In this respect the Novel of "Paul Clifford" is a loud cry to society to
amend the circumstance,--to redeem the victim. It is an appeal from
Humanity to Law. And in this, if it could not pretend to influence or
guide the temper of the times, it was at least a foresign of a coming
change. Between the literature of imagination, and the practical
interests of a people, there is a harmony as complete as it is
mysterious. The heart of an author is the mirror of his age. The shadow
of the sun is cast on the still surface of literature long before the
light penetrates to law; but it is ever from the sun that the shadow
falls, and the moment we see the shadow we may be certain of the light.

Since this work was written, society has been busy with the evils in
which it was then silently acquiescent. The true movement of the last
fifteen years has been the progress of one idea,--Social Reform. There
it advances with steady and noiseless march behind every louder question
of constitutional change. Let us do justice to our time. There have
been periods of more brilliant action on the destinies of States, but
there is no time visible in History in which there was so earnest and
general a desire to improve the condition of the great body of the
people. In every circle of the community that healthful desire is astir.
It unites in one object men of parties the most opposed; it affords the
most attractive nucleus for public meetings; it has cleansed the
statute-book from blood; it is ridding the world of the hangman. It
animates the clergy of all sects in the remotest districts; it sets the
squire on improving cottages and parcelling out allotments. Schools rise
in every village; in books the lightest, the Grand Idea colours the page,
and bequeaths the moral. The Government alone (despite the professions
on which the present Ministry was founded) remains unpenetrated by the
common genius of the age; but on that question, with all the subtleties