_The Spanish Conquest in America, and its Relation to the History
of Slavery and to the Government of Colonies_. By ARTHUR HELPS. Vols.
I. and II. London, 1855. Vol. III. London, 1857.
This work has a double claim to attention in America;--first, on
account of its great intrinsic merit as a narrative of the
beginnings of the European settlement of this continent; secondly,
as containing a thorough and exceedingly able account of the
planting of Slavery in America, and the origin of that system which
has been and is the great blight of the civilization of the New World.
Mr. Helps is endowed in large measure with the qualities of an
historian of the highest order. A clear and comprehensive vision, a
wide knowledge and careful study of human nature, free and generous
sympathies are united in him with a penetrative imagination which
vivifies the life of past times, with a reverence for truth which
excludes prejudice and prepossession, and with a profoundly
religious spirit. The tone of his thought is manly and vigorous, and
his style, with the beauty of which the readers of his essays have
long been familiar, is marked by quiet grace and unpretending
strength. There are many passages in these volumes of wise
reflection and of pleasant humor. In the drawing of character and in
the narration of events Mr. Helps is equally happy. The pages of his
book are full of lifelike portraits of the great soldiers and great
priests of the time, and of animated pictures of the scenes in which
they were engaged.
Mr. Helps has investigated his subject with zeal, industry, and
patience. He has sought out the original authorities, has brought to
light many important facts, has redeemed some great memories from
unjust oblivion, and has presented a new view of several of the
chief features of the history. In a graceful advertisement to the
third volume he says, "The reader will observe that there is
scarcely any allusion in this work to the kindred works of modern
writers on the same subject. This is not from any want of respect for
the able historians who have written upon the discovery or the
conquest of America. I felt, however, from the first, that my object
in investigating this portion of history was different from theirs;
and I wished to keep my mind clear from the influence which these
eminent persons might have exercised upon it."
A considerable space in these volumes is devoted to an investigation
of the character and condition of the native races of the continent
at the period of the Spanish Conquest. This subject is treated with
peculiar skill and learning, and with unusual power of sympathetic
analysis and appreciation of remote and obscure developments of
society. Another portion of the history, which his plan has led
Mr. Helps to treat at length and with exhaustive thoroughness, is
the early relations between the conquerors and the conquered,
embracing the method of settlement of the different countries, the
whole disastrous system of _ripartimientos_ and _encomiendas_, which,
in its full development, led to the destruction of the native
population of Hispaniola, and to the introduction of negroes into
this and the other West India islands to supply the demand for
laborers.
Another most interesting portion of his subject, and one which has
never till now been fairly exhibited, relates to the labors of the
Dominican and Franciscan monks, and their admirable and unwearied
efforts to counteract and to remedy some of the bitterest evils of
the conquest. Theirs were the first protests that were raised
against slavery in America, and their ranks afforded the first
martyrs in the cause of the Indian and the Negro. Las Casas has
found an eloquent and just biographer, and Mr. Helps has the
satisfaction of having securely placed his name among the few that
deserve the lasting honor and remembrance of the world. The
narrative of Las Casas's life is one of strong dramatic interest.
His life was a varied and remarkable one, even for those times of
striking contrasts and varieties in the fortunes of men; and in
Mr. Helps's pages one sees the man himself, with his simplicity and
elevation of purpose, his honesty of motive, his energy, his
impetuosity, his courage, and his faith.
The three volumes already published embrace the progress of Spanish
conquest from the first discoveries of Columbus to Pizarro's
incursion into Peru. It is sincerely to be hoped that Mr. Helps may
continue his work, at least to the period when the Spanish conquest
and colonization were met and limited by the conquest and the
colonization of the other European nations. Its importance, as a wise,
thoughtful, unpolemic investigation of the origin and the results of
Slavery, is hardly to be overestimated. The space allowed to a
critical notice does not permit us to render it full justice. We can
do little more than recommend it warmly to the readers of history
and to the students of the most difficult and the darkest social
problem of the age.
_Handbook of Railroad Construction, for the Use of American
Engineers. Containing the Necessary Rules, Tables, and Formulae for
the Location, Construction, Equipment, and Management of Railroads,
as built in the United States_. With 158 Illustrations. By GEORGE L.
VOSE, Civil Engineer. Boston: James Munroe & Co. 1857. 12 mo. pp. 480.
All who trust their persons to railroad cars, or their estates to
railroad stocks, will welcome every effort to enlighten that
irresponsible body of railroad builders and managers in whose wits
we put our faith.
The work which we here notice is intended for uneducated American
engineers, of whom there are unfortunately too many. The rapidity
with which our railroads have been built, and the experimental
character of this new branch of engineering, have obliged us to
resort to such native ability and mother wit as our people could
afford. The great body of our railroad engineers have had no training
but the experience they have blundered through; and even our
railroad financiers are men more distinguished for courage and
energy than for experimental skill. Mr. Vose's book will doubtless
be of great service in remedying these evils, by bringing within the
reach of every intelligent man a valuable and very carefully
prepared summary of such rules, formulas, and statistics as our
railroad experiences have furnished and proved.
Railroad engineering and management have united almost every branch
of mechanical and financial science, and have developed several new
and peculiar arts; so that the successful construction, equipment,
and management of a railroad require a rare combination of
accomplishments. Managers hitherto have been too little acquainted
with their business to settle many questions of economy, but they
are now beginning to look upon their enterprises with cooler
judgments.
The "Handbook" discusses several questions of economy, but seeks,
especially in its rules and formulas, to avoid those risks by which
economy has often been turned into the most ruinous extravagance. On
the question of fuel, our author advocates the use of coke as the
most economical and convenient, and every way preferable where it
can be readily obtained. He also urges, on economical grounds, a
more moderate rate of speed in railroad travel; thus showing that we
may save our forests, our lives, and a considerable expense all at
the same time.
The style is clear, and, for a work not professing to be a complete
treatise, but only a manual of useful facts, the arrangement is
admirable. The book is thoroughly practical, and touches upon such
matters, and for the most part upon such matters only, as are likely
to be of service to the practical man; yet it is quite elementary in
its character, and free from unnecessary technicalities.
The book has, however, one great fault. It is full of errata. No
carefully prepared table of corrections can make amends for such a
fault in a book in which typographical correctness is of the
greatest importance. To insert in their places with a pen more than
two hundred published corrections is a labor which no reader would
willingly undertake. We hope, therefore, that a new and correct
edition will soon be published.
_The Life of Handel_. By VICTOR SCHOELCHER. Reprinted from the
London Edition. New York: Mason, Brothers.
It is a remarkable fact, and one not very creditable to the musical
public of England, that the works of Mainwaring, Hawkins, Barney,
and Coxe should remain for almost an entire century after the death
of Handel our main sources of information concerning his career, and
that the first attempt to write a complete biography of that great
composer, correcting the errors, reconciling the contradictions, and
supplying the deficiencies of those authors, should be from the pen
of a French exile. And yet during all this time materials have been
accumulating, the fame of the composer has been extending, the demand
for such a work increasing, and the number of intelligent and
elegant English writers upon music growing greater.
M. Schoelcher's work, though perhaps the most valuable contribution
to musical historical literature which has for many years appeared
from the English press, leaves much to be desired. Excepting a
correction of the chronology of Handel's visit to Italy, very little,
if anything, of importance is added to what we already possessed in
regard to the early history of the composer. We look in vain for the
means of tracing the development of his genius. The impression left
upon the mind of the reader is, that his powers showed themselves
suddenly in full splendor, and that at a single bound he placed
himself at the head of the dramatic composers of his age. This was
not true of Hasse, Mozart, Gluck, Cherubini, Weber, in dramatic
composition; nor of Bach, Haydn, Beethoven, in other branches of the
musical art. However great a man's genius may be, he must live and
learn. To attain the highest excellence, long continued study is
necessary; and Handel, as we believe, was no exception to the
general law.
The list of works consulted by M. Schoelcher, prefixed to the
biography, shows that he has by no means exhausted the German
authorities which may be profitably used in writing upon the early
history of Handel: indeed, the author, though of German descent, is
unacquainted with the German language. We can learn from them the
state of dramatic music at that time in Berlin, Leipsic, Brunswick,
Hanover, Köthen; we can form from them some correct idea of the
powers of Keiser, Steffani, Graupner, Schieferdecker, Telemann,
Grünwald, and others, then in possession of the lyric stage; we can
thus estimate the influences which led Handel from the path that
Bach so successfully followed, into that which he pursued with equal
success; and though the amount of matter relating to him personally
be small, much that throws light upon his early life still remains
inaccessible to the English reader.
The biography of a great creative artist must in great measure
consist of a history of his works; and the great value of the
book before us arises from the searching examination to which
M. Schoelcher has subjected the several collections of Handel's
manuscripts which are preserved in England, one of which, in some
respects the most valuable, has fallen into his own possession. This
examination, for the first time made, together with the first careful
and thorough search for whatever might afford a ray of light in the
various periodicals of Handel's time, has enabled the author to
correct innumerable errors in previous writers, and trace step by
step the rapid succession of opera, anthem, serenata, and oratorio,
which filled the years of the composer's manhood. For the general
reader, perhaps, M. Schoelcher has been drawn too far into detail,
and some passages of his work might have been better reserved for
his "Catalogue of Handel's Works"; but these details are of the
highest value to the student of musical literature, and, indeed,
form for him the principal charm of the work. The importance of the
author's labors can be duly appreciated only by those who have had
occasion to study somewhat extensively the musical history of the
last century. For them the results of those labors as here presented
are invaluable.
_Sermons of the_ REV. C. H. SPURGEON, of London. Third Series.
New York: Sheldon, Blakeman & Co.
There can be no doubt of the merit of these sermons, considered as
examples of method and embodiments of character. Whatever elements
of Christianity may be left unexpressed in them, it is certain that
Mr. Spurgeon has succeeded in expressing himself. His discourses at
least give us Christianity as he understands, feels, and lives it.
They should be studied by all clergymen who desire to master the
secret of influencing masses of men. They will afford valuable hints
in respect to method, even when their spirit, tone, and teaching
present no proper model for imitation. Mr. Spurgeon, we suppose,
would be classed among Calvinists, but he is not merely that.
Without any force, depth, amplitude, or originality of thought, he
has considerable force and originality of nature. He detaches from
their relations certain doctrines of Calvinism which especially
interest him, and so emphasizes and intensifies them, so blends them
with his personal being and experience, that the impression he
stamps upon the mind is rather of Spurgeonism than Calvinism. He
gives vivid reality to his doctrines, because they are incorporated
with his nature,--and not merely with his spiritual, but with his
animal nature. He is thoroughly in earnest from the fact that he
preaches himself. His converts, therefore, are likely to mistake
being Spurgeonized for being Christianized; for the Christianity he
preaches is not so much vital Christianity as it is Christianity
passed through the vitalities of his own nature, and essentially
modified and lowered in the process. To understand, then, the kind
of influence he exerts, we have simply to inquire, What kind of man
is Mr. Spurgeon?
The answer to this question is given on every page of his sermons.
He has no reserves, but lets his character transpire in every
sentence. He is a bold, eager, earnest, devout, passionate,
well-intentioned man, with considerable experience in the sphere of
the religious emotions, full of sympathy with rough natures, full of
mother wit and practical sagacity, but, as a theologian, coarse,
ignorant, narrow-minded, and strikingly deficient in fine spiritual
perceptions. These qualities inhere in a nature of singular vigor,
intensity, and directness, that sends out words like bullets. Warmth
of feeling combined with narrowness of mind makes him a bigot; but
his bigotry is not the sour assertion of an opinion, but the racy
utterance of a nature. He believes in Spurgeonism so thoroughly and
so simply that toleration is out of the question, and doctrines
opposed to his own he refers, with instantaneous and ingenuous
dogmatism, to folly or wickedness. "I think," he says, in one of his
sermons, "I have none here so profoundly stupid as to be Puseyites.
I can scarcely believe that I have been the means of attracting one
person here so utterly devoid of one remnant of brain as to believe
the doctrine of baptismal regeneration." The doctrine, indeed, is so
nonsensical to him, that, after some caricatures of it, he asserts
that it would discredit Scripture with all sensible men, if it were
taught in Scripture. God himself could not make Mr. Spurgeon believe
it; and doubtless there are many High Churchmen who would retort,
that nothing short of a miracle could make them assent to some of
the dogmas of their assailant. Indeed, the incapacity of our
preacher to discern, or mentally to reproduce, a religious character
differing in creed from his own, makes him the most amusingly
intolerant of Popes, not because he is malignant, but because he is
Spurgeon. If he had learning or largeness of mind, he would probably
lose the greater portion of his power. He gets his hearers into a
corner, limits the range of their vision to the doctrine he is
expounding, refuses to listen to any excuses or palliations, and
then screams out to them, "Believe or be damned!" In his own mind he
is sure they will be damned, if they do not believe. So far as
regards his influence over those minds whose religious emotions are
strong, but whose religious principles are weak, every limitation of
his mind is an increase of his force.
This theological narrowness is unaccompanied with theological rancor.
A rough but genuine benevolence is at the heart of Mr. Spurgeon's
system. He wishes his opponents to be converted, not condemned. He
very properly feels, that, with his ideas of the Divine Government,
he would be the basest of criminals, if he spared himself, or spared
either entreaty or denunciation, in the great work of saving souls.
He throws himself with such passionate earnestness into his business,
that his sermons boil over with the excitement of his feelings.
Indeed, it is difficult to say whether our impressions of him,
derived from the written page, come to us more from the eye than the
ear. His very style foams, rages, prays, entreats, adjures, weeps,
screams, warns, and execrates. His words are words that everybody
understands,--bold, blunt, homely, quaint, level to his nature, all
alive with passion, and directed with the single purpose of carrying
the fortresses of sin by assault. The reader who contrives to
preserve his calmness amid this storm of words cannot but be vexed
that rhetoric so efficient should frequently be combined with notions
so narrow, with bigotry so besotted, with religious principles so
materialized; that the man who is loudly proclaimed as the greatest
living orator of the pulpit should have so little of that Christian
spirit which refines when it inflames, which exalts, enlarges, and
purifies the natures it moves. For Mr. Spurgeon is, after all,
little more than a theological stump-orator, a Protestant Dominican,
easy of comprehension because he leaves out the higher elements of
his themes, and not hesitating to vulgarize Christianity, if he may
thereby extend it among the vulgar. It has been attempted to justify
him by the examples of Luther and Bunyan, to neither of whom does
he bear more than the most superficial resemblance. He is, to be sure,
as natural as Luther, but then his nature happens to be a puny
nature as compared with that of the great Reformer; and, not to
insist on specific differences, it is certain that Luther, if alive,
would have the same objection to Mr. Spurgeon's bringing down the
doctrines of Christianity to the supposed mental condition of his
hearers, as he had to the Romanists of his day, who corrupted
religion in order that the public "might be more generally
accommodated." Bunyan's phraseology is homely, but Bunyan's
celestializing imagination kept his "familiar grasp of things divine"
from being an irreverent pawing of things divine. Mr. Spurgeon's
nature works on a low level of influence. Deficient in imagination,
and with a mind coarse and unspiritualized, though religiously
impressed, he animalizes his creed in attempting to give it
sensuous reality and impressiveness. If it be said that by this
process he feels his way into hearts which could not be affected by
more spiritual means, the answer is, that the multitude who listened
to the Sermon on the Mount were not of a more elevated cast of mind
than the multitude who listened to Mr. Spurgeon's sermon on
"Regeneration." But the truth is, that Mr. Spurgeon's preaching is
liked, not simply because it rouses sinners to repentance, but
because it gives sinners a certain enjoyment. It is racy, original,
exciting, and comes directly from the character of the preacher. It
is relished, as Mr. Spurgeon tells us in his Preface, by "princes of
every nation and nobles of every rank," as well as by humbler people.
But we doubt whether Christianity should be vulgarized to give jaded
nobles a new "sensation," or in order to be made a fit "gospel for
the poor."
* * * * *
_Roumania: the Border Land of the Christian and the Turk.
Comprising Adventures of Travel in Eastern Europe and Western Asia_.
By JAMES O. NOYES, M. D. Surgeon in the Ottoman Army. New York: Rudd &
Carleton, 310 Broadway. 1857.
Dr. James Oscar Noyes, the author of this book, is an American all
over. He has the rapidity and eagerness of mind that the champagny
atmosphere of our northern hills gives to those who are stout enough
not to be wilted by our hot summers. For briskness, thriftiness,
energy, and alacrity, it is hard to find his match. He has made a
book of travels, and will make a hundred, unless somebody finds him
a place at home where he will have an indefinite number of
labors-of-Hercules to keep him busy,--or unless some African prince
cuts his head off, or he happens to call upon the Battas about their
Thanksgiving-time.
Here he has been streaming through Eastern Europe and Western Asia,
so hilarious and good-tempered all the time, so intensely wide-awake,
so perfectly at home everywhere, so quick at making friends, so
perfectly convinced that the world was made for American travellers,
and so apt at proving it by his own example, that his friends who
missed him for a while not only were not astonished to find that he
had been a Surgeon in the Ottoman Army, during this brief interval,
but only wondered he had not been Grand Vizier.
In this instance the book is the man, if we may so far change
Monsieur de Buffon's saying. It is full of fresh observations and
lively descriptions,--perhaps a little too overlarded and
oversprigged with prose and verse quotations,--but as lively as a
golden carp just landed. It describes scenes not familiar to most
readers, tells stories they have never heard, introduces them to new
costumes and faces, and helps itself by the aid of pictures to make
its vivacious narrative real. We are much pleased to learn that the
work has met with a very good reception; for we consider it as the
card of introduction of a gentleman whom the American people will
very probably know pretty well before he has done with them, and be
the better for the acquaintance.
* * * * *
_Dante's Hell_. Cantos I. to X. A Literal Metrical Translation.
By J. C. Peabody. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1857.
A man must be either conscious of poetic gifts and possessed of real
learning, or very presumptuous and ignorant, who undertakes at the
present day a _new_ translation of Dante. Mr. J. C. Peabody might
claim exemption from this _dictum_, on the ground that his
translation is not a _new_ one; but he himself does not put in this
plea, and we cannot grant to him the possession of poetic power, or
declare that he is not ignorant and presumptuous. He says in his
Preface, with a modesty, the worth of which will soon become apparent,
"The present is on a different plan from all other translations, and
must be judged accordingly. While I disclaim all intention of
disputing the palm as a poet or scholar with the least of those who
have walked with Dante before me, yet, by such labor and plodding as
their genius would not allow them to descend to, have I made a more
literal, and perhaps, therefore, a better translation than they all."
Mr. J. C. Peabody is right in supposing that none of the previous
translations of Dante could descend to _such_ labor and plodding as
his. In 1849, Dr. Carlyle published his literal prose translation of
the "Inferno." It was in many respects admirably done, and it has
afforded great assistance to the students of the poet in their first
progress. Mr. Peabody does not acknowledge any obligations to it, or
refer to it in any way. Let us, however, compare a passage or two of
the two versions. We open at line 78 of the First Canto. We do not
divide Mr. Peabody's into the lines of verse.