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^P^-riVtMfrttViv iLmnUlUlc* *
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" Time , " says the Grecian sage , "is the wisest of all things , " and it is of the essence of wisdom to be just . We may fairly expect , therefore , that all wrongs will eventually be righted . The particular period , however , at which justice will in any case be done is fluctuating and uncertain , being usually expressed by that elastic phrase , " the long run . " There are many pauses , too , before the true goal is reached . For while time really does try all , the early judgments are not unfrequently reversed before the decision even of time , cau be accepted as final . The present age seems fast becoming a court of appeal against all the partial and erroneous decisions of the past ; many of our most distinguished writers and critics being mainly occupied in reversing the moral judgments of their predecessors . This deeper criticism of character we certainly owe in great measure to Carlyle , who , both by precept and example , is the greatest living apostle of historic truth . His influence has insensibly diffused itself through nearly the whole of our current literature , and traces of it may be found in quarters where we should least expect it to be felt . The first article of the new number of the Quarterly Review , on Bosweix and Johnson , supplies an illustration , though in relation to a comparatively humble hero . The first part of the paper , that devoted to Bosweix , is simply an expansion , point by point , of Caelyle ' s noble vindication of the wine-loving laird ' s good qualities both of
head and heart . We have space to illustrate by quotation only a single point of the parallel . Carlyle had well exposed the absurdity of the paradox repeated by successive critics , that the Life of Johnson was a clever book because its author was a fool . " Sometimes , " he says , " a strange enough hypothesis has been stated of him ; as if it were in virtue of the same bad qualities that he did his good work ; as if it were the very fact , of his being among the worst workmen in the world that had enabled him to write one of the best books therein ! Falser hypothesis , we may venture to say , never arose in human soul . Bad is by its nature negative , and can do nothing . Whatever enables us to do anything is by its very nature good . " The writer in the quarterly gives a detailed exposition of this . Of Bosweli / s rare faculty of strictly and minutely truthful portraiture the writer says : — The value of Boswell ' s graphic narrative is vastly increased by the minute fidelity of the representation . Sir Joshua Reynolds observed of the veracious Johnson , that , admirable as he was in sketching characters , he obtained distinctness at the expense of perfect accuracy , and assigned to people more than they really had , whether of good or bad ; but to Boswell ' s book the great painter gave the remarkable testimony , that every word of it might be depended upon as if delivered upon oath . Though many persons , when it appeared , were displeased with the -way in which they themselves were exhibited , no one accused him of serious misrepresentation , or of sacrificing truth to effect . He never heightened a scene , exaggerated a feature , improved a story or polished a conversation . His veneration for his hero could not entice him into smoothing down his asperities . Hannah More begged that he might be drawn less rudely than life . " I will not cut off his claws , " Boswell roughly replied , " nor make a tiger a cat , to please anybody . "
The article , which is marked by good sense , good feeling , and minutely accurate information , is thoroughly interesting throughout . The second paper is a slight and sketchy account of a kind of literature and life better known at Paris than iu this country—that of the Arabs of social life . Of the remaining articles , that on " Italian Tours and Tourists" is full of pleasant , instructive gossip , and one on " Public Speakiug" of seasonable advice . The present number of the Edinburgh Review has also an article on the subject of public speaking , which seems just now to be exciting a good deal of atlention . The complaint is , that everything like oratory is extinct amongst us , h and
and even decent speaking rare ; yet the speaker that both < he Edinburg the quarterly justly rank as amongst the most distinguished of British orators still sits on the benches of the Upper House-Lord Brougham . TJio article in the Edinburgh is a review of the edition of his collected speeches recentl y published . The Edinburgh also reviews Mr . Buckle ' s History of Cicilizalioji in England favourably , so far as the ability displayed in the work is concerned , unfavourably , in relation to its plan and guiding principles . The author ' s dofectivo sympathy with literature and life , with popular influences and national action , is no doubt a serious disqualification for his work—one of the results of which is pointed out in the following extract : — This want of sympathy for tho elements of heroism and lofty character , when they happen to bo separated from high intollectual attainments , or to manifest themselves in an ago of Intellectual obscurity , renders Mr . Buckle entirely iucapablo of appreciating the spirit of tlio Middle Ages . Because tho era of scepticism had not begun , because lotters were still chiefly in tho hands of the clergy , becuuao ( as ho assorts ) the art of writing directly encourages tho propagation ol falsehoods , because inon still belioved in an overruling Providonco , —hu reproHonts tho annals of those nges as a tissue of childish absurdities ; and ho quotes in support of this opinion , a multitude of old wivoa' fables , extracted from tho chronicled of tho time . Nor dooa ho introduce u single remark to denote that these li-gonds arc not a fair test of the intellectual ooumi < m ^ f ^ ho-M 1 diHe-A . go * -n-JllUo ^ embrace any of tho groat lights of modiiuval philosophy , history , or nrt ; hoMs n - ot ~ n ~ wor ( ly save of scorn , for tho stupendous labours of the groat churchmen , for tho dialectics of tho schools , or for tho gouius which never shone more brightly than in tho immortal verses of Dante . Wo appeal from this narrow and partial iloobion to tho energy ol those groat minds , and to tho Middlo Agoa themselves . Thoro , und nowhere olso , is to be found tho root and foundation of those great institutions from which tho laws , the liberties , and tho government of modern Europe spring . There are still to bo
distinguished through the gloom of ages those gigantic figures of Charlemagne , Alfred , and Norman William , whose strength and wisdom moulded the empires of their posterity ; and to convey an opinion of the Middle Ages solely by a loose statement of their ignorance and their credulity , is to overlook the existence and extent of powers and truths of the utmost importance to the subsequent history of mankind . One might infer from Mr . Buckle , that the records of our race begin with the seventeenth century of the Christian era , because he then first applies his method of interpreting them . The Edinburgh is defective this quarter in purely literary articles , that on "Edgar Allan Poe" being slight and superficial .
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One of the most remarkable of contemporary publicists , Iskander ( M . Axexanbre Hebzen ) , whose contributions to the Leader on the question of Russian Serfdom may be in the remembrance of many of our readers , has written , in French , a striking and significant pamphlet ( published by Mr . Trubner ) , under the following title : —France or England ? Russian Variations on the Theme of the Attempt of the l $ th of January . This strange and suggestive title smacks of the humour peculiar to Russian writers—a humour singularly wild and pungent in quality . But the pamphlet itself is eminently worth reading . Reviewing in a few vivid and brilliant pages the characteristics of Russian policy , foreign and domestic , since Peter the Great , M . Herzen concludes on behalf of his country against the Trench , and in favour of the English alliance . " Russia , " he says , " occupies an exceptional position . She belongs neither to Europe nor to Asia . A change of dynasty in China does not imply an intervention on her part . The fall of Bonaparte and the accession to the throne of France of Baroche or of Pelissier could neither weaken nor strengthen the power of the Czar . Russia , in a word , forms in herself a new part of the globe , developing herself in her own manner , assimilating the Western civilization in the upper strata of her society , but remaining perfectly national at the base . " At the death of Nicholas there were two policies open to his successor—a policy of compression a outrance , and a policy of decisive amelioration . Alexander II . having chosen the latter , his alliance is naturally with England . A great people with a small army and vast conquests , she -will disabuse us of uniforms , of parades , of police , of arbitrary government . A country without centralization , without a bureaucracy , without prefects , without gendarmes , -without restrictions of the press , without limits to the right of public meeting , without revolutions , without reaction—j « st the reverse of Russia and Prance . And what a part she plays After the fall and decadence of the Continent , alone , upright , with head erect , tranquil , full of security , she contemplates from the midst of the waves the horrible spectacle of despotic terrorism and espionage .
M . Hebzen , being entirely unconnected with any conspiracy , was in no way menaced by what he calls la loi sur le meurtre des libertes anglaises . In the last resort he would have embarked with his printing-press for America . But on the first reading of the Conspiracy Bill , his shamed and indignant feelings told him that he loved England . But the rejection of the Bill reassured him , and he rejoiced even when he was pursued and pelted by Londonstreet boys as a French spy , for " a people that has the strength to hate a political police is free for ever . " In another chapter , M . Herzen turns to the condition of Trance , its hopeless oscillations from one extreme to another , its revolutionary jargon , and its essential propensity to " strong government . " With a truthful severity which we commend to the attention of French Liberals , he says : — " The Empire would not last two days if it did not find some sort of point d ' appul in the French character . It corresponds necessarily to certain elements perfectly national . Say what you will , the election of the 10 th of December , 1848 , was free and popular . " " Can a Bonapartist England be imagined ? " he asks . Again he acutely remarks : " The degrading regime of Imperialism is detested -. for France loves only the poetry of Bonapartism and not its prose . " France requires a process of thorough-searching self-examination ; unfortunately her deepest thinkers are not sufficiently imbued with " the revolutionary tradition " to be listened to by their countrymen . The French need to be emancipated from " the France of Beranger : "C ' estpeu de ne pas sympathiser avec la St . JBarthdlemy , il faut aussi ne pas sympathiser nvea lea journdes de aeptembre . Ceet peu de ne pa * vouloir se venger de Waterloo , ilfaiU ne plus se compluire dans le souvenir d'Awterlitz . How true is the following passage : —
She has but shaken off with a vigorous hand the gothic dust and tho powder of ¦ Versailles , she has not entered into a normal state since ' 89 , and she is still tho prey of a convulsive agitation , and of all tho incoherence of a struggle -which has twice already resulted in tho negation of every right . Loving riots and centralization , void of tho instinct of liberty , and anxious to emancipate tho other pooplos , intolerant in , the name of indopoiidonco , Franco has not yet boon able to fix tho cardinal points of her sociul edifice . How profoundly observed is the following , which wo transcribe m tho original : — .... , Si on veut suivro lo fil rouge qui pnsso a travers les covsi e rtcorsi r 6 volutionnaircs , on trouvora un element constant dans toil tea les vuriiitionn , memo dans les plus contriulictoires ; a ' cat lo vloux pdelid roinulu-e ' out le grand enno . nl do la 1 bort < 5--lu aouuernenmutaliam * , la rtfgleinciitutlon dW limit , riinpobillon forcoc par autontJ . ' Cltaque nuance qui arrive au pouvoir deviant aussttot hi / liae , et—vtulteur aun " Ts ' noUhislr ^^ cans , red and mode-rate , uiul Socialists ? Considering the profound disrespect for personal liberty , M . IIbrkbn ceases to bo surprised that "Louis XIV ., having passed through tho Phrygian cap fuBhiou . should become &aw ) ljson . " But imperialism , with its persecution
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n ^ HcB are no t the legislators , but the judgesand police of literature . Theydo not i >»" * ma ] i : eiaWB—they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Review . ?
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tfo 422 , April 24 , 1858 . ] THE LEADER . 401
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Leader (1850-1860), April 24, 1858, page 401, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2240/page/17/
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