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Leader (1850-1860), 30th October 1852, Edition Town of 2, Page 1044, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      Truly was it said that Time spares nothing produced without his aid , — he te ? Aps n ' epargne pas ce qu ' on fait sans lui , and all voluminous Authors p ass through the inexorable sieve of time , leaving behind a heap of rubbish . How little of the little that remains is good for anything ! Take up the " Selections from Dryden , " just published , by Parker and Son , in a pleasant pocket volume , and make a selection from those selections , retaining only that which has not been better said before or since , and see into what small compass Dryden , great writer and great name , may be honestly compressed .

      This is one of those reflections which would discourage poets , were they of a race to be discouraged ; but a second reflection comes in aid , and shows us how Nature , lusty prodigal , delights in repeating herself , and in producing , with exquisite pains , the evanescent creatures of an hour . In fact , the inward impulse to create , by the Greeks called a " gad-fly , "oiarpoc , will find outward activity . ; and so the poet , like all other creators , flings forth good , bad , indifferent , with impartial productivity . It is

      only by this affluence of creation that the higher forms are reached . The man who waits till he can produce perfection , will- finally ^ produce a monster . Dryden is right in saying , — Poets , like lovers , should bo bold and dare , They spoil their business with an over-care . And lie who servilely creeps after sense Is safe , but ne ' er will reach an excellence . ( Let us add , by the way , that this is , in all probability , the passage meant to be ridiculed in the Rehearsal , where Johnson says that Bayes ( Dryden ) is too proud a man to creep servilely after sense . ) Then , again , the difficulty of saying anything that has not been " said before I" —as well object to Nature for re-producing flowers , so that Sir Critic walking through a garden and meeting with a rose might say , " I have met with that remark before . " The question is not priority , but truth ; not chronology , but growth ; and herein lies the whole question of plagiarism , which is only plagiarism when not assimilation . Or we m . iy take Piron ' s witty advice : if the ancients have forestalled us , let us do as they did , and forestall our descendants ! Us out dit , il est vrai , presque tout cc qu ' on pense , Leurs ecrits sont des vols qu'ils nous out fails d'avance j Mais le reniede cst simple , il faut faire couune eux . Its nous ont derobi ' s ; derobons nos neveux Et tarissant la source on puiso un beaxi delire , A tons nos svecesseurs ne laissons rien a dire . Un demon triompliant ln ' eleve a cot einploi : Malheur aux ecrivams qui inendront ayircs moil Dryden assuredly was prodigal enough , producing heaps of worthless formless poetry , and many splendid forms that will endure . Turning over the volume of Selections before us , seems like looking at Dkyden as he lives in an affectionate memory , the beauties prominent , the faults retiring . " Remember Diiydkn and be blind to all his faults , " was Gray's advice . Here in this volume you have such a remembrance of him . The : sweep of his harmonious and full-sailed verse has never yet . been rivalled ; and although the poetic feeding and pictorial imagery arc not those of our day , they have frequently a sort of antique grandeur , and sometimes a Siiaks"I'karian accent which falls delightfully upon the cur . Thus when he says— Fortune came smiling to my youth and woo'd if , stud purple // realnesx mcl mi / ripened ears . there is a magic of sound and sense intermingled , which no one can withstand . Again , how fine is this :- — So now I am at rest—. / feel deal // , risiut / hit / her slill , and hiijhcr , IV / fUiii , on ]/ bosom ; every breath 1 letch Shuts up my life within a shorter compass : And like the vanishing sound of bells , j ^ ro ws loss And Ichh each pulse , till it be lost in air . It is the dearth of " news" that makes us linger over the pages of this old poet . AVhy should we not "gossip" about Hie old now anil then , as well us about the fugitive topics of to-day ? Who does not love to bear about our " old poets" —old , and yet still ever young ? Moreover the , young poets arc so . scarce ! Apropos of young poets , our mood being to quote beauty as a splendid substitute for news , let us borrow a passage or two from Alkxandkk Smith ' s lust instalment of . // . Life Drama , wherein , amidst a prodigality of images , the true poet is uninistakcuble , <> . y . Alas ! the youth Earnest as flame , could not . so tame ; his hoiirt , Am to live quid . days . When t , h' heart-Hick earth Turns her liroad hack upon lire qatid y , Snn And stoops her weary forehead , to the vii / hf . To slrni / i / fe with her sorrow all alone , Thts Moon , thai , putiont sutteror , pate with , puin J ' resses her cold lips on her sister s brow Till she . is calm . IJuf . in his Morrows' ni ^ lit lie found no comforter .

      In quite a different style this is as fine—we give the emphasis of italics to that concrete image of a grave , so characteristic of his style : Lady ! he was a fool , a pitiful fool . She said she loved him , would be dead in spring—She asked him but to stand beside her grave— - She said she would be daisies—and she thought 'Twould give her joy to feel that he was near . She died like music ; and , would you believe 't , He kept her foolish words within his heart As ceremonious as a chapel keeps A relic of a saint . And in the spring The doting idiot went ! VIOLET . What found he there ? WALTER . Laugh till your sides ache ! O , he went , poor fool ! But he found nothing save red trampled clay , And , a dull sobbing rain . Do you not laugh ? Amid the comfortless rain he stood and wept , Bareheaded in the mocking , pelting rain . He might have known 'twas ever so on earth . His power of word-painting- surpasses that of any modern poet ; the images are vividly present to his mind , and he reproduces them "in words that burn . " Here is a stanza which is in poetry what Jane Eyre ' s descriptions are in prose : — " I see a wretched isle , that ghost-like stands , Wrapt in its mist-shroud in the wintry main ; And now a cheerless gleam of red-ploughed lands O ' er which a crow flies heavy in the rain . " What colour in those phrases , " mist-shroud in the wintry main , " " redploughed lands , " and the crow " heavy in the rain !"

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      Turning from poetry to bitter prose , we regret to hear that the venerable naturalist , Nees von Eisenbeck , whose dismissal from the professorial chair , on political grounds , we noticed some weeks ago , is now starving in Breslau . Iu his seventy-sixth year this unfortunate man lives over a cowstall , without even a sufficiency of food , his library having been sold to pay his debts , and his large collection of plants finding no purchaser . That German naturalists can suffer such a thins is strange .

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      HUTLEE- 'S ANALOGY v . MODERN UNBELIEF . The . Analogy of Rclhjion , Natural and Revealed , to the Constitution and Iho Course , of ' Nature to which arc ; added , Two brief Dissertations on Personal Identity and , on the . Nature of Virtue ; and Fifteen ' Sermons . Uy Joseph Butler . With a Preface , by Samuel Halifax , D . D . Now edition , with Analytical Introduction , -No es , " and Index , ( liohns Standard Library . ) IL ( i- liolm-I . . It is a very grave reflection on the state of Keligious Philosophy m England , and a serious reproach to our two great Universities , that although disbelief in Christianity lias not only extended with amazing rapidity through all classes , but has also found new voices and a now form of opposition , nothing is produced on the side of orthodoxy to stem this advancing rum-lit of iliBbelu'f ; nothing done to overthrow thin new antagonist , more terrible because more earnest , more effective , because di . searding the old polemical tactics , it , speaks in the name or Koligion against false reliionWhen we " nothing" we aro not simply F "

      g . say , noiiiK-ing , r . r calhcdrd , on the various " answers" published in tho loi of book , article ) , and pamphlet ; we have in our eye the extremely Hignii - cant , fact that liutlers Analogy is incessantly referred to as the P'J '" T j of orthodoxy . It not only enters into university education , but ; la regar < < as having once and for ever disposed of all the solid objections to brought against Christianity , f "Keli-As the organ of modern ' unbelief—as the opponent in the name ol Chunh

      gion against . Christianity , considered as a theology , and the : as institution—we deem it imperative on us to devote unusual npnc . e to ¦ examination of this work , especially with reference to these two < H » - sU (» j What bearing has the work on the great struggle between the UM \ the New Theologies ? Mow does it remove the doubts of tho sreptu . r ^ Modern Unbelief being no constantly referred to Butler for un "llHV ^ 1 i ' behoves us to inquire what the nature of that answer is . U any <;» ' « I of orthodoxy in ( linsatislied with our selection of Butler , let I "" the

      Home better and more valiant chief , and we will enter arena " Confident rh is ' the falcon ' s Ilight , " confident in the truth of our cause being superior to Lho finest ^ j ? 1 ^ m confident that , as Bacon pithily says , " a tortoise on tho riglit patoutstrip n , nicer on Ihi ) wrong . " , i , hnf ; We open Butler , and at thc ^ outset wo are somewhat d iseourageu "J ^^ , Keeins a very frank admission , but which really has the ollee . t ol ' _ mlroitnoKS . " The object of WwAnalor / i / is not to proves the «' » j ![ "' ' | u ljition , but to confirin it ; , by showing that there is no greater ( inn 'J ^ . the way of believing the religion of K . evelation than iu believing i ^ gion of . Nature . Hero » t the outset the truth of Jtovolation—* . '

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      Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce tYxevp .. —Edinburgh Review .

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      1044 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,

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      The other day we mentioned the existence of a French Athenmim After the experience of three months , we cannot greatly recommend it , neither as a useful " taster of hooks , " nor as a journal with sufficient talent to he interesting on its own account . The subjects treated of are not sufficiently new and varied ; the style indifferent . A German periodical , under the title of Deutsches Athen ' dum , is advertised to appear on the 1 st of January . If this notice should reach the eye of its editor , let it suggest to him that the readers of such a journal want to be informed about books , and are supremely indifferent to the contributors . Good analyses , with ample extracts , are wanted : but where is the German to do this ?

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 30, 1852, page 1044, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1958/page/16/