The Press. — London, England, 1853-09-10 00:00:00

principles of legislative ludicy" — the opponents being Mackintosh, Erskine, and Wattage (!) owl the error is glaring of attributing to Sir James Mackintosh a well-lintown passage from Lord Broughams published portrait of Burke's character. Mr. Montgomery writes (Essay, p. 12) of " those illustrious men, Chatham, Holland, Pitt, and Fox." Is it the late Lord Holland, orhis grandfather, who is here ranked with " illustrious" chracters? Yet iu spite of these inaccuracies the volume contains a great deal of the pith of Burke's political philosophy. His collected works tire volioninous, and many persons will be glad to have access in this portable volume to the wisdom of the greatest polities! writer of any age—so happily called by Mr. Grattan " a I►rodik7 of nature and acquisition." As specimens of the manner in which the extracts are selected we will take two, illus trative of present polities. Sir Charles Wood may peruse the first with advantage, and think of Mr. Bright's bite speeches : ouitu II IN NII r sr.i.F•itEimoir I•. I'ISS44. Will Wi Sil4l l innulit the reformation of Italia to the ilestrop•rs of it are the illeiniert to that reformation. They Wlllllll 1111110 e a distinction b e tween Ilireetona and 1111). prietioN which, in 11i•• kat*. of iltingm, *194441'10t, eau t exist. lint a right honourable golitlemati Kays, Its, w0u1d415.11 thl . iiiii 'lll of 111111 A 111 tlit . court of ilirectorh; tis IWO .V 14111 , 0 is sass ! That is, he would appisitit the old offenders to elirrect the old 141.111 . vm; Nlllllll. monad I1•11d1 . 1* 1114• the flN*llsll Wisl. a n d %knolls, by Kalittliq rognitttlulta• lie would i mpala the wolf as Wlllllllllll sof thy 14111 . 111; lilt he ham 111%111114 itemriuns 11111/./.lr, by N1114•111.111s protedilig wolf shall Hilt I I oia•ii jaws above au holt iir tw's ul thr mluwsl. 'Thus lis work is tloisholl. Bid I tell the right 11 1111 l soluble IS lid 110114 Si 1115111 iiVity Mit iiii iN•l'lll . 4 . ; and 11111111.1 s lust the hammy tit* itelitameney in chains that will eiirrl•et Will these Sir the llilretiou iiii i Mid% all the partners of their gown guilt" Never slid a serissits plat' of amending :toy Ail tyrannical i.l4toblishilicilt provii,o , the authors mid alwttiliN of the Auto* 101 the relloiiii•rs of them. At the risk of inereaming Lord Aberdeen's moroseness, total of making his Chancellor of the Exchequer " afraid of getting into at pas sion," we will take the next, upon I %I.sle. COALITIONS. No slstum of that kiln' can Is is .111Ied %%bids will not 'CAW room fully sidlieirsit ti,r healing enalithins : but no csialiti which, under the speei 0000 s name sit ilia(' retitlelley, 191111e/1 iu itslsni , m the 1111111 . 1111e11141 mineiill4.l4 41111111 441 1 . gins' discord of parties, ever was, or will be, an healing coalithai. Nor will the mind of our Sovereign v‘ er kuoi repose, his kingdom settlement, sir his business n nler, until things are 1'41110161114 I 111$011 the bllttiS of home Net of men who are trusted by the public, and mho can trust One another. There is a good index at the end of the volume. Bleak Muse. Nos. XIX. and XX. By Charles Dickens. Tamdon: Bradbury and Evans. ExTENsiv K and continued popularity render the completion of every new romance by Mr. Dickens a sort of era, interesting on a double account, not merely as challenging an estimate of the special work itself in its entirety. but also as affording it datum lino from which a critical observer can determine the degree of progress—or retrogression-440(4m by t h e author in his orbit, as ono of the recognised luminaries of the literary heaven. Employed thus as a test and index, the just-completed "Bleak House" does not alter but deepen and confirm the judgment which his preceding roduet ions have led us to form of their writer. Air. Dickens is the father of the serial romance, RIO still appears the most popular of serial romaneists. With every fresh attempt and renewed experience he shows himself, for good and evil, more thoroughly imbued with the serial spirit. Every new creation exhibits a more complete mastery over the resourees — a more ready adaptation to the requirenn.nts— a more dextrous use of the opportunities—and a more thorough subjection to the shackles and shortcomings incidental to the peculiar mode of publication which he has made eni phatically his own. Bleak House." in this sense, is incontestably the best and the worst of its author's productions. Never were de tached scenes more strikingly written—never was dialogue more dramatic—and never were the popular cries and prejudices of the day More adroitly seized or more aptly used and abused than in this latest of M r. Dickens's novels. 4nd yet, never in any of his previous works were the detached scours more loosely tied THE PRESS. together, Or more obviously disconnected with the final and hurried concluition of the story into which they were worked. Seldom were charac ters more ingeniously imagined or more piquantly described than many of those which figure in the pages of " Bleak House ;" and never also were those characters set moving to so little purpose, or employed about a drama whose progress or conclusion bore so slight a relationship with the action of any of its per sonages. Sbldom, in short, were the " parts" so brilliant, or "the whole" so unsatisfactory. We do nut Wonder, accordingly, to find that the book has attracted more readers titan any of its pre deeessors; and at the same time we cannot deny that the result has been produced by an exaggeration of all the fa u lts and a reckless use of all the artifices to which this species of composition is prone. Judged by some of the foregone numbers, " Bleak House" promised to be, beyond com parison, the best work of its author ; —judged by the conclusion, it must be ranked as his worst. In no previous rountuee have the drafts drawn by Mr. Dickens upon public curiosity been more flagrantly dishonoured—have the enigmas tauntingly woven been mere weakly explained, or left move freqUently without ex planation—or the elaborate preparations made for " something" during the progress of dip story 114'4'11 found to lead to " nothing" in the end. The double, and final, number before us might indeed be inscribed, like the last chapter of " Russel:in." as a "conclusion in which no thing was concluded." It is lamentably' dis appointing. Throughout eighteen numbers it uomplicated and highly ingenious series of scaffoldings had been erected, but they are loft without a pile at lust. Assuming that our readers know the story already, we may very briefly point out a few of the many specimens of resultless ingenuity which it presents. There is, fur example, a won derfully clever lawyer, who hunts out and holds the key to an infinity of secrets ; and, among others, of the secret of the book. But his knowledge leads to nothing. He is murdered, and his murder leads to nothing. The secret is discovered, and the discovery leads to no thing. His murderess is detected ; and her detection fills pages upon pages with descrip tions—exceedingly effective in their way—of I nspector Bucket's (aliaa Field's) supernatural acuteness. But the detection leads to nothing ; and Hortense is not even tried for the crime. Then there is a great deal about George the trooper, and Sinallweed the bill-dealer, and tirook the lug-and-bone collector. Among them there turns up a genuine last-will-and testament, competent to settle finally the long litigated cause of Jarmlyce v. Jurudyce." But it does not settle it—as the cause has just died of inanition beforehand—so that nothing comes of amt. It was, indeed, a hackneyed minor-theatrical device to produce such a will at all ; and we hardly wonder, therefore, that Mr. Dickens should have been rather ashamed to make any conspicuous use of it when he had got it. But this reluctance, natural as it might be, adds one more to the coups snantoes already too numerous in his romance. Even the central movement, which is sup posed to react upon all the rest—the great Chancery suit—leads to nothing, or next to it, after all. " Rick," indeed, dies of disappoint• ment when the suit collapses ; but there is nothing chametelistic of Chancery in the event or its antecedents. Mr. Carstone's passion and fate, as well as those of most of the actual " instances" to which we are referred in the preface, belting much more t o the g a mbler than the suitor. Rick might have squandered his money and thrown time and life away in many another sort of speculation—in Bartho lomew-lane ; in a St. Martin's betting-office ; in a tlermyn-street " hell "—under circum stances much more natural and probable than those which attracted hint to Lincoln's Inn. It is not on the score of its " fascination " that the Court of Chancery can be most appro priately assailed. The idea of making a Chan cery suit the centre and pivot of a story was doubtless a happy one. Chancery forms the most popular grievance of the day, and affords alonelant scope for popular satire, and for good rotund earnest denunciation calculated to at tain still wider popularity. These ILL Maims 1341.:(7p4y, has provided with his combined skill and igno rance. His pictures of the Court and its doings arc wonderfully vivacious, and wrought up with consummate art ; but the idea is not worked out for all that. The prominent failing of the work encounters us here also. An elaborate foun dation is laid, and left without a superstruc ture. We can say nothing in defence of the comic characters—or what are intended to be such— ,in " Bleak House." Everything connected with Mr. Guppy and his friends is altogether detestable. Mr. Dickens seems long since to have discarded the character of a low hu morist, in which, heretofore, he so much excelled. Certain it is that all his recent at tempts at presentable clowns have been un mitigated failures. A History of the Greek Insurrection (in Greek). First Volume. London : Traylor and Francis. EVEN the titlepage of this book is a literary curiosity. A modern work in Attic tireek, bearing the impress TATIAOPUT KM .PATKUKOT, and emanating ix lit; 4.01 TOU IFLOCOL MOTO; Tteiroy ecsOise,ii a pheno menon. We may doubt whether fium, .tc., is a Thu cydidean rendering of " Lted Lion-court," and may desire to look at the work itself for a better test of its pretensiens ; but it arrived so immediately before the publication of our present number, that, to tto this with any fairness to the author of the history, we must defer it till such time as we can pretend to consider it critically. 7ertsruk and Eulalit.. lty Georgiana E. lit &e. London: Routledge. A s.to sentimental story, related in a style we thought had been almost extinct. It is fitly introduced by a frontispiece representing a spaniel—poor " lido" of course—lying on a grave and refusing to be coaxed front it by a pretty group of rustic children. It may be supposed that that kind of religious element pre dominates in it of which, in intellect at least, WO llichmond's " Dairyman's Daughter " was the lowest type, and Washington Irving's notice of the " son Girls" the highest. We certainly do not think such reading of a healthy tendency for young people; and for many reasons—for the falsehood of the port raj Lure, if for none o ther—we would keep out of their. view death-beds decked out with roses, violets, and all the heightened colouring of a hectic fancy. Three Original Plays. By John Wynne. London : Bosworth. Mn. WissE has great vivacity, and an ardent desire to distinguish himself; but it is in some respects unlucky that he can afford to gratify a whim by the publication of this volume. It is altogether imma ture, or, to speak more plainly, raw. The prose is a kind of halting blank verse. " Told you he his name ?" asks one of the characters ; and the'plot and incidents exhibit such a degree of infantine simplicity as would expose genius itself to ridicule. The author, we think it probable, from his energy and lively concep tions, ham the germ of dramatic success within but as yet it has only pushed forth the green leaf—tho ripened harvest is far, far behind. India : its History (1); Climate (2) ; Productions (3); and Field Sports (4) ; with Notices fti European Lffe (5) ; and Manners (6) ; and q/ the Various Travelling Routes (S). By J. 1-1. Stocqueler. London: Routledge. WE have taken a little liberty with Mr. Stocqueler's titlepage, that we may the better exhibit the compre hensive information he has contrived to squeeze into •907 small pages. Very much of his matter, scanty as it is, we fancy he has made use of in various ways before. A censorship exercised over railway reading would be joyfully welcomed by all frequenters of "the line" : having in the outlay of a shilling been frequently bit, we can afford to pity the unfortunates who should attempt to beguile a weary hour or two with this ingenious piece of patchwork. A good deal of 4ictionary sort of information it does contain no doubt, but, should its red covers and bordered title page tempt any of our readers at a railway-stall, we advise them to check their hand. The Wine Duties. By W. W. Whitmore. London : Longman and Co. AN important pamphlet at the present moment, which we shall notice when—as we shortly purpo,k we enter upon the consideration of proposals to deal with the wine duties. IiECEIVIA). Pantroplaron. Soyor. Sitni.kin and Marshall. elninh 0j Scotland ill aim:inc. II all, Virtue, laid 4 S.ntra. N'. 4. J. 11. v. iSl4‘44l§ to Ul4; ami the Lail , ultra% mlip 6.