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    JtoY 1, 1855.J THE "LEADER. 63$

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    A. BATCH OF BOOKS. The World in the Midd...

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    Lord Brougham's Literature. Lives Of Men...

    gangs and emperors have turned their hands to making locks and sealing-Tfjix ; ambassadresses have collected old stockings for the sake of darning them ; and we knew a wealthy old gentleman who devoted himself to makin g pokers , which he presented to all the ladies of his acquaintance . It is generally presumed of such people that if they had brains to enable them to do anything better , they would prosecute this voluntary artisanship with less zeal ; stiilj the case of these incapables is one to be charitably smiled at or sighed over , not gravely rebuked : we graciously accept the present of their lock or their poker and say no more about it . But it would be a different affair if these voluntary artisans were to set up shop —if , for example , Lord A , or

    Sir B . C , or any other of the tribe of wealthy Englishmen to whom foreigners give the generic title of milord , were not only to amuse himself ¦\ rith making boots , but were to hire a shop frontage , with plate glass , and exhil'it his clumsy wares to the public with as much pomp and circumstance as if he were a very Iloby , thereby inducing snobbish people to set the fashion of wearing and crying up Lord A ' s boots , to the depreciation of teallv well-made articles , Jind to the great detriment both of human candour and the human foot . Political economists and bootmakers , lady-loves and © rtbonoedists , science and aesthetics , would vote the aristocratic Crispin a

    nuisance . ¦ A sufficiently close parallel to this hypothetic case is suggested by Lord Brougham ' s Lives of Men of Letters , the sight of which , republished in a oheaj J " form , has , we confess , roused our critical gall . Relieved from the labours of his chancellorship , Lord Brougham , we suppose , found a good deal of leisure on his hands ; and how did he employ it ? By taking to ¦ what wo may call literary lock and poker-making—by writing third-rate iiographies in the style of a literary hack ! Biographies , too , of men whose lives had already been depicted in all sorts of ways , and presented to us in all sorts of lights—like Prince Albert ' s face and legs . If we had found these " Lives of Men of Letters" in a biographical dictionary we should perhaps have thought them about up to the average of the piece-work them did

    usually to be met with in such compilations ; finding , as we more than ten years ago , in an edition de luxe adorned with portraits , and with Lord Broughaiu * s name on the title-page , we felt some simmering indignation at such gratuitous mediocrities in a pretentious garb ; and now that we see them in a cheaper reissue—as if there were any demand for these clumsy superfluities , these amateur locks and jokers—our indignation fairly boils over . We have not the slightest wish to be disrespectful to Lord Brougham . His name is connected with some of the greatest movements in the last half century , and in general , is on the side of the liberal and the just . But he las been a successful man ; his reputation is fully equal to his merit ; society is unanimous in pronouncing that he has done many things well and wisely ; and there is , therefore , no reason why we should-be reticent of our criticism wherein our inionhe has done some tilings less wisely and not welL

    , op , The first thing that strikes us in these Lives is the slovenliness of their style , which is thrown almost ludicrously into relief by the fact that many of Lord Brougham ' s pages arc occupied with criticism of other men ' s style The hard-run literary man , who is every moment expecting the knock of the printer ' s boy , has i-eason enough to renounce fastidiousness ; hut his lordship , in the elegant ease of his library , with no call impending but that of the lunch or dinner-bell , mig ht at least atone for the lack of originality by finish—might , if he has no jewels to offer us , at least polish his pebbles . How far he has done this we will let the reader judge by giving 80 me « 5 pecimens of the manner in which Lord Brougham contrives

    To blunt a moral and to spoil a tale . One of his reproaches against Gibbon ' s style is , that it is " prone to adopt false and mixed metaphors ; " but we doubt whether the Decline and Tall could furnish us with a more typical specimen of that kind than one which he himself gives us in his life of Voltaire . " Proofs also remain , says Lord Brougham , " which place beyond all doubt his ( Voltaire ' s ) kindness to commonl

    several worthless men , who repaid itwitli the black ingratitude so y used as their current coin by the base and spiteful , who thus repay their lenefactors and salve their own wounded pride by pouring venom on the hand that saved or served them . " Again , in the life of Johnson , we rend : * Assuredly , we may in vain search all the Mnntuan tracery of sweets for any to excel them in the beauty of numbers . " It may be our ignorance ot confectionery that prevents us from perceiving what " tracery" can have to do Trith " sweets : ' as it is , however , we can only explain his lordships metasince

    phor by supposing tracery to be a misprint for lea tray , misprints bound in this voFmnc . Lord Brougham is very frequently quite as inleli-« Houh in his phrases , mid in the structure of his sentences , asm Ins metaphors . For example : " It is none of the least absurd parts of Condorcet s Work , that he , being so well versed in physical and mathematical science , passes without any particular observation the writings of Voltaire on physical subjects , when lie was so competent to pronounce an opinion upon & merita * " Comlorect was a man of science , no doubt , a good ma the-. ' ttftttcian ; * but he was in other respects of a middling understanding and kindness pparently

    Violentfeelwas . " "The lady treated him with , a as a Sid ; ita Siend St . Lambert did not much relish the matter , l » ?»» S . ««« W « ¦ to adopt his singular hubit of several lovers at one and the same tune » " »<«• <^ With one mistress . " Th « stylo of Koushcmu ' s (' onjesswns wo are tol « 1 , i *¦ «> . exquisitely graphic without any effort , and so accommodated to it * » uiy -ct ¦ Without any-baseness , that then : hardly exists another example of the nn > < u t * phich composition can perform . " In the labour ol turning h ,. s homy hinittaccs , hii lordship in Honu'times oblivious of logic , bpeakmg ot Job on * fcfttin verses to Mrs . Tlmilo , he my * : " Such onences as ' l ^ eia ^ &«« * f « c-a misprint , of course , for littora ) , " lor an Adon . an in his Sap > kk to / Thraliadilcis , ' would have called down his severe censure on any lick let * Wight of Paris or Edinburgh who should peradventure have >< mmt < l tern ; nor would hi . s being tho countryman ol Polemi c or ot j I Uic felt of modern Lati .. ist « , Buchanan , have operated except as an ngajinvn-^ SSS ^ l yS ^ SVi ^^ on Scotc h -ut . ' ^ aro , u > t very ' 5 j § JUsurpvis « d to find that Lord Brougham has boiiio a » t ™ P « t « » < £ . j IWMu m when men will cease to perpetrate witticisnw-vrhen not only will ; # < l « Wiq : , ¦ ¦ I , . . *¦ ,

    the lion eat straw like the ox , but latter-day Voltaires will be as heavy as Scotch lawyers . At least , this is the only way in which we can interpret his peroration to the Life of Voltaire . After an allusion in the previous sentence to " the graces of his style" and " the spirit of his immortal wit , " we read : " But if ever the time shall arrive when men , intent solely on graver matters , and bending their whole minds to things of solid importance , shall be careless of such light accomplishments , and the writings which now have so great , a relish more or less openly tasted , shall pass into oblivion , then , " & c , & c . We confess that we shudder at such a Millennium as much as at one predicted by Dr . Cutnming , or planned by Robert Owen . Another striking characteristic of these Lives of Men of Letters is the way in which the writer ignores what is not only notorious to all the educated world , but notoriously well known to Lord Brougham . The

    longfaced gravity with which he discourses on Voltaire ' s ridicule of religious dogmas , and on Hume ' s abstinence from such ridicule , might lead a very ignorant reader to suppose that Lord . Brougham bad led a retired life , chiefly in clerical and senile society , and could only with difficulty imagine a man passing a joke on the Trinity . He says of Hume that " occasionally his opinions were perceivable" in his conversation , and that one day the inscription on the staircase of the college library , Christo et Musis has cedes sacrarunt cives Edinenses , actually " drew from the unbeliever an irreverent observation on the junction which the piety rather than the classical purity of the good town had made between the worship of the heathen and our own . " Astounding ! Even this distant allusion to such irreverence mi-ht have had a pernicious effect by exciting in us an unhealthy desire to know what the irreverent observation waj ^ had we not remembered that Hume had no wit , but only " wut , " so that his joke was probably a feeble

    one A still more surprising example of Lord Brougham ' s ignoring system as a writer is his comment on Voltaire ' s relation to Madame dii Chalelet . He thinks that on the whole there is no sufficient reason for questioning that it was Platonic , and the chief grounds he alleges for this conclusion ' are : that the laws of French society at that time , as well as now , were exceedingly rigorous , that the relation was recognised by all their friends , that Voltaire mentions Madame du Chatelet in his letters , and that Frederick II . sent his regards to her ! One would think it did not require Lord Brougham ' s extensive acquaintance with the history of French society in the days of Voltaire and Rousseau to know that , whatever may be the truth of his conclusion , the grounds by which he supports it must sound like irony rather than like a grave statement of fact ; and , indeed , he himself , on another page , having laid aside his ignoring spectacles , talks of Grimm being the " professed lover of Madame d'Epinay , " and of St . Lambert being " the * avowed lover" of Madame d'Houdetot . m

    We had marked several other , ' points for notice , especially that veryremarkable criticism of Lord Brougham's on the Nouvclle Helolse , in which he implies , that for a lover to remind bis mistress that she had allowed him to kiss her , is to tell her what a " forward , abandoned wanton she proved , and his supposition , that because Johnson was sometimes wandering ail nirrht in the streets with Savage he must necessarily have indulged in certain vices " in their more crapulous form" ( an unfortunate suggestion to come from the Brougham of Jeffrey ' s letters , who is described as " roaming the streets with the sons of Belial" ) . But we must remember that when indignation makes reviews instead of Juvenalian verses , the result is not equally enjoyable by the reader . So we restrain our noble rage , and say <» ood-by now and for ever to Lord Brougham ' s Lives of Men of Letters ^ hop ing that the next time we meet with any production of his we may be able to express admiration as strongly as we have just now expressed the reverse .

    Jtoy 1, 1855.J The "Leader. 63$

    JtoY 1 , 1855 . J THE "LEADER . 63 $

    A. Batch Of Books. The World In The Midd...

    A . BATCH OF BOOKS . The World in the Middle Ages : an Historical Geography , toith Accounts of the Origin and Development , the Institutions and Literature , the Manners and Cwtomt of the Natiotis in Europe , Western Asia , and Northern Africa , from the close of the Fourth to the middle of the Fifteenth Century . By Adolphus Louis Koeppen , Professor of History and German Literature in Franklin and Marshall College , Pennsylvania . Xew York : Appleton . London : Trtlbner and Co . The Native Jtaces of the Russian Empire . By K . G . Latham , M . D ., F . R . S ., &<\ London : H . Bailuere . Hutorv of the Dominion of the Arabs in Spain . Transited from the Spanish of Dr . J 1 Condv By Mrs . Jonathan Foster . Vol . 3 . H- G . Bohn . May Flowers : being Notes and Notions on a few Created Things . By Uj £ ^ J-Reevc Selections from the best Italian Writers , for the Use ofStttdents of the Italian language By James Philip Lacaita , LL . D . Longmans and Co . The Fall of Poland in 1794 : an Historical Tragic Drama , m Four Acts By A Patriot . x m , x j Longmans and Co . Mammon ' s Marriage . A Poem in two Cantos . By J . G . If . Saunders and Otley . A IIuNGVBiVN gentleman , bearded like the pard , not long ago had a ditference of opinion with a vendor of literature concerning the monetary value of "l > e Lolme on the English Constitution . " The great De Lolme

    — unheard of sacrifice in the trade of letters— -was offered for eighteen-pence r Our Hungarian , unheroic enough to know the value of 21 bargain , ottered a shilling ° " What ! " exclaimed Bibliopole , " a shilling for the best author on the Constitution , and ( venturing on a conclusion from the beard ; your own fimntrvmnu too . "— " De Lolme was not a Frenchman , neither am 1 , quoin Ma " ar noble ; "I am a Hungarian . " - " Never mind , " rejomeel the dealer rl-solveil against all difficulties , " are not the Hungarians a branch oi this be taken no inapt

    tin . FrenchT Now , though an extreme case , may as vonre ^ cntation of the stute of popular knowledge 011 the science ot ethno-« r » 1 y JYobably enough Bibliopole only spoke by some standard author $ 1 own stall ; for to tnvvel no farther than Hungary , we have ^ rarely hud occasion to consult the Bchoohnaater without positive assurance , poat hoc ™ , o ° " pter hoc , that the Magyar , were great-great ( less or more ) ff £££ ^ nWEffirAS ^^

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), July 7, 1855, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_07071855/page/17/