plebeian Greeks their merciful limitations; or wish, with the little girl in _Punch_, that they had lived in the time of Charles II., “for then education was very much neglected.” But strive as we may, we cannot coerce great authors into universal complaisance. Plato himself, were he so unfortunate as to be living now, would recognize and applaud their manifest reserves. Even to the elect they speak with varying voices, and it is sometimes difficult to believe that all have read alike. When _Guy Mannering_ was first given to the public, who awaited it with frantic eagerness, Wordsworth thoughtfully observed that it was a novel in the style of Mrs. Radcliffe. Murray, from whom one expects more discernment, wrote to Hogg that _Meg Merrilies_ was worthy of Shakespeare; “but all the rest of the novel might have been written by Scott’s brother, or any other body.” Blackwood, about the same time, wrote to Murray: “If Walter Scott be the author of _Guy Mannering_, he stands far higher in this line than in his former walk.” One of these verdicts has been ratified by time, but who could suppose that Julia Mannering and honest Dandy Dinmont would ever have whispered such different messages into listening ears! And it is precisely because of the independence assumed by books, that we have need to cherish our own independence in return. They will not all be our friends, and not one of them will give itself freely to us at the dictation of a peremptory critic. Hazlitt says nobly of a few great writers, notably Milton and Burke, that “to have lived in the cultivation of an intimacy with such works, and to have familiarly relished such names, is not to have lived in vain.” This is true, yet if we must seek for companionship in less august circles, there are many milder lights who shine with a steady radiance. It is not the privilege of every one to love so great a prose writer as Burke, so great a poet as Milton. “An appreciation of _Paradise Lost_,” says Mr. Mark Pattison, “is the reward of exquisite scholarship;” and the number of exquisite scholars is never very large. To march up to an author as to the cannon’s mouth is at best but unprofitable heroism. To take our pleasures dutifully is the least likely way to enjoy them. The laws of Crete, it is said, were set to music, and sung as alluringly as possible after dinner; but I doubt if they afforded a really popular pastime. The well-fed guests who listened to such decorous chants applauded them probably from the standpoint of citizenship, rather than from any undisguised sentiment of enjoyment, and a few degenerate souls must have sighed occasionally over the joys of a rousing and unseemly chorus. We of to-day are so rich in laws, so amply disciplined at every turn, that we have no need to be reminded at dinner of our obligations. A kind-hearted English critic once said that reading was not a duty, and had therefore no business to be made disagreeable;