literary genius, high purpose, and warmth of heart, than it would become us to offer to one whose fame is so closely bound up with our own? It will suffice to say, that the "Diary" at once took a high place, not in our own literature alone, but with American and Continental readers, to whom reprints and translations speedily introduced it; and this position it has continued to maintain amid the many inducements which contemporary literature holds out to make us forget the works of preceding generations.
In "Ten Thousand a-Year," next to the interest of the plot, to which Warren gave so much thought and study, the powerful cast of characters constitutes its most notable feature. Amid a larger crowd of actors than we generally meet with in the pages of a single novel, there is hardly one whose outlines are not filled in with sufficient distinctness, even if only by a few graphic dashes of the pen, to give it an individuality and lifelikeness that retain a firm hold of the reader's recollection. There is a host of lay figures who, like the Toady Hugs, Smirk Mudflints, and Dismal Horrors, are simply brought on the scene by way of interlude between the graver business of the piece, to be ignominiously kicked off it; there are many sketches from contemporary life, in the fidelity and justice of which the world has had no difficulty in identifying the originals; but there are also a number of creations that offer ample attestation to Warren's powers as a delineator of character. Of these we can only notice two, which are beyond question his masterpieces. Exception is frequently taken to the portrait of Aubrey as a strained ideal, whose virtues are pushed to an excessive and improbable degree, and whose patience under his tribulations seems so unnatural, that the reader is apt to lose his own patience in his behalf. Those who go away with this impression can hardly have understood the principles upon which Aubrey's character has been formed. It is not merely to serve as a foil to the worthlessness and selfishness of Tittlebat Titmouse that Aubrey has been endowed with virtues that may appear at first sight to be superhuman. The oft-quoted lines of Horace, which supply a motto to the novel, indicate the keynote in unison with which the chords in Aubrey's character have been struck. The author's design was to show that a mind regulated by principle, refined by philosophy, and fortified by the teachings and the hopes of Christianity, had in itself resources against any change of fortune. And how well he has done so! If the heroism and patience and gentleness of Aubrey are unnatural it is surely a matter of deep regret; and we rejoice to think that English society, with all the hollowness and imperfection that are laid to its charge, can afford many proofs that Warren has not conceived a character too ideal for human nature.
If either of the characters is over-strained, it is that of Gammon. Such a Satanic combination of lofty intellect and daring purpose, with deceit and baseness, had hardly before been depicted in prose. And as with Satan, the character of Gammon is pushed to a point where we are attracted, instead of repelled, by its hideous proportions. When contrasted with the sordid, grovelling rascality of Quirk, and the petty chicanery of Snap, the smooth and easy-flowing guilt of Gammon seems almost venial; and it is not until we remember that it is his directing mind keeps these tools at work, that we are able to view him with the reprobation which he deserves. However despicable and worthless Tittlebat Titmouse may seem, we must always remember that he had Gammon for his evil angel, and that it would have been utterly impossible even for a better man to have turned out well under such a master. And it is not until Gammon is brought into contact with a mind so pure and noble as that of Aubrey that the full loathsomeness of his nature stands revealed. As in the case of Aubrey his whole strength had been derived from his firm convictions of religious truth, so the character of Gammon forcibly illustrates the effects of the absence of any guiding principles higher than self-interest an expediency. So irresistible is his villany that we cannot help being fascinated by it; and Warren himself seems to have fallen in some degree under the spell of his own creation, for he provides him with a termination to his career at once more dignified and dramatic than that vouch- safed to his wretched associates. We would have been glad, if the limits of this notice had allowed of it, to forget the career of Gammon in the recollection of Kate Aubrey, Dr. Tatham, and the other pleasant characters met with in "Ten Thousand a-Year." Our regrets are, however, the less that the reader will readily learn to love and appreciate these for themselves.
Outside his family and the wide circle of his friends, there is no place where Warren's loss will be more marked than in the Temple Church. In the benchers'
