The Press. — London, England, 1858-06-12 00:00:00

M Like other sciences resulting from experience, strate gy re:inked time for its development, and therefore its creation cannot absolutely be ascribed to Napoleon; but his cam paigns are abundantly prolific in facts showing the opera tion of certain causes and their consequences, fortunate and otherwise, and they thus greatly contributed to place on evidence a sufficient number of principles, rules, and excep tions to constitute a special doctrine, and to justify the use of new terms. It was only after this science had been for some time con• centrated in his hands, after he had shown how to use it with certainty and success, that attempts can be said to have been male to place its elements on a fired basis : thus it may be allowable to say that strategy rose to light from the campaigns of Napoleon, like tactics half a century before from the Prussian camp. It appears to us that an elementary history of the art of war, better arranged and more philo sophically written than the one before us, would be very useful, not only to the military man, but also to the historical student. The history of war is a good half of the history of mankind. The history of the results of war and the causes of war form a large part of the other half. Yet it is not easy to conceive warlike operations vividly without actual experience of them; all that the peaceable student of history can do is to mark the principal features of the military art and the principal changes which it has under gone. Such an outline of the theory and the history of war might easily be &iven by a military man if to a knowledge of his own craft he united some skill in the art of composition. Oxford Easays, 1858. Contributed by Members of the University. London: J. W. Parker and Son. (Second Notice.) SIR ALEXANDER GRANT'S essay upon " The Ancient Stoics" is suggestive and interesting, and has much of that imposing generalization which is so attractive to cursory readers. In this instance, however, it is probably better founded than it often is, and the following pas sage strikes one as not less true than brilliant: — While Stoicism passed away the Stoical spirit has continued, and still continues to reproduce itself in the world. This spirit, in its extremest form, animates the various religious ascetics—Fakirs, Trappists, and the like. The Society of Jesus, like the school of the Stoics, was founded by those the intensity of whose moral will was more prominent than the Sneness of their intellect. The parallel presented by Calvinism in its external gloom and its high necessarianiern, to the Stoical system, has been already hinted at, and might be followed out at length. The Puritans stood to the Cavaliers much as the Stoics to the Epicureans. We might say that changing sides, the same spirit manifested itself in the recurring austerities of the High-Church party, only here the attention to ceremonial showed a susceptibility to what is external alien from the Stoical tendency. Stoicism is essentially abstract; hence it is nngenial to the imagination and un favourable to poetry. While the Epicurean school could boast of Lucretius es their poet, the ancient Stoics had only the crabbed satires of Persins, and the rhetorical verses of Liman to set against him. In modern times two great works of the imagination have been claimed for 00 Stoical side, that is, for the Puritans; namely, Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Progress," and Milton's " Paradise Lost." These works coming from such a sourae must be said to be exceptional; though in the last resort no form of out• religion is to be treated as if absolutely like Stoicism, or absolutely wanting in the objective element. However, in each of the works in question, traces of the spirit to which we refer can be readily traced : in Bunyan the basis of the whole conception is abstract, it is a detailed picture or history of an inner life; in Milton, also, the'imaginative ness is sublime, but cold and unearthly, and the inspiration is drawn rather from a rich learning than from vivid itn• pressions of external life. Stoicism, while deficient in that sensuous impressiveness which is necessary for poetry, is, on the other hand, extremely suitable for rhetoric, for splendid didactic preaching, for patriotic invocations, for historical tableaux. To this cause we may attribute the partiality manifested by the French, that nation with such perfect rhetoric and so little poetry, for the ancient Stoics and all belonging to them. In feet. the works of Seneca read like a fine French sermon, and Cato and Thrasea were a model to the Girondists. On quite other grounds we may say that there is a Stoical tinge also in the English character. It might be enough to allege that Puritanism is English; but independently of religious feeling, the tendency " to shun delights and live laborious days," to sacrifice life to an idea of success, this is Stoical because it is abstract. Of the spirit of Stoicism we may now take our leave, having seen in its various manifests. tions what it is. Existing by itself it is narrow and harsh, it has too great an affinity to pride and egotism, it is too repressive of the spontaneous feelings of art, and poetry, and geniality of lite. On the other hand, it is the stimulus to live above the world. Hence while the hare Stoical spirit, in whatever form, produces only an imperfect and repulsive character, a certain leaven of it, to say the least, is necessary ; else would a man be wanting in all effort and aspiration of mind. The general tenor of this essay is not suffi ciently popular to justify us in according to it a protracted or precise criticism. Nevertheless, in one portion of it so very interesting a question THE PRESS, JUNE 12, 1858. is raised, that we cannot bring ourselves merely to include it in the above general description. The question is " The Stoical Principle of Life according to Nature," and Sir Alexander says : The phrase " follow nature," to express the highest kind of life, has never yet established itself in language. " One touch of nature makes the whole world kin"—that is, any perfectly simple and instinctive feeling, the very opposite of anything abstract or cultivated. Again, the " natural man," as opposed to the " spiritual man," denotes some thing utterly different from the Stoical idea of perfection, Thus, comtson parlance retains its own associations con nected with the term nature, and rejects those of the Stoics. But it is interesting to observe that Bishop Butler has espoused their formula, and has argued that " natnre " does not mean single impulses or desires, but the idea of the constitution of the whole, reason and con science as regulative principles being taken into considera tion. Butler's object in maintaining this position was ob viously one relative to his own times. As in appealing to a selfish age he thought it necessary to assert that virtue was not inconsistent with the truest self-love, so also he argued that virtue was not against natnre, but in reality man's natural state. He here takes up, just like the Stoics, an abstract ideal of nature ; for he makes the basis of his reasoning a proviso that the moral rules of conscience not only exist, but that they have anthotity—that is, that tluy control, as they ought to do, the rest of the human principles. Into the difficulties of the question Butler has not entered. For instance, while he is perfectly successful in establishing against the Hobbists the reality of the moral elements in man's nature, he does not tell us whether or not he would agree with the Stoics in ultimately giving the entire supremacy to man's reason and conscience, so as to supplant the other instincts, or at what point he would stop. Again, he would ask him to define more accu rately his idea of " life according to nature." Is the life of the saints and martyrs to be called a life according to nature? If not, is it better or worse? and if better, is not man to aim at the better? The whole question is one not of mere words, but implying the discussion of a very im portant subject—namely, the way in which life is to be con ceived. There is one mode of representation which describes life as a progress, a conflict, a good fight ; another which makes it the following of nature. On the one hand, there is the spirit of' aspiration and effort, the tendency to asceticism, the victory of the will; on the other hand, there are the genial, kindly, human feelings, there is the " wise passivity " of mind, and there is the breadth of sympathy which counterbalances an oyerconcentrated intensity of aim. To make the formula " life according to nature " of any value, we require to have these contradictory tendencies harmonized with each other. We should then see whether the term " nature " is at all capable of ex pressing the highest kind of life, or whether we must con• tinue to think that this is something rather above " nature " (as it exists in man) than a following of nature. We should see how far it is really possible to conceive a harmony, without the suppression of either, not only between the "law of the members " and the "law of the spirit," but also between the inner life and the interests and enjoyments ofthe external world. It does not appear to us that there can be so very much difficulty about what the phrase "life ac cording to nature" means. It may be either regenerate or unregenerate nature ; but, in either case, it will mean conduct springing from a due development of all that Nature has given us, since Nature can have given us nothing in vain, and duly directed towards that end which Nature directs us to attain—orov T;i; )41404,VC 11)10'911CW T;VTO cn t Alr Tirest T;ly SILT keio-Toa. Now, all men, Pagans and Christians, are agreed that that end is happiness, whether earth or heaven is the scene of its fruition. And then we are thrown upon the question whether virtue or vice produces the larger amount of happiness. Here Butler, observing the more frequent re currence of vice punished than vice escaping with impunity, pronounces that virtue, by leading us to the end appointed by Nature, is the "life according to nature." As to " saints and martyrs," the question is a little more difficult, but only at first sight. Christianity has taught us that there is a certain portion of our nature mysteriously corrupt. In living according to nature, then, we are not to live according to the diseased but the sound part of it. How far the taint of original sin extends, we may perhaps be permitted to say is a moot point. And accord ing to our views of this subject will be our opinion whether the life of the saint or martyr does or does not violate the Aristotelic mean. This is a subject that would well hear amplification; and we have always been rather surprised that Mr. Maurice has passed it over in his account of the Stoics. Mr. Dasent's account of the Canon Law seems to be minute and conscientious. But no one critic can be expected to grasp so great a variety of grave subjects as one of these volumes usually presents to us, and accordingly all that we feel justified in saying is that the subject is treated in an attractive style, and that the language is elo quent and impressive. We would especially re commend to our readers p. 217, In which the theory of the canon law is sketched out in a pas sage of remarkable power and beauty. Mr. Goidwin Smith's article on "University Reform" is not one of that gentleman's happiest efforts. For a wonder, the style is heavy and the treatment perplexed. Behold a miracle instead of wit— See two dull lines with Stanhope's pencil writ. It is little more than a summary of what has been already done, and as such is almost superfluous. The only opinion we can get at with any degree of clearness is one in favour of the marriage of fellows, the ill consequences of which the fellows of Trinity College, Dublin, are just beginning to find out. Of the multiplication of scholarships, we can only say that there are two sides to the question. Instead of making real scholarship plentiful, it may only dilute it. Because more men walk about Oxford in scholar's gowns, it does not prove that there are more scholars. Indeed, if much that we hear from Oxford can be trusted, there are not so many. But Libe ralism is pledged to change, whether for good or for evil, and of course the new Liberal Professor must wield the broom with vigour. As a spe cimen of reckless assertion, read the following : The whole of English life is changed ; and if we _ now too open to the charge of worshippink wealth, let __ be borne in mind that the age which worshipped mendicancy ground honest labour to the dust. Mr. Froude has pretty well overturned this view of the Middle Ages; and Mr. Goldwin Smit' would do well to borrow some of that gentle man's careful and conscientious habits. The Works of Professor Wilson. Vol. XII. Poems. London : Blackwoods. PROFESSOR WILSON was one of those happily, constituted men in whom prose seems to melt into poetry, and poetry to assume all the more masculine attributes of prose. He had that rare gift by which a man is enabled to drink in all glories of the imagination, and to enjoy at same time all the bustle and excitement of prac• tical life. He had Johnson's eye for Fleet-street, and Wordsworth's eye for the Nereid. lie WWI, in every sense of the word, physically, morally, andintellectually, a large man. What other people make specialties he took in his stride What poetry is to some men, politics to others, religion to a third class, and history or philosoph: to a fourth, that was human life to Professor Wilson. He was so many-sided a man that from whatever point we regard him we do not see whole. When his poems were first published, the Edinburgh Reviewers classed him with Cole ridge, Wordsworth, and Southey, and rather insinuated that he would outstrip all three in race up the sides of Parnassus. When Blaea wood's Magazine was established, the same man immediately took a high place as a political writer and literary critic; while in his chair at Edin• burgh he as instantaneously pushed into front rank as a lecturer. When a shooting party started in the cool of an August sunrise on the Scottish hills, who was so safe a "double shot' as the learned Professor ? And who, whc whisky-flasks were produced, and the gam( counted out in the shade, so full of " quip and cranks " as that golden-haired son of the morning ? By the river-side he was equally deadly; and are not his exploits on the back of Colonsay written in the book of the Recreations of Christopher North ? To review the poems of such a man is like writing an essay on the finger-nails of Venus, or the curls of Hercules. The man, the whole man, and nothing but the man, is our cry when we think of the Professor. But nevertheless , as his poems arc now for the first time submitted to this Journal for review, common etiquette com pels us to say something about them. " The Isle of Palms," originally published lu 1812, seems, then, to us exactly what might have been expected from the youth of such a ma n as Wilson—exquisitely tender and pathetic, broad in view and manly in tone, but slightly over charged (for the general reader) with the rap turous admiration of nature, which afterwards sobered down into the beautiful descriptions we meet with in his prose writings. A young gentle man and young lady on board ship are introduced making love by moonlight. The ship strikes on a hidden rock, and all on board arc lost except these two. Securing one of the ship's boats, they make for a desert island, which in natural beauty realizes the Western Isles of Homer. Having 1 Pas- Tsity Tim and been aous. agree e of llows ag to ;hips, o the rship more as, it olars. I can Libe- od or 'essor spe- g : ve are let it icancy view imith XII. melt more t rare ;II the it the prac- treet, was, rally, other tride. thers, Kophy fessor from !se the ished, Cole- other n the t lack- man ;Titer Uhl- ) the party n the shot" when game 1 of 'aired e he its on the ev lc w essay curls and we as his :ed to corn- ed in have an as broad over- rap- ,vards Rs WC !ntle- 'need es on 'wept they amity aving