The Express.
London, England, 1858-04-08 00:00:00

LITIKRATURE.

—•--
Essays and Ronnie If Ow Rev. Robert Alfred
Vaughan. Edited, with a Memoir, by the Rev.
Roam Venon•st, D.D. In 2 von. London :
John W. Parker.
Robert Alfred Vaughan was emphatically a re-
viewer—barn to it, as the inheritor of a peerage to
broad domains and an illustrious title. We rail
against caste in India, yet in England lawyers beget
lawyers, parsons parsons, literary men literary
neen, as if doing otherwise were an unpardonable
'crime. We must admit the reviews here re-
printed are distinguished by more than the
usual excellences, of that clam of composition.
The paperson °risen, on Schleiermacher, on Savona-
rola, on Kingsley,: and Goethe, evince great copious-
ness of reeearch, great affluence of illustration, and a
tact and talent highly creditable to the writer's
artistic power,. Literature was the one passion of
a life, short, and—if we may judge by the memoir
prefixed by the father—singularly destitute of out-
ward interest. " Pape," said the boy one day, " I
think I must be a literary man." " Why so, Al r
was the reply. " Beanie I remember being
within the sound of the scratching of your
pen almost as long as I can remember
anything." One of the beet schools in London is
the University College SchooL At thirteen young
Vaughan became a pupil there. Thence he was
teneeilened. Is Ike mime whew helbtinguidied
Mundt. Thence to the Lancashire Independent
Wiley, of which his father was president. Thence
to Hall.. On his return, he became a dissenting
alergymaa , and was Nettled, first at Bath, and next
at Birmingham. There, compelled to lay aside
preaching, he wrote his " History of the Mystics,"
and died at the early age of thirty-three. We can
easily understand the grief of the father ; yet we
fancy there is a moral in his life which has not been
brought este Dr.Vaagban says : " Minds often oome:into
this world to raise expectations which the Providence
that sent them has determined shall not be
realised. But in the history of that Providence
much of the seemingly unwise will no doubt prove
to have been only the profoundest form of the wise."
It nay be so; let us hope it is so. Reverential faith
hire this is as becoming is it is rare ; but we gather
yet another lesson. When Milton weeps the loss of
Lycidas—when Shelley laments Adonais—when
Tennyson erects over the dead ashes of his friend a
memorial costlier and more lasting than monumental
brass, they assume that the world has lost what it
never had before and can never hope to see again. I
Is this in reality the cue ? On the contrary, all
history shows us that nature never misses a
man—that the system of the world goes on ;
that the sun rises and sets; that the seasons come
and go; whether men live or die. To illustrate this
truth were childish, and an insult to our readers.
Especially is this the case in the world of letters.
So long as there be printers and purchasers we need
fear no dearth of writers. One reviewer more or
less is of very little consequence ; and if, as in the
case of young Vaughan, success seems to have
been gained by the premature exhaustion of the vital
energy, then we must protest against such folly.
Young Vaughan seems to have been the victim of an
intellectual hothouse. In these days, when culti-
vated talent is common, this is quite unnecessary.
However we may disguise it, an unwise ambition
can never be a noble one. If you are a reviewer,
review; if you are a preacher, preach; but don't try
to do the work of two people. From thirteen to
thirty-three young Vaughan was always at work
with hr, brain. From the first he seems to have
had that monstrous anomaly, en old head upon
young shoulders. Had he run away to sea, had he
gone and lived with the gipeiss, bad he irritated the
paternal bosom, and made his mother weep copious
tears on account of the wantonness of his youth—he
might not have written so much, nor taken such a
good B.A. degree it the London University exami-
nation ; but he would have been just as clever a man,
and might have lived to a ripe old age. Undoubt-
edly he got the start of his fellows, but was not the
penalty death ? Considering his nature, we ques-
tion whether his training was the best adapted.
The preacher requires a wide experience of man. If
he has sinned, if be has doubted, if darkness
has come upon his soul, if he has felt all that the
Hebrew David so terribly felt and passionately de-
scribed, we know not that he is any the worse
preacher. Vaughan seems to have been a stranger
to this state. The only approach to it is in lettere
written from Halle to his betrothed, when away
from home and amongst strangers he naturally felt
a little dull. We confess one of the acts in his life
on which we look with most admiration, which we
prefer even to his literary articles, was his signature
to a protest against the intolerant spirit which gave
rim to what is known in religious circles as " the
Rivulet controversy," for we hold that all catholic
writing is poor when compared with catholic living.
And herein seems to have been the special charm
of Vaughan. The letters from Messrs. Ros-
coe, Hutton, Reynolds, old college companions,
here reprinted, all bear testimony to this.
" The one effort of the life narrated, writer; Dr.
Vaughan, "was to realise a glorious culture for itself,
and to minister towards its realisation in others : its
sympathies extended to everything that might con-
duce to make men wiser, better, and happier." If
the last part of this be true the praise conveyed is
high. How earnest and painstaking he was is clear
from the following extract from his diary in 1866.
lam striving towards au historic style—a narrative that
shall =irk great plume with • kind of philosophic compre-
hensiveness, with a Wartime of vivid dMai.l, grouped chiefly
Assn des great men and real action of the drama—a biogra-
phis sepressotative summary of main features, if possible
giving the generalisations in some illaatrative or emblematic
form, dwelling on Individual coallicta, hopes, fears, on dra-
matic Altoations poetically coloured. Remembering as minor
rules

To dummied ea little so pomdble of the reader.
To avoid the abstract end seek the concrete.
To cheracterise by some epithet, when poiribla, names end
places, that they may convey some image to rite remise.
To aid mammy by antithesis and point—repeating fore-
going merda.

HavisiTio sentence too fail of ideas. To detain the reader
over as Mei or illustration, siring it in a sooesselan of sen-
tences, sec& completa, rather than in an Involved metaphor,
or half-noetaphor
In conclusion, we see from the life of Vaughan the
beneficial effects the London University is be-
ginning to exercise amongst the evangelical
dissenters. Latterly they had not been re-
nowned for scholarship ; and at Homerton,
and Horton, and Wymondley, the standard
was not high, a popular fluency being the desideratum
rather than great clerical attainment. The distin-
guished men who founded University College 'zonal-
der that to the diasenters,excluded from Cambridge
and Oxford, they offered advantages which would be
thankfully received. Unfortunately their sanguine
expectations have not been realised, but there were
some who came forward to help them. Young
Vaughan was one of these ; and premature u was
his decease, it is obvious that for breadth of thought,
for accuracy of finish, for soundness of judgment,
and extent of information, amongst the scholars of
hie own time be had few superiors. Oxford or
Cambridge might have been proud of met a son.

A HVitaltlD Truths OLD. Bosshard. of
Beams (Chas d'Or), wine merehmit, end ez-fit of the
Tribunal di °mimes et dot hewn, Ms Jest ameeld on bis
10011 per. life hreistbers win ell wegsgei in the wimp
trade, eed be bag gnat ginedebildria emegded la wow
Daiwa. Ile wee As latimele kind el the a
Wags, awl wee peeing am a spectator at ems et the mem
reemrieshis some of the Cawymaisa, tiro date& whieh he
Meleeer*asedlaary with gmat demo= end preeiden. woomor
ry is
, end be repeats lose mps Nat Vi
WWI be feint while std eat the Janke' Col-
lege et Lyeas, fa 1760. He beam* 0 widower eller baring
beat =Wed sizty-seree Tema He bee einem massed hie
beesedwid aildre himself, news retiring to vest without
having fr t male oat se essennt of ell his dame* espeeme
he thedq. Be rheas with the ems, and khetes/eft met at
an swig law Y ass morshig of the tee si a kb dine
edam he. hie bee" and la while h he bad walla be the
mho etogling fresh ear. The present shag of hie beekb
ghee bklbirde in.. to hope trot bewig still the for some