glee in reflecting that Lords and Commons had received this oppressive bit of literature in the same aggrieved spirit that I had myself, and that its immediate result was to put incautious patriots in a more ticklish position than before. If truth now seems to me a sadly overrated virtue; if plain-speaking is sure to affront me; if the vigorous personalities of the journalist and the amiable indecencies of the novel-writer vex my illiberal soul, and if the superficial precautions of a paternal government appear estimable in my eyes, to what can I trace this alien and unprogressive attitude, if not to the “Areopagitica,” and its adverse influence over my rebellious and suffering girlhood? As these youthful reminiscences are of too mournful a nature to be profitably prolonged, I will add only two more to the list of books which have hindered my moral and intellectual development. When I was seventeen, I read, at the earnest solicitation of some well-meaning friends, “The Heir of Redclyffe,” and my carefully guarded theories of life shivered and broke before the baneful lesson it conveyed. Brought up on a comfortable and wholesome diet of Miss Edgeworth’s pleasant stories, I had unconsciously absorbed the genial doctrine that virtue is its own reward, and that additional rewards are sure to be forthcoming; that happiness awaits the good and affable little girl, and that well-merited misfortunes dog the footsteps of her who inclines to evil ways. I trusted implicitly to those shadowy mills where the impartial gods grind out our just deserts; and the admirable songs in “Patience” about Gentle Jane and Teasing Tom inadequately express the rigidity of my views and the boundless nature of my confidence. “The Heir of Redclyffe” destroyed, at once and forever, this cheerful delusion, and with it a powerful stimulus to rectitude. Here are Sir Guy Morville and poor little Amy, both of them virtuous to a degree which would have put Miss Edgeworth’s most exemplary characters to the blush; yet Guy, after being bullied and badgered through the greater part of his short life, dies of the very fever which should properly have carried off Philip; and Amy, besides being left widowed and heart-broken, gives birth to a daughter instead of a son, and so forfeits the inheritance of Redclyffe. On the other hand, Philip, the most intolerable of prigs and mischief-makers, whose cruel suspicions play havoc with the happiness of everybody in the story, and whose obstinate folly brings about the final disaster,--Philip, who is little better than his cousin’s murderer, succeeds to the estate, marries that very stilted and unpleasant young person, Laura (who is after all a world too good for him), and is left in a blaze of glory, a wealthy, honored, and distinguished man. It is true that Miss Yonge, whose conscience must have pricked her a little at bringing about this unwarranted and unjustifiable conclusion, would have us believe that