On this page
-
Text (3)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
id a dinner party , and assist in pulling up the wine from a well into which had been let down to cool . ^ There are delightful pictures of these domessities in the Life of Scott . During these calm years Lockhart wrote his > vels—Valerius , Reginald Dalton , Adam Blair , &c . —still esteemed by the . dicious as excellent works of fiction . In 1825 he wrote for Constable ' s Miscellany his " Life of Burns , " the merits of which are attested by the aise 3 of Mr . Cajeuvsxe , whose Essay on Burns was in the form of a review ' that work . In the same year he succeeded Giffor » as editor of the uarterly- * -a , n . office which he retained till very recently . It is chiefly as litor of the Quarterly that Lockhart has , during the last thirty years or , been known ; though during that time he has appeared more than once
the independent walks of authorship , as in his Spanish Ballads , and , most tably and beautifully of all , in his Life of Scott . . Family bereavements mmulating upon him ( the death of Ms wife , that of his favourite son , the Hugh Inttlejohn" of the Tales of a Grandfather , and that of Scott himlf , happened close upon each other ; and another son died at a later sriod ) had left a certain tnorosaness and gloom over Locjchaet ' s character , Inch made him chary of society towards the end of his life , and not very > pular in it . With' health completely shattered he died at Ahbotsfoxd—> w , by the failure of the male line of Scotts , becoming the property of ockhaet ' s only surviving daughter and her husband , Mr . Hopb , both , of horn are Catholics .
Untitled Article
We have received the sixth volume of M . Loms B&aitc ' s History of the \ ench Revolution , the most brilliant and powerful in style , the most laboous and exact in its accumulation and analysis of original documents , of le many " Histories" of that colossal epoch . The heroes and the victims ? the Revolution have been subjected to transformations so violent and so iprieious at the hands of fanatical partisans and unscrupulous literary jobers , that the very scene of a drama played out before the eyes of qur fathers as faded into a mirage , and tie leading actors appear like the fantastic shaows of a magic lantern . Perhaps the time is hardly yet arrived to pronounce a solemn and dispasonate judgment upon the men who consummated the conquests of 1789 .
ertainly pamphlets and romances , equally assuming the noble name of his-» ry , have done enough to distort and disfigure their words , their acts , their lotives , and their memory . " History" ( to quote a recent French writer ) , instead of being-, as Cieero says , ' the counsellor and guide of the human ice , * is too often in these days of , ours a mercenary advocate , or a false itness . The greatest of men are at the mercy of historical jobbers , in hose hands they become so many automata , so constructed as to reply yes r rao , as the finger on the spring dictates , " Is not this more especially true of the French Revolution ? We shall sturn to the great work of M . Louis Blajnc , which , let us hasten to affirm , ccels in accuracy as it does in composition . This assertion will encounter
le surprise , if not the distrust , of many of our readers , to whom the name f Louis Bxanc is the name of a party , and of a party for the moment sfeated and proscribed . Let us disarm those prejudices , by reminding our jaders that M . Louis Blanc has lived in exile six years , and this exile h e xs passed among us in England , in the midst of honourable labours and > nsoling friendships . Banishment , with all its bitterness , and all its sorrow , as at least this compensation ; it restores to the writer calmness , and to th e linker solitude ; it enables the statesman , withdrawn from the interests and asaions of the hour , to seek a refuge from disenchantment and disgust in le study of a nobler past , and in the tranquil expectation of a better iture , and in the mean while to judge the passing illusions with spnxething kc the retrospection of posterity .
We have glanced at the chapter in the present volume , in whioh the colerated Day of Dupes , June 20 , 1792 , and the invasion of the Tuilories , are escribed with extraordinary force of narrative painting . In this episode I . Louis Blanc corrects the numerous errors and omissions of Lamautinu nd Miohelet , having himself consulted with indefatigable diligence the mplc resources of the British Museum , so rich in the official reports and ying sheets of tbo period . " No doubt , " says M- Louis BfcAtrc , in a long tote appended to this chapter , " M . » k Lamahtinte has involuntarily misled lis readers , having been himself misled . " But this only shows with what < iro historical researches should be conducted , When there is an abundance > f contradictory evidenco on an ovent , it ia indispensable to take thorn one > y one , to weigh , compare , confront them . A tedious and distasteful task , iq doubt I But truth requires it . An historian should bo an examining aagistrate before being a pnintor .
- Tins excellent doctrine has , wo think wo may say , boon practised , by the yreachor , and it will give this history a permanent and particular value . Of jourse M . Louis Blanc has his predilections ; but nothing is more remarkable than ' tho rospoct , wo were about to say tho emotion , with wliich ho jrings out all that deserves our sympathy and our commiseration in the suffering dynasty of the unfortunate king , tho victim at onco of folly juul fatality , For delightful reading this history is not surpassed . Tho magio of tho stylo is intoxicating , and yet with nil its warmth and colour it never losoa Slio masculine torsonoss of Thucydidos and tho epigrammatic concision of racitua .
Alexajtobe Dbmas , the Magnificent , has surpasssed himself in Jus latest dedication . This is the form in which he inscribes a drama , which he had concocted without acknowledgment from three plays of an ohscure German , to "Victor Hugo : — " To you , my dear Hugo , I dedicate my drama of Conscience . " Receive it as the testimony of an affection wliich has survived exile , and -which , I trust , will survive death , itself . " I believe in the immortality of the soul . " Alexajidre IhjsiAs . " Is not this confession of faith -worthy of the early martyrs ?
Untitled Article
HEIINRICH HEINE . Vermisohte Schriften von Eeinrich Heine . 3 Band . Hamburg : Hoffman and Campe , 1854 . London : Triibner and Co . Some three months ago the advance-guard ( in these warlike times , military expressions are perhaps admissable ) of these volumes appeared in the Revue des deux Mondes in the shape of a French version of the greater portion of the chief and most important article of this collection . A few weeks ago we also gave our readers an account of that remarkable article ; and now that we have since read , not only that article in its entirety , and in the native language of its author , but the whole of the multifarious contents o f this publication , we hasten to supplement our former notice . To those who fully know the accurate rank of Ileinrich Heine in the selectest aristocracy of letters no apology for returning to these , his novissima verbct , will be «
needed . Those who do not , should this notice lead them , by a perusal of his writings , to arrive at that knowledge , will not only require no apology , but will return us their sincerest thanks . For the rest , it is not saying much , that in these times when literature has become in all Europe a mere vade-mecum to the attainment of an accurate knowledge of the , war , in all its branches , this publication is by far the most important the literary world has seen this many a day . The only hiatus in the French version of the Confessions , "was an attack of light raillery on Madanie de Stael and her celebrated De PAllemagne , which is a masterpiece of Heine ' s peculiar manner of thought and diction . The more salient portions of this attack the reader will find appended . This renowned book , written secretly from pique at the authoress s treatment in France , but ostensibly to glorify the Germans , has met with small favour from
the pens of Germans , Fas est ab hoste doaeri may be true enough ; but fas esi ab hoste ktudari , appears to be a maxim repugnant to our 0-eraj . an brothers * Shortly after the publication of De VA . Ueraagney Richter cut it up in detail ; and now Heine has given it an effectual coup de grace , by assailing its fundamental spirit , and has hung upon its grave immortelles o £ wit and humour . j Richter ' s intellectual calibre , by fifty years' labour , has now got solemnly recognised by the English reading world ; . if that same world take the trouble to read Heine and Kichter here on the same ground , any gloomy ideas as to the degeneracy of to-day will be happily dissipated . In addition to this article , Volume I . contains the original version of The Gods in Exile , which appeared in the Revue in the spring ; a fanciful ballet-piece , called The Goddess Diana ; a memorial of the late Ludwig Marcus ; and . some hundred pages of fugitive poems , all written from his sick bed since the Jtomanze . ro . To those who value Heine chiefly as a poet Yand it is difficult
to say whether he is greater as poet or prosaist ) , this will be the most acceptable portion of these volumes . As far as exquisite melody , as far as performing on the intricacy of the German language with an ease never approached , as far as playful humour and biting sarcasm axe conoerned , they are equal to any of Heine ' s poems in his best days ; his seriousness and feeling for the purely tieautiful are not here , however . But these poems are chiefly valuable to the student of human nature , as presenting . a spectacle perhaps unique in the history of that remarkable biped , the literary man . Poor and broken in body and pui * se , Heine calls himself fitly enough Lazarus ; but instead of whining and lying a beggar at Dives' gates , the imperial mind asserts her supremacy over the shattered body , refuseB to surrender the fleshly fortress while a chance remains , and taking up the lyre that has won him his glory , Heine solaces his misery in a most characteristic fashion—by getting out of it all the humour he can . We may mention , in leaving these poems , that for tho most part they defy translation .
Volumes IE . and III . have a sub-title of Lutezia , and consist of Heine ' s letters from Paris , and elsewhere in France , to the Augsburg Allgemeino Zeilung in tho years 18-40 to 1844 , revised , corrected , and with explanations and additions written at the present time . They give a full picture of the political , social , musical and art worlds of Paris in tho hey-day of Louis Philippe ' s reign . Especially are they valuable in their accounts and estimates of men . In these pnges one may got an idea of Guizot , Thiers , Berryer , Larochefoueauld , Baron Rothschild , Louia Blanc , and nearly all the celebrities of France from 1830 to 1848 , clearer , moro vivid , and , in the intensost spiritual sense , truer , than from , any other source with which we are acquainted . In tho whole series there is not a dull pago 5 always there is elegance of composition , humour , wit , sarcasm , and refinement of taste and expression . But no-t unfrcquently there are opinions and judgments so acute as , read by the light of subsequent events , to appear almost prophetic . Also in the addenda there is much interesting information regarding fcho
past life of Heine ; but as wo believe that he is at present engaged on a completo autobiography , we mity well leavo those without calling especial attention to thorn . We may observe that the whole of our extracts { except that about Do Staol ) are taken from Lutezia . In a hundred years , or less , when Heine has become as thoroughly passj m ho is now intensely modern , and wheu a new Homo is craving recognition , tho British public will have perceived what manner of man ho was , as they have just recently come to-perceive- what manner of men Goethe , Schiller , and ltichtar worn . Tlio wise bow before the Inevitable . It is usclusa to seek to ibroHlnl events , else we might closo our notico by endeavouring to indicnto what Heino ' t ) liturary runic is , and why it is so ; else wo mi ht have poiutuu out , that for yours stiuloiits of foreign literature havo desired tho union of the French geuiuH with tho Gorman , to produce a literary compound possible but improbable ; and wo might lmvo askod whether
Untitled Article
December 2 , 1854 . ] THE LEADER 1143
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 2, 1854, page 1143, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2067/page/15/
-