things are natural which yet are not fit to be
exposed, and by the customs of all civilized nations are studiously
concealed from the view. Voltaire's well-known answer to a similar remark
when made in regard to Shakspeare, indicates, though in a coarse way, the
true reply to such observations. If every thing that is natural, and we
see around us, is the fit object of imitation, and perpetuating in
literature, it can no longer be called one of the _Fine_ Arts. It is
degraded to a mere copying of nature in her coarsest and most disgusting,
equally as her noblest and most elevating, aspects. We protest against the
doctrine, that the lofty art of romance is to be lowered to the
delineating the manners of cheesemongers and grocers, of crop-head charity
boys, and smart haberdashers' and milliners' apprentices of doubtful
reputation. If we wish to see the manners of such classes, we have only to
get into a railway or steamboat; the sight of them at breakfast or dinner
will probably be enough for any person accustomed to the habits of good
society. Still more solemnly do we enter our protest against the slang of
thieves or prostitutes, the flash words of receivers of stolen goods and
criminal officers, the haunts of murderers and burglars, being the proper
subject for the amusement or edification of the other classes of society.
It might as well be said that the refuse of the common-sewers should be
raked up and mixed with the garbage of the streets to form our daily food.
That such things exist is certain; we have only to walk the streets at
night, and we shall soon have ample evidence of their reality. But are
they the proper object of the novel-writer's pencil? That is the question;
and it is painful to think that in an age boasting its intelligence, and
glorying in the extent of its information, such a question should be
deemed susceptible of answer in any but one way.

These two extremes of novel-writing--the Almack and Jack Sheppard
schools--deviate equally from the standard of real excellence. The one is
too exclusively devoted to the description of high, the other of low life.
The one portrays a style of manners as artificial and peculiar as that of
the paladins and troubadours of chivalry; the other exhibits to our view
the lowest and most degraded stages of society, and by the force of humour
or the tenderness of pathos interests us too often in the haunts of vice
or the pursuits of infamy. It is easy to see that the