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I^eb. 18, I860.] The Leader and Saturday...
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LITERARY BIOGRAPHY.* . T EIGH HUNT may b...
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* The Autobiography of Loigh Muni. A Now...
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Aspirations.* This Appears To Bo The Wor...
put forth at the shortest notice a deluge of the veriest truisms , and torment the reader with merciless self-repetitions . . ¦ We do not demand bran-new moral truths ; they are not so easily found ; perhaps any man who could produce five , such really , would be the greatest man of the day : we can aim at little more than to give frisk and unexpected illustrations , cite very remarkable examples , throw the light very strongly oii ^ ne facelet of a diamond truth ; ehow an unknown root , or a fresh ramification , make - complements that have been omitted by others , abbreviate the results of a wide induction into as few words as possible , and as wide
strong , or call some authoritative witness against - . a- -spread fallacy . In default of an absolute and almost imnossibteonginality , the above requirements are what a reader may fairly make of a man who comes forward as the propounder and propagator , moral truths ; andjas far as these requirements are concerned , we consider the present volume , in the main , a failure . Up to a certain point of excellence , a writer who seeks eminence in this department , if department it can be called , should come , and the line nuist be held tightly . The author has great reading ; but this reading appears to us not to have produced its simplest good e ffect , —that of avoiding ten more repetitions of what he must have met with ten , or nf ty times , it may be , in the several authors—and their name is legionwith whose works he seems to be familiar . The best effect of his varied leading is , that it has made him liberal , possibly even too liberal to , men holding the most opposite opinions ; it has given him a very wide range of sympathy and of charity for all , even for those who have had very little charity themselves . The quotations are numerous , and form an important part of the work ; they are from the Greek and Latin , and all the higher modem European languages : some are very good ; with reference , to mViny of them , the following remarks of Sir Thomas Brown , in his "Vulgar Errors / ' are applicable . "We urge authorities on points that need not , and introduce the testimony of ancient authors to confirm things evidently believed , and whereto no reasonable hearer but would attest to them . . . . which , althoughknown / and vulgar , are frequently urged by many men ; and , though trivial verities in cur mouths , yet noted from Plato , Ovid , and Cicero , they become reputed elegances . " We have not attempted to test all the quotations and references ^ but s 6 me are irrelevant . With their context we happen to be familiar . That from Dante ' s " Puigatorio , " for instance , page ^ * has no reference whatever to the matter which the author is urging , nor is it ejen applicable , or in point ; as a loose line . Again , the four lines from " Monti , " page 195 , previously wseH by Madame & e StaeliniJie " Corinne " are certainly very little to the point , and had the author known the poem whiclr he cites , he might have found four others there really to his purpose . To ptove a trivial propositionviz . " There is indeed a soul in nature , and that soul is God , "
, , he adduces three lines of a Sophqclean fragment , which merely state ,, with pure Greek simplicity , that there is one God who made heaven , earth , and sea . Such quotations are pedantry , they are not worse , the result of calculation upOn the ignorance of the reader . The truisms are very fatiguing . We detest garbled quotations from an- author whom we are reviewing , and we will show this , as briefly , and at the same time as fairly , as we can . The author , if wordy , is seldom absolutely pompous , though he is so once or twice , when he has to make what appears to him to be an important enunciation . We Mill take then two of these .
( Page 177 . ) " Were it poss ible then , it should be blazoned in characters of light , proclaimed as with ! a thunder ' s roll , that our powers must be exercised and developed to be retained . " ( Page 228 . ) " Peal it then through furthest heaven , no one ia good in vain . ' * We have taken two cases of magnificent announcement purposely , and leave it for the reader to judge whether the wool is worth the cry . Such verities do not need , repeating-, even as premises or intermediate propositions , much less as conclusions . We should be ver ^ sorry to maintain what we have said at the expense of the reader ' s temper and patience by further ( potations of the same description , which we might make by the hundred . If I > r . M'Qormack ' s , " atill voice" were not sometimes better than his thunder peals , we should never have taken the trouble to review him so much at length . There is much and high meaning in the following ;—
" Manners , in truth , make us free of the angelic kingdom , and . founded on goodness and love imply the very courtesies of heaven . Tor if we shall but reflect , the essential happiness of this Hie and of the life to come must nee ' ds include the commerce—itself celestial—of nature * progressively elevated wltlj each other , and with God . " ( pp . 48 , 49 . ) u The atheism of which I would apeak is of a yet more disastrous stamp i—acknowledging God , but loving Him not ; profossing charity , but evincing none j admitting God ' s existence with as little feeling as it fa denied by Bomc : the atheism of the heart , in short , if not the atheism of the understanding , " ( p . 48 . ) , " For all eulf-riraposed limitation—and every new duty is a limitationwhich is a condition of a real exercise of the spiritual or higher life , ia the reverse of ft real limitation , reconciles us in so fav with God . " ( p . 68 . ) "It U only what tho soul drinks in with eagerness that becomes thoroughly and perfectly its own , " ( p . 00 . )
We could , heartily wish that such . matter predominated in the book , and that there were lesa verbiage . Extensive reading ought to give an author mastery over language , not language mastery over him , , ¦ / .. The style is somewhat Germanic and Emersonian , but Avithout Ijhe strength nnd originality of Emeraon- ^ when he chooses to write practical ly nnd wot myatically . Tho original ( German element in the English mind and atylo is most valuable , tho imported rather sickening i \ n <\ fadd . ''Silence is golden / ' quotes Ourlylej wo believe so , from
'" Sis aTunivS ^ ; i » Ses tha t a man may degrade himself infinitely , but does not appear to describe the process . Or define the pet od o y f self-recovery , ^ Towards the beginning of the volmnehe denies " retribution /' but elsewhere says that " God ' s violate ^ laws do most assuredly vindicate themselves , ** which , we ^^ ' ^^ much the same thing ; but we apologise rf we have m l 8 U . ^ ^ his meaning . The author admires and . counsels benevolence we think that he will find more extensive and practical exhibitions ot it in men of what ie apparently considers the narrow creed of the ^ nglisb Church , as ordinarily received , than amongst German dreameis and speculators , as there are exponents of its doctrines amongst our great divines knd moralists , the study of whose works would decidedly improve his style . es a man , ^ . _ .. .,
what it costs some people to keep it , and the precious privilege thereby secured to their non-hearers ; *^ rid speechisi silvern ;^ buj of all kinds defend us from German silver ; of the two , we rathei prefer the worst British metal ; for there is less pretentiousness about ft . At the same time , we can honour such writers ^ . J ^ , ^'' and we wish Br , M ' Cormack had not alluded to Ricliters Tarfetched analogies , for it reminds us forcibly Of a power which he himse wants , and which would have supplied him with a tew more new metaphors and similes . , / ^ ' ,. „ i , Qwa In many of the author's doctrines we do not concur , but w have not allowed this disagreement to taint our criticism . ; we aboiild De Droud to share that kindliness of Spirit which some readers may prefer to tersenessand novelty , butwhich , without them , generally mak rather loved than read .-
I^Eb. 18, I860.] The Leader And Saturday...
I ^ eb . 18 , I 860 . ] The Leader and Saturday Analyst . 163
Literary Biography.* . T Eigh Hunt May B...
LITERARY BIOGRAPHY . * . T EIGH HUNT may be taken as the representative literary -Lj journalist of the first half of the nineteenth century , t lie would not be able to take that position at any later date . Inings have altered , and , as we hope , for the better , since . The pecuniary status , certainly , has undergone a great change and improvement . Literature has become more of a profession . This fact alone would disqualify the editor of the " Examiner" and " Indicator' for the situation , for lie would no longer have the excuse for his personal Huntin his
embarrassments that in his time reall y existed . Leigh - , autobiography ^ attributes these to his own ineptitude for accounts ; this may have blinded him to the fact as it stood ; but that fact was . though he could notsee it , that the ; world was then opposed to the iournal-crafitsman , and he had to win his bread against desperate , odds . Now , a market has been opened for hi ™ , and the juvenile adventurer of talent can find in it a ready resource , while waiting for his opportunity in the gi-eater world , or may safely nialce in it an abiding-place ¦ '¦ wit h the lair chance of a permanent jnepme . who the position ot
We are not of those , then , regard pecuniary Leigh Hunt as aTauit in the man , rather than as a misfortune irom which it was scarcely possible for an individual iii his position to escape . He was one of an army of martyrs , whose sufferings Av ^ re needed as the condition of the world ' s improvement , and tlie establishment of a new order or profession—and he was remarkably well fitted for the post by his aiitecedents and his disposition * 4- son of a liberal clergyman , with West Indian blood in his veins , thrown upon the world to live by his wits , there was just the instinct and the necessity in his nature and circumstances to iall into the way of life which he had adopted , and to follpw its chances and fortunes with as much courage and success as were likely to attend
the efforts of any similar aspirant . In some respects , he had many advantages . There was in him the creative mjnd of the poet , with much of the executive power ; an 4 an ( adroitness in prosp composition which stood Him in good stead in thej production of hterary and critical essays , that were designed rather to appeal tp popular feelings , than to display either erudition or orthodoxy . As to the latter , the age was in a state of transition , aixd as that s , ta ^ J 3 alwjjy ^ a painful one , there is no reason to wonder that Leigh Hunt , with his tTnitarianism and Universalisw , which he derived from his father , though the latter was a clergyman of the Church ot England , got sometimes into trouble with the religious world . TVTniwiv will nnw r-are what his theolocrical opinions were ; but what
he did for literature and civil liberty will ) iye in the remembrance of mankind , in whatever manner the popular creed may be modilied , whether thp form of belief become more or less latitudinarian than it was , or is , either in his'times or our own . In one point Leigh Hunt had « great advantage . He was a wit ; an elegant wit , who had studied in the school of our dramatists , novelists , and essayists , and had caught their spirit « nd their mantle . He belonged , also , to a guild , a brotherhood of wits--Charles Lamb , Thomas Campbell , the two Smiths / Theodore Hook , Thomas Mooro . Coleridsro , Keats , Byron , Shelley . _ Ok all these ,
Shelley comes out more magnificently than" any other . Wo gave Leigh Hunt no less than fourteen hundred pounds to pay his debts with ; and , to complete , the jest , the debtor was npfc at last rolioveH , but suflered the full penalty for a small outstanding liability . A ho world may laugh ; but Shelley ' s magnanimity was nOno the less , whether ita grin belong either to the broad or narrow gu » g ? o . On the railway of lift ) such a benefactor is seldom met with . After all , Leigh Hunt was more a man of taste than of genius . His faults belong- to the . former character ; his merits also . He
* The Autobiography Of Loigh Muni. A Now...
* The Autobiography of Loigh Muni . A Now Edition , revised by . the Authorj £ with further Revision , and » n Introduction by hfa Biaest Sow , Smith , Wider , and Co . .. Movattlm /; tho tthtorlan , Stntotman , anil JOmtivW-r i ^ f mJnown Zifo ami tJtomwj TMboura , with some Account of his JV « rl >/ « M Vnfcnown Writings , John ' Oiunden Hotton .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 18, 1860, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_18021860/page/15/
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