Novels, then, instead of being (as some persons have supposed) a wilful and corrupt conspiracy on the part of the evilly disposed, against the peace and prosperity of the realm, may claim a most ancient and indefeasible right to existence. They, with their ancestors and near relatives, constitute Literature,--without which the human race would be little better than savages. For the effect of pure literature upon a receptive mind is something more than can be definitely stated. Like sunshine upon a landscape, it is a kind of miracle. It demands from its disciple almost as much as it gives him, and is never revealed save to the disinterested and loving eye. In our best moments, it touches us most deeply; and when the sentiment of human brotherhood kindles most warmly within us, we discover in literature an exquisite answering ardor. When everything that can be, has been said about a true work of art, its finest charm remains,--the charm derived from a source beyond the conscious reach even of the artist. The novel, then, must be pure literature; as much so as the poem. But poetry--now that the day of the broad Homeric epic is past, or temporarily eclipsed--appeals to a taste too exclusive and abstracted for the demands of modern readers. Its most accommodating metre fails to house our endless variety of mood and movement; it exacts from the student an exaltation above the customary level of thought and sentiment greater than he can readily afford. The poet of old used to clothe in the garb of verse his every observation on life and nature; but to-day he reserves for it only his most ideal and abstract conceptions. The merit of Cervantes is not so much that he laughed Spain's chivalry away, as that he heralded the modern novel of character and manners. It is the latest, most pliable, most catholic solution of the old problem,--how to unfold man to himself. It improves on the old methods, while missing little of their excellence. No one can read a great novel without feeling that, from its outwardly prosaic pages, strains of genuine poetry have ever and anon reached his ears. It does not obtrude itself; it is not there for him who has not skill to listen for it: but for him who has ears, it is like the music of a bird, denning itself amidst the innumerable murmurs of the forest.