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THE LIBERAL CAUSE IN TRANCE . Le $ Droitsde I'Homme . Par Eugfene Pelletan . 1858 . Paris : Pagnerre . The publication of any work of this class at the present moment in France is an act of courage . We are not surprised to learn , therefore , that this eloquent and fervent volume has only just kept beyond the grasp of the police , arid that whilst it has produced a deep sensation amongst all thinking classes , few critics have ventured even to allude to its existence . M . Eugene Pelletan is one of the boldest thinkers and most poetical writers that the republican party possesses—scarcely any other party possesses writers of any kind;—but his boldness is not extravagant , and his poetry never leads him out of the limits of common sense . The present volume is at once an ardent pleading in favour of liberty , and a criticism of all the important doctrines and systems which are now before the public . It is , sit the same time , a pleading and a study . The only objection which we can find to it
is a certain vagueness of form ; but this , which is a fault in a-work of art , is in reality ; , under actual circumstances , an exhibition of ingenuity . The writer escapes from official criticism when he is touching on the most dangerous topics under a cloud of glittering words . He knows that his meaning will be perfectly "well understood by those whom he addresses—the young generation which has inherited , as it were , the key to this kind of writing ; and he sometimes , therefore , makes a literary sacrifice in order to obtain a political end . M . Pelletan is , perhaps , not sufficiently well known in this country . If he ; were more read , niauy of the strange prejudices which still exist in certain quarters as to the ferocious intentions and doctrines of the Republican party might be done away with . There is nothing , for example , in the present volume which is likely to alarm even a staunch English Conservative . He might refuse to accept all its doctrines , but he could not
refuse a certain amount of admiration and even of affection to the writer . It has riot often been publicly admitted , but we feel bound to admit that there exists a small class of Frenchmen who have not been utterly dispersed during recent disastrous events , and who form , we might almost say , the intellectual summit of Europe . We do not intend to make any invidious comparison with the -writers of other countries ; but at this moment it is both graceful and necessary to make this admission . If such , indeed , were not the case , how could we explain the deep and persistent sympathy which exists in all generous minds for France ? There is surely nothing in the Government of that unhappy country to account for this sympathy . It would be impossible for a man deprived of all the lofty characteristics which our nature in its best developments displays , a man without soul as without
heart , to invent a more degrading and material system than that which holds sway in France .. There is something repulsive in the whole aspect of society there . On whichever side -we look , we note the absence of soul . There is no faith , no hope anywhere to be discovered , except , in those studious corners , to which have retired the men to whom , we allude . Those very men will agree -W ith us when we say that , throughout all the stages of society , material doctrines of the grossest andtnost offensive description are ' beginning to prevail . This is because the worst classes have obtained the victory , and have thrust themselves forward into the public view . Virtue , the name of which excites a smile even in our highly civilized country 3 has no place whatever in France . It is compelled to stand aside and see the business of the country , political , literary , and even artistic , transacted upon principles for which it is very difficult in any moderate vocabulary to find a
name . If we do not despair of France , it is because we know that , after all , human nature is a tiling which submits to be led , and that as if a few corrupt men are put forward by circumstances the whole tone of a nation may become apparently corrupt , so when the natural chiefs resume their position respectable sentiments gradually get the upper hand . The homage of vice to virtue is not a useless homage . " We cannot have a nation of heroes , but the habit of good manners and the fear of giving utterance to base thoughts is the beginning of an excellent education . Were such men as Eugene Pelletan placed in a conspicuous situation as public teachers , in the press or elsewhere , a loftier tone would soon begin to prevail . We should soon see even the heartless arrangers of phrnses ,-who now every day pour forth their ignoble columns , attempting , at least , to earn the respect of their readers
by simulating honesty . ^ As it is , nearly sill French publicists who can find a hearing seem to vie with one another in assuming a cynical tone , and in deciding upon the question submitted to their appreciation with as little regard as possible to ideas of morality . The heavy and discoloured style in which they write protects them to a certain extent from foreign criticism . Few persons who can procure any other intellect ual food wade through their lucubrations , which only acquire a meaning , as illustrative of the moral character of official France , when we hear the coarae commentaries made on the same theme in private . We have often had occasion to hear from the mouths of young men who , eager in the search after immediate fortune , _ have rallied to the Empire , the naive confession of their convictions and their aspirations . Not one of them even affects enthusiasm for the cause he serves . They have all got hold of the theory , wltich they develop with surprising flippancy and ease , that there is no such thing as morality in
politics . We remember meeting in a bookseller ' s shop one of these notable individuals , who happened to take up a volume by Mr . Emerson . His eye fell upon a note in which it was hinted that it was not estimable for the English people , who make so ninny pretensions to honesty , to pursue the carnage of Napoleon III . with shouts of frantic servility . He laid down the volume . He bad judged the man at once . Thin is a fool , said he . He thinks that princes are subject to the same ethical rules as other men . He does not know that power sanctifies , and so forth . The same individual , we may remark , by-the-by , not having been able to bring his talents to a good market , not having become powerful indeed , made the mistak , a snort time afterwards , of writing a volume in which he permitted himself to be as unscrupulous as any prince , and , despite his devotion to the Empire , was necessarily condemned to fine and imprisonment for having outraged public decency . Ho is but the type of a class—the class which supplies nil the third-rate ivritera who h avo taken
the place of the men of genius who once rendered the French press so brilliant . We are often inclined , incited by an indignation that can easily be understood , to speak harshly of France as a nation , and to take credit to ourselves for vastly superior political morality . At such times we forget one very remarkable fact , which has not been sufficiently attended to , namely , that although for eight years the Empire has disposed of all the resources of a country in which literature as well as art has been accustomed to have its budget , in which scarcely any public man can hold a position without in some way deriving support from the state , it has been found impossible to purchase or corrupt in anyway the leading and master minds . They have been defeated partly in consequence of their own imperfections , but chiefly in consequence of the sudden disturbance of the political balance , which , they assisted in but could not divert . But they have not rallied around the new regime , and have preferred to stand aside in obscurity , and many of them in the deepest poverty , rather than stain the reputation which they had acquired .
We could mention many names to which public opinion takes off its hat , of men who have refused the most tempting oilers to write in Government organs even on mere literary subjects , and who yet scarcely know where to lay their heads . We know one case of a most distinguished writer , who slept for months on a bench in the anteroom of a newspaper office , where he waited with calm philosophical indifference for better times , and received his friends as cheerfully as if he had been in a mansion . It must be confessed that this is an admirable sign . No matter what mistakes such men have made , they have purchased an indemnity from public opinion . M . Eugene Pelletan , though in a worldly point of view he may be a little more fortunate than some of his colleagues , belongs to the same class , and we areglad of this opportunity of assuring him of the respect we feel for him , both as a literary and as a public man .
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JOHN WEBSTER . The Works of John Webster . With Some Account of the Author , and Notes . By the Rev . Alexander Dycc . A New Edition , Revised an 4 Correct ed . Moxon . Since this excellent edition of Webster was issued ( for the pressure of books of more immediate interest has delayed our notice ) , its enterprising publisher has passed from among us , leaving a name which will always be held in regard by literary students and lovers both of our > old and of bur living poets- Mr . Moxon was not only one of the chief publishers of contemporary verse-men , but was the means of giving a wider circulation to the writings of the gTeat , but little known , wits of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries . In handsome , compact volumes , carefully printed and judiciously edited , he presented to the English public the works of Beaumont and Fletcher , 13 eri Jonson , Massinger and Ford , Wjcherley , Congreve , Vanbrugh , and Farquhar , Chaucer , Spenser , and Dryden . The last of his publications of this kind is the one betbre us ; and we regret that in noticing ft we Should bave 10 record the JontU of il . o ^ ont . lpman fmm tohema establishment it has issued . It was in 1830 that Mr . Dyce first collected and edited the works o # Webster . Until then , the writings of this singular dramatist had remained in a scattered form , and were only to be obtained by a few bookwormi such as Charles Lamb . The edition of 1830 is now reissued with
considerable alterations , both in the text and notes , and "with some slight addi tions to the memoir of the poet . Mr . Dyce has excluded from the present volume a drama called The T / iracia / i Wonder , formerly attributed to Webste * and William Rowley , which the editor says he had " too hastily admitted ' into the previous . collected edition . He now decides peremptorily , from internal evidence , that the play is not Webster ' s at all ; and , granting that his judgment of the internal evidence is correct , his sentence of banishment is of course a wise one . The notes to this reissue exhibit tlie antiquariam intelligence and learning for which Mr . Dyce is famous , and the memoir of the dramatist shows the pains he has been at to throw some light upon a most obscure career ; but , with respect to the latter editorial production , we should have been better satisfied if the materials , consisting of parish registers , old documents , extracts from Henslowe ' s Diary , &c , had been fused into a condensed and readable narrative . It is rather hard work to
piece these shreds of biography together , and one expects an editor to take the trouble upon himself . Still , it may be urged that the authorities are valuable . - There are few writers even of the Elizabethan age of whom we know so little as we know of Webster . When he was born , and wben he died , are facts as entirely buried in obscurity as any of the intermediate events of his existence . We find him in the thick of London life , living , it is thought , in Holy well-street ( perhaps in one of the old houses still standing there ) , writing plays , sometimes by himself , sometimes in conjunction with others , and dedicating his works to the noblemen and gentry of the time , in the hope , probably , or obtaining their patronage ; and that is the sum . of our knowledge , with the exception of the dates of his works , and the fact that he was born free of the Merchant Tailora' Company . Gildon , a writer at
the close of the seventeenth century , eays that he was clerk of St . Andrew ' s , llolborn ; but Mr . Dyce has searched the registers of that church for his name without success . He also examined the MSS . belonging to the Parish-Clerks'Hall in Wood-street , but with no . result . The story , therefore , is doubtful ; but , if the poet ever did hold such a post , and combined with it the office of sexton ( as formerly was often the case ) , a curious light would be let in on the nature and tendencies of Webster ' s genius , which hud in it something ; very earthy and sepulchral . That a man officially familiar with graves should issue forth into a fine dramatic poet , is no more singular than that Ben Jonson should have worked as a bricklayer , with his trowel in one hand and his Horace in another . The age was full of such dramatic contrasts , which , indeed , gave a picturesque richness to life , and contributed not a little to the wonderful triage literature of the time .
Whatever the humbleness of Webster ' early avocations ( supposing thorn to have been humble , which , as we have seen , is questionable ) , there is no doubt that he was a scholar , even to the extent ot pedantry . Ho was also
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No . 431 , June 26 , 1858 /] TSE LEADEH . 617
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 26, 1858, page 617, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2248/page/17/
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