dirty linen and inestimable sables." To such speculations and fancies as these are we led, when we acknowledge the truth of the maxim, that words are the dress of thought.

Words, however, even in the common meaning, are not, when used by a master-mind, the mere dress of thought. Such a definition degrades them below their sphere, and misconceives their importance. They are, as Wordsworth has happily said, the incarnation of thought. They bear the same relation to ideas, that the body bears to the soul. Take the most beautiful and sincere poetry, which has ever been written, and its charm is broken as soon as the words are disturbed or altered. If any expression can be employed except that which is used, the poet is a bungling rhetorician and writes on the surface of his theme. A Thought embodied and embrained in fit words, walks the earth a living being. No part of its body can be stricken from it or injured, without disfiguring the beauty of its form or spoiling the grace of its motion. Such Thoughts, perhaps, are few in number; but wo upon those tasteless critics, who would meddle with those few, and dare to alter their organization, on the plea of improvement !

Words in a few "eminent hands are servile ministers s; but generally, even in great writers, they are kings who rule, not subjects who obey. In some minds they obtain " sovereign sway and masterdom" over the whole domain of thought and emotion. This servitude to words often impairs the healthy action of a writer's mind. It is the parent of many fallacies and inconsistencies. For instance-a reasoner desires to argue closely and logically; a word often leads him astray into a sophism, or tempts him, by its winning looks, to slide into an episode. A critic wishes to analyze a book; but instead of analysis he wanders slyly into eulogy or denunciation; for certain words which sprang up,

like flowers or thistles, in his path, were too sweet or too sharp for him to avoid. To give point to a period, some writers will throw in a word which will stab innocence or mediocrity like a poniard; to make a sentence end harmoniously, others will pad it with words, which are meaningless or out of place. In describing characters or scenery, the general custom is to employ language which is beautiful or strong, rather than what is applicable. Nothing is rarer than the use of a word in its exact meaning. Amplitude of comprehension is a much finer phrase than good reasoning powers; and consequently, every respectable thinker is made a Bacon; vivid imagination sounds better than moderate talent, and of course, every rhyme-stringer is a Byron; miserable drivelling has a sharper edge than mediocre merit, and all commonplace writers are therefore to be fools or dunces. Lord Byron, in alluding to the supposed cause of Keats's death, said

"Strange that the soul, that very fiery particle,
Should let itself be snuffed out by an article."

Hunt told him that Keats was not killed in this way. Byron promised to strike it out. But the smartness and the rhyme, were temptations stronger than his conscience, and he allowed the couplet to remain.

It would be an easy matter to mention some words which have exercised greater influence, and swayed with more absolute power, than Alexander or Napoleon. Any one can pick up in a newspaper the sovereigns of our own country. A word often keeps its seat in the mind of a people, after the thought to which originally it was nominally attached, has disappeared. Words head armies, overthrow dynasties, man ships, separate families, cozen cozeners, and steal hearts and

purses. And if physiologists and metaphysicians are driven into a corner, and are compelled to give the real distinction between human beings and animals, they are almost sure to say it consists in the power of speech-in the capacity to frame, use, and multiply at discretion, these omnipotent "mouthfuls of spoken wind." Words-words-words!

JAMES'S NOVELS.*

THE author of "Sartor Resartus," in a petition to the House of Commons, on the copyright question, signs himself "Thomas Carlyle, a Maker of Books." This phrase, which applies to Herr Teufelsdröckh only in a quaint sense, is applicable to Mr. G. P. R. James in its literal meaning. He is, indeed, no "maker" in the old significance of that term, for he creates nothing; but he is emphatically a literary mechanic. The organs of his brain are the tools of his trade. He manufactures novels, as other people manufacture shoes, shirts, and sheetings. He continually works up the same raw material into very nearly the same shapes. The success he has met with in his literary speculations should be chronicled in the Merchants' or Mechanics' Magazine. He is a most scientific expositor of the fact, that a man may be a maker of books without being a maker of thoughts; that he may be the reputed author of a hundred volumes, and flood the market with his literary wares, and yet have very few ideas and principles for his stock in trade. For the last ten years, he has been repeating his own repetitions, and echoing his own echoes. His first novel was a shot that went through the target, and he has ever since been assiduously firing through the hole. To protect his person

* The False Heir. By G. P. R. James, Esq., author of " Morley Ernstein," "Forest Days," &c. New-York: Harper & Brothers. Price one shilling. 1843.-North American Review, April, 1844.

from critical assault, he might pile up a bulwark of books many volumes thick and many feet high. Yet the essence of all that he has written, if subjected to a refining process, might be compressed into a small space, and even then would hardly bear the test of time, and journey safely down to posterity. When we reflect upon the character and construction of his works, and apply to them certain searching tests, they dwindle quickly into very moderate dimensions. We find, that the enormous helmet encloses only a small nut, that the nut is an amplified exponent of the kernel, and that the kernel itself is neither very rich nor very rare. As space has no limits, and as large portions of it are still unoccupied by tangible bodies, it seems not very philosophical to quarrel with any person who endeavors to fill up its wide chasms; yet, in the case of Mr. James, we grudge the portion of infinite space which his writings occupy. We dispute his right to pile up matter, which is the type or symbol of so small an amount of spirit. We sigh for the old vacuum, and think, that though nature may have abhorred it in the days of Aristotle, her feelings must have changed since modern mediocrity has filled it with such weak apologies for substance and form.

Piron, standing before the hundred volumes of Voltaire, remarked, "This luggage is too heavy to go down to posterity." What would he have said, if he could have seen the hundred volumes published by Mr. James? We think of the "Vicar of Wakefield," which one can carry in his pocket; of Charles Lamb's delightful "Essays;" of the tragedy of "Ion ;" and of many other small and precious gems, which time cannot dim; and when we contrast these with Mr. James's voluminous mediocrity and diffusive commonplace, we obtain a new and vivid idea of the distinction between quantity and quality.