The Press.
London, England, 1858-08-21 00:00:00

THE PRE S S, AUGUST 21, 1858.

Harold " the poet paid a brilliant compliment to
The Ariosto of the North." Recollecting what
Scott did to raise the Novel, it is truly digusting
see the way in which that great man is dis-
paraged in this work, professing to treat of
" novels and novelists." It is still more offensive
'ten the writer prostrates himself in abject
idolatry before Mr. Dickens. Here is the way in
Yhich Mr. Jeaffreson attempts to pronounce upon
Scott's character :
it is difficult to form a correct estimate of Sir Walter
Solt. The man was a mass of contradictions ; the writer,
iiicalculably great, though his achievements too often
provoke censure. In politics he was a narrow bigot of a
party whose principles were prejudices, and whose zeal
vas a jealous hate of all opponents ; yet he was a beneve-
at and philanthropic ti an. History was the study he
especially cultivated, but he persisted in reading it only one
way—that, namely, which accorded with the sentiments
vbibi he had imbibed in the nursery from ballads and
border legends. Even when he was compelled to surrender
dogmas before an array of facts, he had not the
aourage to silence the whisperings of eld associations of
thought, and boldly to declare the truth. He declined to
write a biography of Queen Mary of Scotland, " because his
opinion was contrary to his feelings." What a striking
form of intellectual cowardice and dishonesty! and yet he
was truthful, and of a high courage ! Ere he lisped, he was
Jacobite; and when he became the enthusiastic
worshipper of Ueorge IV., he salved the wounds of
his politico-romantic faith by continual assertions, that that
monarch acquired a title, dr jure, on the death of the
pitiable Cardinal of York. Such a man of course never
learnt the great lessons of the past. He was an antiquarian,
so far as his imagination would allow him to be ; war songs,
stories of the feuds, olden ruins, armour, media:yid
architecture, costumes, social customs,—with all these he
bad an uncommon acquaintance ; but lie was as much at
fault when describing the life, the vital needs, and the
longings of the remote ages in which he placed the scenes
of many of his novels, as be was when he discussed the
character and tendency of the French in Paul's Letters,
and "The Life of Napoleon," or when he poured forth
Tory jargon for the last time, on the Jedburgh hustings.
fie was widely, but not well read; and be often acknow-
ledged it with grief. Of judgment, the logical faculty, the
capacity of mastering a wide range of thought, and the
power of following out a chain of reasoning to its end, he
was utterly devoid. He was a superficial thinker ; and
though he was endowed with an ever active imagination, a
lively brain, and a more than common share of nervous
irritability, he altogether lacked earnestness of thought.

Scott " never learnt the great lessons of the
past"! Why, the master faculty which Scott
possessed was his power of lighting up the past—
of bringing it before the reader's mind with
singular vividness. He was utterly devoid of
"judgment," and " the logical faculty," and
"the power of following out a chain of reason-
ing." He was " a superficial thinker," and he
" altogether lacked earnestness of thought."
Little does Mr. Jeaffreson know that in such a
passage he was rendering an extraordinary
tribute to the genius of Scott. For if with his
"superficiality," and " want of earnestness," and
deficiency in logical thought, Scott was able to
obtain such great triumphs, how amazing must
have been the mighty powers which caused him
to succeed in spite of his imputed defect ! Mr.
Jeaffreson ought not to be too facile in attri-
buting a want of logical thought.
Oh ! that some god the gift would gie us,
To see out selves as others see us !
He does not seem to be aware that the con-
structive power required for carrying on a plot,
and arranging the contrasted forms of the
dramatis persona, cannot be possessed without
power of " logical thought." The fact that Scott
declined to write the life of Mary Queen of Scots
because "his opinion was contrary to his feel-
ings;' has no relation to intellectual cowardice
and dishonesty. " lie was an antiquarian, so
" far as his imagination would allow him to
" be." Here a little " logical thought " would
have taught Mr. Jeaffreson that imagination is
an aid, and not an obstacle—a torch, and not a
drag-chain to an antiquary. Elsewhere the
detractor writes :
There was notoing of the philosopher in him. He was
a man of honour, and what in Scotland was regarded as a
it eently God-fearing man, although a novel-writer, but
eared nothing for truth, immutable and everlasting,
and he never passed through a fit of religious fervour,
—his zeal was all for the Tory parts, there was none
of it for the Lord of Hosts. He cherished an amiable
g.mdwill to the bodies of his fellow-creatures, hut cared.
1 rush for their souls. His art, perfect master as
Ile Wna of it, was to him eventually a trade and when hell
'ln for money he did not hesitate to push bad goods upon
tho market.
That is an odious style of writing, and worthy
only of a bagman caricaturing the style of a
critic. Scott was a philosopher, of the humane,
genial, and practical kind; but he was not a
Ailosnphe. His views on religion and morals
"ere broad and catholic, and such as might have
The
held by a thorough Church of England man.
-the gross way in which this offensive writer says

that Scott had no zeal for the Lord of Hosts
is coarse, canting, and contemptible beyond de-
scription. The whole account of Scott, indeed,
is like a cross between Reynolds and Spurgeon.
But Scott is de.AI, and Grub-street literature
cannot obtain compliments, or cards, or even a
nod of the head, from the genius that is no more.
Living geniuses have, along with their laurels,
good houses, good company, and good fare, and
they can never want small trumpeters to be
assiduous in swell'lg the chorus of admiration.
Mr. Dickens is plastered with eulogy in the fol-
lowing style :
There is not a human heart in these islands, so fruitful
of wretchedness end depravity, which Dickens has not at
some time or other influenced fur the better ; not a home,
however humble End tenanted with evil passions, that his
good genius does not occasionally visit, like a peace angel,
garnishing, setting in order, and sanctifying with pleasant
words of hope. Amongst us there is not a grinding task-

master who'would not-have been more exttrtionati; there
is not, a mean nature that would not have been more selfish,
and there is not a flippant worldling who would not have
been more enamoured of frivolity, had Dickens never lived
to write. Was not his influence so invariably for good,
that we feel he is powerless to exercise it for wrong, it
would be tearful to contemplate it.
Of Sir Edward Lytton and the Chancellor of
the Exchequer the author of these " clumsy
volumes " has written in the style of a stupid
and snarling pamphleteer. Ile attempts to be
effective with personalities, but his points are
too blunted, and his combustibles are too damp
to go off. It is not worth while dwelling on
the numerous errors and the gross unfairness of
the criticisms on these two distinguished men of
genius. We stated some of these blunders in
our first article, and space is 'wanted to expose
Mr. Jeaffreson in detail. Of Mr. Disraeli's
" Life of Lord George Bentinck" it is said
here, in allusion to the chapters describing Sir
Robert Peel :

Death came, and robbed the nation of one of the most
heroic sons she had ever possessed; the dreaded reaction
could no longer be delayed ;—and on the first opportunity,
the occasion of writin the memoir of a friend and
coadjutor in politics, Mr. Disraeli spurned the dead clay
and insulted the memory of him whose brightest fame
commenced with his death.
It so happens that, by the confession of friend
and foe, the finest picture of Sir It. Peel painted
in pen and ink was from the pen of the Chancellor
of the Exchequer in the " Life of Lord George
Bentinck." It is false and calumnious to say
that Mr. Disraeli "spurned the dead clay." The
reverse is the fact. " The greatest member of
" Parliament that ever lived" is the rank assigned
by Mr. Disraeli to Sir Robert Peel ; but Mr.
Jeaffreson perhaps never saw the book. We
take our leave of " Novels and Novelists" with
the sincerest regret that the false taste of the
age should have led a gentleman of Mr. Jeaffre-
son's ability into the composition of so crude and
gossipping a work.

A Manual of British Archaeology. By Charles
Boutell, M.A. London : Reeve.

WHATEVER opinion may be entertained of the
doctrinal value or ecclesiastical importance of
the Anglican movement of 1833, there can be no
doubt that in some of its minor accessories it
was the means of effecting much that was useful
and good. Without pursuing the subject into
all its details, we may observe, for instance,
that it gave a wonderful impulse to the
pursuit of antiquarian learning of all kinds,
as illustrated by monuments and relics of
every description from a seal up to a cathedral.
The study of archaeology in general as distin-
guished from the Christian branch of it profited
by the new ardour thus evoked, and the vast
remains of early Druidism or the scientific
castrametation of Roman occupants were explored
by the same hands that took off impressions of
brasses, or applied the leaden tape to the
mouldings of a Gothic doorway. Both Univer-
sities shared in the fever of research : Oxford
contributed her "Parker's Glossary," and Cam-
bridge her " Ecclesiologist " ; monographs of
remarkable buildings showed themselves in
popular literature, and picnics were dignified by
a definite purpose beyond that of eating, drinking,
and flirting, through the investigation bestowed
upon the mouldering ruins or half-obliterated
earthworks which had long been their accustomed
but unheeded localities. In all this, no doubt,
there was much that was trifling, much that was
pedantic, much that was but the imitative
concession to a prevailing fashion ; but there was,
also, much that was of enduring value both in
method and result. Those who took up such
subjects without any real taste for or apprecia-

803

tion of them, or who were daunted by the dry
labour which every subject, however apparently
attractive, involves on being conscientiously
studied, were at last thrown out and distanced
by the real and energetic workers, and the class
of true antiquarians became more and more de-
fined. The mass of their literature, however,
had all this while one on accumulating until it
was of itself sufficient to fill a library. A vast
quantity of writing on all such matters thus
came to exist, buried in magazines, reviews,
newspapers, county histories, reports of meetings,
and the like,—not to mention more elaborate
works on special topics, through which no one
but an adept in the science, or who, as lawyers
say, had " noted up" his information from time
to time, could possibly find his way.
The persons who can really thread with
confidence these heterogeneous storehouses of
knowledge are comparatively few in number,
but there are many others who feel a liberal
curiosity about the antiquities which lie close
about their place of residence or which they may
meet with in their autumn tour, and who would
feel very glad of some useful manual to which
they could turn, as the scholar does to his Adams,
or Potter, or Smith's Dictionary, when he wants
to refresh his memory after a ramble through
Rome or Pompeii. Mr. Boutell has the merit
of having come forward to supply this want with
a manual of an exceedingly useful and interesting
character. We have no room for extracts, but
we may say that the style is remarkably neat
and concise, without being dry. The author
shines in classification, and though, from the
small size of his work, it has of course been im-
possible for him to give anything like a list of
the individuals composing the genera and species
which he has laid down, still these divisions
themselves arc so complete and so clearly ar-
ranged that we have been unable to think of
any kind of antiquarian object which could
not be referred to one or other of his
sections. llis book contains eleven chapters, the
first two of which are devoted to " Architecture"
' and " Architectural Accessories," and the third
and fourth to " Sepulchral Monuments" and
" Heraldry." Then we have in chaps. v., vi.,
and vii., " Seals," Coins," and "Illuminations
and Inscriptions." Arms and armour, costumes
and ornaments, occupy the next two chapters,
and we arc finally instructed in the varieties of
ceramic and other arts applied to manufac-
tures of a miscellaneous character. The only
point iu the arrangement we should be disposed
to alter would be the last section of all, where
under " miscellaneous subjects " ancient earth-
works are included. These deserved a chapter
to themselves, and if it were placed first, and one
or two similar slight transpositions made, some
kind of chronological order, from the savagery
of a " British Camp" to the civilization of
" English Shipping in the Middle Ages," might
also be maintained. We should also have thought
that the nomenclature of English Gothic invented
by Rickman might well have been abandoned
for that which is based on the names of the kings
under whom each style was prevalent. But this
is a minor point. Mr. Boutell's work will, we
have no doubt, find a place on the tables of many
a parsonage and country house, as well as form
part of many a traveller's luggage. There era
twenty beautiful illustrations, none of which
appear (as is so often the caie) to have done duty
before, and many of them are brilliantly embla-
zoned in colours. There are also three excellent

indexes—a great merit. Turning over the leaves
of this book, however, has set us thinking
whether Mr. Boutell might not undertake some-
thing of the same kind on a larger scale. Why
should there not be a book of reference on British
archwology of the same extent and value as those
which we have on the antiquities of Greece and
Rome ?—and why should not Mr. Bou+cll under-
take the editorship of one ? The dictionary
form is in many respects objectionable, but if Mr.
Boutell were to obtain a few coadjutors, who
would each be responsible for a section,—one for
ceramics, another for coins, and so on,—and a
thoroughly minute index were appended to the
whole, the result would be a work which we are
convinced would be exceedingly popular as well
as historically useful, and which would save the
searches through county histories and other
bulky works which the elucidation of any object
of interest now requires. We hope some liberal
and sagacious publisher may take the matter into
consideration

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