e probably passed them by as things belonging to the
literary _season_: they have been struck with some passages of vivid
description, with touches of genuine feeling, with traits of character
which, though imperfectly delineated, bore the impress of truth; but
they have pronounced them, on the whole, to be unfashioned things, but
half made up, constructed with no skill, informed by no clear spirit of
thought, and betraying a most undisciplined taste. Such, at least, was
the impression their first perusal left upon our mind. Notwithstanding
the glimpses of natural feeling and of truthful portraiture which caught
our eye, they were so evidently deficient in some of the higher
qualities which ought to distinguish a writer, and so defaced by
abortive attempts at fine writing, that they hardly appeared deserving
of a very critical examination, or a very careful study. But now there
has lately come into our hands the autobiography of Hans Christian
Andersen, "The True Story of my Life," and this has revealed to us so
curious an instance of intellectual cultivation, or rather of genius
exerting itself without any cultivation at all, and has reflected back
so strong a light, so vivid and so explanatory, on all his works, that
what we formerly read with a very mitigated admiration, with more of
censure than of praise, has been invested with quite a novel and
peculiar interest. Moreover, certain tales for children have also fallen
into our hands, some of which are admirable. We prophesy them an
immortality in the nursery--which is not the worst immortality a man can
Win--and doubt not but that they have already been read by children, or
told to children, in every language of Europe. Altogether Andersen, his
character and his works, have thus appeared to us a subject worthy of
some attention.

We insist upon coupling them together. We must be allowed to abate
somewhat of the austerity of criticism by a reference to the life of the
author. We cannot implicitly follow the unconditioned admiration of Mrs
Howitt for "the beautiful thoughts of Andersen," which she tells us in
her preface to the Autobiography, "it is the most delightful of her
literary labours to translate." We must be excused if we think that the
mixture of praise and of puff, which the lady lavishes so
indiscriminately upon the author whose works she translates, is more
likely to display her own skill and dexterity in author-craft, than
permanently to enhance the fam