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Leader (1850-1860), 6th November 1852, Edition Town of 2, Page 1071, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      , ^ jg at least may be affirmed without fear of contradiction , that there never a mind in the world from which , when it was pricked by any occasion what-WaS r there poured forth on the instant such a stream of precious substance intellectually related to it . " Of Goethe many true and excellent things are said , and the sort of things needful to be said , but they are not spoken from the same fulness of knowled ge as those on Shakspeare . The contrasts and resemblances , however , are suggestively stated . Here is one : — « One thing these love-romances of Goethe ' s early life make clear—namely , that for a being" of such extreme sensibility as he was , he had a very strong element of self-control . When he gave up Lilli , it was with tears , and no end of sleepless nights ; and yet he gave her up . Shakspeare , we believe ( and there is an instance

      exactly in point in the story of his sonnets ) , had no such power of breaking clear from connexions which his judgment disapproved of . Remorse and return , selfreproaches for his weakness at one moment , followed the next by weakness more abject than before—such , by his own confession , was the conduct , in one such case , of our more passive and gentle-hearted poet . Where Shakspeare was ' past cure , ' and ' frantic-mad with evermore unrest , ' Goethe but fell into 'hypochondria , ' which reason and resolution enabled him to overcome . Goethe at twenty-five gave up a young and beautiful girl , from the conviction that it was better to do so . Shakspeare at thirty-five was the abject slave of a dark-complexioned woman , who was faithless to him , and whom he cursed in his heart . The sensibilities in the German poet moved from the first , as we have already said , over a firmer basis of permanent character . "

      So far from the age of Reviews having expired , here is a new appearance , a Retrospective Review , published by the antiquarian bookseller , Mr . Russel Smith . Its selection of papers is sufficiently various . The opening essav , on the Dramatic Writings of Afra Behn , treats a curious subject , but treats it without skill . That on Bishop Berkeley ' s celebrated tract on Tar Water is very superior , and fulfils all the requisites of a Retrospective Review . French Pictures of the English in the Last Century is extremely curious and amusing ; curious also that paper on Population and Emigration in the Seventeenth Century . We perfectly agree with the conclusions of the paper on The First Edition of Shakspeare . In a word , this new Review promises to be both entertaining and valuable ; we hope it will meet with sufficient support .

      Untitled Article

      The Magazines this month are duller than usual , and we find little that calls for notice here , beyond the account of Mrs . Beecher Stowe and the Beecher family in Fraser . Nine of these Beechers are authors , and all the members of the family present remarkable peculiarities : — " All of them have the energy of character , restless activity , strong convictions , tenacity of purpose , deep sympathies , and spirit of self-sacrifice , which are such invaluable qualities in the character of propagandists . It would be impossible for the theologians among them to be members of any other than the Church militant .

      Father and sons , they have ever been in the thickest of the battles fought in the Church and by it ; and always have moved together in solid column . To them , questions of scholastic theology are mummeries , dry and attractionless ; they are practical , living in the real present , dealing with questions which palpitate with vitality . Temperance , foreign and home missions , the influence of commerce on public morality , the conversion of young men , the establishment of theological seminaries , education , colonization , abolition , the political obligations of Christians ; on matters such as these do the Beechers expend their energies . "

      The new Magazine called Public Companies Monthly Manual , an Industrial and Statistical Magazine , confesses that this , its first number , does not all carry out its intentions ; we will reserve our verdict , therefore , until next month , for the present simply announcing the existence of the work .

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      We have had to record many deaths of men endeared by their talents to a larger or a smaller public , men known to thousands and men known to few ; but we have not hitherto had the pain of recording tbe loss of one within the nearer circle of friendship . We must do so to-day . Vincent , the youngest son of Leigh Hunt , has passed away from us in his thirtieth year . Known to the public he was not , although his gentle mind had such sweetness and such delicate strength in it , which one mig ht liken to the quiet smiles of genius , that a collection of bis poems would assuredly have found a retired niche for him in the great temple . But if unknown to the great public he was known to a large circle of friends , and loved wherever known for that generous nature of his , so loving , so faithful , so simple , so boyish ! Among those friends we presume there are many of our readers , who will hear with sudden mournfulness that the delicate existence they

      must fre quently have trembled for , has passed away from pain , its ghmincrln g spark of life gone to shine in other forms of the Divine Life , leaving behind it that luminous trace which bright affectionate natures leave in human hearts , a trace more to be prized than all the dazzling talents which c'ver claimed the admiration of a crowd .

      Untitled Article

      TIIAOKKBAY'S NEW NOVEL . , History ofTlrnn / JCsmond , JCsq ., a Colonel in the Service of Queen Anne . " vTriMon "y HhnHolf . In throo voIh . , Smith , Eldor , and Co . Ajik opening paragraph of iliis history is not only characteristic of iln author , hut of the work : — " '' ¦ ho aetorH in tho old tragedies , as Wo road , piped thoir iiiinbics to u tun © , " peaking from under a musk , and wearing Htiltn and a groat luuid-drcHH ., 'Twuh ••• ought tho dignity of tho Tragic Muso required those appurttMianct'H , and that !!) ' 7 Mot to Ulovo «««« pt to a measure and cadence . So Queun Mcd « a hIuw h « r J , U ) n K 'w imiHidc : and King Agnmomnon perinhed in u ( lying fall ( to uhh J « r I ) ry < loii ' H wordH ) : tho Chorus standing by in a sot attitude , and rhythmically » ul decorousl y bowailing tho fates of those grout crowned persona Tho Muso of l ( Jtory lmtb . ouciuubered hormlC witJu eoreuionr n » woll wt hev Swtor of tho

      Theatre . She too wears the mask and the cothurnus and speaks to measure . She too , in our age , busies herself with the affairs only of kings ; waiting on them , obsequiously and stately , as if she were but a mistress of Court ceremonies , and had nothing to do with the registering of the affairs of the common people . I have seen in his very old age and decrepitude the old French King Lewis the Fourteenth , the type and model of king-hood—who never moved but to measure , who lived and died according to the laws of his Court-Marshal , persisting in enacting through life the part of Hero ; and divested of poetry , this was but a little wrinkled old man , pock-marked , and with a great periwig and red heels to make him look tall , —a hero for a book if you like , or for a brass statue or a paintedceiling , a god in a Roman shape , but what more than a man for Madame Maintenon , or the barber who shaved him , or Monsieur Fagon , his surgeon ? I wonder shall History ever pull off her periwig and cease to be court-ridden ? Shall we

      see something of France and England besides Versailles and Windsor ? I saw Queen Anne at the latter place tearing down the Park slopes after her stag-hounds , and driving her one-horse chaise—a hot , red-faced woman , not in the least resembling that statue of her which turns its stone hack upon Saint Paul ' s , and faces the coaches struggling up Ludgate Hill . She was neither better bred nor wiser than you and me , though we knelt to hand her a letter or a washhand-basin . Why shall History go on kneeling to the end of time ? I am for having her rise up off her knees , and take a natural posture : not to be for ever performing cringes and congees like a Court-chamberlain , and shuffling backwards out of doors in the presence of the sovereign . In a word , I would have History familiar rather than heroick : and think that Mr . Hogarth and Mr . Fielding will give our children a much better idea of the manners of the present age in England , than the Court Gazette and the newspapers which we get thence . "

      It is to show us some reflected image of the time that this book is written ; and therefore , unless duly warned , the reader may feel some disappointment when he finds that " Thackeray ' s new novel" is not a comic novel , scarcely a novel at all , and in no sense a satire . It is a beautiful book , not one sentence of which may be skipped ; but it is as unlike Vanity Fair and Pendennis as a book written by Thackeraycan be . To those who look beyond the passing hour , and see something more in literature than the occupation of a languid leisure , Esmond will have many sources of interest . One of these may be the purely biographical one of representing a new phase in Thackeray ' s growth . Tracing the

      evolution of his genius from the wild and random sketches which preceded Vanity Fair , we perceive an advancing growth , both as a moralist and as an artist . In Vanity Fair the mocking mephistophelic spirit was painfully obtrusive ; to laugh at the world—to tear away its many masks —to raise the crown even from Caesar ' s head , that we might note the baldness which the laurels covered—to make love and devotion themselves ridiculous , seemed his dominant purpose ; and had it not been for the unmistakeable kindliness , the love of generosity , and the sympathy with truth which brightened those mocking pages , all that has been ignorantly or maliciously said of Thackeray ' s " heartlessness" would have had its evidence .

      In Pendennis there was a decided change . The serious and nobler element , before subordinate , there rose to supremacy ; the mockery withdrew into the second place . A kinder and a juster appreciation of life gave increased charm to the work . Although , perhaps , not on the whole so amusing , because less novel , and , in some respects , a repetition of Vanity Fair , it was , nevertheless , an advance in art , was written with more care , and , as before hinted , was less sarcastic and sceptical . That vein of seriousness which ran like a small silver thread through the tapestry of Vanity Fair , has become the woof of Esmond ; the mocking spirit has fled ; such sarcasm as remains is of another sort—a kind of sad smile , that speaks of pity , not of scorn . Nor is this the only change . That careless disrespect , which on a former occasion we charged him with ( Vide No . 39 ) , is nowhere visible in Esmond . If as a work of art Esmond has defects , they are not the defects of carelessness . What he has set himself to do , he has done seriously , after duo preparation . k-

      Seeing , as we do , such evidences of growth , and of growth upwards , and remembering that ho is only now in his forty-second year , may we not form the highest hopes of su « fh a mind P Considered as a landmark on his career , Esmond is of peculiar significance But we have hero to consider it in another light ; tho reader impatiently asks , " What am I to think of it P " Little Sir , you aro to think this of it : An autobiography , written in the autumn light of a calm and noble life , sets before you much of the private and domestic , no less than of the public and historic activity of tho reigns of William and Anne . The thread which holds thene together is a simple and a touching one—tlio history of two devotions . All who have lived will feel here the pulse of real suffering , so different from " romantic woo ; " all who have loved will trace a real affection here , more

      touching because it has a quiet ; reserve- in its expression ; but we shall not be in tho least surprised to hear even " highly intelligent persons " pronounce it " rather a Calling off . " Hut you , good sir , who follow your Jjcader , will honestly declare that it touched and delighted you ; that from tho first page to tho last you loved tho book and its author . Without pretending to that minute knowledge of the period which could alono justify an authoritative opinion , wo may say that this book has bo much the air and accent of tho time , it would iinpo . so on hh if pro-Honted an a veritable History of Colonel Knmond ; and this verisimilitude is nowhere obtruded ; the art has concealed the art .

      In structure and purpose it reminds us of . Leigh Hunt ' s Sir Ralph Either , to which justice has not been done , because- it has been read for a novel . . The men of those days , no leas than the events , move across the scene , and we get ; hasty yet vivid gliinj > . sen of Addi . son , Stoele , Swift , Bolingbroke , Marl borough , Atterbui y , Lord Mohun , and the Pretender . True to that opening pannage we have quoted , thone historic persons lmvo none of the " dignity of history "—they walk before us " in their habit as they lived . " The characters are numerous , but are rather " skotehed in , " as one would find thorn in memoirs , than elaborately developed , art in a fiction . Lady Castlewood and Beatrix are , indeed , full-length portraits ; both

      Untitled Article

      November 6 , 1852 . ] THE LEADER . 1071

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 6, 1852, page 1071, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1959/page/19/