Hawkestone, for the purpose of showing up the Jesuits, and numerous simple folk imagined the raw-head and bloody-bones monster he drew to be a true portrait. Some people fancy that Manchester and other manufacturing towns abound with scenes and characters like those depicted in Mary Barton; or that Belgian schools in general are like Madame Beck's pension in Villette. When we add the innumerable young ladies and young gentlemen who form their ideas of courtship, love, and matrimony, and the chances and duties of every-day life both to the married and the single, from the novels they devour, we may safely conclude that the influence of the writers of fiction on the destinies and conduct of any age can scarcely be overrated.

It is true enough, that the proper aim of a novelist ought to be to amuse and not to instruct. But human life is such, and human nature is such, that it is practically impossible to amuse and entertain a man, without more or less instructing and influencing him; and those novels are practically the most powerful in their effect upon those who read them, which are the least obtrusively didactic and instructive. The great art of the novelist consists in embodying his knowledge of humanity in individual men and women. An historical summary and a controversial or philosophical disquisition are equally out of place in a story, and are as a universal rule more or less bores. Almost every body skips them, and nobody is touched by them, unless it be with ennui. In actual life, our lives are moulded by the example and conversation of people who bring out their principles incidentally, and show us what they think by what they do; and not by those who philosophise over the breakfast-table, and expound or moralise during a morning-call. Just so in novels; people's opinions of their fellow-creatures are the result of the force with which the novelist draws his characters as types of classes in living action, and not of his formal statement of his own views and feelings.

Such being the case, the pleasure with which we read some few of the novels of the present time is equal to the indignation with which we read a vast proportion of their companions. It is with genuine gratification that we sometimes light upon a story which, though undoubtedly written by a person with whose opinions on many points we cannot at all sympathise, is nevertheless to be recommended as a fair picture of human life as it really is, and as animated by a spirit which is likely to further all the best interests of humanity. Let a writer be ever so widely removed from our own ideas, if only his spirit is good, his heart charitable, his

statements correct, and he puts forth nothing false or immoral, we are only too glad to welcome him into the republic of letters, and to count his books among those which may exercise a positive benefit on our age.

The writer whose books we have placed at the head of these remarks is a very fair sample of the class of novelists who have this claim at our hands. Mr. Gwynne has not been long before the world, his first production being as yet not three years old; and to many of our readers his name is probably quite unknown. We feel sure, however, that if they care for novel-reading at all, they will be obliged to us for introducing them to one who is distinguished by merits unfortunately still rare in this book-producing day.

None of these books have much to recommend them in the way of plot, or of stirring scenes, or of that kind of writing which is technically termed "powerful." Their outlines are simple, almost to meagreness, and their author makes no attempt at fine writing. Their merit consists in the freshness of their subjects, in the quiet truth of their delineations, in the genial, honest, hearty, and religious tone which pervades them throughout, and in the unquestionable charitableness of view with which Mr. Gwynne regards his fellow-creatures in general. And these things are the more remarkable, because he is given to introduce precisely those personages who are usually provocative of the most absurd displays of ignorance, or the most angry bursts of ill-feeling, viz. Catholic priests and Protestant parsons. Yet we may fairly say that we do not know any other set of novels in which both of these classes are painted with equal cordiality, or appear in more amiable lights. There is nothing in the least controversial in any of the series, so far as religion is concerned; nor is there any thing outré or exceptional in the specimens of the Catholic and the Protestant ecclesiastics to whom Mr. Gwynne introduces us. Nor is Mr. Gwynne a shallow latitudinarian, with whom doctrine goes for nothing, and whose beau ideal of a priest is a semi-Protestant simpleton, and of a parson, one who is neither priest, parson, nor dissenting minister. The secret of his success lies in the fact, that he knows more of Catholic life and principles than nine writers out of ten, and that he loves to dwell on what is loveable and honourable, wherever it is found, rather than to set his fellow-creatures by the ears by fastening on a class the crimes or shortcomings of individuals.

His first publication, The School for Fathers, is in some respects the most original in idea and treatment of the four stories that he has as yet published. It tells the history of

a Town Father and a Country Fox-hunting Son of the early part of the eighteenth century, and a period of which scarcely a memorial exists now remaining in English life and manners; though perhaps the changes in fox-hunting and fox-hunters are less than in any other part of the social fabric. Mr. Gwynne has sketched the habits and feelings of our forefathers, both in town and country, with spirit and accuracy. It is easy enough, indeed, to reproduce cant phrases of speech long since extinct, and to dress up the conventional personages of the common-place novel in all the extravagances of a costume which was as expensive and as uncomfortable to wear as it is tedious to read of. The novelist's skill consists in a resuscitation of men and women, as well as of swords, wigs, patches, and furbelows. In The School for Fathers we have quite enough of millinery and tailoring; here and there even a trifle too much. Still, on the whole, they are the accessories to the living beings who figure on Mr. Gwynne's canvas, and serve to strengthen the contrast between the present day and that of the first Georges.

The moral of The School for Fathers is, the absurdity and wickedness of forcing a son into a mode of life for which he is totally unfitted by nature, in order to gratify the caprice and vanity of a father who really cares nothing whatever for his son's happiness. Jack Warren, the victim of this paternal cruelty, has been consigned by his father, a foppish baronet, after his mother's early death, to the care of his uncle, a jolly, fox-hunting squire of good fortune, and respectability too, as respectability went in those days. Poor Jack grows up a man after his uncle's own heart, guiltless alike of foppery, literature, and vice, save an occasional drinking-bout in a "gentlemanly" way after a hard run; amiable and constant in his affections; and the most unpromising subject that can be conceived for converting into a court beau of the eighteenth century. The story opens with a finale to a good day's sport:

"Squire Warren and his guests proceeded to the dining-room. Here was a sight for tired fox-hunters! A huge blazing wood fire shining on the dark oak wainscoat and floor. A large round table, decked with whitest, finest damask cloth, with shining plate and glass, eight high-backed chairs placed around it; a sideboard covered with tankards and other plate, large home-made loaves, cold meat and pickles, a goodly array of many bottles; and a fat butler appearing through an open door bearing a huge dish and cover, which he solemnly placed at the head of the table, whilst two footmen handed in turn three other large dishes, which he duly placed, besides several minor ones.

"The butler having announced that the dinner was ready, the

company took their seats; the Squire hospitably saying, in the language of his day:

"Gentlemen! I hope you have a stomach!'

"There was boiled beef at the top, there was roast veal at the bottom; there was a roast leg of mutton on one side, and a boiled turkey on the other; there was a large ham in the centre, there were dishes of vegetables at the corners. For ten minutes silence reigned around the board, as far as human voices were concerned; but there was a busy sound of knives and forks tattooing on many plates, and by degrees, as the bien-être produced by a good dinner on the weary frame began to be felt, so voice after voice made itself heard, first in short sentences:

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Capital beef!'

Very good ham!'

"Squire, your beer's better than ever!'

"This is a good ending to a good beginning!'

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"I'll thank you, Sir, for some more pudding to my beef,' &c. &c. &c. &c.

"Then anon 'the run' was brought on the tapis; and by the time the plum-puddings, apple-pies, custards, and cheese, were in process of demolition, the renovated hunters were full-cry over every step of ground they had gone over, and every incident that had occurred during the morning's sport.

"Fox-hunters in those days were fox-hunters: fox-hunting was their life, and they were a race apart. Lawyers and doctors were not seen in the field; feeble boys did not run down by railway, have a run, smoke a few doubtful cigars, and return home to astonish the family with their splashed tops, spattered pinks, and woe-begone countenances-and so to bed. Hunters were hunters, and foxhunters were fox-hunters, and hunting was hunting in those times; and there were no mongrel riders and extraordinary looking horses seen among them. A fine gentleman also was a fine gentleman, and meddled not with hunting: he looked on it as a coarse and barbarous amusement, dem'me,' and passed his winters in town, and la belle saison in the country. And so the fox-hunters were, as I said, a race apart, with their own modes and language. And a huntingbreakfast was a hunting-breakfast in that day, and took place ofttimes by candlelight. Our modern fox-hunters could not digest such food as our sporting ancestors partook of so early: the beef, the ale, the stalwart pies, the spiced wines, the hot bread. Fine gentlemen took tea and chocolate; but fox-hunters—Oh, no!

"To return to Squire Warren and his party. Dinner being concluded, they one and all drew round the well-replenished fire. The footmen placed a small round table between every two guests, on which were set glasses, port, claret, pipes, and a silver tobacco-box. Before the Squire a large table was placed, supporting, in addition to the above enumerated objects, a lordly bowl of smoking punch.

"It was about three o'clock-daylight gently failing added to the red glow of the merry firelight. Stiff limbs of aged hunters

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were stretched full length to catch the genial heat; younger men, more drowsy, half closed their eyes, and so conversed. Pipes were filled and lighted, the fragrant smoke curled around, the hot punch circulated, port and claret vanished, faces grew scarlet, long loud laughter resounded, with here and there a long-drawn snore. Merry tales, all more or less connected with the chase, went round; guests dropt off one by one, sooner or later, according to the length of road that lay between Denham Park and their homes; and six o'clock found Squire Warren and his nephew tête-à-tête : the Squire fast asleep in his great chair, his trim periwig hanging on one of the nobs thereof, and his handkerchief shading his head and face; his nephew Jack eating nuts, intently musing, nodding from time to time, waking up to sigh, to crack more nuts, take a glass of port, and pat the three superannuated old hounds that basked before the fire."

Supper follows dinner, with a consultation over a letter just received from the Baronet, announcing his determination to come and take his son to London and commence his education as a fine gentleman. In due time the Baronet arrives, takes Jack for a footman, and confirms his intense disgust at the thought of leaving his uncle and his hounds, and the pretty daughter of the parson of the parish, to whom he had engaged himself. Here is the first meeting between the longparted relatives:

"Jack reached the hall just as a loud peal was rung at the halldoor. Opening it, he perceived a huge travelling coach drawn by post horses; and running down the stone steps, he stood breathless at the coach door. A thin yellow face, decked with a white satin nightcap embroidered in gold and colours, and surmounted by a gold-laced hat, peered forth; a thin white hand holding a cambric handkerchief over the mouth and nose, was also visible; and after a pair of cold grey eyes had surveyed Jack from head to foot, from beneath their thick black brows, a thin and muffled voice proceeding from the folds of the cambric handkerchief, exclaimed— "Is your master at home?'

"Jack started, but answered not.

"Art deaf, sirrah!' resumed the voice pettishly: is your master, Squire Warren, at home?'

"Yes!' faltered poor Jack with a blush.

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Open the door then! Zounds, don't keep me in the rain and mist, you booby!'

"Here's a nice beginning!' thought Jack.

"Just then Squire Warren appeared from the hall, followed by the butler and attendant footmen.

"Tom, my dear fellow,' he shouted, 'how art thou? Come in, come in! You're heartily welcome to Denham, brother; and we'll do our best to entertain 'ee.'