But, according to our author, none of the great names in literature have ever proclaimed the evangel of cheerfulness in all its health and purity. The world as yet has never been fit to receive it. Years may pass before it will be fully unfolded. Society is still in its earliest March spring. The fresh winds which blow are still wild and chill; the nights are long and dreary; and during these gloomy hours, the ancient crone still relates horrible legends to believing ears. If the elder or wiser ones only half believe them, most of the listeners still shiver at their weird, grotesque poetry, and when they make new songs for themselves, the old demoniac strains still linger on the air, showing the origin of their earliest lays. In order to illustrate the lack of true joyousness in the literature of the world, Mr. Leland takes a rapid survey of some of the most distinguished writers in ancient and modern times. Aristophanes, he maintains, did not possess the genuine element in question. Allowing the claims of the great satirist to genius, he had not reached the perennial springs of cheerfulness in the depths of the human soul. In his gayest arabesques, we trace the eternal line of life, but the deep, monotonous echo of death is always nigh. He still had the sorrows which grieve the strong humorist of every age. He could not escape the deep woe of seeing social right and human happiness trodden under foot by tyranny; and folly and ignorance, pain and sorrow were the great foundation stones on which the gay temple of Grecian beauty was built. For every free citizen who wandered through the groves of the Academy, holding high converse with Plato, and revelling in the enjoyment of the divinest beauty in nature and art, there was an untold multitude of slaves and barbarians, into whose lives was crowded every element of bitterness. But surely, the great sage of humor, glorious Father Rabelais, of later days, was an exception to the prevailing rule of joyousness in literature? Not at all, contends our author. To the young mind which hungers for truth and joy, there is something irresistibly fascinating and persuasive in the jolly philosophy and reckless worldly wisdom of Rabelais. But after all, it will not do. It is anything but attainable by most of the world. It demands good cheer and jovial company. But it dies out in the desert, and is stifled among simple, vulgar associates. Rabelais believed that he sacrificed to freedom, when he only worshipped fortune. He went through the world, familiar with the ways of princes and peers, priests and peasants, travelling in many lands, exhausting the resources of art and learning, seeing through the sins and shams and sorrows of life, and laughing at everything, like a good-natured, large-hearted Mephistopheles. But he had never learned the true philosophy of joyousness in the sincere love of nature, the deep phases of humanity, and the affluence and purity of strong affection.