The Press. — London, England, 1853-05-21 00:00:00

i '~ V in the lust. An ill-informed wit might draw an amusing parallel between the damned au thors who gallop to oblivion through Pater noster-row, and the ei-devant dandies escorting belles of ten seasons in the ride at Rotten-row. He might run his parallel through the book shop and the ballroom, and wittily descant upon philosophers and pretty girls most un fairly criticised, upon divines whose sermons are never cut open for perusal, and dandies neglected by ton from one end of the season to the other. With hut a little fancy, he might trace a grotesque analogy between style and dress, and oracularly re eount how poetry and long petticoats are fashionable in one age, how Byron and Brummell were eontemporaries, how statistics and small bonnets came in at the same time, how George Canning shone in the senate, while Count D'Orsay sparkled in the clubs. But though the wit might be an amusing one, as we have suggested, he would betray want of information in pretending that the laws of literature are ruled by caprice. The true laws of criticism are the same in all ages, and there are always good reasons, if we but search for them, why one style of composi tion is popular in one period, and an opposite one at a different time. Thus, for example, when we take up this lively, brisk, and read able pamphlet, called " Coalition Cabinets, Past and Present," we may ask how comes it that the age for pamphlets seems past away, that publishers exclaim, " Pamphlets seldom sell !" and that leading publie characters, unlike the St. Johns Mal the Pulteneys. now rarely commit their thoughts to the form of an essay ? But the answer is obvious. Journal ism has almost as effeetually put an end to pamphleteering as Waterloo-bridge destroyed the occupation of the Surrey side ferry-boats. The age, from a variety of moral and physical causes, is favourable to collective energy : it pays homage to the principle of assoeiation, and prefers the " we" of journalism to the "I " of pamphleteering. I: Estrange or Sir Charles Banbury Williams themselves in our day.; would have no more chance against the " leaders" of a journal than the old Margate hogs against the ocean steamers. We confess, however, to a liking for pam phlets when they are, as this one before us is, sharp, clear, and strong. A good pamphleteer can give his subject that artistic wholeness of view which by at journalist can only he effected through repetition. Thus within the limit of a sheet of letterpress we have here demon strated the important principle in our British That. no Coalition Cabinet has ever yet suereeded." No doubt the Aberdeen-Russell Coalitionists fondly hope that their Cabinet will prove that rule by being the exception to it : but this spirited writer dissects its compo sition, and proves that in the w‘orst, points only it. resembles the former Coalition Ministries, while, in the attributes of genius and public A pi;it, he draws damaging comparisons with those Ministries in which at Chatham, a Fox. a Burke, a iirenville, and a Canning filled high posts. Ile drives home the point of his argu ment with force to the conclusion—" if truly great men like these failed to make the coali tion principle successful, how could men like these prevail in doing so r He is pungent and caustic in declaring his opinion of the Aberdeen Coalition, taken collectively or individually. and very aptly applies to them (what might, have served as an epigraph in his titlepnget— the words of Junius—" a submissive Adminis tration grmlually collected from deserters of all parties, interests, and eonnectionm." He thus expands his definition into description with n Presbyterian Prime Minister of England anal at Roman Catholic Solieitoptieneral of Ireland. with a Whig at the Foreign and n Tory at the Colonial office. a hispyite et the Exchequer and at philosophic Radical at the Board of Works, we look in vain for a single bond of sympathy ;between any two of your lordship's colleagues. The only ,evideuce anion hitherto displayed was shown by the Preaident of the liaktral of Control and the First tonl of the Admiralty, in tloir warlike llama:4lles at Halifax and Ott tin severe aipl snceessful castigation. so justly inflicted upon these eminout roams by Mr. Ns. raeli. will probstAy prevent the exhibition of any limber unanimity et en on this point. The attempt to weaken or disarm the Opposition, 1.% stirring up at genuine in.kasion ruin, was a device ad once ingenions wad bold. Perhaps, ifike the ballot. it was an open on In the the uar-cry from the north hndquesti proved toweessful, Cabinet. it .aright have found a ready eelto front every member of the A u i,, try ; b u t, ass: welly failed, its indiscreet promoters THE PRESS. had to submit in silence to the taunts of their opponents, and, harder still, the apologies and esplunations of their colleagues. He then addresses himself to the antecedents of certain individuals of the Cabinet, and thus contrasts the Premier (to whom the letter is inscribed) with Lord Palmerston: — When we see men who have passed their lives in politi cal hostility suddenly retrainee their differences and swear eternal friendship, can we look on such a union with contideneo or approbation ? Your lordship, for example, has ever been considered as a disciple of the late Lord Castlereagh, whereas the Secretary for the Home Depart ment has been no less distinguished as a pupil of that of Cunning ; and as the latter made no secret of the estimate in which he held his noble colleague, so the present Home Minister is not generally believed to entertain that amount of deference which is due from each subordinate member of a Cabinet to its thief. Yet, on your acceptance of office, you did not hesitate to assert that there was no substan tial ditieretust between your foreign policy and that of Visismnt PalmerstAm. Three years have not elapsed since you stigmatised the hitter as abominable ;" while, in reply, your lordship was denounced by your present lender in the House of Commons as the submissive tool of con tinental despots. And this depreciatory tone applied by Whig politicians to your lordship was by no means new. In order to show that the Whig censure of L.ird Aberdeen is "by no means new," the writer refers to the following sarcastic delinea tion of Lord Aberdeen which he quotes as from " The Edinburgh Review." Our duty as critics compels us here to remark that the pas sage was cited and circulated in " The Edin burgh Review," but it originally appeared in the well-known pamphlet called " The Results of the Dissolution" (11+30). and was noticed in " The Edinburgh Review," vol. xlii., p. 271. Here is the passage approvingly cited by the reviewer:— - -• _ . Among his colleagues the Earl of .kbenleen stands dis tinguished (bold as the assertion to some may appear) for that mixture of feebleness with presmuption, of Inca pacity in other men's eyes with all-sufficiency in his own, which emistitittes the ridiculous in character. It is from such originals that the pencil of Cervantes drew the Ilam tarian of Sancho Palma, that of Sheridan his Lord Bur high, and of Swift. his tittlliver drawing upon the King of ItroMiming. Mankind have yet to learn one single ground mam which this lord should affect to hold any other noble lord cheap, mid yet he never opens his month but to try some elumsv sneer. He is supposed to have studied under Mr. Pitt, who had some right to indulge in such superci lions demeanour, but he has not a tenth of Mr. Pitt's as surance, nor a tenth of Mr. Addington 's intelligence. The Dimino!' have an 1111010glIC of a dwarf who used to keep eompimy with a giant, and seeing him always look down upon the crowd got the habit of looking down when he saw men whose middle he could just reach standing upon tiptoe. There are some terrible testimonials to the cha racters of other members of the Pcelite part of the Coalition to be found in the pages of "The Edinburgh Review," and which our sense of duty to " the past and present" will compel our citation of at the first opportunity. In the meanwhile we thank the author of this pam phlet for his promptness in calling attention to the foregoing portrait of the Premier. We must quote also the shrewd reference to the marked inconsisteney of some of the literary supporters of the Coalition : Hat it must be admitted that up to last December the Whigs have fared no better at the hands of your lordship's party. The morning journal which so ably represents its peculiar opinions has for years past. lacer distinguished by its inveteracy to the Russells, the Elliots, mid the Greys. Towards sour leader in the Lower House its language has been marked with singular severity. Every epithet of contemptuous abuse which the persevering ingenuity of party malice could devise bits been lavished upon Lord ,holm Russell. He is now. according to the same autho rity, an enlightened Reformer, a skilful parliamentary tac tician, and a most able debater. Yet this unblushing pros titution of opinion imposes upon no one. More matter equally sharp and to the purpose is to be found in these pages, but our extracts sufficiently show the merits of this very lively, pungent. and well-tinted tract. Poetics : on Essay on Poetry. By E. S. Dallas, London : Smith, Elder, and Co. - - Acconmo to the old mot attributed to Prince Talleyniud, words were given to man that he might conceal his thoughts ; and, in this view, Mr. Dallas's lucubration on what he calls " Poetics" appears to us to deserve much commendation. Assuming that probably he has certain ideas on the subject of this important essay, we feel it to he but fair to him to admit the general success with which he has, by a style splendid. no doubt, but hazy, veiled them from the most attentive eye. The work which he has produced, and which, SATURDAY, by the way, is dedicated to Sir William Hamil• ton, Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh, contains, indeed, certain passages which, if we were disposed to speak invidiously, we would term intelligible; but all such blemishes are amply redeemed by the ingenious manner in which they are made to destroy each other, like equal values in algebra. We beg the reader's attention while we briefly explain to him the peculiar merits of this remarkable production. It is well known how many great men, from the earliest ages of literature to our own day, have endea voured to characterise the poet and to elucidate his art—to define in what the essence of poetry consists—and to discriminate from other en dowments and faculties the special and pecu liar property of those minds which appear to be the most unmistakeably favoured by its afflatus. Mr. Dallas, feeling that all those great critics had virtually failed, and quoting the words of Dr. Whewell, that "to discover the laws of operative power in literary works, though it claims no small respect under the name of criticism, is not commonly considered the work of a science"—Mr. Dallas, we say, impressed with the failure of all the illustrious minds who, in ancient or modern times, had treated this question, perceived that his own intervention was now desirable, and that for him it had been reserved to bring so many perplexities, discrepancies, and doubts to a final and harmonious settlement. He would be the Lord St. Leonard's of literary jurispru dence ; at least in the poetical department, and its High Court of Chancery. He would systematise and codify the innumerable exist ing laws, many of them good in themselves, but scattered, inharmonious, confused ; he would reduce these to a simple, self-consistent, and orbicular movement. He says so himself. " We have," he remarks, "critical opinions in " great abundance, and often of great value, "hut we have no critical system." " Hence it happens that now, when literary " criticism cuts deeper than it ever cut before, " it is all a mere labyrinth of confusion—con " fusion worse confounded—as vague indeed "as it can well be. But, chaos though it be," he cheerfully adds, " it is a chaos pregnant with " meaning, and richly deserving scientific " arrangement." This last is what Mr. Dallas would supply. In displacing from their pedestals, as he is thus reluctantly obliged to displace them, Aristotle, Plato (or rather Socrates), Horace, Longinus, Bacon, Vida, Boileau, Pope, John son, Voltaire, Edmund Burke, and many others, our author is not transported by any vulgar or ungenerous exultation. With the exception, perhaps, of Longinus, against whom a passing and transverse sarcasm is shot, it is with a generous and almost respectful pity that the rest of the foremost literary law givers of the human race are consigned to the limbo of the obsolete. Having thus demolished the edifices which stood in his way, Mr. Dallas proceeds to con struct his own system on the ruins. Now, in order that we may show the reader how solidly he lays the foundations of this new temple of the Muses, we will exhibit Mr. Dallas to him actually at work. Passing over the slight circumstance that Mr. Dallas under takes to overthrow all the great authorities by the higher force of pure reason, and yet, at the outset, surrenders for a moment the field of argu ment and appeals to four or five secondary autho • rifles to establish for him his first principles, we will very succinctly examine the ratiocina tion on which he mainly relies. If we put aside a nebulous mass of metaphysics, irrele vant to the question, the whole book consists of two theories end a definition. The first theory is destined to support the second, and the definition is supported by both. This de finition, by the bye, is what Bacon would call " the vintage," or fruit, for the sake of which the work itself is undertaken, and the treatise composed. The first theory is this : that all men are poets, because the poet differs, not from other men in the nature or kind of his genius, but only in its degree. " Poetry," says our author, " is human ; the poet is but a man ;" a sentence which had been as well omitted, for, if understood theoretically, it is not an ar gument, but a truism; and, if understood