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Leader (1850-1860), 21st February 1857, Edition 2 of 2, Page 17, —?—Critics are not the legislators, butt...

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      _ [February 21,1857.] The Leader. 185

      _ [ February 21 , 1857 . ] THE LEADER . 185

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      —?—Critics Are Not The Legislators, Butt...

      —?—Critics are not the legislators , buttbe judges and police of literature . They do not mak « laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . — Edinburgh Review .

      ; ,

      One of the best writers in . La Remie des Deux Mondes is M . Emile Montegut , also one of the best informed on English Literature . In the last number he las published a criticism on Michielet , a apropos of the recent works of that listorian , a criticism \ ve recommend to our readers not only for its admirable delineation , of Michelet's talent , but also for the example it affords of the true spirit and purpose of criticism . In . the same number there is an essay on Titian by Gustave Plan che , irritating by the insolent dogmatism of its tone ( a tone M . Planche scarcely ever lowers ) , but interesting-, nevertheless , as the criticism of one who has studied what he writes about , and who has formed his own opinions .

      If we sometimes grumble over the dulness or Lneffectuality of the writing in . our Reviews , we need only open the Ncrtfi American Review , to find our respect for tlie ^ English reviews greatly heightened . In the last number of that publication there is an article on Hudson ' s edition of Siiakspeare , very curious to read as a sample of Quarterly Reviewing across the Atlantic . After giving some extracts from Mr . Hudson ' s wordy and feeble criticisms , the reviewer adds : ¦—Chronologically speaking , this method of analyzing the poefs characters is after that of Coleridge and of Mrs . Jameson ; but Mr . Hudson has so improved on his models , that he is but little more indebted to them than Shakespeare was to his predecessors for the plots of his plays . And as our readers may be glad to know something of that criticism which is said "to transcend Coleridge and Mrs . Jameson even as Siiakspeare

      transcended the writers from whom lie "borrowed , we will- quote from the analysis of Lady Macbeth ' s character , which the reviewer pronounces the fbiest specimen : — In the structure and working of her mind , and moral frame Lady Macbeth is the opposite of her husband , and for that reason all the better fitted to piece out and mate up his deficiency . Of a firm , sharp , wiry , matter-of-fact intellect , doubly charg-ed with energy of-will , she has little ia common with him save a red-hot ambition ; for which cause , while the prophetic disclosures have the same effect on her will as on his , and she forthwith jumps into the same purpose , the effect on her mind is just the reverse ; she being subject to no such involuntary and uncontrollable tumults of thought without Ms irritability of understanding and imagination , she therefore has no such prudential misgivings or terrible allusions to make hex shake , and falter , and recoil . So that -what terrifies him , transports her ; -what stimulates his reflective powers , Btifles hers .

      ^ " Almost any other dramatist -would have brought the Weird Sisters to act immediately upon Lady Macbeth , and through her upon lier husband , as thinking her more open , to superstitious allurements and charm ! . Shakespeare seems to have understood that aptness of mind for them to -work upon would have unfitted her for working upon her husband in aid of them . Enough of such influence has already been brought to hear : what is wanted further is quite another sort of influence ; such a sort as could only be wielded by a mind not much accessible to the former . There was strong dramatic reason , therefore , why nothing should move or impress her , when awake , but facts ; why she should not be of a constitution and method of mind , that the evil

      which has struck its roots so deep within should come back to her in the elements and aspects of nature , either to mature the guilty purpose , or to obstruct the guilty act . It is quke remarkable that she never once recurs to the Weird Sisters , or lays any stress on their salutations ; they seem to have no weight with her but for the impression they have made on Macbeth ; that which impression may grow to the desired effect , she refrains from using it or meddling with it , and seeks only to fortify it with su « h other impressions as lie in her power to make . Does not all this look as though she were sceptical touching the contents of hia letter , and durst not attempt to influence him with arguments that had no influence with herself , lest her want of sincerity therein should still further unknit his purpose ?"

      M. De Montaxembeut Has Reprinted His Art...

      M . de Montaxembeut has reprinted his article , De la nouvelleedition de Saint Simon , -which appeared in the Correspondant . There are many passages iu this pamphlet which will interest the reader apart from any interest in St . Simon , Whose genius was never appreciated until the present century , and one passage we must quote ; it is where he avows his passion for Literature : " Je sais bien que cette passion semble devoir etre elassee parmi les peche ' s , tout comine le regret de la libcrte , etle sentiment de l'houneur , par cette orthodoxie arrogante et harg-aeuse qui a la vogue auiourd'hui . "

      Two Years Ago. | Two Years Ago. By The R...

      TWO YEARS AGO . | Two Years Ago . By the Rev . Charles Kingalcy , F . S . A ., F . L . S . 3 vols . Macmillan and Co . The new novel by Mr . Kingsley will be looked for in many circles wiLh greater expectations of delight than the new novel of any one except i Dickens , Thackeray , or Mrs . Giaskell ; and the disappointment will be nil if . the greater because of this flutter of expectation . In reading Two Years { Ago we have been forced to check the impatience produced by the sense ol ? tedium , and we have recalled the former evidences of Mr . Kingsley ' s talent to reassure ourselves ( hat we were not mistaken in awarding him a

      prominent place among the popular writers of the day ; for , undeniably , if we if if i ° Other standarii by which to inesisure him than Two Years Ayo ^ we I should not assign him a place even among third-rate writers . I k- 1 a 8 tor ^ ' ^ wo ^ ears slyo is dull and spasmodic . It opens with a scene Which took place u a month ago ; " it then goes back to " sixteen yearn a ^ o , " , $ ana anally begins " two years ngo . " In a similar hop-skip-and-jump style it I proceeds . The incidents are numerous , but disconnected . The persons appear , tauc , rant generally , and disappear . There is no repose . There is no development , lucre is no continuity of narrative . Tim pictures are lurid , and are seen in cross lights . Although the reader is harassed by the sense of perpetual

      striving after effect , no permanent effect is reached . In these three volumes there are ' effects' enough to have filled hali a dozen volumes . Death-bed scenes , cholera , a wreck , attempts at suicide , pistols fired in gentlemen ' s faces without harm , delirium tremens , jealousy , et id omne genus , but none of these stir the pulses , none of them interest the feelings . There is one chapter entitled " Nature ' Melodrama , " and omitting ' Nature' this title might fce given to the whole book , which is a phantasmagoria of unreality , without even the charm of being imaginative . It Tvill not be credited by readers of Mr . Kingsley ' s other works that he

      could have produced a novel so entirely without merit or interest of any kind , except that derived from mere diction ( which is of course generally vigorous , and often poetical ) , and from occasional descriptions of scenery . We fancy that the main source of his failure has been the idea of producing a " striking novej of the day : " in the . attempt to be ' striking' he has become spasmodic ; in the attempt to depict contemporary life he has quitted the path where his talent has free scope , for one unsuited to itquitted imagination for observation . The romance and descriptions of Westward Ho ! are displaced for the melodrama and rant of a novel which , pretending to depict the life of to-day , depicts the life of no day .

      The characters are as ill executed as the story . We have had but rare opportunities of knowing tragic actresses in private life , but the one or two actresses we have known were not . in the least like Cor-di-iia . ni ma ; and wo have the less belief in her resembling any tragic actress because she so little resembles a lminan being . We have known several Americans , from North and South ; but any American bearing the most distant resemblance to Stangrave , it has not been our misfortune to encounter ; on the other hand , we have seen many Stangraves stalking through inferior novels . Frank Headleys - \ ve have also seen in the same masquerades ; and Grace Harveys ; and wonderful Tom Thurnalls , doing everything and knowing everything . In real life we have also known a few poets , and many men who fancied themselves poets ; and some of these have been men of hectic vanity , but any one much resembling Elsley Vavasour , alias John Briggs , would seem to us as wonderful as an antediluvian monster walking down Regent-street . The motives which actuate all the characters are so absurdly unreal in their

      presentation , that instead of the characters exciting any in t erest ' at all , the incredlllus odi impatiently turns over the pages to get free of them , in the hope of alighting on something less improbable . Some of the incidental remarks are good and well expressed . Mr . Kingsley always speaks worthily and with deep feeling of married love ; but his love scenes are preposterous ; the lovers declaim at each other in a surprising style , and in the year 1856 a young clergyman calls the young lady he adores " Madam I" and tells her he is not a poet , as she seems to think , "No , Madam ! God has written the poetry already ; and there it is before me . My business is not to rewrite it clumsily , but to read it humbly , and give Him thanks for it . " We insist upon the utter failure of the love scenes , not because love scenes are essential to a good novel , but because Mr , Kingsley , as we said , writes of married love with the fervour of one who has known it , and the . discrimination of one who can describe what he has felt ; and yet when he touches unmarried lovers it is to make them ridiculous .

      So great has been our disappointment , that -we were for some time strongly disposed to doubt our own verdict , thinking perhaps that the fault miglit lie in us , more than in Mr . Kingsley ' s presentation ; but on comparing our individual impressions with those of other readers , and finding them entirely coincide , we began to examine the novel in a more critical spirit , to see if we could detect the causes of its failure . If we are not mistaken the causes are deep-seated ; they lie in the original endeavour to depict the present day iu most of its social aspects . To dp this Mr . Kingsley has not tlie required faculties ; he has attempted to do it by dragging in heterogeneous materials , and characters which he has never studied . The effect is patchy and disagreeable . Instead of a story with some concentration of interest , and characters with some continuous development , we have a succession of episodes broken into fragments , and a masquerade of persons dressed from the wardrobe of circulatinj r libraries .

      It has been painful to us to write this notice ; -we say it unaffectedly , for we are great admirers of Mr . Kingsley ' s talent , and arc grieved to see so much power misdirected . He has only to write another Yeast , Alton LocJce , or Westward Ho ! and he will find the Leader ready to join its plaudits to the plaudits of a delighted public .

      The Baltic Napier. The History Of The Ba...

      THE BALTIC NAPIER . The History of the Baltic Campaign of 1851 . From Documents and Other UfatcrCals Furnished by Vice-Admiral Sir C- Napier , K . C . B . Edited by G . li . Karp . Bentley . Sir Charles Napier has done justice to himself by publishing this volume . It proves that he did hia duty m the Baltic , and we wish it had been Iiis only publication on that subject . Indiscreet he sometimes is—allNapiers are indiscreet ; but brave he was—brave as all Napiera arc . Moreover , it would have been next to impossible to accomplish more against the enemy , with his means , and it might have been criminal rashness to try . This , at least , was the opinion at the Admiralty . The point is brought out , too , with great distinctness , that Sir Charles Napier , in the Baltic , was ordered not to

      act without the co-operation of the French , and that the French were instructed not to co-operate with him in any warlike experiments hazardous to the fleet . He was inclined in 18 . 04 to attack Abo or Revel ; the French commanders refused : if any one should be taunted , therefore , it ia Baruguay JD'Jlilliers , or General JNiel , or Admiral Farseval . The truth is , however , that Sir Charles Napier , without extenuating the want of political judgment he lias displayed on various occasions , liaa produced a complete and convincing exposure of the Admiralty . Not one of the great oHicers—civil or naval—of that bewildered department seems to have had the least idea of what the Jialtic was , how it could be navigated , how powerful Avere the Itu-ssian fortifications , or what the British Admiral waa bound to do for Britannia ruling the waves . One and all , they contradicted themselves by irreconcilable discrepancies of opinion , perplexed Sir Charlea Napier by

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 21, 1857, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_21021857/page/17/