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    October 18, 1856.] THE XEIDER. 1003

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    THE AGE OF LOUIS XIV. Louis Fourteenth, ...

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    RETROSPECTS OF HUNGARY. La llongrh*, son...

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    Wordsworth: A Biogranir. William Wordswo...

    —death is beautiful , but what if death be the dissolving essence , and life never find itself again . . One of the " inner facts" -which , those unhappy , but unspecified Compts ( probably a new . American sect ) ignore , is the tendency of our age to " sponge out objective being "— -a very insane process , certainly , but one which ' Wordsworth is discovered to have tried : — He was haunted early , as lie plainly enough shows us , with that mischievous tendency , that curse of our age , though it possibly never became this to him , to sponge out for the most part objective being , or to make it only a wing on vfhich to float away through the vast void of subjective and indefinite abstraction . From this he was ultimately saved . But the feeling and the tendency beset him- The childhood of "Words-worth unfortunately has proved the manhood of millions of men in our age ; he says , : I felt the sentiment of being spread O ' er all that moves , and all that seemeth

    still-But it is a glittering , cold , unsubstantial page that senlbneiit of being , it affects us personally like the glaring wide open eyes of a beautiful corpse , or say , the eyeless socket of a dead universe . How the sentiment became a page , and how that page came to resenVble " the eyeless socket of a dead universe , " and where Mr . Hood made acquaintance with this universe with its eye out , so as to enable him to detect the resemblance , he does not tell us . We have so little confidence in " inner facts ' of this kind that we found this " Unusual Biography" unusually hard reading . There is a great deal about Pantheism , of which 3 Mr . Hood knows little , and much more about Greek poetry , of which he knows nothing at all ; there is abundance of rhetoric , sucli as in bad American literature passes for very superior eloquence ; capitals , dashes , and notes of admiration , grand names , and bewildering epithets make the page unusual , but do not , make it very interesting . Had he not quoted largely from " Wordsworth's poems , there -would have been nothing to lure the reader through two chapters , unless prompted by ¦ " intuitional curiosity" to see ichat verbiage could be printed with mcclice

    prepense . Absurd as the book isj there are gleams of remarkable talent in it ; and if the author is very young , we should prophesy that he will live , not only to be ashamed of this production , but to produce works of which he may reasonably be proud . The question of age is all important in this case . If the crudity and extravagance belong to unripeness , there is sufficient sap in him to ripen good fruit . But he must learn not to talk about what lie does not understand , and not to use words -without attaching definite meanings to iliern . Let him read a play or two of Sophocles ( not in translation ) and he will appreciate the effect likely to be produced bv many pages of this Biography on those who have a somewhat nearer acquaintance with the Greek Drama than is to be gathered froni Schlegel and the Magazines . He has great command of language , and great love : of poetry ; his ambition is high , and he has faculty of more than ordinary vigour ; but at present he is misled by detestable models , and until he learns to laugh heartily at many chapters of this work , he had better keep in maauscript whatever he writes .

    October 18, 1856.] The Xeider. 1003

    October 18 , 1856 . ] THE XEIDER . 1003

    The Age Of Louis Xiv. Louis Fourteenth, ...

    THE AGE OF LOUIS XIV . Louis Fourteenth , and the Writers of Ins Aye . By the Bev . J . F . AstieY Translated by the Rev . E . N . Kirk . Boston : Jewett and Co . This volume contains a series of lectures originally delivered in Fi'ench some years ago to a New York audience . M . Astie then invited the citizens of America tostudy , with him , old France , especially old Paris . His irregular recital begins with the year 1638 , when Louis XIII , was on the throne , when Maria de Medici was in banishment , when the Huguenots had been subdued , the friends of Montmorehcy crushed , the king and the court overpowered by the supreme will of ltichelieu . The contrast is interesting between the capital of the Thirteenth Louis and that of the Third Napoleon . There were then no asphaltic pavements , no Rue Rivoli , no Madeleine , no Place de la Concorde . The Jardin des Plautes , the Tuileries , the Louvre , the

    Invahdes , the Pantheon , presented a rude and unfinished aspect . Paris was a quaint , antique city , in the midst of a state governed upon Gothic principles , by a succession of priests . " What did Louis XIV . accomplish for this city and this state ? He consolidated , for a time , the absolutism of the monarchy , and that centralization which JVI . do Tocqueville traces bo far through the internal history of France . The sciences of -war and finance had able representatives in his day . Ho was the eontemporai'y of great dramatists , satirists , orators , theologians . And he bequeathed , misery and disaster to liis countrymen . Voltaire , perhaps , eulogized the age of Louis XIV ., as lie eulogized the manners of China—to exasperate his contemporaries . Certainly , when he compared it to the age of Pei'icles , of Augustus , and of the Medici , and even ranked it before them , lie presented but a slight justification of" this excessive praise . " We should know little of the times of " the Great Louis "

    were information to be found nowhere but in Voltaire ' splendid fragment . But we understand the spirit of that century without remembering that Ferney ever nursed a philosopher . More is to be learned indirectly than from the heavy volumes of annalists and compilers . The servility of the brilliant generation is exhibited in the lives and works of llacine , of Boileau , and of Bossuet , of whom Lamartinc says , that he never forgot his king while he thought of his God . The cold academic tendencies of the epoch we p erceive in Ronsard , who forced the Muse of France , as Boileau expresses it , to sing in Greek and Latin . It is true that Racine had been a pupil of tho Port-Royalists , and had been inspired by that teaching which in less creative minds yielded only pedantry . They revived St . Augustin , but they revived also tho classic authors ; they preached the " doctrine of Grace , " but they also restored the love of the antique in . literature , of Eschylus and Euripides .

    The reign of Louis XIV ., commencing with the political degradation of France , and marked at various times by acts of civil and religious usurpation , did temporarily extend the frontiers of France . Lorraine , Flanders , Franche-Comte , Strasbourg , were added to the monarchy , which was , nevertheless , reduced as well as exhausted at its close . Turenne , Conde , Luxembourg ,

    were among- the king ' s generals ; he carried on , therefore , great wars , but never fought or commanded in person . His passage of the Rbine , whatever Boileau may say , was an insignificant feat—a military achievement of the fourth order , according to Napoleon . The river was not deep , the position was not defended , and the king crossed after his army . Much of the literary splendour surrounding his court seems to have been the result of accident , though he was adroit enough , in all cases , to appropriate whatever glory rose within the limits of his dominion . Delille says , "A glance from Louis gave birth to Corneille ; " but Corneille was long obliged to carry his own shoes to a cobbler ' s stall to have them mended , arid when he was on his dying bed , llacine was compelled to intercede fox * him that he might have some broth . The patronage of the throne was , to say the least , somewhat capricious . We are inclined to believe with St . Simon , that Louis , judged

    by a literary standard , was below mediocrity ; his aptitude for literary criticism was exemplified in his supreme preference of Chapelain . Nor were his public virtues at all conspicuous . He had no idea of his duties as a king , said Fenelon . Even Racine , though accustomed to flatter , made comments not less severe upon the conduct of the royal administrator ; and . the royal administrator was so magnanimous as to disgrace llacine for circulating his opinions . The truth is , that no monarch was ever more vain than Louis XIV . Whether from La Valliere , De Montespan , and De Maintenon ; from the Catholic priests , with Bossuet at their head ; from the dramatists , poets , and ci'itics ; from Rochefoucauld , Vaugelas , and Flechier at Versailles arid at Rambouillet ; from generals and diplomatists : from

    foreign princes and from , his own ministers , he expected incessant and unstinted adulation . He was the principal actor in France , in manner and language pompous , ostentatious in his "' .. liberality , prodigal in his style of living , and grandiloquent in his negotiations with the several European Powers . He was never weary of hearing from expectant courtiers tkat his was the genius that had arbitrated alAix-la-Ghapelle , at Nimegue , and at liyswick . It was true that in the first instance he had given the law to Spain ; that in the second lie had dictated to the leading Governments of Europe ; and that in the third he had displayed a spirit of " surprising moderation . But it is mere historical transcendentalism to insist that nothings but policy tempted him to accept an apotheosis from the priesthood . As if vanity had no influence over the actions of kings !

    He repaired the public roads ; he improved the sea-ports ; he encouraged commerce ; he founded new colonies ; he raised the navy of France to an emulation with the navies of Holland and England ; many branches of manufacture , of cloths , glass , and tapestry , flourished under his care . But every action of his life , of whatever kind , displayed the one predominating : passion of his nature—an all-forgetting egotism . St . Simon ' s anecdote of his conduct towards Madame de Maintenoii illustrates a selfishness to which a parallel is rarely found ' :- — ; She often went to Marly , in a state in -which no one would have thought of sending even a servant ; and at one time , on a journey to Fontainebleau , they feared she

    would die on the road . In whatever state she might beVthe king always went to see her at the ordinary time , and carried on whatever projects he might have in hand . And even , if she was iii her bed , trying to break a fever by a profuse i nspiration , the king , wlio was fond of the air , and disliked heated rooms , would be astonished on coming in , to find all the windows closed , and would immediately order them to be opened , although he saw in what stateslie was ; and thus they must remain until he went to supper at ten o ' clock , however cool the night might be . If while there he wanted music , neither fever nor headache would prevent his having it , "with a hundred candles shining in her eyes . The king went , also , with his train , without ever asking her if she was incommoded .

    The popularity of Louis XIV . was . founded , in great part , on the principle by ¦ which . Napoleon obtained the suffrages of the simple classes . He was called " great "—not " good" as Henry 1 V . was called—because he gave to France an appearance of supremacy , and was successfully insolent to neighbouring states . Xet he was ultimately defeated , and forced to sue for peace , by Holland , even then a secondary power ; in the war of the Spanish succession he was continually beaten ; he was at one moment forced to meditate on a flight from Versailles . M . Astie ' s lectures , translated by Mr . Kirk , '• arc slight , but useful , criticisms on the genius of Pascal , Gorneillc , Fenelon , La Fontaine , Boileau , Racine , and Moliere . They will serve to introduce those authors to students as yet unacquainted with them , while more mature readers may find some interest in a comparison of their own impressions with those of M . Astie . The mysticism of Fenelon is skilfully described in contrast with the less subtle mysticism of Bossuet . In all respects , the volume is creditable to the literary taste of the writer . The translation is elegant and clear ; we have not the means of testing its accuracy .

    Retrospects Of Hungary. La Llongrh*, Son...

    RETROSPECTS OF HUNGARY . La llongrh * , son Gdnie ct sa Mission : J ' Jlude fintorique suieie pav Jean de ITnnyad . Jitlcit tlu Xl ' Siiivk : By Charles Louis Chassin . Paris : Gamier freres . When the Hungarians in 1 S 48 proclaimed their national independence , the populations of Western Europe looked on in surprise and perplexity . The people that had thus risen in arms was half unknown . It hud to ex'cato sympathy , it was without tho heroic renown of Poland and Italy ; it was an apparition in tho East , and the populai" ideas respecting this unfamiliar representative of revolution took vnguc forms , and were long involved in confusion . Croatia , the I 5 an , and the Magyars were shadowy names that

    flitted across the scene , but it was not before several months had elapsed that the real nature of the struggle between the House of Ilapsburg and the Hungarian constitutionalists began to he understood . It is dillicult , now , to realise the enormity of tho ignorance tluit prevailed . Tho events of the insurrectionary years threw a powerful light upon the centre and east of ^ Europe , exactly as the events of the Russian war extended the geography of table-talkers across the -vast territories between Riga and Odessa , through tho Tauriu Chersonese , and even beyond the limits of civilization on the Amoov ; the perspective of the newspaper readers' eye was deepened as far us the borders of , Hungary , and , as M . Chassin expresses it , it was discovered that revolutionary Franco has a sister upon tho frontiers of Asia ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 18, 1856, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_18101856/page/19/