"Ludwig van Beethoven was born to his father, a singer in the chapel of
the _Elector Max Franz_, Archbishop of Cologne, Dec. 17, 1770." (Marx,
Vol. I. p. 4.) Beethoven was fourteen years old when this Elector
came to Bonn. Max Franz is confounded with Max Friedrich,--a singular
mistake, since Wegeler writes the name in full. It may, however, be a
typographical error, or a _lapsus pennae_ on the part of Marx. We give
him all the benefit of the doubt; but, unluckily, we read on p. 12, that
the Archbishop, "brother of Joseph II.," called the Protestant Neefe
from the theatre to the organ-loft of the Electoral Chapel,--this
appointment having in fact been made four years before the "brother of
Joseph II." had aught to do with appointments in that part of the world.
Lenz confounds the two Electors in precisely the same manner.
Both Lenz and Marx (p. 9) relate the old exploded story of the child
Beethoven and the spider. The former found it in the "Leipziger
Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung," and probably had not authorities
at hand to correct it. Had Marx sent to the Library for Disjouval's
"Arachnologie," the work which he gives as _his_ authority, he would
have found, that, not Beethoven, but the French violinist Berthaume, was
the hero of the anecdote,--as, indeed, is also related in Schilling's
Encyclopaedia, not many pages after Marx's own article on Beethoven in
that work.
That Lenz should misdate Beethoven's visit to Berlin is not strange;
that Marx, a Berliner, should, is. Nor is it remarkable that Lenz knows
nothing of Beethoven's years of service as member of the Electoral
orchestra at Bonn; but how Marx should have overlooked it, in case he
has made _any_ researches into the composer's early history, is beyond
our comprehension.
Schindler has mistaken the date of certain letters written by Beethoven
long before he had any personal intercourse with him,--the notes to
Julia Guicciardi,--which he dates 1806. Both Lenz and Marx follow him
in the date; both quote Beethoven's words, that the lady in question
married Count Gallenberg before the departure of the latter to Italy;
both coincide in overlooking the circumstance related in the "Leipziger
Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung," that, _before_ June, 1806, a grand
performance of music, composed and directed by Gallenberg, took place at
Naples in honor of Joseph Bonaparte;--proof sufficient that Beethoven
could not in July of that year have addressed the lady in these terms:
"Mein Engel, mein Alles, mein Ich!"
Both Marx and Lenz relate the following anecdote. Haydn, meeting
Beethoven, praised the Septett of the latter; upon which the young man
exclaimed, deprecatingly, "Ah, it is far from being a 'Creation'!" To
which Haydn replied, "_That_ you could not have written, for you are an
atheist!"
That the absurdity of making Beethoven, then a man of thirty and
supposed to be possessed of common sense, hint at any comparison of a
piece of chamber-music with one of the grandest of oratorios, and that,
too, to the author himself, should not have struck Marx, is strange; nor
is it less so, that, in the course of his researches, he has not met
with the correction of the story, by the late Alois Fuchs of Vienna.
In fact, the ballet "Prometheus," in which the progress of man from a
state of rude nature to the highest culture and refinement is depicted,
and the "Creation," were both given for the first time within a few
weeks of each other. The affinity of the subjects is clear, and the
remark of the young man, "Ah, dear papa, it is far from being a
'Creation'!" is only natural. "No," said Haydn, "it is indeed not a
'Creation,' nor do I think its author will ever reach that!"
In the dates given by Marx to Beethoven's compositions he generally
coincides with Lenz, in his "Catalogue," particularly when the latter is
wrong,--and when he differs from him, he is as apt to be wrong as right.
Any person who has both works at command may easily verify this remark.
But we cannot dwell longer on this point.
_Reminiscences of Rufus Choate, The Great American Advocate_. By EDWARD
G. PARKER. New York: Mason Brothers. 1860.
We think it our duty to state our judgment of this book, because it
professes to give personal reminiscences, by a familiar friend, of a
remarkable and distinguished man of our own time and country, has been
much read and discussed, and has gained a good deal of popularity of a
certain sort; it therefore belongs _somewhere_ in the literature of the
day. Perhaps it would have been for the good of some of our readers, if
we had done this sooner. But, indeed, to treat with entirely condign
justice a book which deals very freely and flippantly with the literary
and even the personal character of one who, though an eminent and to
some extent a public man, was still only yesterday a private gentleman
among us, a neighbor and a friend, is a matter of some delicacy. By the
extraordinary alacrity with which this book was produced the author got
a little the start of criticism, perhaps; but we should fail in our duty
as reviewers, if he altogether escaped it. In all charity, we are bound,
for that matter, to give him the full benefit of the speed he has
exhibited, in so far as it may serve to explain, if it cannot extenuate,
the wretched manner in which he has performed his self-appointed task.
For the purposes of the bookseller, nothing could have been happier than
the publication, within a few months after the death of Mr. Choate, of
such a book as this promised to be. Throughout the country his name had
been generally accounted the synonyme of all that was most original,
mysterious, and fascinating, in the arts of the advocate and the
scholar. Perhaps we have none of us ever known a man in regard to whom
a greater degree of _curiosity_ existed among his countrymen. Those
who saw him every day never ventured to believe that they quite ever
understood him, so various and so peculiar were the aspects he exhibited
even here at home. Those who attempted to study him were as much
perplexed as charmed. The avidity with which a cheap book, easily read,
professing to give personal recollections of such a man, would be seized
upon by the mass of reading people, was not overestimated.
It is not the purpose of this notice to discuss Mr. Choate,--his
eloquence, his wit, his scholarship, or his personal characteristics.
Our office is simply to examine the manner of Mr. Parker's performing
what he set out to perform. Our business is with the book, not with the
subject of it. And, in our judgment, the book is the very worst that
could well be written on such a subject. It is done with bad taste, bad
judgment, bad style, It is precisely the book to mortify and disgust Mr.
Choate's admirers, and to fix more firmly than ever such unfavorable
notions of him as may have existed in the minds of others.
Mr. Parker does not appear to have considered what he undertook, when he
stepped so lightly into the position of the biographer of such a man.
We will not dwell upon the fact, that a really just and discriminating
account of him demanded, as it certainly did, much acuteness of
perception and dexterity of delineation, together with a high degree of
scholarship. What we are now specifying against the author is, that
he took no care whatever to set any wise or modest bounds to his
enterprise. He did not bear in mind how much had been _said_, as well as
how little was _known_ about Mr. Choate; what wonderfully loose and idle
notions of him had got abroad; how the most essential and notable points
of his character and genius had been so clumsily handled by flippant or
careless critics, that the popular impression of him was, to a great
degree, extravagant and absurd. Remembering all this, and properly
_respecting_ the subject in which he appears to have interested himself
so ardently, Mr. Parker should have applied to his task a somewhat
gentle hand; gratifying, if that must be done, the curiosity of his
readers as far as he safely could, but refraining altogether from those
aspects of Mr. Choate's mind and character which he must have known
could not be intelligently discussed in a book so swiftly and lightly
executed. No such notion seems to have occurred to him. He has rattled
off his "Reminiscences" with a confidence which may be justly called
indecent and impertinent. The result is what might have been expected.
We have so many pages of voluble, superficial, and exceedingly tedious
talk about Mr. Choate,--and that is the whole of it. For our own
part, we have been not at all profited by the reading, and the little
amusement it has afforded us was probably not exactly designed by the
author.
We would fain be excused from the duty of remarking upon the merely
literary character of the book, but that may not be. As we said before,
the book is somewhere in the literature of the day, and its place must
be ascertained. The following gems of rhetoric it will be useful, for
that end, to notice:--"With me, as with every young man of a taste
that way, he talked," etc.; "he was always booked up on all the fresh
topics," etc.; "the sparkle and flash produced by a battle of brains";
"newspaper topics of erudition and magnificence"; "convulsive humor";
"severity sweetening all the courts through which he revolved"; "the
maiden-mother,"--alluding to an unfortunate female witness who was a
mother, though never married; "two names, chiefs at the bar, _facile
princeps_"; not to forget an extraordinary quotation from the title,
which the author says he found at the head of one of Mr. Choate's
manuscript plans for daily study, in these words, "_faciundo ad munus
nuper impositum_." Now it must really in justice be said that to write
a biography of Mr. Choate in such a lingo as this is an insult to the
subject. We believe we are fair with Mr. Parker's style. Indeed, where
it is not relieved by such barbarisms as we have quoted, it purls along
with a certain weak smartness which is inexpressibly tiresome.
A much more tolerable book, however, would be spoiled by such arrant
egotism as our author displays on every page. We are never rid of _Mr.
Parker_ for a moment. Wherever Mr. Choate is visible, Mr. Parker is
strutting by his side. He exhibits, indeed, all the intrusiveness of
Boswell, without any of that honest, self-forgetting, simple-hearted
admiration of his distinguished friend which makes Boswell positively
respectable. A single illustration of this weakness is so apt that we
quote it. "Mr. Choate said, 'Some one should write a History of the
Ancient Orators. There is no book in all my library where I can find
all there is extant about any ancient orator.' He earnestly advised
the author to undertake it. In pursuance of the idea, an article
on 'Hortensius' appeared in a Review as a beginning. He spoke with
enthusiasm of the satisfaction it gave him; saying it was a new
revelation to him, for he never _knew_ Hortensius before."
Again, Mr. Parker is continually assuring us, in more or less direct
terms, of the intimacy which existed between himself and Mr. Choate. In
a matter of this sort, once telling is enough; and then it should
be done with modesty, and so as simply to assure the reader of the
genuineness of the reminiscences. All beyond that is vulgar. One more
remark upon Mr. Parker's _behavior_ as an author. He permits himself to
speak of individuals of decided personal and public dignity with quite
too much familiarity. This is, of course, nothing more than an offence
against good taste. But it is so prevalent in his pages that we cannot
omit it from anything like a summary of the faults which they display.
And none of our young authors, actual or potential, can find anywhere
else a more striking and salutary example of the harm which such a one
can do to himself by indulging in this very unbecoming practice.
We have yet to notice Mr. Parker's book in respect to its success as an
attempt at biography. We suppose he intended to draw the portrait of
a man of wit, eloquence, and scholarship. He constantly assures us in
terms that Mr. Choate _was_ such a man; an assurance which certainly
was not necessary to so extensive and brilliant a reputation. If he
had stopped there, he would at least have done no harm. But the
illustrations which he gives us are so very far from satisfactory, that,
unless Mr. Choate's reputation in these particulars be surrendered, for
which we are not quite prepared, it must be upon the ground that his
biographer has failed entirely to appreciate him. That Mr. Choate was,
for instance, a man of singularly keen and delicate wit, everybody
knows. But we believe that any brother advocate who ever sat at the same
courtroom table with him for three days, or any cultivated person who
ever passed an evening in his company, was likely to hear from his lips,
in that space of time, more real wit than Mr. Parker repeats in his
whole book. A few old jokes of his, current in Court Street any time in
the last twenty years, and some odd and extravagant expressions which
Mr. Choate may have permitted himself to use in the courtroom to divert
a sullen juror,--such turns of speech as _he_ certainly never thought
were witty, though they raised the desired laugh at the time,--to which
he resorted only as a necessary, but to himself unpalatable part of the
business of carrying the verdict, and which he of all men would desire
to have forgotten,--make up pretty much the sum of Mr. Parker's
illustrations in the matter of wit. One faculty which Mr. Choate
possessed in a remarkable degree, that of ready, elegant, and telling
quotation, of which many interesting instances will occur to every
one, and which in the hands of an appreciative biographer would have
furnished a topic of rare entertainment, Mr. Parker scarcely mentions.
As he regards, or at any rate describes, Mr. Choate's oratory, it would
seem to have consisted altogether in "unearthly screams," "jumping up
and down," tangled hair, sweating brow, glaring eyes, etc., etc. Upon
these things, which his discriminating admirers were glad to overlook as
mere matters of temperament and constitution, and in spite of which they
were charmed with his graceful and truly vigorous speech, his biographer
loves to dwell. He has much to say of the length and complexity of
the sentences, but nothing of the often exquisite elegance of their
structure; much of the number and size of the words of which they
consisted,--nothing of the extreme delicacy and dexterity of their use,
the wonderful completeness with which they were made to express every
particle of the orator's meaning. As to Mr. Choate's scholarship, we
certainly learn nothing satisfactory from this unfortunate book. In the
conversations which the author, clumsily, indeed, but, we are bound to
believe, faithfully, details, we should expect to find something of
the rich fruitage of a life-long cultivation in letters. But so poor a
result does Mr. Parker show in this part of his work, that he drives us
to the dilemma either of placing Mr. Choate in quite an unworthy rank as
a scholar, or of concluding, that, in the case of these conversations,
he bestowed upon his listener very little of any particular
preciousness, or that what else was bestowed was not understood or
remembered so as to be recorded.
We cannot dismiss this book without noticing the extremely unhappy
treatment which the personal and professional character of Mr. Choate
has received at the author's hands. That he should have introduced into
it, as he has done, such stories, or jokes, or anecdotes, or whatever
else they may be called, as the commonest good taste or good sense
should have told him to exclude, we suppose ought in charity to be
attributed to mere uncontrollable garrulity. But he has also completely
missed some of the most obvious and familiar characteristics of Mr.
Choate, and his description of others which he professes to have
perceived he spoils by unseemly and unintelligent illustration. We have
not the patience to follow him through this part of his performance. It
is enough to say that none who knew Mr. Choate would ever recognize the
portrait.
We regret extremely that Mr. Parker felt himself called upon to write
and print his "Reminiscences." He has done himself no credit whatever;
but that is comparatively a small matter. The book is in every way an
injurious and indecorous one. And if he really respects the fame of the
distinguished man whom he has attempted to describe, he must agree with
us in the hope that his own work may be forgotten as soon as possible.
_A History of the Whig Party_. By R. Mc KINLEY ORMSBY. Boston: Crosby
Nichols, & Co.
The duties of an historian, always difficult, are peculiarly so when he
attempts to treat of recent events. In such a case, the historian whose
mind is not so warped by sympathies and antipathies as to make him
utterly incompetent to his task must possess a rare impartiality of
judgment and extraordinary keenness of insight, all assisted by candid
and painful research. To what extent these qualities are united in Mr.
Ormsby, we propose to inquire.
We are at first favorably impressed. Mr. Ormsby's Preface is most
striking,--uniting not only touching candor, but innocence absolutely
refreshing. The duties of historian, which we just now called so
weighty, rest lightly upon his conscious strength. The historian
remarks, that "he is aware that his outlines are very imperfect, and
in many things may be erroneous. He has had no access to libraries or
public documents; and his statistics are sometimes given from general
recollection, and are but approximations to accuracy. But, feeling
that some history of the parties of this country is needed, he has the
temerity to offer this, till its place shall be supplied by one more
reliable and satisfactory."
Any man's apology for deficiencies in his book may be accepted, provided
he be able to make good the suppressed premise upon which, after all,
the whole depends, namely,--that there was need of his writing at all.
Mr. Ormsby seems to think there was, but gives no reasons in support of
his opinion. Supposing it proved, however, it might be gravely debated
whether the fortunate owner of this book would have any advantage over
the man so unlucky as not to possess it.
We have all heard of the man who planned a house on so magnificent a
scale, that, when the porch was finished, the funds were found to be
nearly exhausted, and the main body of the house had to be built much
smaller than the porch. Mr. Ormsby has avoided this error. His porch
is _not_ half of the whole structure. His book contains 377 pages; of
these, only 188 (actually less than half!) are devoted to porch, or
introductory matter. This part is richly studded with blunders of every
description, and written in language which for copiousness and clearness
rivals the fertilizing inundations of the Nile.
The decorous appearance of impartiality, necessary to an historian,
is well preserved by such choice language as "crusade against the
institutions and people of the South,"--"fratricidal hand in sectional
warfare,"--"first to arouse jealousy and hatred,"--"the South at
the mercy of the North,"--"shriek for freedom,"--"political
mountebank,"--"and it is to the stunted, obtuse, bigoted, fanatical,
ignorant, jaundiced, self-righteous, and self-conceited millions of such
in the North, that Mr. Seward, and others of his kidney, address,"
etc., etc.,--"British gold," (a favorite phrase,)--"cant of British
philanthropy,"--etc., etc.
Mr. Ormsby devotes some little space to what may be called the
legitimate object of his work,--that is, the vindication of the
distinctive tariff policy of the Whigs,--and here advocates a good cause
in a singularly illogical, bungling way. Most of his book, however, is
given up to foolish invective against British machinations in the United
States,--an idea which may have been plausible in Jefferson's time,
but has long been abandoned to minds of our author's calibre,--and
to arguments against the Republican party which show only that he
is entirely ignorant of the doctrines of that party, and entirely
incompetent to understand them, if he were not ignorant.
We can present only a few specimens, taken almost at random from the
pages of this book. The author's ignorance (omitting the frequent
instances of error in the names) may be shown by his ranking R. M.
Johnson of Kentucky and Davy Crockett among the eminent statesmen of
their time! He says of Mr. Clay, "When, in 1825, as a Senator from
Kentucky, he sustained Mr. Adams (in the House) for the Presidency, he
acted," etc. Now Henry Clay was not in the Senate at any time between
March 3, 1811, and March 4, 1831. Moreover, if he had been, he could
not have voted for Adams, as Mr. Ormsby would have known, had he known
anything of the Constitution to which he professes such entire devotion.
Of the Missouri Compromise he says, "It was an arrangement by which the
South made concessions, and gained nothing"! If we are to adopt the
principle, that slavery is to be fostered, not discouraged, the South
did make concessions. The essential principle of the Republican party
is, that slavery is a great evil and brings in its train many other
evils, and that the legislation of the United States is not to be warped
by vain attempts to save the slave-holding interest from inevitable
disaster by systematic injustice to the other interests of the country.
If we adopt this view, which is admitted even by so ardent a pro-slavery
leader as Senator Mason of Virginia to have been the view of the framers
of the Constitution, then the South gave up what she never owned, and
was paid for so doing. And taking either view, we must admit that she
has since, by the Kansas-Nebraska act, revoked the grant, without
refunding the pay.
Mr. Ormsby mentions "the significant and highly encouraging fact," that
many leading Democrats, including Mr. Hallett, (whose name, of course,
he spells incorrectly,) declared for Protection in the campaign of
1856. His taking courage from so insignificant a fact as any of these
gentlemen declaring for any serviceable doctrine in a campaign shows
Mr. Ormsby to be by no means intimately acquainted with Massachusetts
Democracy.
It is commonly thought that General Taylor's nomination kept the Whigs
from sinking in 1848, and that the Whig party died in 1852 "of trying to
swallow the Fugitive Slave Law." But Mr. Ormsby thinks Taylor hurt them,
and that the Baltimore Platform was too anti-slavery. He frequently
alludes to Garrison and Phillips as Republicans, although nearly every
other adult in the country knows that they are bitter opponents of that
party,--says that Mr. Seward can rely only upon the Abolitionists in the
North,--misunderstands, of course, the "irrepressible conflict,"--says
that no Northern editor ventures to speak or write against Personal
Liberty bills, although probably not a day passes without their being
assailed by a dozen in New England alone,--that slaves never can be
carried into New Mexico, although they have been carried thither, and
slavery has even been declared perpetual by enactment of the Territorial
Legislature,--and, speaking of Kansas, that President Buchanan's "best
endeavors to secure the people of that Territory equal rights were
thwarted by factionists"!--in other words, "factionists" declined to
admit Kansas under the pro-slavery Lecompton constitution, forced by
gross frauds upon a loathing and reluctant people. He adds, that "no one
denies Mr. Buchanan eminent patriotism and statesmanship." Now, whether
the President possesses these qualities or not, there can be no doubt
that a great many deny them to him. And so Mr. Ormsby continues, heaping
blunder upon blunder, to a greater length than we can follow him.
On p.79, he makes this following unorthodox statement: "We have a right
to hate and detest slavery, and should belie our natures, were we not to
do so." Elsewhere, however, he dwells rapturously upon the happy lot of
the slave. The apparent inconsistency is explained on p. 318: "We will
not insult our understandings by doubting the great enormity of so foul
a thing as human bondage." "In regard to detestation of slavery, there
is no difference between the people of the North and South." "But these
two people (!!) differ widely in their feelings in regard to negro
servitude." Oh, that is it, then? Vast is the difference between "human
bondage" and "negro servitude!"
Mr. Ormsby's argument is aimed against the Republicans. Accordingly, he
assails the Abolitionists! Now we do not find fault with him because his
arguments are pitiably silly,--because an intelligent Abolitionist would
refute them instantly,--but because, even if they were sound, they
have no bearing upon his point. They are not only nonsensical, but
irrelevant.
"For the ignorance of the Southerners," says our author, "we should pity
them, and send them our schoolmasters, who, in happy years past, have
ever found a cordial reception." Exactly so,--"in happy years _past_."
He then innocently asks, Is it strange that the South should think it
necessary that she should have the ascendency in at least one branch
of the national government? Oh, no,--not at all,--but as Republicans
_don't_ consider it necessary, is it strange that they should, vote as
they think?
Here is a sample of most eminently logical reasoning: "The powerful
efforts made by the British government to suppress the slave-trade have
been far from successful. The exportation of negroes from Africa has not
been discontinued, but the sufferings of the middle passage have been
increased twofold; _showing that an attempt to thwart by legislation the
decrees of Providence is of but little avail_." If murder were frequent
in New York, and an insufficient force called out to suppress it, the
consequence being only more bloodshed, Mr. Ormsby, to be consistent,
would have to say it was not well to try to suppress murder, the event
showing it to be only a futile legislative attempt to thwart the decrees
of Providence!
"Not that any Whig was more in favor of the extension of slavery into
the Territories, by the general government, than Mr. Fremont, or the
best Republican at his back; but the idea of the formation of a party
based on the slavery question could not be entertained for a moment by
any one imbued with genuine Whig sentiments." pp. 357-8.
There is precisely the old argument of timid conservatism, although its
champions are seldom unskilful enough to advance it in a form so easily
dealt with. You may be bitterly opposed, forsooth, to the extension of
slavery; but you must not organize or even vote against it! Where, then,
is the good of being opposed to it?
The object of all this bad logic, bad history, and bad language is
to attack the Republicans, and advocate the claims of modern
Democracy,--not the Democracy of Jefferson and Silas Wright, but of
Cushing and Buchanan. And what is the conclusion? What is the mission of
the surviving Whigs?
"The existence of a conservative, enlightened, and patriotic opposition
party is the necessary condition of the existence of the Democracy as a
national party." p. 355.
"The slightest reflection, after even a superficial observation of the
condition of our country, will satisfy any candid person, of ordinary
ability, that the reconstruction of the Whig party is indispensable to
the perpetuity of the Union. The Democratic party, though now national,
if left to the sole opposition of the Republican, which is a sectional
party, must inevitably, sooner or later, itself degenerate into
sectionalism. This must be the necessary result of such antagonism. But
a party based upon intelligence and moral worth _must, most of the time,
be in the minority of the country, and much of the time exceedingly
small. This the Whigs see, and readily accept the conditions of their
existence_." pp. 363-4.
This, then, is the banquet to which we are invited! The mission of the
resuscitated Whig party is to be--not gaining any victory, but--being
beaten by the Democrats! It is important to the nationality of the
Democratic party that they have a sound and national opposition for them
to defeat regularly, year after year,--and this want the Whigs are to be
so obliging as to supply!
After all, is there anything very strange in silly men writing silly
books?
_The West Indies and the Spanish Main_. By ANTHONY TROLLOPE, Author of
"Barchester Towers," "Doctor Thorne," "The Bertrams," etc. London. 1859.
8vo. pp. 395.
This entertaining volume has already reached a second edition in
England. It is made up, in great part, of a series of lively sketches
of the West Indies, British Guiana, and some parts of Central America,
taken on a hasty tour during the winter and spring of last year. Its
style is by no means so good as that of which Mr. Trollope has
shown himself the master in his popular novels; it is disfigured by
Carlylisms, and other inelegancies, and bears many marks of negligence
and haste. With a little pains, Mr. Trollope might have made his book
much better, and of much more permanent value. In spite of a sense of
real humor, he sometimes falls into heavy attempts at smartness and fun;
and although he has a quick eye for the essential traits of character,
he not infrequently runs into trivial details. In travelling with
him, one is not quite certain whether his companion is a gentleman.
Breakfasts, lunches, and dinners hold a great place in his thoughts. He
gives far too much attention to rum-and-water, brandy-and-water, and the
varieties of drinking and eating in general. He has neither the ease nor
the self-restraint which mark the thoroughly well-bred man of the world;
but he is, nevertheless, good-natured, amusing, and likable. The chief
merit of his book arises from the fact that he has seen much and many
parts of the world, has been a student of life and manners, and thus
has acquired skill in observation and facility of comparison. The
conclusions which he draws from what he sees may be right or wrong; but
he knows well how to state what has come to his notice, and his readers
may get from his pictures many valuable indications in regard to men and
to social conditions, whether they accept his conclusions or not.
The state of the British West Indies is one of peculiar interest at the
present day, both in a social and an economical point of view. The great
questions opened by the emancipation of the slaves in these islands, in
1834, are not yet settled; and upon the solution of the problems now
being worked out there depends not only their own future, but also, in
great measure, the future of all the countries in which slavery still
exists. If the results of emancipation prove, on the whole, advantageous
both to masters and slaves, the question of the universal and
comparatively speedy abolition of slavery would be virtually decided.
If, however, it should be shown that the results, in the long run, are
disastrous both to whites and blacks, or to either of these classes,
then, although no one can doubt that slavery must sooner or later be
done away with, wherever it now exists, the time of its abolition may
be indefinitely postponed, and other means of accomplishing it must be
devised and adopted, than those which the example of the West Indies
will have proved injurious.
As in regard to all matters which have been vehemently discussed, the
accounts in regard to the effects of emancipation in the West Indies
differ widely; but the weight of authority tends to show, that, putting
aside for the moment all moral considerations, the scale inclines
towards the side of good. Mr. Trollope, who writes without prejudice,
may be taken as a fair witness, so far as his opportunities for
observation extended; and as his views will not satisfy the warm
partisans of either side, it may perhaps be assumed that they are in the
main correct. In his chapter on the Black Men in Jamaica, he says: "I
shall be asked, having said so much, whether I think that emancipation
was wrong. By no means. I think that emancipation was clearly right; but
I think that we expected far too great and far too quick a result from
emancipation. These people [the negroes] are a servile race, fitted by
nature for the hardest physical work, and apparently at present fitted
for little else. Some thirty years since, they were in a state where
such work was their lot; but their tasks were exacted from them in a
condition of bondage abhorrent to the feelings of the age, and opposed
to the religion which we practised. For us, thinking as we did, slavery
was a sin. From that sin we have cleansed ourselves. But the mere fact
of doing so has not freed us from our difficulties. Nor was it to be
expected that it should. The discontinuance of a sin is always the
commencement of a struggle."
This is well said. The negroes, freed from the bondage of labor,
suddenly becoming masters of themselves, with simple and easily
satisfied wants, with abundant means of subsistence, to be procured at
the expense of the least possible effort, exposed to no competition
from the pressure of population, and endowed by nature with indolent
temperaments, naturally took to leading idle and easy lives, and refused
to work except at their own pleasure. They had, as a class, no desire of
regular and continued occupation, and little sense of the worth of work
in itself. There was nothing surprising in this, and the blacks were
little to be blamed for it. But the world will not advance, unless men
work; and any country where there is not a sufficient stimulus for labor
is in the course of decline. The inevitable results followed in the West
Indies from the difficulty of obtaining labor. In Jamaica, the largest
and most important of these British islands, other and widely different
causes--mistakes in legislation, previous financial embarrassment, and
especially the unwillingness or inability of the planters to recognize
the necessities of their altered position--contributed to bring about
a condition of wretched adversity. Estates went out of cultivation,
expensive establishments failed, roads were disused, and the island was
full of the signs of decay. The negroes, indeed, were happy; a few days'
work in the course of the year secured them subsistence; and irregular
labor for wages, on the plantations of their old masters, gave them the
means of gratifying their liking for dress and finery.
A full generation has not yet passed since the act of emancipation,
but there are already indications that this transitional condition is
drawing to an end. A portion, at least, of the negroes are beginning to
recognize the responsibilities as well as the privileges of liberty, to
seek employment for the sake of raising themselves and their children in
the social scale, and to accumulate property. They are not merely free,
but are becoming independent. Still the number of those who live from
hand to mouth, in the indolent and useless possession of freedom, is
very great. In Mr. Trollope's opinion, little is to be expected from the
blacks. "To lie in the sun and eat bread-fruit and yams is the negro's
idea of being free. Such freedom as that has not been intended for man
in this world; and I say that Jamaica, as it now exists, is still under
a devil's ordinance." Education is a slow process with the blacks.
But in Jamaica, as elsewhere, where slavery exists, there is a race
neither black nor white, but of mixed blood, important in numbers,
and important also from possessing a mingling of the qualities of
its progenitors, which seems to fit it peculiarly for the prosperous
occupation of the tropics. Supposing this colored race to have the power
of continuing itself through successive generations, a problem which is
as yet unsolved, it would seem as if the future of these islands were
mainly in its hands. Of pure whites, there are not more than fifteen
thousand in Jamaica; of the mixed race, there are said to be seventy
thousand. Before the abolition of slavery, their position was one of
degradation; since the abolition, it has greatly improved. They are
still looked upon with ill-concealed disdain by their white brothers and
sisters; but they are forcing themselves into social recognition and
equality. "These people marry now," said a lady to Mr. Trollope; "but
their mothers and grandmothers never thought of looking to that at all."
There is matter for reflection, as well as for satisfaction, in that
sentence.
But as yet the condition of Jamaica is such as may well excite doubt as
to the possibility of its recovery from the misfortunes under which it
has suffered,--misfortunes due quite as much to the evils of preëxisting
slavery, as to the blow given to its prosperity by the act of
emancipation. "Are Englishmen in general aware," asks Mr. Trollope,
"that half the sugar-estates in Jamaica, and I believe more than half
the coffee-plantations, have gone back into a state of bush?--that all
this land, rich with the richest produce only some thirty years since,
has now fallen back into wilderness?"
Still, if the experiment of emancipation be considered doubtful or
disastrous, so far as Jamaica is concerned, it cannot be esteemed so
in regard to the chief remaining, islands. In Barbadoes, for instance,
there was no squatting-ground for the blacks. The negro was obliged to
work or starve. Labor was consequently abundant,--and "there is not
a rood of waste land" in the island. Even here, "numerous as are the
negroes, they certainly live an easier life than that of an English
laborer, earn their money with more facility, and are more independent
of their masters." In the report made by the governor of the island, in
1853, he states,--"So far, the success of cultivation by free labor in
Barbadoes is unquestionable."[1]
Trinidad, of which but a comparatively small part has been cultivated,
and where the negroes have displayed the same indisposition to labor as
in Jamaica, is, however, flourishing. Its prosperity seems to be due to
the fact, that, during the last few years, some ten or twelve thousand
Coolies have been brought from the East Indies, and have supplied the
demand for labor.
In British Guiana, or Demerara, on the main land, the same fact has
brought about a similar result. The emancipated negro could not be
depended upon for regular work. He established himself on his small
freehold, and lived, like Theodore Hook's club-man, "in idleness and
ease." But for some years past laborers have been brought in freely from
India and China, and the fertile colony is now in a state of abundant
prosperity. Mr. Trollope seems to us to refute effectually the notion,
so far at least as regards the British West Indies, that this Cooly
immigration, is only slavery under another name. "On their arrival in
Demerara," he says, "the Coolies are distributed among the planters by
the Governor,--to each planter according to his application, his means
of providing for them, and his willingness and ability to pay the cost
of the immigration by yearly instalments.
[Footnote 1: We quote from an extract in an able article in the
_Edinburgh Review_ for April, 1859, entitled, _The West Indies as they
were and are_.]
They are sent to no estate, till a government officer shall have
reported that there are houses for them to occupy. There must be a
hospital for them on the estate, and a regular doctor, with a sufficient
salary. The rate of their wages is stipulated, and their hours of work.
Though the contract is for five years, they can leave the estate at the
end of the first three, transferring their services to any other master,
and at the end of the five years they are entitled to a free passage
home." "The women are coming now, as well as the men; and they have
learned to husband their means, and put money together."
We pass over the other British "West Indies," though Mr. Trollope's
animated sketches tempt us to linger. The main conclusion to which this
part of his book leads is, that this question of labor is the one upon
which the results of emancipation hinge. Unless moved by necessity, the
negro is disinclined to work. Slavery has rendered labor offensive
to him, and his own nature inclines him to idleness, The pressure of
population, as in Barbadoes, may compel him, for his own good, to labor;
or he may, as in Demerara, be superseded by other workmen. If left to
himself, his tendency seems to be to sink into sensuality, rather than
to rise in civilization by his own efforts. The condition of the mass of
the negroes is undoubtedly a happier one than in the days of slavery;
but it may be fairly doubted whether emancipation has led to any moral
improvement in the race.
How far a forced system of labor for wages might answer for the
blacks,--how far a regular and organized plan of education might elevate
them,--how far the danger of their relapse into barbarism might be
obviated by preliminary precautions,--are questions which that country
which next undertakes emancipation must solve for itself, and which
the example of the British West Indies will give some of the means for
solving in a satisfactory manner. Mr, Trollope's book is well worth
reading by those who would prepare themselves by knowledge and by
reflection for a proper appreciation of the advantages and the evils of
giving unlimited freedom to a race that has been long enslaved.
There is less interest in his account of Central America than in the
other parts of his volume. The ground is more familiar to American
readers, and some of our own travellers have given descriptions of the
country far more thorough and not less entertaining.
Of Cuba, which he trusts may, for the benefit of humanity, be some day
transferred to American keeping, he says but little; and after Mr.
Dana's late excellent, though hasty, sketches of the island, that author
must have more than common ability who can, with hope of success,
venture over the same ground.
_The Public Life of Captain John Brown_. By JAMES REDPATH. With an
Autobiography of his Childhood and Youth. Boston. 1860. l2mo. pp. 408.
It would have been well, had this book never been written. Mr. Redpath
has understood neither the opportunities opened to him, nor the
responsibilities laid upon him, in being permitted to write the
"authorized" life of John Brown. His book, in whatever light it is
viewed,--whether as the biography of a remarkable man, as an historic
narrative of a series of extraordinary and important events, or simply
as a mere piece of literary jobwork,--is equally unsatisfactory. He has
shown himself incompetent to appreciate the character of the man whom he
admires, and he has, consequently, done great wrong to his memory.
There never was more need for a good life of any man than there was for
one of John Brown. The whole country was curious to learn about him, and
to be told his story. Those who thought the best of him, and those who
thought the worst, were alike desirous to know more of him than the
newspapers had furnished, and to become acquainted with the course of
his life, and the training which had prepared him for Kansas and brought
him to Harper's Ferry. Whatever view be taken of his character, he was
a man so remarkable as to be well worthy of study. In the bitter and
excited state of public feeling in regard to him, there was but one way
in which his life could be properly told,--and that way was, to allow
him, as far as possible, to tell it in his own words. For that part
of his life which there were no letters of his to illustrate, his
biographer should have been content to state facts in the simplest and
most careful manner, entering into no controversy, and keeping himself
entirely out of sight. Thus only could John Brown's character produce
its due effect. His letters from prison had shown that he was a master
of the homeliest and strongest English. His words said what they meant,
and they were understood by everybody; he had found them in the Bible,
and had been familiar with them all his life. Whatever he was, he could
have told us better than any other man; and he was the only man who
would have been listened to with much confidence concerning himself. Mr.
Redpath has, very unfortunately, thought differently. He has not taken
pains to collect even all the letters of John Brown which had been
previously published; he has written in the worst temper and spirit of
partisanship, so that with every cautious reader doubts attend many
statements which rest only on his authority; he has thrust himself
continually forward; and he has exercised no proper care in arranging
his materials.
The truth is, that a life of Brown was not now needed for those who
already admired the stalwart nature of the man, even though they might
deplore his course,--for those who had had their hearts touched and
stirred by his manliness, his truth, his courage, and his unwavering
fidelity to conscience and faith in God; but it was greatly needed for
that much larger class,--the mass of the Northern community,-whose
timidity had been startled at his rash attempt, whose sympathy had been
more or less awakened by his bearing and his death, but who were and are
in a painful state of perplexity, in the endeavor to reconcile their
abhorrence, or at least their disapproval, of his attack on Virginia,
with their sense of the admirable nature of the qualities he displayed.
It was needed also for the very large class who received from the
newspapers but a confused and imperfect account of the events which took
place in Virginia from October to December, and who, according to their
political predilections, condemn or applaud the course of Captain Brown.
And, above all, it was needed for the men who have disgraced themselves
by denying to Brown the possession of any virtues, and who have
outstripped his Southern enemies in applying to him the most opprobrious
and the falsest epithets. Now, none of these classes will Mr. Redpath's
book reach with effect. Its tone is such, it is so violent, so
extravagant, that it will offend all right-thinking men. Even those who
have known how to hold a steady and clear opinion, in the midst of the
confusion of the popular mind,--who have not applauded Brown's acts of
violence, and have condemned his judgment, but who have, nevertheless,
honored what was noble in him, and sympathized with him in his strong
love of liberty,--who, while acknowledging him guilty under the law,
mourned that the law should not be tempered with mercy,--and who
have recognized in him at once the excellences and the errors of an
enthusiast,--those who have most faithfully endeavored to find the truth
concerning him, though they will obtain some interesting information
from Mr. Redpath's book, will be the most dissatisfied with it.
It has always been among the offences of the out-and-out Abolitionists,
to abuse the force of words, and to make exclusive pretensions to virtue
and the love of liberty. This book is written in the spirit and style
of an Abolition tract. In representing John Brown as little more than a
mere hero of the Abolitionists, the author has done essential disservice
to the cause of freedom, and to the memory of a man who was as free from
party-ties as he was from personal ambitions.
Although John Brown's character was a simple one, a long time must pass
before it will be generally understood, and justice be done to it. The
passion and the prejudice which the later acts of his life have excited
cannot die away for years. Mr. Redpath has done his best to perpetuate
them. In seasons of excitement, and amid the struggles of political
contention, the men who use the most extravagant and the most violent
words have, for a time, the advantage; but, in the long run, they damage
whatever cause they may adopt; and the truth, which their declamations
have obscured or their falsehoods have violated, finally asserts itself.
In our country, the worth and the strength of temperance and moderation
of speech seem to be peculiarly forgotten. Words, which should stand
for things, are too commonly used with no respect to their essential
meaning. Political debates are embittered, personal feeling wounded,
the tone of manners lowered, and national character degraded, by this
disregard of words as the symbol and expression of truth. Moderation is
brought into disrepute, and justice, fairness, and honesty of opinion
tendered as rare as they are difficult of attainment. The manner in
which John Brown has been spoken of affords the plainest illustration
of these facts. Extravagance in condemnation has been answered by
extravagance in praise of his life and deeds.
The most interesting and the most novel part of Mr. Redpath's book is
the letter written by John Brown in 1857, giving some account of his
early life. It is, in all respects, a remarkable composition. It
exhibits the main influences by which his character was formed; it
affords a key to the history of his life; it illustrates the nature of
the social institutions under which such a man could grow up; and it
shows his natural traits, before they had become hardened and trained
under the discipline of later experience and circumstance. Nothing has
been more marked in the various exhibitions of his character, as they
have come successively to view, than their complete consistency. This
letter, this account of his youth, squares perfectly with what we
know of his manhood. The whole of it should be read by all who would
understand the man, with his native faculty of command, with his mingled
sternness and tenderness, with his large heart, his steadfast will. The
base of his soul was truth; and the motive power of his life, faith in
the justice of God.
He was a man of a rare type,--so rare in our times as to seem like a
man of another age. He belonged to the same class with the Scottish
Covenanters and the English Regicides. He belonged to the great company
of those who have followed the footsteps of Gideon, and forgot that the
armory of the Lord contained other weapons than the sword. He belonged
to those who from time to time have adopted some cause,--the good old
cause,--and have shrunk from no sacrifice which it required at their
hands. "I have now been confined over a month," wrote John Brown to
his children, in one of that most affecting series of letters from his
prison, "with a good opportunity to look the whole thing as fair in the
face as I am capable of doing, and I now feel most grateful that I am
counted in the least possible degree worthy to suffer for the truth."
"Suffering is a gift not given to every one," wrote one of the
Covenanters, who was hanged in the Grassmarket in Edinburgh, in
1684,--"and I desire to bless God's name with my whole heart and soul,
that He has counted such a poor thing as I am worthy of the gift of
suffering."
That John Brown was wrong in his attempt to break up slavery by
violence, few will deny. But it was a wrong committed by a good
man,--by one who dreaded the vengeance of the Almighty and forgot His
long-suffering. His errors were the result of want of patience and want
of imagination, and he paid the penalty for them. He had faith in the
Divine ordering of the affairs of this world; but he forgot that
the processes by which evils like that of slavery are done away are
thousand-year-long,--that, to be effectual, they must be slow,--that
wrong is no remedy for wrong. He was an anachronism, and met the fate of
all anachronisms that strive to stem and divert the present current by
modes which the world has outgrown. But now that he and those dearest
to him have so bitterly expiated his faults, both charity and justice
demand that his virtues should be honored, and he himself mourned. It
will be a gloomy indication of the poor, low spirit of our days, if fear
and falsehood, if passion or indifference, should cause the lesson of
John Brown's life to be neglected, or should check a natural sympathy
with the noble heart of the old man. That lesson is not for any one part
of the country more than another; that sympathy may be given by the
South as well as by the North. It is not sympathy for his acts, but
for the spirit of his life and the heroism of his death. The lesson of
manliness, uprightness, and courage, which his life teaches, is to be
learned by us, not merely as lovers of liberty, not as opponents of
slavery, but as men who need more manliness, more uprightness, more
courage and simplicity in our common lives.
All that is possible of apology for John Brown is to be found in his
letters and in his speech to the court before his sentence. It is,
perhaps, too soon to hope that these letters and this speech will be
read with candor and a feeling of human brotherhood by those who now
look with abhorrence or with indifference on his memory. But the time
will come when they will be held at their true worth by all, as the
expressions of a large, tender soul,--when they will be read with
sympathetic pity, even by those who still find it difficult to forgive
their author for his offence against society. These letters appeal to
the better nature of every man and woman in America; and it will be a
sad thing, if their appeal be disregarded.
We trust, that, before long, a fairer and fuller biography than that by
Mr. Redpath will remove the obstacle which this book now presents to the
general appreciation of the character and life of John Brown.
_Poems_. By SYDNEY DOBELL. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1860.
Many of Mr. Dobell's poems have passages which are musical, vigorous,
and peculiar, and hardly in any part can he be justly charged with
prolonging an echo. He is not one of the many mocking-birds that infest
the groves at the foot of Parnassus. Though portions of his songs be
wild, fitful, and incoherent, they gush with the force and feeling of a
heart loyal to its intuitions, and thus many strains captivate and keep
the tuneful ear. Yet such charming lines make conspicuous the want of
that high appreciation of form and proportion without which any felicity
of touch in the treatment of details will only cause the consummate
master to grieve over glorious forms that have no effective grouping,
and turn away from colors, however exquisite, that are strewn, as it
were, on a palette, rather than wrought into picture and harmonized
to the tone of life. The truth is, that the grandly designing hand is
nowhere completely visible in the poetry of Young England. Many of her
more youthful poets show a mass of rich materials, but they appear to
have been upheaved by convulsions, half-blinding us with their splendor,
while, like lava pouring from a volcano's crater, they take no
prescribed channel, they flow into no immortal mould. It is this fiery
gleam on the surface of matter hot from chaos, which the multitude honor
as the highest manifestation of genius. But this is to desecrate a word
which implies constructive power of the first order. Form is its highest
expression. Without the shaping faculty, which artistically rounds
to perfection, no glitter of decoration, nor even force and fire of
expression, can keep the work from falling into ruins. If the beautiful,
as Goethe said, includes in it the good, then perfect beauty alone is
everlasting. This is a rigorous rule for anything which man has made,
but it does not try "Othello" so severely as "Balder"; and "Balder" is
not utterly crushed by it. There are scenes in this drama, and also in
"The Roman," which will not soon lose their significance, or easily melt
out of the memory.
_A Good Fight, and other Tales_. By CHARLES KEADE. New York: Harper &
Brothers. 1859.
About the middle of the fifteenth century, a youth named Gerard, a
native of Tergou, in Holland, loved Margaret, the daughter of Peter,
a learned man of the neighboring village of Zevenbergen. Expecting
immediate marriage, their intimacy was restrained by no limits. The
interference of Gerard's relations, however, separated them for a time,
during which the young man visited Rome, and gained some distinction as
a transcriber of ancient manuscripts. Learning, after a while, that he
was about to return, his kindred caused a false report of Margaret's
death to be conveyed to him, and, by thus crushing all the hopes of
his young life, had the final satisfaction of seeing him take priestly
orders, which threw his patrimony into their hands. Having broken two
hearts, and brought a world of shame upon an innocent girl to get it, it
is only fair to suppose they enjoyed it with tranquillity.
Margaret, left alone, gave birth to a child, the greatness of whose
manhood might have softened the remembrance of her earlier sorrows, had
she lived to witness it. But she died when he was thirteen years old.
Gerard, her true husband, who had never rejoined her while living, also
died within a brief space. The son they left was the famous Erasmus.
Mr. Reade has taken this little record, which would never have become
historical but for the accidental consequence of the loves of Gerard and
Margaret, and wrought it into a story of exquisite grace and delicacy.
A dead and half-forgotten fact, he has warmed it into fresh life, and
given it all the beauties with which his brilliant imagination could
endow it. Though shorter and simpler than most, it is certainly inferior
to none of his other works. Perhaps its simplicity is its first merit.
The extravagant peculiarities of style which overlaid his two longest
books have almost entirely disappeared in this. Here the narration is
for the most part as unostentatious as the events are natural. But its
power is remarkable. Although the regularity with which the incidents
follow one another is such that they may all be anticipated, yet the
interest in them never fades. There is nothing startlingly new in the
entire story. On the contrary, it follows pretty closely the old formula
of troubled true-love until the closing chapter, when triumphant virtue
sets in. But this takes nothing from the effect. All is so clear and
vivid in description, so glittering with gleams of wit, relieved by soft
shadows of purest pathos, so full of the spirit of tender humanity,
that the reader finds no reason to complain, except that the end is so
speedily reached.
The author has sacrificed history, in his conclusion, to satisfy a
natural feeling. No one will object because the "Good Fight" terminates
victoriously in the right direction. The parents of Erasmus suffered;
but it would be a pity, if readers, after the lapse of four hundred
years, must mourn their woes to the extent that would inevitably be
necessary, if Mr. Reade had not arranged it otherwise. And his object,
which was to prove--if proof were needed--that all human lives, however
obscure, have their own share of romance, is not disturbed by this
variation from the severity of the chronicle.
_The Undergraduate_. Conducted by an Association of Collegiate and
Professional Students in the United States and Europe. [Greek:_'Ekasto
onmachoi pantos_]; January, 1860. Printed for the Association. New
Haven, Conn.
We are not unused to the sight of College Periodicals. They have
commonly greeted us in the form of monthly numbers, each containing two
or three essays which sounded as if they might have done duty as themes,
a critical article or two, some copies of verses, and winding up with a
few pages in fine print, purporting to be editorial, jaunty and
jocular for the most part, and opulent in local allusions. It would
he unnatural, if these juvenile productions did not often reflect the
opinions of favorite instructors and the style of popular authors. A
freshman's first essay is like the short gallop of a colt on trial; its
promise is what we care for, more than its performance. If it had not
something of crudeness and imitation, we should suspect the youth, and
be disposed to examine him as the British turfmen have been examining
the American colt Umpire, first favorite for the next Derby. But three
or four years' study and practice teach the young man his paces, so that
many Bachelors of Arts have formed the style already by which they will
hereafter be known in the world of letters. We are always pleased,
therefore, to look over a College Periodical, even of the humblest
pretensions. The possibilities of its young writers give an interest and
dignity to the least among them which make its slender presence welcome.
But here we have offered us a more formidable candidate for public favor
than our old friends, the attenuated Monthlies. "The Undergraduate" has
almost the dimensions of the "North American Review," and, like that,
promises to visit us quarterly. It is the first fruit of a spirited and
apparently well-matured plan set on foot by students in Yale College,
and heartily entered into by those of several other institutions.
Its objects are clearly stilted in the well-written Prospectus and
Introduction. They are briefly these:--"To record the history, promote
the intellectual improvement, elevate the moral aims, liberalize
the views, and unite the sympathies of Academical, Collegiate, and
Professional Students, and their Institutions."
The name, "Undergraduate," shows by whom it is to be managed; but its
contributors are, and will doubtless continue to he, in part, of a more
advanced standing. There are articles in the present number which we
have read with great interest, and without ever being reminded that they
were contributed to a students' journal. The first paper, for instance,
"German Student-Life and Travel," is not only well written, but full of
excellent suggestions, which show that the writer has reached the age of
good sense, whether he count his years by tens or scores. "A Student's
Voyage to Labrador" is a well-told story of scenes and experiences new
to most readers. Not less pleased were we to have an authentic account
of the two ancient societies of Yale College, "Brothers in Unity" and
"Linonia," rivals for almost a century, and still maintaining their
protracted struggle for numerical superiority. Articles like this will
interest all students, and many outside of the student-world, "The
Undergraduate" would not treat us fairly, if it did not temper them
somewhat, as it has done, with specimens of more distinctly youthful
character. Perhaps it might be safe to lay it down as a law, that, the
tenderer the age, the wider the subject, and, contrariwise, the
older the head, the more limited and definite the probable range of
discussion. It is safe to say that a young man's essay is most likely
to be interesting when he writes about something he has seen or
experienced, so as to know more about it than his readers. Disquisitions
on "Virtue," "Honesty," "Shakspeare," "Human Nature," and such large
subjects, are valuable chiefly as showing how the colts gallop.
On the whole, "The Undergraduate" is most creditable to the enterprise
that gave it birth, and to the young men who have contributed to it. If
we should give any additional hints to that just whispered, it would be,
that more care should be taken in looking over the proofs. Calvinism
should not be spelt Calv_a_nism, Thackeray Thack_a_ray, nor Courvoisier
_Corvosier_,--neither should traveller be spelt _traveler_, nor theatre
_theater_. These last provincialisms, particularly, should not find a
place in a journal meant for students all over the English-speaking
world; and if, as we hope, contributions shall hereafter appear in
the new Quarterly from any persons connected with our neighboring
University, it should be a condition that the English standard of
spelling should be adopted in preference to any local perversions.
With these suggestions, we give a most cordial welcome to a periodical
which we trust will begin a new period in the literary history of our
educational institutions.