tries poor Sophia, by offering her a husband in
Mr Jenkinson; we know the whole transaction perfectly, the bitter joke,
the proposal

"impares
Formas atque animas in juga ahenea
Saevo mittere cum joco."

Yet how strangely are we moved! Had the taxman at the moment called for
the income-tax, he would have concluded we were paying the last farthing
of our principal. What art is this in a writer, that he should by one
and the same passage continue to move his readers, though they know the
trick! Readers, too, that would have turned the cold shoulder to real
tales of greater distress, and met suspicion that all was a cheat
halfway; but the acknowledged fictitious they yield to at once their
whole hearts, throwing to the winds their beggarly stint. Never was
there a writer that possessed to so great a degree as did Goldsmith this
wondrous charm; and in him it is the more delightful in the light and
pleasant _allegria_ with which he works off the feeling. The volume is
full of subjects that so move; and in this respect it is most admirable
for illustration, inviting the ablest powers. But the difficulty,
wherein does that lie? Look at all illustrations that have hitherto
appeared in print, and you cry out to all--Away with the failure!
Certain it is that but slender abilities have been hitherto employed;
and when we hear of better artists coming to the undertaking, we are
hardened against them. And then, how few come fresh to the tale. To
those who do, perhaps a new illustration may have a tenfold charm; but
to any one past five-and-twenty, it must come "with a difference." It is
very difficult to reconcile one to a new Dr Primrose, a new Mrs
Primrose. Beauty ever had the power of beauty, and takes us suddenly; we
can more readily dismiss the old idea and pitch on the new, so that the
Miss Primroses are more reconcilable and transferable creatures, than
the Vicar and his wife, or the incomparable Moses and the unyielding Mr
Burchell. We cannot pretend to tell how all these characters would have
fitted their images given by Mr Mulready, had the work now first come
into our hands. As it is, we can only say they are new to us. It
requires time to reconcile this. In the meanwhile we must take it for
granted, that they actually do represent those in Mr Mulready's vision,
and he is a clear-sighted man, and has been accustomed to look into
character well. His name as the illustrator, gave promise o