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Critics are not the legislators , birt the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Meview .
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We are glad to welcome the reappearance of the North British Review , after its temporary absence from public and publishing life . This return is , course , the most effectual refutation of the vague rumours that were afloat touching the severe and hopeless character of the rnalady from which it suffered . Though suflicietttly recovered as to take the air again , the Review is , however , far from being thoroughly convalescent . It looks thin and emaciated , as though still suffering from the effects of the theological fever which loosened its firm-knit joints and brought it to the gates of the grave . Evidently it needs a more strengthening diet , and more active stimulus , than the orthodox cordials and ghostly consolations which have been freely administered during the late crisis ; and with the generous regimen of its best days it would , no doubt , speedily regain its former vigour . Whether this , however , will be permitted , seems doubtful . The promise of the present number is certainly not -encouraging . It seems to indicate a return to the meagre and acid diet of its worst days , rather than to the rich and varied table of its best . The original prospectus of IS 44 is now reprinted as an index to the future . character of the Review . This programme , while liberal in terms , is sectarian
in substance , and the Review under its operation never attained anything beyond a very limited circulation . To return to that previous state would be a death-blow to the higher position the North British has recently acquired as . an able , independent , and influential journal . The contents of the new aium-Jber are hardly more reassuring than the preface . Two of the literary papers , for instance , are devoted-to religious hymns , and in each case the poetic merit of the compositions reviewed is immensely exaggerated by the religious sympathies of the writers . Now , however valuable such lyrics . may be for their feeling , as truthful utterances of the devout heart , the recognition of this ought not to interfere with a just estimate of their literary worth . And - criticism , in which the perverting influence of severe theological views or narrow religious feelings is apparent , can never seeure general confidence or respect . It is fair to add , that many of the papers in the present number are free from any such bias ; but this , nevertheless , is clearly the danger to which the Review , under the new management , is specially exposed .
The first article , on ' Whately ' s Edition of Bacon ' s Essays / is evidently written by one of the Archbishop ' s admiring disciples . The writer , at the outset , notes , as remarkable , the fact , that Whately ' s works , while very widely read , have rarely been reviewed in the leading quarterly journals , which he attributes to their special excellence , in being , to a great extent , above criticism . The reverse would be much nearer the truth . Whaiei / jt has no real -originality , and his books , showing only a ready and adroit use of the most . commonplace materials , scarcely call for serious criticism . The article is necessarily fragmentary , but here and there the critic gives interesting scraps o information , as in the following passage touching the ' Evil Eye : '—
Bacon ' s Essay on Envy is the work of a man who had suffered much from the « nvious . He passed the earlier and the most active portion of his life in a small , ambitious , intriguing society , in which all were acquaintances and rivals ; and the sovereign—the last and the best despot that England has ever endured—could scatter prizes , such aa , in our sober aristocratical community , only Parliament can give , and only once perhaps in a century . All the ambitious , all the covetous , and all the vain , ¦ crowded to the court , to contend , by flattery , by subservience , and , we must add , by real service , for the favour which gave power , wealth , and station . Such a court was . a hotbed of envy ; and Bacon ' s masterly enumeration of those apt to envy , and of those apt to bo envied , is evidently the result of personal observation and experience . It is remarkable that he appears to have been infected by the Oriental superstition of the evil eye . . . which have been noted to fascinate
" There be none of the affections , " he sayB , " or bewitch , but love and envy : they both have vehement wishes , they frame themselves readily into imaginations arid suggestions , and they come easily into the eye , espe-• cially upon the presence of the objects , which are the points that conduce to fascination , if any such thing there be . We see , likewise , the Scripture calleth envy an evil . eye , and the astrologers call the evil influences of the stare evil aspects ; so that still there eeemeth to be acknowledged , in the act of envy , an ejaculation or irradiation of the eyo ; nay , some have been so curious as to note that the times when the stroke or percussion of an envious « ye doth most liurt , arc when tho party envied is behold in glory or triumph , for that sets an edge upon envy ; and besides , at such times the spirits of tho person envied do come forth most into tho outward parts , and so meet the blow /' We once , in Cairo , conversed on this superstition with an intelligent Caironc , who described it aa tho great curse of hia country . " Does the mischievous influence of the evil eye , " wo asked , " dopond on tho will of the person whoso glance does the miaohiof ?"
" Not altogether , " ho answered . " An intention tohnnn may render more virulent the -poison of the glance ; but envy , or tho desire to appropriate a thing , or oven ^ excessive admiration , may render it hurtful without tho consciousness , or eve n against tho will , of tho offender . It Injures moat tho thing that it first hits . Honco tho bits of rod cloth that are stuck about the dressoa of women , and about tho trappings of camels and horses , and tho largo spots of lamp-black whioh you may see on tho foreheads of children . They are a sort of conductors . It is hoped that they will attract tho glance , and oxlmuat its venom . "A flue houso , fine furniture , a fine camel , and a fine horse , are all enjoyed with fear and trembling , lost they should excite envy and bring misfortune . A butcher would bo afraid to oxposo fine meat , lcat the evil oyo of passers-by , who might covet it , should taint it , and make jit spoil , or bocomo unwholesome . " Children are supposed to , be peculiarly tho objects of desire and admiration . When thoy are suffered to go abroad , they are intentionally dirty and ill-dressed ; but generally they Are kept at home , without air or exorcise , but safe from admiration
This occasions a remarkable difference between the infant mortality in Europe and in Egypt . In Europe it is the children of the rich who live ; in Egypt , it ia the children of the poor . The children of the poor cannot be confined . They live ia the fields . As soon as you qtiit the city , you see in every clover-field a group , of which the centre is a tethered buffalo , and round it are the children of its owner , with their provision of bread and water , sent thither at sunrise and to remain there till sunset , basking in the sun , and breathing the air from the desert . The Fellah children enter their hovels only to sleep , and that only in the winter . In summer , their days and nights are passed in the open air ; and , notwithstanding their dirt and their bad Food , they grow up healthy and vigorous . The children of the rich , hareem creaturesof
confined by the fear of the evil eye to the ' , ' are puny , whom not . a fourth part reaches adolescence . Achmed Pasha Tahir , one of the governors of Cairo under Mehemet Ali , had 280 children ; only six survived him . Mehemet Ali himself had 87 ; only ten were living af , his death . " I believe , " he added , " that at the bottom of this superstition is an enormous prevalence of envy among the lower Egyptians . You see it in all their fictions . Half of the stories told in the coffee-shops by the professional story-tellers , of which the Arabian Nights are a specimen , turn on malevolence . Malevolence , not attributed , as it would be in European fiction , to some insult or injury inflicted by the person who is its object , but to mere envy : envy of wealth , or of the other means of enjoyment , honourably acquired and liberally used . "
An article on * English Metrical Critics' is interesting as an intelligent discussion of a subject very imperfectly understood , and in the treatment of . which each successive writer seems determined to vindicate a prescriptive right of blundering . The writer in the North British is no exception : witness his curious discovery that accent ' has no material and external existence at all . ' Of all the false views held and propounded touching accent this may claim the distinction of being the most suicidal and absurd . Of the remaining articles in the number , those on c French Treatment of Criminals' and 'The Indian Crisis' are well worth reading .
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CITY POEMS . City Poems . By Alexander Smith . Macmillan and Co . After a great success it is perilous for an author to appear before the critics ; and this peril is tenfold when the appearance is made in a sec&id work , because experience proves that the second work is generally inferior to its predecessor in freshness or in power . Shirley ^ was in many respects an advance on Jane Eyre , but in essentials it was inferior . Alexander Smith achieved a great success—in spite the overpraise o injudicious admirers , in sp ite of the malice and ridicule of some detractors , he " -ained a place among the English poets . He has been often harshly and ungenerously dealt with ; but , unhappily , that he has to bear in common with most distinguished men ; and we have no doubt he has sense enough to see what truth there may be in the criticisms of his opponents , while heartily despising their tone and sentiments .
The new volume of City Poems will require to be read two or three tunes before justice will be done to its merits , because the first impression it produces is that of disappointment . At least this was the impression it produced on us . On recurring to its pages , we began to modify our first opinion , and finally we came to the conclusion that it held much the same relation to the Life Drama as Shirley holds to Jane Byre . The cause of this disappointment seems to us to be the absence of any well-marked character , well-told story , or clearly developed passion—in a word the want of poetic substance—and the cause of the admiration felt on closer scrutiny is the presence of great beauty in the treatment : the poems ai-e poetical talk about subjects rather than vividly conceived pictures . We hear of llorton , his genius , his dissipation , his love and sorrow , but we do not see him , know
him , feel with him . Squire Maurice is in a tragic situation , but the situation is indicated , not presented : the real pathos and the real difficulty are evaded . The Glasgow boy who tells us of his early sorrows interests us more than either Horton or Maurice , but even he is far too vngue in his confessions . A sense of vagueness futal to the effect of a story , and giving the whole volume an unfinished air , creates the disappointment we have alluded to . But on turning back to each of these poems wo are impressed with the sense of exquisite power in tho musical utterance of emotion , and of delicate felicity in the use of language . The descriptions are admirable : concrete , picturesque , suggestive . Like most modern poets he is something over-fond of description , caring less for human than for scenic beuuties ; what he says of the painter may be said of himself : —
An empire ' s fall was less in his regard Than sunshine pouring from the rifted clouds On an old roof-tree furred with emerald niosa ; A wide grey windy sea bespecked with foam , A ship beneath baro poles against the rain ; Or thunder steeping all the sunny wasto In ominous light . In answer to those ridiculous imputations of plagiarism , which , on the Btrength of coincidences perfeotly unavoidable , and of some vomiiiisconoes common to all poets , charge Alexander Smith with making up his poems out of detached similes stolen from othex's , let this pasango bo quoted , us length forbidding tho idea of its having been plagiarized from any pnge except Nature ' s : — Inland I wander slow , Mute with the power tho earth and heaven wiold : A blaek spot sails aorots tho golden Jield , And through the air a crow . Before me wavers spring ' s first buttorfly ; From out the sunny noon there starts the cuckoo ' s cry ; Tho daisied rnoads aro inusicul with lambs ; Some pl « y , some feed , some , wbito as snow-flakes , Ho In tho deep sunshine , by their silent dams . Tho road grows wide and level to tho feet ; The wandering woodbine through tho hedge is drawn , ¦ Unblown its etreuky bugles dim and sweot ; Knoo-dcop in fern stand startled doe and fawn ,
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834 * T iH E LEAD B "R . . [ No , 388 > Atoust 2 g jl 857 .
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 29, 1857, page 834, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2207/page/18/
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