Tinsley's Magazine. October. The most noticeable thing in this number,
which has a general London-in-the-middle-of-September look,
is the essay on Mr. Dallas's edition of Clarissa, a very able and eloquent criticism of Richardson's great romance. The writer's esti- mate of its greatness is possibly exaggerated. There was a certain want of manliness and an affectation in Richardson's writings which
had the effect of provoking a very injurious reaction ; but he was a great man, and Clarissa was unquestionably his master-piece. Though
there is no great novel in the language of which the name and the general plot are so well known, there is not one which is so little road. That it is excessively tedious and scarcely moral is the impression about it. This powerful vindication of its artistic value and high purpose is welcome, and will assist the tardy reparation which this generation is making to a neglected genius. A writer who finds "the stuffy atmo- sphere of the laboratory" an appropriate phrase to express the tone of Mr. Matthew Arnold's poetry scarcely bespeaks attention, but he has an easy task in praising Mr. William Morris, and acquits himself of it fairly well. Of the three tales which occupy about half the magazine
nothing need be said, but that those who admire the author of Guy Livingstone will find him in full force. The minor articles are more than
usually feeble. Tins/ey's is generally above most of its contemporaries in the quality of its "padding," but this is a very poor sample. We ought to except, perhaps, some verse, entitled" Wyvil's Hour," of which the earlier part, at least, is vigorous. The "Photograph, by an Ameri- can," is as disagreeable as a photograph can well be, but hardly as correct. What can he possibly mean by saying that women in England bring "most of the cash capital" to the common stock of married life ?
The fact is that nine women out of ten in the middle class do not bring more than enough to clothe them. The fierce invective of the American against English morality contrasts strangely with the tone of more than one of the other papers. Lot us hope that he may find some converts among his neighbours. The story in the Hon. Alice Brand's corre-
spondence—some of which, by the way, seems out of place in a young lady's portfolio,—of how Ulster King-at-Arms presented himself in his robes at a certain house, and was announced by the footman as the King of Trumps, is a very good ono, but certainly dates from before the visit of the Prince of Wales to Ireland.
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