The Press.
London, England, 1853-09-10 00:00:00

principles of legislative ludicy"—the opponents
being Mackintosh, Erskine, and Wattage (!)
owl the error is glaring of attributing to Sir
James Mackintosh a well-lintown passage from
Lord Broughams published portrait of Burke's
character. Mr. Montgomery writes (Essay,
p. 12) of " those illustrious men, Chatham,
Holland, Pitt, and Fox." Is it the late Lord
Holland, orhis grandfather, who is here ranked
with " illustrious" chracters?
Yet iu spite of these inaccuracies the volume
contains a great deal of the pith of Burke's
political philosophy. His collected works tire
volioninous, and many persons will be glad to
have access in this portable volume to the
wisdom of the greatest polities! writer of any
age—so happily called by Mr. Grattan " a
I►rodik7 of nature and acquisition."
As specimens of the manner in which the
extracts are selected we will take two, illus-
trative of present polities. Sir Charles Wood
may peruse the first with advantage, and think
of Mr. Bright's bite speeches :

ouitu II IN NII r sr.i.F•itEimoir I•.

I'ISS44. Will Wi Sil4l l innulit the reformation of Italia to
the ilestrop•rs of it are the illeiniert to that reformation.
They Wlllllll 1111110 e a distinction between Ilireetona and 1111).
prietioN which, in 11i•• kat*. of iltingm, *194441'10t,
eau t exist. lint a right honourable golitlemati Kays, Its,
w0u1d415.11 thl. iiiii 'lll of 111111 A 111 tlit. court
of ilirectorh; tis IWO .V
14111,0 is sass ! That is, he would appisitit the old
offenders to elirrect the old 141.111.vm; Nlllllll. monad I1•11d1.1*
1114• the flN*llsll Wisl. and %knolls, by Kalittliq
rognitttlulta• lie would impala the wolf as Wlllllllllll sof thy
14111.111; lilt he ham 111%111114 itemriuns 11111/./.lr, by N1114•111.111s
protedilig wolf shall Hilt I I oia•ii jaws above au
holt iir tw's ul thr mluwsl. 'Thus lis work is tloisholl.
Bid I tell the right 11 1111 l soluble IS lid 110114 Si
1115111 iiVity Mit iiii iN•l'lll.4. ; and 11111111.1 s lust the hammy tit*
itelitameney in chains that will eiirrl•et Will these
Sir the llilretiou iiii i Mid% all the partners of
their gown guilt" Never slid a serissits plat' of amending
:toy Ail tyrannical i.l4toblishilicilt provii,o, the authors mid
alwttiliN of the Auto* 101 the relloiiii•rs of them.
At the risk of inereaming Lord Aberdeen's
moroseness, total of making his Chancellor of
the Exchequer " afraid of getting into at pas-
sion," we will take the next, upon

I %I.sle. COALITIONS.

No slstum of that kiln' can Is is .111Ied %%bids will not
'CAW room fully sidlieirsit ti,r healing enalithins : but no
csialiti which, under the speei 0000 s name sit ilia(' retitlelley,
191111e/1 iu itslsni,m the 1111111.1111e11141 mineiill4.l4 41111111 4411.
gins' discord of parties, ever was, or will be, an healing
coalithai. Nor will the mind of our Sovereign v‘er
kuoi
repose, his kingdom settlement, sir his business nnler,
until things are 1'41110161114 I 111$011 the bllttiS of home
Net of men who are trusted by the public, and mho can
trust One another.
There is a good index at the end of the
volume.

Bleak Muse. Nos. XIX. and XX. By Charles
Dickens. Tamdon: Bradbury and Evans.
ExTENsiv K and continued popularity render
the completion of every new romance by Mr.
Dickens a sort of era, interesting on a double
account, not merely as challenging an estimate
of the special work itself in its entirety. but
also as affording it datum lino from which a
critical observer can determine the degree of
progress—or retrogression-440(4m by the
author in his orbit, as ono of the recognised
luminaries of the literary heaven. Employed
thus as a test and index, the just-completed
"Bleak House" does not alter but deepen and
confirm the judgment which his preceding
roduet ions have led us to form of their writer.
Air. Dickens is the father of the serial romance,
RIO still appears the most popular of
serial romaneists. With every fresh attempt
and renewed experience he shows himself, for
good and evil, more thoroughly imbued with the
serial spirit. Every new creation exhibits a
more complete mastery over the resourees—a
more ready adaptation to the requirenn.nts—
a more dextrous use of the opportunities—and
a more thorough subjection to the shackles
and shortcomings incidental to the peculiar
mode of publication which he has made eni
phatically his own. Bleak House." in this
sense, is incontestably the best and the worst
of its author's productions. Never were de-
tached scenes more strikingly written—never
was dialogue more dramatic—and never were
the popular cries and prejudices of the day
More adroitly seized or more aptly used and
abused than in this latest of M r. Dickens's novels.
4nd yet, never in any of his previous works
were the detached scours more loosely tied

THE PRESS.

together, Or more obviously disconnected with
the final and hurried concluition of the story into
which they were worked. Seldom were charac-
ters more ingeniously imagined or more
piquantly described than many of those which
figure in the pages of " Bleak House ;" and
never also were those characters set moving to
so little purpose, or employed about a drama
whose progress or conclusion bore so slight a
relationship with the action of any of its per-
sonages. Sbldom, in short, were the " parts" so
brilliant, or "the whole" so unsatisfactory. We
do nut Wonder, accordingly, to find that the book
has attracted more readers titan any of its pre-
deeessors; and at the same time we cannot
deny that the result has been produced by an
exaggeration of all the faults and a reckless
use of all the artifices to which this species of
composition is prone.
Judged by some of the foregone numbers,
" Bleak House" promised to be, beyond com-
parison, the best work of its author ; —judged
by the conclusion, it must be ranked as his
worst. In no previous rountuee have the drafts
drawn by Mr. Dickens upon public curiosity
been more flagrantly dishonoured—have the
enigmas tauntingly woven been mere weakly
explained, or left move freqUently without ex-
planation—or the elaborate preparations made
for " something" during the progress of dip
story 114'4'11 found to lead to " nothing" in the
end. The double, and final, number before us
might indeed be inscribed, like the last chapter
of " Russel:in." as a "conclusion in which no
thing was concluded." It is lamentably' dis
appointing. Throughout eighteen numbers it
uomplicated and highly ingenious series of
scaffoldings had been erected, but they are
loft without a pile at lust.
Assuming that our readers know the story
already, we may very briefly point out a few
of the many specimens of resultless ingenuity
which it presents. There is, fur example, a won-
derfully clever lawyer, who hunts out and holds
the key to an infinity of secrets ; and, among
others, of the secret of the book. But his
knowledge leads to nothing. He is murdered,
and his murder leads to nothing. The secret
is discovered, and the discovery leads to no-
thing. His murderess is detected ; and her
detection fills pages upon pages with descrip-
tions—exceedingly effective in their way—of
I nspector Bucket's (aliaa Field's) supernatural
acuteness. But the detection leads to nothing ;
and Hortense is not even tried for the crime.
Then there is a great deal about George the
trooper, and Sinallweed the bill-dealer, and
tirook the lug-and-bone collector. Among
them there turns up a genuine last-will-and-
testament, competent to settle finally the long-
litigated cause of Jarmlyce v. Jurudyce." But
it does not settle it—as the cause has just died
of inanition beforehand—so that nothing
comes of amt. It was, indeed, a hackneyed
minor-theatrical device to produce such a will
at all ; and we hardly wonder, therefore, that
Mr. Dickens should have been rather ashamed
to make any conspicuous use of it when he had
got it. But this reluctance, natural as it
might be, adds one more to the coups snantoes
already too numerous in his romance.
Even the central movement, which is sup-
posed to react upon all the rest—the great
Chancery suit—leads to nothing, or next to it,
after all. " Rick," indeed, dies of disappoint•
ment when the suit collapses ; but there is
nothing chametelistic of Chancery in the event
or its antecedents. Mr. Carstone's passion
and fate, as well as those of most of the actual
" instances" to which we are referred in the
preface, belting much more to the gambler
than the suitor. Rick might have squandered
his money and thrown time and life away in
many another sort of speculation—in Bartho-
lomew-lane ; in a St. Martin's betting-office ;
in a tlermyn-street " hell "—under circum-
stances much more natural and probable than
those which attracted hint to Lincoln's Inn.
It is not on the score of its " fascination " that
the Court of Chancery can be most appro
priately assailed. The idea of making a Chan-
cery suit the centre and pivot of a story was
doubtless a happy one. Chancery forms the
most popular grievance of the day, and affords
alonelant scope for popular satire, and for good
rotund earnest denunciation calculated to at-
tain still wider popularity. These ILL Maims

1341.:(7p4y,

has provided with his combined skill and igno-
rance. His pictures of the Court and its doings
arc wonderfully vivacious, and wrought up with
consummate art ; but the idea is not worked out
for all that. The prominent failing of the work
encounters us here also. An elaborate foun-
dation is laid, and left without a superstruc-
ture.
We can say nothing in defence of the comic
characters—or what are intended to be such—
,in " Bleak House." Everything connected
with Mr. Guppy and his friends is altogether
detestable. Mr. Dickens seems long since to
have discarded the character of a low hu-
morist, in which, heretofore, he so much
excelled. Certain it is that all his recent at-
tempts at presentable clowns have been un-
mitigated failures.

A History of the Greek Insurrection (in Greek).
First Volume. London : Traylor and Francis.
EVEN the titlepage of this book is a literary curiosity.
A modern work in Attic tireek, bearing the impress
TATIAOPUT KM .PATKUKOT, and emanating ix lit;
4.01 TOU IFLOCOL MOTO; Tteiroy ecsOise,ii a pheno-
menon. We may doubt whether fium, .tc., is a Thu-
cydidean rendering of " Lted Lion-court," and may
desire to look at the work itself for a better test of
its pretensiens ; but it arrived so immediately before
the publication of our present number, that, to tto
this with any fairness to the author of the history,
we must defer it till such time as we can pretend
to consider it critically.

7ertsruk and Eulalit.. lty Georgiana E. lit &e.
London: Routledge.

A s.to sentimental story, related in a style we thought
had been almost extinct. It is fitly introduced by a
frontispiece representing a spaniel—poor " lido" of
course—lying on a grave and refusing to be coaxed
front it by a pretty group of rustic children. It may
be supposed that that kind of religious element pre-
dominates in it of which, in intellect at least, WO
llichmond's " Dairyman's Daughter " was the lowest
type, and Washington Irving's notice of the "
son Girls" the highest. We certainly do not think
such reading of a healthy tendency for young people;
and for many reasons—for the falsehood of the port raj
Lure, if for none other—we would keep out of their. view
death-beds decked out with roses, violets, and all the
heightened colouring of a hectic fancy.

Three Original Plays. By John Wynne. London :

Bosworth.
Mn. WissE has great vivacity, and an ardent desire
to distinguish himself; but it is in some respects
unlucky that he can afford to gratify a whim by the
publication of this volume. It is altogether imma-
ture, or, to speak more plainly, raw. The prose is a
kind of halting blank verse. " Told you he his name ?"
asks one of the characters ; and the'plot and incidents
exhibit such a degree of infantine simplicity as would
expose genius itself to ridicule. The author, we
think it probable, from his energy and lively concep-
tions, ham the germ of dramatic success within
but as yet it has only pushed forth the green leaf—tho
ripened harvest is far, far behind.

India : its History (1); Climate (2) ; Productions
(3); and Field Sports (4) ; with Notices fti
European Lffe (5) ; and Manners (6) ; and q/
the Various Travelling Routes (S). By J. 1-1.
Stocqueler. London: Routledge.
WE have taken a little liberty with Mr. Stocqueler's
titlepage, that we may the better exhibit the compre-
hensive information he has contrived to squeeze
into •907 small pages. Very much of his matter,
scanty as it is, we fancy he has made use of in various
ways before. A censorship exercised over railway
reading would be joyfully welcomed by all frequenters
of "the line" : having in the outlay of a shilling been
frequently bit, we can afford to pity the unfortunates
who should attempt to beguile a weary hour or two
with this ingenious piece of patchwork. A good deal
of 4ictionary sort of information it does contain no
doubt, but, should its red covers and bordered title-
page tempt any of our readers at a railway-stall, we
advise them to check their hand.

The Wine Duties. By W. W. Whitmore. London :
Longman and Co.
AN important pamphlet at the present moment,
which we shall notice when—as we shortly purpo,k
we enter upon the consideration of proposals to deal
with the wine duties.

IiECEIVIA).
Pantroplaron. Soyor. Sitni.kin and Marshall.
elninh 0j Scotland ill aim:inc. II all, Virtue, laid 4
S.ntra. N'. 4. J. 11.
v.
iSl4‘44l§ to Ul4; ami the Lail, ultra%

mlip

6.