performed often enough. For instance, may
we put it respectfully to the ladies and gentlemen
who are so good as to exhibit him, that he
had better not "stride" any more?  He has
stridden so much, on so many different
occasions, across so many halls, along so many
avenues, in and out at so many drawing-
room doors, that he must be knocked up by
this time, and his dear legs ought really to
have a little rest.  Again, when his dignity
is injured by irreverent looks or words, can
he not be made to assert it for the future
without "drawing himself up to his full
height?"  He has really been stretched too
much by perpetual indulgence in this exercise
for scores and scores of years.  Let him
sit down do—please let him sit down next
time!  It would be quite new, and so impressive.
Then, again, we have so often discovered
him standing with folded arms, so
often beheld him pacing with folded arms, so
often heard him soliloquise with folded arms,
so often broken in upon him meditating with
folded arms, that we think he had better do
something else with his arms for the future.
Could he swing them for a change? or put
them akimbo? or drop them suddenly on
either side of him? or could he give them
a holiday altogether, and fold his legs for a
change?  Perhaps not. The word Legs—
why, I cannot imagine—seems always
suggestive of jocularity.  "Fitzherbert stood up
and folded his arms," is serious. "Fitzherbert
sat down and folded his legs," is comic.
Why, I should like to know.

A word—one respectful word of remonstrance
to the lady-novelists especially. We
think they have put our Hero on horseback
often enough. For the first five hundred
novels or so, it was grand, it was thrilling,
when he threw himself into the saddle after
the inevitable quarrel with his lady-love, and
galloped off madly to his bachelor home.  It
was grand to read this—it was awful to know,
as we came to know at last by long experience,
that he was sure before he got home
to be spilt no—not spilt; that is another
word suggestive of jocularity—thrown,
and given up as dead.  It was inexpressibly
soothing to behold him in the milder
passages of his career, moody in the
saddle, with the reins thrown loosely over the
arched neck of the steed, as the gallant
animal paced softly with his noble burden,
along a winding road, under a blue sky, on a
balmy afternoon in early spring.  All this
was delightful reading for a certain number
of years; but everything wears out at last,
and trust me, ladies, your hero's favourite
steed, your dear, intelligent, affectionate,
glossy, long-tailed horse, has really done his
work, and may now be turned loose, for some
time to come, with great advantage to
yourselves, and your readers.

Having spoken a word to the ladies, I am
necessarily and tenderly reminded of their
charming representatives—the Heroines.
Let me say something, first, about our
favourite two sisters—the tall dark one, who
is serious and unfortunate: the short light
one, who is coquettish and happy.  Being an
Englishman, I have, of course, an ardent
attachment to anything like an established
rule, simply because it is established. I know
that it is a rule that, when two sisters are
presented in a novel, one must be tall and
dark, and the other short and light.  I know
that five-feet-eight of female flesh and blood,
when accompanied by an olive complexion,
black eyes, and raven hair, is synonymous
with strong passions and an unfortunate
destiny.  I know that five feet nothing, golden
ringlets, soft blue eyes, and a lily-brow,
cannot possibly be associated by any well-
constituted novelist, with anything but ringing
laughter, arch innocence, and final
matrimonial happiness.  I have studied these great
first principles of the art of fiction too long
not to reverence them as established laws;
but I venture respectfully to suggest that the
time has arrived when it is no longer necessary
to insist on them in novel after novel. I
am afraid there is something naturally
revolutionary in the heart of man.  Although I
know it to be wrong, to be against all precedent,
I want to revolutionise our favourite
two sisters.  Would any bold innovator run
all risks, and make them both alike in
complexion and in stature?  Or would any
desperate man (I dare not suggest such a
course to the ladies) effect an entire alteration,
by making the two sisters change
characters?  I tremble when I see to what
lengths the spirit of innovation is leading me.
Would the public accept the tall dark-haired
sister, if she exhibited a jolly disposition and
a tendency to be flippant in her talk?  Would
readers be fatally startled out of their
sense of propriety, if the short charmer with
the golden hair, appeared before them as a
serious, strong-minded, fierce-spoken, miserable,
guilty woman?  It might be a dangerous
experiment to make this change; but it
would be worth trying—the rather (if I may
be allowed to mention anything so utterly
irrelevant to the subject under discussion as
real life) because I think there is some
warrant in nature for attempting the
proposed innovation.  Judging by my own
small experience, I should say that strong
minds and passionate natures reside
principally in the breasts of little, light women,
especially if they have angelic blue eyes and
a quantity of fair ringlets.  The most
facetiously skittish woman, for her age, with
whom I am acquainted, is my own wife, who
is three inches taller than I am.  The heartiest
laugher I ever heard is my second daughter,
who is bigger even than my wife, and has the
blackest eyebrows and the swarthiest cheek
in the whole neighbourhood.  With such
instances as these, producible from the bosom
of my own family, who can wonder if I
want, for once in a way, to overthrow the