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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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. nf the man < -wiK » aa loindB contrive andi whose fingers make such machines ; A prodi ^ JLna difference * havanar * between the two . is pointed , at byr the expression vital S-a . SnSd . She . last line of the preceding table . That difference , described m afew words is . that wJiile . the machine has to be originally constructed , and afterwards worked and , repaired , and supplied with every necessary , by intelligence and forces altogether external to it , the animal body performs all the offices mentioned ,, and others yet , more surprising , for itself , by virtue of forces , or powers originally placed withinjt by the divine Author of Nature .
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TRANSLATIONS AJMD REPRINTS . We have a variety of translations and reprints , of which a few lines , by way oF announcement , will suffice . The place-of honour is deserved by Sir William Hamilton ' s edition of Dugald Stewart ' s Collected Works ( Constable and Co . ) . The fifth volume contains his Philosophical Essays , slightly annotated . There had previously been no more than three editions , so feware the students of pure truth in these latter days ; , but the issue now prepared by one of the first metaphysicians of Europe , is a monument worthy of the first metaphysician of Scotland . Among the Scotch fallacies of the original there ate many now finally given to criticism which the commentator neglects to examine or to characterise ; but the writings of- Dngald Stewart , as a body , are worth preserving in a permanent , if not in a national , form . They contributed to the history , as well as to the advance , of
philoremark—* ' -Siicu . labours may well be happy , and deserve t < * be so-, their pursuit muse not be degraded by a comparison with those which are onfy prompted by ambition and wealth . " We have certainly no proof that this anonymous moralist , who undertakes to deaden the force of Gibbon ' s unecclesiastieaL passages , has ever read the History of theDecline and Fall but if he had studied ' it to any purpose , he would never have written about " wealth" " prompting" any one to a pursuit , though the love of it migu * We allow that a point lite this is trivial , and ought not to be dwelt upon , unless it be characteristic . But when , as in the "English ChurchmanV case , a pompous editorship results in a badly-printed text , and in a mass of irrelevant annotations , some protest is necessary . A task of less delicacy , but far more meritorious , has been accomplished by Mrs . Forster in the translation of
Conde ' s History of the Arabs in Spain . The Spanish editors announce , in their preface to the second volume , that the author died soon after he had completed the work , on which , consequently , he did not bestow the last touches of polish and correction . They had , therefore , to verify some dates which he left undecided , and to follow out his chronological plan . That the book lias thus lost in historical weight there can be little doubt ; but its merit does not consist in its accuracy . The narrative is likely to be popular in this country , from being richly worded , full of pictures , adorned with poetical illustrations , and derived , in great part , from manuscript authorities . The colour and force of the original have been admirably preserved by Mrs . Forster in her English version ( Bohn ' s Standard Library . " ) Yet it is essential to notice that Cond £ was not , strictly speaking , an historian . The
orthosophy , especially in the analyses of such thinkers as Locke and Berkeley , who , in many respects , stood at the antipodes of human opinion . Moreover , it was Sir William Hamilton ' s duty to explain the text , rather than to ; controvert it . Dr . Chalmers' Sermons have been reprinted in a neat form ( Constable and Co . ) . These are sure of general acceptance .. The preacher is scarcely less a favourite with the new generation than he was with his own , and so his name is written with approval on the fly-leaf between him and posterity . Edward Irving ' s estimate of his qualities , in point of fact , is still held to have been that of a critic , and not of an enthusiast * and this is by no means inexplicable * considering : the vast number of persons who are intelligent enough to admire learning and eloquence , and weak" " enough to love a formal display of the one and a sonorous redundancy of the other ; Chalmers , however , was not free from the habit of browbeating a docile audience into credulity
graphy of proper names varies repeatedly in his work , showing that he followed the author whom he happened to be copying . He borrows , too ; the exuberant eulogies of the Moorish annalists without qualification or reserve , and thus amuses more than he informs . Thompson ' s translation of the Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Suetonius , is another useful revival , and appears in Bohn ' s Classical Library under the revision of Mr . T . Forester , who adds , also , the brief and p ithy lives of the Grammarians , the Rhetoricians , and the Poets . Among historical biographies may be enumerated The Memoirs of Philip de Comines ( Bohn ' s French Memoirs ) edited by Andrew Scoble . The Scandalous Chronicle ; or Secret History of Louis XL of Jean de Troves , will appear in the second volume , and will serve to of that noble
or into admiration , which is nearly the same thing ; nor was he so faithful a Covenanter as to refrain , before highly respectable folks , from talking of" the common * people ; . " Nevertheless * as good sermons are rare , we must value , in this department , much that is far inferior to the best . There appears , however , to be a call for religious historians no less than for prophets ; but the call is not so easily answered . Old books on ecclesiastical history are , therefore , welcomed . Here are two of them , in Bohn ' s Ecclesiastical Library —Sozomen ' s Annals of the Church , in the fourth and fifth centuries ; and ^ the work of Phiiostorgius , as epitomised by Photius o £ Constantinople . The translations from the Greek have been executed with . scholarship and taste by Mr . Edward Walford , who adds to Sozomen ' s chronicle the criticism of Valerius . Well , even-with steam -presses and a fatal facility of composition teaching the idea , old and young , how to shoot , there is room for these Byzantine worthies in their English effigy—especially for the former , as a
familiarise the English public with the delectable vicissitudes king ' s career . Last on the file of historical reprints is Mr . G . P . R . James ' s Life of Richard Cceur de Lion which enjoys the honours of a new edition , and has been elevated to the literary peerage in Bohn ' s Standard Library . Remembering that the author was once the representative historian of England—the laureate of prose—we are not surprised at the popular acceptance of such a hook , written in such a style—a history turned into a novel , with all the flourishes of romance on horse-trappings , plumes , and vestments wrought in purple and gold . Mr . James is one of those who admires a senator the more for wearing solemn robes , just as he pities a heroine because she weeps in a . white dress .
< » ntemporary of Socrates . Some partial annotatorsy indeed , have ranked him before that original writer ; though this , of course , was an opinion generated in an illiterate and corrupted age . Faint praise may be injurious , but extravagant praise is destructive , so that old Sozomen , in hjs turn , may have a quarrel with Valerius for applauding him too hotly . The best thatcnn . be predicated of his compilations is , that they were diligent , and intended to be faithful . As for the history of Phiiostorgius , it is no more than a fragment or reminiscence of the original , written like an affidavit , for , thereal book was lost amid the wreck of ancient learning . How much > did ; those triple fires , of Constantinople consume , how many scrolls , adored by their authors , good or bad , who little dreamed of their immortality being smothered in ashes . A companion volume of the Ecclesiastical Library contains the' Mosaic biography and dissertations of Philo-Judseus ,
Kennedy ' s translation of The Oration of Demosthenes on the Crown is a piece of good service , meritoriously executed . The foot-notes are useful , the interpretation is clear , and the eloquence of the first of orators is represented in a style remarkable for its rapidity and condensation . But the Appendix is downright book-making . If the noblest discourses of Demosthenes were not enough to fill a large volume , why not put them in a small one , and spare us two hundred pages on the history , the arts , the politics , and public economy of Athens ? The title-page threatens no such imposition , nor , indeed , is it often that title-pages , immodest as they are , will expose the contents of a solid duodecimo , of which three-fourths are composed of annotation . The river on which " ancient Bristol" sits is renowned for
die contemporary of Josephus , translated from the Greek by Mr . Yonge . The translator had a difficulty winch must have left him breathless , and which will'not end with him , for assuredly every student of the book will be afflicted by its . style . Philo-Judceus was a literary mammoth , who composed sentences inuwhich hundreds of words were wrought together with no relief beyond that o £ a semicolon . He enlarges , repeats , and explains , until his commentary- is swollen with excess and overspreads the subject , as a flood drowns a field instead of fertilising it . And yet some of his historical fragments are as terse and as pointed as those of Herodotus .. Mr . Bohn ' s edition of Gibbon ' s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Una reached a sixth volume , still under the supervision * of " An English Churchman , " whose , notes are added to a variorum , gathering from Guizot , Schreitery and , Wenck . " An English Churchman" might well have more carefully revised the text , and left the meaning to explain itself . What , for instance , is added to Gibbon ' s , brilliant account of El-Islam and ita
its one part of water and two parts of mud ; the old editions of the poets frequently contained a page of " scholia" to every line of verse ; and now we have one part of Demosthenes to three parts , at least , of Kennedy or someone else ! Possibly , we admire them both ; but we prefer to admire them separately . From Greek classics to British classics there are many steps—not so many , however , from Demosthenes to Edmund Burke . His Political Miscellanies are now published in a volume of tolerably accurate text ( Bohn ) , with the splendid speech on Economical Reform , the " Reflections "—eloquent , virulent , rhapsodical , and false—on the French Revolution ; and the Speech on the East India Bill , embodying that " studied panegyric" on Fox which- made the House of Commons proud of ? those two friends so soon to be parted , " like cliffs that had been rent asunder . " A fourth volume of Addison ' s Works contributes to the variety of Bohn ' s British Classics—a volume rich in those smooth , passages of moralism which the ' last-century admired because thej' suited it , and which the present century reads because they suited the last ; because , also , they are written in pure English , in a style which flows like water , and , like water ; plays and
conquests by one editor ' s platitude , based on Smythe and Bruce ? A note should interpret something in the text which is ambiguous or obscure ; or correct something which is untrue ; or supply something which is wanting . " An English . Churchman" rarely does either , but affixes little encyclopaedic scraps , sometimes misprinted , to swell the importance of an edition which must be shnpto lumber until some' of the volumes at least are cancelled and printed anewi Aa- a specimen of the flat commonplace with which the notes of the original are-mixed up , take the historian ' s reference to his own happiness . Abdulrahman declared , amid the stupendous luxury of the Caliphate , amid his retinues of gorgeous slaves , his pageants of glory , his brides , with a thousand ' jpearls showered on the head of each , that lie had enjoyed only fourteen dam of gure and genuine felicity . Gibbon observed ou this , that the detraat » Ea , o £ liurnantlife are commonly pactiul in their judgments , and immoderate in their desires . " If I may speak of myself ( the only person of whom I . can speak with any certainty ) ,, my , happy hours have facexceeded , and far exceed * th « scanty numbers of the Caliph of Spain ; and I shall , not scrupje to . add that many of them are due . to the pleasing labour of the present , composition . " To which " An English , Churchman" appends his ,
sparkles in the sun . Our translations and reprints accumulate whiLe wo write . We have a new volume added to the select Works of Dr . Chalmers ( Constable and Co . ) . His Lectures on Natural Tlieolugy , partly founded on Butler ' s Analogy of Religion , may be taken as a just specimen of his style—easy , voluminous , little varied . They also evince the author ' s extensive learning , and his familiarity with the formal art of reasoning . The new edition , though without notes , may take its place in theological libraries ; but it must be conceded that Dr . Chalmers , though a . clear exponent , and possessed of a strong analytical intellect , was not an original thinker . Passing from scientific to practical religion , we have a fifth volume of the works of Philo-Judoeus , translated by Mr . 0 . D . Yongo ( Bohn ' s Ecclesiastical Library ) . This contains his moral and philosophical essays on a " Contemplative Life * and ttte ? b ¦
or the Virtues of Suppliants , " on incorruptiunity 01 «« » """ He abo dedicated a singular fragment to Caius , on tho office of n . ° n s * , ; dora , and another to the Crimea of JFlaccus . The «• Questiona . . Solut J ?^ ou ; the Book of Genesis form a body of ingenious » lv « 8 tl « ??^ J ! " , „ , many of our aectarians might road with profit . Ho < 1 » J ?* 22 ST of support of Moses . He asks what was the tree of tho « " ° ww o « ° * gpoa and evil ? and angers , " an Allo / jory " proceeding to «»» minge tas subject witfc a spirit TfhioU would satky Dv . Donaldson , although the
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 15, 1855, page 895, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2106/page/19/
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