rkling with unstrained humanity; and if the death of the heroine be
somewhat frigid and artificial, the last days of the hero strike the
only note of what we now call Byronism, between the Elizabethans and
Byron himself. And yet a little story of a shipwrecked sailor, with not
a tenth part of the style nor a thousandth part of the wisdom, exploring
none of the arcana of humanity and deprived of the perennial interest of
love, goes on from edition to edition, ever young, while "Clarissa" lies
upon the shelves unread. A friend of mine, a Welsh blacksmith, was
twenty-five years old and could neither read nor write, when he heard a
chapter of "Robinson" read aloud in a farm kitchen. Up to that moment he
had sat content, huddled in his ignorance, but he left that farm another
man. There were day-dreams, it appeared, divine day-dreams, written and
printed and bound, and to be bought for money and enjoyed at pleasure.
Down he sat that day, painfully learned to read Welsh, and returned to
borrow the book. It had been lost, nor could he find another copy but
one that was in English. Down he sat once more, learned English, and at
length, and with entire delight, read "Robinson." It is like the story
of a love-chase. If he had heard a letter from "Clarissa," would he have
been fired with the same chivalrous ardour? I wonder. Yet "Clarissa" has
every quality that can be shown in prose, one alone excepted--pictorial
or picture-making romance. While "Robinson" depends, for the most part
and with the overwhelming majority of its readers, on the charm of
circumstance.

In the highest achievements of the art of words, the dramatic and the
pictorial, the moral and romantic interest, rise and fall together, by a
common and organic law. Situation is animated with passion, passion
clothed upon with situation. Neither exists for itself, but each inheres
indissolubly with the other. This is high art; and not only the highest
art possible in words, but the highest art of all, since it combines the
greatest mass and diversity of the elements of truth and pleasure. Such
are epics, and the few prose tales that have the epic weight. But as
from a school of works, aping the creative, incident and romance are
ruthlessly discarded, so may character and drama be omitted or
subordinated to romance. There is one book, for example, more generally
loved than Shakespeare, that captivates in childhood, and still delights
in age--I mean the "Arabian Nights"--