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We may remind our readers that the elect...
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The new number of the Quarterly Review m...
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India and China seem likely to occupy a ...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
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m r , v ^ « tp n . nl- the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They danot CntX m ^ elf 4 s-they fnterpret and try to enforce " thenx . -Edinburgh Review .
We May Remind Our Readers That The Elect...
We may remind our readers that the election to the vacant Professorship of Poetry ait Oxford takes place next Tuesday , and- that the Rev . Bash , Jones and the Rev . J . P . Tweed , who were candidates , having withdrawn , the eontest now lies between Mr . Matthew Arnold and the Eev . J . E . Bode . We have already expressed our opinion of Mi \ Arnold ' s qualifications for the chair . His success as a poet has been considerable ; and the virtue ; of form and finish for which his poems are mainly praised , prove that Ids mind is even more critical than poetical ; while the introduction to his earlier volume of poems
shows a careful study of the principles not only of his own art , but of art o-enerally . He is , therefore , well fitted for the vacant post , which is , as we intimated , rather a Professorship of ^ Esthetics in general than of any single branch of the associated arts . We may add that Mr . Arnold ' s election would be a graceful recognition by the " University of a name well known in Oxford , and revered throughout the country . For while , of course , no man ought to be elected simply becattse be is his father ' s son , other things being equal , the son of Dr . Arnold certainly has a special claim on the consideration of such a constituency . We hope , therefore , that his friends will muster on Tuesday in sufficient numbers to secure his election .
The New Number Of The Quarterly Review M...
The new number of the Quarterly Review may fairly be styled peripatetic ; two of its leading articles being " Pedestrianism in Switzerland , " and " Roving Life in England . " As in the last number , Natural History , so in the present , Natural Scenery , is the chief subject of discourse . This , however , is but in harmony with one of the oldest and best characteristics of the Review . While its narrow politics soon become obsolete , its broad and genial love of nature and art survives all political change , giving a life and character to the Review which it never could retain as a mere Tory organ . Representative of the country party , the Quarterly lias always reflected something of the fresh , breezy , and manly character of English sports and English country life , delighting in adventures with the rod and gun , with horses and hounds , and enjoying to the full every form of open-air life and healthy activity . The first article of the present number strikes , at the outset , the old key-note in . the following passage : —
A periodical writer lately said of a deceased poet , that " he -wanted an out-of-door niind . " The deficiency is not an uncommon one . It occurs Loth to the old and the young in large classes of all civilized people , and in persons of otherwise the most opposite tendencies and tastes . If it is lamentable to see young persons engrossed by the frivolities of metropolitan life , it is hardly less sad to find others , of the fairest promise and even commanding ability , spending their manhood in studies of a " merely speculative or imaginative cast , remote from the interests of humanity , and the glorious realities of the natural world . They have limbs endowed with elastic muscles , fresh and healthy blood circulating in their young veins ; the eye is clear , the step is firm , yet the former is cramped in its range to the pages of a book , the latter is doomed to expend its spring against the resisting pavement of the streets . Let such persons cultivate the " out-of-door mind , " and for doing so we cannot recommend a better school than Switzerland , or a better grammar than Mr . Murray ' s hand-book—dear to pedestrians .
The writer goes on to describe Swiss scenery , and details the difficulties and dangers to be encountered by travellers amongst the mountains ; the paper being , in fact , a short manual for pedestrians in the Alps . But though we enjoy the spirit and style of the article , we must say that we arc beginning to get tired of the Alps . They meet us everywhere—in panoramas aud periodicals , in books and lectures , in songs and sermons , in solitude and society , whether engaged in business or pleasure ; till we look back with envy and regret to the old times in which , usHumboldt pathetically laments , " statesmen and generals , with men of letters in their train , " constantly passed from Helvetia into Gmil without leaving a single description " of the eternal snows of the Alps when tinged in the morning or evening with u rosy hue , or of the beauty of the blue glacier ice , " & e .
The second articlo , entitled " Dred—American Slavery , " is a temperate and seasonable review of the actual state of the slave question in America , with the relation of the Northern and Southern States to each other , and the prospects of the contest ; which must soon inevitably take place between them . An avticlo on " Lunatic Asylums" compares the present management of the insane with their treatment u hundred years ago—a contrast which shows the growth amongst us of national humanity and national conscience perhaps more strikingly than any other department of social legislation . The paper on " English Political Satires , " written in a pleasant , rcudable ,
graphic stylo , is full of striking facts and pungent illustrations , but the brilliant ; detail loses much of its c fleet from the absence of any attempt to generalize the principles whose working it ; illustrates . While we do not expect much philosophy in such an article , still , if English Political Satire is treated historically , we may fairly expect some attempt to show its importanee as an index of national lil ' i : and progress . The writer has evidently read more than ho has digested , and the result , is a species ol'intellectual congestion , which pi'ovcnts tho healthy play of liia powers . Tho pnpor on " Photography , " while smar tly written , is unnnt ' . isfi \ ctory in a scientific point of view , and fails to appreciate tho true \< ilue of photography as the handmaid of Art .
India And China Seem Likely To Occupy A ...
India and China seem likely to occupy a growingly large space in our
literature as well as polities . The last number of the National Review , for example 1 , has an- article o » " Ihdiaa History ;** the cwneevfc Westminster one o » " Hindu Poetry ; " , more recently still , the Times devotes two loagf articles to Hindu Philosophy , looked at from the Chinese point of view , to Buddhism , as expounded by that wonderful Chinese pilgrim Hiotjen- 'Ehsang , whose character irresistibly eicites our admiration , but whose name baffles any attempt at pronunciation , probably from the fact that nearly all the vowels are in one syllable , a / nd all the consonants in the other , the proportion being- in either ease ( minus the aspirate ) as four to one . Most of our readers must have noticed these striking articles on " Buddhist Pilgrims , " they appeared in the Times , and many have probably read the correspondence which has since
taken place between the Reviewer and a Mr . Bakham on a disputed point of Buddhist doctrine . This discussion is interesting , as it concerns the view of a future state given in a religious system firmly held by a fourth of the human race . What is the Buddhist heaven—the Nirvana , that Btoddha himself attained , and which is proposed to his followers as the highest reward of all their efforts ? Is it annihilation or deification—the final quenching of a vital spark , or the melting of a drop into the ocean—the utter negation of all being or the absorption of the human soul into the divine nature ? Mr . Barham tries to show that the latter must be accepted as the true opinion , while the Reviewer vigorously defends his first position—that the Nirvana is total annihilation . The question , though debated with zeal on one
side , and learning on the other , is really left , undecided , the conclusion arrived at being extremely unsatisfactory , if not essentially incredible . So far as acquaintance with the literature of the subject is concerned , the Reviewer , of course , has the best of it ; his opponent evidently writing with more zeal than knowledge , and from earnestness of feeling rather than clearness of philosophic insight . "With Mr . B abeam , indeed , the wish is most probably father to the thought , as he . is himself , we believe , a kind of Christian Buddhist . If we do not mistake , he published some years ago a mystical work with the first letter of the English alphabet as a title , forsaking , in this , the example set
him by the treatise Be Verbo Mirifico of his chosen master Retjchxin , to follow the practice of the Cabalists , who were wont to write long dissertations on the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet—the AlepTi tenebrosum , as they styled it—which was at once the alpha and omega of their system . Having thus a strong sympathy with the doctrines of emanation and absorption common to the mystics of the East and the West both in ancient and modern times , and a horror of nihilism in any form , Mr . Barham naturally starts in alarm " at the thought of a wide-spread system like Buddhism ending iu a negation , and seeks to identify its Nirvana with the more positive apotheosis of his favourite schools .
The Reviewer , on the other hand , takes his chief stand on authority , and satisfies himself Avith referring , in support of his opinion , to the views of the earliest Buddhist metaphysicians whose works have come down to us . But in the present Imperfect state of our knowledge , the best evidence being still vague and conflicting , even authority is by no means decisive , and it is surely possible to discuss the question on other grounds than those of personal feeling or partial testimony . The rapid spread and wide diffusion of Buddhism are great historic facts , and we may fairly infer something as to the general character of its teaching from the result . The unknown , or only partially known , cause must be of a kind fitted to produce the known effect . If , therefore , according to the interpretation which some of its own writings even seem
to favour , the central doctrine of Buddhism is one incapable of moving a single human being , much less of producing a revolution amongst the most immovable people in the world , as we know Buddhism did , there is at least a philosophical presumption in favour of a different interpretation . The annihilation theory , in fact , reverses all that experience teaches of human nature , contradicting directly the Carpe diem which was practically the motto of the ancient Cyrenaics , and the Duvi vivhmis vivamus which has ever been the chosen maxim of all who , like them , believe only in the present . But , according to the view in question , the Buddhist apostle went forth to the people , and said : " Deny yourselves , renounce the pleasures of the world , chose privation and toil as your portion . " Why ? Because this is the path to a nobler life ? 3 Sfot
at all ; but " because all existence will soon coiue to an end , and you will ceaso to be . " That was obviously , as the Reviewer seems to feel , not the kind of gospel to produce a great moral revolution amongst an ignorant and degraded people . The writer betrays a keen sonsc of this dilfic \ ilty both in his articles and in his letter , though he seems scarcely aware of the practical contradiction in which the cilbrt to maintain his position involves him . In the former , for example , ho says : " How a religion which taught the annihilation of all existence , of all thought , of all individuality and personality , as tho highest object of all endeavours , could have laid hold of the minds of millions of human beings , and how at tho same time , by enforcing tho duties of morality , justice ,
kindness , and sclf-sacrifico , it ; could have oxerciaed a decidedly beneficial influence not only on tho natives of India , but on the lowest barbarians of Central Asia , is one of the riddles which no philosophy has yet been able to solve . " Wo may add , which no philosophy over will be ablo to solve , for human nature being what it is , the thing is essentially incredible Again , after describing Buddha ' s devoted life , he adds : " And yet all this self-sacrificing charity , all this solfsaeritioing humility by which tho life of Buddha was distinguished throug hout , aud which he preached to the luultiludo- that came , to listen to him , l > n < l but one object ;—and that object was final annihilation . It is impossible almost to
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 2, 1857, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_02051857/page/15/
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