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LITERATURE.
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SINCE our last publication , intelligence has arrived of the decease of two of the brightest ornaments of modern English literature—Thomas de Quincey and Washington Irviugv Of the former a contemporary remarks : — " Almost till the very last his perceptions were as vivid , his interest in knowledge and affairs ns keen as ever ; and while his bodily frame , wasted by suffering and thought , day by " faded and shrunk , bis mind retained unimpaired its characteristic capaciousness , activity , and acuteness . He was full of years—having considerably passed the term of threescore and ten—and in him , if ever in any man , the sword may be said to have worn out its scabbard . Not only the continual exercise of the brain , but the extreme sensibility of his emotional nature , had so taxed and wasted his never athletic physical frame , that the wonder lay rather in his life having been so prolonged . When his often feeble health and always uncertain spirits permitted him in later years to mingle , at rarest intervals , in a small social circle at his own house " , or elsewhere , he was ahrays one of the most cheerful of the party , touching every topic with the lights of his exquisitely delicate fancy , and enjoying , with catholic zest , now the playful prattle of a . child , and again the sharp encounter of maturest wits . His conversation had an inexpressible charm' —with all that beauty of language , subtlety of thought , variety of illustration , and quaintness of humour that distinguish his writings . His talk never either became pedantic , or degenerated into soliloquy or monologue ; it was that of a highly-accomplished scholar and gentleman . A nature so deep and tender drew towards itself affection as largely as admiration ; and with profound esteem for the learning , the power , the genius of the writer , will always mingle much of love for the man . It will be long before the literature of England can boast a renewal pf such a rare combination of scholarship , of analytic force , of acute reasoning , and courageous speculation , with such imaginative power and deep all-embracing sympathy as this generation has had the privilege of knowing in Thomas de Quincey . " Washington Irving , says an American paper , died a few weeks ago at his beautiful residence , " Sunnyside , " at the venerable age of 76 , He was born on the 3 rd of April , 1783 , in New York City . His early studies were in view of the law , but a love of literature was even then predominant , arid seemed to be engrafted in his nature as its master passion ; and before he was twenty-one he began his career as a writer . In 18 . 09 he published the well-known " History of New York , by Diedrich Knickerbocker . " Mr . Irving did not choose the profession of law , but in 1810 went into mercantile business with his brother ; but the house was not successful , and in 1817 it failed . At the time of its failure Mr . Irving was in Europe , where his reputation was such as to gain for him the friendship of Walter Scott , Here he re ^ solved to make a pursuit of literature the object of his life ,, and as a result the " Sketch Book" appeared in 1819 . It was recognised as the product of taste and genius ; and even English criticism , until then always scornful of American books , paid homage to its merits . Other well-known works followed , as in 1822 , " Bracebridge Hall ; ¦ " in 1824 , " The Tales of a Traveller ; " in 1828 , " The Life of Columbus -, " in 1829 , " The Conquest of Grenada } " and , in 1831 , « ' The Alhambra . " Meantime Mr . Irving , in 1829 , 1830 , and 1831 , was Secretary to tho American Embassy , and during his residence abroad he ha ^ spent much time in Spain , and in various parts of Europe . In 1832 he returned to his native country ,,, after an absence of seventeen yenrs j and his return wo ^ s a triumph—so heartily was he welcomed homo by his fellow-countrymen . Mr . Irving continued his literary labours , and the result of a visit made to the Indian tribes was , in 183 / 5 , the elegant " Tour on tho Prairies . " Then followed " Abboteford , and Newetead Abbey , " " Legonda of the Conquest of Spain ; " in 183 G , " Astoria ; " and , in 1837 , u The Adventures of Captain Bonnovillo . " In 1839 he engaged to supply tho Knickerbocker Magazine with a monthly article . In 1842 Mr . Irving was honoured with tho appointment of Minister to Spain , anil at the end of his official term , in 1846 , ho returned to this country . In 1848 lie superintended a revised edition of his works , in J 849 , published " Oliver Goldsmith ; " and ,, in I 860 , ?' Mahomet and his Successors "— -and then " Wolfert ' s Roost . " Irving ' s heart for several years tod boon fixed upon a " Life of Washington / ' and the completion of a graceful narrative , which will over bo a monument to hU Industry and patriotism ,
proved to be the rounding off of a truly glorious career . The Essex Gazette says : — " We understand that Mr . Anthony Trollope will succeed Mr . George Neal as post-office surveyor for this district . Mr . Trollope is a son of Mrs . Trollope , the celebrated writer , and is ] himself a talented and popular author . Mr . Josiah Allen , of Birmingham , has in the press a fac-simile edition of the Duke of Devonshire ' s quarto copies of " Hamlet , " of 1 GO 3 and 1604 . The second volume of Mr . Buckle ' s "History of Civilisation " is stated to be in preparation by Messrs . J . TV . Parker and Son . The same publishers announce the third volume of Mr . Massey ' s History of England during the lleign of George III ., " the fifth and sixth volumes of Mr . lYoude's "History of England . " ^
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LITERARY NOTES OF THE WEEK . ? - ' - ¦
Literature.
LITERATURE .
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COXTRIBUTlOXS TO MENTAL PHILOSOPHY . By Immanucl Hermann Fichte . Translated and edited by J . . D . Morell , A . M . —Longman , Green , Lonymau , and Roberts . In a metaphysical point of view , the most important publication for many years , this work , corroborated as it is by the judgment and sanction of Mr . Morell , will command and reward the attention of all thinking and intelligent students . The name of Fichte will of itself excite interest . Immanuel Hermann is the only son of Johaim Gottlieb Fichte , the great philosopher of the Ego-istic theory , and was born , we are told , in the year 1797 , just at the time when his father was excogitating those startling speculations at Jena , which seem to promise to lay the topstonc upon the massive superstructure of the Kantian system . His cradle was rocked in the very room which gave birth to the " Wissenehaftslehre . " Young Fichte also became an author and philosophist . From his fii-st appearance , he raised , he tells us , the banner of Theism , and always held that speculation must go back to the Kantian principles , in order to find a solid foundation . lie seems , however , to have made a distinction between the Kantian idea of God , which was , of course , a priori , and our knowledge of God as a real Being , which he declares is by experience , meaning by the word experience to include the . moral facts of our inward being . He became curious , therefore , concerning the nature of that soul in whose depths these highest problems take . their rise . The following biographical memoranda are interesting : — "In my early yeaTs , while yet on the threshold ot youth , I enjoyed the great happiness of possessing , in both my parents , ( ever the objects of my highest veneration , ) an example and an ^ experience which shaped my whole future life . Thefactof a life spent in the world above sense , fraught with high and worldconquering powers , which , gave indomitable courage in life , and the highest resignation in death ,- ^ - all this came before me in the roost imposing form , at once inspiring and rousing to further contemplation . That picture of a " Life in God , " in which I was allowed to take part , though , as it were , from a distance , has never forsaken me ; it was to me the summit and crown of existence , to which every ^ earnest mind might attain ; and at the same time " the key to tho comprehension of my father ' s , philosophy , both in its scholastic form and its deeper meaning . In my father ' s " Wissenchaftslehre , "in his " Way to a Blind-Life , "—in tho lectures ho delivered in * 812 on Morals , the scientific interpretation of his life itself came before me with the greatest power . Kant's doctrino , also , of the " Homo noumenon , " had an imperishable effect upon mo ; since the very soberest of all thinkers there showed that ho could not draw himself away from the power of that great fact by which , as he expresses it , man is placed in the midst of a suporsonsual order of things . My half-phiiogical studies of Plotinus and tho Neo * platonios , brought mo now into connexion ' with Theosophy ; while the , love which my mother bore to tho Christian mystics also introduced mo into this rich world of mental experience . " Thus , then , ; by these involuntary mental influences ( which I cannot value too highly ) , I was from the very first raised , in / act if not in speculation , beyond the more pantheistic idea of God $ as also beyond the natural faith-principle of Jacobi . Thus the fact of a Divine providonco was rovealod to me in the actual experiences of life . The task still remained to investigate this fact on philosophical grounds , and to gain from it a complete philosophy of the universe . " Words like these prove we have an , earnest thinking soul before us $ and , even if ho had not been tho son of the great Fiqhte , thoy would have ensured for their writer the utmost respect . In
subsequent passages lie proceeds to * discuss the influenceof Jacobi , Fries , Okeii , aiulIIegt'l- and the necessity he was under of resorting at last to Spinoza as the prime originator of this whole philosophical method . Oken had especially dissatisfied hinr . His dogmas appeared with , a comic tmjj e to the mind of the neophyte ! Their pre - tensions were empty , yet uriHieusui tul . " One might admit a certain appearance oi . " logical connexion in his idea of God , as the zero out of which every finite existence ' spi-in ^ - ! , and into whose abyss it must return;—ami of nature as
tho eternal producer without beginning and end;—yet the whole was but mere scaffolding an . empty form—wherewith to cover the insolubility , of the . problems , for which his more successful views could not compensate . " JJut Spinoza did not prove the panacea that he hud expected . To his doctrine of absolute necessity , which drew everything into a chain of fixed consequences , and destroyed all purpose and all freedom , youno-Fichte opposed the grand objection of Leibnitz , — that this doctrine does not at all answer to the real constitution of the world , which constitution
bears plainly upon it the stamp ot a whole system of means and ends , worked out according to the laws of intelligence and order ; and that it is the notion of a relative , a moral and an intelligent necessity , which can hlone answer to tin- , facts of the case . The following is most important : — "But . even in Spinoza ' s . doctrine ? , the profound idea of an ' amor intellectualis ¦ / A' /'—Urj crowningstone of the . whole building—appeared to mo to give . the lie to . his first principles rather than confirm them ; inasmuch as it threatened to pull down : at
last , the blank conception ot tin ; impersonality of God , and the unsubstantiality of . Ashy human , soul . In this idea , I found those great etfitb-x \ ami religious facts again making their appearance , an . . ! that in their purest and happiest form . Live is a feeling so rich , and which pre-supposcs such n fulness ot complete personality , that it becomes an unintelligible paradox to ' attribute it to an abstract and impersonal substance , or to affirm tii . u the unsubstantial and finite " modes of the absolute thought ( for the human soul in this system is nothing ¦ more ) could possibly be the possessors . of such a feeling . "
Young Fichte , wearied with tho yoke ol abstract ideas , sought to solve " the problem of the world and of the soul out of the fulness of nature , and the life of history . " In this' he i-oiimi much assistance in the works of lleinrich Stellens , who based the right and complete idea of man on experience , as an individual being standing witkin the limits of nature , and yet above nature , finding his individuality not simply in organic dillbrences , but in the intellectual and moral constitution of the soul .
Such has been the process of thinking , which has brought J . II . Fichte to his present , state oi mind ; and which he has stated in several ^ works , and particularly in his " Anthropology . " The work before us simply contains his convictions in the form of a " Confession ; " a form which appears to have so won on Mr . Morull ' s iillectioiis , that he determined on translating it for the benefit of the English public . His motives for this course wore strong . First , he thinks 11 . scientific , confession like the present is wholesome , 11 s it delivers the subject from the arena of uonlrovorsy into the sphere of calm consideration . Secondly , the fundamontal idea of the nature of the f-oul is , ho
thinks , in tho confession , stilted anew upon us prominent and most decisive grounds . ' Tho dualistic princi p le , which re-anls the soul and tho body ns two distinct essences , each having its own peculiar attributes , is , Mv . iUorell stales , now in disfavour . It iw , lor inHlaiice , not . nutisjtaotory to the physiologist , whoso lo ^ itimiUe conemsions point to a far more intimate inn I essential unity . Besides , it oxpluins nothing fully . Mr . Morell opines that wo may hold tho nepnrato oxistenco of the mind and the body , umlye . L regard tho former ns perfectly pervading tin ? hitter , \> ov
haps , as tho formative principle . Wo may ro «« ru the mind , ho thinks , as omlowud with primoHiiu instincts and tendencies , which ( IovcIojh * into luciu * ties by the regular process of growth 111 connexion with tho outer world . Tho immorlalily oi m . soul may be proved on soiontili . o grounds , aI 1 ( l borne of those are clearly defuuKl in tho brief troft " tisci before us ; bcsidoH , tho abnormal p / ionoWQiM whioh now excite so much attention , horo roooivo no inconsidurable elucidation . Amongst thyso , Mr . Morell mentions some of tho more rumarlcabio forma of dreaming , eomnanabuUem , hallucination ,
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¦ 1374- THE fLEADM [ No . 508 . Dec . 17 , 185 $ .
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 17, 1859, page 1374, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2325/page/18/
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