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pathos- close observation of those minor incidents and subtle elements which fill the outline of a tale with the vitality of truth , vigorous and delicate descri ption , and a styte delightfully easy and idiomatic , —all these are to be found in the volumes before us . A beautiful purity of thought and expression spreads over the whole of the story , which , in its tranquil stren gth , makes us feel , with all the acuteness of a sensation , the loveliness of that morality which is based on the affections instead of outraging them , and which finds its expression in noble , yet quiet , deeds , not in sharp maxims and academic phrases . As in some other of JVIr . Collins ' s writings , in the of
the divine principle of forgiveness is—not enforced , sense dry exhortation , but—breathed into the mind of the reader like a living influence . No one is less didactic than Mr . Collins : he provides us with no copy-book texts ; does not put on cap and gown to tell us that virtue is a good thing and vice highly improper ; refrains , indeed , from expressing any opinions on the subject ; but makes us feel what is right and what is wrong , as perfectly as the touch discriminates between smooth and harsh . This is the truest province and the highest triumph of all art , which sickens to its death when once it indulges in sermonizing . bestThe
As a mere story , the Dead Secret is one of the author ' s . mystery is of a nature to excite the keenest curiosity , and is admirably concealed 431 it is the writer ' s pleasure to unfold it . The wild , vast , rambling old house on tie desolate coast of Cornwall , flanked on the one side by bare sea , and on the other by bare moorland ,- the long range of deserted and mouldering rooms in which ' the Secret' lies hidden , like guilt within the grave the terror-stricken flight of the servant , Sarah Leeson , from the house where she has shut up , in the midst of ghostly dust and silence , the record of the tale which she would fain conceal ; the weary misery with which , through successive years , she wastes away in the consuming fire < jf her remorseful conscience and her superstitious dread ; the strange yet ^ natural manner in which the chief characters are brought together , so that the plot may be unravelled ; the opening of the deserted North Rooms , and the discovery of the Secret;—all these elements of romance produce a tale whilein
which Mrs . Radeliffe herself never surpassed for awful fascination , , ¦ ether respects , the superiority of the living writer to the dead enchantress is too obvious to need pointing out . Beautiful is the capricious , womanly < sharacter of Rosamond Frankland , full of a pretty waywardness , yet steadfast as Heaven itself in her devotion to her blind husband . Most touching in his affection for his forlorn niece , Sarah Leeson , is the conception of the old German , Buschmann ; and here let us pause to remark that the way in which this simple , true-hearted old man relates certain matters m connexion with the history of his niece is singularly affecting , and powerful idiom
without any gross show of power—the occasional German lending peculiar intensity to the language . And we do not know of any instance of gentle pathos more moving than the scene in which the weary wanderer , relieved of the tormenting secret , and lying in the embrace of her from whom she has been so long and cruelly separated , tells of her lonely desolation now past , and shows fiie frail mementos with which she soothed it . Another character istic of the story is the quiet ease with which the respective characters are dismissed at the close . They disappear , as they mteht in real life , into whatever new phase of their existence may be waiting for them beyond the limits of the story ; they do not descend through a trap-door , or vanish in blue fire . This may be particularly noted m the last which we hear of the old misanthrope , Andrew Treverton and his equally misanthropical servant , Shrowl—both purely original sketches . We have purposely avoided mentioning the nature of * the becret in tne course of this notice , because there may be some of our readers who have not yet read Mr . Collins ' s story ; and , for the opposite or rather correlative , reason that probably most of our readers have by this time enjoyed tne talc we make no extracts . Mr . Collins speaks with too well-known a voice to need the help of any reviewer . We have merely g iven expression to the deli"ht we have received with all the earnestness which we feel .
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TWO HISTORIANS . The State Policy of Modern Europe , from the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century to the Prevent Time . 2 vols . Longman , and Co . History ofCivilization in England . By Henry Thomas Buckle . VaL I . Wb do » ot find that -the anonymous author of these volumes ( The State Polio / of Modern Europe ) has advanced much beyond the point at which Heeren arrived in his work on the State System of Europe . We are afraid that not a few of hia references have been borrowed the familiar
from the two German volumes constituting what he terms manual of the Professor . His object , as stated in his own language , is to show how and by whom the great state combinations were formed , and in what degree they affected the minor states , as well as to point tnit the snotivea and spirit of the principal wars , alliances , and treaties of peace ; in short , to review tne international history of Europe during the test three hundred years . This , to a « onswierablo extent , bad been . done by Heeren , whose manner , however , is not « ach as to encourage any but * he most eeriows students . The writer of the book before us inherits ¦ one < mmwwc « oub quality from his literary predecessors-he is carefully and consistently doll . Now , there is no reason why international history should it imerwoven
not be entertaining . It is brirafol of anecdote ? w wnu m * u » - trations of personal cnaracljer 5 it ought not to be composed i « the style ol protocols or despatches in cipher . But heaviness is not the author a only 8 in 3 be betrays himself at the very outset into unphilosoplucal analogies * nd jmeTtle comparisons , likening the Ampuyctumic Council and Achaean League to parish meetings | n contrast with the diplomatic assemblies oi Westphalia , Utrecht , and Vienna , and seeking at Marathon and Salamis the prototypes of AdolpJnw and of Drake . There is more of the schoolboy than of t * re pedagogue in such -illustrations . They are obviously artaficwl , and composed in forgetfulness of Voltaire ' s rebuke to his admirer . u Madame , you * sk me how I can construct such fine phrase *; I assure you , I never constructed ft phrase in all my Kfe . What aa there but sound , signifying nothing , in -finch ftn outburst as this f **> nor con tho student of
history , however averse to vague speculation , help exclaiming to T- ^ < How could Old England , have toiled on had Ciuvil ™ T ° \ msdf > avengers as Louis XVI . ? ' » It would not be safe , we think , to co . nljf historical students , averse to vague generalities , an authority wImIi pounds that England , during the Thirty Years' War , was reduced to a ? T almost as hopeless as that of the Porte , and that during the Restorat 1 was more at the mercy of France than Carthage was at that of Rom / the secowd Punic-war . Yet he is often judicious in his courageous ex tion of opinions , and does ample justice to the policy of Louis 2 CTV F t ? f * however , does he revert to his eloquent habits , ia such passages as thef 1 lowing : —" Nor can we forbear , before concluding , once more to point f " the significance of the part played by the uncrowned and unsworded aoto —the state councillors . And , not to speak of the vast herd of unworth
courtiers , all the large number of little-minded diplomatists did was blabbi and cobbling about the structure retired by the hands of tho . few eiftecf whose monuments stand in history as much elevated above all the domes of the rest as are in nature the lofty marks of the action of heat beside th Blow sediments of the sluggish agency of water . " This , for a writer who imitates Gibbon , is a slight degradation of language . Again , to rely upon Alison—the weakest compiler and most dishonest plagiarist that ever obtained a reputation in Scotland—is equally a degradation of historic al authority . As well might Lamartine be quoted to confute Louis Blanc
The work has no doubt been compiled with uncommon diligence and sincerity , and may be useful as a summary of transactions bearing on three centuries of international history ; the authorities , however , are vao-uely quoted ; the criticism is seldom close or penetrating , and the pervading dullness of the volumes is such as will discourage all but the very detet ^ mined student . Mr . Buckle has undertaken a vast work { History of Civilization in ' En . gland ) apparently upon a vast plan . His first volume , containing nearly nine hundred pages , is exclusively devoted to a * general introduction . ' Of what magnitude will the- ' particular history' be ? The list of authors quoted is enormous , but the application of knowledge is frequently somewhat loose .
So much , ho wever , was to be expected from the author ' s prolonged flourish of preliminaries , from his ' statement of the resources for investigating history' and ' proofs of the regularity of human actions , ' to his ' outline of the history of the English intellect' and his ' proximate causes of the Trench revolution . ' We travel through all time before we start upon tho inquiry , and not through all time * onlyj but also through space and science , and it is impossible not to respect the industry—not to say learning—which Mr . Buckle has brought to his labour . Unhappily , however , writers who task themselves painfully , often painfully task their readers , so that while Free Will , Causation , Arminianism , phenomenal realities , wages , rices , cocoa-nuts , rent , interest , and climate , witl » every other topic mentioned in an
encvlopaesdia , are pounded into Mr . Buckle ' s gigantic preface , it is . not improbable that a phenomenal , reality so fatiguing may frighten any one in the least disposed to levity from the perusal of the fourtheoming volumes in which the subject proposed on the title-page may be expected to be really discussed . At all events , if we are actually to have a History of Civilization in England , we do trust , for the sake of simple persons , that it may be such a narrative < is will be to a certain depth translucent to those who have not settled convictions as to the moral law of suicide , the humanity necessarily produced by the great alluvial tracts of Asia , the difference between rice and ragi , the beids of the Shaster , or the social influence of the trade-winds . We know how easy it is to put together a Cyclopean body of references to books on
all these miscellaneous topics , but while Mr . Buckle aimed at being exhaustive he might have gone farther and consulted Dumpier on fish-eating , Moor and Pigafetta on the propagation of the small-pox hi Asia , Anderson on cannibalism , Vossius on savage life , Rousseau on the curse entailed on mankind by the discovery of iron , Favre ' s primitive pictures , the Red Sea Periplus , Sonnerat , Htiet , and a hundred other testimonies essential to the elucidations of so excursive a theorist . We do not sny that , any one ot the works we have named was necessary to the compilation of 11 history oi English civilization ; we simply mean to show that an enormous list ot total
authorities , apparently complete and overpowering , mny be a deception ; we find that Mr . Buckle has not gone to one hall" of the sources whence ne might have derived materials for his large and various essay , buch ueticiency is inseparable from a treatise so cumbrous and disjointed . Tho General Introduction consists of fourteen chant era , beginning , 11 s we have noticed , with a statement of the resources for investigating history , and including essays on the influence of physical laws over the <» « lllll 3 U J JJ , of society and the character of individuals , on tho metaphysical methoci . m discovering mental laws , on the difference between mental and moral mwn . aviiivi ** Mvj . * .-v » ¦**
Kill VkA % J DUl >»» 4 JJUlf Vft v *» ^^ « ww «» j ^ - — . - . ,, ., history and tho progress of historical literature , on the development 01 ™ English and French intellect , on the protective spirit , and on tho »» 0 V J " «" ? preceding the great Revolution in France . Mr . Buckle writes distinctly ana with some rhetorical force , and his acquaintance with literature , » 10 ^ superficial , appears to be widely spread . Tho effect produced , » owO ^» J ; that of ostentation , as when such a note ia introduced as thiB , on tnc bui iBtitious traditions of sailors : — . ( Note 80 . ) I much regret that I did not collect proof of tub at nn «* " » " J " -of my reading ; but , having omitted tho roqnisito notes , I can only ruler , on . m i , stitlon of sailoro , to Neber ' s Journey through India , vol . 1 . pngo 4- > i ( . , 047 , Travels in the Sahara , vol . i . page 118 Bnrokhardt ' a Travels in Arabia , vol . n . JP » f c . JDwfcV Chmw , vol . ill . pp . 10 , 17 ; Travel * of Jbn Batnta in the *» % ™' ZyOii page 48 ; JownalofAaiat , Soc , vol . i . page I ); W » W *» ' 7 ' ^ . f'Sjj ^ p « go IQQ ; Alison '* Hietoryqf Europe , vol . iv . page 60 ( 1 j Uurwu i * / ravels """ Jr ^ g ., vol . Hi , page 60 1 Leigh HunVo Autobiography , 1850 , vol . ii . paso 25 »; L l- ( ,. urilm ' s Memoirs , 1807 . vol . i . pp . 422-425 ; Watah ' a Brazil , vol . i . Pl > . 00 , « J » Aw »* % Arctic Expedition , vol . i . pogo i > 8 j Uolorofts M 6 inoire , voh L nago M ,, * " »*
All mattors of mention , however slight , nro decorated with simlaic ^ ^ of reference , but a auspicious circumstance is , that good ana uiui u < ^ quoted together at random , with little attempt at criticism or uisu « lion .
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894 , THE LEADER . [ No ^ TS ^ S ^ topay .
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Leader (1850-1860), June 20, 1857, page 594, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2198/page/18/
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