The Press. — London, England, 1856-11-08 00:00:00

NOVEMBER 8, 1856. whether such temperaments as mine feel joy and pain more exquisitely than others do, but to hear Felix say those magical words, and to feel his eyes resting on me with love, was almost too much happiness. I had begun to know already that ho was more than all the world to me; and that a glamour was rising up between my !wart and my reason, that it wus hard to see through clearly. . . " When shall this sweet romance of ours become an everyday reality, Kathie? When will you be my wife in deed ?" he asked, gently. . _ For a few seconds I was silent: then I made answer, — "We must wait." " W ait !" he echoed impatiently. The tears sprang to my eyes, but a touch from his lips arrested their fall. Old home affections were not for gotten; but they stood back, yielding the first place to the great master•passion. Before me the brightest page in all life's book lay open : I conned its lines lingeringly, without any looking buck at past chapters, or any foreshadowings of what might be to happen before death should turn over to the finis, and shut up the book. . . . What could I do ? What could I say ? Still nothing but "We must wait." " Kathie, I have found what I love ; I want to take it to myself, and shelter it from every trouble but such as I can share !" was his impetuous reply. "And you answer me with Wait ! Are we to go on separate ways, and some day no duties coming between, to be happy ?" He half withdrew his arm, as if rejecting such a com promise; but when I shrank away, he caught me back again, and asked almost fiercely if his love were so indif• ferent to me that I could leave him thus. The glistening, happy tears in my eyes were answer enough. He returned to his that idea of the folly of waiting. I reminded him of the duties I owed at home. " Who can require the sacrifice of you ?" he passionately exclaimed; " what mother can ask her child to give up her best years to such work as yours will be?" " Oh Felix ! she would nut ask it," I replied, grieved and yet touched by his tone ; " she would toil on to her thing day rather than stand in the way of our happiness. ►o not urge me, Felix : I have a duty which I must do." "My love then is nothing to you, Kathie I You are proud : you will not let me work for you," he added. I was silent ; but the hot tears swelled into my eyes at his injustice. I eaw my future before me—quiet and tran quilly happy, even through those half bitter tear:. There would be a round of small duties to do—duties that would prevent idle anxieties and foolish fears. My life looked like a stream flowing peacefully through meadow lands; no swift currents, no shallows or dangerous quicksands showed in its course ; now and then there were int:timings from another river—gushing, sparkling, making sunny eddies where the waters met—then on they glided again with gentle ripple. Perhaps there might come a shallow across that stream ; but shadows would not stop its tide: it might wind deviously through long, long miles : it might be skirted by dusty roads where Hope would lag and Patience grow footsore ; but I saw a point where the two rivers mingled where ruse a fair city looking seawards ; thence the deep, still waves flowed on into strange lands beyond my ken—beautiful lauds where the sunshine was never dimmed, or the flowers stricken with frost or blight. 1 glanced up from my vision to find his reproach ful eyes waiting the flickering changes on my face. The sweetness of this style of writing is apt to cloy. The whole passage is very pretty. But when long reflections interfere with the direct action of the story the reader is tempted to " skip " them, however nicely written they may be in themselves. The author should check his tendency to this discursive manner. His present work would be improved by compres sion, as the sentiment often impedes the progress of the narrative; and there is some thing unpleasant in killing off characters !lively to secure the happiness of a chosen couple. Still, the impression left on the mind as we close the book is eminently pleasing ; and we may fairly congratulate the author on having produced a tender and gracefull)- told love story. Essays : Critical and imaginative. By Pro fessor Wilson. Vol. 11. London : Black- woods. THE essays contained in this volume do not, with one or two exceptions, invite criticism. The first three are the Flights of Christopher at the Lakes, and the last four are upon " Anglimania " Everyone, however superfi cially acquainted with Wilson's writings, will at once comprehend what is in store for him under the above titles, hearty, buoyant, jovial appreciation of field sports and fine scenery, interspersed with wondrous anec dotes at the expense of Cockneys and bagmen, and equally prodigious narratives of his own prowess in the consumption of " howtowdies " and Glenlivat. Wilson is probably a unique instance of the extent to which keen sporting faculties may be united with a high intellec tual and poetical development. Plenty of great intellects have delighted in the recrea tions of gun, fishing-rod, or hunter ; and plenty of good shots, riders, and anglers have IDeen men of talents and cultivation. But the THE PRESS, former, though fond of sport, have not been sportsmen ; and the latter, though fond of books, have not been famous authors. Now, Wilson we believe really was both ; and hence the peculiar originality of his works, and the power of making so much and such high en tertainment out of subjects usually considered the province of one or two minor novelists, Bell's Life, and the Sporting Magazine. We are never permitted to lose sight of the philo sophy of the thing. It is the Professor's intense abomination of everything approach ing to egotism and subjectivity (if we may use the term), and the healthy love of objective nature, which sparkles in every dashing para graph, arid lends a charm to every mischievous caricature which its mere piquancy would never have afforded. It is this, we say, which constitutes the distinctive excellence of his writings, and makes us see that beneath his broadest fun and most ludicrous exaggerations he is still " pointing a moral" : Finally, and to conclude (says he)—as our friend the Hey. Terence Macgrath is wont to say, after preaching for a couple of hours—what, it may be asked, are and ought to be the principal objects of the Lake tourist? We answer, eating and drinking. Scenery we hold is a subordinate consideration. Such is the wise conformation of our animal economy, that few persons of taste can feel happy without four or fite meals a day. Poets and philosophers generally require six. Between the essays we have mentioned at the beginning and end of the volume are three literary ones. The first the famcus one upon Tennyson—the second upon the Ameri can poet Bryant—the third on the poetry of Ebenezer Elliott. A politico-ethical one upon the punishment of death, and a memoir of Admiral Blackwood, make up the list. The review of Cullen Bryant is chiefly valuable as a proof of Wilson's fairness and candour and readiness to appreciate excel lence wherever he could find it. It is not likely that with his violent national and anti- Republican convictions he would have praised an American poet more than an Eng lish one unless he at least believed he ha 4 very strong grounds for so doing. His obser vations on America and American literature generally do him high honour. The review of Ebenezer Elliott contains the following flue portraiture of Crabbe From first to last he loved all poor men—but most ardently the men in blue ; from them he carried over— transferred his affection to people in other colours—even as fur as Quakers, though he was no great admirer of drab; and comprehended in his affection all ranks up to a duke ; but his heart to the last found itself most at home among men of high soul but low degree, who people our stormy shores in crowds. But he heeded not, in his kindliest moods, whether their souls were high or low, provided they had some strength—some character; and whatever that character was, he saw it as if by intuition, and seer, too, how it came to be what it was from circumstances acting on nature, so as to produce infinite varieties of the same class—the classes being numerous of that strange creature—man. So attentive was he to circumstances, that every tale of his is a picture of a life. No two tales— and he has written hmelreds—but are as different as may be ; and every one of them is at once so true to nature that you believe it all happened, and a novel or romance. We know not what is, if that be not genius. It is a mis take to think that he dealt only with the darker passions. He was conversant with passions of all hues ; well he loved emotions tender and bright; and of the virtues, none so dearly as fidelity and truth—witness many a maid, and wife, and widow, living and dying for lover's or husband's sake, perfectly resigned with breaking or broken hearts. And we know not what is, if that be not religion. He pitied many sins—but some he abhorred; yet he pursued with his hate the crime, not the criminal,—arol him he left to remorse, the executioner who occasionally inflicts capital punishment, but who in most cases uses the rack. And we know lot what is, if that be not moral philosophy. He knew all kinds of misery with a learned spirit—but not an inhumane ; and lie has mapped them out in myste rious empires—in lines of blood and of fire. From the turbulence, and the trouble, anti the terror he had so pro foundly studied, his own spirit was free, though they must hare visited it, passing through without finding any abiding place even in an abyss. So he could calmly, not coldly, sing of desperate and fearful things, a looker-on of the agonies, and a partaker but of the nature out of which they grow. He read few books writ by man—but they were among the best—the works of the great native poets. His library was the Bible and the Book of Nature. We could prove that—but must not now. Moreover, in the art of poetry lie is a consummate master. 'renters, Worth, Wilkie—each of them in his own art is a great master too ; but in conception, in comprehension, and in breadth and depth of colouring, Crabbe was greater than them all three—could you conceive them all three in one ;—and then, what is paiuting compared with poetry So much by way of a short imperfect notice of the greatest poet of the poor. As for the essay on Mr. Tennyson, no bygone ( Maoism has auy chance of affecting the 1073 public estimate of his genius. We can per fectly understand the feelings with which Wilson regarded him. But we look upon Professor Ferrier's apology as wholly irrele vant and mistaken. " When this review was " written," we are told, " Mr. Tennyson had " published none of those grander and more "finished compositions which have given him " a place among the immortals." But in 1832 " Locksley Hall," the poet's own favorite, with its long, deep, billowy music; the exquisite grace and pathos of those most beautiful of pastorals the " Gardener's Daughter" and the " May Queen;" the passion of " tEnone," and the philosophic pleadings of the " Two Voices," had all been given to the world. But Tennyson is a poet who to be fully appre ciated requires to be read for the first time in youth, when the passions are just awakening, when the heart is growing inquisitive, and when all nature is suggestive of something sweeter than we have yet known. What ever Wilson could admire he cordially and honestly acknowledged, but his heart was with the past, and he left it to younger critics to do homage to the poet of their own genera tion. The essay upon " Capital Punishment " is thoughtful and carefully reasoned out, and matches well with that upon " Popular Educa tion " in the preceding volume. The style of his argument induces us to believe that had he lived till now it is very likely he might have come round to an opinion adverse to the infliction of capital punishment in any case. In the present essay he only argues against the expediency of its infliction for any crime short of murder, and points out with valuable precision ani terseness the inutility of attempt ing to repress offences by sanguinary laws. His arguments in favour of its continuance in extreme cases are urged with little force, this indeed not being the point at which his efforts arc directed ; and he rather assumes the fact that it is never likely to be abolishes', and that it must therefore be justified, than endeavours to find any foundation for it in reason or theory. At the commencement of the essay there is an admirable passage on reflecting humanity in legislation. After showing that in past times cruel punishments arose from the revenge which Bacon has termed a wild kind of justice, he proceeds : In thus referring the origin of punishment to pas sionate sentiments, we at once explain its excess. Be cause it is the property of such passionate feelings to justify to themselves their own acts. Offended justice and offended power have this in common, that they never question the extremity of their resentment. It will be clear to those who inquire into such conditions of society, that, constituted as the life of man there is, turbulent and ungoverned, their spirit of understanding dark, and every thing new and indeterminate amongst them, they could refer to nothing else but in the individual case to the sentiment of the occasion ; that those impetuous dictates of feeling to which they did refer performed a most impor tant set-vice ; for that, unless they had acted fearlessly and vehemently under such impulses, there would have been a total relinquishment of all government among them— the worst state into which any society can fall. Therefore., when that state of society is come in which men deliberate with reflective humanity, and strong in the knowledge and experience of ages, upon their own legislation, they have to separate entirely the history of punishment, as it may exist among them, from the consideration of its principles. For in one they see the natural resources of uninstructed men ; but what they seek for themselves in the other, is the highest wisdom of possible human government. This spirit of reflecting humanity in legislation we scarcely find, except in Christian Europe; and there not till its latest ages. The diffusion of these humane senti• ments has gradually abolished many modes of torturing punishment, and has taken from the punishment of death very generally the enormities with which it used to be accompanied. But the softenings of justice are generally to he ascribed rather to the natural influence of a milder spirit, which revolted from shocking inflictions, than to much study of legislators to conform their general laws to the wisest principles. The fearful appendages—the hideous ostentatious of the punishments, have dropped away ; but the reconstruction of their codes upon the wisdom which the age possesses, is a work yet to be done —for most of them, yet to be begun. It seems as if great progress indeed, both intellectual and mural, were required to enable men to detach themselves in idea from the system to which their minds have been moulded; and to reform it according to the measure of their understanding and feeling. Our readers will easily see that the second volume of essays contains a no less varied fund of entertainment and information than the first, and we recommend them to add it to their bookshelves without delay.