The Press. — London, England, 1856-01-05 00:00:00

JANUARY 5, 1856. sitcraturt. Cambridge Essays. Contributed by Members of the University. London : J. W. Parker and Son. THE art of ordinary review-writing may be briefly characterised as the art of saying a very little in a very large quantity of words : to speak in the cant of the day, it is the art of comb►ning the minimum of logic with the maximum of rhetoric ; in fact, of expanding over a dozen columns that which might be a dvantageously compressed into one or two. Like Gratiano, the reviewer (we mean, of course, the Quarterly reviewer) is obliged to write "an infinite deal of nothing, more than "any man in Venice "; with too little space to enter into conclusive details of fact or evi dence, he has, as Sydney Smith says, "to " work with pulp and essence " ; but " pulp " and essence" take up very little room—it is their peculiar recommendation ; so that he finds himself in the position of a man who has to fill a packing•case with that which would go lightly and comfortably into the compass of a hand-basket. As a natural and inevitable result, a vacuum must exist somewhere; and to occupy this vacuum, of which he has a much more heartfelt horror than ever Nature had, something must be employed for the sole purpose of " filling up." "Ay or no never yet answered any ques " lion,' says Selden, "we must divide and dis "tinguish"; but to divide and distinguish exhaustively, or to any good purpose, we need far more space than that usually accorded to a Quarterly reviewer; while for the merely ornamental " ay or no " with which the writing public easily satisfies the reading public, much less would be amply sufficient. Two courses lie open to a controversial writer—and most review-writers in the present day are in some degree controversialists. He may make fun of his antagonists if he have neither room nor inclination to enter into a fair and full discus sion of the points at issue between him and them ; or, if he have space and information, he can reply to their objections, and es tablish his own particular opinions, by the commonplace but almost forgotten methods of correct state►nent and logical inference. It is almost impossible for a reviewer to adopt to the full extent either of these courses. Not the first, for who on earth can make effective fun for a dozen octavo pages ? except, perhaps, the author of " Aspen Court." Net the second, for to deal fairly with many of the great open questions of the day, which the Quarterlies love to discuss, a writer would very frequently need the whole review to himself; and if he knew what to do with it when he had got it, it is more than probable that not a single reader would interfere with his monopoly of its pages. Compared on the one hand with the un fettered investigator, who can wander at " his own sweet will " through exactly the number of volumes which his subject may require or his publisher will permit, the writer of reviews is unduly brief; compared on the other with the newspaper critic, who is constrained to deal only with the leading points of a question, and to speak in " sum-totals," in all cases pre senting results rather than discussing the processes which lead to them, he is unneces sarily lengthy and tiresome. He is like M. Quetelet's " average man " in a ready-made clothes-shop, where the coats and trousers have been constructed only for tall men and little boys. The full-grown pantaloons are all a world too wide for his " shrunk shanks," while the smart little fancy suit in the corner is as thoroughly unfitted for his mature dimensions as the " shorts" of a theatrical page for the legs of Paul Bedford or Signor Lablache. There is perhaps no study which, exclusively pursued, so thoroughly unfits the mind for making the most of a little information as mathematics: the subject-matter is pre sented, in all cases, from the simplest arithme tical question to the highest investigation of the most advanced analysis, in almost repul sive nakedness ; it is carefully weeded of all illustrative additions ; there is nothing in the THE PRT I I4L O 4 14.0. least degree corresponding to the ornamental in expression or the varied in statement : like logic, it deals only with " dry bones," avoiding muscle, nerve, and blood, all, in a word, that gives life and motion to the perfect or ganisation. In both logic and mathematics indeed there is the same " bad riddance of goof/ rubbish ;" in both, to invert a saying of M. Comte, " conception has de throned expression." The mathematician, there fore, and, more or less, every member of a so ciety in which, as at Cambridge, the influence of mathematical habits of thought is the prepon derating influence, 1611 be likely, in so far as those habits are uncounteracted by the effect of other studies, to sacrifice all graces of style (the employment of which is absolutely neces sary to the acquirement of extensive popu larity), for cold accuracy of statement, and dry adherence to the rules of correct inference. He will despise rhetoric for the sake of logic. It will be difficult to persuade him to say a single word beyond what is barely necessary for the mere communication of his argument ; he would be glad could he even forego that written language which popular prejudice obliges him to use, and employ in its stead his much-loved algebraical shorthand. It thus is almost impossible that a mathematician, were he to travel out of the narrow circle of his beautiful science, as few of the class ever do, should be a popular writer. He would appeal to the mass of men, whose opinions are the result of a complete tissue of all sorts of influences, indolence, tradition, passion, self interest, prejudice, love of opposition, "votum, timor, ira, voluptas," to change their convic tions at the dictate of mere reason. " Que pent " la raison, avec un filet de vc ix, contre une " gueule commo celle-ci ?" as Moliere says ; she has no chance whatever ! It seemed to us, before the appearance of the " Cambridge Essays," on these and similar grounds, not improbable either that Oxford would carry away the prize of present popu larity, or that it would be impossible to insti tute a perfectly satisfactory comparison between the methods of intellectual training employed in the two Universities, inasmuch as it was not unlikely that the majority of the Cambridge essays would be written by " classical " and not by " mathematical men." How far the first alternative has been satisfied we cannot say. The general interest of the subjects chosen for discussion being pretty nearly equal (perhaps Mr. Stephen's essay on the " Relation of Novels to Life " is about the most popular of the papers in the two series), we cannot avoid declaring our own opinion that Oxford puts what she has to say in the most pleasing and elegant form. Cambridge, for the most part, treats the question before her as if she were bent on " flooring a problem-paper." She is bare, curt, blunt, and, though she has often something odd or new to present to us, she deals with her meaning " by approximation," as bad spellers do with a hard word, and gives us a good deal of difficult reading. Like her first-rate men in the Senate House, she does not complete her solutions, but leaves the last inference to be drawn by the examiner. Though many of the contributors (for all we know, most of them) are celebrated in Cam bridge as classical scholars, the influence of the sister study is very clearly apparent in the essays. Even the phraseology is tainted by the technicalities of mechanics and the plane tary theory ; and in some instances the asso ciations connected with a scientific phrase have been permitted to mislead the writer who has employed it. It would be difficult, perhaps, to exhibit particular instances illustrative of the above remarks in the shape of extracts from the Essays." Our opinion is the result of a general comparison between the collections published by the two Universities; and the impression produced on most persons familiar with the literature of the day would be, we imagine, on the whole, identical with our own. The titles of the nine essays are as follow : " The Life and Genius of Moliere," " The English Language in America," " Notes on Modern Geography," " Limitations to Severity in War," " The Transmutation of Matter," " The Relation of Novels to Life," " Future Prospects of the British Navy," " Tennyson's 15 Poems," and "General Education and Classic o, Studies." Mr. Knight Watson's " Moliere " should have been called " A Chat about Moliere," rather than an essay on his life and genius. There is a very marked dislocation of style about it, and a very disagreeable affectation of facetiousness, which sits about as comfortably on the writer as one of Mr. Harley's wigs wuuld on a college don; but it contains a care ful and interesting sketch of Moliere's life and times, and a tolerably full analysis of his works from the commencement of his theatrical career. Mr. Watson judiciously substitutes for the unsatisfactory and fanciful accounts of Mohere's early years the few facts really ascertainable from contemporary authorities : he is thus enabled to replace the usual M. Poquelin senior, the stern matter-of-fact up holsterer compelling his son (as Mr. Wateon, with laborious facetiousness, remarks) " to aid. " in decorating the salons of Paris and to " forego furnishing his own brain, that upper " story of the house of flesh," by a well-paid " tapissier " to Louis XIIL, sending young Moliere to complete his education at the College Clermont, under the tuition of the great Gassendi, and enabling him on leaving college to apply himself to the study of the law. The benevolent grandfather, on whom the origin of young Poquelin's taste for the stage has been generally fathered—or grandfathered—disappears from the scene entirely (and for a good reason, as he appears to have died when his grandson was only four years old : his opportunities of introducing Moliere to the theatre must have been rather limited therefore), and the real " Simon Pure " turns out to have been a lady (not remarkable for" purity") one Madeleine Bejart, with whom Moliere, at the age of twenty-three, fell so deeply in love that he gave up law, upholstery, the reversion of his father's appointment, and everything else, for the purpose of joining the provincial troupe to which she belonged, and of employing his talents and education in writing plays for the company, and ultimately in acting with them. The analysis of each play is preceded by a short account of the circumstances of its production, and occa sionally by remarks on the more famous criticisms which have been written upon it. " The English Language in America," by Mr. Bristed (the contributor to Fraser's Maya zinc of many amusing papers on America), is evidently the production of a practised writer, thoroughly at home with his subject. Mr. Bristed is of opinion that " to examine, de " termine, collect, and explain all the American " peculiarities of language" would require, among other qualifications, " a full knowledge " of all the English provincial dialects, of at " least five other modern languages and their " dialects, an intimate acquaintance with " every species of American literature, and a " prolonged residence in each of the four " great sections of the American Union ; while " the results of the investigation would fill " a large volume." It results inevitably from these premises that, in the limits of a review-article, the subject cannot be dis cussed to any useful purpose, ; but the writer has managed to put forth to the very best advantage the materials to which lie is confined, and has produced the most read able " essay " in the whole collection. We have not space to quote as many of Mr. Bristed's interesting derivations as we desire ; one specimen must suffice from the " Middle- States " section of his arrangement : The word loafer is so very common in America, that, although closely approximating to a slang term, it cannot be overlooked here. The expression only found its way into writing about the year 1830, but had been in use long before, especially in the vicinity of the markets. It is equivalent to vagabond intensified, and its personal applica tion is one of the greatest insults that can be offerei to an American —something like calling a Frenchman canaille. It is singular that the verb (of later formation), has not necessarily a bad meaning; a man will say of himself " I have been loafing about ; " that is, I have been lounging, or idling. As to the derivation, it clearly has nothing to do with loaf. We must seek the root in Dutch. It may be from 104, primarily weary, tired, thence faint-hearted, lazy. cowardly ; bat it more probably comes from loopen ( =German laufen ; compare in English inter-loper.) The term toper, applied to deserters from South• Sea whalers, and jack-tar's familiar land-bihber, are probably connected. Leaper in old Dutch, such Dutch as honest old Pett r Stuyvesant may have used, meant a running footman, so that perhaps the idea of I. key "ur "flunkey " was mixed up with the term of contempt. t