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tage of Mr. Ebers's extensive connexion, and of his practical knowledge of a business which as yet was a "book sealed" to him. There were other temptations, not unworthy of a high literary ambition, and a generous zeal for the interests of authors. The period, that of 1828-9, was the season of the (exclusively) "fashionable novels," when what was most ephemeral was most triumphant, and when works of a more enduring though less winning character had fewer charms than usual in a publisher's eye. Let us here pause for a moment to consider what his aims were, and at the same time what were his qualifications for giving effect to them.

Mr. Ainsworth entered upon his speculation doubtless with literary feelings not very dissimilar to those with which he may be supposed to have recently originated his Magazine. His was not the speculation of an ordinary publisher; his aim was to promote the interests of literature, to advance his own reputation as a writer, and to surround himself with such authors as it was alike honourable to serve and to be associated with; he thought that he might bring forward sterling works, rejected perhaps as not "fashionable," and assist writers of a better class than those who aspired to a merely fleeting popularity; in any case, he should succeed in shewing that such an enterprise might be conducted on liberal and gentlemanlike principles. These, as we believe, were his objects; but he mistook the practicability of the scheme, and misconceived his own qualifications for conducting it. He had great liberality, a highly cultivated literary taste, ripe scholarship, and popular manners; he was borne up by the spirit of youth, and the love of books for their own sake, to make an experiment, and his entering upon it was the best proof of the sacrifices he could cheerfully incur, and that he thought of no selfish or mercenary bargain. But with these fine qualities he wanted some that are not always found in their company and in that of youth,─forethought, deliberation, patience under disappointment, submission to repugnant tasks, and indifference to the trifling circumstance of being always unthanked and generally misapprehended. What young man of one-and-twenty understands his own character sufficiently to justify such an attempt! His principles were but partially recognised by the writers with whom he was brought into connexion, and he was of too impatient a temperament to afford them time to understand him. His pride speedily revolted from the position he had voluntarily chosen, and at the expiration of about a year and a half he abandoned the experiment; the result was─neither good nor harm beyond loss of time.

During this period, and up to the year 1830, a few trifles had been written; a tragedy on the subject of Philip Van Artavelde was planned, and two acts composed; a melodrame or two, never acted, swelled the stock; but nothing was published. A change of scene was now resolved upon; in the summer of that year Mr. Ainsworth started on a tour in Switzerland and Italy.

It was in the following year, during a visit to Chesterfield, that he first thought of writing a three-volumed tale, and the idea of "Rookwood " arose. He has told us his object. "Wishing," he says, "to describe somewhat minutely the trim gardens, the picturesque domains, the rook-haunted groves, the gloomy chambers and gloomier galleries of an ancient hall with which I was acquainted, I resolved to attempt a story in the by-gone style of Mrs. Radclyffe; substituting an old English squire, an old manorial residence, and an old English highwayman, for the Italian marchese, the castle, and the brigand of that great mistress of romance."