generosity of temper, we fear, that affluence is not left to his amiable family, which so much merit might promise, and such real worth deserve.

From All The Year Round.
IN AN OLD PALACE.

"YES, darling, I will rest awhile
Upon this ancient window-seat,
This wide old-fashioned, brown recess,
And watch the pictured loveliness