ssed on the minds of all who
control the destinies of youth, would make the world far happier than it
is. Had he written only Concerning the Sorrows of Childhood, the Country
Parson would have well deserved the vast 'popularity' which his writings
have so justly won. 'Covenanting austerity' and Puritanical
ultra-propriety are repulsive to him and, he deals them many a brave
blow. He sees life as it is with singular shrewdness, catches its lights
and shadows with artistic talent, and like all tender and genial
writers, keenly appreciates humor, and conveys it to us either
delicately or energetically, as the point may require. He writes _well_,
too, always. Clear as a bell, always to the point, refined enough for
the most fastidious gentleman and scholar, and yet intelligible and
interesting to any save the very illiterate. If any young aspirant for
literary honor wishes to touch the hearts of the people, and secure the
first elements of popularity, we know of no living writer from whom he
may draw more surely for success than from the Country Parson. Pity that
when we come to higher criticism, to the appreciation of truly great and
broadly genial views, he should fail as he does. Out of his canny
Scotch-English corner of thought, he is sadly lost. Thus, in one place
we have the following avowal, which is only not _naif_ because evidently
put in to please the prejudices of sympathetically narrow readers. After
arguing, with most amusing ignorance of the very first principles of a
general aesthetic education, that there is really no appeal beyond
individual taste, or beyond 'what _suits_ you,' he says:

'For myself, I confess with shame, and I know the reason is in
myself, I can not for my life see any thing to admire in the
writings of Mr. Carlyle. His style of thought and language is to
me insufferably irritating. I tried to read _Sartor Resartus_, and
could not do it.'

Almost in the same paragraph our Parson proclaims for all the world that
'no man is a hero to his valet,' and says that there are two or three
living great men whom he would be sorry to see, since 'no human being
can bear a too close inspection.' 'Here,' he declares, 'is a sad
circumstance in the lot of a very eminent man: I mean such a man as Mr.
Tennyson or Professor Longfellow. As an elephant walks through a field,
crushing the crop at every step, so do these men advance through life,
smashing, every time they dine out, the enthus