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    of 5#fc THE LEAPE.B. ' [No, 378 ^ SatTTp...

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    TWO HISTORIANS. The State Policy of Mode...

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    The Dead Secret. The Dead Secret. By "Wi...

    oathos , * elose obserrati ^ n those minor incidents , and st * btle elements which ; fill the outline of a tale with the vitality of truth ; vigorous and delicate description , and a style delightfully easy aad idiomatic , —all these are to be found in the volumes before us . A beautiful purity of thought and expression : spreads over the whole of the story , which , in its tranquil strength , makes us feel , with all the acuteness of ; a sensation , the loveliness of that morality which is based on the affections instead of outraging them , and -which finds its expression in noble , yet quiet , deeds , no * in sharp Collms

    maxims and academic phrases . As in some other of Mr . ' s writings , the divine principle of forgiveness is—not enforced , in the sense of dry exhortation , but—breathed into the mind of Ihe reader like a living influence . No one is less didactic than Mr . Collins : he provides us with no copy-book texts ; does not put on cap and gown to tell us that virtue is a good thing ^ nd vice highly improper ; refrains , indeed , from expressing any opinions on the subject ; but makes us feel vfhat is right and what is wrong , as perfectly as the touch discriminates between smooth ami harsh . This is the truest province and the . highest triumph of all art , which sickens to its death in

    when once , it indulges sermonizing . As a mere story , the Dead Secret is one of the author s best . The mystery is of a nature to excite the keenest curiosity , and is admirably concealed tHl it is the writer ' s pleasure to unfold it . The wild , vast , rambling old house © n the desolate coast of Cornwall ,, flanked on the one side by bare sea , and on the other by bare moorland ; the long range of deserted and mouldering ; rooms , in which c the Secret' lies hidden , like guilt within the grave the terror-stricken flight of the servant , Sarah Leeson , from the house where she has shut up , in the midst of ghostly dust and silence , the record of the tale which she would fain conceal ; the weary misery with which , through , successive years , she wastes away in the consuming fire of her remorseful conscience and her superstitious dread ; the strange yet natural manner in which the chief characters are brought together , so that the plot may be unravelled ; the opening of the deserted North Koonis , and the discovery of the Secret;—all these elements of romance produce a tale which Mrs . Kadcliffe herself never surpassed for awful fascination , while , in

    other respects , the superiority of the living writer to the dead enchantress is too obvious to need pointing out . Beautiful is the capricious , womanly -character of Rosamond Frankland , full of a pretty waywardness , yet steadfast as Heaven itself in her devotion to ner blind husband . Most touching ^ in Ms affection for his forlorn niece , Sarah Leeson , is the conception of the old German * Buschmann ; and here let us pause to remark that the way in which this simple , true-hearted old man relates certain matters in eonnexion with the history of his niece is singularly affecting , and powerful without any gross show of pawer ^ -the occasional German idiom lending peculiar intensity to the language . And we do not know of any instance <> f gentle pathos more moving than , the scene in which the weary wanderer , relieved of the tormenting secret , and lying in the embrace of her from whom she Has been so long and cruelly separated , tells of her lonely desolation now pastand shows the frail mementos with which she soothed it .

    , Another characteristic of the story is the quiet ease with which the respective characters are dismissed at the close . They disappear , as they might in real life , into whatever new phase of their existence may be waiting for them beyond the limits of the story ; they do not descend through a trap-door , or vanish in blue fire . This may be particularly noted in the last which we hear of the old misanthrope , Andrew Treverton , and his equally misanthropical servant , Shrowl—both purely original sketches . We bave purposely avoided mentioning the nature of ' the becret m the ¦ course oftlus notice * because there may be some of our readers who have not vet read Mr . CoUins ' s . story ; and , for the opposite , or rather correlative , reason that probably most of our readers have by this time enjoyed the tale we make no extracts . Mr . Collins speaks with too well-known a voice to need the help of any reviewer . We have merely given expression to the delight we have received with all the earnestness which we feel .

    Of 5#Fc The Leape.B. ' [No, 378 ^ Satttp...

    of 5 # fc THE LEAPE . B . ' [ No , 378 ^ SatTTp ^ ^ |

    Two Historians. The State Policy Of Mode...

    TWO HISTORIANS . The State Policy of Modem Europe , from the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century to the PrtsmtTime . 2 vola . , Longman and Co . Ilhtvi-v of Civilization in Ewjland . iBy Henry Thomas Buckle . VoL 1 . Wb do not find that ; the- anonymous author of these volumes (' Me State JNUw of Modem Europe ) has advanced much beyond the point at which Heercn arrived in hia work on the State System of Europe . We are afraid that not a few of hia references have been borrowed from the two German volumes constituting what he terms the familiar manual of the Professor . Bis object , as stated in his own language , is to show how and by whom the great state combinations were ££ i hotk thev affected the minor statesas well as to anecieu oii *

    * . »>/• »« , >» .. <*» ree , formed , and in what degree tney vne mmw » . » , «« »»« - « — point eU the motives and spirit of the principal wars > alliances , and treaties of peace : in short , to review the international history of Europe during 4 he- )» sft throe hundred years . This , to a considerable extent , had b een donohr Heeren , whoso manner , however , is not such as to encourage any but' the most serious students . The writer of the book before us inherits one caaspicwus quality from hi * literary preckeessor—he is carefully ttnd « o » steten % dull . Now , there is no reason why international history should not toe e » tart * mmg . It te bmoful of anecdote ; it is interwoven with illustrations character iwu umjM «» *

    or personal ; . » ougut w »« « «» « . v —v — ~ - prptocols or despatches in cipher . But heaviness is not the author a only ein ; he- betrays himself at the \ ory outset into unphilosophical analogies And puerile comparisons , likening the Amphyctionic Council and Achaean League to parish meeting * , in contrast with the diplomatic assemblies oi WeefephaKo , Utrochti and' Tiemja , and seeking at Marathon and Salamis $ h <* prototy pe © of Adolphuer and off Drake . There is more of the school boy tfmn of thopedagoguoiwsuch iHuotrations . They arc obviously artificial , . and composed iwTorgetfulnew of YoUnnre ' st rebuke to his admirer . ¦*? Mft-. ctacne , yon asfc me how X can construct awob , fine phrases ; I assure you I xwvetr constructed ft p hrase h » oH my life * " Wkt w there but sounds signifVinr nothing , m sneh an outburst a » this . ? " nor oam tho student of

    history , however averse to vague speculation , help exclaiming t ~ I ! - T " < How could Old England have toiled on had Ch-irles 1 ° f ^^ K avengers as Louis XVI . ?' » It would not be safe , we think , to coZluff historical students , averse to vague generalities , au authority wWk pounds that England , during the Thirty Years' War , was reduced to f " almost as hopeless as that . of the Porte , and that dur ing the Restoraf * \? was more at the mercy of France than Carthage was at ? that of Rom ° / the second Punic war . _ Yet he is often judicious in his courageous tx * tionof opinions , and does ample justice to the policy of Louis XJV jr . ?* ]] 1 ' however , does- he revert to his eloquent habits , in such passages as t ^ n lowing : —" Nor can we forbear , before concluding , once more to noi ^ f the significance of the part played by the uncrowned and iinsworcled act —the state councillors . And , not to speak of the vast herd of unwortJi * courtiers , all the large number of little-minded diplomatists did was blabb and cobbling about the structure reared by the hands of tho few eifwF whose monuments stand mucli elevated

    m History as above all the doings f the rest as are in nature the lofty marks of the action of heat beside the slow sediments of the sluggish agency of water . " This , for a writer who imitates Gibbon , is a slight degradation of language . Again , to rely upon Alison—the weakest compiler and most dishonest plagiarist that ever obtained a reputation in Scotland—is equally a degradation of historical authority . As well might Lamartine be quoted to confute Louis Blanc The work has no doubt been compiled with uncommon diligence and sincerity , and may be useful as a summary of transactions bearing on three centuries of international history ; the authorities , however , are vaguely quoted ; the criticism is seldom close or penetrating , and the pervadin g dullness of the volumes is such as will discourage all but tiie very deter ° mined student .

    Mr . Buckle has undertaken a vast work ( History of Civilisation in England ) apparently upon a vast plan , llis first volume , containing nearly nine hundred pages , is exclusively devoted to a ' general introduction . ' Of what magnitude will the ' particular history' be ? The list of authors quoted is enormous , but the application of knowledge is . frequently somewhat loose . So much , however , was to be expected from the author ' s prolonged flourish of preliminaries , from his ' statement of the resources for investigating lus . tory' ' proofs of the regularity of human actions , ' to his ' outline of the history of the English intellect' and his ' proximate causes of the French revolution . ' We travel through all time befove we start upon the inquiry , and not through all time only , but also through space and science , and it is

    impossible not to respect the industry—not to say learning—which Mr . Buckle has brought to his labour . Unhappily , however , writers who task themselves painfully , often painfully task their readers , so that while Free Will , Causation , Arininianisin , phenomenal realities , wages , rices , cocoa-nuts , re , interest , and climate , with every other topic mentioned in an-encylopsedia , are pounded into Mr . Buckle ' s gigantic preface , it is not improbable that a phenomenal reality so fatiguing may frighten any one in the least disposed to levity from the perusal of the fourthcoming volumes in which the subject proposed on the title-page may be expected to be reall y discussed . At all events , if we are actually to have a History of Civilization in England , we do trust , for the sake of simple persons , that it may be such a narrative as will be to a certain depth translucent to those who have not settled convictions as to the moral law of suicide , the humanity necessarily produced

    by the great alluvial tracts of Asia , the difference between rice and ragi , the beids of the Shaster , or the social influence of the trade-winds . We know how easy it is to put together a Cyclopean body of references to books on all these miscellaneous topics , but while Mr . Buckle aimed at being exhaustive he might have gone farther and consulted Dumpier on fish-eating , Moor and Pigafetta on the propagation of the smnll-pox in Asia , Anderson on cannibalism , Vossius on savage life , Rousseau on the curse entailed on mankind by the discovery of iron , Favre ' s primitive pictures , the Red Sea testimonies essential to the

    Periplus , So . nnerat , Huet , and a hundred other elucidations of so excursive a theorist . We do not say that any one of the works we have named was necessary to the compilation of a history of English civilization ; we simply mean to shovv that an enormous list ot authorities , apparently complete and overpowering , inny be a total decopuon ; we find that Mr . Buckle has not gone to one half of the sources whence lie might have derived materials for his large and various ess : iy . bach deuciency is inseparable from a treatise so cumbrous and disjointed . beginning

    The General Introduction consists of fourteen chapter * , , as we have noticed , with a statement of the resources for investigating mstory , and including essays on tho influence of physical laws over the orgiunsution of society and the character of individuals , on the metaphysical method oi discovering mental laws , on the difference between mental and moral mifj pn the social power of religion , literature , and government , on tlio Oll «^ . ° * history and tho progress of historical literature , on the development w u » English and French intellect , on the protective spirit , and on . tho » wv ^»" preceding the great Revolution in France . Mr . Buckle writes distinctly anu with some rhetorical force , and his acquaintance with literature , Uowcvu superficial , appears to bo widely spread . Tho effect produced , "O ^ J " that of ostentation , aa when such a note ia introduced as tlna , on tno supw

    stitaous traditions of siulors : — , , ( Note 80 . ) I much regret that I did not collect proof of thin « t an oarhor pwwa of my reading ; but , having omitted tho requisite note * , I can only rofi jr , on ; ue m atition of Bailors , to Hebor ' a Journey through Mia , vol . i . nngo 4 SJ { f '"'" » . Travels in the Sahara , voL i . pago 11 } BurobhwrMn Travels in Arabia , vol . >»• ! "" » ' JUwU , Vhmemt vol . ill . . 1 C , 17 ; 2 Vaw . it of Jbn Baiutam ^ ^ f ^ Z , pngo 48 , Journal of Aai <* t . Soc , vol . i . page 0 ; Wvrto of Su-J < T " / Z ° UoM « ra , vol . 111 . poge fl »; Leigh UunVa Autobiography , 1850 , vol . | i . pago 26 j ; 6 ' * Memoir * , 1807 , vol . i . pp . 422-480 » Walah ' e Brazil , vol . I . pp . »« , «*» J * J * J ; ulf Arctic Hicj > editlon , vol . i . page 08 ; HolorofU Mmnolrs ^ oh i . pft «« ^ w' » tt » a % 0 << All la ' tttters of mention , however slight , are decorated with si 1 " ' '" '" !" ^ of refbrence , but a suspicious circumstance is , that good and Um * ™ , 1 illlinft . quoted together at random , with little attempt at criticism or didunnm tion .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), June 20, 1857, page 18, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_20061857/page/18/