original and profound; while she anatomizes the human heart with a stern, unfaltering firmness of truth, that neither begs nor fears our favour or our hate. But the greatest feature of her writing is its muscular intellectuality. Her adventurous plough dares the toughest soils, and forces its way through, upturning them from the bottom. Iron problems, that seem enough to break very strong teeth, she craunches up as if they were but her ordinary food. Whatever theme lies in her way, she bores her thought right into its centre, and splinters its inmost fibres out to view forthwith. Nor does she ever confound her sensations with her perceptions: hence we never catch her tormenting language, like Mrs. Browning for instance, in a vain, spasmodic effort to translate the darkness of the one into the light of the other. The result of all which is, that the interest of her works is the solid, legitimate, durable interest of truth she looks life square in the face, and depicts it fearlessly as if she scorned all the illusive vanities of art, and could not stoop to the allurements of any sort of clap-trap or brainsmoke.

CITY AMUSEMENTS.

It has been often said that recreation is a necessity of human nature, and that every human being requires occasional amusement. The truth is, in fact, generally acknowledged in theory, and perhaps universally in practice. Practically, however, men are more apt to acknowledge it in their own case than in that of others. They feel individually a great want, which they find means of satisfying for themselves; but they do not feel the want for others, because they do not at all feel for others. Nevertheless, the want is great and universal. no provision is made for meeting it, it tells on the moral, intellectual, and physical portions of our nature. The man of business, who merges all ideas in the single one of making a fortune, the monk, who deems self-mortification a virtue in itself, and the Puritan, who deems religion the only proper means of recreation, agree in attempting practically to deny this great need of our nature. In other words, they all attempt

If

to deprive nature of her rights. But, in every case, nature finds some mode of asserting these rights in some form or other. Did time and space admit of the attempt, it would be easy to show this in each of the three cases to which allusion has been made.

In the religious world, the questions connected with amusements have long been very prominent topics. The ground taken by that body has been chosen with some reference to the sound principle that recreation is a necessity of human nature; at least there seems an implied fear of denying that principle. The religious world has set its face like a flint against certain amusements, which it is fond of designating as worldly. Why they are more worldly than others, does not appear to have been very carefully inquired. Nor have any very good reasons been assigned why they are worse than others. The practice is to reason against them upon grounds which apply equally to all amusements, or to appeal to feelings which are more applicable to them than to other things, only because of the traditional prejudice against them. It is very probable that the selection that has been made of certain amusements which are stigmatized as worldly is, upon the whole, correct. But if it be so, it is owing more to instinct than to reason, for it has clearly not been made upon any intelligible principle.

It is, perhaps, true that all amusements, in themselves, are innocent so long as they are confined within the bounds of moderation. When they become sinful, it is either because of excess or in consequence of the surrounding circumstances. The advocates of public amusements seem instinctively aware of this, and so delight in arguing the question in the abstract. Having established the abstract innocence of their favourite amusement, they meet everything else with the trite principle that you cannot justly argue against the use of a thing from its abuse; and falling back on the truth that the human mind needs recreation, they conclude the discussion with a self-satisfied triumph. Yet, notwithstanding all that they can say, there will be a practical difference between the occasional dance of a few young people, in an unpremeditated gathering, and the assemblages of the fashionable part of a great city, repeated night after night, until the dance has ceased to be an amusement and become the business of life.

There must be somewhere a distinction between the two which is capable of being pointed out, and which may serve as a test to be usefully applied in other cases. But it will not be discovered either by maintaining the innocence or the sinfulness of dancing in the abstract. Something of the same sort is true of other amusements, perhaps of all other amusements, as well of those which the religious world pronounce innocent as of those which it regards as guilty.

In the meantime, the question of amusements has become a great social question. It is so in reality, if it be not yet so acknowledged. An entirely new phenomenon has lately appeared in connection with it. It is, that certain members of the so-called liberal portion of the religious world are taking the popular side of the question. That they are wrong in so doing, is instinctively felt, probably as well by those on the side which they have taken, as by those on the other. But the fact that they have taken that side is not the less worthy of note. It is time that the question was met and considered upon some sound principle. The difficulty is daily increasing. So far as the absolute country is concerned, there is, perhaps, no great danger in letting things take their course. But the progress

of events points more and more to great crowds and to great cities. It is in great cities that the need of innocent amusements is most keenly felt, and it is for great crowds that it is most difficult to provide them.

The age has a double tendency-towards over-exertion and towards self-indulgence. It is this that gave rise to a phenomenon of which the present writer has more than once had occasion to speak. Men were formerly divided into two classes those who were employed in accumulating wealth, and those who were occupied in spending it. Now, almost every man is engaged in the double task of earning wealth for present extravagance and future expenditure. Self-indulgence demands its immediate gratification, and, with a novel foresight, security for its future supplies. The two-fold necessity for exertion. thus induced, inflames the tendency towards over-exertion, and the effects of that over-exertion are manifested in an increased tendency to self-indulgence. It is not a great many years since no gentleman would smoke in the street. To do

so implies one of two things; either the man who smokes in the street is so overwhelmed with business that he cannot spare time for his sensual enjoyments, or he is so devoted to his sensual enjoyments that he can spare no time from them. The first implies that the man is not in the comfortable pecuniary position which, in some shape or other, has always entered into the idea of a gentleman; the other implies a want of self-control which is yet more plainly inconsistent with that character. Now few gentlemen hesitate to smoke in the street. They are, as a matter of fact, too much oppressed with business to take time for reasonable indulgence. And this is not because they are harrassed with pecuniary difficulties, but because they are engaged in the never-ending struggle to be richer, from which nothing but death can release them. Moreover, the habit of sensual indulgence once relieved from the checks imposed by the proprieties of time and place, has really become irresistible. This is only an illustration of what is a strange union of over-exertion with self-indulgence; but it may serve to point another lesson. In many quarters it is the fashion to cry up total abstinence from spirituous or fermented liquors as the perfection of morals. The same principle is sometimes applied to other things. But what is wanted is self-control, habitual self-control, self-control in all things. This may be exercised as well in confining indulgencies to proper times, places, and quantities, as by total absti nence and perhaps better.

One of the great difficulties connected with amusements is to be found in the want of self-control, since excess is an ingredient in the sinfulness of amusements as of everything else. Again, the want of self-control in these matters is traceable to the double tendency towards over-exertion and self-indulgence, which has been mentioned. These tendencies affect the two sexes very differently. Among the males the desire of accumulation leads to the predominance of the tendency to over-exertion. This predominance does not, however, exclude the tendency to self-indulgence. Among females, except where a habit has been formed under the pressure of necessity, there is no tendency to over-exertion at all, but a very great one to self-indulgence. Ladies seck for amusements as the means of

relieving the monotony of mere indolence. Men require them as a relaxation from the exhaustion of over-exertion. If the ladies could be made to understand that "Six days shalt thou labour," is, in some sense, a part of the fourth commandment, there would be less necessity for amusements for them; while, if the men could be brought to moderate their toils in pursuit of wealth, there would be less exhaustion to be relieved on their part. As it is, men not only exhaust themselves by continual toil, but compel their dependants to do the same thing. The institution of a weekly rest was designed to counteract the evils of continued exertion. But the weekly rest was also designed to be a religious rest. Now, in a vast majority of cases, it is a mere secular rest, appropriated to amusements.

It was a wise institution of our ancestors, that the six days of the week were interspersed with holydays, which, while they partook of a religious character, afforded opportunities for secular recreation, of which they were regarded as the appropriate seasons. That the principle was carried too far no one will now dispute. Moreover, what remains of the practice is not so used as to encourage the notion of a revival of the old usages, were it, on other grounds, practicable. The releasing of all the crowds of a great city from labour at the same time, would be sure to be attended with great evils. It cannot be done until those crowds have been taught self-control. But the continued confinement to labour adds new difficulties to the amusement question.

The present writer does not profess to be provided with a practical solution of this great question. There are many questions, ecclesiastical as well as social, for which he sees no practical solution; but for which no solution can ever be found, until they are well considered and fairly stated. Most of our social difficulties are of this sort, but especially the difficulty of finding innocent amusements for large bodies of people. Social questions, and especially this one, cannot be settled by laws, either ecclesiastical or civil. It is in the action of the religious and intellectual portion of the community that the public must rely for the solution of this problem. That action must be individual, and, if approved, gradually extend through the class. But if it is to be approved, it must