mance is
united to wisdom, and both to practical utility. Terror is there in its
sternest shape--the hateful lust of gold is shown in all its hideous
deformity and inconceivable meanness, and through the awful suspense
that hovers over the incidents, occasional gleams of pure and hallowed
love come to humanise the darkness. This is cue of the few fictions
constructed to stand the shocks of time."

And of the other tales we find the following from the pen of the
celebrated Mr. St. John, when he was editor of the _Sunday Times_. He
speaks of the three tales together:--

"In every page of this work there is something which a reader would wish
to bear in his memory for ever. For power of animated description, for
eloquent reflections upon the events of everyday life, and for soft,
touching, pathetic appeals to the best feelings of the heart, these
tales are worthy of a place on every library table in the kingdom. They
are well calculated to add to the author's already established
reputation."

Of this trilogy of tales, undoubtedly the best is the "Crock of Gold:"
"The Twins," though written from living models, is very inferior, as the
hero is too goody-goody and the villain too hopelessly wicked: "Heart"
has more merit, and has been much praised by a celebrated authoress for
its touching chapter on Old Maids. Much of it also is autobiographical,
as with "The Twins."

CHAPTER XVI.

AESOP SMITH.

"AEsop Smith's Rides and Reveries" is one of the books which, really
written by me from beginning to end, is nominally only edited. It is a
volume of self-experiences, to be read "through the lines,"--and almost
every incident and character therein is drawn from living models and
actual facts. It grew naturally out of the simple circumstance that I
used daily to ride out alone on one of my horses--more exactly,
mares--Minna and Brenda, and jotted down my cantering fancies in prose
or verse when I got home. Hurst & Blackett were its publishers in
1858,--and it soon was all sold off, but did not come to a second
edition in London, though reproduced widely in New York and
Philadelphia. The fact is that, between an independent publisher who
sells a little over cost price, and a Gargantua purchaser of thousands
at a time, like Smith or Mudie, the poor author is sacrificed: he has
received his fee for the edition (I got L100 for this first and only)
and forthwith finds himself dismissed, while the reading public is made
gl