The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1866-02-13 00:00:00

may be described as basing tolerably well disposed
of the "lii." of this einineat autobiographer ; three
two lest coasegertly deal mainly with his "recollect-
Ilona" To indulge in the vain imagining that we
*mild by may proms of antral compreseion present
an idea of the merits mad demerits of a pping.
rambling, yet original sad isdependeat work like
this were foolish sod prestunntuoth Ws bar*
perused its pages with that avidity which meet
satisfy any one who likes to try the experiment:
that they are sefileimitly amusing, 'sintering,
perhaps Werra:rave, to reinstitute • book that will
assuredly long command the run of the libraries.
W. could it is tree go through the work again -not
for reportnal (yet it will bear that), but as the Ist*
Mrs. Johnston was wed in Tait's Magazine, forth.
parpose of gutting it so thoroughly in the interne of
, or, readers that none of them woeld perhaps are
for osaselting the original. Even in than days of
, cheap literature, however, we should hardly deem
this !tweet. And we will courant oareelves with
saying that admiiably as many of the details sad is-
Odder in the former volumes of this work wars
pained. Mr. Berkeley woeld appear to have re-
spooded in tbe present case to the mead of public
approbation lavished epos him by producing if
possible two volumes still more readable and tdeseing
tram their predecessor,. The esay, depapi, and
nonehelent style in which he touches hgtoly now
the faults and now the foibles of society, and
generally of good society, sere to afford an emptied'
retreat to the moire attired reirthe for which lie
is neequalled what's's In his aloes minute Preraphas-
lite datinsailon. of nature, or is the detail of pathetic
inoidenta that involuntarily rose the reader's eye to
moisten. The former and the latter styles of Mr.
Berkeley gin e bins a duality sa • writer, such r
seine public singers as vocalists with a double
register; for it Is seldom that the &dab of his lighter
anecdotes mods without • finely pointed epigram, or
some play of .It Wing drawn out as noexpestedly
es an electric spark- Whilst of the latter we think
it best to cite some examples, became those who do
not know Mr. Berkeley are ept to fall into no error
mote easily than to doubt the gentle tendereen of
his nature. It is trios that the ohivalresqra character
of the man eugeaders as inatinctivn hatred of
humbug; and that his boner impetuosity prompts
Lb. denunciation of it wheresoever found. Thera
never wee a time when ontapoken authorship did
Dot for this mesa encounter it. forret of n.
Hol Jupiter Carlyle's volume been puteleled •
hitedred year's earlier, it woeld have been to his
riontemperaries precisely what Mr. Orantley Berke-
ley's is now to his. Of coons we refer to tie storm
of adverse criticism of which even in our own
bumble *Amur anything bearing the hos, gentle-
maa's name becomes at our the butt All this
however Mr. Berkeley takes with compleoracy,
030•6001 that he riaa always repay it with intermit if
b. will. &ill to those who have formed a different
estimate of the spirit is which he think, sad
writes, it cannot but seem strange that so mock
obloquy should etenseriteilly be heaped on alone
which viewed in their arena aorptatiou are but
well-meaning, good natured esdeevours to plows his
asseratiou and perhaps viediere a few straight.
forward, mealy, good old English opinions which a
man of fashion only dare avow, and • man of mottle
only dare defend. For our paii nothing has struck
us more ia the pectoral of Ins peg,, especially those
of the two new volumes, than the TresS and ranching
indications if Mr. herkeley's better nature which
they supply, and the evidences of the purest and
most sympathetic feelings of oar common nature
perpetually welling from his large sad noble heart.
The, ae he eaya litaiself be was under no constraiet
to become t 6 apologist of George IV., but that
king was Ida godhitber and be felt it to be a duty to
gay for him anything that might be poribLe to be
▪ Accordingly, this is the piotare whisk be
draws of the last scene of ail—the deathbed of the
royal Sybarite. We question whether • more &Haste
hand ever dropped the curtain on mortal terser :