quiet reflectiveness, and of unobtrusive sagacity in the subject of our present sketch. And but that she has evinced something of a disposition to over-write herself—or at least to be content with repeating herself "with a difference"—we might augur very promising things in her behalf, and a reputation which shall survive a reaction. We are disappointed if she has yet done her best.
Truth to nature—the harvest of a quiet eye, which sees somewhat deeply, if not very widely—an unexaggerated manner, together with a well-defined national individuality (ὡς ἐπος ἐιπειν)in these lies the charm of the now celebrated "Passages in the Life of Mrs, Margaret Maitland, of Sunnyside." They open admirably; nothing of the kind can be better than the good spinster's reminiscences of early years, when she lay on the grass in the garden of her father's manse, looking at the white clouds sailing upon the sky, and thinking no mortal could be happier if she could but have abode there; or drawn thence into more stirring idleness by her brother Claud, "it being little in the nature of a blythe boy to bide quiet and look at the sky—that I should speak of him so! that is man with grey hairs upon his head, and a father in the kirk; but the years steal by us fast, and folk forget." If our interest in these life-passages flags by the way, it is because they, with all their linked sweetness, are too long drawn out. Not indeed that they are passages which lead to nothing; but they are a roundabout way of reaching the proposed something. So that the zest with which we launch out from the terminus à quo, abates by a "considerable" heap of jots and tittles ere we arrive at the terminus ad quem. Mistress Maitland confesses her apprehensions that the world may think her bold, being but a quiet woman of discreet years and small riches, in having such an imagination as that it could be the better of hearing the like of her homely story. Her modesty has been greeted with the welcome protestant "No, no!" of her large auditory, who—with Lord Jeffrey as fuglemen—have assured her that they are the better for her pleasant apocalypse. But pleasanter it undoubtedly might have been had it been penned in the fear of the somewhat musty but ever wholesome adage, "Enough is as good as a feast," an adage worthy of all acceptation, and enjoying it—witness the μηδεν ἀγαν of the Greeks, and the ne guid nimis of the Latins. The Ladye of Sunnyside is rich in proverbs: of this one she is practically ignorant; 'tis true 'tis pity, pity 'tis 'tis true. When matter which should find ample room and verge enough in one volume is ambitious of the Rule of Three, we are apt to "weary" before the quotient is worked out, and (a thing unknown elsewhere) to murmur at the largeness of the dividend. Thus it is possible to be delighted with o first volume, to yawn over a second, and to "play a loud solo on a wind instrument" (a periphrasis of the verb "to snore") over the third. We do not say that we committed either of these two enormities in the perusal of the Sunnyside chronicles; nevertheless, we had, at intervals, a depressing suspicion that the excellent annalist was trenching on the border-land of—twaddle. Perhaps, however, this very circumstance aids rather than injures the effect of the book as a whole; just as Richardson's illimitable details ore thought to be the secret of his success. Mrs. Maitland would not perhaps, be herself in one volume; she might cease to handle the pen of a ready writer, if she tried to be a terse and reatrained one. And, therefore, we gladly and gratefully take her as we find her—and that is, as a
