The Press. — London, England, 1857-01-31 00:00:00

JANUARY 3111857. ittraturt. Inaugural Address delivered by Sir E. L. Bulwer Lytton, Bart., on his Installation as Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, January 15, 1857. London : Griffin and Co. THERE is no sort of eloquence in which it is so difficult for an English orator to excel as in " Inaugural Addresses." Our national tastes, and our literary prejudices, recoil from exhortations which have a tendency to showy displays. We like debates in Parlia ment, the forensic contentions in Westminster hall, and the persuasive appeals of the Pulpit ; but for the most part our English society offers few occasions when a speaker can imitate the form of rhetoric cultivated in the French Academy by the speakers of awes. The Lord liectorship of the University of Glasgow presents un exceptional instance in which great masters of fine language may exhibit their mastery over words, and their ingenuity in adorning commonplaces. Origin ally the election of the Lord Rectors of Glas gow University was confined to local person ages connected with the city and the college ; and then the sphere of selection was widened, and took in eminent Scotchmen ; and after wards the distinguished men of the whole empire were privileged to hold the office. In 1784 Edmund Burke was elected ; and it is to be regretted that we have no good report of his address on that occasion, or of the pecu liar reasons why he was chosen. Had his early attempt to become Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow aught to do with his subsequent installation as the Lord Rector? In putting that question, we are aware that it has been contended by some persons that Burke never did seriously contemplate the tenure of the professorship. It is certain, however, that only meagre particulars have reaehed us of the causes why he was chosen in 1784. We should not be surprised if his acquaintance with the circle of which Adam Smith was a brilliant member had something to do with his nomination Certainly the office of Lord Rector was considerably en hanced in value by the fact of Burke having been proud to hold that post. The long list of eminent persons who since the days of Burke have accepted the Lord Rectorship gives the office an honorary lustre, which the Crown could neither give nor take away. A volume containing the inaugural addresses of the Lord Rectors was published some years ago. The oration of Thomas Campbell, the poet, was the finest in point of language, and the most valuable in point of thought. It was the result of considerable reflection, and was evidently a great effort. The preoccupations of other Lord Rectors, and their inaptitude for merely scholastic displays, rendered their inaugural harangues of no great oratorical value. Of the whole s'ries, from first to last, we think that the addresses of Campbell, of Sir Robert Peel, and of Mr. Macaulay have the most sterling merit. The speech of Peel was singularly characteristic of the man : it was peculiarly practical in its character, and was intensely English. There was nothing flashy or stilted in its composi tion, and it was really most impressive in its grave admonitions. There was one passage, in particular, which, to our own knowledge, produced a deep effect on many young men who heard it at Glasgow, and who read it else where. We allude to the passage in which the eminent statesman enforced the value of " Time," and adjured his hearers to put a proper estimate on its priceless worth. The political speech at the Glasgow Conservative Dinner, which followed the installation, was also an effective popular display of eloquence. The part in which he lauded Scotland and the Scotch wits a masterpiece of intellectual artifice i ; and the steam-engine me t a ph or in a city of ronfounders and manufacturers brought down great applause. "If one objects " to the horizontal movement of this wheel, " and another to the perpendicular motion of " that—if this man is to bore holes in the " cylinder, and that man is to tinker the " boiler—they may find fault with the engine, they may clamour for more movement, THE PRESS. " but—" (the loud and universal cheers, said the report, which followed this al lusion prevented the sentence from being finished). So much does the felicity of a common metaphor depend on time and place ! The address before us we propose to regard merely as a literary exercitation. It is, as might have been expected, elegant in its diction and eloquent in its aspirations. It is not so thoughtful as we should have anticipated, but it must be read with the distinct recollection that it was composed for oral communication with Seotchmen. The allusions to the anti infidel philosophy of Scotland we cannot help thinking unlucky. The Lord Rector said : Look back to the commencement of this century—con templlte the work of that generation which you are now rising to succeed. See what your Scottish fathers have done to snatch the firebrand from the hands of those drunkards of knowledge who, reeling here and there, amidst palaces and temples, fancied that they illumined society by the conflagration of its fabrics. That brand your fathers snatched, not to extinguish its living flame— but to place it, aloft and calm, upon stattly watchtowers, guiding light, and not n consuming tire. Already, indeed, (luring the latter half of the last century, Scotland had pro duced a scliool of philosophers that prepared the reason of her sons to resist the plausible but perilous materialism by which Diderot and the writers of the French Encyclopiedie sought to quibble away the soul from man, and the Maker from the universe. Already, for more than thirty years a Professor in this University, Thomas Reid, had expanded into an original system the suggestive lessons of Hutche• son, the thunder of Scotch metaphysics. Reid died in 1790, but he left. sehind him a brilliant pupil, Dugald Stewart, peculiarly adapted, by the graces of acquirement and a persuasive eloquence of style, to render popular the doctrines of his teacher, and to influence a wide range of minds that, whether in literature or action, have powerfully affected the character of their age and country. I sin not here to pronounce an unqualified eulogium upon that school of Scotch metaphysics. Bishop Watson and Dean Paley did more to soberise " the drunkards of knowledge" than any Scotchman whom we know of; and David Hutne did more intellectual mischief than any philosophic Scotehman counteracted. Literary deism was long a fashion in Edin burgh after it had expired in London ; and Dugald Stewart was not sufficiently positive in any of his results to cite him as a counter acter of the consequences resulting from the evil labours of the Encyclopzedists. As English critics, we are bound to demur to the statements of Sir Edward Lytton on some subjects in this address. The weight of his eminent name, and the universal currency of his writings, induce us to guard against its being supposed that this address is impervious to critical objections. The Lord, Rector, in praising the Scotch, says:— The first great literature produced by this century which spread over the civilised nations, thrusting back into dusty shelves the verse without soul and the prose without muscle, which had forma the circulating library of Europe—the first great literature that strode forth to colonise and to conquer, restoring the ancestral past to its due place in human reverence, rev-tiling from exile truth and nature, binding man to man in the genial chain of character and humour, refreshing this work day world with a joyous holiday f romance ;—the first great litera ture which poured its own young blood into the century, anti, rushing over Europe, found a home on every hearth, rose in these islands, and, paramount in that literature, for an influence not less beneficent than supreme, towers your immortal countryman, Walter Scott. Measure not Scott's greatness by his effects only on the imagination. By the law of all mental vibration opinion is moved by the sounds that first agitate feeling. What way Scott prepared throughout Europe for the introduction of our language, and, with our language, our reasoners as well as our poets!filßefore his day how much the language of France had overweighted the balance of intellectual power in Europe! Scott threw into the opposing scale the language of the Anglo-Saxon, and the intellect of these kingdoms became henceforth not the casual guest, but one of the ruling monarchs of the Continent. Thus, Scotland gathered together the broken and stormy rays of intelligence that had before rather terrified than cheered the dawn of the nineteenth century, and forming them first, through science, into pure and tranquil light, then dispersed them, through literature, to beautify the world with all the pomp and variety of colour. This passage, like Sir Robert Peel's steam engine metaphor, brought down great ap plause, and from the same causes of " time and place." The tribute of the author of " Pelham " to the author of " Waverley " was graceful ; but we must remind the Lord Rector that Goethe and Schiller were the creators of the taste for English literature on the Continent ; and Goethe has told us that Goldsmith's " Vicar of Wakefield" had more effect on him than any book he ever read. " Waverley" was not published till Is] t, and Madame de Stael's " Germany " bears literary testimony to the influence which Shakespeare, 111 interpreted by the Schlegel school, possessed in Germany before Scott was popularly known. Byron (with all his faults) did much to pre vent " the overweigliting of the balance of in " tellectual power in Europe IT the French," alluded to by the Lord Rector. The passage on " earnestness " is the best and most vigorous in the whole address. A certain Germanising writer, to whom the pre vious extract is not a little applicable ' has often held forth on the Same theme. The Lord Rector says : If I were asked, from my experience of life, to say what attribute most impressed the minds of others or most commanded fortune, I should say, " earnestness." Take, for instance, the House of Commons as the highest type of a popular assembly. What is the great secret of success there? Yon all remember that Demosthenes placed the threefold art of the orator in delivery. I think the word he used was acting or stage play. but, though delivery, no doubt, is the appropriate excellence of the mere orator, the threefold gift of the parliamentary speaker is earnest ness. Have but fair sense and a competent knowledge of your subject, and then be thoroughly in earnest to impress your own honest convictions upon others, and, no matter what your delivery, though your gestures shocked every rule in Quinctiltan, you would command the ear and influence the debates of the most fastidious, the most accomplished, and, take it altogether, the noblest assembly of freemen in the world. While some man, in whose delivery no fault could he detected, except the one defect of that earnest conviction which Roscius himself could not teach if the man has not got it,would be indeed admired as a firework, butt would never guide like a star. As it iv in the House of Commons, which is but the repre sentative of the national mind, so it is with all life throughout these nations. The earnest man wins way for himself. And earnestness and truth go together. Never affect to be other than you are—either richer or wiser. Never he ashamed to say, "I do not know." Men will then believe you when you say, " I do know." Never be ashamed to say, whether as applied to time or money, " cannot afford it "—" I cannot afford to waste an hour in the idleness to which you invite me—l cannot afford th guinea you ask me to throw away." Once establish your self and your mode of life as what they really are, and you foot is on solid ground, whether for the gradual step on ward, or for the sudden spring over a precipice. Mere " earnestness," however, will not be enough. There must be tact, sense, skill. An " earnest" man may bore the House of Commons and become its " dinner-bell." It is in every-day life that " earnestness " is of such potent efficacy. It is " character "in itself. In his brilliant speech at the dinner given to him in Glasgow the Lord Rector pointedly disclaimed the notion that ho sought to flatter Scotehmen. The disclaimer was neces sary, and ought to be printed as a preface to this address. One passage calls for special remark : Gentlemen, following the example set by more than one of my predecessors, it is my intention to offer some prizes to your generous competition. I shall place for that purpose the modest sum of fifty guineas in the hands of your pro fessors, leaving it to their discretion to select such subjects as their experience may suggest, most useful or pleasing to the general body of the students. But in addition to those prizes, I myself will now propose to the highest class of your scholars a prize of thirty guineas to the can didate who shall most worthily render into lyrics, Greek or Latin, at tLe choice of the competitors, one of the im• mortal songs of Robert Burns. Some would object to this example of giving money prizes, and we doubt its propriety. At all events there should be a fixed limit, fur a man like Thomas Campbell would find it a heavy tax to pay fifty or eighty guineas for an honorary office. If Lord Over stone, or any intellectual millionaire, were chosen, he might give five hundred guineas, or found a scholarship in his name. The precedent is dangerous. Even Burke would have found it hard to pay eighty guineas. We do not like to differ with Sir Edward Lytton on a critical point, but we strongly doubt the propriety of selecting the songs of Burns for translation into Greek or Latin. The Lord Rector has proposed an almost impossible feat. Burns in Greek or Latin ! Who would like to see the Odes of Horace in broad Scotch ? Napoleon the Third. By a British Officer. London : Longmans. THIS volume challenges attention both by its title and by its unqualified admiration of the conduct and character of the ruler of France. As far as practicable the author allows the Emperor to tell the story of his own life. Some ingenuity is shown in the manner in which extracts arc made from the writings of Louis Napoleon, illustrative of all the epochs of his career; and, without at ;all •W-