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p,.Hics are not the legislators, but the...
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AjAong the new works in preparation ther...
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The North British Review, just issued, i...
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In France there seemsno activity. Victor...
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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.
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Ar01905
Tiinnhtt
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P,.Hics Are Not The Legislators, But The...
p ,. Hics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . — Edinburgh Review .
Ajaong The New Works In Preparation Ther...
AjAong the new works in preparation there is one which , to our minds , stands eminent in interest , because , if adequately executed , its influence will be very great and very wholesome ; we allude to the Illustrated Edition of the Vestiges . Popular as that work has been and is , exquisitely combining real philosophic sentiment with a mode of exposition that gains for its leading ideas an admission into all minds ; nevertheless , the very unfamiliarity of the public with the details upon which its generalizations are founded renders illustrations peculiarly desirable . We hope they will be diagrams rather than pictures .
It is not uncommon to hear the Vestiges spoken of by very shallow people as a very shallow work . Because it is popular in style it is regarded with a certain eye of patronage by many of those _whcfcould not even read it had the style been technical . Because it was inaccurate in some of its details , and heretical in many of its opinions , the hod-men of Science , who never in their lives rose to the height of a generalization , unless lifted there by others , sneered at it ; those sneers have been anxiously noted by the metaphysicians and theologians alarmed by its heresies ; and thus it lias come to pass that a work distinguished for its generalizing , organizing power , its noble religious sentiment , and beautiful style , has been " answered" ( such answers !) very often , and very rarely estimated by writers . It has worked its way , however , by sheer power , and has had immense influence on the thinking of this country .
The North British Review, Just Issued, I...
The North British Review , just issued , is not so attractive a number as usual—at least to the general public ; but no one should fail to read its opening article , on the influence of the Scottish mind upon English Literature , apropos to the Life of Jeffrey . It is by a hand we easily recognise , and friendship shall not absurdly restrain the expression of our admiration . The article is full of thought , both novel and suggestive , and contains the most masterly analysis of the Scotch character we ever read . From it we borrow one passage : — " For our part , we should say that the special babit or peculiarity which distinguishes the intellectual manifestations of Scotchmen—that , in short , in which the Scotticism of Scotchmen most intimately consists , —is tbe habit of emphasis . All
Scotchmen are emphatic . If a Scotchman is a fool , he _givea such emphasis to the nonsense he utters as to be infinitely more insufferable than a fool of any other country ; if a Scotchman is a man of genius , he gives such emphasis to the good things he has to communicate , that they have a supremely good chance of being at once or very soon attended to . This habit of emphasis , we believe , is exactly that perfervidum ingenium Scotorum which used to be remarked some centuries ago , wherever Scotchmen were known . But emphasis is perhaps a better word than fervour . Many Scotchmen are fervid , too , but not all ; but all , absolutely all , are emphatic . No one will call Joseph Hume a fervid man , but he is certainly emphatic . And so with David Hume , or Reid , or Adam Smith , or any of those colder-natured Scotchmen of whom we have spoken ; fervour cannot be predicated
of them , but tbey had plenty of emphasis . In men like Burns , or Chalmers , or Irving , on the other hand , there was both emphasis and fervour ; so also with Carlyle ; and so , under a still more curious combination , with Sir William Hamilton . And as we distinguish emphasis from fervour , so would we distinguish it from perseverance . Scotchmen are said to be persevering , but the saying is not universall y true ; Scotchmen are or are not morally persevering , but all Scotchmen are intellectually emphatic . Emphasis , we repeat , intellectual emphasis—the habit of laying stress on certain things rather than co-ordinating all—in this consists
"what is essential in the Scotticism of Scotchmen . And , as this observation is empirically verified by the very manner in which Scotchmen enunciate their words iu ordinary talk , so it might be deduced scientifically from what we havo already saiel regarding the nature anel effects of the feeling of nationality ; Tho habit of thinking emphatically is a necessary result of thinking much in the presence of , anil in resistance to , a negative ; it is the habit of u people that has been accustomed tei act on the defensive , rather than of a people peacefully self-evolved and accustomed to act positively ; it is tho habit of Protestantism rather than of Catholicism , of Presbyterianisin rather than of Episcopacy , of Dissent rather than of Conformity . "
The article on American Poetry begins with a sentence which betrays a youthful writer , deploring the unhappy error of nearly all recent criticism on art— -viz ., that its judgments have been formed without reference to any high or very distinct standard of what it is right and desirable that poetry should be . Thc reader is attentive , hopes for some revelation on that extremel y delicate anel ill-understood subject , antl is considerably " put out ' on arriving at such a goal as this , whither true criticism conducts him , in respect of ( _Joetiie : — " In criticising Mr . Longfellow , we have a part to play that requires . somo boldness , _—We ; must speak ill of his model , Goethe , who , by a _meist strange ; injustice :, lias of hiti : iMH , u permitted tei usurp u throne in the seventh heaven of fame , with Shakspeare :, Dante :, nnd I Tenner .
Goethe was perhaps tht ; greatest critic flint ever livt : el ; but we are convinced «» d the next generation will bo astonished at the : admiration with which his poetry llll » e . ome ; te > be ; re > gurele : d by us . In our opinion , _Goethe ' s poetry is always more : <> r h : sh heartless . His minor poems are ; full of warm fancy , exquisitely expressed ; but there is more heart in half a elo / . en e > f Burns' _seiugs than in all Goethe ' s minor poems put together . Faust , we ; venture to think , is immensely over-nited . Kvery'x _xl y praises it , and calls it profound , because there is much of it that nobody u ' _u-Jh'rsfunds , or was intende'd to _undci-Htiniel . It abounels with deep _lineas anel pic'Ur _« Ht ,, u , _passage's , but it lias _nei claim to be regarded us the great symbolical poem winch it pretends to he . " A very juvenile passage indeed ! « In the twilight / ' says Goethe , " the
The North British Review, Just Issued, I...
plainest handwriting is illegible . " This writer will live to blot out all such passages as the one we have quoted ; the article itself gives unmistakeable evidence of fine critical Blackwood is varied and entertaining this month . Christopher North is once more " under canvass , " to the delight of his friends , discoursing in the old familiar tones of Milton—et quibusdam aliisj Dr . Wagner _' s travels furnish an agreeable paper from Stamboul to Tabriz j Bulwer continues his novel _; Politics , of the dreary kind , have their verbose expression and tabular rhetoric ; the Moor and the Loch carries ns away from the crowds pleasantly . Natural history seems in favour this month . The North British has its paper on Ornithology , and Blackwood its paper qp the sports with rod and gun , and Bentley's Miscellany its amusing inquiry into the habits and habitats of Rats . The writer—evidently the author of the Zoological Anecdoteshas the fitting love of rats ; he eyes them as a zoologist , not as a householder ; he writes with one on his table licking its paws , contemplative of cheese and _careltss of cats , and cannot be unjust to the race . Nay , hear how he defends them : — " The rat is one of the most despised and tormented of created animals ,- he lias many enemies and very few friends ; wherever he appears his life is in danger from men , dogs , cats , owls , & c , who will have no mercy on him . These perpetual persecutions oblige him to be wary in his movements , and call for a large amount of cunning and sagacity on his part , which give his little sharp face a peculiarly knowing and wide-awake appearance , which the most superficial observer must have noticed . Though , poor creature , he is hated and killed by man , his sworn foe , yet he is to that same ungrateful race a most useful servant , in the humble capacity of scavenger ; for remote parts of the earth , quietly takes possession of the out-houses , drains , & c , and occupies himself by devouring the refuse and filth thrown away from the dwelling of his master ( under whose floor , as well as roof , he lives ); this refuse , if left to decay , would _engendei fever , malaria , and all kinds of horrors , to the destruction of the children of the family , were it not for the unremitting exertions of the rats to get rid of it , in a way no doubt agreeable to themselves , namely , by eating it . Let ns take an example . The sewers neighbouring a connected series of slaughter-houses , as Newgate Market , Whitechapel , Clare Market , efec ., are often nearly choked up with offal and the foul refuse of animal matter , swept into them by the careless butchers . It maybe imagined what fearful maladies would arise from this putrid mass if it were allowed to stay there neglected . How is this evil result prevented ? Why , by the poor , persecuted rats , who live there in swarms , and devour every morsel _centrated cholera as it comes down to them , profiting thereby themselves inhabitants of the houses who reside above their haunts . " We have on several occasions strongly expressed our dissent from the mechanical conception of the Universe , usually implied or advocated by theologians , and this month we see Kingsley , in the opening chapter of Hypatia , very eloquently expressing the same opinion . He speaks , it is true , through the mouth of his Hypatia , so that we are not to conclude the view to be his own j but we shall be curious to see how he will answer it when he comes to the part of answering all her philosophy , and , meanwhile , we let our readers have the benefit of her eloquence : — "' If the universe lives and moves , and has its being in him , must sarily pervade all things ?' "' Why ?—Forgive my dulness , and explain . ' "' Because , if he did not pervade all things , those things which he did not pei vatlo would be as it were "' True , but still they "' Well argued . But live in him they must be think it even reverent , to affirm that there can be anything within the infinite glory of Deity which has the power of excluding from the : . space : which it _eiccupics that very being from which it elraws its worth , anel whie-h must have originally pervaded that thing , in order tei bestow _t ) n it it < _j organization anel its life ? Does he retire after creating , from the space which he occupied during creation , reduced to the base necessity of making room for his own universe , and endure thcsiiffcrin" - —for the analogy of all nature tells us that it is . suffering—eif a foreign boely , like a thorn within the llesh , subsisting within his own substance ? Rather believe : that his wisdom and splendour , like a subtle and piercing fire , insinuates itself externally with resistless force , through but for an instant from the eleael chaos from which it w _lovelincss " ' Yes _'—shii went on , after thc method of her school , who preferred , like most decaying ones , orations to dialectic , and _synthesis tei induction 'Look at yon lotus llowcr , rising like Aphrodite : from the wave : in whie-h it bus slept throughout the night , anel saluting , with bending _swan-iie-e-k , that sun which it will follow leivingly around the sky . is there nei more there than brute-matter , pipes and fibres , colour anel shape :, anel the ; meaningless life-in-death which men cull vegetation ? Those olel K _gyptiun priests knew better , who _e-emlel se : e in tht ; number that the . form eif those- _iveiry petals anel _geildcn stamina , in that mysterious daily birth out of the wave , in that nightly baptism , from which it rise's _e'ueh morning _re-beim to a new life , the signs of some : divine : _iele'it . '" Besielcs JJypatia , there are either papers in this month ' s Fraser of excellent material . One on Gold and Emigration — perhaps e _^< " topic of the flay ; one , a letter from the author of Friends iu Council , on the ideas suggested hy that American novel Uncle Tom's Cabin ( which i . s the topic in America , the book selling , us we hear , something like n thousand copies a day ) , a letter bright with the humour and sagacity of its author ( extracts will bt : founel elsewhere in our columns ) ; a re : vie : w of the Austrian Poets , unel a defence , somewhat unnecessary now , of the lYc-Kaphnclitcs . appreciation and independent thinking and turmoils of cities into the free air most wherever man settles his habitation , even in the most there , as if by magic , appear our friends the rats . He interstices in Ins being , anel m so far , without him ?' woulel be within his circumference . ' yet thoy would not live in him , but in themselves . To pervaeled by his life :. Do yem think it possible—do you every organized atom , anel that we're : petal of the meanest _fleiwer , _greiss ni is _fen-ineel , wemlel be all which would of conand tha he not neces it withdrawn ntte : r , anel tht : remain of its
In France There Seemsno Activity. Victor...
In France there seemsno activity . Victor Hugo , who has just left
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 7, 1852, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_07081852/page/19/
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