The Press. — London, England, 1856-06-07 00:00:00

JUNE 7, 1856. We fancy that Sir Philip Francis (a friend of Tooke), also, knew that poem well. In his celebnited contiast between the talents of Pitt and Fox, Francis writes, taking trees for his metaphorical illustration : Mr. Fox's powerful understanding grew like a forest oak .—not by cultivation but by neglect. Mr. Pitt was a plant of an inferior order, though marvellous in its kind, a smooth bark, with the deceduons pomp and decoration of a rich foliage, and blossoms, and flowers, whioh drop off of themselves, leaving the tree naked at last to be judged of by its fruits. There is much coarseness in many parts cf these minor poems, and finical people, who cannot make allowance for change of manners, will often be offended. But there is an Eng lish stamp upon them all, and we feel in read ing them that Jonson might have excelled in any intellectual pursuit to which he applied himself. In his introduction, Mr. Bell has skilfully used the materials of Aubrey and others for giving us a distinct picture of the brave old poet. Mr. Bell freely acknowledges the labours of other explorers, and particu prises some biographical discoveries of Mr Collier and Mr. Peter Cunningham. His example ought to be copied in that respect, as some of the book editors in our time are not sufficiently liberal towards the toils of their c mtemporaries. We observe two or three minor slips. Thus, at page 48, the note states on the epigram to Sir Henry Cary, " The first Lord Falkland, son of Sir Edward "Cary, and father of the gallant Henry, Lord " Falkland." For " Henry " it should be `Lucius." The mistake is set tight at page 240 in the "Underwoods," when the note mentions "Sir Lucius Cary, better known as " the gallant Lord Falkland." We must observe, also, that Mr. Bell has omitted to supply a table of contents, which is much wanted, for convenience. The general character of the annotation does high credit to the editor. We think that Mr. Bell has, beyond question, taken a higher degree in letters by this serial publication. He may be excelled in minute learning by some of his contemporaries (though there is no defi ciency in that respect), but few unite so much vigour of dissertation with such variety of knowledge, There is no symptom of flagging on his part ; and we think that this publica tion of " the Annotated Poets " improves as it advances. It is remarkably cheap ; the type and paper are excellent, and the literary illustration is distinguished by scholarship and manly sense. Bacon's Essays. With Annotations by Richard Whately, D.D., Archbishop of Dublin. London : J. W. Parker and Son. Da. WHATELY is still a busy man, and he has such happy confidence in his powers that no subject comes amiss to his hand. With his reputation a very moderate amount of labour will go a long way. His intellect is of the confident bustling class which he eulogises in one of his commentaries here—the class which is tolerably sure of success through having no dread of failure. The character is not uncommon in our day ; it is well fitted for the hard, rough work of professional life, and of course attains far greater success than the more gifted, but more sensitive and scrupu lons, class of mind A good parallel might be drawn bstween the Archbishop of Dublin and the Lord Chief Justice ; and numerous other persons who in our ago have worked their wity to high station, might not unaptly be classed with them. Such men originate nothing ; though sometimes they have the perception, and so far the merit, to discern the value of ideas before they become common, and to discern in them germs of power and popularity. Usually the fame of such men expires before their life. The higher intelli gence which their audacity dominates for a time, asserts its superiority, and leaps before them. They are mechanical workers, not masters in their path of pursuit. In Dr. Whatelv's rationalism there is nothing original. It is but the rationalism of such w . titers as Paley, carried to the point at which sure to break down. Tho Archbishop's mind is acute, but not inventive, and still less profound. His ideas run in a mould of formal unu• Compared with such theological writers THE PRESS. as James B. Mozley and Penrhyn Stanley, his cold superficial logic appears a century be hind hand. It is questionable whether his works have not done quite as much harm as good. While professing to give belief a shield, he has given scepticism a sword, and the offensive weapon has proved the strongest. Why conceal the truth ? Naked reasoning never made any man a Christian yet. Reason must veil its power in presence of the mysteries of the Christian faith. Belief must rise from the sub mission of reason to those instincts of our nature which crave communion with God, and eagerly accept his revelation from a feeling that it alone is sufficient to satisfy the wants of our spiritual being. In this sense the evi dente of Christianity is within us, and without the perception of this evidence it is doubtful whether true belief can exist All the Arch bishop's reasoning is little better than negation. On the is hole, he thinks the balance of evidence, nicely weighed with pros and cons , is more fa vorable to the divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ than to the supposition of rank imposture. Is this specula►ive opinion likely to warm the heart, or to satisfy the mind, ardently desiring some assurance and realisa tion within itself of the Divine presence of the Comforter ? In this volume the Archbishop quotes with approbation from an old number of the Edin burgh Review some sentences which exactly express his theology or philosophy, which ever term he may please to adopt. Among the things which future philosophers will marvel at, One is that any man should have been called on to believe any mystery, whether of philosoph3 or of religion, without a preponderance of evidence which he can grasp. Here we have a true expression of the Whutelyan creed. The understanding is in all eases to be supreme. We are to accept nothing except on evidence which we can grasp. Dryden asks:— How can the less the greater comprehend ? That is a question which the Archbishop should first have solved before, as proud in his vainglorious logic as the French Atheists worshipping a prostitute, he ventured to deify naked reason. Is it really so easy to put a quart pot into a pint pot ? Let that be shown, and we shall then be better inclined to allow that the mysteries which surround the Being and the Throne of the Almighty who created us can be brought within the comprehension of the reason which is, and can he, but a scin tilla of His infinite intelligence. When we know how the finite can equal the infinite, we shall perhaps be ready to allow that the mys teries of religion can be brought within the scope of mortal mind. Are there no myste ries which baffle even the reasoning faculties of Archbishop Whately? Can he give us even a feasible conception of the Eternity which has no beginning and no end ; or of the Exist ence which by a daring stretch of the ima gination we can conceive to be superior to Eternity itself? To descend from the region of metaphysi cal theology, is it true that even in the ordinary affairs of this world men act, or can act, on the principle of believing nothing of which they cannot grasp the evidence ? Our whole exist ence on earth, as regards earthly things, is a life of faith. The child has faith in his parents, the youth in his teachers, the man in his superiors. How many persons, by evi dence which they can grasp, know the com monest facts of astronomy, as that the moon is 237,519 miles from the earth, and that the sun is 883,246 miles in diameter? Is it more an evidence of folly in any man to receive without cavil tho truths of Christianity from those qualified and appointed to teach them, than so to receive the facts of astro nomy? We do not think it necessary that all men should be instructed in the evidences (so•called) of Christianity. We think those persons the happiest, the most favored—in some senses also the wisest—who have never troubled themselves about such evidences — who have received from absolute trust in those whom they love and honour, the faith of the wise, and just, and learned; and have, as it were, been brought into communion with God and Christ through no grosser medium than the intellectual aspirations and move- 545 ments of the heart which He has designed as the purest link between Himself and His children. This observation on the theosophy of Dr. Whately has been fin•ced from us by the obtrusion of his shallow and narrow creed in his annotations OIL Bacon's Essays. The an notations themselves can scarcely be con sidered discreditable to him, but they would be thought discreditable to any man of more modern date pretending to originality and scholarship. Whately is no mcre fit to com ment on Bacon than " plain John Campbell " is fit to comment on Shakespeare, though a Campbell• Shakespeare is one of the likeli• hoods of the publishing world. In the first place, Dr. Whately thinks it necessary to correct what he supposes to be the " obsolete phraseology" of Bbcon. Ile will have no " mysteries "in his author. He tells us in footnotes that " unpleasing" meant in that dark ago when Bacon wrote "unpleasant;" that " round "—as " clear and round dealing," —means " plain, fair, candid ;" that " to provoke" signifies " to excite ;" that a man's " vocation" means his "calling ;" that " diverse" is "different;" that to " accommo date " is to " reconcile ;" that "arbitrement" is " judgment," and so on. In short, he treats Bacon's language as scholiasts treat classical authors. Such offensive impertinence has never yet been ventured on by any editor in our day. _ _ Next, he thinks it necessary to give the English of those common Latin phrases which Bacon, in consonance with the use of his time, so frequently employed. Can the Archbishop really think that any purchaser of his bulky volume would be ignorant that "Nun° dimittis," referred to Luke ii. 29., "Now lettest thou thy servant " ? But the " annotations " are the distinguish ing feature of the volume. As for making any attempt to follow the sense of Bacon—to analyse his reasoning —to cope with his asser tions—to expound and criticise that train of thought which, though always luminous, is not always luminous with light from I leaven— that is no part of the Archbishop's intention. His design is, not to make Whately subservient to Bacon, but to make Bacon subservient to Whately Having on his hands a tolerable se lection of scraps of logic, and odds and ends of dogmatic philosophy and controversial divi nity, and political economy (mostly selected from works which Dr. Vhately has been so good as to give the public before), with cut tings from all kinds of recent publications, be selects Bacon's Essays as a convenient peg on which to hang all his patchwork collection. This is the real history of Dr. Whately's edito rial enterprise. What led him to the choice of Bacon's Essays, in particular, must be re ferred to the st o ne category of chance as leads a man sometimes to walk on one side of a street in preference to the other. Any other cele brated book would have served his turn quite as well, such as Butler's " Analogy," " The Dairy. man's Daughter,"—or works to which he refers with eulogy in his " annotations,"—the '` Juve• nrie Tales " of Miss Edgeworth, or the compo sitions, to us mare ignotnm, of Elizabeth Smith. His complacency, considering his station, is almost awful. In his self-sufficiency, as a public instructor, ho beats Mr. Jellinger Symons, which is surely saying much. Pam phlets which ho wrote, he himself only knows how many years ago, as they are totally for gotten, he quotes almost entire, as if to show of how much silliness he once was capable. The quotations of Whately from Whately make up a great part of the volume, and in those quotations the curious may probably discover inner quotations, Whately from Whately from Whately. His next published work will probably carry on this cumulative quotation a step further, unless a gentle hint should take effect on his mind, and induce him to reflect that between his own and the public appreciation of Whutely's wisdom there is a wide and rapidly increasing divergence. Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia. By Lady Shiel. London : Murray. " GLIMPSES " modestly express the insight which Lady Shiel gained into Persian life during the throe years and a half that her husband, Colonel Shia!, was English Minister at the Court of Persia. They