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NOTICES OF BOOKS. 63
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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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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
. « *» . Andromedaand Other Poems, By Ch...
except— the good Time coming' Yet it is well to look on all sides ; in on ev his ery shield quarter , _' Circumsp ; behind ice as _!* - and well pursue as forward s his . long The 1 journey wise man in safet writes y .
Once , —not to mention those high and enduring Names , which are greatnesses and models for all time—once , our worship was directed
to some very respectable idols , which the over-keen heresy of the present day has broken to pieces . We have become Iconoclasts .
Perhaps it has been so in every age . The idolaters of the Past have , we suppose , always been few , in comparison with those self
worshippers , champions of the Present , who are looking and stepping onwards—full of new ideas , and intent on new achievements .
The old style has disappeared , or is disappearing . Whether the present fashion be better or not , demands more lengthened enquiry
than we can now devote to the subject . That a new phase in literature is presented to us there can be little doubt . And this change is
most obvious in style ; for the current of ideas runs pretty much on the ancient level ; and we take leave to doubt whether it be brighter
or deeper than of old . There is , to speak moderately , at least as much thought in the sonnets and lyrics of Mr . Wordsworth , as in
the polished verses of Mr . Tennyson and his many imitators . The sturdy truths of Sidney Smith are as sound and substantial as any
of the problems of the present day . The racy Saxon style of Cobbett is not yet surpassed . Lord Macaulay ( later in date ) has
passages of dashing magnificence—ready resolute opinions on a thousand subjects ; obtained occasionally , perhaps , by rapid and
imperfect reading—but in the main , true , liberal , and thoroughly English . There may be a more correct and a more imaginative style
than his ; but in force , clearness , and picturesque effect , his vigorous writings will not easily be surpassed . We do not refer to Mr .
Carlyle , ( of whose merits we are perfectly sensible , ) because he belongs to an intermediate age , and has materially influenced the present .
It is said that this is a microscopic era . And , indeed , not to speak of the recent revelations of the microscope itself , as applicable
to science , it seems tolerably evident , from the doctrines of the detective Mr . Huskin and his disciples , that a morbid attention to
minute matters prevails . The great dramatists , indeed , never contemned minute truths when they tended to elicit individual
character , or to mark the extent of emotion : — " What Give sorrow , man ! words ne ' er . pull 7 ' your liat upon your brows ,
But they did not sacrifice the massive and substantial features of and the it scene w _^ uld , in be their well anxiety we think for , small if this inconsequential adherence to the peculiarities grand fact ;
, or outline were still the main point of the painter ' s and poet ' s meditation . Moreoverall things should be represented truly , from
, the actual point of view . If we sketch a portrait of the size of life ,
every hair and corrugation may properly be niap £ _3 ed down : it is
Notices Of Books. 63
NOTICES OF BOOKS . 63
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Sept. 1, 1858, page 63, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01091858/page/63/
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