nt and Catriona in the continuation of _Kidnapped_ are real
enough to have made many suitors for their respective hands among male
readers of the book;--but that is nothing, reply the critics of the other
party: a walking doll will find suitors. The question must stand over
until some definite principles of criticism have been discovered to guide
us among these perilous passes.

One character must never be passed over in an estimate of Stevenson's
work. The hero of his longest work is not David Balfour, in whom the
pawky Lowland lad, proud and precise, but 'a very pretty gentleman,' is
transfigured at times by traits that he catches, as narrator of the
story, from its author himself. But Alan Breek Stewart is a greater
creation, and a fine instance of that wider morality that can seize by
sympathy the soul of a wild Highland clansman. 'Impetuous, insolent,
unquenchable,' a condoner of murder (for 'them that havenae dipped their
hands in any little difficulty should be very mindful of the case of them
that have'), a confirmed gambler, as quarrel-some as a turkey-cock, and
as vain and sensitive as a child, Alan Breek is one of the most lovable
characters in all literature; and his penetration--a great part of which
he learned, to take his own account of it, by driving cattle 'through a
throng lowland country with the black soldiers at his tail'--blossoms
into the most delightful reflections upon men and things.

The highest ambitions of a novelist are not easily attainable. To
combine incident, character, and romance in a uniform whole, to alternate
telling dramatic situation with effects of poetry and suggestion, to
breathe into the entire conception a profound wisdom, construct it with
absolute unity, and express it in perfect style,--this thing has never
yet been done. A great part of Stevenson's subtle wisdom of life finds
its readiest outlet in his essays. In these, whatever their occasion, he
shows himself the clearest-eyed critic of human life, never the dupe of
the phrases and pretences, the theories and conventions, that distort the
vision of most writers and thinkers. He has an unerring instinct for
realities, and brushes aside all else with rapid grace. In his lately
published _Amateur Emigrant_ he describes one of his fellow-passengers to
America:

'In truth it was not whisky that had ruined him; he was ruined long
before for all good human purposes but conversation. His eyes were
sealed b