those injuries to books which we choose to throw upon some wretched
worm, are but the wounds from rival books.

Ellesmere. Certainly. But now let us proceed to polish up the
weapons of another of these spiteful creatures.

Dunsford. Yes. What is to be our essay to-day, Milverton?

Milverton. Fiction.

Ellesmere. Now, that is really unfortunate. Fiction is just the
subject to be discussed--no, not discussed, talked over--out of
doors on a hot day, all of us lying about in easy attitudes on the
grass, Dunsford with his gaiters forming a most picturesque and
prominent figure. But there is nothing complete in this life.
"Surgit amari aliquid:" and so we must listen to Fiction in arm-
chairs.

FICTION.

The influence of works of fiction is unbounded. Even the minds of
well-informed people are often more stored with characters from
acknowledged fiction than from history or biography, or the real
life around them. We dispute about these characters as if they were
realities. Their experience is our experience; we adopt their
feelings, and imitate their acts. And so there comes to be
something traditional even in the management of the passions.
Shakespeare's historical plays were the only history to the Duke of
Marlborough. Thousands of Greeks acted under the influence of what
Achilles or Ulysses did, in Homer. The poet sings of the deeds that