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    Xittniutt.

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    Xittniutt.

    Xittniutt .

    Untitled Article

    « In this world , " as Goethe says , " there are so few voices and so many echoes - " and hence the sterile fecundity of our literature—so many volumes and so few books ! To men with any seriousness m them ,. this . is often a sad reflection ; and at no time more so than at the present , when intellectual anarchy , owing to the absence of a regulative controlling Faith finds its expression in the Publishing Lists of puffed « attractive novelties born to-day to-morrow dead . Nay , a man who has a faith , and lives by

    , it is . called a " dreamer , " or a « revolutionist" by those who demand Art for Art ' s sake / Science for Science ' sake , Politics for their own sake , and Religion " for the sake of women and the lower orders . " And our much suffering Journal , because it strives to bring the manifold activities of man ' s nature under something like unity , desiring a convergence of scattered life , and a steadfast aim and issue , gets called by hard names ,

    even from its friends . f We were turning over the pleasant pages of the younger Pliny s . Letters , and paused upon the closing sentences of his reflections on the death of Martial , whose poems , he says , may not , perhaps , be eternal , but were written as for eternity . " At non erunt ceterna , qua ; scripsit . Non erunt fortasse : ille tamen scripsit , tanquam essent futura . " Of how many writers can we say this ? How many look beyond " second editions" ? And yet there is something in us all which responds to the old Roman feeling so erandly expressed in the question—What can man have of higher worth homini potest dari majus

    than glory , praise , and immortality— Quid , quam gloria , et laus , et ceternitas ? Unless we project our existences beyond the present , how poor , inadequate , and incomplete they seem 5 and although it cannot be given to all of us to earn the far-off sunshine of glory , and a name familiar in men ' s mouths , it is given to us all to live hereafter in the good we do , the truth we forward , the triumph over evil our efforts help to achieve ; and the feeling of glory , which flames into such brightness in the souls of the privileged , may animate arid warm the souls of the most obscure . . . On any views of Literature so serious as this , what must we think ot the prodigal , Dumas ? He , too , has his hope of men ' good word , but cares much more for the pudding and the praise of the moment . What a strange and frivolous book is that of his Memoires , the ninth volume of which lies on our table ! The greed of money and utter disregard of truth are visible in every chapter . We know of no such book-making . Every name introduced or dragged in is made the pretext of a rambling digression , the whole purport of which is to enlarge the volume . The trial of Castamg is introduced , with the whole history of this cause cettbre , merely because Castaing was executed on the morning of the evening when Casimir

    Delavignk ' s play was produced ; and because Delavigne treated of a subject analogous to Marino Faliero , this is made the pretext of relating , in a hundred pages , the outline of Byron ' s well-known life—not , however , so well known but that he contrives to inform us that Sot Thomas Mooke burnt Byron ' s Memoirs ! Again , what will the man who thinks seriously of Literature feel when he reads the pitiable attack on Lord Jeffrky in the new number of the Quarterly ? Whatever the misinformed reviewer might have thought of Jeffreywere there no convenances to dictate another kind of funeral

    , oration ? We object to the too rigid adherence to . the old maxim , " Say nothing but good of the dead , " when interpreted to mean , « Speak evil oi the living and good only of the dead ; " Jeffrey , for all the sweetness and honesty of his nature , had his faults and errors fairly within the competence of critics . But the Quarterly was scarcely the place for such an article—or rather let us say , it should not have been the place . So Jeffrey had " no religion , " it appears ! O , Reviewer , look into your own heart , and try to detect there the religious impulse which moved you

    to that accusation ! The levity of our race is unpleasantly manifested m tins readiness to accuse . Before us lies a gmve , temperate pamphlet , by Jarkd Si-arks , the American editor of Washington ' s Writings , in which he is lo , ecl to defend himself against the hasty accusations made by Lend Maiion 5 lU ( l others , of having tampered with the text , altering , omitting , aml _ niser tjnjr , us might suit ; his caprice—sin accusation , in fact , of deliberate « lishontM , ty . We wish our American , no less than our Knglish friends , to un < ler stan < i that Mr . Jarkii Si-arku elearly , calmly , mid convincingly refutes tllllt accusation on every point .

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    In IH-12 , the King of Prussia , at II iimholdt ' s instigation , sent out an expedition to Kgypt , with the - great scholar Lki'SIUs at its head , the neh results of which " are known to all archaeologists . Besides the more elaborate works which Lki'kius is publishing to chronicle the results oi this expedition , lie has just issued a volume of familiar letters , giving the more personal and aneetlotieal view , Jlriife aus / Eyyptcn ; SKtkiopien , and din-Jfatbnsel des Hindis , which we commend to our ( Herman friends . AH our readers may bo glad to know that in the Home des Deux Mondes for July 1 , there is a portrait of Carlylk , by M . Gleyrk , a French ftrtiat , who although he ha « given a somewhat French aspect to our great m

    Scotchman , has nevertheless succeeded better than portraits usually sue ceed in representing the character of the man , and infinitely better than poor M Emile Montegut has succeeded with his pen . We advise you to possess yourself of the engraving , and unless time hang very wearisomely upon you , by no means to read the article .

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    GUIZOT ON SHAKSPEABJE . SJiaJcspeare and 7 ns Times . By M . Guizot . w ^ aT Shakspeare et son Temps . Etude Littdrairc . Par M . Guizofc . . W . Jeffs . Fitting companion to the admirable work on Corneille , and immeasurably more interesting to an English public , this work is one of the most elaborate and thoughtful that has yet been published on Shakspeare . It deserves a place on every shelf beside the great work of Geryinus , and high above the dashing rhetoric of Schlegel as a specimen of philosophic criticism . It is not often that a Frenchman ' s views of bliakspeare are acceptable to the English mind ; but although , of course , there will be differences from the opinion of Guizot as of every other man who wntea on so varied and complex a subject , we venture to say that the English mind will cordially welcome the greater part of this volume . It mingles history and philosophy with unostentatious success . It contains ideas both novel and profound ; and if the criticism is occasionally meagre where is the work on Shakspeare that pretends to be exhaustive ? In routing this work we have o&y to bear in mind the radical , differences which separate the taste of the two nations and we can then allow for the wind" ; that difference is indicated in the following passage from the preface—a passage we will not pause to discuss : — " Shakspeare is excellent in subftance , but deficient in form j lie discerns , and brings admirably into view , the instincts , passions , ideas —indeed , all the mucrjifc of man ; he is the most profound and most dramatic of moralists ; but he makes his personages speak a language which is often fastidious strange , excessive and destitute of moderation and naturalness . And the English language i * singularly propitious to the defects , as well as to the beauties , of Shak ^ e ; it is rich ener-etic , passionate , abundant , striking ; it readily admits the lofty flights , and even ° the wM excessesof the poetic imagination ; but it does not possess that

    , elegant sobriety , that severe and delicate precision , that moderataon in < * P £ »™ and harmony in imagery , which constitute the peculiar merit of the French lai The g work is divided into an essay on Shakspeare and Ids Times , wherein schools , and critiques on tile Historical Plays and comedies Guizot is neither poet nor dramatist . It is not from him , therefore that one expects any strong light thrown upon Shakspeare s dramatic art - but he ? s a philosophic historian witb Catholic appreciation and profoundly serious mind , and the qualities of suck a man are well exhibited in this work . Having said so much , we proceed to make extracts .

    PRIMITIVE AND CULTIVATED POETS . "We live in times of civilization and progress , when everything has its place and rule—and when the destiny of every individual is determined by circumstances more or less imperious , but which manliest themselves at an early period . A poet be-ins by being a poet ; he who is to become one , knows , t almost from infancy ; poetry has becm familiar to his earliest contemp lation ; it may have been Ins first taste his first passion when the movement of the passions awakened m his heart . 1 ' " ¦ l . , ... v .,. 1 , ! , „ , i , , c Tintvcf , feel ¦ . and when ' in that which he does not yet icel ; and when

    , The young man has expressed verse feeling truly arises within him , his first thought will be to express it m verse . Poetry has become the object , of his existence ; an object as important as any other -a career in which he may obtain fortune as well an glory , and winch may ai lord an opening to the serious ideas of his future life , as well as to the capricious . sallies of his youth . In so advanced a state of society , a man cannot be long ignonuit or spend " much time in search of his own powers ; uneasy way presents itscH to the view of that youthful ardour which would probably wander far astray before finding Indirection host suited to it ; those forces and passions from winch talent will iJu ««> oii learn the secret of their destiny ; and , summed up in speeches , images ,

    and hannonioiiN cadences , the illusions of desire , the elmim-ras oi hope and sometimes even the bitterness of disappointment , are exhaled without difficulty m tho precocious essays of the young man . _ « In times when life is difficult and manners coarse , this is rarely the cn . sc m regard to the poet , who is formed by nature alone . Nothing reveals him so speedily to himself ; he must have felt much before he can think he has anything io portray his first powers will be spent in action , —in such irregular action as may be provoked by the impatience of his desires , —in violent action , it any ohwhich his ination

    stacle intervene between himself and the . success with fiery imag has promised to crown him . In vain has fate bestowed on him the noblest , gills ; la , can employ them only upon the single object with which he is acquainted . Heaven only linows whatVnimphu he will achieve by his eloquence , m what , projects and for what advantages he will display the riches of his inventive ( acuity , among what , equals his talents will raise him to the first rank , and of what society tho vivacity of his mind will render him the amusement and the idol ! Ahm tor tins melancholy subjection of man to the external world ! ( Jifleil with useless power if his horizon ' be less extensive , than his capacity of vision , he . sees only that , which lies around him ; and heaven , which has bestowed treasures up <>» l' »» with such lavish munificence , has done nothing for him if it , does not place him m circumstances which may reveal them to his gaze . This revelation commonly arise * from misfortune ; when the world fails the superior man , he falls Imck upon himself , and becon . cH aware of his own resources ; when necessity presses him , lie collects Ins powers ; and it is frequently through having lost , the faculty of grovelling upon earth , that , genius ami virtue rise in triumph to tho skies . THK KNUI-IHII IM 1 III . H ' . "The habits of Kngland , being formed by the inlli . eiice of the same causes that led to the establishment of her political institutions , early assumed that , character ol agitation and publicity which calls for the appearance ot it popular poetry . In other countries , tho general tendency ww to th « separation of the variow social

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    «" " SaSSSSSSffi ^ d ° ^

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    fef 17 , 1852 . ] THE L E A D E B , _ ««

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), July 17, 1852, page 685, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1943/page/17/