"WHO knows," wrote Mr. Beecher to Mr. Bonner, in a droll letter which conveyed his acceptance of the proposition to write a story for the Ledger-"who knows but that some future critic may refer to me as that celebrated novelist (who sometimes preached) ?" If the critic of the future shall undertake to tell how many other things Edward Eggleston has done besides preaching sermons and writing novels, he will have a job on his hands. Though he was born in Southern Indiana, of Virginian ancestors, and never before he came to New York had lived nearer to New England than Minnesota (measuring by the scale of civilization rather than the scale of miles), he would pass very cleverly for the typical Yankee, who knows how to do everything, from the tinkering of a clock to the construction of a theodicy. This versatility of employment has been his fate rather than his choice, albeit it has brought him a knowledge of life larger than he could have gained if he had had the ordering of all his affairs.

Vevay, Indiana, a picturesque village on the banks of the Ohio river, was his birthplace, and he was born in the last month of VOL. VI.-36

that disastrous " '37," whose record of financial ruin has been familiar to some of us from infancy. His father, who was a lawyer of literary tastes, and who was a member of the State Senate and a candidate for Congress long before the era of salary-grabs, died when Edward was nine years old, bequeathing to him little more than a passion for books. The remaining years of his boyhood were spent in farm labor, and as a clerk in a country store; part of the time in a rude Hoosier neighborhood, where Jeems Phillips, the champion speller, yet abides, and where families by the name of Meany still worship God in a Hard-shell church; and part of the time in Milford, a town on (C Clefty Creek," in the interior of the State, where the greater part of the materials for The Hoosier Schoolmaster were gathered.

The marriage of his mother to an eminent Methodist Doctor of Divinity in Indiana, gave him what the people of his neighborhood would call "a right smart chance of travel," and secured to him the opportunity of seeing as much of life as can be found in the river-towns of his native State. He was a sickly boy, never able to endure the con

finement of the school-room. One year he spent in quest of health among his father's relatives in Virginia, and while there enjoyed such facilities of instruction as the sons of Southern planters were able to get in their native State; but all his knowledge of "schools and schoolmasters" was gained in a little more than two years. Apart from this he is wholly self-educated. A little Latin, less Greek, more Italian and Spanish, and of French a plenty, he has acquired without a teacher; the rest of his education has come through a wide reading of English literature.

In May, 1856, this sickly student went to Minnesota. He was supposed to be suffering from pulmonary disease, and it was thought that the dry and bracing air of the rolling prairies would provide the medicament he needed. The four months of this first residence in the Gopher State were spent almost wholly out of doors. He made himself useful on a farm; he joined the chain-gang of a surveying party; and finally he picked up the secret of the divine Daguerre, and took, for aught we know, not only in his mind's eye but also in his photographer's camera, the portraits of Mr. Plausaby and The Superior Being. Very much of what he knows about Metropolisville was obtained in this brief sojourn in Minnesota. The fury of speculation was then just raging through the State, and the mysteries of the land-grabbers were fully unveiled to his keen

vision.

During that autumn he returned to his native State, and getting astride a pair of saddle-bags, rode a Hoosier "circuit" in the winter of 1856-7, having then reached the ripe age of nineteen years. Just when his theological education was acquired we do not know-his step-father had, no doubt, assisted in it; but the probability is, that the greater part of his theology was absorbed. At any rate he seems to have taken it the natural way; it is incorporated into his life; it is organized, rather than systematized, theology, and none the worse for that, to my thinking.

Dr. Eggleston always speaks with enthusiastic sympathy of the life of the pioneer preacher. The fidelity, the self-sacrifice, the sturdy heroism of the average Methodist circuit-preacher are to him worthy of all admiration. In some particulars his opinions have changed since he rode that first circuit in Indiana, but he has never unlearned his regard for the faithful men who hold forth the word of life to the dwellers on the border. The new story upon which he is now at work, and whose title is, "The Circuit-Preacher: a

Tale of the Heroic Age," will illustrate this phase of life more perfectly, we may well believe, than it has yet been done. The writer has never set himself a more congenial task.

In the spring of 1857 he returned to Minnesota, and there continued his ministry in the Methodist connection, preaching in St. Paul, Winona, Stillwater, St. Peter, and other places. His health was still infirm, and his ministerial life was continually broken, compelling frequent resort to various other avocations, "always honest," as he himself testifies, "but sometimes very undignified."

In 1866 he quitted the active ministry, in which he had, in spite of his infirmities, won a good degree. His health had become so precarious that the care of a church was too great a burden. Chicago was his next halting-place, and there, as editor of The Little Corporal magazine for six months, and afterward as resident Bohemian, he began to make his mark in children's literature. The Book of Queer Stories, and Stories told on a Cellar-Door, found their way into covers, and the children cried for them, of course. It was his love for children, and his success in writing for them, which led him at length into the Sunday-school work. As a speaker at Sunday-school conventions, as a manager of Sunday-school teachers' institutes, and finally as editor of the Chicago Sunday-School Teacher, he made for himself a national reputation. No speaker was in greater request at the anniversaries; no writer succeeded so well in impressing his ideas upon the Sunday-school workers and in getting his methods put in practice. And the best of it was, that his ideas were for the most part singularly fresh, unconventional, and practicable. The cant and the clap-trap of the average Sunday-school conventionist he held in infinite disgust, and stupidity and sensationalism found in him an impartial foe. A very large and fruitful chapter of Edward Eggleston's life is that which describes his Sunday-school work, in which, though he is now less actively employed, he still has abundant interest.

During his residence in Chicago he became the correspondent of The Independent, over the signature of "Penholder." His correspondence gained him so much credit in the office of that newspaper, that he was invited in the spring of 1870 to become the literary editor, and he accordingly removed to New York. Some of the best work he has ever done was done in this department of journalism. As a critic of miscellaneous literature he is entitled to take rank among the best in

America. His perceptions are quick, his sympathies are catholic, his power of expression is remarkable; and by these qualifications, as well as by his wide knowledge of the world as well as of books, he is eminently fitted for the work of criticism. Since Sainte-Beuve and Matthew Arnold have lived and written, it is not necessary to say that criticism has a place in the highest order of literary work.

In January, 1871, Dr. Eggleston became superintending editor of The Independent, and his success as a manager was undoubted. In August of the same year he withdrew from the paper and assumed the charge of Hearth and Home, which he edited with marked ability for a year, when he retired from journalism to devote himself to the free pursuit of literature.

While in the Independent office, Dr. Eggleston had written three or four short stories for SCRIBNER'S MONTHLY, which were widely quoted. The knowledge of life and the power of characterization displayed in these sketches encouraged his friends to believe that a larger venture in the field of fiction would not be rash; and in the autumn of 1871 he began, in Hearth and Home, The Hoosier Schoolmaster. It was at once discovered that in the description of life in Southern Indiana the writer had struck a new and productive lead, and of the skill with which he has worked it in The Hoosier Schoolmaster and The End of the World, it is hardly necessary to speak. His Mystery of Metropolisville, which also appeared in the same journal, is somewhat less real than the other two stories, partly because the reinforced Yankee of the Northwest is less known to the writer than the promoted "poor white" of the Pocket; and partly because the work, unless I mistake, was done with less premeditation than either of the others.

By these stories Dr. Eggleston has established his claim to be counted among American novelists. Of The Hoosier Schoolmaster 25,000 copies have been sold; of The End of the World 18,000; and of The Mystery of Metropolisville, 11,000 were ordered before publication. Scarcely any American story-writer, except the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin and the author of Little Women, can show figures like these to testify of immediate success. All of these stories have been republished in England, in cheap editions, and The Hoosier Schoolmaster has had the honor of a translation into the French Revue des Deux Mondes. This translation I have

not seen, but it would be interesting to know what is French for "right smart" and "Gewhilleky crickets!"

This wide recognition may perhaps be taken as evidence that these stories are not without merit. What the public has said with such emphasis, the critics are likely to repeat, for substance; though these gentlemen are sure to put in their little qualifications. This is plain, to begin with: that Dr. Eggleston is a close and sympathetic student of human nature, and that his characters and the incidents of his stories are drawn from the life. We can scarcely point to any truer work in American fiction than some of the character-drawing in his first two stories. He has given us, thus far, chiefly genre pictures; but art of this sort requires as fine a pencil and as large a sympathy as that of a more pretentious nature.

As contributions to the history of civilization in America, these stories are also valuable. In The Hoosier Schoolmaster, Dr. Eggleston has given us as faithful a picture of life in Southern Indiana, twenty-five years ago, as Bret Harte has given us of "The Argonauts of '49," or as Scott has given us, in Ivanhoe, of life in England after the Norman conquest. The life thus described is, like that described by Bret Harte, only one episode in this great epic of our civilization; and the description of it is only one study for the complete picture of our national life; but it is of immense value for all that to all who want to know what manner of nation this has been and is to be.

The chief defect of these stories is in the plot. In this respect they are no more faulty than some of the stories of George MacDonald, yet those who read novels for the action rather than the philosophy, may have cause of complaint against them. The characterization is careful and artistic; the author's power of criticism assures us of that: but his power of construction has not yet been so fully demonstrated. I do not think that this power is wanting. The reason why it has not been more perfectly shown may be found in the haste with which the work is done. It is less than two years since Dr. Eggleston withdrew from The Independent, yet in that time he has put three considerable novels within covers, and is well on his way with a fourth, besides having made large, almost weekly, contributions to contemporary journalism. For a man who lacks the robust physique of Walter Scott, it is plain that this will never do. Dr. Eggleston is wasting his resources. He must take more time for