s and malignant description,
grouping themselves about any human being without the agency of his own
love or hate. Yet this is what happens very frequently in Mr. Collins's
novels, impoverishing and enfeebling his characters in a surprising
degree, and reducing them to the condition of juiceless puppets without
proper will or motion. It is not that they are all wanting in
verisimilitude. Even the entirely wicked Miss Gwilt is a conceivable
character; but, being destined merely to fulfil Armadale's dream, she
loses all freedom of action, and, we must say, takes most clumsy and
hopeless and long-roundabout methods of accomplishing crimes, to which
one would have thought a lady of her imputed sagacity would have found
much shorter cuts. It is amazing and inartistic, however, that after all
her awkwardness she should fail. Given a blockhead like Armadale, and a
dreamer like Midwinter, there is no reason in nature, and no reason in
art, why a lady of Miss Gwilt's advantages should not marry both of
them; and the author's overruling on this point is more creditable to
his heart than to his head. These three people are the chief persons of
the story, and their hands are tied from first to last They are not to
act out their characters: they are to act out the plot; and the author's
designs are accomplished in defiance of their several natures. Some of
the minor persons are not so ruthlessly treated. The Pedgifts, father
and son, are free agents, and they are admirably true to their instincts
of upright, astute lawyers, who love best to employ their legal
shrewdness in a good cause. Their joint triumph over Miss Gwilt is
probable and natural, and would be a successful point in the book, if it
were conceivable that she should expose herself to such a defeat by so
much needless plotting with Mrs. Oldershaw. But to fill so large a
stage, an immense deal of by-play was necessary, and great numbers of
people are visibly dragged upon the scene. Some of these accomplish
nothing in the drama. To what end have we so much of Mr. Brock? Others
elaborately presented only contribute to the result in the most
intricate and tedious way; and in Major Milroy's family there is no
means of discovering that Miss Gwilt is an adventuress, but for Mrs.
Milroy to become jealous of her and to open her letters.

It cannot, of course, be denied that Mr. Collins's stories are
interesting; for an infinite number of persons read them through. But it
is the b