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    UNDERCURRENTS OVERLOOKED.* 1

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    verdicts as a critic , a pitiful shallow **** and . ' " ^^ g ^ gg sumption . She had dipped fcere and there witfa daptta ^ ite « P » kty intol score of literatures , but she ha < T « ot piercedb «« gM * •« £ face of any literature whatever . Criticism is not obliged to be S ^ clopSL yet this > e demand from it , that it shoved speak onty of tlie things Which it thoroughly knows . Now , betraying the grossest ignorance , Margaret Fuller is oracular on all subjects alike . Shf places Bailey above Tennyson with arnusmg W ^ J finds fault with Shakspeare , avows her preference for the classical ^ compared with the romantic , though obviously knowing nothng ^ of what the true classical or the true romantic means . 1 he mostjmbitious performances in this volume are two ^ ^ ° " £ ^ f e ; Menzel , in his excellent work on German literature—the work of a xnan who , whatever his prejudices and passions , was at least thoroughly acquainted with his subject , courageously attacks Goethe . He does not attaek him with scurrility , or with-fierce invective ; he attacks him , if with prophetic warmth , with the honest and honourable of criticism no less , Menzel maintains that in

    weapons Goethe the form was first predominant , then exclusive . The sense for Divine realities had died . But in Goethe had that sense ever been deep ? Had it ever existed ? These questions have a moral far more than an intellectual bearing ; they have , -however ,. the vaster intellectual bearinsr from having a moral bearing . Foetry is as earnest as life , spite of Schiller ' s saying that while life is earnest , Art is serene and joyous . Through the whole of Goethe s career lie displayed no earnestness , either as a writer or as a man . A consummate coxcombry , a boundless self-idolatry , pervaded all his doings .. That he was a laborious student is , by itself , poor praise . The sons of the Devil have always worked as hard as . the sons of Grbd ; sometimes harder . To sever ourselves from the community , that we may dedicate ourselves to Art , is a sacrifice which Art refuses . Goethe treated wroineri more heartlessly than any other

    eminent writer . For the sake of Art he was justified m doni ^ this , say the outrageous Goetheans . You have to deaden your soul that your mind may toil the more at ease ; and Shakspeare would have " been a better poet if he had seduced and basely deserted a score or two of women ! Our conviction is that the Goetheans , universally , are humbugs ; and that their master , though a vei-y gifted mortal , -was a good deal of a humbug too . Now , we do not aver that in reference to Goethe ^ or in reference

    to anything , Margaret Fuller was a humbug . We simply accuse her of sciolism , pretension , Yankee impertinence , the assumption of the teacher ' s air when the air of the learner would have been much more becoming . Frankly , the contents of this volume—most of which have appeared in periodicals before—were not worth republislmig . ¦ * They had never aught but a slight and ephemeral interest . Whatever talent Margaret Fuller possessed was improvisator ^! . She probably talked much better than she wrote , and wise would she have been if she had never written at all . The celebrated

    Bahel Varnhageu Von Ense , whom Margaret Fuller in many points resembles , and who was the best German talker of the day , had the good sense not to write books ; and though Madame de Stiiel wrote well , yet her tongue was so much more eloquent than her books , that she also would have gained if she had trusted to her tongue alone . Margaret Fuller ' s instincts were , perhaps , as generous as her best . friends have represented them ; yet she plainly believed in nothing that could not be well talked about . What was most fitted for rhetorical embellishment always most readily found a place in her creed . Hence the abyss of the unutterable—that grandest temple of God—frightened her away from its very brink . The utterable was her world . Altogether , too much fuss has been made about her . We had , besides works of her own , three volumes

    of her "Memoirs ; " and now we have this obese tome , continuing nothing of mark or merit . An impartial biography of her might be made an interesting bpok . This wo advise some one of her more sober friends to undertake . Brave deeds never grow old , though the cleverest of leading articles and of jmprovisatorial essays are old the day after they are written ; and there was a strong- element of bravery in Margaret Fuller . Nothing that she ever wrote would we snatch from oblivion , Commonplaces in the newest Yunkee garb are still commonplaces , But Margaret Fuller herself , . as a singularly courageous woman , we would place among" the saintly and the heroic . Is there not enough in lier death to hallow and atone ? Till nearly forty years of age Margaret Fuller had lived

    ¦ with her large-abounding- treasure of affections unbestowed . Visiting Italy , she' cast the treasure into the bosom of the Marquis Osooli . To her , homo across the Atlantic she was convoying . him and a beloved babe , when all three periBhed in the waves 'within sight of that home , Our elu-iok over tho cruel waters , which thus so remorselessly devour , is at onqe the sufolimost epitaph and the sulblimest eulogy . Wo feol ns if there must have been something exceedingly beautiful and godlike in this woman since we mourn her so fervently , Margaret Fuller is immortal , not for what she did , but for what she suffered . Wo love her , because ehe was one of those who love much . And it is they who love much , and not the kincra and queens of literature , who make society aaored and pure .

    THou didst strive to be eloquont , poor Margaret , but tho billows lamenting- over thy ocean grave , over the grave of thy husband and child , are more eloquent than tliou !

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    npHBRE are two ways of doingevery thing that is to bo done ; JL the straightforward way , and tho oblique way—two ways of taking- a town , of making 1 a proposal foi' 7 innrria « 'e » of settling 1 a

    j . peaee , oref writing « book . Of the doaen otker ways which gather J round these two we say nothing ; trot every action may be referred to one of these classes—the tnaniy , open , straightforward ; and- the indirect , secret , and sneaking . Good old John Bunyan , whose authority on such a question is , not to be despised , tells us that there are two ways of entering even the Heavenly City ; the one at the strait gate , the other over the wall ; but , he shows us also where the indirect way leads , even when the intruder has trodden on the golden floors of the New Jerusalem itself . . Such thoughts naturally suggest themselves to the conscientious reviewer , who , having read through a vast quantity of nonsense , if not exactly , to use a Carlyleism , " clotted , " Btill of the undigested kind , finds that the whole gist of the nonsense aforesaid is to bring back England under the Papal rule . Indeed , were not the manner inexcusable , the matter is sometimes funny enough on account of the distance from 'the-truth to which the author contrives to get ; and as horn the weakness of the artillery and the badness of aim no considerable harm can be done , it affords a pleasurable excitement to find certain masked batteries opening at the English nation in general and Church in particular . The author wisely keeps to the anonymous , but then so did Junius , and other great writers who have wished to carry out a great social revolution . Stat noiiums umhra ; so may it be with " Undercurrents , " _ We think it wise to begin our review by thus letting off a fog signal , since , no doubt , the subscribers to Mudie ' s will send , dear innocent young ladies , for " Undercurrents , " under the idea that it is a deeply interesting novel , full of plot and jjassiori , illustrating the adage that still waters run deep . It is nothing -of the sort ; it is a mere fawagolibeUi , containing sketches of London and Paris life , contrasted always to the benefit of the latter . As for the " undercurrents , " they , alas ! have been overlooked a dozen times before , and each sketch has been done many hundred times better by such men as Mr . Sala , in his "Twice round the Clock , " Mr . Hollhigshead in his recent work , and Mr . Haiii Friswell , in "Houses with the Fronts off . " The only thing which those writers have not done , is .-. ¦ what this writer has done , namely , to cry as lie pokes his pen into each social sore , " There , you see ! look at it ; is it not bad?—Protestantism has done this ; ! it ' s all tnrough that wretched Faith ! Oh " ,., they manage these tilings better in France ! " This quotation he even takes for one of his chapters ; we do not say that he ever uses any of our words , but lie constantly infers as much or more . " Caparisons , " as we learn' from tlirice blessed Mrs . Malaprop , are ' ^ odorous ; " these are especially odorous . ; . .- ... - Perpend , therefore ! and let us learn that jti " clerical delinquency , " for which the author quotes the case of a dissenting minister * we are far and away lower than the continental nations ; that we have " barbarous amusements , " in support of ¦ whieh the author cites " a poor old fruit woman , whom we saw the other day so tormented by a number of rude schoolboys , just turned out of class , that she was crying and wringing her hands with vexation . " He might as well have cited Mrs . Ganip being " chaffed" by Bailey Junior . Let us also learn that recruiting- sergeants absolutely kidnap boys of fifteen for the army ! That we have open day robbery in our streets ! That we indulge—brutal nation !—in public executions ; and that cock fighting , prize fighting , boxing matches , ( and , to a certain extent of cruelty , we maypadd horse racing ) are witnessed by women—and children too , Sunday after Sunday , in suburban London—that centre of decorum of humanity , " That we have also prize fights—learn it , yo backers of Sayers and the Benicia boy—we have discovered in these " Undercurrents" hitherto overlooked " : —that in this nineteenth century there are a set of monsters called prizefighters , and moreover that Irishmen get drunk in London , and are often very brutal ! "Why then , to quote Master Pornpey , "here be truths , P hope I" Well may the author write , V We are aware that our follow countrymen do not relish being reminded of these peculiarities , especially when facts are brought home to them in such a way that they cannot be controverted , and we expect to be very unpopular , for speaking so plainly . " Poor martyr ! " ho likes to bo despised "—so did the saintly dfrMnwwonvi , Again , says this deep philosopher , " Wo talk very glibly and very loudly of tho barbarity and cruolty ot bpanish brigands and Koman banditti , of the savage insolence and cowardly violence of their attacks ; we talk also of the moral frailties of other nations , of their roguery and chicanery , and of many wimilar vices which we attribute ao unspnring ( sic ) to t | iom . Hits it never occurred to us that all we say of them , they may with far more reason affirm of uh P" Of course , wo , wretch ed-creaturoa ! wfl are just aa bad , nay worse , than your Spanish brigand or your lloman bandit-. Those gentlemen are mild , good , easy men to us . Wo shall see , if yve look at homo , "in what way tho ties of nature , tho obligations ol proprioty , and the laws of God and man are yiohited and mocked ; how al } the restraints of religion and civilization are set aside , and uncurbed passions reign unchecked , save when they clash with one another , and produce a conflict and a compHontitm ol violence and disorder . " There's a climax for you ! Lovers of your country , you who have an affection for our littlo England , "this priceless gem sot in a silver sea , " think , with tears in you * ' oyos , what a don of thieves , of robbers , ruffians and murderers , it hath become . * There is a little book published in Paris , pallod " Les Voritds Amusantos ; " this might bo called " Lea Mojnsongea Amusantos . We learn from it , amongst other things ., that Sunday is kopt move sacredly in . Paris than in London , and that even " a proves verbtU has been drawn up ngainst a tavern-keeper- of Montiffny , , m the department of tho Muno , for having Hiipphed r < f resl ' ° . " y ^ ° individuals belonging to the commune on Sunday during Vmna

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    March 3 , I 860 . j T / ie Leader andScUurduy Analyst . 200

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    * XTnderourfents Overlooked . By tho author of " Elorai 9 h Interior ^ ' * Tirn vnla . T . nnAnn . W . Tlnnfinv Iflflrt

    Undercurrents Overlooked.* 1

    1 UNDERCURRENTS OVERLOOKED . *

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), March 3, 1860, page 209, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2336/page/13/