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1044 Tp . LEADER. [Saturday
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Kittxaiuxt
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Critics are not th© legislators, but the...
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Truly was it said that Time spares nothi...
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Turning from poetry to bitter prose, we ...
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The other day we mentioned the existence...
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BUTLER'S ANALOGY v. MODERN UNBELIEF. The...
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.
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1044 Tp . Leader. [Saturday
1044 Tp . LEADER . [ Saturday
Kittxaiuxt
Kittxaiuxt
Critics Are Not Th© Legislators, But The...
Critics are not th © legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforcethem . —Edinburgh Review .
Truly Was It Said That Time Spares Nothi...
Truly was it said that Time spares nothing produced without his aid , — he temps n'tfpargne pas ce qu ? on fait san $ Zm , and all voluminous Authors pass through the inexorable sieve of time , leaving behind a heap of rubbish . How little of the little that remains is good for anything ! Take up the " Selections from Dryden , " just published , by Parker and Son , in a pleasant pocket volume , and make a selection from those selections , retaining only that which has not been better said before or since , and see into what small compass Dryden , great writer and great name , may be honestly compressed . ; This is one of those reflections which would discourage poets , i were they of a race to be discouraged ; but a second reflection comes in aid , and shows us how Nature , lusty prodigal , delights in repeating herself , and in producing , with exquisite pains , the evanescent creatures of an hour . In fact , the inward impulse to create , by the Greeks called a " gad-fly , "oicrrpog , will find outward activity ; and so the poet , like all other creators , flings forth good , bad , indifferent , with impartial productivity . It is only by this affluence of creation that the higher forms are reached . The man who waits till he can produce perfection , will finallyi produce a monster . Dryden is right in saying , — Poets , like lovers , should be bold and dare , They spoil their business with an over-care . And he who servilely creeps after sense Is safe , but ne ' er will reach an excellence . ( Let us add , by the way , that this is , in all probability , the passage meant to be ridiculed in the Rehearsal , where Johnson says that Bayes ( Dryden ) is too proud a man to creep servilely after sense . ) Then , again , the difficulty of saying anything that has not been " said before I" —as well object to Nature for re-producing flowers , so that Sir Critic walking through a garden and meeting with a rose might say , " I have met with that remark before . " The question is not priority , but truth ; not chronology , but growth ; and herein lies the whole question of plagiarism , which is only plagiarism when not assimilation . Or we may take Piron ' s witty advice : if the ancients have forestalled us , let us do as they did , and forestall our descendants ! Us ont dit , il est vrai , presqne tout ce qu ' on penso , Leurs ecrits sont des vols qu'ils nous ont faits d'avance ; Mais le remede est simple , il faut faire comme eux Tfs nous ont derobes ; derobons nos neveux Et tarissant la source oil pnise un beau delire , A ions nos successeurs ne laissons rien a dire . Un demon tiiomphant m ' oleve a cct cmploi : Malheur mix ecrivains qui viendront aprbs tnoi ! Dryden assuredly was prodigal enough , producing heaps of worthless formless poetry , and many splendid forms that will endure . Turning over the volume of Selections before us , seems like looking at Dryden as he lives in an affectionate memory , the beauties prominent , the faults retiring . " Remember Dkydkn and be blind to all his faults , " Gray ' s advice . Here in this volume you have such a remembrance of him . The sweep of his harmonious and full-sailed verse has never yet been rivalled ; and although the poetic feeling and pictorial imagery are not those of our day , they have frequently a sort of antique grandeur , and sometimes a Shakespearian accent which falls delightfully upon the car . Thus when he says— Fortuno fame smiling to my youth and woo'd it , And purple , (/ realties ?; ' / net in // ripened ears . there is a magic of sound and sense intermingled , which no one can withstand . Again , how lino is this : — So now 1 am at rest —• . 1 feel , death risin / j higher stiff ., and higher , Withhi my bosom ; every breath 1 letch Shuts up my life within a shorter eoinpnus : And like the vanishing sound oflxtllu , grows loss And lens each pulne , till it be lost , in air . It is the dearth of " news" that makes us linger over the pages of this old poet . AVhy should we not " gossip" about tin' old now and then , as well us about the fugitive ; topics of to-day ' ( Who does not love to hear about our " old pouts "—old , and yet still ever young ? Moreover the young poets arc so scarce ! Apropos of young poets , our mood being to quote beauty as a splendid substitute for news , let us borrow a passage or two from Ai-kxandku Smith ' s lust instalment of A Life Drama , wherein , amidst a prodigality of images , the true ; poet is uninistukeable , e . y . : — Alas ! tlm youth I'Jarnesl as flame , could not ho tumo bis heart , As to live quiet ( lays . When th' heart-Hide earth Turns her broad back upon the gaudi / Sioi-And stoops her wear // forehead , to the ni ght To str / f f / fe with her sorrow all alone , The Moon , that , patient tmi \ hvci ; palc with pain J ' resses her cold , lips on her sister ' s brow Till she is calm . Hut in Ids non-own' ni ^ ht llo found no comforter .
In quite a different style this is as fine—we give the emphasis of it r to that concrete image of a grave , so characteristic of his style - Lady ! he was a fool , a pitiful fool . She said she loved him , would be dead in spring She asked him but to stand beside Ler grave She said she would be daisies—and she thought J Twould give her joy to feel that he was near . She died like music ; and , would you believe 't He kept her foolish words within his heart As ceremonious as a chapel keeps A relic of a saint . And in the spring The doting idiot went I VIOI-ET . What found he there ? WALTER . Laugh till your sides ache ! O , he went , poor fool ! But he found nothing save red trampled clay , And a dull sobbing rain . Do you not laugh ? Amid the comfortless rain he stood and wept , Bareheaded in the mocking , pelting rain . He might have known 'twas ever soon earth . His power of word-painting surpasses that of any modern poet ; the images are vividly present to his mind , and he reproduces them " in words that burn . " Here is a stanza which is in poetry what Jane Eyre's descriptions are in prose : —r " I see a wretched isle , that ghost-like stands , Wrapt in its mist-shroud in the wintry main ; And now a cheerless gleam of red-ploughed lands O ' er which a crow flies heavy in the rain /' What colour in those phrases , " mist-shroud in the wintry main , " " redploughed lands , " and the crow " heavy in the rain !"
Turning From Poetry To Bitter Prose, We ...
Turning from poetry to bitter prose , we regret to hear that the venerable naturalist , Nees von Eisenbeck , whose dismissal from the professorial chair , on political grounds , we noticed some weeks ago , is now starving in Breslau . In his seventy-sixth year this unfortunate man lives over a cowstall , without even a sufficiency of food , his library having been sold to pay his debts , and his large collection of plants finding no purchaser . That German naturalists can suffer such a thing is strange .
The Other Day We Mentioned The Existence...
The other day we mentioned the existence of a French Athenaum After the experience of three months , we cannot greatly recommend it , neither as a useful " taster of books , " as a journal with sufficient talent to be interesting on its own account . The subjects treated of are not sufficiently new and varied ; the style indifferent . A German periodical , under the title of Deutsches Athenaum , is advertised to appear on the 1 st of January . If this notice should reach the eye of its editor , let it suggest to him that the readers of such a journal want to he informed about books , and are supremely indifferent to the contributors . Good analyses , with ample extracts , are wanted : but where is the German to do this ?
Butler's Analogy V. Modern Unbelief. The...
BUTLER'S ANALOGY v . MODERN UNBELIEF . The Analogy of lleligion , Natural and licvealed , to the Constitution and the Course of Nature ' ; to which are added , Two brief Dissertations on Personal Identity andj > n the Nature of Virtue ; and Fifteen Sermons . By Joseph Butler . With a Preface , by Samuel Halifax , T ) . D . New edition , with Analytical Introduction , Notes , jinrl Index . ( Holm ' s Standard Library . ) 1 * . G - 1 John-It is a very grave reflection on the state of Religious Philosophy in England , and a serious reproach to our two groat Universities , that aHhotitf li disbelief in Christianity has not only extended with amazing rapidity forni of
through all classes , but has also found now voices and a now opposition , nothing is produced on the side of orthodoxy to stem tins advancing current of disbelief ; nothing done to overthrow this now antagonist , inoro terrible because more earnest , more effective , because < hncarding the old polemical tactics , it speaks in the name of Kohtfi ° " against false religion . When wo say " nothing , " we are not simply j > ronouneing , ex cathedrd , on tho various " answers" published in the : lorn of book , article , and pamphlet ; we have in our eye the extremely Hitfniieant fact that Butlers Analogy is incessantly referred to as tho I > " 1 « " j of orthodoxy . Jt not only enters into university education , but in regnn < as having once und for ever disposed of all tho . solid objections to
brought against Christianity . .. ., , jj As the organ of modern unbelief—as the opponent in the name <> l ¦ ¦ ^ gion against Christianity , considered as a theology , and the Church a . ^ institution— -we deem it imperative on us to devote unusual snmie x * ^ . examination of this work , especially with reference to these two qu < ' * ¦'' ' j What bearing has the work on the great Htruggle between the < ^ the New Theologies ? How does it remove tlm doubts of I he Keep 1 "" Modern { hihvYwl' being so constantly referred to Hutler for » " V " [ ' jOI 1 helioves us to inquire what the nature of that answer is . N any e ' ^^^ of orthodoxy is dissatisfied with our selection of JJutler , let linn some bettor and more valiant chief , and wo will outer the arena
" Confident as ia the fidcon ' s Highl , " __ confident in the truth of our cause being superior to the finest w < M T '' Jj | i confident that , hh Haeou pithily says , " a torU > ine on the righi- j > outstrip a racer on the wrong . " ¦ i ) Vwl > ' We open Hutler , and at the outset we are somewhat ( liH ( u > iiruge _^ J ^ ,,, seems a vory frank admission , but which really Iiuh the ellecX o - _ ^^ adroitness . " The objeet of the Analoijy is not to prove the tru u ju lation , hut to confirm it , by nhowing thai ; there is no greater < n ; - ^ the way of believing the religion of Revelation than in believing < ^ gion of JNature . Here at tho outset tho truth of Jfcovolation
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 30, 1852, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_30101852/page/16/
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