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Leader (1850-1860), 12th August 1854, Edition 2 of 2, Page 15, To have some twelve or twenty periodical...

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      August 12, 1854.] Tee Leader. 75?

      August 12 , 1854 . ] TEE LEADER . 75 ?

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      Ck.Ugs Are Not The Legislators, But The ...

      Ck . Ugs are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . —JEdinburylt " Review .

      To Have Some Twelve Or Twenty Periodical...

      To have some twelve or twenty periodicals before you , and to have to go over them , so as to ascertain their contents and report on their merits , is the best possible training in the " art of skipping . " Practice has made us tolerably perfect in this art . Having been in the habit of hearing a great many sermons , and being at the same time afflicted or blessed ( whichever you choose to call it ) with a constitutional tendency to reverie , which the pew-attitude naturally fosters , -we long ago discovered that it was totally unnecessary to attend to a preacher throughout , and that we could delegate to the ear the business of watching for us , and keeping us duly informed when anything good -was going on , for the reception of which it might be worth while to waken up the intelligence . We have acquired a similar knack in reading . We believe we are conscientious reviewers , and just reviewers ; and yet we confess we don't read through all the books and all the periodicals we pronounce opinions upon . We look at the outside of a book or a , periodical ; we read the preface , the list of contents , and all those

      outer scraps which give us the general physiognomy of the boek ; then we sit down , paper-knife in hand , and cut up all the pages punctually from the first to the last , hovering all the while over the pages , like a hawk , glancing at the headings of chapters , at suggestive words and proper natnes in the text , descending leisurely for a closer view when , anything attracts us , and swooping down rapidly and greedily wherever we descry a tit-bit . We don ' t say that that would "be conscientious reviewing for a Quarterly-man , entrusted Avith the task of giving a verdict on one book ; but we do say it is conscientious reviewing for the purpose of a literary summary . And -we beg to say , cursory as the style of proceeding may seem , it is in onr case perfectly satisfactory . We are such adepts in the '' art of skipping , " our instinct for what is good is so fine and so catholic at the same time , that , if we once have used our paper-knife on a publication , we are sure of having accurately diagnosed it , and not missed any of its tit-bits . Our golden rule , however , is to cut open all the leaves from end to end . AH depends on that .

      We have just submitted the bulky residue of the month ' s periodicals to this process . We must say that the result has been to confirm , the impression we ventured to state last week , that the quantity of " skippable " matter in our periodicals is prodigious . There is riot much that is positively bad or nonsensical ; but the amount ' of useless commonplace in the way of thought , and insipid recompilation in the way of history , shows that the editorial function is in many cases degenerating into a sham . Last week we quoted Di Quincev ' s remark about the non-sufficiency of merely reasonable thinking about a subject to entitle one to write upon it . We find some very apt remarks to a similar effect in a capital article on The Use and Abuse of Words , in the A ort 7 i American Review . The writer is reviewing Dr . Peter Mark Roget ' s recently published Thesaurus of English Words , so classified caul arranged us to facilitate the Expression of Ideas and assist in Literary Comjiosition . He says :

      " The most cursory glance overmuch of the * literature ' of the day , so called , will indicate the peculiar form of marasmus under which the life <> t language is in danger of being slowly consumed . The most liopeless characteristic of this literature is its complacent exhibition of distrcsiaiip ; oxcellencca , —its evident incapacity to rise into promising faults . Tlio terms arc such as arc employed Ly the best writers , the grammar is good , the morality excellent , the information accurate , the reflections sensible , yet the whole composition ' neither contains nor can communicate intellectual or moral life ; ami a critical eiilogium on its merits sounds ] tIce the certificate of u schoolmaster as to the negative virtues of his pupils . This fluent deliility , winch never stumbles into ideas nor stutters into passion , which calls its common-place comprehensiveness , and styles its sedate lungour repose , would , if jmt upon a short allowance of words , and compelled to purchase language at the expense of

      conquering obstacles , be likely to evince some spasms of genuine expression but it is lmnlly reasonable to expect , this verbal abstemiousness at a period when the whole wealth of tho English tongue is placed at the disposal of tlio puniest whipsters of rhetoric , —when the art of writing is avowedly tnuglit on the principle of imitating tho ' best modela , '— when words aro worked into tlio ears of tho young hit lie , hope that something will bo found an-KWormg to thorn in their br . tins , —and when Dr . Peter Murk Kogot , who never happened on a verbal felicity or uttered a ' thought-executing' word in tho course of Ms long find useful life , rushes about , book in hand , to tempt unthinking and unimpassioned mediocrity into tho delusion , that Its disconnected glimpses of truths never fairly grasped , and its faint movements of embryo aspirations which never broke their ahull , can bo worded by his specifics into creative thought and -passion . "

      The article from -which this is extracted is one of tlio best , if not the best , in tho number ; tlio whole Review , however , is tolorably exempt—ns a quarterly , and above nil , a quarterly published in Boston , ought to be—from that vice of u fluent debility , " with which we aro charging so much of our periodical literature . Among- thq other articles , I hero is one on Miss Martinhmi ' s translation of Comtic's Positive Philosophy , beginning iu this scandalous manner : " Wo nro sorry , but not surprisioil , that Minn Martineau should havo adopted tho opinions which arc avowed iu tho recent publication of lior correspondenco with Mr . Atkinson , ami in tuirt uttoinpt to traiiMl . ito Cotntti ' ri Philosophy ami Lo render Itpopular in Eneland . Her

      , former wntuigsHhinvodi'oiiiidi'rHblmibility , bul . it w ; m tlio ability uf an ill-n ^ ulatod mind , — 01 a iiund working out of its proper sphere , and m-oniing all Hkiwl- limitation * and restraints which m <| iroct , l y hulp ua iu tho benrdi a ft or truth , hwauso they narrow tlio fluid of inquiry , aim aot u » pru & evviitivos njjr . ihmt the most hurtful errors . In her ambition to loavotlio common track , shu Imtt wandered wildly over tlio whole Hell of knowh'dirr , « md eoino to tlio most bnrron coijohmioii ut lust ,-to ti Loliof , if it . can bo o . illed such , tliut tlioro i » no diviiio BuporintfliKtcnco of the affai r * of this world , and no hope of a . world to cnio . Tho leading vice < n ner ohuraotor Ims alwnyii been int .-Hcscliwil ano ^ mro . Who him nevur had any delwiwhnmi " !" ' Ul U V r lww 00 IIBII ( l U > fnt « - *» -t « ii » any f . » ith in her Croatov ; tho only lining whom sho has novor kwnod to dint nut ia her « ulf . " After thia epocimon of tho writer's controvorni . il Htylo , it is unnecessary

      to say that he is peevish and shallow throughout . A great deal of rinegar has been poured upon Comte by the Reviews : but we did not expect such weak vinegar from a Transatlantic Quarterly . A thorough discassioA of Comte and his doctrines fro ' mthe true antagonistic point—and thai pGint , we believe , is lo be found in the philosophy of Si * WitiXAM Ha & ilto : !* , or thereabouts—is still a desideratum . Kant or Oomte , transcendentalism or positivism—that , after all , is the alternative ; and all midway exposition and doctrinizinjr , is ( if the conditions of real speculative discussion are to be attended to ) but cleverness and mystification . One other course , indeed , there is for those whose natures refuse to saddle themselves with the " conditions of speculative discussion "—and that is tokeep clear of the -whole subject follow their own noses as well as they can , and let Kant And CotoE whirl antagonistically , like two windmills on the distant heights . If they are asked which windmill they believe in , they can say " I see both . "

      From tbe critical notices at the end of the Nttrth . American Review , we perceive that America has started a candidate for the honours of Junius . A Mr . Frederic Griffin , in a book called Junius Discovered , sets up Governor . Pownaix as the proper man , on evidence -which the reviewer pronounces a failure . We have two other American Reviews—the Christian Examiner , published in Boston ; and the New York Quarterly . The first is almost exclusively theological : the writers append their initials to their articles , as in the old Westminster ; and in addition to this , a printed slip , distributed -with the Review , gives the names of the writers of the various articles at full length . When will this practice become general ? The New York Quarterly has some interesting articles . The first , on The Morale of the Eastern War is a Transatlantic apology for the war . The following explains the writer '

      views : — " We will frankly say , at the very start , what our view of the Morale is , thns enuiiciafin ; the proposition we will then attempt to prove . We believe that - in the main Russia ha ; acted throughout in better faith than Turkey or Turkey ' s allies ; that while the czar is no guilty of the simplicity of childhood , he is nevertheless neither a political ruffian nor a buc caneer ; tliat while , like every other sovereign , acting not solely in a personal capacity , but re presentcitively for his people , he may feel that more latitude and verge is given for his action than he would be entitled to as an individual , he has yet , in the present instance , pursued : course which no other country would have taken unless its weakness compelled it to do so in a word , that while , like other sovereigns , he may be ambitious and discreet , he has beei careful to have much of the light on his side from the very start , and to have kept to tha right in a way that would almost argue a weakness in the instrumentality or an lridecisioi in the will by which his ends were sought to be obtained . "

      Any view- may be maintained by argument ; but nothing will do away with the impression that for an American to argue in favour of the Czar is about as decided a case of being "in the wrong box" as could well be , There is another case of " wrong "box , " however , in the same Review—1 < wit , a plea in favour of wine-drinking from the land of the Maine-law The editor , having the fear of tho teetotalers before his eyes , appends a note abjuring all responsibility for the doctrines of the article , and protesting that for his part he " would recommend only cold -water as an ordinal *] beverage ; " nevertheless he lets his contributor support Mr . Omviera ' views respecting the probable effects of the reduction of the duties 01

      foreign wines . The writer opens tlvus : — " It has ever been found , that a wine-drinking people present the most favourable specimens of humanity , whether physical or moral . By the term wine-drinking , however , we do not moan what is vulgarly understood us getting drunk with wine;—God forbid ! but we mean the habitual and temperate use of wme aaa beverage ; Jiofc its bacchanalian abuse for intoxication . Wine is pne of God's gracious gifts to man—designed , as wo have it on the authority of Holy \ Vrit , ' to make him a cheerful countenance , ' —that is , to animate , tc exhilarate , to gladden him . And when we read of wine making such sad havoc with poor human nut lire as that which the drunkard ' s case too often exhibits , nine times out of ten it is not wine at all , but ardent spirit , that has done the mischief . "

      In an article on Institutions for Popular Information in New York , we have a series of notes and reflections on the New York Crystal Palace , the Astor Library , and Abbott ' s Egyptian Museum . The paper is judicious ; but there is nothing specially worthy of quotation in it , except the following passage , apropos of the effects likely to be produced by great libraries on American literary production . " It was in the library of Moilena that Muratori prepared those volumes which havo made his nnmo , although a hundred years have passed over it , a hallowed word for the student of Italian history . It was from the same spot thatTiraboschi sent forth , volume by volume , his matcliloss history of Italian literature . It was the eight of tho treasures of which ho became tho guardian , as librarian sf the Faculty of Advocates , that suggested to Hume tho iilca of Inn History of England , filial ! wo over bo ul > lo to associate mimes like these with

      the lil > ruri « s of America ? Wo want a history of England ; for of all that have been written , there is none that meets the requisitions of an Americnn republican . Wo want a history ot English literature ; for England herself has none j and how happily nnd honourably might a life ho spent in writing it ! Wo want & history of Franco ; there is nono , iu the language , that deserves the name . Wo want a history of Italy ; tho record of groat actions that , wo might imitate , and great errors that wo should shun- And if wo would moot those and the other niimifbld wants of our literature , we must have groat libraries like tho Astor , _ which in tho trun spirit of democracy , shall enable evory man that haa tlio talont and tho industry , to work hm way to those heights of litoravy renown which , without thorn , so many oan only gnzo at in sorrow and bitterness of heart . Turning from tho transatlantic to our own periodicals , wo have , besides

      those noticed lust woelc , a good number of the Dublin University , containing , inler alia , a . memoir of Sir Samuri . Gkkio , a Scotchman of tho hist century , who entered tho naval service of tho Russian Empress Catherine , in 1704 , became a distinguished man in that service , drew numbers of other Scotchmen into it , nnd so , before his death in 1788 , " earned tho title of JMUher oi . tho Russian navy" ( tho writer does not way who ww tho mother ) ; a fair number of ' fait , with liberal politics predominant , and u word oi protest ; much needled against Exeter Ilulliam nnd its votaries ; a light and hefcerogcnouB number of ficntlci / ; nnd as light , though not so hcterogonous a number of tho National Miscellany . . fin Mr . ( JiuttiMH Kniuht has tosuod parts \ b and 1 ( 5 of hm toMttsAC & cloptvdia ; Messrs . Omi nml Co . have jmbU » h < Jd parts 4 and 5 ot J be Land we Uvo iu . containing , among tho articles , " Liverpool , " * ' ManchoBtcr , Shot-

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 12, 1854, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_12081854/page/15/