The Press. — London, England, 1854-08-19 00:00:00

786 more for the thought and the sentiment than the words. The " wits " of the Restoration were particularly careless in this respect, and few specimens of finished composition are to be found amongst them. But though Sedley, like his contemporaries, was often as careless as ho was gross, he had genuine talent, with wit and poetic feeling. Mr. Bell quotes only one spacimen of Sedley's, " Ah, Chloris, that I now could sit," of which one stanza has always been much admired : Your charms in harmless childhood lay, Like metals in the mine ; Age from no face took more away Than youth conceal'd in thine. Which would be perfect but for the harsh iteration of the syllable " arm" in the first line. One of Sedley's most perfect songs we heard sung recently in fashionable society, and the words to most of the company appeared perfectly novel. Apart from the musical pro ficiency of the performer, the poetry of the song was greatly admired, proving that true poetical pieces, though concealed like antique gems amidst heaps of rubbish, are sure of being one day exhumed. The song runs thus:— Phillia is my only joy, Faithless as the winds or seas, Sometitnes coming, sometimes coy, Yet she never fails to please ; If with a frown I am cast down, nails, smiling And beguiling, Makes me happier than before. Though, alas ! too late I find Nothing can her fancy fix, Yet the moment she is kind, I forgive her all her tricks; Which, though I see, I can't get free, She deceiving, I believing — What need lovers wish for more. The songs to " Evadne," and the well-known verses " Love still has something of the sea," ought, in our opinion, to have been printed by Mr. Bell. It naturally results from the care lessness of writers like Sedley that we find in their songs some excellent lines, though the composition as a whole may be imperfect. A verse expressive of anscreontic sentiment must have been popular with the dissolute careless ness of Charles's court : Let us indulge the joys we know, Of music, wine, and love : We are sure of what we find below, Uncertain what's above. On comparing Sedley with such writers as Torn D'Urfey we scarcely wonder at his popu larity. He was one of the best wits of his day, though that is not saying much for him, as there was really little wit in that time, though great pretension to it. One of his happiest pleasantries is to be found in a speech of his in Parliament when complaining of the eager ness of courtiers—or placemen, as we should call them—to impose taxes : Truly, Mr. Speaker, it's a sad reflection that some men should wallow in wealth and places, whilst others pay away in taxes the fourth part of the revenue for the support of the Gvernment. We are not upon equal terms for his Majes o ty's service. The courtiers antl great officers charge as it were in armour ; they feel not the taxes by reason of their places, while the country gentlemen are shot through and through by them." There is much critical writing of a very high order interspersed through this volume. which, RS an editorial exereitation , is one of the best yet seen in this annotated edition of the poets. We think, however, that Mr. Bell has been too ex clusive, and that he should have given us • several more songs from Sheridan. Only seven pages altogether are assigned to the " drama tists " from Congreve to Farquhar inclusively ! He concludes the volume with " Let the toast pass," from the School ,for Scandal, and leaves out " Had I a heart for falsehood framed," while he prints the song " Give Isaac the nymph." A verse from Congreve's drinking song runs thus : We'll drink and we'll never ha' done, boys, Put the glass then around with the bull, boys, Let Aeollo's example invite us ; For he's drunk every night, And that makes him so bright That he's able next morning to light us. Which Sheridan seems to have recollected in his drinking glee : THE PRESS. This bottle's the sun of our table, His beams are rosy wine ; We, planets, that are not able Without his help to shine. Let mirth and glee abound! You'll soon grow bright With borrowed light, And shine as he goes round! A companion volume of " Opera Songs " will be required to make this little work perfect. In the meanwhile the rarity of the earlier songs and the interesting criticisms of Mr. Bell will commend this volume to a wide popularity. Germany from 1760 to 1814. By Mrs. Austin. London : Longmans. THERE is no half century of social history which, well narrated, might not be made both interesting and suggestive to all intelligent minds. But it is no ordinary half century that Mrs. Austin here attempts to place under our remembrance ; it is one of those compa ratively short eras of transition to which whole ages owe their after character and the diree• Lion or course of their successive catastrophes. Sometimes the history of a nation, under the swing and impulse of one of these epochs of movement, rolls with the imparted bias so long that the very memory of the momentous but transient day when it began is almost lost. In such cases the few years which cere parents of so many centuries are, of course, more worthy than those centuries themselves of being made the subject of careful study ; and we may add that to a mind of sufficient intelli gence the study will also be more attractive and more charming. Such, then, it may well be said, were the memorable years between 1760 and 1814. The weight, and the mark, and the consequences of them, will not be re moved from the s'ciety of the European con tinent for many an age. Of those fifty-four years the history is like an epic in the regu larity of its import—in the unity of its in terest (prevailing over and outliving the most exciting episode)—and in the magnitude of its general result. In Germany a new and important territorial and political settlement, violently introduced and violently maintained, was defending itself with desperate spirit at the point of the sword. Prussia, which had asserted suddenly and recently the same level as the greater monarchies had long possessed, stood all armed among them, showing none of the diffidence of youth, and none of the con ciliatory mien of weakness , but fierce, preda tory, and, if mangled and bleeding, yet reso lute not to surrender a particle of the spoils which had been seized with so daring a hand. The seven years' war was mare than half over, and the end of it would finally confirm the pretensions of this new power. The encyclopiedists, not then so called, were commencing their crusade against all estab lished creeds ; and, . while their work was to exhibit itself, the German mind, so long torpid and passive, was about to flower forth into that wild, rank, and teeming literature in which Frederick had neither faith nor in terest, and which is, perhaps, the necessary precursor of a more orderly development. These great movements, with the French Revolution, the whole career of Napoleon, and the foun dation and rise of the United States of Ame rica, render the era treated by Mrs. Austin in the present work one of the most pregnant in the entire annals of mankind. These essays and sketches do not, however, constitute a his tory or a connected narrative; nor do they amount to any exposition of the philosophy derivable from those great vicissitudes to which they refer. Desultory descriptions of manners and of individuals, anecdotes, remarks, occasional passages of argument enforcing the writer's political and moral views, and illustrated by the incidents under discussion,—these are the chief ingredients of the book. The style is generally natural, sometimes strong; and the whole production, thus planned and thus ex ecuted, is very entertaining. Moreover, the reader feels that the time bestowed by him is not lost—that the work is not frivolous, though it is composed in as lively and discursive a manner as the gravity of the matter could with any propriety admit. The first part of these miscellaneous views of a great drama acted upon a vast stage is SATURDAY, devoted to domestic life, and the materials out of which Mrs. Austin weaves her production are almost exclusively the memoirs of the two German authoresses, Mme. Pichler and Mine. Schopenhauer, most agreeable and intelligent old-fashioned chroniclers. But, when Mrs. Austin proceeds to give us an account of the more public characters of the era, she takes the atrabilarious and all-hating, all-deriding sketches of Charles Henry Ritter von Sang for her guide. We are bound to add, however, that she uses his statements with the caution and suspicious qualifications which they jus tify and require. This section brings the survey of Germany down to the colossal irrup tions of the French under Napoleon, and the destruction of " the Holy Roman Empire." Mrs. Austin then takes a host of miscellaneous authorities, and describes, through their means, the condition of the various States belonging to " Viterland " during the career of the wonderful conqueror whom we have just mentioned, and for whom Mrs. Austin has not one lenient word to say. She makes no disguise of her antipathy, and seems quite unconscious or forgetful that, as a historical critic, assuming to exercise the functions of a judge respecting past events and characters, this is too sweeping a confession. We will take leave to remark here that Mrs. Austin seems not to have any very profound or philo sophical opinions to communicate on the sub ject of Napoleon I. What he did in Germany and in Europe at large requires to be balanced with what he did in France. We recommend those who have not seen in the Edinburgh Review the contributions from which this book is, with some little recomposi don, produced, to read it ; they will find in it much amusement and much information also. A Treatise on Relics. By John Calvin. With Introductory Dissertation. Edinburgh : Johnstone and Hunter. Tats volume contains a new translation of Calvin's discourse on relics, besides a compi lation from several modern writers who have illustrated the subject of Romish superstition. The author is far too profuse in his quotations from those Romanists, who have ingeniously varnished over the corruptions of the systems of which they are the literary defenders. To such a length has he gone that we were re minded of the old Jesuit practice of intro ducing Romish arguments and views in essays insidiously entitled as defences of Protestant ism. We have fourteen pages translated and copied from Beugnot's " Histoire de la des traction du Paganisme dans l'Oceident" (pp. 16.28). In another place (pp. 53-6:9 we have ten more pages extracted from the same writer. Copious passages from the work " Hierurgia," besides interesting remarks from Chateaubriand and Fleury, are also cited ; and a painful sense is left upon the mind in seeing the subtlety with which intellectual men labour to defend what is false. We u ere much struck by the author's remarks in the following passage : There is no abuse in the world which cannot be justified, if the example of persons occupying a high station or that of great numbers is sufficient for it. The advocates of the the adoration of relics in our ow n da y s may defend it by fact that about half a million of people went in 1845 to worship the holy coat of Troves, and that still more re cently great honours were paid the relics of St. Theodosia at Amiens, by a number of distinguished persons, — bishops, archbishops, and even cardinals. The cantos da fi of the Spanish and Portuguese inquisitions could not be wrong. since kings, queens, and the most eminent persons of state approved them by their presence. Idolatry cannot be an error, since so many monarchs, statesmen, and learned men, had conformed to its rites ; whilst, on the other side, the same reason may be pleaded for the penal laws of Ireland, and other enactments against the Roman Catholics, because they were established and maintained by so many Parliaments. It happens, however, that, as society is consti tuted, the appeal to example and to long pre scription has always great force. Only a comparatively small number of persons adopt their opinions after abstract reasoning. A volume like this before us might prove a use. ful auxiliary to a Jesuitical controversialis t anxious to make out a case for the worship of relics. For what the moral poet said of vice is applicable to superstitition : " But seen too oft, f unitise with its face, We first endure, next pity, thou ambrosia." li \ \