The Press.
London, England, 1854-04-22 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

his sustained grandeur, and the elaborate mag-
nificence of his stupendous literary work.
Considerations of this kind should influence
an editor anxious to counteract the poison of
Gibbon's fifteenth chapter. Now, the very first
note appended by Dean Milman reads with
great weakness. He seems to think that ho
has hit Gibbon hard when he has made the
following quotation from the life of Sir James
Mackintosh :

In spite of my resolution, Lardner led me to look
through the famous fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of
Gibbon. I could not lay them down without finishing them.
The causes assigned in the fifteenth chapter for the
diffusion of Christianity must, no doubt, have contributed
to it materially ; but 1 doubt whether he saw them all.
Perhaps those which he enumerates are among the most
obvious. They might all be safely adopted by a Christian
writer, with some change in the language and manlier.

The reference to Mackintosh is unfortunate.
That accomplished and most estimable person
was a highly interesting character. There was
a touching union of mental strength and moral
simplicity in his nature that commended him
to the regard of all who could appreciate talent
and virtue. But there were great defects in
hisintellect, for he never thought determi
nately to a conclusion. In the very work
from which the Dean of St. Paul's quotes there
occurs a singular passage on the philoso-
phy of a future life, suggested by Mackintosh
hearing a dull preacher endeavouring to ex-
pound that sublime subject. " These con-
" siderations," he concludes, " may serve to
" show, perhaps, that Turgot and Malesherbes,
" so full of love for the good and the fair, have
" not apostatised from the true faith of Socrates
" and Jesus." Besides, let the aflecting death-
bed of Mackintosh, described with pathetic
eloquence by one of his gifted daughters, be
considered attentively, and who will say that
so vague a thinker ought to be put forward as
a witness against the artful Gibbon? Even in
the passage quoted by Dean Milman from
Mackintosh let the reader observe the struc-
tural looseness of the style:—" I doubt whether
"he saw them all." And again :—" Perhaps
" those which he enumerated are among thg
" most obvious." Sir James was the last of the
school of the " Scotch philosophers," who are
remarkable for using "perhaps " as a peace-
maker in settling a contest between positive
knowledge and speculative conjecture. If
Mackintosh were to be quoted at all against
Gibbon it would have been as well to have
indicated that Sir James really rated the his-
torian's philosophical faculties as relatively
low. For example, we have it recorded in that
very curious work, " Green's Diary of a Lover
of Literature," that Mackintosh scoffed at the '
notion of contrasting the intellect of Gibbon
with Burke. " You might," said he, " cut the
" historian of the Decline and Fall ' out of
" a corner of our philosophic statesman's mind"
—a saying which, of course, must be dis-
missed as an oral exaggeration, though Mack
intosh was fundamentally right as to the
difference in power between the intellects of
Gibbon and Burke.
In the next note, however, Dean Milman
tries to strike deeper at his adversary :
The art of Gibbon, or at least the unfair impression
produced by these two memorable chapters, consists in
confounding together, in one undistinguishable mass, the
origin and apostolic propagation of the Christian religion
with its later progress. The main question, the divine
origin of the religion, is dextrously eluded or speciously
conceded ; his plan enables him to commence his account,
in most parts, below the apostolic times ; and it is only by
the strength of the dark colouring with which he has
brought out the failings and the follies of succeeding ages
that a shadow of doubt and suspicion is thrown back on
the primitive period of Christianity. Divest this whole
passage of the latent sarcasm betrayed by the subsequent
tone of the whole disquisition, and it might commence a
Christian history, written in the most Christian spirit of
candour.
Or, in other and plainer words, distortion and
evasion are the polemical artifices employed by
the historian. A corps of riflemen scattered
through a wood can do dreadful execution on
the exposed flank of a hostile army. Skulking
amongst the brushwood, or clambering into
the branches, they take deadly aim at the
foremost of the foes, while they are themselves
unscathed by the artillery that innocuously
plays upon their leafy ambush. So with Gib-
bon in his taunts, sneers, and suggestive
questions. His missiles are small but nu-
merous; his fire, though irregular, is well
sustained; but he never dares the open plains

377

and grapples manfully with a visible adver-
sary. His annotator should point attention to
his merits as a first-class rhetorician when
allowed to beg his premises ; but., as a philo•
sophical reasoner, what would he be if clutched
by the muscular grasp of a Barrow or a War-
burton, with their terrible tenacity of purpose
in argument and their pulverising power in
destroying the brood of fallacies that spring
from the non-distribution of the middle term—the
expanded sophism that runs through Gibbon's
mode of philosophising, and which he has so
artfully concealed under the gorgeous pomp
of his imposing and splendid rhetoric.
On subjects where speculative subtlety and
controversial logic aro not required, the anno-
tations of Dean Milman are appropriate and
judicious. Dr. Smith's additional notes also
give completeness to the work, though in some
cases they are superfluous. What particularly
deserves praise in this excellent edition is,
that the text of the author and the variorum
notes are so carefully revised. The historical
map, prefixed to the second volume before us,
gives facility of study to a reader, and may be
used as a mnemonical exercise. _ _

Turning to Mr. Bohn's six-volume and cheap
edition, we have to observe that it sustains the
reputation of his reprints, though more care
should have been taken in the first volume to
avoid typographical blunders. We think that it
would have been better to have stated the
name of the editor it savours of claptrap to
put the words " By an English Churchman"
on the titlepage. The notes are too frequent
in number, and often want compression, but
it is impossible to deny their value and the va-
riety of their knowledge. One of their merits
is that they contain many ethnological illustra-
tions, very useful at a period when questions
about " race " are so much discussed. We
give an example of the " English Churchman's"
style of comment. Referring to Gibbon's ac
count of the Huns, the editor of " Bohn's edi-
tion" says :
Gibbon has here made an able and judicious use of the
best materials at his command for composing the history
of the Huns. Hut later researches have overthrown his
work, by demolishing the hypothesis of M. de tiuignes, on
which it is constructed. Those who destroyed are not,
however, exactly agreed on what ought to replace the
wreck. Most of them regard the Huns as a " powerftil
nomadic people of Mongolian race, quite distinct from the
southern Asiatics and the Europeans, and they make their
appearance like the other nations of the tablelands of
Upper Asia." (Niebuhr's Lectures, vol. iii., p. al7, 830.)
Humboldt, in his " Views of Nature " (p. 5), seems to
adopt the theory of M. de Ottignes and its eloquent exposi-
tion by Gibbon ; but afterwards (p. ) inclines to the
opinion of Klaproth, who derives the Huns from " a
Finnish race of the Uralian mountains, which race has
been variously intermixed with Germans, Turks, and
Samoiciles." The inquiry is too remotely connected with
the subject of this history to demand the sacrifice of labour
and space for a lengthened note. It is enough for us to
know, that the Huns, like all their predecessors, came from
the same regions, where, resUicted in their wandering
courses by the ocean on every side but the west, they
poured out their hordes in that direction upon Europe. If
they have not been much misrepresented by historians,
their descendants must have greatly improved by their
mixture with other races.

We have no doubt that there is ample room
for both these editions of Gibbon, and that
they will obtain general support from the
public.

The Poetical Works of Robert Montgomery, M.A.
London : Chapman and Hall.
THOUGH precluded by our rules from entering
upon retrospective criticism, in the case of
authors of established station, there are some
peculiar reasons why (if our space allowed)
we should he glad to discuss at length the
merits of Mr. Montgomery's performances.
It is impossible not to feel that in early life
he was treated with excessive severity, and,
while malevolent criticism counted up his
faults, it omitted the more grateful task of in-
dicating his merits. Appearing before the
world for the first time in the days when Ra-
dicalism was rampant, his qualities as a reli-
gionist made him an object of aversion to
thinkers trained in the Voltairian school. As
Lord Byron was vilified for the crime of being
a young peer, so Mr. Montgomery was ob-
noxious for joining cultivation of the Muses to
the calling of a divine. If he had been reared
in what Mr. Horner once called "the chopped
straw " of the Edinburgh Review, Mr. Montgo-
mery might have had a chance of seeing him.

378

self extolled in an equal degree with Lord
Robertson.
What added to the harshness of the treat-
ment bestowed on him was the circulation in
a durable form of the bitter critique which had
been written on the early edition of his poems.
No notice was taken of the marked advance in
his late productions, or of the new shape in
which some of his first productions reap
peared. Such conduct seems uncharitable
and unjust, and scarcely in accordance with
the bitter critic's conduct in the case of his
own productions, as he avoided reprinting in
his collected reviews certain essays that re-
dounded neither to his acumen nor his con-
troversial powers. The articles on the " Uti-
litarian Controversy," in which the reviewer's
high-flown rhetoric appeared in unfavourable
contrast with the muscular logic of the
elder Mill, were carefully kept back, and even
an apology was made for their flagrant dis-
courtesy. But the rule followed in the case of
a philosophical Benthamite was not applied
to the works of a pious bard, the extraordinary
popularity of whose verse ought to have sug-
gested more kindly and considerate apprecia-
tion from a school that is only too much
addicted to following the popular "cry."
In the meanwhile Mr. Montgomery has sur-
vived in authorship, notwithstanding the
critical malevolence that would gladly have
strangled his poetical existence. The printing-
press has groaned under the numerous editions
of his works ; multitudes of readers have been
fascinated with his imagerial profuseness; and
the sympathies of the devout have been ex-
cited by his meditative piety. Along with the
popular suffrages, he can boast also that
Wordsworth and Professor Wilson, Crabbe,
Southey, and Lisle Bowles, were amongst
those who commended his genius and sympa-
thised with his literary success. But in another
and higher department of moral exertion Mr.
Montgomery has achieved a success to which
eulogy can scarcely add, and from which
envy cannot detract. His earliest vocation
was for the Church ; his literary labours were
made subservient to a higher purpose than
that of worldly fame. By the reception that
was accorded to his poems he was enabled to
complete his collegiate education, and devote
himself to that sacred calling in which he has
won popularity as a preacher, and exercised
much beneficial influence. He is a remarkable
instance of a preacher whose popularity has
lasted for many years; and it is an interesting
circumstance, that no other church in London
is so thronged with young men as that in which
Mr. Montgomery officiates. It can be said of him,
with perfect truth, that few men have in this
generation so successfully used both tongue
and pen in the cause of Revelation. To
numbers he has suggested thoughts that cheer
the soul, while his daily example has animated
flagging spirits not to faint in their earthly pil-
grimage. Neither the calumny of hostile
party, nor the sneers of Voltairian sceptics, can
dim the guerdon of such fair and truly ho-
nourable reputation as has been gained by
this estimable person.

Russia and the Russians. By J. W. Cole.
London : Bentley.
WE cannot compliment Mr. Cole on having
written an original work. His volume is small,
cheap, unpretending, and not uninstructive :
so much we can say with a clear conscience,
but it is a mere series of extracts or compila.
tions from other writers, most of whose hooks
are in everybody's hands. Now, compilation
under some circumstances is a very useful
task, but then it must be when the original
authorities are out of date, or unreadably dull,
or unnecessarily minute or so numerous as to
find no place in ordinary libraries. This is
not the case here, and Mr. Coles's stringing
together of historical fragments resembles
rather the commonplacing of an industrious
student for his own use, than the more elabo-
rate exertion of one who prepares a work for
the public. Yet the style being easy, and the
facts not always familiar to readers of the pre-
sent day, we peruse him with pleasure, though
the pleasure is not that which arises out of the
perception of novelty. The Czar Peter, Cathe
rine, Potemkin, the mad Paul, and his equally
mad general Suvaroff, to say nothing of Alex-