f contrast in bringing out
effect; we know that the mind of the reader requires repose, even from the
most exalted emotions; we have felt the weariness of being satiated with
beauty, in the galleries of the Vatican or the valleys of Switzerland.
Brilliants require setting, and bright light can be brought out only by
proportional depth or breadth of shadow. If the novelist tries to keep up
exalted sentiments or pathetic scenes too often, he will fall into the
mistake of the painter who throws an equal light on all parts of his
picture. Probably the rule which Sir Joshua Reynolds says he found by
observation had been invariably observed by Titian--viz., to have
one-fourth only of his picture in very bright light, one-fourth in deep
shadow, and the remaining half in middle tint, may be equally applicable
to the compositions of the novelist. But admitting all this--admitting
further, that novels which deviate from the elevated standard may often
attain a great temporary popularity, the greater, probably, owing to that
very deviation--it is not the less true that the main object of the art is
to awaken generous and elevated feelings; and that in no other way than by
attention to this object, is durable fame to be obtained.

The celebrity arising from skill in the painting of low or vulgar manners,
from power in the description of desperate or abandoned characters, how
great soever it may be for a time, never fails to pass away with the lapse
of time. Voltaire's romances, once so popular, are now nearly as much dead
stock in the bookseller's hands; and the whole tribe of the licentious
novelists of France, prior to the Revolution, are now read only by the
licentious youth of Paris, and a few prurient sensualists in other
countries. It will be the same with Victor Hugo, Janin, and George Sand,
in the next generation and in other countries. All their genius, learning,
and interest, will not be able to save them from the withering effect of
their accumulated horrors, shocking indecencies, and demoralizing
tendency.

Again, in the composition of the historical romance, the story should be
_sufficiently simple_, and a certain degree of unity preserved in the
interest and emotion which are to be awakened. It is not meant to be
asserted by this, that the novelist is to be confined strictly to unities
like the Greek drama, or that the same variety, within certain limits, is
not to be presented in the pages of romance, which we see ev