The Press.
London, England, 1853-05-21 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

had to submit in silence to the taunts of their opponents,
and, harder still, the apologies and esplunations of their

colleagues.
He then addresses himself to the antecedents
of certain individuals of the Cabinet, and thus
contrasts the Premier (to whom the letter is
inscribed) with Lord Palmerston:—
When we see men who have passed their lives in politi-
cal hostility suddenly retrainee their differences and
swear eternal friendship, can we look on such a union with
contideneo or approbation ? Your lordship, for example,
has ever been considered as a disciple of the late Lord
Castlereagh, whereas the Secretary for the Home Depart-
ment has been no less distinguished as a pupil of that of
Cunning ; and as the latter made no secret of the estimate
in which he held his noble colleague, so the present Home
Minister is not generally believed to entertain that amount
of deference which is due from each subordinate member
of a Cabinet to its thief. Yet, on your acceptance of office,
you did not hesitate to assert that there was no substan-
tial ditieretust between your foreign policy and that of
Visismnt PalmerstAm. Three years have not elapsed since
you stigmatised the hitter as abominable ;" while, in
reply, your lordship was denounced by your present lender
in the House of Commons as the submissive tool of con-
tinental despots. And this depreciatory tone applied by
Whig politicians to your lordship was by no means new.
In order to show that the Whig censure of
L.ird Aberdeen is "by no means new," the
writer refers to the following sarcastic delinea-
tion of Lord Aberdeen which he quotes as
from " The Edinburgh Review." Our duty as
critics compels us here to remark that the pas-
sage was cited and circulated in " The Edin-
burgh Review," but it originally appeared in
the well-known pamphlet called " The Results
of the Dissolution" (11+30). and was noticed in
" The Edinburgh Review," vol. xlii., p. 271.
Here is the passage approvingly cited by the
reviewer:—
- -•

_ .
Among his colleagues the Earl of .kbenleen stands dis-
tinguished (bold as the assertion to some may appear)
for that mixture of feebleness with presmuption, of Inca-
pacity in other men's eyes with all-sufficiency in his own,
which emistitittes the ridiculous in character. It is from
such originals that the pencil of Cervantes drew the Ilam-
tarian of Sancho Palma, that of Sheridan his Lord Bur-
high, and of Swift. his tittlliver drawing upon the King of
ItroMiming. Mankind have yet to learn one single ground
mam which this lord should affect to hold any other noble
lord cheap, mid yet he never opens his month but to try
some elumsv sneer. He is supposed to have studied under
Mr. Pitt, who had some right to indulge in such superci-
lions demeanour, but he has not a tenth of Mr. Pitt's as-
surance, nor a tenth of Mr. Addington 's intelligence. The
Dimino!' have an 1111010glIC of a dwarf who used to keep
eompimy with a giant, and seeing him always look down
upon the crowd got the habit of looking down when he
saw men whose middle he could just reach standing upon
tiptoe.
There are some terrible testimonials to the cha-
racters of other members of the Pcelite part of
the Coalition to be found in the pages of "The
Edinburgh Review," and which our sense of
duty to " the past and present" will compel
our citation of at the first opportunity. In the
meanwhile we thank the author of this pam-
phlet for his promptness in calling attention
to the foregoing portrait of the Premier. We
must quote also the shrewd reference to the
marked inconsisteney of some of the literary
supporters of the Coalition :
Hat it must be admitted that up to last December the
Whigs have fared no better at the hands of your lordship's
party. The morning journal which so ably represents its
peculiar opinions has for years past. lacer distinguished by
its inveteracy to the Russells, the Elliots, mid the Greys.
Towards sour leader in the Lower House its language has
been marked with singular severity. Every epithet of
contemptuous abuse which the persevering ingenuity of
party malice could devise bits been lavished upon Lord
,holm Russell. He is now. according to the same autho-
rity, an enlightened Reformer, a skilful parliamentary tac-
tician, and a most able debater. Yet this unblushing pros-
titution of opinion imposes upon no one.
More matter equally sharp and to the purpose
is to be found in these pages, but our extracts
sufficiently show the merits of this very lively,
pungent. and well-tinted tract.

Poetics : on Essay on Poetry. By E. S. Dallas,
London : Smith, Elder, and Co.

- -
Acconmo to the old mot attributed to
Prince Talleyniud, words were given to man
that he might conceal his thoughts ; and,
in this view, Mr. Dallas's lucubration on
what he calls " Poetics" appears to us to
deserve much commendation. Assuming that
probably he has certain ideas on the subject
of this important essay, we feel it to he but
fair to him to admit the general success with
which he has, by a style splendid. no doubt, but
hazy, veiled them from the most attentive eye.
The work which he has produced, and which,

SATURDAY,

by the way, is dedicated to Sir William Hamil•
ton, Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in the
University of Edinburgh, contains, indeed,
certain passages which, if we were disposed to
speak invidiously, we would term intelligible;
but all such blemishes are amply redeemed by
the ingenious manner in which they are made
to destroy each other, like equal values in
algebra. We beg the reader's attention while
we briefly explain to him the peculiar merits
of this remarkable production. It is well
known how many great men, from the earliest
ages of literature to our own day, have endea-
voured to characterise the poet and to elucidate
his art—to define in what the essence of poetry
consists—and to discriminate from other en-
dowments and faculties the special and pecu-
liar property of those minds which appear to
be the most unmistakeably favoured by its
afflatus. Mr. Dallas, feeling that all those
great critics had virtually failed, and quoting
the words of Dr. Whewell, that "to discover
the laws of operative power in literary works,
though it claims no small respect under the
name of criticism, is not commonly considered
the work of a science"—Mr. Dallas, we say,
impressed with the failure of all the illustrious
minds who, in ancient or modern times, had
treated this question, perceived that his own
intervention was now desirable, and that for
him it had been reserved to bring so many
perplexities, discrepancies, and doubts to a
final and harmonious settlement. He would
be the Lord St. Leonard's of literary jurispru-
dence ; at least in the poetical department,
and its High Court of Chancery. He would
systematise and codify the innumerable exist-
ing laws, many of them good in themselves,
but scattered, inharmonious, confused ; he
would reduce these to a simple, self-consistent,
and orbicular movement. He says so himself.
" We have," he remarks, "critical opinions in
" great abundance, and often of great value,
"hut we have no critical system."
" Hence it happens that now, when literary
" criticism cuts deeper than it ever cut before,
" it is all a mere labyrinth of confusion—con
" fusion worse confounded—as vague indeed
"as it can well be. But, chaos though it be,"
he cheerfully adds, " it is a chaos pregnant with
" meaning, and richly deserving scientific
" arrangement."
This last is what Mr. Dallas would supply.
In displacing from their pedestals, as he is
thus reluctantly obliged to displace them,
Aristotle, Plato (or rather Socrates), Horace,
Longinus, Bacon, Vida, Boileau, Pope, John-
son, Voltaire, Edmund Burke, and many
others, our author is not transported by any
vulgar or ungenerous exultation. With the
exception, perhaps, of Longinus, against
whom a passing and transverse sarcasm is
shot, it is with a generous and almost respectful
pity that the rest of the foremost literary law-
givers of the human race are consigned to the
limbo of the obsolete.
Having thus demolished the edifices which
stood in his way, Mr. Dallas proceeds to con-
struct his own system on the ruins. Now, in
order that we may show the reader how
solidly he lays the foundations of this new
temple of the Muses, we will exhibit Mr.
Dallas to him actually at work. Passing over
the slight circumstance that Mr. Dallas under-
takes to overthrow all the great authorities by
the higher force of pure reason, and yet, at the
outset, surrenders for a moment the field of argu-
ment and appeals to four or five secondary autho •
rifles to establish for him his first principles,
we will very succinctly examine the ratiocina-
tion on which he mainly relies. If we put
aside a nebulous mass of metaphysics, irrele-
vant to the question, the whole book consists
of two theories end a definition. The first
theory is destined to support the second, and
the definition is supported by both. This de-
finition, by the bye, is what Bacon would call
" the vintage," or fruit, for the sake of which
the work itself is undertaken, and the treatise
composed. The first theory is this : that all
men are poets, because the poet differs, not
from other men in the nature or kind of his
genius, but only in its degree. " Poetry," says
our author, " is human ; the poet is but a man ;"
a sentence which had been as well omitted,
for, if understood theoretically, it is not an ar-
gument, but a truism; and, if understood