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the provincialisms of our various localities have given interest 

 to their respective Works of Fiction. Jennie Deans, Phe- 

 lim O'Toole, John Browdie, and Samuel Slick, all pass in 

 review before us. They are attired in their working clothes, 

 they speak their every-day language, and they tend to give 

 us more correct pictures of the circumstances peculiar to 

 their various localities, than we possessed formerly. 



In works of the serial class, the prominent fault is an 

 exaggeration of eveiy picture, so that each individual portion 

 may present some prominent incident, instead of the whole 

 contributing to produce a general effect. It is impossible 

 that there can be perspective, or a natural and agreeable 

 picture, when all the characters stand in the foreground: 

 it is impossible that the style of architecture can be good 

 when tbe general effect is lost sight of in attending to the 

 beauty of minute portions of the building. Accordingly, 

 though works of this class are extensively read on their 

 first appearance, piecemeal, they are never much in demand, 

 as separate publications, even by those who have never seen 

 them before. One of the least faulty of this class of works 

 is Oliver Twist, which issued from the pen of Dickens in 

 successive numbers of Bentley's Miscellany ; and one of the 

 most amusing is Harry Lorrequer, the first of Mr. Lever's 

 publications. 



Another result produced by the publication of the 

 Waverley Series was the permanent fixing of the size and 

 price of modern novels. Every one is expected to consist 

 of three volumes, and to cost 31s. 6d. The absurdity of 

 this capricious conventialism will be apparent, when we 

 consider that such stories are not naturally or necessarily 

 of the same length; and even admitting that they did 

 require the same number of words in telling, they are not 

 of the same mercantile value. As a natural result, literary 

 speculators are encouraged ; there is not a sufficient dis- 

 tinction made by the public between the hurried lucubrations 



