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To have some twelve or twenty periodicals before you , and to have to go over them , so as to ascertain their contents and report on their merits , is the best possible training in the " art of skipping . " Practice has made us tolerably perfect in this art . Having been in the habit of hearing a great many sermons , and being' at the same time afflicted or blessed ( whichever you choose to call it ) with a constitutional tendency to reverie , which the pew-attitude naturally fosters , we long ago discovered that it was totally unnecessary to attend to a preacher throughout , and that we could delegate to the ear the business of watching for us , and keeping us duly informed ¦ when anything good was going on , for the reception of ¦ which it might be worth while to waken up the intelligence . We have acquired a similar knack in reading . " We believe we are conscientious reviewers , and just reviewers ; and yet we confess we don't read through all the books and all the-periodicals we pronounce opinions upon . We look at tlie outside : of a book or a periodical ; we read the preface , the list of contents , and all those
outer scraps -which give us the general physiognomy of the book ; then we sit down , paper-knife in hand , and cut up all the pages punctually from the first to the last , hovering all the while over the pages , like a hawk , glancing at the headings of chapters , at suggestive words and proper names in the text , descendin g leisurely for a closer view when anything attracts us , and swooping down rapidly and greedily wherever we descry a tit-bit . We don ' t say that that would be conscientious reviewing for a Quarterly-maxx ^ entrusted -with the task of giving a verdict on one book ; but we do say it is conscientious reviewing for the purpose of a literary summary . And we beg to say , cursory as the style of proceeding may seem , it is in our case perfectly satisfactory . " We are such adepts in the " art of skipping , " our instinct for what is good is so fine and so catholic at the same time , that , if we once have used our paper-knife on a publication , we are sure of having accurately diagnosed it , and not missed any of its tit-bits . Our golden rule , however , is to cut open all the leaves from end to end . All depends on that .
We have justs submitted the bulky residue of the month ' s periodicals to this process . We must say that the result has been to confirm the impression we ventured to state last , week , that the quantity of " skippable " matter in our periodicals is prodigious . There is not much that is positively bad or nonsensical ; but the amount ' of useless commonplace in the / way of thought , and insipid recornpilation in the way of history , shows that the editorial function is in many cases degenerating into a sham . Last week we quoted De Quxncev ' s remark about the non-sufficiency of merely reasonable thinking about a subject to entitle one to write upon it . We find some very apt remarks to a similar effect in a capital article on The Use and Abuse of Words , in the North American Review . The writer is
reviewing Dr . Peteoi Mauk Hoget ' s recently published Thesaurus of English Words , so classified and arranged as to facilitate the Expression of Ideas and assist in Literary Composition . He says : 'I The most cursory glance over mucli of tho * literature' tho day " , so called , will indicate the peculiar form of marasmus under which tho life ot language is in danger of being slowly consumed . The most hopeless characteristic of this literature is its complacent exhibition of distressing excellences . —its evident incapacity to rise into promising faults . The terms are such as are employed by the best writers , the grammar is good , tho morality excellent , the information accurate , the reflections sensible , yet the whole composition neither contains nor can communicate intellectual or moral life ; and a critical eulogiutn on its merits sounds like tho certificate of a schoolmaster us to tho negative virtues of liis pupils . This fluent which stumbles
dchility , never into ideas ror stutters into passion , which calls its common-place- comprehensiveness , and styles its sedato hmgour repose , would , if put upon a fihort jillpwanco of words , and compelled to purchase language at the expennu of conquering obstacles , bo likely to evince some spasms of genuine expression ; but it is hardly raisonablo to expect iliis verbal abstemiousness at a period when tlio whole wealth of the English tongue is jrfaced at the disposal of tho puniest whipstcra of rhetoric , —when tho art of writing is avowedly taught on I lie principle of imitating tho ' best models , '—when words nro worked into tho ears of the young in the hone that something will bo found answering to thorn in their br . iins , —and when Dr . Pctor Mark Itogot , who never happened on a verbal felicity or uttered a ' thought-executing ' word in tho course- ot liis long and useful life , rushes about , book in hand , to tornpt unthinking and unimpassioncd mediocrity into tho delusion , that its disconnected glimpses of truths never fairly grasped , ami its faint movements of embryo Hnpirntions whicli never broke thoir shell , < san bo worded by his specifics into creative thought and passion . "
I ho article from which this is extracted is one of tho best , if not tlie best , in the number ; the whole Review , however , is tolerably exempt—as a quarterly , and above all , a quarterly published in Boston , ought tp be— -from that vice of " fluent debility , " with which wo nro char ging so much of our periodical literature . Among tho other articles , there is one on Miss Martinhau ' s translation of Comtu'b Pihitiw Philosophy , beginning in this scandalous manner : " Wo nr < i sorry , but not surprised , that Miss Martinonu should liavo adopted tho opinions which are avowed in tho recent publication of her oorvoHpondenco with Mr . Atkinson , and in tlua uttomjpt to transl . ito Oointo ' ri l'liilnMophand to render it popular in KuiiIuihI Her
y . lurmor wntuigs ' Hlion-od « oiu , id » -rablciibilily , but it . wi » n tho ability of am ill-regulntoil mind , — ol a mind . working out of iUi proper milicro , and ticomlng all thowe limitations and rent mint b wiijon uidirootl y help us iu thu Honrch « ftur truth , Uormiao they imi-row tho ik-Kl of inquiry , and not us prcsorvatlvoN a . » iiiHt thn mont hurtful ern » rn . In her ninhiiioii to loavo tho common track , she linn wandered wildly over tho whole fluid of knowledge , and come , to tho inoat Darren conclusion « t luot , — to a U \ w \\ if it pun bo u . illod hiuiIi , tliut thoro in no divine , wnponn ondeneo of tlio iifliUra of tliin worM , and no liopo of a world to coino . TJio Ickdine mco ot her character \ xm , dwayH bcmi ititcllocLnnl nrroK «»«> . Sim Imn nevor lnul any lU-fi . tw ^ rn ^ , , " !*" ' T , C 0 IMwd t 0 Rllt ( ' > ' »» i" n » y JVitli iu her Cvuntur ; tho only buing whom filio has novor learned to distrust in herself . " h After this epooimon of the writer's controversial B ( yli » , it is unnecessary
to say that he is peevish and shiilL 0 ^ throughout . A . great deal of vinegar has been poured upon Comte by thfi Reviews : but we did not expect such ¦ weak vinegar from a Transatlantic Quarterly , A thorough discussion ) o £ ; Comte and his doctrines from-the true antagonistic point—aadthafepoint , we believe , is to be found in the philosophy of Sir Wilmam Hamimon , or thereabouts—is still a desideratum . Kant or Comte , transcendentalism or positivism—that , after all , is the alternative ; and all midway exposition and doctrinizing , is ( if the conditions of real speculative discussion are to be attended to ) but cleverness and mystification . One other course , indeed , there i& for those whose natures refuse to saddle themselves with the " conditions of speculative discussion "—and that is to keep clear , of the -whole subject follow their own noses as well as-they can , and let East and Coewe whirl antagonistically , like two windmills on the distant heights ; If they-are asked which windmill they believe in , they can- say " 1 see both . "
From the critical notices at the end of the North American Eevieio , w& perceive that America has started a candidate for the honours of Junius . A Mr . Frederic Griffin , in a book called Junius Discovered , sets up Goviknor Pownall as the proper man , oa evidence which the reviewer pronounces a failure . We have two other American Reviews—the Christian Examiner , published " in Boston ; and the New York Quarterly . The first is almost exclusively theological : the writers append their initials to their articles , as in the old Westminster ; and in addition to this ¦ , a printed slip , distributed with the Review , gives the names of the writers of the various articles , at full length . When will this practice become general ? The New York Quarterly has some interesting articles . The first , on The Morale of the Eastern War , is a Transatlantic apology fop the war . The following explains the writer ' s
: — - " We will frankly say , at the very start , what our view of the morale is , thus -enunciating tlie proposition we iviH , then attempt to prove .. We believe that in the pajn Russia has acted throughout it ! "better faith than Turkey or Turkey ' s allies' ; thatwhile the czar is not guilty of the simplicity of childhood , he is nevertheless neither a political ruffian nor a-buceaneer ; that while , like every other sovereign , acting not solely in a personal capacity , but representatively for his people , he may feel that more latitude and verge is given for bis actions than he would be entitled to as an individual , he has yet , in the present instance ; pursued a course which no otlier country would have taken unless its weakness compelled : it-to do so * in a . word , that while , like other sovereigns , he maybe ambitious and discreet , he has been careful to have much of th 0 right on his side from the very start , and to hav « kept to that right in a way that would almost argue a weakness in the instrumentality or an indecision in the will by whicli his ends were sought to be obtained . "
Any view maybe maintained by argument ; but nothing will do away witli the impression that for an American to argue in favour of -the Czar is about as decided a case of being "in the wrong box" as could well be . There is another case of u wrong box , " however , in ; , the same Review ^ -to » wit , a plea in favour of wine-drinking from the land of the Maine-law The editor , having the fear of the teetotalers before his eyes , appends a note , abjuring all responsibility for the doctrines of the article , and protesting that for his part he " would recommend only cold water as an ordinary beverage ; " nevertheless he lets his contributor support Mr . Omvieea ' s
views respecting the probable effects of the reduction of the duties on foreign wines . The writer opens thus : ——" It has ever been found , that a wine-drinking people present the most favourable specimens of humanity , whether physical or moral . By the term wine-drinking , however , ive do not mean what is vulgarly understood as getting drunk xn \ h wine;—G-od forbid ! but we mean the habitual and temperate use of wine , as a beverage ; not its bacchanalian abuse for intoxication . Wine is one of God ' s gracious gifts to mat *—designed , ns we have it on the authority of Holy Writ , ' to make him a cheerful countenance , '—that is , to animate , toexhilarate , to gladden him . And when we read of wine making such sad havoc with poor human nature as that which the drunkard ' s case too often exhibits , nine times out of ten it is not wine at all , but ardent spirit , that has done the mischief . "
In an article on Institutions for Popular Information in New York , we have a series of notes and reflections on the New York Crystal Palace , the Astor Library , and Abbott ' s Egyptian Museum . The paper is judicious ; but there is nothing specially worthy of quotation in it , except the following passage , apropos of the effects likely to be produced by great libraries on American literary production . " It was in tho library of Modona that Mnmtori prepared tliose volumes which have made hiH nnmo , although a hundred years have passed over it , a hallowed word for the student of Italian history . It was from the same spot that Tiraboschi sent forth , volume by volume , his matchless history of Italian literature . It was tho sight of tho treasures of which ho became ) the guardian , ns librarian sf tho Faculty of Advocates , that suggested to Hume , tho idea of his History of England , Shall we over he able to associate names liko these with
tho libraries ot America ? We want a history ot England ; for of all that have been written there is none that meets tho requisitions of nn American republican . Wo want a history of English literature ; for Knglnnil herself has none- ; and how happily and honourably might a life be spent in writing it 1 Wo want a history of France ; thero is none , in tho language ,. that deserves tho name . Wo want a history of Italy ; tho record of groat actions that wo niigUt imitate . , and great errors that wo should shun . And if wo would moct these and tho other manifold -wants of our literature , wo must havo grout libraries like tha Aator , which intlie truo spirit , ot democracy , sluill enablo every man that has tho talent and tho industry , to work his way to those heights of literary renown which , without thorn , so-many can only giiHO at iu sorrow and bitterness of heart . Turning from tho transatlantic to our own periodicals , we liavo , besides
thoso noticed last week , a good number of the Dublin University , containing , infer alia , u memoir of Sir Samuki .. Gjieig , a Scotchman of the last century ,, who entered tho naval service of the Russian Empress Catherine , in 1764 , became u distinguished man in that service , drew numbers of other Scotchmen into it , ivnd so , before his death in 1788 , " earned tho title of Father of the Russian navy" ( tho writer doea not my who mm tho inotlier ) ; a fair number-of Vait , with liberal politics predominant , and ft word ol * protest muv . h needed against Exeter Hallism « nd its votaries ; a light and . hotoroyenous number of lien thy ; and m liyht , though not so hetovoRonoua a number of tho National Miscellany . Mr . Chaiu . ich Knight has ins ' iiud nnrtu 15 and 10 of his Emihsh tydojirtMliaj Messrs . Oicn nrul Co . havo publinhcd parts 4 and 6 of Tho land we Live in , containing , among tho article ? , " Liverpool , " "Manchester , " " Shof-
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Critics are not the legislators , but the judges ^ nd police literatu re . They do not make laws-they interpret and try to enforce them . — Edinburgh Bevtew .
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August 12 , 1854 . J * » J » -LEABJEIi . 759
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 12, 1854, page 759, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2051/page/15/
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