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1OKO TEfE LEADER. [No 301, Saturday
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ESSAYS FOR THE AGE. Eatayafor the Age. B...
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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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Macau Lay. Tue If*** Of Inland. Fro,N Th...
Their place is wot supplied by the story of the siege of Londonderry , or the bS ? rKilliecrtok £ > admi / able as these are . The fault does not lie at the author ' s door . He has taken enormous pains , and lavished all the resources of his peculiar talent , but his subject is less attractive . William is the central figure of the whole . Macaulay has a passionate admiration for the Deliverer , unlike anything he has yet shown for any character in history , and almost as powerful as his intimate enmity towards James . If James bad ordered his ears to be cropped for writing seditious Edinburgh Review articles , Macaulay could not . have pilloried him with more savage triumph . This gives a certain " animation" to his work , but grave readers will note with some regret that a work which is certain to be , and
deserves to be , so popular , should be animated by such intense partisanship . Not that Macaulay can justly be taxed with wanting impartiality in his narrative of events . He is as impartial as historians usually are , perhaps somewhat more so . Certain political leanings must be granted to him ; vet he is not blind to the errors of his own party , nor to the characters of that party ' s chiefs . But both the men he admires and the men he hates are represented in colours no cautious reader ivill accept . In fact , one can scarcely name a portrait in the whole gallery which has much appearance of being like . The most ignorant reader can decide thus far . We do not require to see the originals of those I * portraits of gentlemen" hung up every year on the walls of the Academy to decide upon their resemblance : we know they are not likenesses , for we see that they are not men . Macaulay paints with epithets and antitheses ; he seems to care much more for the of his and after
effect of his sentence then for the fidelity expressions ; a page of epithets and generalities , a hazy bewilderment steals over the reader ' s mind , which he in vain tries to condense into something like the image of a character . If we open Carlyle's " French Revolution , " or his " Cromwell , " after reading a volume of Macaulay , it is like opening a volume of a poet after reading some very clever verses by one who has all the qualities except " the vision and the faculty divine . " ... Of genius , indeed , Macaulay has none . His talents are great—indisputable ; we should be sorry if any word of ours seemed to imply a want of respectful recognition of powers which are assuredly rare in such a combination as he presents ; but it would be an abuse of terms to apply the word genius to anything he has done . The measure of his powers may be seen in his stvle . It is assuredly a remarkable style : clear , graceful , at times brilliant , climax of which
but always mannered , and never rising to that perfection distinguishes great writers . He is often very picturesque , often very happy in the epigrammatic turn which makes a sentence memorable ; but there are none of those surprised secrets of language which are never refused to the happy ardour of genius , none of those supreme graces and startling felicities of expression with which every genius enriches the thought and language of his country . His style is like Wedge wood ' s crockery ; good , serviceable , cheap , fit for common use , better than what is elsewhere brought into the market ; but the excellences of Sevres and Dresden are never met with in it . He never thinks otherwise than as thousands have thought before him ; he never expresses himself in language not used by thousands before him . This is a merit , and a defect . It shows that he has no individuality ; or , if individuality be assigned to his peculiar manner , it is an individuality which
has no depth . While touching , thus briefly , on his style , we ought not to overlook a certain negligence in these volumes which we do not remember to have noticed before . He is fond of praising " the diction " of men in whom diction must surely be a quite minor merit . And indeed it is evident throughout that he is a purist in language , which in a man of letters cannot be considered a fault . But we observe him dropping into the penny-a-liner style oftener than could be expected from so elaborate a writer . He is fond of such phrases as " the city holds no mean place , " or " the nation rose as one man ; " nor is he deterred from using such a word as " hypothecate ; " nay , he even condescends to the barbarism " it should seem " for " it seems , " a phrase in frequent use , indeed , like its fellow " it would appear , " but which is only excusable in the hurry of newspaper writing . The phrase " it seems " ex-Sresses conditionally , and when " should" is added to " seem" the conitionality is rendered conditional ; it is like talking of wet water ( which the Greeks , by the way , did without remorse ) .
These are " trifles light as air , " and scarcely worth mentioning , did not Macaulay ' s reputation as a stylist give them importance . We shall make no extracts from a work which * will assuredly be in the hands of all our readers ere long , nor need we pause to point out its manifold excellencies , since no one will be blind to them . In concluding these brief remarks , however , which have been almost exclusively directed against defects , we wish to convey as emphatically as possible our sense of its value . Its slightest recommendation is that it will be read like a novel . The permanent good it will effect is one which rises superior to all minor merits or defects , and which all liberal minds will recognise as important , namely the striking lesson throughout inculcated of the immense advantage the nation has derived from being atedfnst to law and justice even in its most perilous hours j and the " ^ demonstra tion which runs through every chapter of the steady progress which has been made in every department , political and moral .
1oko Tefe Leader. [No 301, Saturday
1 OKO TEfE LEADER . [ No 301 , Saturday
Essays For The Age. Eatayafor The Age. B...
ESSAYS FOR THE AGE . Eatayafor the Age . By Charles F . Howard , author of " Perseus and his Philosophies , " Olympus , " & c . J . K . Chapman ana Co . Wb have not seen the former works of this writer , and confess that we sat down to read the present with a strong prepossession against it—a prepossession derived from the fact that ho lias printed at the end of Iris volume a list of ' ¦ ' opinions of the press , " all of a very dithyrambic tone , which announce to the world that the author is a phoenix . Publishers may , in the way of business , . quote flattering testimonies , of the wares they want to sell ; but when an axithor docs so , we almost invariabl y find him to be one whom * ' the papers ' pronounce a marvel , and the public a noodle , Such terrible discrepancy exists between " opinions of the press" and the opinions of Tenders ! % • ' ¦ ' In spite of our prepossession , however , the " Essays for the Age '' carried us from Prologue to Epilogue ; and if we did not discover in them * qualities
which could make us dithyrambic , we at any rate discovered an amount of caustic independence , and vivacious originality , which stamped these Essays as the production of what detestable writers , call " a mind of no mean order . " Thevare paradoxical , outspoken , terse , and often felicitous ; a little slapdash , and " a little crude now and then—essays and essayings . The subjects are various enough : Public Opinion—Routine—Samaritanism—the Moral of a Book Property—Religion—Authorship—Solomon ' s Satires—Wordsworth ' s Philosophy—the Royal Roads—the Purpose of Life—Right and Wron g . None of them are without suggestive matter , none of them filled with the idle twaddle commonly supposed to be inseparable from the dignity of the Essay . Without bearing comparison with the ^ Essays of Helps or Emerson , some of their best pages remind us of both . Mr . Howard hates cant , and says so . He does not admire Wordsworth , and says so . He is little awed bv
Respectability , and says so . He has but a mitigated respect for Holy Church , and says so . He thinks the Duke of Wellington a common-place man , and says so . He believes there ore royal roads t <> learning , to virtue , to fortune—and says so . Now a man who will say what he thinks , or will utter even paradoxes which he only half thinks , is worth reading , for he provokes thought , even when he exasperates his reader . The tone of Mr . Howard ' s " Essays" may be heard in the following extracts : —Here is one on
THE TYBAKNT OF BOARDS . It is probable that nine out of ten men would be in favour of what is politely called a Free Constitution , or in other words , a democracy in disguise . Undeicertain conditions , aud among certain people , this may be as good a form as any other . But it is the most intolerant of all . Its head and fountain is Public Opinion , and its means are Parliaments , Commissions , Congresses , and Boards . Probably more cruelty , injustice , and tyranny have been perpetrated under democracies , than under the sceptres of all the monarchs who have ever reigned . A body of men called a Bom-d ( can Mr . Trench tell us the origin of that horrid
word ?) aid and abet each other in decisions of iniquity , which any oue man separately would shrink from . A Board is always void of responsibility—it is a phantom and has no personality . Its Creator is Public Opinion—another phantom Is it the voice of the masses , or of the gentry , or of the shopkeepers , or of all and each compounded ? Is it the best insight , which , when men have once discovered they instantly rejoice in advocating ? Whence does it spring , and of what is it composed ? Is it always right ? " Is it everv-tight ? Is it ever wrong , and when ? If wrong , how is it to be convinced of its wrong , and who is to convince it ? Surely we should know somewhat of this power so vast , irresponsible ,
uncontrollable . The following is excellent : — It is in fact , nothing more than a repetition . Repetition benumbs . The same law is apparent in the physical world : if you rub the skin with any hard substance , it grows irritated , but rub it again and again , and Nature provides a callosity strong enough to resist it , or rather too dead to perceive it . And so it is with mind : some man tells you a monstrous lie , which you at once la \ igh at , but he tells it to you again day after day with a grave face : you see it in the corner of every newspaper you take up , it stares you in the fa . ee as you walk along the street , and you find that many people have faith in it . Now this simple repetition has had a considerable influence on your mind also : the novelty which at first provoked your merriment is all over , the outrage upon truth which called forth your censure is gone likewise , and there now arises a natural kind of aptitude between that fact and yourself : you grow weary of railing and become
reconciled to the imposition , however gross . It is thus with particular facts , and it is thus also with the general course of life . At eighteen all was novelty and delight but as the years roll on we find both those feelings become changed and deadened : the joy , the rapture , the fresh-blown hope , the confidence of boyhood , the newness of young blood , the fancy , and the poetry of life all are ^ - "the beautiful is vanished , and returns not , " you say with Wallenstem . And the dusky and sorrow-laden hours pass away in much the same manner . Ineiflier case manhood is tamed down , or brought up to a uniformly stupid and blunted mediocrity , wherein is no newness of joy , aud no newness of sorrow . AVe grow accustomed , and therefore we grow benumbed . We begin to look upon . men and events , upon women and opinions , upon principle and expediency as things upon which we have troubled ourselves for many years very uselessly . Here these facts are . we say , and here we suppose it is natural for them to exist . What i « that to us—see ve to that , and , like jesting Pilate , we live and grow fat making tuat nrst
a more respectable figure in the world than tormerly , but entirely losing view of life—a perception which , being unworn , is more likely to be true tnau this latter . This is custom , and custom is second nature ; but I doubt very much whether second nature is in so close a conjunction with truth as the first . It seems very questionable whether a man perceive a fact any the more clearly because he has seen it the more often . "A clear idea , says Burke , is a shallow idea , " and the more shallow we grow , the . more clear . It is by use , Dy exercise by discipline alone that we are able to utter what we thmk , but tne primitive perceptions are altogether above utteranco : there is a haze and wonder overhanging all things , and this is inexplicable until it gets melted down by custom into sentiments almost unworthy of explanation . The vision is so mil , that words fail to oonvey its meaning , and the oftener we look upon it , *™ le ™ it strikes us , whereby we are able to explain clearly , because we see the lower objecta . At certain times the sight of the moon and the stars impress ua very atranirelv . but onlv stav and try to mould that feeling into _ words , and you nna
it directly evaporating , so you talk ftbout the stars themselves . Evidently our feelings and untold ideas are of a higher and more actual stamp than those which can be uttered , for which reason the great excellence of a writer in to . havo the facility of saying the most whilst ho feels the most , for if he let the fooling go , he has only imagination—or memory—to aid him , and we all know now paltry a thing a man becomes , when he writes from imagination instead ol icoiing ; it is showing us a waxen image for a living man . We conclude with this caustic definition of niOIIT AND WRONG , The knowledge of tho difference between Right and Wrong is Hnpponed by jurists to constitute the difference between lunacy and aauity . Indeed , ovoiy ohild over five yeara of ago is , it is thought , fully capablo of making wo obvioiw n rofloction , and so intuitive a distinction . The various synonymos and I . . " " , . ' oationa whioh theso two small words have beon inado to bear , . amply J » "' _ supposition of the boundless , distance between them . Right ™ Virtue ; "* ' "» is Vice . Right is Dr . Cummingj Wrong ia Dean Swift . Right is a clean man ,, and tho Book of Common Prayer on a Sunday ; Wrong is boor , spirits , ami HK'fctles . Right is the Sunday School , and tho Religious Tract Sooioty ; Wronfo *" tobacco and pitoh-and-tosB . These more particularly apply to tho poor nu , but tho rich are quite as amply and gonerously provided for . For tho genwv
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 29, 1855, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_29121855/page/16/
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