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Leader (1850-1860), 5th June 1858, Edition 1 of 2, Page 545, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      BlacJcwood is characteristically political this month , out of seven articles two being devoted to the Indian Mutiny , and two to the state of parties at liome . Of the remaining papers , one , entitled " Religious Memoirs / ' is peculiarly seasonable and good . The writer deals in a thoroughly religious , but at the same time manly , sensible , indignant spirit , with one of the growing evils of the day—the multiplication of weak , wishy-washy , characterless religious biographies . This large class of works has of late been too much overlooked ot treated too leniently by the critics , probably froin the feeling that the subject exempted them from criticism , or that their literary claims were too poor , and their influence too flight-to . deserve it . This , however , is an entire mistake . Forced as they are on the attention of thousands of young people at

      arnost susceptible age , the educational influence of these books must be great , and often most injurious . Their slipshod English , effeminate sentiment , and tawdry ornament ; their narrow and one-sided views of life- in a word , their utter want of truth and nature , of depthj insight , and power , must directly tend , not only to deprave the taste and warp the judgment , but to produce radically false notions of duty and life in . the minds of youthful and sympathetic readers . The few religious lessons avowedly inculcated , and . the religious effect actually produced , are no adequate recompense for this injury . Weak sentiment and . wordy rhetoric arc not the indispensable condition of religious instruction . The highest religious lessons may be taught in simple words ,. and the noblest religious life set forth , in a plain , unvarnished narrative . Why , then , this succession of homilies under the various titles of Christian Merchants , Christian Heroes , aud Christian Philosophers , but all alike , all equally without life , power , or individuality ? The examples selected by the critic in Blackwoocl are the \ Memorials of"Captain Tledley Vicars , and aBiograpliical Sketch of Sir lleiiry Haveloclc . Of the latter work he speaks as follows : ——

      Religious literature , however , distinguislies itself by a more daring deficiency of literary skill than any other branch of the craft can venture on , and takes its standpoint with a more arbitrary determination to see everything from that view , and to adapt everything it finds to ita own good isurpose . It would be impossible to find a better example of _ this peculiarity tlian in a little . volume lately published , -which professes to be a Biographical SFietch of Sir Henry Havelock , and which has been published with as mucli precipitation as a linendraper's circular , and certainly suggests an impulse not much different from that of the worthy shopkeeper ,-who makes a hasty covp to forestal and anticipate his rival in the trade , and to take first advantage of a sudden novelty . All this island , in every inch of its space , and heart of its people , has tingled -with anxiety , with triumph , and at last with bitter unavailing regret and disappointments that he who had won sucli honours should never return

      to receive them , at heaving of the name winch stands upon this smug and complacent title-page . Sir Henry Havelock !—he who -won like an old banneret of chivalry , but , like a modern public servant , never lived to -wear , that knightly title and reward which none ever more gallantly deserved—lie who only paused upon his march to fight a battle , and only fought to clear the road for his onward march , and did both impossible achievements for the rescue of the perishing—he who did not live to hear how a whole country traced his steps with tears and cries , and an anxiety as breathless as if every man in his band had been a son or a brother ; but did live—a better thing—to know that his work was accomplished , and the blood of his soldiers , and his own noble , life , were not spent in vain . It is this man , in the climax of honours and lamentations , while his name is still in every mouth , yet before there can be time for such a record as might possibly preserve his memory with becoming dignity , that the religious trade rushes in . to biographiso and sell so . many

      editions of . A book is coming by-and-by , we are informed , which will be the real Life of Havelock . In the meantime , before that can be ready , why should- the universal interest run to waste , and be suffered to pass without improvement ? so the sheets fly through the press , and the volumes through the country . It may not bo any great honour to Havelock , or a just tribute to his memory , but there can bo little doubt that it is a sharp and successful stroke of business , honourable to the energy and promptitude of the trade . ...... Nobody knew , as it would appear , up to the moment of his showing it , what daring and indomitable courage was in this Baptist soldier , who , for a lifetime back , had been holding prayer-meetings in his regiment , and making " sainta" of his men . That he was a brave man , and did his duty , everybody allowed ; but had he died two years sooner , no one could have supposed what amount of undeveloped force lay in his modest grave . This is perhaps the most wonderful lesson that ever was drawn from soldier ' s life—how a man

      may lire till he is sixty , brave but not remarkable , yet at last die gloriously , the hero of such a fiery , rapid , breathless campaign as might have opened the careerj > f some glorious young conqueror , mviuciblu in his first ardour , and genius , and youth . A strange Reason , and not an . encouraging one—showing how God himself does not treat the lives of his servants as so many allegories to draw " lessons" from , but brings about , perhaps , the greatest issue of their existence in the strangest , most inconsequent , unexpected way , and leaves the weightiest act of their lives so near the end , that one feels an instinctive involuntary start of anxious wonder , as if , another moment oelayed , Providenco would lmve been too late . A brave man does not live unci clie in order that some one may improve his fortunes into a memoir , and young men alaocieUes draw lessons from it : but if there were auch an intention in the life of iiaveiock

      , what a strange , startling , unaccountable problem for a young spirit ! To Jiave it m Jam for sixty years , and yet to work through all that time without means or power to show it lorth-to wait for the hour and the opportunity until just the verge and extent of the common lite of man . But Providence takes no pains to sort mnlr " ? " ^ ' f nd . Mlak 0 Portable for us , such a lesson an this . What cnu any on « mluf p i \ ^ ° \ U logical hlllnan crc » tion , set and balanced and made th « Swi ' •!• ° " ' ° gra " ) inc (> m P lotc , brolcen-oir works of ( Jod which point lii « \ \ VT M ™ J e « bove words , to the lif « beyond , where these fragments shall Iff f ' , " , "" tUUIferS fuIttlIed ' Tll ( ir ( i ftrc > however , nothing but lcs-Xaiinl . * ! httl ? . , . \ " ^ clock ' s own lcittew—fatherly , husbaiiUHke , an < l thdr own «» i * llC aU the ilUere 8 t of thu >> ook-cai » not bo simply lef t to tell t L th »? r J' , f bc d 0 ckctC < 1 ' luul libelled , and put up in bundle * , to prove tins tiling or the other thing . He c . umot even acknowledge in an address to h 3 »

      soldiers , as any good man and leader would , " the blessing of God on a most righteous cause , " but \ a& biographer must put in Italics , and direct everybody ' s attention to the simple thanksgiving . The opening paper in Fraser this month is another contribution to the rapidly increasing " Shelley Literature "—some interesting reminiscences of the poet by a personal friend , Mr . T . L . Peacock . The lines , entitled , " An , Invitation to a Painter , " are so full of country life and breezy freshness , that in reading them we feel an involuntary envy of the happy man who is able to reply in the affirmative to such a tempting offer . The article on " Recent French Memoirs , " though pretentious in tone , is very poor in style and inaccurate in substance . An . elaborate and thoughtful paper on Matthew Aitkold ' s Merope is worth , reading ; but , for ourselves , we are quite satisfied with a Ittiefer dictum on the same work given furtlier on in the number by another critic in a geaial notice of Mr . KihgsIjE y ' s recent volume of poems . This month's number of the Dublin University Magazine is an excellent one . The article on " Froude ' s History of England , " in particular , is about the best review of the work we have seen—discriminating aud just , giving ample praise ta the writer ' s rare merits , and frankly signalizing liis characteristic defects . " Richard Savage" is tlie title of a graphic and interesting biographical sketch ' . Tlie Magazine is , however , not simply a literary agent , but a social power , as the position it lias taken on the Trinity College question sufficiently proves . A second paper in the present number amply sustains the charge of mismanagement already brought against the college authorities , and concludes -. with . au appeal to puJblic opinion , that being the only tribunal now from which there is . auy hope of obtaining an . efficient verdict in favour of reform . That such a verdict will be obtained there canbe little doubt , and , if so , the merit of securing it will be greatly due to the exertions of the University Magazine .

      Untitled Article

      CARDINAL , MEZZOFANTI . The Life of Cardinal- Mezzofanti . With an Introductory Memoir oh Eminent Linguists , Ancient and Modern . By C . "W . Russell , D . D . Longman and . Co . Some years ago , ' Dr . 'Russell contributedto the Edinburgh Heoiew a paper on Mezzofanti which excited considerable . interest . It was translated into French , and abridged in Italian , and many suggestions were pressed upon the writer that he . should enlarge his essay into a volume . There was a temptation in the idea , but there were many difficulties in the way of its . ^ development . To present a clear , full , and unexaggerated biographical estimate of ! Mezzofanti was not easy . A contemporary though he was of * he living generation , the testimony to his genius is confused and often -untrustworthy . When once an individual stands forward as a prodigy a , Jmndred rumours take wing , especially when he is a linguist , and a majority of his admirers are forced to appreciate him in pure faith . Dr . KusseU , however , adopted an . excellent method of investigation , and his account of the Cardinal , without being depreciatory , is critical throughout , and free from those extravagances which might almost be expected ' to disfigure' such a narrative . He has made inquiries of persons iii all parts of" the world , sometimes at the cost of much patience and labour , to satisfy himself , by the evidence of living representatives of most of the languages ascribed to the Cardinal , whether he had actually been acquainted with them and to what extent , and the result appears in this elaborate and valuable memoir . We forget to whom the . epigram of laudation was addressed . — Thou hast so many languages in store , That only Fame can speak of thee in more — but it might certainly have been applied to Mezzofanti . However , Dr . llussell does not seek to dilate the proportions of this one figure by concealingthe others known to history . In a preliminary memoir he passes in review the great linguists of all ages and countries , including not a few whose" acquisitions appear somewhat mythical , a point which he is careful not to forget . It matters little what Aulus Uellius relates of the glutton Mithridates , and it is even to be suspected that Plutarch told more than he knew of Cleopatra . We think the scepticism of Sir Come wall Lewis might be very well applied in these instances . Similar doubts rest upon the reputations , as linguists , of Soli roan the Magnificent , of Jonadah the African , and even of Mirandola , while it is impossible not to believe that an efflorescence of fable brightens the renown of'theCordovesc Fernando , and the Admirable Crichton . However , Dr . Russell's sketches of these and a multitude of other reputed linguists are fulL of interest , and in some cases form complete miniature biographies . Towards the close of his prefatory memoir , he introduces notices of infant prodigies , and it may warn some injudicious teachers to know that Jacopo Martino , the Venetian Claudio della Valle y Hernandez , John Lewis C ' andiac , and Christian Henry Heinechen , all wonders of precocity in their Babel powers of speech , were silent in their coffins before they- had quitted infancy—dying respectively at the ages ot nine , seven , and lour years , from exhaustion or from water on the brain . With reference to the linguists noted by William Roscoe , has not Dr . llussell forgotten , in his account of ltichnrd Roberts Jones , of Aberdarvan , the parallel character of Dick Roberts , of Liverpool , great in languages , dirt , and eccentricity ? Dr . Russell avows that a memoir of Cardinal Mezzofanti can bo litth more than a philological essay , and that his utmost hope is to escape tlu reproach directed by Warburton against Desmaiseau , tlio biographer o Boilcau , of having written a book without a life . " But wo scarcely thin ! I he is justified in tUus declaring the dulness of his owa narrative , which i : far more eventful and varied than might bo Anticipated from the author ' .-confessions . Itia , in truth , a particularly attractive and entertaining story constructed with great industry , and incorporating a largo amount o i original materials . For the early life of JVlczzofanti Dr . Russell is com I polled to rely , in part , upon conjecture , though he conscientiously distin l guiahes the apocryphal from the authentic anecdotes of that period

      Untitled Article

      . .. . ?— ¦ — . . - Critics are not thelegislators , but the judges and . police of li . teratu . re . They do not rn . akela . W 3—they interpret and try to enforce them . —EdinburgTiReview .

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      ¦ ¦ literate .

      Untitled Article

      No . 428 , Junk 5 , 1858 ] T H E L E A . D E R . 545

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), June 5, 1858, page 545, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2245/page/17/