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

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-