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What Pliny ' s witty friend was wont to say 6 f Life is very applicable to literature : * It is better to be idle than to do nothing— -Sdtiusest otiosiim es $ e quam nihil agerei" We are all apt to waste our energies in restless inactivity , instead" of enjoying theserene rejiose of godlike far ttiente , and similarly we squander thei thoughtswhich might have brooded in silent ineditation over great or happy themes , in a certain restless quest of novelty , naivelybelieved to lie within new covers . How is it we all pounce upon the last numbers of Magazines , and are as indifferent to the preceding numbers as if they were the fashions of last year ? They rarely tell us anything that is new , yet , though incessantly disappointed , we . are incessantly lured , tlere is June , 1852 , and the Magazines , like butterflies in th 6 Jiine sun , entice , us .
JBlackwood propounds its ponderous defence of dead Protection , bristling with " facts ?* and tables , and sesquipedalian splendour of phrase , alarming to weak nerves ; and side by side with this there is scholarship and flashing humour , like echoes of the old days , in Carrnina Lusbrid ( Verse Playthings ) , and in Thoughts updn Dinners , to bring water into the mouth of gustatory readers . Skip Protection and trust yourself to these articles ; then turn back and ; read the curious historical fragment , Ferguson the Plotters interesting aS a biographical sketch and as a figure observed in history . ; ; ' / ¦ ..: .. .. ¦ ¦ ¦ . . . ' .. , . ; _ ¦ ¦ : ¦ .. !¦ ¦' ¦[ ¦ \ ¦ ; ¦ ¦ ; ; . / . ; ; / - .. , ¦
In FraseryqvL may read a clear and satisfactory history of the whole Bookselling Question recentiy agitated ; or * if your taste lies in Natural . History * turn to the amusing paper on eels , sturgeons , narkes , and ranse , in continuation of a former one on sharks and- their cousins . Hypatia and Captain Digby Grand are continued , and the History of the Hungarian War is concluded . Tait has some sixteen articles ; among them one really gay and humorous , called An Ode to a Female Mummy , the opening stanzas of which we will lighten our columns with : — " Poor dingyj dismal sister mine , ¦ — _ What lawless hosts of thoughts coiribine To fluster me the witile _ Thy lbng-unrolliflg shroud I scan , That old original suggestive Pan-Orama of the Nile * - " As the indomitable Layard , In kingdoms old with names to say hard , O er ruined towns might ponder , I view that breast no more that pants , And of its old inhabitants I wonder and I wonder . - " The loves and hates , the joys and carea > The whirl of human hopes and fears In human hearts e ' er seething—Those matron fears that made thee sad When little Tsoph the measles had Or baby was a-teething- ^ - ' * Or when , at noon or close of day , Thy cherubs ' hungry come from play , Dirt-pies and gutter grubbles , To weep alone you fled upstairs , Smit with eternal flesh-pot cares And bread-and-butter troubles" Where be they now P I can ' t suppose Theso human and these household woos Extinguished with thy life ; Haply , to . ua come down , they bore Poor Mrs . Jones , our neighbour , or Obstreperate my wife . " Howo ' or that bo , 'tis very clear T $ a more they'll persecute thtio hero ; Those limbs , that trembled all At loving glance or stern reply , Supremely passive still would lie Were sun and moon to fall . " Wor't otherwise , I could discloso That tuneful Momnon ' s lost his nose ; And na to thy belief , Wo ' ye no respect for beetles now , And puly worship ox and cow An sausages or bcof . " . . TiiQ Peopled Illustrated Journal is what the correct stylo calls a ''' new candidate for public favour . " . The first part contains nn astonishing amount ' of excellent wood engraving , and of useful information on Arts , Manufactures ,., Practical Scionco , Antiquities , &c . Although a cheap—a very cheop ^ -work , this has nono of the inferiority or carelessness which its cheapness rtiight irtiply . The wood tingravingB are nil excoutcd with extreme cure , many of thcjri of grent beauty ; and tho literature is solid , Pkin , diredt- ^ onlf inferior when it swerves occasionally from , its brood path into such bye-lanes as that on the drama , or into por&onalities .
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THE ECLIPSE OP FAITH , The JEcUpse of Faith ; or , A Visit toa Religions Sceptic . Longman and Co . We believe that no " constant reader" can have any doubt of ouilr ^ tiiidfiiviating recognition of whatever is strong , generous , or notable itfc the writings of our religious antagonists . It has been with Us aniattei * of System no less than of temper . If—^ as in the recent instance of the ]? atagonian Missions— -we may seem to have been in contradiction . with our avowed antagonism to all theological systems , it can only have seemed so to those who have misapprehended the animating spirit of this Journal . Our own convictions are too deeply rooted , and too plainly expressed , for us to share the vulgar fear which dictates so much of party misrepresentation . This , by way of preface , to the notice of a book we cannot in any way approve ; a book which , because it is directed against modern scepticism , we must not pass by in silence , lest that be misconstrued ; a book which will be a source of much chuckling and rejoicing to alarmed orthodoxy , though to all persons in the least competent to appreciate it , presenting a most insignificant figure . Not that it is deficient in power ; the writer is not a common theologian in thought nor in style . He is sarcastic , but not virulent . His misrepresentation is probably unconscious , though abiding ; it never rises above the tone of legitimate controversy . But with all its sarcasm , its eloquence , its ingenuity , and its logic , the book is profoundly false , and wholly useless if it be meant to touch sceptics . Profoundly false , we say , because the writer has entirely failed to place
himself for one moment at the sceptic ' s real point of view . He has read Parker ; he has read Newman ; no has read Foxton , and has heard of Strauss " and the Germans . " But as a vindication of Christianity against these writers , his book is perhaps one of the most incompetent we can name . No man whose faith has been shaken , by Newman and Parker can have it steadied by such writing as this j for ridicule and constant quotation of phrases and detached sentences will not penetrate the question . The writer must permit us to tell him that he does not in the slightest degree understand the Sceptic ; and he shows this by falling into the vulgarest of ignorant commonplaces—viz ., that scepticism proceeds from moral disease .
" It is too often the result of thoughtlessness , " he says ; " of a toish to get rid of truths unwelcome to the heart ; of a vain love of paradox , dr ¦ perhaps in many cases ( as a friend of mine said ) of an amiable wish to frighten ' mammas and maiden aunts / " That he did not feel his cheek burn with shame as he wrote that unworthy sentence is owing to the common prejudice , that sceptics are essentially mournful , miserable , unsettled beings , who try to" stun eonscience with arguments . When Socrates parted from the beliefs of his forefathers , he did so from a love of vain paradox—a desire to get rid of truths unwelcome to his heart ; when . Spinoza passed out of the synagogue he did so from ' an amiable wish to frighten the old ladies of Amsterdam ;
when JSTewman struggled through the Christian labyrinth , he did so because he was frivolous and thoughtless . Does any one seriously , believe this P The author of the JEcUpse of Faith regards scepticism as diseasea more profound psychology would have taught him that denial of Christianity is mostly the form in which another belief expresses itself . A . believes the Bible to be the word of God ; J 5 . disbelieves it—i . e ., believes that the word of God is written in broader and moro unmistakable characters :. " in the heavens above , tho earth beneath , and the waters under the earth . " To call 7 ? . a sceptic would be as correct as to call a Newtonian a sceptic because ho disbelieved in Hipparchus . Yet listen to this author :-
—" Of all the paradoxes humanity exhibits , surely there are none more wonderful than the complacency with which scepticism often utters its doubts , and the tranquillity which it boasts as the perfection of its system 1 " If he is no better versed in the paradoxes of humanity than that , ho is not far advanced . To dissipate the paradox we have only to substitute the word " beliefs" for " doubts . " The Christian is complacent ; no one calls that a paradox : he believes in his belief . Thei Sceptic ( i . e ,, the Anti-Christian , ) is complacent from tho same cause : ho believes iu his belief . . This writer throughout argues solel y from his own point of vipw ; ho never quits it to pass over to that of his adversary , and naively
says" What may bo expected in a genuine scoptio is a modest hope that ho may bo mistaken ; a desire to bo confuted ; a retention of his convictions as if they were a guilty secret ; or tho promulgation of thorn only ns tho utterance of an agonized heart , unablo to suppress tho latiguago of its misery . " Yos , that is what you , tho orthodox alarmed at doubts , would dosiro ; but Truth P .... , ,,. ' ,. , . , For example , Christianity , with much both in its history and its doctrines that wo all roveronco and accept , is presented as a Theory of the Universe which tho Intelloct is callocl upon to accopt with all its eonsoqtioncos . But tho Intellect , using its freedom in this as in Other questions , appreciating this Theory as it appreciates that of Newton , disoovors that tho System ia based upon two propositions , which stripped of all that i / i \\
ITlfliy UlWtiUIoU vUVlLlf DUU'iu nisjuiu t ? ¦*»* " *«* u . jlpu , v ^ j * . jljhi « v « . v' ^ . T . * . t *«* jw made him liable to err , and as tho strength of an iron bar is according to its weakest part , this liability to fall soon manifested itself in tho i all , God condemnod tho raco to eternal perdition for acting according to tho natural tendencies 110 . had created . 2 nd . In an hour of " mercy" God undertook to givo fallon man a clmnco of " salvation . " Ho did not pardon ; } io gavo nn opportunity to tho riice to purchas ' o its pardon for n crimo committed by its progenitors . For this purposo ho adoptod ^ a strange plan ' viz ., that of assuming manhood , and dying on a cross in Judma—belief in . which would purchase forgiveness ; although tho very faot must necessarily havo remained unknown to millions ( dumnod for tlieir ignoranco ) , and questionttble to millions ( dnmnod for their want of faith ) . Thcso two propositions tho Intellect is called upon to accept . Tlieao wo refuse to accept . Wo refuse * because they ar < froi / u ^ hat » t to out ? belief ia Grpd : wo refuse , because they do not harmonize with , aU ow other
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Critics are not the legislators ,, but tHe judges ana police of literature . They & 6 not makelaws- ^ -t EeyanteTpreitanatryto enforce them . —Edinburgh Beoiew .
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Leader (1850-1860), June 5, 1852, page 541, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1938/page/17/
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