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The election of Librarian to the London Library is a matter involving me considerations respecting the position of Literature . It is an excellent S well rem unera ted , and agreeable in its duties ;" a post which assuredly ^ ° not be said to lie beyond the province of literary men , and one there-T \ to which , in the ordinary course , a literary man of bibliopolic experience ' 6 ht reasonably aspire . Yet in the active canvas now going on * it is ^ nestly desired by one section to bring in a foreigner . Let us first state know the of this forei
that we do not even name gner , and are speaking on urely abstract considerations in saying , that unless he have some overhelming pretensions , such as those of a Muratori , no foreigner ought , common justice , to be preferred to an Englishman . We have ah * eady too many , flagrant injustices of the kind ; and considering the extremely mall patronage bestowed upon Letters in this country , as compared with ther European states , it does seem wholly unwarrantable that that little hould be s hared by foreign exiles , however deserving of compassion . Would France , would Italy , would Germany , would Spain , elect an Englishman in such a case ? ... .. / ¦ , ., . -. ¦ - ¦ ¦ ¦
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Certainly it is not in Germany that Men of Letters have to complain of want of honour . They are honoured and rewarded during lifetime , and must have produced but little stir in the world > if after their death they do not leave their names reverently graven on some Denkmal—as the Germans felipitously call a monument . We find by the papers that Bokckh , Bbrhardy , Meier , Ross , and Eckstein , have opened a subscription for a Denkmal to the great philologist , jFriederich August Wolf , to be erected in Halle y and we have little doubt that the money will speedily be collected .
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The invention of GrUTTENBERG , or of whoever did invent " movable types , " has not fallen on an ungrateful or inactive Europe . The quantity of printing done in England , Germany , and France , has often excited amazement ; and if we look to Sweden , we shall-find Guttenberg flourishes there also with alarming activity . In the year 1851 there were 1060 books published , and 113 journals . Of the books , 182 were theological , 156 political , 123 legal , 80 historical , 55 politico-ceconomical and technical , 45 educational , 40 philological , 38 medical , 31 mathematical , 22 physical , 18 geographical , 3 sesthetical , and 3 philosophical . Fiction and Belles Lettres have 259—but they are mostly translations from English , French , and German , Of these details we are tempted to say , what Jean Paul ' s hero says of the lists of Errata he has been so many years collectings— " Quintus Fixlein declared there were profound conclusions to be drawn from these Errata— -and he advised the reader to draw them !"
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Among the few French books worthy of notice , let us not forget the fourth volume of Sainte Beuve ' s charming Causeries du Lundi , just issued . The volume opens with an account of -MirabEau ' s unpublished dialogues with Sophie , and some delicate remarks by Sainte Beuve in the way of commentary . There are also admirable papers on Buffon , Madame de Scudery , M . de Bonald , Pierre Dupont , Saint Evremont et Ninon , Due de Lauzun , &c . Although he becomes rather tiresome if you read much at a time , Sainte Beuve is the best article writer ( in our Macaulay sense ) France possesses . With varied and extensive knowledge , a light , glancing , sensitive mind , and a style of great finesse , though somewhat spoiled by affectation , he contrives to throw a new interest round the oldest topics ; he is , moreover , an excellent critic . Les Causeries du Lundi is by far the best of hia works .
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GEEAT ARTISTS AND GREAT ANATOMISTS . Cheat ArtiBts and Great Anatomists : a Biographical and Philosophical Study . By It . Knox , M . D . Van Voorsfc - This is a very readable bit of braggadocio . The details are interesting ; the manner is too amusing to be offensive . Dr . Knox is what people call a "dashing writer . " He is trenchant , dogmatic , imperious , and seltlaudative . There is a certain swaggering magnificence of manner which robs his sarcasms of their sting , and rendors his arrogance entertaining . That all men are asses except Dr . B . Knox , and a , few of " my illustrious friends , "—that no livintr boinc understands any thing of anatomy , desenpscience is
tive or transcendental , oxoepfc Dr . R . Knot , —and that this about to receive a sudden illumination in these pages , aro tacts somewhat vociferously obtruded upon the reader , who would emilo down their presumption with , bettor crace , did ho not obsorvo that this braggadocio is not confined to stylo , but carries its haughty incompetence even into Dr . Knox ' s conception of his subjoct . His work , so vast and magnificent in prospectus , turns out , on inspection , to bo fragmentary and 'superficial . Ho intends to tell us of the life arid labours of Cuvier , the great Descriptive Anatomist , who first established the relation of descriptive anatomy to the science of the organic world , ^<* 5 and present ; he tntendt to tell us of the life and labours of GeofFroy St . Hilairo , the great Transcendental anatomist , who , in conjunction with Goethe , established the unity of ¦ U organic beinprs ; and , finally , ho intends to discover in the works of T , o «« .-j . ¦» * - . v"V » ' ,. •' t ti » . _~ i ^ i , ^ fvi m i > Alnf . ion or dfiflcrimivn i i -
—wu » ruo , viionaei Anffeio , ana jcutpu < u >» w «> . »»« -- ~ - - ^ - anatomy to art . All this he intends . But he doos nothing of the kind . With him an assertion Seems equivalent to a demonstration , an Ration ^ uiyaient to a result . He writes with foe wrtl , Tlw W » k is father , to
his book . Instead of doing anything like what he proposes , he gives us lively and very readable sketches , which in a magazine would have been very acceptable . More than sketches he has not given , unless it be assertion .: ¦ ¦ ' ¦ ¦ '¦ . ¦ " . - :... - . . : . ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ '¦¦ '¦' ' . ' ¦ ¦ ¦¦ ¦ ¦'" .. ¦ . ¦ . -: ¦ ¦ ¦ ' ¦ ' ¦ . ¦ ¦¦ - Taking the book for what it is , and not for what it asserts itself to be , we can recommend it to the general reader , and especially to the lover of natural history . Beally to write the lives , and to set forth the results of Cuvier arid GreofFroy , would give a delightful and profoundly instructive book ; Dr . Knox has indicated such a task .
" Quarries were dug in the olden time ; Mount Athos was tunnelled by Xerxes ; a canal connected the Nilotic waters for many centuries with the Red Sea ; and the crust of the globe had been dissected by the metallurgist and engineer . Fossil remains had been seen by millions of men , ere Cuvier appeared . But man would not , or could noti see the truth . All things swam in the chaotic deluge of the Roman poet ; shell-fish rested on the tops of mountains , and fishes took refuge amongst trees ! The human mind , oppressed by conventionalism , was unequal to describe simply ' the anatomy of man . * At last appeared the man , gifted with
the desire to know the unknown ; the anatomist . "To the quasi-philosophic men of his day , practitioners of medicine and surgery , profoundly ignorant of the structure of that animal they practised on , Bichat offered the * Descriptive anatomy of Man ; ' Cuvier went further . * ' These bones , which you conjecture to have belonged to elephants and crocodiles , and horses and men , did not belong to any such animals . The exact anatomy of animals which now live teaches me , that , provided species are not convertible into each other ( sax hypothesis he mistook for a iheory ) , these bones are the remains of an organic world which has ceased to be . Suddenly , and as if by magic , the obscuring veil , the thick pall of ignorance , drops from before human sight j the mist disperses from hill and valley ; a vast and wonderful land , redundant
with life , exhibiting ever-varied , gigantic , and grotesque forms , is spread out to the gaze of the admiring observer . That observer was George Cuvier . Still , what he saw was but an image , a phantom of the past . His view was backwards into remote antiquity , whilst yet the world was in its infancy . Occupied with facts and details , that is , history , —eschewing principles , that is philosophy , —his view , even of the past , was limited and confined . That past he did not fully comprehend , or rather , he avoided admitting that he did ; of the future he said nothing . Simultaneous with him arose others , who valued facts merely as leading to principles j of these , Goethe and Geoflfroy may be considered the type and the leader . Other illustrious names must be conjoined to these . They did not discover
the transcendental in anatomy , but they collected the facts in support of its principle , and they applied them to the history of organic life , not merely as it is now , but as it has been , and as it may be in futurity . Thus two men , and two modes of thought , overturned all existing knowledge , all existing chronology , all human history . Descriptive anatomy , which Cuvier and his followers called comparative anatomy , in his hands overturned all existing cosmogonies : the transcendental went further ; it developed the great plan of the creation of living forms , the scheme of nature . It ' unfolded the secondary laws by which the transformations are made , the metamorphosis out of which variety springs from unity : the natural history of creation was for the first time explained to man . " Although Europe excessively exaggerates the merit of Cuvier as a philosophic thinker , and Dr . Knox , in this case , sides-witu the majority , yet Jie exniDiteain
the blind conventionalism ( not to use a harsher phrase ; , his controversy with Geoffroy , has not escaped Dr . Knox's observation :--" But he advanced not ; and by the influence of his great name and position , became an obstructor of science . Latterly he resisted all attempts to theorize : and , as a leader of a numerous body of partisans of all nations , he became the bitter and uncompromising enemy of Geoffroy and the trauscendentalists . He did his utmost to crush these men , and to drive them from the Academy . Sufficient for him it seemed to be , that he had established th © great fact , that the species of animals now alive , and forming the organic world since human history commenced , differ essentially , specifically , and generically , from those whose remains , fossilized ,
we now discover in various parts of the world . "He called this merely a fact ! and so it is , no doubt . Ouvier called his great discovery a fact . It is a fact bo far as it goes , the most extraordinary fact ever discovered by man ; but it is , as wo shall perceive , a discovery rather than a fact , admitting of no modification . By this discovery Cuvier upset all existing cosmogony , natural history ( if it merited the name ) , geology ; but to convert his discovery into a fact , applicable to all ages , to science , involved several hypotheses , which ho at first admitted , afterwards rejected . The eternal fixity of species was one of these , and this included the non-convertibility of ono animal into another by any secondary cause whatever ; by climate , by domesticity , by time , by geological opochi or cataclysms ; lastly , by the eternal ^^ f ^ T ^^^ S ^ Cuvier scarceldead when illustrious
trineic attribute of living matter . was y my friend , De Blainvillo , so connected the living rhinoceros with the extinct foss . l Konora by a series of individuals , as to leave little or no doubt of the identity of the genus , atflout ; the identity of the present with the past 1 lie mammoth of Cuvier and his mastodon , genera m ho fancied so distinct from the elephant of the present world , were proved to bo connected therewith by a chum of species ocmrrina in time , ho resembling each other , so little characteristic as distinct apec . cH that the idea of specica began to fado from human thoughts . It woa this great law of transition , of metamorphosis , which alarmed Cuvior m Ins later years , although it ought not to have done so—Nature ' s transitions of organic hfo m time and oiMumatanco ; the formation of all living forma from ono living essence . His dislike to sco in the living world , past and present , ono animal instead of many , was caused simply by a dread of its touching that reputation , which ho know tho
world based on hiB having proved the contrary . " In whatever way tho transitions aro otfooted , they are purely tho results ot sccondurv cnusos ; to abandon this view is to abandon human reason . Transitions of oiwmio brings-from ono form to another , aro the results of certain natural lawn , tho cxiptonce of which ho discovers and proves by the hibtory of the organic world . " What a history of life was thus disclosed by Cuvior ! Huh any similar foot ovor boon discovered ? But ho refused to ace all this ; denying tho conclusions obviously resulting from his own researches . Ho took up a dialiko to theories , seomhurlv because they woro adopted and patronized by his ucacleimo rivala . Liaton to his own roinarks : ' Theories I have sought ; I hnvo sot up some myself , but I have not made them known , because I ascertained thoy woro fiilno , as aro all those which havo boon published up to this day . I affirm still more ; for I nay that , to the present etato of ecioiice , it ia impossible to discover any . ' Tho dogmatism and
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¦ i ¦ = are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not Critics g |^ g ia ws—tEey interpret and try to enforce them : —Edinburgh Re view .
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^ ay 29 , 1852 . ] THE LEAD ER / * &
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Leader (1850-1860), May 29, 1852, page 517, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1937/page/17/
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