easoning on the fall of an apple from the tree. Almost every
invention has been the suggestion of an accident. Even so, to descend
from great things to small, did a solitary stroll in most-English
Devonshire hint to me the next fair topic. It was while wandering about
the Pyrenean neighbourhood of Linton and Ly'mouth not many months ago,
that my reveries became concentrated for divers hallucinating hours on a
very pretty book, with a very pretty title. And here let me remark
episodically, that I pride myself on titles; what compositors call
"monkeyfying the title-page" is known to be a talent of itself, and one
moreover to which in these days of advertisements and superficialities
many a meagre book has owed its popular acceptance. The titles of
generations back seemed not to have been regarded honest, if they did
not exhibit on their face a true and particular table of contents;
whereas in these sad times, (with many, not with me,) mystery is a good
rule, but falsehood is a better. Again, those honest-speaking authors of
the past scrupled not to designate their writings as '_A Most Erudite
Treatise_' on so-and-so, or a '_A Right Ingenious Handling of the
Mysteries_' of such-and-such, whereas modern hypocrisy aims at
under-rating its own pet work; and more than one book has been ruined in
the market, for having been carelessly titled by the definite THE; as
if, forsooth, it were the world's arbiter of that one topic,
self-constituted pundit of, e.g., title-pages. And this word brings me
back: consider the truly English music of this one:

THE SQUIRE,

AND HIS BEAUTIFUL HOME,

a fine old country gentleman, pleasantly located, affluent,
noble-minded, wise, and patriotic. This was to have been shown forth, in
wish at least, as somewhat akin to, or congenerous with '_The Doctor_,
&c.,'--that rambling wonder of strange and multifarious reading: or
'_The Rectory of Valehead_,' or '_Vicar of Wakefield_,' or '_The Family
Robinson Crusoe_,' still unwrecked; or many another hearty, cheerful or
pathetic tale of home, sweet home: and yet as to design and execution
strictly original and unplagiaristic. The first chapters (simple healthy
writing, redolent of green pastures, and linchened rocks, and dew-dropt
mountains,) might introduce localities; the beautiful home itself, an
Elizabethan mansion, with its park, lake, hill and valley scenery; a
peep at the blue mile-off sea, brawling brooks, oak-woods,
conservatories, rookery, a