Many writers have lately been trying to put their readers in the possession of infallible recipes for the production of good fiction; they would, to my mind, have employed their time and talents to far more purpose had they come boldly to the point and stated that the overflow of bad fiction with which we are inundated is owing to the influence of the circulating library, which, on one side, sustains a quantity of worthless writers who on their own merits would not sell a dozen copies of their books; and, on the other, deprives those who have something to say and are eager to say it of the liberty of doing so. It may be a sad fact, but it is nevertheless a fact, that literature and young girls are irreconcilable elements, and the sooner we leave off trying to reconcile them the better. At this vain endeavour the circulating library has been at work for the last twenty years, and what has been the result? A literature of bandboxes. Were Pope, Addison, Johnson, Fielding, Smollet, suddenly raised from their graves and started on reviewing “three vols.,” think you that they would not all cry together, “This is a literature of bandboxes?” We judge a pudding by the eating, and I judge Messrs. Mudie and Smith by what they have produced; for they, not the ladies and gentlemen who place their names on the title pages, are the authors of our fiction. And what a terrible brood to admit the parentage of! Let those who doubt put aside pre-conceived opinions, and forgetting the bolstered up reputation of the authors, read the volumes by the light of a little common sense. Cast a glance at those that lie in Miss Rhoda Broughton’s lap. What a wheezing, drivelling lot of bairns they are! They have not a virtue amongst them, and their pinafore pages are sticky with childish sensualities. And here we touch the keynote of the whole system. For, mark you, you can say what you like provided you speak according to rule. Everything is agreed according to precedent. I could give a hundred instances, but one will suffice. On the publication of “Adam Bede” a howl was raised, but the book was alive; it finished by being accepted, and the libraries were obliged to give way. The employment of seduction in the fabulation of a story was therefore established. This would have been a great point gained, if Mr. Mudie had not succeeded in forcing on all succeeding writers George Eliot’s manner of conducting her story. In “Adam Bede” we have Hetty described as an extremely fascinating dairymaid and Arthur as a noble-minded young man. After a good deal of flirtation they are shown to us walking through a wood together, and three months after we hear that Hetty is _enceinte_. Now, ever since the success of this book was assured, we have had numberless novels dealing with seductions, but invariably an interval of three months is allowed wherein the reader’s fancy may disport until the truth be told.