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IPtfiV^iTftt t*!* ^LilvrUJUn^ •
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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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One of the best writers ia La Revue des Deux Mondes is M . Emile MontkguTj also one of the best informed on English Literature . In the last number lie has published a criticism on . Michelet , a promos of the recent works of that historian , a criticism we recommend to our readers not only for its admirable delineation of Mighelet ' s talent , but also for the example it affords of the true spirit and purpose of criticism . In the same number there is an essay on Titian by Gustave Planche , irritating by the insolent dogmatism , of its tone ( a tone Ml . PizAKChe scarcely ever lowers ) , but interesting , nevertheless , as the criticism of one who has studied what lie writes about , and who has formed his own opinions .
If we sometimes grumble over the dulness or ineffectuality of the writing in our Reviews , we need only open the North American ^ Review , to find our respect for the English reviews greatly heightened . In the last number of that publication there is an article on Hudson ' s edition of Shaksbeahe , very curious to read as a sample of Quarterly Reviewing across the Atlantic . After giving some extracts from Mr . Hudson ' s wordy and feeble criticisms , the reviewer adds : — Chronologically speaking , this method of analyzing the poet ' s characters is afttr that of Coleridge and of Mrs . Jameson ; but Mr . Hudson has so improved on his models , that he is but little more indebted to them than Shakespeare was to his predecessors for the plots of his plays .
Ajid as our readers may be glad to know something of that criticism which is said to transcend Coxebidge and Mrs . Jameson even as Suakspeare transcended the writers from whom he borrowed , we -will quote from the analysis of Lady Macbeir ' s character , which the reviewer pronounces the finest specimen : — " In the structure and working of her mind and moral frame Lady Macbeth is the opposite of her husband , and for that reason all the better fitted to piece etit and make up Ms deficiency . Of a firm , sharp , wiry , matter-of-fact intellect , doubly charged with energy of will , she has little in common with him save a red-hot ambition ; for Which cause , while the prophetic disclosures have the same effect on her will as on his , end she forthwith jumps into the same purpose , the effect on her mind is just the reverse ; she being subject to no such involuntary and uncontrollable tumults of thought : without his irritability of understanding and imagination , she therefore has no such prudential misgivings or terrible allusions to make her shake , and falter , and recoil . So that what terrifies him , transports her ; what stimulates his reflective powers Stifles hers .
_ " Almost any other dramatist would have brought the Weird Sisters to act immediately upon Lady Macbeth , and through her upon her husband , as thinking her more open , to superstitious allurements and charms . Shakespeare seems to have understood that aptness of mind for them to work upon would have unfitted her for working upon her husband in aid of them . Enough of such influence has already been brought to bear : -what is TV-anted further is quite another sort of influence ; such a sort as could only be wielded by a mind not much accessible to the former . There was strong dramatic reason , therefore , why nothing should move or impress her ,-when awake , but facts ; why she should not be of a constitution and method of mind , that the evil
which has struok its roots so deep within should come back to her in the elements and aspects of nature , either to mature the guilty purpose , or to obstruct the guilty act . It is quite remarkable that she never once recurs to the Weird Sisters , or lays any stress on their salutations ; they seem to have no weight with her but for the impression they have made on Macbeth ; that which impression may grow to the desired effect , she refrains from using it or meddling with it , and seeks only to fortify it ¦ with such other impressions as lie in her power to make . Does not all this look as though she were sceptical touching the contents of his letter , and durst not attempt to influence him with arguments that had no influence with herself , lest her want of sincerity therein should still further unknit his purpose ?"
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M . de Montaxembeb / x has reprinted his article , De la ncuvelle editioti de Saint Simon , which appeared in the Correspondent . There are many passages in this pamphlet which will interest the reader apart from any interest ia St . Simon , whose genius was never appreciated until the present century , and one passage we must quote ; it is where he avows his passion for Literature : " Jc sais bicu que cetto passion semble devoir etrc classee parmi les pe ' ehes , tout coimne le regret dc la libexte , etlc sentiment dc l'honneur , par cette orthodoxie arrogante « t hargncuse qui a la vogue auiourd'hui . "
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TWO YEARS AGrO . Two Years Ago . By the Rev . Charles Kingslcy , F . S . A ., F . L . S . 3 vols . ^ Macraillan and Co . Tub new novel by Mr . Kingsley will be looked for in many circles with greater expectations of delight than the new novel of any one except JJickens , Thackeray , or Mrs . Gaskell ; and the disappointment will be all the greater because of this nutter of expectation . In reading Two Years ¦ dgo -we have been forced to check the impatience produced by the sense of tedium , and we have recalled the former evidences of Mr . Kingsley ' s talent to reassure ourselves that we were not mistaken in awarding him a prominent place among the popular writers of the day ; for , undeniably , if wo naa no other standard by which to measure liini than Two Years Ago , we should not assign him u placo even mnong third-rate writers .
striving after effect , no permanent effect is reached . In these three volumes there are ' effects' enough to have filled half a dozen volumes . Death-bed scenes , cholera , a wreck , attempts at suicide , pistols fired in gentlemen ' s faces without larm , delirium tremens , jealousy , et id omne genm , but none of these stir the pulses , none of them interest the feelings . There is one chapter entitled " Nature ' Melodrama , " omitting ' Nature' this title might be given to the whole book , which is a phantasmagoria of unreality , without even the charm of being imaginative . . It will not be credited by readers of Mr . Kingsley ' s other -works that he
could have produced a novel so entirely without merit or interest of any kind , except that derived from mere diction ( which is of course generally vigorous , and often poetical ) , and from occasional descriptions of scenery . We fancy that the main source of his failure has been the idea of producing a " striking novel of the day : " in the attempt to be ' striking' he has become spasmodic ; in the attempt to , depict contemporary life he has quitted the path where his talent has free scope , for one unsuited to itquitted imagination for observation . The romance and descriptions of Westward Ho ! are displaced for the melodrama and rant of a novel which , pretending to depict the life of to-day , depicts the life of no day .
The characters are as ill executed as the story . We have had but rare opportunities of knowing tragic actresses in private life , but the one or two actresses we have known were not in the least like Cor-di-fiuxuma ; and we have the less belief in her resembling any tragic actress because she so little resembles a human being . We have known several Americans , from . North and South ; but any American bearing the most distant resemblance to Stangrave , it has not been our misfortune to encounter ; on the other hand , we have seen many Stangrsives stalking through inferior novels . Frank Headleys we have also peen in the same masquerades ; and Grace Harveys ; and wonderful Tom Thurnalls , doing everything and knowing everything . In real life we have also known a few poets , and many * nen who fancied themselves poets ; and some of these have been men of hectic vanity , but any one much resembling Elsley Vavasour , alias John Briggs ,-would seem to us as wonderful as an antediluvian monster walking down Regent-street . The motives which actuate all the characters are so absurdly unreal in their
presentation , that instead of the characters exciting any interest at all , the incredulus odi impatiently turns over the pages to get free «!> f them , in the hope of alighting on something less improbable . Some of the incidental remarks are good and well expressed . Mr . Kingsley always speaks worthily and with deep feeling of married love ; but his love scenes are preposterous ; the lovers declaim at each other in a surprising style , and in the year 1856 a young clerg } 'man calls the young lady he adores " Madam ! " and tells her he is not a poet , as she seems to think , " No , Madam ! God has written the poetrv already ; and there it is before me . My business is not to rewrite it clumsily , but to read it humbly , and give Him thanks for it . " We insist upon the utter failure of the love scenes , not because love scenes are essential to a good novel , bufc because Mr . Kingsley , as we said , writes of married love with the fervour of one who has known it , and the discrimination of one who can describe what he has felt ; and yet when he touches unmarried lovers it is to make them ridiculous .
So great has been our disappointment , that we were for some time strongly disposed to doubt our own verdict , thinking perhaps that the fault might lie in us , more than in Mr . Kingsley ' s presentation ; but on comparing our individual impressions with those of other readers , and finding them entirely coincide , we began to examine the novel in a more critical spirit , to see if we could detect the causes of its failure . If we are not mistaken the causes are deep-seated ; they lie in the original endeavour to depict the present day in most of its social aspects . To do this Mr . Kingsley has not the required faculties ; he has attempted to do it by dragging in heterogeneous materials , and characters which he has never studied . The effect is patchy and disagreeable . Instead of a story with some concentration of interest , and characters with some continuous development , we have a succession of episodes broken into fragments , and a masquerade of persons dressed from , the wardrobe of circulating libraries .
It has been painful to us to write this notice ; we say it unaffectedly , for we are great admirers of Mr . Kingsley ' s talent , and are grieved to see so much power misdirected . He has only to write another Yeast , Alton Locke , or Westward Ho ! and he will find the Leader ready to join its plaudits tothe plaudits of a delighted public .
As a story , Two Years A < jo is dull and spasmodic . It opens with a scene Which took place " a month ago ; " it then goes back to " sixteen years ago , " and finally begins " two years ago . " In a similar hop-skip-and-jump atyle it Proceeds . The incidents are numerous , but disconnected . The persons appear , talk , rant generally , and disappear . There is no repose . There is no development , lucre is no continuity of narrative . The pictures are lurid , and are seen in cross lights . Al though the reader is harassed by the sense of perpetual
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THE BALTIC NAPIER . The . History of the Baltic Campaign of 1854 . From Documents and Other 2 lfaterials Furnished ly Vice-Adviiral Sir C . Napier , K . C . B . Edited by <* -. 13 . Earp . Bentloy . Sin Charles Napiek has done justice to himself by publishing this volume . It proves that he did his duty in the Baltic , and we wish it had been hia onl y publication oh that subject . Indiscreet lie sometimes is—all Napiers are indiscreet ; but brave he was—brave as all Napiers are . Moreover , it would have been next , to impossible to accomplish more against the enemy , with his means , and it might have been criminal rashness to try . This , at least , was the opinion at the Admiralty . The point is brouglit out , too , with great distinctness , that Sir Charles Napier , in the Baltic , was ordered not to
act -without the co-operation of the French , and that the French were instructed not to co-operate with him in any warlike experiments hazardous to the fleet . He was inclined in 18 . 54 to attack Abo or Revel ; the French commanders refused : if any one should be taunted , therefore , it is Bara"uay D'llilliers , or General Niel , or Admiral Parseval . The truth is , however , that Sir Charles Napier , without extenuating the want of political judgment he has displayed on various occasions , has produced a complete and convincing exposure of the Admiralty . Not one of the great officers—civil or naval—of that bewildered department seems to have had the least idea of what the Baltic was , how it could be navigated , how powerful were the Russian fortifications , or what the British Admiral was bound to do for Britannia ruling the waves . One and all , they contradicted themselves by irreconcilable discrepancies of opinion , perplexed Sir Cliarles Napier by
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• Critics are not the legislators , bufc the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Review .
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February 21 , 1857 . ] THE Li E ADER . 185
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 21, 1857, page 185, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2181/page/17/
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