s his
statue of Jupiter Olympius in monthly numbers,--despatching now the
feet, now the legs, now the trunk, in successive pieces, now the
shoulders, and at last crowning the whole with a head!

The composition of novels must be reckoned, in design at least, one of
the fine arts, but in fact they belong rather to periodical than to
immortal literature. They do not submit to severity of treatment, abide
by no critical laws, but are the gypsies and Bohemians of literature,
bringing all the savagery of wild genius into the _salons_ of taste.
Though tolerated, admired, and found to be interesting, they do not
belong to the system of things, play no substantial part in the serious
business of life, but, as the world moves on, give place to their
successors, not having developed any principle, presented any picture,
or stated any fact, in a way to suggest ideas more than social
phenomena. They are not permanent, therefore, because finally only
ideas, and not facts, are generally remembered; the past is known to us
more, and exclusively as it becomes remote, by the conceptions of poets
and philosophic historians, the myriads of events which occupied a
generation being forgotten, and all the pith and meaning of them being
transmitted in a stanza or a chapter. Poetry never grows old, and
whatsoever masterpieces of thought always win the admiration of the
enlightened; but many a novel that has been the lion of a season passes
at once away, never more to be heard of here. With few exceptions, the
splendid popularity that greets the best novels fades away in time
slowly or rapidly. A half-century is a fatal trial for the majority; few
are revived, and almost none are read, after a century; will anybody
but the most curious antiquary be interested in them after one or
two thousand years? Without delaying to give the full rationale of
exceptions which vex this like every other general remark, it may
be added briefly that fairy stories are in their nature fantastic
mythological poems, most proper to the heroic age of childhood, that
historical romances may be in essence and dignity fantastic histories or
epics, and that, from whatever point of view, Cervantes remains hardly
less admirable than Ariosto, or the "Bride of Lammermoor" than the "Lay
of the Last Minstrel."

In the mental as in the physical world, art, diamonds and gems come by
long elaboration. A thoughtless man may write perennially, while the
result of silent meditation