their readers and the public. Each stroke may be gentle, and yet the united effect of the whole severe; especially should the act of novelreading, being thus frequently repeated, become a habit, and find its way permanently into families hitherto inaccessible to its baneful influence.

The Waverley Novels, however, must not be the whole of our theme; for they are but a part, though, for one writer, a very considerable part, of the mass of works of entertainment and imagination which now so profusely issue from the presses of England and Scotland, and which are eagerly perused by thousands and tens of thousands of our countrymen and countrywomen of all ranks, ages, and capacities. Poetry, in particular, has, of late years, made most prolific shoots; and we wish we could add with truth, that "its leaves are for the healing of the nations." To all this, we must append, as a part of our general indictment, the mass of tales, poems, dramas, and other effusions which float, "trifles light as air," over the stream of our diurnal, and weekly, and monthly literature; and all of which go into the vast aggregate of the national reading, and tend strongly to influence the public taste, sentiments, and conduct.

It seems to us a question of delicate casuistry to what extent religious families may lawfully in dulge in the perusal of works of mere taste and imagination. As a general principle, it is easy to say "The less the better;" but such a sweeping denunciation, however convenient to the casuist, is not likely to convince or reform those who require conviction or reformation; nor is it, in fact, altogether well-founded. The imagination is not necessarily an enemy: like other faculties of the mind indeed, it is depraved by the Fall; but, like them also, it may be employed, 'under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, for the most valuable pur

poses. The perversion is not in the faculty, but in its application; and the object of a Christian should be, not to extirpate it, but wisely to control its unlawful tendencies, and to dispose it to virtuous and heavenly objects. To abandon it to the service of "the world, the flesh, and the devil," is both unnecessary and most inexpedient. It ought rather to be rescued from this degradation, and employed, as the sacred writers and our Blessed Lord himself employed it in their figures, and parables, and apologues, and allegories, for the glory of God and the good of man. To this we might add, that its occasional exercise furnishes a powerful relief to the man of business or study; and may even be of use, in some cases, to the clergy themselves; at least to those of them whose leaden pinions require such an aid, or whose soporific habits of thought and language might be sublimed, to the great satisfaction of their auditories, by the due use of this valuable, though often dangerous, faculty.

But the subject strikes us in another aspect. We live in a somewhat unkindly climate: a large portion also of our population are cooped up in towns and cities: we are proverbially subject to rains and fogs and chills, to dark days and long evenings; and the habits of the people, concurring with these natural causes, render in-door occupations and amusements essential to British ideas of comfort. Every parent who wishes to discourage in his children the inordinate love of visiting, gossiping, and pleasure-taking, and at the same time not to allow the domestic fireside to become the scene of listlessness, indolence, or inanity, perhaps of fretfulness or quarrelling, must feel the great importance of light (we do not say trifling) reading as one of the best resources for his purpose. Young persons cannot be every moment employed either in their studies or in active

band; they ought not to be written; they ought not to be sold; they ought not to be read. Of this class are some of the productions, especially among the later ones, of Lord Byron. The most unbounded Chris tian charity cannot give the authors of such works as those to which we allude, credit for a single right feeling or good motive in obtruding them on the world. The publications themselves may evince more or less of genius in their composition; they may be patrician or plebeian; they may be poetical or prosaic; they may be con cocted in the regions of Castalia and Hippocrene, or in the purlieus of Grub-street or the Fleet-ditch; they may issue from the loyal press of Mr. Murray, or the radical press of Mr. Hone; they may be "got up" for rose-wood tables and velvet sofas, or for tap-rooms and ale-house benches; but, whatever their extrinsic circumstances, their mischievous character is so palpable that they cannot for a moment be tolerated by any man who is worthy of the name of a Christian, and therefore surely need not form the subject of discussion or animadversion in the pages of the Christian Observer.

The second class, and that which will engross the greater part of our intended remarks, consists of works of imagination, (chiefly works of fictitious narrative,) written without any positive intention of mischief, and with as little serious intention of doing good; and of which the object is to assist the purse or the literary reputation of the author, and to amuse and in terest the reader. In this class we place the Waverley Novels. We cheerfully acquit the writer of any bad intention; we even acknowledge, with pleasure, that he has on many occasions done willing homage to virtue; and, if we except the offensive oaths and profane exclamations which are sometimes found in the mouths of the per sonages whom he has created, his CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 243.

pages are generally characterised by a decorum which forms a pleas ing contrast to the licentious and inflammatory representations of too many of his brother novelists, Richardson himself not excepted. To admit his gigantic powers would be superfluous; we take these for granted; it is of moral qualities only that we are now speaking. And as we have frankly allowed that the author has no serious wish to do mischief, we think he cannot refuse to admit, in return, that he has as little decided aim to effect any moral good. He evidently loves writing; he seems not averse to fame; and probably has no ob jection to pecuniary remuneration: and all these three points appear to be united in his present scheme of authorship. He doubtless further wishes his works to stand well with the respectable part of the public; and as a moral man himself, he could have no desire to supplant good morals in others. Still, we should judge, that positive utility is quite a secondary object with him: where it falls in with the agreeable, so far all is well; but farther than this probably does not appear to him necessary. Something of this kind we can conceive to be the fair balance between the author and his conscience; and we are willing to argue the case on this temperate and not unreasonable supposition.

We shall not scruple then to say, that it is with feelings of very considerable regret that we witness the prodigal expenditure of time, and genius, and "talents," (we use the word in its theological as well as literary acceptation,) which occurs in the volumes of the author of Waverley.. We cannot but think that such splendid powers of imagination and intellect were bestowed by Providence, for far higher purposes than novel writing: we cannot but fear that thirty-nine volumes of mere tales, without any good or useful object in view, will form a sorry item in the final acY

count of a buman being thus gifted, and responsible for the application of his time, his faculties, and his opportunities of glorifying God, and benefiting mankind. Perhaps, indeed, this sort of language may furnish a good subject for the playful ridicule with which the author is accustomed to visit the Puritanical and Presbyterian offences of former days. We believe, however, that not only the public, but the author himself, would be little disposed to treat with levity, and as mere cant, such terms and ideas as "moral responsibility;" a "state of probation;" and " rendering an account to God at the day of judgment, for every idle word as well as vicious deed;" and we will not deny that thoughts of this nature involuntarily force them selves on our minds as often as we witness men of extraordinary powers wasting their energies year after year in worthless pursuits, "which cannot profit, for they are vain." We would not willingly be fastidious or uncharitable; we would not dry up the fountains of elegant literature, or lay a rude embargo on the lighter productions of taste and imagination; we would not make religion to consist in an austere renunciation of innocent recreations, or restrict either authors or their readers to the graver departments of divinity and philosophy; but we must ever contend for that great Christian principle, "Whether ye eat or drink, or whatever ye do, do all to the glory of God." Rigid as this principle may at first sight appear, it is not so in reality; for the glory of God may be as certainly, though not as directly or obviously, consulted in a due indulgence in any proper recreation, useful for the refection of the mind, as in the gravest pursuits of business or charity. But in all these things there is a line of boun dary and demarcation not easy to be formally defined, but which a conscientious Christian will readily ascertain in his own case in prae

tice, and which he will be anxious not to transgress or even to approach. It is not for us to judge' between any individual and his conscience; or between his conscience and his Maker; but we may be permitted to lament, that the vast powers expended on the voluminous productions which have called forth these remarks, were not devoted to some object of less dubious benefit to the world, and which, on a death-bed, might perhaps have given greater satisfaction' in the retrospect to the unknown author himself.

But it is not with the writer, but with his works, and their effects on the public, that we are chiefly concerned. Our object in the following pages is to shew the tendency of the taste, at present so prevalent, for trifling reading, particularly in the article of fictitious narrative. We have not chosen the tales of the author of Waverley as our immediate subject, on account of their being among the worst species of novels, but precisely because of mere novels they are among the best: they are less inflammatory, less morbid, and far more manly and intellectual than most of their fellow-culprits. Indeed, by many thorough novel-readers, they are considered somewhat tame; the very complaint is made against them which the French have so long urged against Miss Edgeworth, that her works want "sentiment;" in short, that they are destitute of the voluptuousness which most readers look for in a novel. All this is so much in their favour, that in selecting them as our point d'appui," we are giving every ad vantage to the panegyrist of novelreading, and taking the ground least favourable to our own argument. We think, however, we shall be able to shew, that the general tendency of a habit of novel reading, even were no individual novel more exceptionable than one of the Waverley Tales, is to a high degree inexpedient and injurious.-We