The Press.
London, England, 1858-01-30 00:00:00

THE PRESS, JANUARY 30, 1858.

of the Review from which they are reprinted.
We have been greatly pleased by them on a
second as well as on a first perusal. The
style is fresh, and really deserves the epithet
of spackling. The humour is genuine, and
the subjects are such as no Englishman, and
even few highly-educated foreigners, could
regard with indifference. Perhaps, indeed,
these arc rather too various. There are few
single minds competent to appreciate such
wide diversities of character as must ho in-
cluded within a list embracing Bishop Butler,
the poet Shelley, and Sir Robert Peel. We
cannot turn from one to another of these ela-
borate dissections of human nature without a
passing suspicion either of their soundness or
their originality. The more purely literary
essays are the most satisfactory. In some of
the others, Mr. Bagehot seems to start from a
conventional point of view, and sometimes
conveys the impression that his political opi•
nions are second-hand, while his literary judg-
ments are the result of independent thought.
Ho has also other faults, of which time, we
trust, will cure him. Ho is occasionally smart
at the expense of consistency, and flippant to
the verge of childishness. He has, too, some
little pedantic affectation which we heartily re-
commend him to shake off. He is always
trying to swim in shallow water, and naturally
exposes himself in the effort. " Psychology"
has fatal attractions for him. If he had to
explain why a dustman likes beer, he would
account for it on the soundest psychological
principles. " That adult temperament," he
would commence, and so proceed, much to his
reader's astonishment, who fancies he knows
a simpler account of the phenomenon. Some-
times, also, Mr. Bagehot writes from insuffi-
cient knowledge. But, taken as a whole, these
essays are very entertaining, and in the de
pertinent of pure criticism likely to be very
serviceable.

We shall offer a few instances of the prin-
cipal faults we have noticed. In the first
essay, upon "The First Edinburgh Reviewers,"
Mr. Bagehot has a good deal to say on the
character of Lord Eldon. He treats him with
a degree of contempt which we are willing to
attribute to want of reflection on the subject.
We do this the more readily as Mr. Bagehot
does not seem to know what he means himself
In one place he writes, "As fot Lord Eldon,
" it is the most difficult thing in the world to
" believe that there ever was such a man. It
" only shows how intense historical evidence
"is that no one ever doubts it." Now, this in
conversation would be passably witty, and even
in an essay might be thought facetious, if the
salt of it were not washed out a page or two
further on by the following :—" The fact is that
" Lord Eldon's rule was maintained a great
" deal on the same motives as that of Louis
" Napoleon . . . . he was like the present
" Emperor, the head of what we call the party
"of order." Now, so far from finding it diffi-
cult to believe there was such a man in the
first quarter of the nineteenth century, we
should have thought it much more contrary to
human experience if there hadn't been. It
is curious to observe how thoroughly Mr.
Bagehot contradicts himself in this essay, in
thought at least, if not in language. In one
page he points out how natural it was that a
repressive school of politicians should have
flourished at that period ; in another he calls
their opinions " stupid and crude acquies-
cence." Now, if there were sound reasons for
Lord Eldon's fear of revolution, his acquies-
cence—we should prefer to call it contentment
—in the system of his day was neither stupid
nor crude. What are Mr. Bagehot's words
Everybody knows what keeps Louis Napoleon in his
place. It is not attachment to him, bat dread of what he
restrains—dread of revolution. The present may not be
good, and having such newspapers,—you might say no
newspapers,—is dreadful; but it is better than no trade,
bankrupt banks, loss of old savings ; your mother
beheaded on destructive principles ; your eldest son shot
on conservative ones. Very similar was the feeling of
Englishmen in the year 1800. They had no liking at
all for the French system. Statesmen saw its absurdity,
holy men were shocked at its impiety, mercantile men saw
its effect on the Five per Cents. Everybody was revolted
by its cruelty.

These feelings were perfectly justifiable. The
Reformers of 1810 were not like those of to-day.
More than that, the whole energies of the
country were engaged in a war pro aria et foois.
We 00144 not change our front in presence of

113

the enemy. Nor after 1815 was it wise to
undertake the work of change till the angry
passions of the past had begun to subside.
Under these circumstances, Eldon and Castle-
reagh were the right men in the right place.
Reform is sometimes made Revolution by
coming too soon as well as by coming too late.
In preventing Reform for a certain space of
time Lord Eldon did good service to his
country. He did the work for which his
genius fitted him, and when be had done
enough gave way to a younger generation.
This quarrelling with men of the past because
they are unlike men of the present is really
absurd. Nobody blames Nelson for hating
the French, yet such language would be insuf-
ferable now.

In comparing the system of education at
the Scotch and English universities, Mr.
Bagehot falls into that common mistake which
is so often made by persons unacquainted
with the latter. Under the old system at
Oxford, it was impossible to obtain even a
second class without severe metaphysical
study; while a tint was almost invariably a
guarantee of thorough acquaintance with
ancient metaphysics, and with a large branch
of moral philosophy and logic.

We hope, by-the bye, her Majesty's Minis-
ters may agree with the following definition of
Liberalism :
It is a principle of fermenting enjoyment, running over
all the nerves, inspiring the frame, happy in its mind, easy
in Ps place, glad to behold the ann.

The two following articles, on Cowper and
Gibbon, are admirable, if regarded from Mr.
Bagehot's own point of view. He is a stanch
romanticist, and takes a much lower view of
the literature of the eighteenth century than,
in our opinion, it deserves. All his observa-
tions on Pope seem to us especially untrue.
One of them is this—" His subject was not
" life at large, hut fashionable life." Now, we
should like Mr. Bagehot to explain what he
means by this. Did Gildon, or Dennis, or
Welstead belong to fashionable life? But he
treated all his subjects with a view only to
that class of readers ? Possibly ; because there
was no other class. Literary culture and social
distinction then went hand in hand. " The
Town " was an author's only audience. The
same is equally true of Juvenal, Horace, or
D►yden. We entirely deny that Pope's mind
was "a hoard of small maxims, a quintes-
" sense of petty observations." He certainly
does not employ those almighty adjectives
which have been found so serviceable by
writers of the present day. But his know-
ledge of human nature was as deep as Field-
ing's. His essays do not produce the same
effect upon us as "Tom Jones" does, because
Pope's method was analytic, and the novelist's
method is synthetic, to which we have now
grown accustomed. The one takes to pieces,
the other puts together. Or, to use a clearer
illustration, Pope gives us the plan of the
building, and shows its defects either of
convenience or beauty ; Fielding leads us
through the rooms, bids us mark the furniture
and the pictures, and en route pays a visit to
the cellar.

Though we agree with the essayist in his
estimate of Cowper's Homer, we cannot agree
with him in his opinion of English blank
verse. The verse of teu syllables, whether
rhyming or blank, is the most difficult metre
in the language, and the latter the more diffi-
cult of the two. But in the hands of a master
it lacks not " the trumpet sound." We must
consider, moreover, how much there is both
in the Iliad and Odyssey of a pastoral or
didactic character which our blank verse is as
well, perhaps better, calculated to express than
rhyme.
Mr. Bagehot's estimate of Gibbon is con-
ceived in the same spirit as his estimate of
Cowper. It is, we think, too high in some re-
spects and too low in others. To us his want
of candour is more conspicuous than his want
of vivacity.
In the article on Butler, either we misunder-
stand Mr. Bagehot or Mr. Bagehot m;.sunder-
stands the bishop. The argument of the
" Analogy " goes not a step beyond this,—to
show that natural religion and revealed reli-
gion may both have proceeded from the same
author. ro urge against this argument what
we might have expected God to do 0 rev.*

114

tion, is not only to import a wholly foreign
element into the dispute, but is doing the very
thing which Butler has warned us against.
He merely, ho tells us, deals with things as
they are—with the facts of nature—with the
scriptures of revelation Those who busy
themselves with what might have been done in
either, must look out for a different disputant.
There may or may not be separate difficulties
in each. He is only concerned with those
they share in common.
In the essay on the character of Sir Robert
Peel we have again to qualify our praise of its
real ability by strictures on the tone of wanton
impertinence sometimes adopted. Of Sir
Robert Peel's intellect, and the causes of his
political success, this is the best account we
know ; but why spoil it by little petty snarls
like the following?—
We remember Peel as the proper head of a moderate.
intelligent, half-comtvercial community ; we forget that he
onoe was the chosen representative of a gentry untrained to
great affairs, absorbed in a great war, only just recovering
from the horror of a great revolution.
Wily, these same " gentry" had, on Mr. Bage-
hot's own showing, been governing the country
for a century and a half. But he cannot
resist the opportunity of a spiteful sneer, how-
over unfounded, or however subversive of pre-
vious statements.

Again, of the Dean of York, who had made
several applications to Sir Robert for prefer-
ment for his family, and comments on his
relative's refusal as follows :

These letters show the noble principle on which Sir
Robert's public life was founded. I am quite sure that
he had a great regard for my sons. He invited them to
his shooting-quarters, was pleased to find them amuse-
ment, and made them many handsome presents ; but he
steadily refused to enrich them out of the public purse
merely because they were his nephews. Many Prime
Ministers have not been so scrupulous.

Mr. Bagehot remarks,—" And clearly one
" divine wishes Sir Robert had not been so."
Now, where is the necessity for this stroke of
illnature 9 If the Dean of York did not
shrink from confessing his own weakness in
order to protect the reputation of another, we
think Mr. Bagehot might at least have left
him alone, if he could not bring himself to
approve. But we must say the virtue of can-
dour seems to have no charms for this gentle-
man.

His portrait of Canning evinces an intellec-
tual deficiency of almost equal magnitude.
He cannot take in the idea of the old classic
statesman. He turns him over and over, and
cannot understand him. This is shown quite
as much by his remarks on the House of Com-
mons as by those on particular men. He is
evidently tainted by that mental vulgarity
which cannot believe in the coincidence of
fineness and force. This fineness of mind is
produced by early and assiduous education ;
and persons thus trained are familiarised with
many conclusions which are understood with
more difficulty later in life, and do undoubtedly
require a good deal of " tough thinking.'
Hence arise the i well-known dogmatism and
conceit of self-made men. They will never
believe that an) one can understand a subject
whom it has not cost as much labour as it, has
themselves. Now, the race of statesmen of
whom Canning was the last were generally
men of high literary culture. They set before
themselves great models of conduct. Their
notions were larger, freer, and more genial
than those of our contemporaries. They
breathed a healthier atmosphere. Their posi-
tion was a genuine position. Their oratory
was genuine oratory—not spoken essays
adapted to the newspapers. In one word,
they were governors, not administrators—a
trued of which Mr Bagehot sees the one half
clearly enough, but there he stops short. He
knows that the crowd is dirty, but he is not
tall enough to look over their heads, and
eatches only broken glimpses of the stately
iprocession beyond.
The best piece of pure criticism in the
volume is the article on Macaulay. It is cer-
tainly by far the best thing which has been
written of him. His great peculiarity, says
Mr. Bagehot. is " the union of a flowing fancy
" with an insensible organisation." All
_
Ma-
and merits are summed up in
Elsewhere it is am-

eatilay's defeets a
that admirable se
plified :