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    762 ^^ THE LEADER. [Saturday,

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    'Xntninxt.

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    Critics are not the legislators, but the...

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    "Magazine Day" is oneillustration,of the...

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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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    762 ^^ The Leader. [Saturday,

    762 ^^ THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,

    'Xntninxt.

    'Xntninxt .

    Critics Are Not The Legislators, But The...

    Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do no t makelaws—they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Review .

    "Magazine Day" Is Oneillustration,Of The...

    " Magazine Day" is oneillustration , of the wide-spread culture of our j » ge , and a reader forced into the presence of this quarterly and monthly avatar of intellectual activity in England * is amazed at the quantity of learning , sense , wit , style , and originality , ready to " supply the demand . " It is no light matter to read the whole of the Magazines ; for there is no single number that comes under notice which does not contain matter worth reading . In the quarterlies we look , of course , for essays ; and we often meet with essays which , under other circumstances , would have been books ; in Germany , they would unhesitatingly have been so . For example , the North British Review , always distinguished by thought , learning , oftentimes originality , has in this current number an article on

    Theories of Poetry , which is almost a treatise—and an admirable treatise too ! Carried a little further into the branching details of its wide-spreading subject , it would have been a treatise , and a text-book . It is a review of Mr . Dallas ' s Poetics , and also of Alexander Smith ' s Poems ; and although the style is often cumbrous , and occasionally perverse in what may be called the dissonance of its imagery , it contains more sustained thought and glancing light of suggestion than any review article of the kind we can remember . The writer begins by ranging all discussions on the nature of Poetry under the " imitation-theory" of Aristotle , and the imagination-theory" of Bacon ; and decides in favour of the latter . It seems to us that the starting-point of such an . inquiry , as in all

    philosophic inquiries , is first to settle the general question , —What is Art ? and thence proceed to the specific question , — -What is the speciality of Poetic Art ? In such an investigation , it would be found that Art is primarily and essentially not an Imitation , but a Representation ; and the question of imitation , therefore , can only be considered with reference to its representative necessity . If the purpose of the artist be to represent reality , he must of course imitate reality ; but only when he works with such a purpose , and only in proportion as that becomes his aim , can the standard of reality be applied . This falls in with what the Reviewer teaches—implicitly , if not explicitly , —and wequote his definition of the imaginative faculty : —

    " The poetic or imaginative faculty is the power of intellectually producing a new or artificial concrete ; and the poetic genius or temperament is that disposition of mind which leads habitually , or by preference , to this kind of intellectual exercise . There is much in this statement that might need explanation . In the first place , we would call attention to the words intellectually producing , ' ' intellectual exercise / These words are not needlessly inserted . It seems to us that the distinct recognition of what is implied in these words would save a great deal of confusion . The phrases ' poetic fire / * poetic passion / and the like , true and useful as they are on proper occasion , are calculated sometimes to mislead . There is fire , there is passion in the poet ; but that which is peculiar in the poet , that which constitutes the poetic tendency as such , is a special intellectual habit , distinct from the intellectual habit of the man of science . The poetic process may he set in operation

    by , and accompanied by , any amount of passion or feeling ; but the poetic process itself , so far as such distinctions are of any value , is an intellectual process . Farther , as to its kind , it is the intellectual process of producing a new or artificial concrete . This distinguishes poetry at once in all its varieties , and whether in verse or in prose , from the other forms of literature . In scientific or expository literature the tendency is to the abstract , to tho translation of the facts and appearances of nature into general intellectual conceptions and forms of language . In oratorical literature , or tho literature of moral stimulation , tho aim is to urge the mind in a certain direction or to induce xipon it a certain state . There remains , distinct from either of these , the literature of the concrete , the aim of which is to represent tho facts and appearances of nature and life , or to form out of thorn new concrete combinations . "

    Among the profoundly appreciative sentences devoted to Alexander Smith , the reviewer , after noticing the " damnable iteration" observable in the young poet ' s topics , says , — " It is easy to malce a mock of anything , and particularly easy to moclc in n case like this . Hut Mr . Smith cannot give up tho stars and tho sea—no poet can —without ceasing to bo a poet . The starry night , tho sea , love , friendship , and the like , are tho largest entities in the real world and in real experience- ; they bear tlio largest proportion in bulk to the whole real universe ; why should they bear a smaller proportion in tho universo of the poet ? Whoever docs not think , ay , and Hpeak , more of tho stars than of roses , that man ' s soul lives in a conservatory ; whoever does not think and speak mom of the sea than of his inkstand , that , man ' s soul lives in n counting-house . I ' arfc of tho greatness of tho old Greek poets , as

    compared with some modern poets , consisted in this , that they had a more proportioned oyo for tho objects and presences of nature , speaking less of tho wings of insects and tho interior of bluo-bells , and more of tho sky , tho hills , and tho roar of the vEgean . J- < ot not Mr . Smith mind tho critics very much in this matter . If they plague him much moro on tho point of his ' topics / we advise him to retaliate by it satire . If what , tho critics luivo suul , however , shall have tho effect of inducing hjm to extend the list of his ' topics / so as to diminish somewhat tho impression of sameness in bis imagery , well and good . For our purl ; , though . wo think tbo world has had more splendid men in it than Man ; Anthony , wo withdraw our voto <> u the use of that Konian ' s name , whenever it may be poetically convenient to mention him . Only we suspect Mr . Smith ' s liking for Anthony proceeds from a latent longhuj for the society of Cleopatra . "

    There , is more , than humour in that humorous sentence at the close ; there is insight into Alexandkk Smith ' s poetic tendency . Turning from the North British to its companion and rival , the British Quarterh / , we direct uttcntiou to u paper on Electricity and Magnetism

    which only wants a definite purpose and constructive aim , to make it another illustration of what we were just alluding to . It is an historical sketch of the science , at once popular and philosophical . Here is a passage which , though not new , deserves iteration : — * " There is a curious popular desire to attribute great advances in knowled ge to accident , and hence we have the discovery of the means for-determining specific gravity by Archimedes , " tHe law - . of gravitation by Newton , and of cheinjjcal electricity by Galvani , constantly attributed to fortuitous circumstances , where as we have the evidence in these , and in most other similar examples , of a close system

    of inductive research leading up to the final result . As a general proposition it may be affirmed that there are no accidents in science . In those cases even which assume the character of accidental circumstances , it still requires the observation of a well-trained mind to develope the truth . The same set of circumstances mayoccur repeatedly before the eyes , and under the hands of ordinary men , without attracting their attention ; and even when this is the case , their transient curiosity leads to no inquiry . But that mysterious power , " which belongs as an exclusive privilege to genius , seizes the indication , howsoever slight it may be , and advances at once on the path of discovery /'

    We must give another passage , that we may protest against its two-fold inaccuracy : " The investigations of Galvani , of Humboldt , of Aldini , arid more recently the delicate researches of Matteucci , Du Bois-Reyniond , and others , prove beyond all doubt , that every motion of the body , and every motion of the mind reacting on the material organism , produces an electrical disturbance , the weak manifestations of which can be measured by the delicate galvanometers we now employ . During life , the struggle of antagonistic forces to maintain the requisite equilibrium' produces a continual change of state , and consequently as continued an indication of electrical pulsation . When life has ceased , and the full play of chemical

    disintegration has set in upon the body , lying 'in cold obstruction / this all-diffusive power is still detected in its wondrous workings , —it is no less energetic in the disorganized mass than it was in the form in its full beauty of organization . So far from our philosophy leading . , us to the conclusion that life—vitality , is electricity , every step of our inquiry shows us that the physical force is infinitely inferior to that mysterious principle which human science cannot reach . Whether we examine life in the vegetable or in the animal worlds , it so evidently lies beyond the pale of the physical forces which human intellect may try and test its powers upon , that each true philosopher feels the strength , of the words—' Hitherto sbalfc thou come , but no further ; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed /

    " Life is beyond the search of the most exalted human intelligence . ViTAii poece in its lowest development is infinitely superior to electricity in its highest manifestations , and it ; requires no great penetration to perceive subtile powers , which are not yet ' dreamed of in our philosophy / beyond these physical fbrteetf with which we are , as yet , so imperfectly acquainted , and these still inferior to that approach to spiritualization which we call life ''

    The inaccuracy is , as we said , two-fold : as a matter of fact the researches of Matteucci and Du Bois-Reymond , show precisely the reverse of what is here stated . Matteucci contends that the *•* muscular current" of electricity rapidly decreases , after the death of the animal , being most rapid in the first eight or ten minutes ; and Du Bois-Reymond ' s experiments lead him to assert that the diminution of the muscular current is proportional to the diminution of the excitability of the muscle : both have the same termination in the rigor mortis . The phenomenon of the muscular current , therefore , he considers as only possible in the living tissue . The current which has once vanished , in consequence of the rigor mortis , never returns . .

    As a matter of philosophy , the inaccuracy lies in the assumption of a " vital force" infinitely " superior" to electricity . The notion of identity between the two is absurd , we admit ; vitality is vitality , and not electricity ; but vitality itself is not a specific thing , it is a specific condition—a condition dependent not on electricity , but on a series of prior conditions , the law of which we believe we have discovered , and which will be announced in a forthcoming work , viz ., Comte ' s Philosophy of the Sciences . Be that as it may , philosophical accuracy demands that , instead of separating " vitality" from all other phenomena , as some specially "' mysterious

    principle , " we must declare it mysterious , indeed , but not more so than the " principle" of crystallization , or of chemical affinity . Why two dissimilar metals , one of which is oxidized by the solution in which they stand , should present the phenomenon of electricity , is as mysterious as why , when an organic cell is placed in a proper medium , it absorbs nutriment , divides itself , by spontaneous fission , and reproduces a cell , in every way similar to itself . Familiarity may blunt our keenness of appreciation , but philosophy teaches us that all is mystery when we pass beyond phenomena . We lift the veil , but mortal eye can only project images upon the background of darkness , it cannot see what shapes are there !

    We have only left ourselves space to indicate in a sentence the review of Ilypatia , and the paper on Horace , in this same number . The first a learned and thoughtful commentary , the last an amusing and somewhat startling glimpse of IIorack from the " London" point of view . Niisnunn illusfrated ancient history by a perpetual reference to modern history , and this writer tries to make the life of the Roman poet intelligible by Londonizing Rome , not seriously , but with sufficient piquancy to make the old story interesting . We must run rapidly through the Magazines , pausing to recommend Blackwood ' s articles on The Narcotics we indulge in , and on The New Shafcspenrc Readings . In the former a defence is act up for our " Sooty Bacchus , " us Ciiaumc . h Lamii culled it , tho divine weed , maligned , but not less cherished : — " Extensively as it is used , it is surprising how very i ' aw can state distinctly tho effects which tobacco produces—can oxplain tho kind of pleasure tho uso of it gives

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 6, 1853, page 18, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_06081853/page/18/