The Press. — London, England, 1857-08-29 00:00:00

848 fitcraturt. 2'he Letters of Horace Walpole. Edited by Peter Cunningham. Vol. 111. London : Bentley. THERE cannot possibly be pleasanter summer reading than the letters of Walpole. There is a freshness and lightness of touch about them which always charms, and their variety of matter has something in it for everybody's taste. Gossip about former beauties, safe scandal of a century ago, piquant anecdotes, lively allusions, literary " criticisms," inge nious theories, historical discoveries, and dna of every kind, abound in his pages. Though we read his letter 3 again and again, after a little time they seem to us as lively and fresh as ever. But we cannot review Walpole; our task is with his latest editor. In the third volume, now before us, Mr. Peter Cunningham has greatly improved. He has cut himself down by half, and he has left out many of his too obtrusive " CUNNINGILM"S. The admonitions of the various journals apparently have not been without effect. Walpole as a writer was sharp, neat, cleancutting, and close in his style. Mr. Peter Cunningham is often the reverse of these. He thi►,ks and writes like a stale Boswell, forgetting that Boswell had original matter, and took great pains with h►s composition. Mr. Cunningham dots down whatever comes into his head, and must put in his scraps of cards whether they are relevant or the reverse. Ho does not apply a critical or judicial standard to his annotations. lie composes by an artificial system of mnemonics, and must work out the matter at his command. But let us be thankful : he has cut himself down in the present volume, and so far there is a great improvement. In our former notices of this edition we have shown the inexactness in small matters of Mr. Cunningham. In the present volume there is still room for criticism. The text runs : The famous Miss Elizabeth Villiers Pitt is in England ; the only public place in which she has been seen is the Popish chapel ; her only exploit, endeavours to wreak her malice on her brother William. whose kindness to her has been excessive. She applies to all his enemies, and, as Mr. Fox told me, has even gone so fur as to send a bundle of his letters to the author of the " Test," to prove that Mr. Pitt has cheated her, as she calls it, of a hundred a year, end which only prove that lie once allowed her two, and atter all her wickedness still allows her one. How she must be vexed that she has no way of setting the gout more against him ! Adieu! tell me if you receive all my letters. Upon which the note says : Sister of William Pitt, afterwards Earl of Chatham.— Watrotz. See vol. ii. p. 470. Let me add here that the Mrs. Pitt of vol. ii. p. 367 is this El.kibeth Pitt, not her sister Anne Pitt. She married John Hannani, Esq., and died 14 Feb. 1770.--CuNsiNoHwm. What was Miss Elizabeth Pitt "famous " for? NVe know that her sister " Anne" was cele brated in more ways than one ; but a reader would like to have had. from " CUNNINGHAM " some information about Miss Elizabeth Pitt, and why she had been seen in the Popish chapel. The text runs : Admiral Byng's tragedy was completed on Mond.iy—a perfect tragedy, for there were variety of incidents, villainy, murder and a hero His sufferings, persecutions, aseer- SIOUS, disturbances, nay, the revolutions of his fate, had not in the least unhinged his mind ; his whole behaviour was natural and firm. A few days befure,one of his friends standing by him said, " Which of us is tallest ?" He re plica, "Why this ceremony ? I know what it means; let the man come and measure me for my coffin." Ile said, that being acquitted of cowardice, and being persuaded on the coolest reflection that he had acted fur the hest, and should act so again, he was not unwilling to suffer. He desired to be shot on the quarter-deck, not where common malefactors are; came out at twelve, set down in a chair, for he would not kneel, and refused to have his face covered, that his countenance might show whether he feared death ; but being told that tt mieht frighten his ezecu'•ioners, he submitted, gave the signal at once, re ceived One shot through the head, number through the bout, and fell. Do cowards live or die thus? Can Ciat man want spirit who only fears to terrify his executioners? /Ids the aspen Duke of Newcastle lived thus? Would my Lord Hardwicke die thus, even aupposiug he had nothing conscience ? capital writing. There is narrative. light satire—" the aspen Luke of "—and pointed sarcasm is the It i 8 Writing uv t 9 s level With the THE PRESS, AUGUST 29,1857. °cession, and Mr. P. Cunningham spoils it with his note : Admiral Byng, on the morning of his execution, took his usual draught for the scurvy.—CUNNINOHANI. The note should have " dele." It suggests acting on the part of the Admiral, and asso ciates the ridiculous with a tragedy. The long letter from Walpole to Hume (pp. 150-3) has the note : Now first collected. From " Letters of Eminent Per• sons addressed to David Hume," edited by J. H. Burton, Bvo , 1819.—CUNNINGhAM. Walpole never penned a letter which should have been subjected to stricter annotation ; but Mr. Cunningham leaves it alone. The text runs : I perceive by what you and others have said to me, sir, that the freedom I have taken with Sir Philip Sidney is what gives most offence : yet I think, if my words are duly weighed, it will be found that my words are too strong, rather than my argument weak. I say, when we at this distance of time inquire what prodigious merits excited such admiration. What admiration ? why, that all the learned of Europe praised him, all the poets of England lamented his death, the republic of Poland thought of him for their king. I allow Sir Philip great valour, and from some of his performances good sense ; but, dear air, compare his talents with the admiration they occasioned, and that in no unlettered, no unpolished age, and can we at this distance help wondering at the vastness of his character? Allowing as much sense to Sir Philip as his warmest admirers can demand for him, surely this country has produced many men of far greater abilities, who have by no means met with a proportionate share of applause. It were a vain parade to name them—take Lord Bacon alone, who I be- lieve of all our writers, except Newton, is most known to foreigners, and to whom Sir Philip was a puny child in genius, —how far was he from attaining an equal degree of fame and honour? To say the truth, I attribute the great admiration of Sir Philip Sidney to his having so much merit and learning for a man of his rank, Rams enim forme sensus communis in illii Fortuui. Sidney is one of the glories of England ; and an annotator might have intimated that the effeminate Walpole, an habitual sneerer, was entirely unable to appreciate such a being as Sir P. Sidney. Mr. Cunningham leaves the letter without a single word. This long letter was originally published in Mr. Burton's " Hume Correspondence." The subsequent remarks on Lord Falkland would also have re• quired annotation, but Mr. Cunningham is not " up " in that period of English history. In the same lengthy letter the text runs : When you allow that I am at all justifiable in mistaking your sense, I must not retract, and therefore 1 will only say that the words, "conduct much more natural could not however procure Lord Halift , x the character of integrity," di 1 seem to me to say, that though his trimming more probably flowed from integrity than policy, yet it could not attain the reputation of the former. In general, too, T must own that you seemed to make him figure as a more considerable minister than I had thought him ; for thus, sir, one compares one's own scanty and superfi , !ial reading, with the study of an historian, who has long and diligently weighed every circumstance. so long on the stocks is to come forth with Mr. Cunningham's aid. We are sorry for it. The style of Mr. Cunningham's slipshod notes is entirely unsuited to the annotation of classical authors. We do not think it fair that the letter "N," for " New," should in the table of contents be placed after letters which are only " col lected" from various publications. In purely original letters, never before published, we are as yet much disappointed by this edition; and unquestionably Al.r. Cunningham has not increased his literary rank by this work. On the contrary, by his obtrusiveness of the eternal " CUNNINGHAM " in capital letters, by the irrelevancy of many notes, the incorrect ness of not a few, and by the want of good composition, the editor has exposed himself to some severe depreciation. even in quarters where none other than friendly sentiments could prevail towards him. We may be told of his multifarious occupations, 'out such ex cuses are not held valid in a court of criticism. Authors like Pope and Walpole demand the homage of scholarly precision in their editors, and Bishop B►.rnet's style of English is not the model on which a book-editor should form his composition. City Poems. By Alexander Smith, Author of " A Life Drama," and Other Poems. Cambridge : Macmillan and Co. WE suppose that the present volume will generally be considered superior to any thing which Mr. Smith has yet produced. It is, in onr opinion, a considerable improvement on the " Life Drama;" it is more refined, more simple, and contains broader views. Yet, after all, it is a difference rather of degree than of kind. " City Poems" are very far from settling the question of the author's rank among his brethren. There is in them much of high promise, but no one passage upon which we can lay our finger and say this poe. sesses all the attributes of poetry of the best sort. Mr. Smith's verses want more power. They do not yet ring out with that clear, full report that marks the utterance of a writer sure of what he means himself, and sure that it is worth tolling. Taken in detail, how ever, they present many passages of rich and striking beauty. The occasional resemblance to Mr. Tennyson is, we believe, accidental, and only a result of the Laureate's legitimate influence on a younger generation. Mr Smith has an exuberant imagination, a fertility of pic turesque languaee, and a happy art of adapting the sound to the sense. But the effect of these poetic gifts is greatly lowered by a singular inaccuracy of epithet, incongruity of metaphor, and wearisome tautology both of sentiment and expression. When we meet with any poetic figure, it is an even chance whether it turn out very fine or very abortive. In exa- mining his poems one by one, we shall pay special attention to this point. The present volume contains six poems, which are entitled " City Poems," from being the supposed product of one who has lived all his life in a large city, and only lately awakened to the beauties of natural scenery. The first is named " Horton," and is a species of dialogue between the author and some of his companions relative to a deceased friend of that name. It opens with a description of the poet in bed, listening to the noises in the street below; presently he hears a cry of fire, on which he reflects as follows : " Ah, ha," I thought, " That maniac. Fire, is loose ; who was so tame, When little children looked into his face, He laughed and blinked within his prison•grate, His fit is on ; the merry winking elf Has rushed into it hungry crimson fiend: Now he will seize a house, crush in the roof, And leap nail dance above his prey, and throw His roaring fliekeriag arms across the ►ky— --- - _ May he be bound again !" These reflections are, perhaps, a little unna tural; but the language is nut) , poetical, and the three words, " a hungry crimson fiend," approach the sublime. He then goes to sleep. and dreams that the God Sleep conducts him to the Vale of Lethc. In answer to one of his questions— Sleep did not raise His heavy lids, but in a drowsy voice, Like uniriuur of a leafy sycamore When bees are swartuius iu the glimmer*leavos. L.oni riaruwic on his conscie That is es argument, Newcastle passage. And Mr. Cunningham adds the note : George Savile, Martptia of Halifax, a man more remark able for his wit thnn his steadiness, and whom an ingenious modern historian Mr. Hnme] has erected into a principal character in the reign of Charles 11. Walpole'e Boyal and Noble Authors.--CUNNISONAM. A miserable note ! Halifax fully deserved the station which Hume then, and Mr. Macaulay since, assigned to him. It is laughable indeed to see Walpole decrying Halifax, who was a wit, a great orator, a ruling statesman, and who even in his follies attempted successfully to be what Walpole was—not. When Cumberland, the dramatic writer, is mentioned, the following note is appended : Richard Cumberland, Bentley's nephew—the original of Sir Fretful Plagiary, whom to his last day he resembled. I knew him very well for the last dozen years of his life.— Cam:En. MS. Mr. Croker might have been a little more liberal in his note on Camborland, but we suppose that he recollected what Cumberland had said of himself. It is an odd circumstance that one of the best things. ever said or written on the character of Sheridan should have come front i , umberland's pen. On the east of the tine hand that penned the Critie, Cumber land wrote the admirable enigram Gond at a tight, and better at a ploy, Godlike in giving, but khe devil to pay. His sarcasm about the "talking potato" was less graceful, but stuck for a l u ng time to its object. The mention of Mr Cro ker's name reminds us that it ie reported tilt the edition of Pope