SPEECH FOR THE Defendant IN THE PROSECUTION OF THE QUEEN V. 148 Delivered in the Court of Queen's Bench, June 23, 1841. SPEECH ON THE MOTION FOR LEAVE TO BRING IN A BILL TO AMEND THE 159 Delivered in the House of Commons, Thursday, May 18, 1837. 165 Delivered in the House of Commons, Wednesday, April 25, 1838. 171 Delivered in the House of Commons, Thursday, February 28, 1839. TALFOURD'S MISCELLANIES. I OF THE (UNIVERSITY CALIFORNIA ON BRITISH NOVELS AND ROMANCES, INTRODUCTORY TO A SERIES OF CRITICISMS ON THE LIVING NOVELISTS. [NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.] fair and glistening eyes in moments snatched from repose, and beneath counters and shopboards minister delights "secret, sweet, and precious." It is possible that, in particular instances, their effects may be baneful; but, on the whole, we are persuaded they are good. The world is not in danger of becoming too romantic. The golden threads of poesy are not too thickly or too closely interwoven with the ordinary web of existence. Sympathy is the first great lesson which man should learn. It will be ill for him if he proceeds no farther; if his emotions are but excited to roll back on his heart, and to be fostered in luxurious quiet. But unless he learns to feel for things in which he has no personal interest, he can achieve nothing generous or noble. This lesson is in WE regard the authors of the best novels and romances as among the truest benefactors of their species. Their works have often conveyed, in the most attractive form, lessons of the most genial wisdom. But we do not prize them so much in reference to their immediate aim, or any individual traits of nobleness with which they may inform the thoughts, as for their general tendency to break up that cold and debasing selfishness with which the souls of so large a portion of mankind are encrusted. They give to a vast class, who by no means would be carried beyond the most contracted range of emotion, an interest in things out of themselves, and a perception of grandeur and of beauty, of which otherwise they might ever have lived unconscious. Pity for fictitious sufferings is, indeed, very inferior to that sympa-reality the universal moral of all excellent rothy with the universal heart of man which mances. How mistaken are those miserable inspires real self-sacrifice; but it is better even reasoners who object to them as giving "false to be moved by its tenderness, than wholly to be pictures of life-of purity too glossy and etheignorant of the joy of natural tears. How real-of friendship too deep and confiding-of many are there for whom poesy has no charm, love which does not shrink at the approach of and who have derived only from romances ill, but looks on tempests and is never shaken," those glimpses of disinterested heroism and because with these the world too rarely blosideal beauty, which alone "make them less for- soms! Were these things visionary and unlorn," in their busy career! The good house- real, who would break the spell, and bid the dewife, who is employed all her life in the seve-licious enchantment vanish? The soul will rest drudgery, has yet some glimmerings of a state and dignity above her station and age, and some dim vision of meek, angelic suffering, when she thinks of the well-thumbed volume of Clarissa Harlowe, which she found, when a girl, in some old recess, and read, with breathless eagerness, at stolen times and moments of hasty joy. The care worn lawyer or politician, encircled with all kinds of petty anxieties, thinks of the Arabian Nights Entertainments, which he devoured in his joyful school-days, and is once more young, and innocent, and happy. If the sternest puritan were acquainted with Parson Adams, or with Dr. Primrose, he could not hate the clergy. If novels are not the deepest teachers of humanity, they have, at least, the widest range. They lend to genius "lighter wings to fly." They are read where Milton and Shakspeare are only talked of, and where even their names are never heard. They nestle gently beneath the covers of unconscious sofas, are read by not be the worse for thinking too well of its kind, or believing that the highest excellence is within the reach of its exertions. But these things are not unreal; they are shadows, indeed, in themselves; but they are shadows cast from objects stately and eternal. Man can never imagine that which has no foundation in his nature. The virtues he conceives are not the mere pageantry of his thought. We feel their truth-not their historic or individual truth-but their universal truth, as reflexes of human energy and power. It would be enough for us to prove that the imaginative glories which are shed around our being, are far brighter than "the light of common day," which mere vulgar experience in the course of the world diffuses. But, in truth, that radiance is not merely of the fancy, nor are its influences lost when it ceases immediately to shine on our path. It is holy and prophetic. The best joys of childhood-its boundless aspirations and gorgeous dreams, are the sure indications |