stances, the casting weak points into shadow, and bring. ing out strong points into glaring relief. I remember how I used to look with admiration at one of these great men when, in his speech to the jury, he was approaching some circumstance in the case which made dead against him. It was beautiful to see the intellectual gladiator cautiously approaching the hostile fact; coming up to it, tossing and turning it about, and finally showing that it made strongly in his favour. Now, if that were really so, why did it look as if it made against him? Why should so much depend on the way in which he put it? Or, if the fact was in truth one that made against him, why should it be possible for a man to put it so that it should seem to make in his favour, and all without any direct falsification of facts or arguments, without any of that mere vulgar misrepresentation which can be met by direct contradiction? Surely it is not a desirable state of matters, that a plausible fellow should be able to explain away some very doubtful conduct of his own, and by skilful putting of things should be able to make it seem even to the least discerning, that he is the most innocent and injured of human beings. And it is provoking, too, when you feel at once that his defence is a mere intellectual juggle, and yet, with all your logic, when you cannot just on the instant tear it to pieces, and put the thing in the light of truth. Indeed, so well is it understood that by tact and address you may so put things as to make the worse appear the better reason, that the idea generally conveyed, when we talk of putting things, is, that there is something wrong, something to be adroitly concealed, some weak point in regard to which dust is to be thrown into too observant eyes. There is a common impression, not one of unqualified truth, that when all is above board, there

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is less need for skilful putting of the case. Many people think, though the case is by no means so, that truth may always be depended on to tell its own story and produce its due impression. Not a bit of it. However good my case might be, I should be sorry to intrust it to Mr. Num. skull, with Sir Fitzroy Kelly on the other side.

It is a coarse and stupid expedient to have recourse to anything like falsification in putting things as they would make best for yourself, reader. And there is no need for it. Unless you have absolutely killed a man and taken his watch, or done something equally decided, you can easily represent circumstances so as to throw a favouraole light upon yourself and your conduct. It is a mistake to fancy that in this world a story must be either true or false, a deed either right or wrong, a man either good or bad. There are few questions which can be answered by Yes or No. Almost all actions and events are of mingled character; and there is something to be said on both sides of almost every subject which can be debated. Who does not remember how, when he was a boy, and had done some mischief which he was too honest to deny, he revolved all he had done over and over, putting it in many lights, trying it in all possible points of view, till he had persuaded himself that he had done quite right, or at least that he had done nothing that was so very wrong, after all? There was a lurking feeling, probably, that all this was self-deception; and oh! how our way of putting the case, so favourably to ourselves, vanished into air when our Teacher and Governor sternly called us to account! All those jesuitical artifices were forgotten; and we just felt that we had done wrong, and there was no use trying to justify it.

The noble use of the power of putting things, is when

a man employs that power to give tenfold force to truth. When you go and hear a great preacher, you sometimes come away wishing heartily that the impression he made. on you would last for you feel that though what struck you so much was not the familiar doctrine, which you knew quite well before, but the way in which he put it, still that startling view of things was the right view. Probably in the pulpit more than anywhere else, we feel the difference between a man who talks about and about things and another man who puts them so that we feel them. And when one thinks of all the ignorance, want, and misery which surround us in the wretched dwellings of the poor, which we know all about but take so coolly, it is sad to remember that Truth does not make itself felt as it really is, but depends so sadly for the practical effect upon the skill with which it is put upon the tact, graphic power, and earnest purpose of the man who tells it. A landed proprietor will pass a wretched row of cottages on his estate daily for years, yet never think of making an effort to improve them: who, when the thing is fairly put to him, will forthwith bestir himself to have things brought into a better state. He will wonder how he could have allowed matters to go on in that unhappy style so long; but will tell you truly, that though the thing was before his eyes, he really never before thought of it in that light.

Some people have a happy knack for putting in a pleasant way everything that concerns themselves. Mr. A.'s son gets a poor place as a Bank clerk: his father goes about saying that the lad has found a fine opening in business. The young man is ordained, and gets a curacy on Salisbury Plain: his father rejoices that there, never seeing a human face, he has abundant leisure for study,

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and for improving his mind. Or, the curacy is in the most crowded part of Manchester or Bethnal Green: the father now rejoices that his son has opportunities of acquiring clerical experience, and of visiting the homes of the poor. Such a man's house is in a well-wooded country the situation is delightfully sheltered. He removes to a bare district without a tree:—ah! there he has beautiful pure air and extensive views. It is well for human beings when they have the pleasant art of thus putting things; for many, we all know, have the art of putting things in just the opposite way. They look at all things through jaundiced eyes; and as things appear to themselves, so they put them to others. You remember, reader, how once upon a time David Hume, the historian, kindly sent Rousseau a present of a dish of beef-steaks. Rousseau fired at this: he discerned in it a deep-laid insult: he put it that Hume, by sending the steaks, meant to insinuate that he, Rousseau, could not afford to buy proper food for himself. Ah, I have known various Rousseaus! They had not the genius, indeed, but they had all the wrongheadedness.

Who does not know the contrasted views of mankind and of life that pervade all the writings of Dickens and of Thackeray? It is the same world that lies before both, but how differently they put it! And look at the accounts in the Blue and Yellow newspapers respectively, of the borough Member's speech to his constituents last night in the Corn Exchange. Judge by the account in the one paper, and he is a Burke for eloquence, a Peel for tact, a Shippen for incorruptible integrity. Judge by the account in the other, and you would wonder where the electors caught a mortal who combines so remarkably ignorance, stupidity, carelessness, inefficiency, and dishonesty. As

for the speech, one journal declares it was fluent, the other that it was stuttering; one that it was frank, the other that it was trimming; one that it was sense, the other that it was nonsense. Nor need it be supposed that either journal intends deliberate falsehood. Each believes his own way of putting the case to be the right way; and the truth, in most instances, doubtless lies midway betwee But in fact, till the end of time, there will be at least two ways of putting everything. Perhaps the M. P. warmed with his subject, and threw himself heart and soul into his speech. Shall we say that he spoke with eloquent energy, or shall we put it that he bellowed like a bull? Was he quiet and correct? Then we may choose between saying that he is a classical speaker, and that he was as stiff as a poker. He made some jokes, perhaps : take your choice whether you shall call him clever or flippant, a wit or a buffoon. And so of everybody else. You know a clever, well-read young woman: you may either call her such, or talk sneeringly of blue-stockings. You meet a lively, merry girl, who laughs and talks with all the frankness of innocence. You would say of her, my kindly reader, something like what I have just said; but crabbed Mrs. Backbite will have it that she is a romp, a boisterous hoyden, of most unformed manners. Perhaps Mrs. Backbite, spitefully shaking her head, says she trusts, she really hopes, there is no harm in the girl but certainly no daughter of hers should be allowed to associate with her. And not merely does the way, favourable or unfavourable, in which the thing shall be put, depend mainly on the temperament of the person who puts it so that you shall know beforehand that Mr. Snarling will always give the unfavourable view, and Mr. Jollikin the favourable: but a further element of disturbance is