The Press. — London, England, 1858-03-27 00:00:00

( .I'ittraturt. Essays. Contributed to the Quarterly Review. By the late Earl of Ellesmere. London: Murray. READERS who take up this volume will be re minded of the old style of reviewing, before the independent essay had become predomi nant in periodical literature. Lord Ellesmere wrote because a new book demanded his criti cal verdict, not because he had some theory of his own to propound which he was anxious for an opportunity of introdueing. It would be much to the advantage of contemporary literature if more space were allotted by our various Reviews to the functions of oriticism. Much literary power is wasted at the present day in travelling over old ground. We see many articles devoted to the character of Shelley or Gibbon which had much better have been devoted to Kingsley or Fronde. We cannot learn much that is new about the former. We may be pleased at recognising familiar ideas clothed in novel language, and adorned by striking illustrations. But the office of a first-class Review is something more than this. It is to guide public taste in its decisions on the literature of the day. Its position to the public should be something the same as that of a judge towards the jury. It is front the common sense of twelve average men that the prisoner expects his final fate. But the judge explains the law, epitomises the evidence, and brings out the telling points. So, no doubt, it is to the general opinion of the public that an it Ithor must look for his final positio- in the •!nple of Fame. But the critic should . tuitions of taste and the rules of cotup,sitiou ; endeavour to point out to the public why it is that they are pleased here, or offended there; lead them to apply certain well-approved tests to their own first impressions ; and hold up a standard to the world by which the success of impostures might be rendered of rare occurrence. With the above critical faculty we should surmise that Lord Ellesmere was largely en dowed. The subject-matter of these essays is indeed such as to necessitate examination rather of facts than of either style, method, or argument. But wherever his lordship had a chance, his clearness of mind, his good sense, and his logical quickness are conspicuous His mode of handling Sir Archibald Alison is an excellent specimen of argumentative criticism, and is also valuable as proving how thorouglily kind and gentlemanlike a tone is compatible with raking irony and un shrinking exposure. As an example of grace ful and good humoured banter we extract the concluding page of Essay 1X , in which Sir Archibald's errors on the Waterloo campaign had been ruthlessly gibbetted : One more word at parting with Mr. Alison. In the pre. face to the last edition of his work, p. !xi., we find the following passege : What the historian does to others, he willingly accords to him self; and certainly he feels no sort of impropriety in a yonlh of twen , v tacking his first essay in letters by the criticism of the work of twenty years. • If no indiscreet vanity mislead us, these mysterious words contain a dark allusion to ourselves, and convey Mr. Ali son's impression that we, his reviewers, have not attained our legal majority. We of " the gentle craft" claim upon this point the indulgence usually conceded to Mr. Alison's favourites, the gentle sex. Whatever be the amount of youth and inexperience which we have brought to the task of criticising a production so awfully designated as " the work of twenty years," we venture to remind its author that our observations have hitherto been strictly confined to a special portion of that work, and principally to inac curacies, misstatements of facts, and errors of judgment, which an Eton boy of the lower school would, with twenty minntes' study of the documents in our possession, have been able to detect and expose. Even for handling the work in e.rlenso, however, a reviewer of twenty years might in some respects be better qualified than one of older Ltand ing. We have a conscience in these matters; before we review a Look we ususlly read it, and with greater attention than may be necessary merely to certify its general cha racter—to discern, for instance, the prevalent evidences of shallowness, verbosity, and self-satisfaction. Youth has its faults, but it is the season for hard work of all kinds, and heavy reading among others Adult and reviewing man shrnka trom twenty average octavos compressed, not by the author but by the binder, into ten. We have already intimeted that we have read enough to convince us that in all our own leading doctrines—moral, political, and religious—we have an ally in Mr. Alison. The importance end interest of his subject cannot be rated too high. By isn4 by, therefore, we may perhaps screw up our courage. lb& THE PRESS, MARCH 27, 1858. If it be true that the present Lord Rector of Marischal College has announced a prize for the best essay on " Ali son's History of Europe, we may possibly be reserving ourselves fur that struggle. Meanwhile, and in return for Mr. Alison's liberal concession, we can only promise that, whenever our majority takes place, the learned Sheriff of Lanarkshire shall have received due notice, and an invita tion to the festivities with which the public will expect that an event so remarkable should be celebrated. Everything will be on a scale of the greatest magnificence, and an au thor will be roasted whole on the occasion. Lord Ellesmere was an uncompromising " Laker." No syllable of detraction from the ' Wellington genius is permitted to escape cas tigation. He loses no opportunity of contrast ing him with other great soldiers and has drawn a curious comparison between the battles of Lutzen and Salamanca, which would scarcely have occurred to any but the vigilant eye of affection. Lord Ellesmere's military reviews, of which there are five, seem all very good, and we do not think the present the least opportune moment that could have been chosen for the publication of them. From the two essays upon Art we extract the following opinion of the painter Haydon : We have mentioned the gratification we have expe rienced from the perusal of Mr. Hazlitt's essay; we must add a similar testimony in favour of his fellow•labourer, Mt. Haydon. His treatise seems to ns the result of study and observation extensive and profound. Some evidence of these qualities was necessary to give weight and authority to the freedom and decision of his style of criticism. We recommend to our readers a very ingenious theory on a passage of Pliny which has puzzled all commentators—the anecdote of the visit of Apelles to the studio of Protogenea (p. 107); and which seems to no to offer as rational a solution of the difficulty as, at this distance of time, can be supplied. His opinions on the subject of our own, and all other possible academies, are well known ; and his indigna• tion against them in this treatise occupies fewer of its pages than we should have expected. We cannot controvert the fact that few men of eminence have been formed by academies ; nor can we, at the same time, understand why or how sterling genius and talent should suffer itself to be depressed by any circumstances incident to the existence of an academy. Having under review this volume of Mr. Haydon, we should apologise for not having sooner noticed as an artist the painter of the Judgment of Solomon, of which, were we to say that it is superior to any contempo rary English picture on a sacred subject, he would hardly take the assertion as a ccinpliment. Few painters have been more unequal, and few we fear less for'unate ; but his talents have been recognised by the most illustrious of his contemporaries in other departments—and the en thusiastic eulogies of Wordsworth in particular will have dae weight hereafter. Of the remaining essays, five are devoted to travels and two to engineering subjects. In narrative or description, however, Lord Elles mere is less attractive than in commentary. But the papers are all characterised by sound sense, a tone of high cultivation, and easy, um affected language. We must notice, in con elusicn, tho failure of one political prophecy— of the date of 1853: For the convenience of political arrangements, and for the sake of general peace, Finland has und. tone a pro cess of absorption in which we apprehend her own wishes and feelings have been little consulted. Should that peace he disturbed, and the foundations of the present system of European polity be shaken by a wanton hand, some countries, and Finland among then), may yet present examples of the instattility of a compulsory allegiance, and events may awake reminiscences which do but slumber under Russian rule. It was not for the diffusion of the doctrines of the orthodox Grqek Church, or the establish ment of despotism in Europe, that the blue and yellow Finland regiments of Gustavus lay dead in their racks at Latzen. We believe there is no reason for supposing that the Fins ever wavered in their allegiance during the late war. But the concluding sen tence of the extract is good rhetoric, and a worthy tribute to the soldiers whose deseen• dants are still some of the bravest and hardiest servants of their Russian master. A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude in 1849-1850. With Private Correspondence relative to the Annexation of Oude to British India. By Nlajor-General Sir W. H. Sleeman, K.C.8., Resident at the Court of Lucknow. Two Vols. London : Bentley. OF all the books which have been called forth by the late events in India, this is probably the most important. Information as valuable and interesting on the subjects of which it treats may possibly be lying hid in unopened blue-books or among the MS. archives of Lcadcnhall-street ; but nothing has hitherto been published which throws so much light on the causes and nature of the struggle now proceeding iu the East as the account which these volumes contain of the home and the character of tie enemies by whom it is chiefly sustained. Colonel Sleeman, who held the post of Resident at Lucknow from 1849 to 1856, who had spent the previous forty years of his life in India, and whose " Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official" had already proved him to be a careful and unprejudiced observer, has in the diary before us recorded the impressions derived from a three months' tour, undertaken for the express purpose of familiarizing himself with the capabilities and inhabitants of the country in whose govern ment he would naturally be destined to inter fere. It is much to be regretted that the able author of this book did not live long enough to come before the public with all the aids to a due comprehension of his work which he himself would have been best able to bestow. Though nothing can impair its sterling value and in terest, the convenience of a reader has been very inadequately consulted by these who have prepared it for the press. There is no index—a thing indispensable in every hook where the information on various points is so scattered as it is in a diary • nor is the table of contents very carefully drawn up. To the correspondence prefixed and subjoined there are no notes or connecting narrative; and many of the letters written before the author was appointed at Lucknow, should either have been omitted or else fully elucidated. Several others in vol. ii., which relate to disputes be tween the Resident and his subordinates, would, we suspect, have been suppressed by the author, their reproduction being calculated to annoy living persons after the occasion had wholly past away. The titlepage and part of the introduction are somewhat misleading. We are given to understand that the tour was undertaken by command of Lord Dalhousie, and many persons have naturally believed that his object was to use Colonel Sleeman as an agent for the collection of evidence to justify his predetermined annexation of the country. At. p. xvii. we read : Accordingly on the 18th September, 1848, the Governor- General addressed the following letter to Sir William Slee man, cointni,sioning him to wake a personal visit to all parts of the kingdom. But the letter itself is simply the offer of the appointment of Resident. There is not a word in it about " visiting all parts of the country." The fact is, that, as we learn from the very first pag e of the diary, the tour was first sug gested by Colonel Sleemen himself, and re ceived the sanction of Government in the early part of 1849. At p. lxxviii., a letter commences, •• Here is a little item of palace news," but we are not told what it is. The map in vol. i. is stated to be " drawn under the superin tendence of" tho author; but if this is the case, it is curious that the spelling of the names of places in it should so continually vary from that which we find in the text. In deed they differ so much that the route is sometimes difficult to follow. The biographi cal sketch is as meagre as it could well he, and the author of it apoears to be unaware that Colonel Sleeman had published the very inte resting work to which we have above alluded It may, also, be a clerical error, but no one conversant with India would speak of a thing being done " by Sir W. Sleeman while a Resi " dent at the Court of Lucknow" (p. xviii.), any more than we should talk of the Reformation having taken place " while Henry VIII. was a " King of England." Oude is a territory containing upwards of 23.000 square miles, and is not much inferior in extent to Ireland. Watered by two noble rivets, the Ganges and the Gogra, as well as by the Goomtee and its tributary streams, it enjoys a healthy and comparatively temperate climate, a soil as fertile as any in India, and produces every kind of grain and the finest forest trees. At rabitlft tiq res absent et veva leonum semina—there are really fewer wild beasts than in other parts of the peninsula. Un fortunately, the most dangerous tigers there are those that walk on two legs. The state of society when the Resident made his tour was like that of Europe in the most lawless epochs of the middle ages. The whole prosperity of the country depended on the strength and wisdom of the King ; and all kings since 1814 had been both weak and foolish. Extravagant and superstitious even beyond the wont of 4* ,ftiL %TT