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The Germans are fond of discussing , in their profoundly inconclusive way , the question whether life in spontaneous evolution is greater than its reflex , which is literature . Absolutely considered , perhaps it may not be , but relatively to us , and to such fine weather as we have had during the last week , it certainly is . Life in spontaneous evolution—that is , life on the road and the river , life in the gardens and the parks , in Rotten-row and at Richmond-hillis certainly far greater just now than life in the reading-rooms and libraries . Mr . Justice Halliburton , in his speech this week at the Royal Literary Fund dinner , truly said that the two great objects of study for all men are nature and human nature ; and that the colonies had as yet no literature because in a new country the claims of nature are too importunate to admit of anything
like learned leisure or meditative repose . What thus happens to the colonies during the first years of their existence , occurs in the mother-country for a few weeks every season , and with a similar result . Annually Nature throws her spell over court and city alike , claiming from both , at least , a transitory recognition . This year the claim is made with such strength and suddenness as to be altogether irresistible . The season has advanced a month in less than a week . Ten days ago the trees were leafless , the grass still grey , and the wind bleak and cutting as December . Now you have the fresh flower-sprinkled turf underfoot , a green roof overhead , and the delicious spring air touched with the scent of hawthorn and bean-blossom between . Of course reading
and study are out of the question . Even looking at pictures is almost too great an exertion , and the crowds in the Exhibition instinctively cluster about the bits of landscape , especially those , and they are fortunately numerous , with cool shadows and refreshing streams , such as Mr . Anthony ' s ' Stream in the Wood / and Mr . Stack ' s * Quiet Nook . ' There are no new books , and even if there were it would make no difference . People don't care to read , and politic publishers , aware of the indifference and its cause , defer their best new books till a fall in the barometer indicates a more convenient season for their successful issue . Under these-circumstauces what is the use of asking for a literary summary ? Such an exaction is worse than the tyranny of Egyptian task-masters . It is demanding cream , where there is ' not even milk to be had .
There is , however , one book advertised as just ready , to which the fine weather can scarcely prove a disadvantage , as its contents will thoroughly harmonise with the feelings that town life in the spring season naturally inspires . We refer to Mr . Alexander Smith ' s new poem , devoted , we believe , to this very subject of town and country life , but more especially to the poetic aspects of the former . There is here a fine vein of poetical material hitherto comparatively unworked . We are rich in the poetry of rural life , but the deeper and more intense poetic elements of modern city life have never as yet been turned to full account . He has thus chosen his subject well , and being
perfectly familiar with it , the poem will , we have no doubt , be enriched with fresh and vigorous sketches from his own experience . Nevertheless , we should not be surprised if , three years hence , some acute , well-read , and largeminded letter of the alphabet—probably the crooked Z already in the fieldshould come forward with the startling discovery that some previous poets have written of town and country life . Pending this possible disclosure , however , we are quite disposed to enjoy Mr . Smith ' s new poem , which—as we arc told , and , from the extracts we have seen , are disposed to believe—is superior in finished art to anything lie has yet produced .
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A new combatant has appeared to take part in the controversy touching the Buddhist doctrine of a future state—one , too , in every way well entitled to speak on the subject . Colonel Sykes , in a long letter to the Times this week , combats the view of the Buddhist Nirvana maintained by the Times reviewer , and supports the opinion advocated in the Leader three weeks ago . In this new opponent the reviewer has found his match , Colonel Syices being his equal in minute knowledge and his superior in critical insight , thoroughly accomplished in Buddhist literature , and able to interpret consistently its confused and often conflicting accounts . He shows clearly in his letter—what with a very limited knowledge of the subject seemed to us at the time sufficiently
apparent—that the writings to which the reviewer appeals in support of his nihilistic interpretation belong to a vory late mid degraded school of semi-Buddhist philosophy , in which the life of the founder was obscured by monstrous legends , and his doctrine practically destroyed by metaphysical refinements . Tor us to accept such documents as a fair exposition of genuine Buddhism , is a mistake almost as groat as it would bo for a Hindu to receive the philosophical system of Spinoza or Hegel as containing a faithful interpretation of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity . Colonel Sykes goes on to point out—what wo stated at the time—that the best accounts of Buddha ' s life and teaching prove that he hold no doctrine of annihilation . On this head he speaks as follows :
It has boon sought to throw upon Buddhists the stigma of Atheism , Materialism , and a belief in the annihilation of the soul . Theso accusations have their origin in tho mystical transcendentalisms of a comparatively modern and corrupted state of liuddhism , and whioh have not any authority from tho preachings or discourses of Buddha himself . Buddha constantly refers to a First Cause , another world , and a
state of rewards and punishments after death . Buddha ' s own hymn on his becoming 1 Buddha testifies to his belief in God . He speaks of the Builder and Architect who made him and controlled his transmigrations ; and the Rev . Mr . Gogerly in \ a * translation of the Damina Padari , written in Pali , makes Buddha repeatedly speak of the present and future world—viz ., " The sinner suffers in this world , and he will suffer in the next world ; in both worlds he suffers , " &c . Again , " . The virtuous man rejoices in this world , and he will rejoice in the next world . In both worlds he has joy , " &c . Here is the founder of the religion talking of the present and a future world , expressing his belief in a state of rewards and punishments , &c , necessarily therefore , expressing his belief in a power or being to dispense rewards and punishments . Surely there must be some distortion in reasoning to pronounce such a believer an Atheist !
To this statement we may add the account given of Buddha ' s last moments Feeling himself near his end , he is said to have gathered together a lai-o-e company of his disciples , and after having expounded to them his doctrine afresh , to have added as his last words , " Everything saddens me , and I desire to enter into the Nirvana , that is , into existence free from any corporeal attribute , into the state of supreme and eternal blessedness . " This is not the place to sketch the character of Buddha , so far as it may be gathered from the scanty records we possess of his life and teaching ; but all we know of him tends directly to contradict the supposition that he held by such doctrines as those imputed to him by the author of ' Buddhist Pilgrims . ' That such a man should have held such doctrines is simply a psychological impossibility .
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It is seldom that we receive a book with more grateful pleasure than Mr . Moxox ' long-expected edition de luxe of Tennyson ' s Poems . It is a volume of monumental beauty—the pages like thin but opaque plates of ivory , flic typography faultless , the illustrations a cabinet collection of gems . The book is a casket of poetry and art , the poet and the artist are in perfect harmony , and Mr . Moxon has been just to both . It would be difficult to overpraise the richness , the delicacy , or the grace of this edition , on which have been employed the pencils of Creswick , Stanfield , Millais , Hunt , Rossetti , and Mulready . We annouce the publication ; but , next week , we shall glance critically at the ' pictures . ' - It is pleasant , meanwhile , to learn that Tennyson has in the press a new poem , to keep his laurels green . The subject of the poem is , we hear , one of Tennyson ' s early favourites , King Arthur ; being , in fact , a furtfier contribution to his unfinished Epic , Morte d'Arthur .
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CAItLYLE'S CROMWELL . Oliver Cromwell ' s Letters and Speeches , with Elucidations . By Thomas Carlyle . 3 vols . Chapman and Hall . This is the second work in the cheap reissue of Carlyle ' s writings , and might safely dispense with all notice from us , save the mere announcement of its issue , had we not a well-grounded suspicion that some of our readers may even yet be ignorant of its contents , and did we not feel that few books published in these days better deserve a serious reading , not so much for historical as for moral instruction . Cromwell is a grand historical figure ,
played a great part in great times , has been much misunderstood , and much reviled ; but although it is a ' refreshment , ' as he would have said , to find this heroic , figure really that of a hero , and not in the least of a hypocrite and canting puritan—although this work banishes for evermore the stereotyped figure from our historical works , and substitutes an altogether different one—we do not conceive its chief value to lie therein . Cromwell the man , the great man and the intrinsically ^ oorf man , is here displayed before us ; not through biographical artifice and well-adjusted draperies of effect , but through his own acts and unmistakable words . His letters and speeches , clumsy enough as to expression , all bear the clearest marks of being sincere ins
utterances . If the reader carefully compares the letters addressed to wife , children , and friends ( mere simple domestic scraps for the most part , such as are passing by thousands through the post every day , never meant to reach any eyes " but those of the persons addressed ) with those official and semi-official letters addressed to Parliament and groat personages , he will be struck , we think , with six things : First , the singular uniformity in the sentiments expressed , and even in their tone of religious fervour—not wanner in public official documents , meant for all eyes , than in the private notes to his dearest wife . ' Secondly , the complete absence of cant , or even tlie the
sin ^ -son"' incoherence which gives religious letters and writings appearance of cant , and is not all sincere . Thirdly , the very remarkable modesty which , even when he was transacting such great things , never once permits him to allude to any mer it of his own ; nay , once , when the rallying oi repulse was entirely his own work , the fact is never mentioned by nun . This reticence with regard to his own services is the more remarkable in n man who is supposed to have been long conspiring to gain the chief power . Fourthly , tho grand magnanimity of the man , not only to personal anu public enemies , but shown also in the complete absence of railtn ^ ° ons insinuation . Very unlike a religious reformer is his deep-felt charity . *«< smites his enemies with merciless rigour when in battle ; he is a stern m , and knows that sternness spares blood . But ho indulges in none ot u « abstract bitterness which the Puritans whom he led , and the 1 untans w have succeeded those , seem to consider tho true flavour of godliness . * < deep as his religious convictions are , docs he blaspheme against this mo i all its ' carnal enjoyments . Exeter Hall would have had but httlo o > sympathy : ho would have hated its cant , and its irreligious narrown "; tenderness
Fifthly , wo note in these letters a touching manly a " *•» ,,- which ! mono so stern , and . strong , and solely tried , is like the ' ^ Samson found in tho lion ' s mouth . Of all his letters , the . purely < lomo letters delight us most , and make our hearts yearn towards him . £ > ixy ; wo note what for want of a bettor phrase we must call , the gontlem . u ness ' of tho letters . . ^_ i . ; , of his Wo think it impossible to read those Lotters and not see the not on . o being a ' hypocrite ' to bo ono of tho wildest wl ™™™ ° v . yf" ™" oVU A truer , sinceror , nobler nature wo cannot name . Farther , lfc b « OOI " ° ; oll . 3 dent in theso volumes how alow , yet inevitable , was tho nso ot uronnv
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Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and P . oliceof ^ ' |^ L fc - jS ^ do nOt make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . — Edinburgh icevzeto .
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4 Q 6 T H E LEADEB . [ No . 374 , Saturday .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 23, 1857, page 496, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2194/page/16/
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