an admirable
stimulant, in the endeavour to penetrate the rest. There is all the
charm of a riddle combined with all the fascination of a story. Besides,
do we not throughout our boyhood and our youth, read with intense
interest, and to our great improvement, books which we but partly
understand? How much was lost to us of our Milton and our Shakspeare at
an age when nevertheless we read them with intense interest and
excitement, and therefore, we may be sure, with great profit. Throughout
the whole season of our intellectual progress, we are necessarily
reading works of which a great part is obscure to us; we get half at
one time, and half at another.

Not, by any means, that we intend to say a word against writing books
for children; if they are good books we shall read them too. A clever
man talking to his child, in the presence of his adult friends,--has it
never been remarked, how infinitely amusing he may be, and what an
advantage he has from this two-fold audience? He lets loose all his
fancy, under pretence that he is talking to a child, and he couples this
wildness with all his wit, and point, and shrewdness, because he knows
his friend is listening. The child is not a whit the less pleased,
because there is something above its comprehension, nor the friend at
all the less entertained, because he laughs at what was not intended for
his capacity. A writer of children's tales--(If they are any thing
better than what every nursery-maid can invent for herself)--is
precisely in this position: he will, he _must_ have in view the adult
listener. While speaking to the child, he will endeavour to interest the
parent who is overhearing him; and thus there may result a very amusing
and agreeable composition.

We have met with some children's tales which, we thought, were so
plainly levelled at the parent, that they seemed little more than
lectures to grown-up people in the disguise of stories to their
children. Some of the very clever stories of Miss Edgeworth appear to be
more evidently designed for the adult listener, than to the little
people to whom they are immediately addressed. And they may perhaps
render good service in this way. Perhaps some mature matron, far above
counsel, may take a hint which she thinks was not _intended_--may accept
that piece of good advice which she fancies her own shrewdness has
discovered, and which the subtle, Miss Edgeworth had laid, like a trap,
in her path.

We are happy, we rep