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Leader (1850-1860), 2nd May 1857, Edition 1 of 2, Page 423, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      We may remind our readers that the election to the vacant Professorship of Poetry at Oxford takes place next Tuesday , and that the Rev . Basil Jones and the Rev J . P . Tweed , who were candidates , having withdrawn , the contest now lies between Mr . Matthew Arnold and the Kev . J . E . Bode . We have already expressed our opinion of Mr . Arnold ' s qualifications for the chair . His success as a poet has been considerable ; and the virtues of form and finish for which his poems are mainly praised , prove that liis mind is even more critical than poetical ; while the introduction to his earlier volume of poems shows a careful study of the principles not only of his own art , but of art generally . He is , therefore , well fitted for the vacant post , which is , as we intimated , rather a Professorship of ^ Esthetics in general than of any single branch of the associated arts . We may add that Mr . Arnold ' s election would

      be a graceful recognition by the " University of a name well known m Oxford , and revered throughout the country . For while , cf course , no man ought to be elected simply because he is his father ' s son , other things being equal , the son of Dr . Abnold certainly has a special claim on the consideration of such a constituency . We hope , therefore , that his friends will muster on Tuesday in sufficient numbers to secure his election .

      Untitled Article

      The new number of the Quarterly Review may fairly be styled peripatetic ; two of its leading articles being " Pedestrianism in Switzerland , " and " Roving Life in England . " As in the last number , Natural History , so in the present , Natural Scenery , is the chief subject of discourse . This ,, however , is but in harmony with one of the oldest and best characteristics of the Review . While its narrow politics soon become obsolete , its broad and genial love of nature and art survives all political change , giving a life and character to the Review which it never conld retain as a mere Tory organ . Representative of the country party , the Quarterly has always reflected something of the fresh , breezy , and manly character of English sports and English country life , delighting in adventures with the rod and gun ; -with horses and hounds , and enjoying to the full every form , of open-air life and healthy activity . The first article of the present number strikes , at the outset , the old key-note in the following passage : —

      A periodical "writer lately said of a deceased poet , that "he wanted an out-of-door mind . " The deficiency is not an uncommon one . lit occurs both to the old and the young in large classes of all civilized people , and in persons of otherwise the most opposite tendencies and tastes . If it is lamentable to see young persons engrossed by the frivolities of metropolitan life , it is hardly less sad to find others , of the fairest promise and even commanding ability , spending their manhood in studies of a merely speculative or imaginative cast , remote from the interests of humanity , and the glorious realities of the natural -world . They have limbs endowed with elastic muscles , fresh and healthy blood circulating in their young veiua ; the eye is clear , the step is firm , yet the former is cramped in its range to the pages of a book , the latter is doomed to expend its spring against the resisting pavement of the streets . Let such persons cultivate the " out-of-door mind , " and for doing so we cannot recommend a better school than Switzerland , or a better grammar than Mr . Murray ' s hand-book—dear to pedestrians .

      The writer goes on to describe Swiss scenery , and details the difficulties and dangers to be encountered by travellers amongst the mountains ; the paper being , in fact , a short manual for pedestrians in the Alps . But though we enjoy the spirit and style of the article , we must say that we arc beginning to get tired of the Alps . They meet us everywhere—in panoramas and periodicals , in books and lectures , in songs and sermons , in solitude and society , whether engaged in business or pleasure ; till we look back with envy and regret to the old times in which , as Humboldx pathetically laments , " statesmen and generals , with men of letters in their train , " constantly passed from Helvetia into Gaul without leaving a single description " of the eternal snows of the Alps when tinged in the morning or evening with a rosy hue , or of the beauty of the blue glacier ice , " &c .

      The second article , entitled " Bred—American Slavery , " is a temperate and seasonable review of tho actual state of the slave question in America , with the relation of 1 lie Northern and Southern States to each other , and the prospects of tho contest which must soou inevitably take place between them . An article on "Lunatic Asylums" compares the present management of the insane with their treatment a hundred years ago—a contrast which shows the growth amongst us of national humanity and national conscience perhaps more strikingly than any other department of social legislation . The paper on " English Political Satires , " writton in a pleasant , readable ,

      graphic style , is full of striking iacts and pungent illustrations , but the brilliant detail loses much of its effect from tho absence of any attempt to generalize the principles whose-working it illustrates . While avo do not expeel much philosophy in such an article , still , if English Political Satire is treated historically , we may fairly expect some attempt to show its importance as an index of national life and progress . Tho writer lias evidently read more than he has digested , and the result is a species of intellectual congestion , which prevents tho healthy play of his powers . Tho paper on " Photography , " while smartly written , is u lisa I is factory in a . sciontilie point of view , and fails to appreciate the true value , of photography as the handmaid of Art .

      Untitled Article

      India and China seem likely to occupy a growingly largo space in our litcra

      ture as well as politics . The last number of the National Review , for example , has an article on " Indian History ; " the current Wesfwdftdt&r one on " Hindu . Poetry ; " , more recently still , the Times devotes two long articles to Hindu Philosophy , looked at from the Chinese point of view , to Buddhism , as expounded by that wonderful Chinese pilgrim Hiouen-Thsang , whose cha > - racter irresistibly excites our admiration , but whose name baffles any attempt at pronunciation , probably from the fact that nearly all the vowels are in one

      syllable , and all the consonants in the other , the proportion being in either case ( minus the aspirate ) as four to one . Most of our readers must have noticed these striking articles on " Buddhist Pilgrims , " as they appeared in the Times , and many have probably read the correspondence which has since taken place between the Reviewer and a Mr . Baretam on a disputed point of Buddhist doctrine . This discussion is interesting , as it concerns the view of a future state given in a religious system firmly held by a fourth of the human race . What is the Buddhist heaven—the Nirvana that Buddha himself

      attained , and which is proposed to his " followers as the highest reward of all their efforts ? Is it annihilation or deification—the final quenching of a vital spark , or the melting of a drop into the ocean—the utter negation of all being or the absorption of the human soul into the divine nature ? Mr . Babham tries to show that the latter must be accepted as the true opinion , while the Reviewer vigorously defends his first position—that the Nirvana is total annihilation . The question , though debated with zeal on one side , and learning on the other , is really left undecided , the conclusion arrived at being extremely unsatisfactory , if not essentially incredible . So far as acquaintance with the literature of the subject is concerned , the Reviewer , of course , has the best of it ; his opponent evidently writing with more zeal than knowledge , and from earnestness of feeling rather than clearness of philosophic insight . With Mr . Babham , indeed , the wish is most probably father to the

      thought , as he is himself , we believe , a kind of Christian Buddhist . If we do not mistake , he published some years ago a mystical work with the first letter of the English alphabet as a title , forsaking , in this , the example set him by the treatise Be Verbo Mirifico of his chosen master Reuchixn , to follow the practice of the Cabalists , who were wont to write long dissertations on the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet—the Aleph tenebrosum , as they styled it—which was at once the alpha and omega of their system . Having thus a strong sympathy with the doctrines of emanation and absorption common to the mystics of the East and the West both in ancient and modern times , and a horror of nihilism in any form , Mr . Bakham naturally starts in alarm at the thought of a widespread system like Buddhism ending in a negation , and seeks to identify its Nirvana with the more positive apotheosis of liis favourite schools .

      The Reviewer , on the other hand , takes his chief stand on authority , and satisfies himself with referring , in support of his opinion , to the views of the earliest Buddhist metaphysicians whose works have come down to us . But in tho present imperfect state of our knowledge , the best evidence being still vague and conflicting , even authority is by no means decisive , and it is surely possible to discuss the question on other grounds than those of personal feeling or partial testimony . The rapid spread and wide dilfusion of Buddhism are great historic facts , and we may fairly infer something as to the general character of its teaching from the result . The unknown , or only partially known , cause must be of a kind fitted to produce the known effect . If , therefore , according to the interpretation which some of its own writings even seem

      to fcivour , the central doctrine of Buddhism is one incapable of moving a single human being , much less of producing a revolution amongst the most immovable people in the world , as we know Buddhism did , there is at least a philosophical presumption in favour of a diil'crcnt interpretation . ¦ The annihilation theory , in fact , reverses all that experience teaches of human nature , contradicting directly the Carpe diem which was practically the motto of the ancient Cyrcnaics , and tho Bum vivimus vivamus which has ever been the chosen maxim of all who , like them , believe only in the present . But , according to the view in question , the Buddhist apostle went forth to the people , and said : " Deny yourselves , ronouncc the pleasures of the world , chose privation and toil as your portion . " Why ? Because this is the path to a nobler life ? Not

      at all ; but " becauso all existence will soon come to an end , and you will cease to be . " That was obviously , as tho Reviewer seems to feel , not tho kind of gospel to produce a great moral revolution amongst an ignorant and degraded people . The writer betrays a keen sense of this difficulty both in his articles and in his letter , though he seems scarcely aware of the practical contradiction in which tho eilbrt to maintain his position involves him . In the former , for example , he says : " How a religion which taught tho annihilation of all existence , of all thought ; , of all individuality and personality , as the highest object of ull endeavours , could have livid bold of tho minds of millions of human

      beings , and how at tho same timo , by enforoing the duties of morality , justice , kindness , and self-sacrifico , it could have exercised a decidedly beneficial influence not only on tho natives of India , but on the loAvest barbarians of Central Asia , is one of the riddles which no philosophy has yet been ablo to solve . " Wo may add , which no philosophy ever will bo able to solvo , for human nature being what it is , the thing is essentially incredible . Again , after describing Buddha ' s devoted life , ho adds : " And yet all this self-sucrincing charity , all Ihi . s « olfsaerincing humility by which the life of Buddha was distinguished throughout , and which bo preached to the multitude that camo to liston to him , h « d but one object—and that object was final annihilation . It is impossible almost to

      Untitled Article

      ? - — Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not on akelaws—theyinterpret and try to enforc e them . —JEVZznburgh Revvew .

      Untitled Article

      May 2 , 1 S 5 & 3 THE LlBA . tfEB .- 423

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), May 2, 1857, page 423, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2191/page/15/