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    thread , he Has so contrived it that yre feel an independent interest in it , and read it almost as eagerly as the stories themselves . A poor wandering portrait painter is afflicted with inflammation of the eyes which prevents his working ; his family is thus reduced to destitution ; and in the very depths of . the ' helplessness the idea occurs to his wife that if he would only dictate to her , * after dark , ' the various strange stories he has heard from some of his ' sitters , ' an interesting work might be produced , which would bring them money enough to keep t he wolf from the door until his eyesight is recovered . This is told in the pages of the wife ' s diary . The prologues to each story give us glimpses of the various sitters , and are the pretests for some happy description and humorous sketching .

    The first story is quite perfect in its way . It is the " Terribly Strange Bed , " which will be read with a breath-suspended interest , due as much to the direct and forcible telling as to the nature of the story itself . The second story , " The Stolen Letter , " is also one which will hot let you move till it is finished , but which labours under the disadvantage of being a reminiscence of Edgar Poe ' s " Purloined Letter , " with a slight reminiscence of the " Golden Beetle : " although the characters and incidents are different , the principle of construction is the same in both Poe ' s and Mr . Collins' stories . The third story , "Sister Rose , " reads as if it had originally been a drama , and subsequently turned into a narrative . If this be so , the author . has not sufficiently attended to the great distinction between dramatic and fiarrative exposition . He has crowded the story with incidents and ' situations 'some of them very powerful ,-without attending to the necessary preparation and development of character and motives . The sudden change in the moral character of Lomaque is very like the conversions of the stage , and very unlike reality . Lad

    The y of Grlenwith Grange" is so well told , and the interest so prepared , that we feel lamentabl y disappointed on coming to so feeble and commonplace an ending . "Gabriel ' s Marriage , " on the contrary , is masterly , in conception , in detail , and in working out . The scenery , the characters , the incidents , the language , all aid in the vivid presentation of an intensely interesting story . It is the best story in the work and the finest we have read for many a long day . The laststory , " The Yellow Maslc , " is also very thrilling , and up to the final chapters told with perfect art . But , towards the close , invention flags . The incident of _ Nanina overhearing Brigida and the Priest confess their crime is as stale as it is unreal ; and a much finer unravelling of the mystery had already been indicated when the sculptor first perceives that a cast has been taken of his bust : had this clue been followed a more striking denouement might have been found . Mr . Collins possesses a rare faculty : Vart de conter . No man living tetter tells a story ; but there is one fault into which his very excellence leads him , and which is worth his attention . He is so intent , so concentrated , that he is forgetful of the great art and charm of ' relief . ' Fixing his mind upon the construction of his story , and , in his intent eagerness , disregarding whatever does not help him to the thorough working out of his plan , he avoids the common error of story-tellers , namely , the superfluous descriptions , unnecessary dialogues , and interrupting incidents . But while never superfluous , he is generally too uniform . A little more play of light and shade would make both light and shade tnore effective . His stories remind us of A . lneri ' s dramas . Shakspeare , though a more dangerous model , and often himsrof prodigally superfluous , is in his finest plays the true model of relief— -as of every other art .

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    THE DUTCH BEPUBLIC . The Rise of the Dutch Republic . A . History . By John Lothrop Motley . 3 rol « John Chapman The Dutch had not l > een recognised as an independent nation before they undertook the conquest of insular Asia . While the Spanish Crown still claimed them as subjects , the Spanish fleets were eclipsed , and while the empire of Spain was shaken in the West , that of Holland began to rise in the East . In the remote Archipolngo of Asia , to which the courage and the genius of William the Silent pointed , as the last refuge of the Hollanders rom the alternative of despair , Houtman and his successors created a circle of rich colonies that Spain and England envied , and these adventurers pursued their enterprises in the Indian waters before the conflic at homo had

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    The letters are poor enough in matter for any one but such an editor to have rejected them on that account ; and their Freneh is ludicrous enough in all respects , but we should be curious to see what would have been the " corrections " Mr . John Wood Warter would have made , because in the single phrase he has jauntily thrown into the note just quoted , the French is ° queer as any in Southey ' s letters . Of Southey ' s letters here printed not a third deserve to see the light . A poorer letter writer we cannot name . He travelled * and his letters areas dull from Lisbon as from Bristol ; he saw strange and illustrious people , and

    his accounts of them are not more graphic than a . penny-a-liner would furnish . He is prodigal of dreary verse , meant to be Jiumorous , and of feeble jokes , which may have exhilarated his « on-in * law , whose humour probably is supplied by JDanish and Swedish lore , but which British readers will receive with stolid gravity . The only interest inr the letters is the occasional glimpse into the literary life of the period ^ n othing surpasses , in our estimate , the single line about Wordsworth going to the Marchioness ' Stafford ' s rout * ' in powder , and with a cocked hat under his arm . " Think of that , Spirits of Rydal and Windermere !

    Southey ' s critical opinions are amusing—e . gr ., "Kotzebue seems to me of unsurpassed and unsurpassable genius . " There are also some pleasant passages about himself ; many betokening a solid and colossal opinion of his genius ; many , also , betokening the kind and simple nature of the man . Here is a quotable passage : — ¦ There are three classes of people in whose society I find pleasure—those in whom I meet with similarity of opinion , those who from a similarity of feeling tolerate difference of opinion , and those to whom long acquaintance has attached nie , who neither think nor feel -with me , but who have the same recollections and

    can talk of other times and other scenes . Accustomed to seclusion , or to the company of those who know me , and to whom I can out with every thought as it rises , without the danger of being judged by a solitary expression , I ana uncomfortable amongst strangers . A man loses many privileges wlien he ia known to the world . Go where I will , my name has gone before me , and strangers either receive me with expectations that I" cannot gratify , or with evil prepossessions that I cannot remove . It is only in a stage-coach , that I am on an equal footing with my companions , and it is there that I talk the most and leave them in the best humour with me . ¦

    What will mothers say to this ? I had a daughter Edith , hatched last night ; for she came into the world wifcft not much more preparation than a chicken , and no more beauty than a young dodo . Edith went to sleep at fotir after dinner , rose uneasy at half after fivej ; retired to her room at half after eight / and before ten she and her child were twov They are doing well , thank God , but the young one is very , very ugly ; so ugly that , if I did not remember tales of my own deformity , how both mother and grandmother cried out against me , notwithstanding my present pulchritude , ' I should verily think the Edi tilling would look better in -a bottle-than on a white sheet . She may mend , and in about three months I may begin to like her * and by-and-by I suppose shall lovelier ; but it shall be with a reasonable love , that will hang loosely upon me , like all second loves . Make you , comment upon this . " One of the most curious character-sketches in the volumes is this of Hartley Coleridge as a child : —

    I am perfectly astonished at him ; and his father has the same sentiment of wonder and the same forfeeling that it is a prodigious and an unnatural intellect , —and that he will not live to be a man . There is more , Danvers , in the old woman ' s saying , " be is too clever to live , " than appears to a common observer . Diseases which ultimately destroy , in their early stages quicken and kindle the intellect like opium . It seems as if deatb looked out the most promising plants in this great nttrsery , to plant them in -a better soil . The boy ' s great delighb is to get his father to talk metaphysics to him , —few men understand Mm so jjerfectly;— -and then Ms own . incidental sayings ai'e quite wonderful . " The pity is , "—said he one day to his father , who ^ wa 3 expressing some wonder that he was not so pleased as he expected with , riding in a wheelbarrow ,- — " the pity is that

    Fse always thinking of my thoughts . " The child ' s imagination is equally surprising ; he invents the wildest tales you ever heard , —a history of the Kings of England , who are to be . " How do you , know that this is to come to pass , Hartley ? " " Why you know it must be something , or it would not be in wy head ; " and so , because it had not been , did Moses conclude it must be , and away he prophesies of his King Thomas the Third . Then , he has a tale of a monstrous beast called the Rarbzeze Kallaton , whose skeleton is . on the outside of hia flesh ; and he goes on with the oddest and most original inventions , till he sometimes actually terrifies himself , and says , " afraid of my own tb . 6 ugh . ta . " It may seem like superstition , but I have a feeling that such an intellect can never reach maturity . The springs are of too exquisite workmanship to last long . Again : —

    SOUTHEY'S LETTERS . Selections from tJie Letters of Bobert Southcy . Edited "by his Son-in-law , John Wood Warter , B . D . In 4 vols , Vols 1 and 2 . Longmans , Among the misfortunes of celebrated men must he reckoned the misfortune of having sons , sons-in-law , brothers , or cousins , who have neither the talent which justices their assuming the office of biographer , nor the sagacity to perceive that a modest relinquishment of their claims in favour of some one who could do justice to the life of their illustrious relative , would be greatly for their own benefit and their relative ' s fame . Southey ' Life might have been a work of lasting interest had some skilful editor undertaken to arrange its materials , as Tom Taylor did for the Life of Haydon . Southey ' s Letters might have served to fill a corner ia our gossiping literary history , had they been entrusted to the judgment of some one who could form an opinion on vvhat should and what should not appear . But entrusted to Mr . John Wood Warter , we feel constrained to say that they will form one of the most useless and unreadable works which ever tempted the patience of a public . Mr . John Wood Warter , as he appears in these volumes , is a singularly foolish and incompetent person . He cannot write , and cannot even be dull and unassuming , but insists upon being assuming as well as dull . Read this sample of ostent atious and unnecessary information , from the preface : — For tho few foot-notes I ana responsible , and they are as few aa possible , not being myself a convert to the custom of overlaying an author with unnecessary disquisitions , or be-Germaniaed Excursuses , albeit loner aoro not unread in German

    literature of nil sorts , especially theological j and from my long residence in Copenhagen , as Chaplain to the Embassy , not unversed in Danish and Swedish lore , and in the exquisitely curious Icelandic . Sagas . Nowwho on earth cares whether Mr . John Wood Warter ia read or " unread in German literature of all sorts , " or that he resided in Copenhagen , and there became " not unversed in Danish and Swedish lore ? " Why does he thrust tins upon our notice ? Ia it to justify his supremely foolish note on fcoutheys desire for a « wishing cap , " which induces him to inform the reader that the Tarukappe jb a mantle rendering the wearer invisible ( here Jollows a citation from the Niebeiungen ) : the reader not at all needing to have wishing-cap' explained , because every child is familiar with Fortunatus , and if needing an explanation , not finding it in the Tarnhappe . We will give one more specimen of the editor , and then leave him to the laughter ot Ins readers . He prints some letters written in French , ami appends this note : — l ' Thoso , and other lottorn of tho aarno Bort , are printed to show tho playfulness ol Bouthay ' t * disposition . Tlao French is like tho French ho used to talk on his travolB . Ho talkod it boldly , and eliruggod hie ( shoulders d la merveillc , I have not altered one grammatical error , —tho specimen is complete .

    It is not easy to conceive , what is perfectly true , that he is totally destitute of anything like modesty , yet without the slightest tinge of impudence in his nature . His religion makes one of the nyast humorous parts of his character . " I ' m ft boy of a very religious turn , " he says ; for lie always talks of himself , and examines his own character , just as if he was speaking of another persdn , and as impartially . Every night he makes an extempore prayer aloud ; but it ia always in wed , and not till ho ia comfortable there and got into the mood . When he is ready he touches Mrs . Wilson , who Bleeps with him , and saiJs , " Now listen J" and off lie sets like a preacher . If ho has been behaving amiss , away he goes for the Bible , and looks out for something appropriate to his case in tho Psalms or the Book of Job . The other day , after he hud boon in a violent passion , he chose out a-chapter agaiuat wrath . " All ! that suits mo J" The Bible also ia resorted to whenever he aila anything , or else the Prayer-book .

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    . Mamch / 8 , j ; 856 . ] t tf E L jfc A B-jEf &J iggg

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), March 8, 1856, page 233, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2131/page/17/