The Sun.
London, England, 1865-04-21 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

People's Edition of Mill.

On Liberty. By John Stuart Mill. Bvo., pp. 68
On Representative Government. By the Same. Bvo.
pp. 141. Longman and Co.

Never has a popular edition of a great author ap-
peared more opportunely ! More than that, we
might almost venture to say—Never was a popular
• edition of a great author's works more needed than
the very one here commenced, in the nick of time, by
the Messrs. Longman! Is it not so ? Let the " situa-
tion," as our friends across the channel have it,
answer. The " situation "as between Mr. Mill
and the public at large being simply as follows,—
namely that—whereas Mr. Mill enjoys, and has
now for some years enjoyed, among the more highly
educated classes, not only in this country, but
abroad, in both hemispheres, the very loftiest reputa-
tion as a philosophic writer, endowed with intellectual
capacities the most profound, vigorous and com-
prehensive—and whereas that reputation of Mr.
Mill's, while patent no doubt to the multitude,
has, in some sense, also, been " caviare to
the general "—the philosopher hitherto (as, in-
deed, but befits a philosopher) writing very
much as a recluse has just now been sum-
moned, as it were, into the public marketplace—
name, reputation, writings, and all, in his new capa-
city, as a candidate for the suffrages of the free and
independent electors of the city of Westminister !
Most opportunely, therefore, the Messrs. Long-
man -have decided upon doing their part—and
the two volumes now under notice are, each of
them, proof positive, that that part they are
doing very admirably—towards the popularizing of
the thoughts, of the genius, of the philosophy of
Mr. Mill. His teachings as a political philosopher
will thus, at length, be advanced from the esoteric
to the exoteric. Here—as the first unveiling of this
Isis to the general multitude—we have two of
Mr. Mill's most remarkable productions, the essay
or treatise upon " Liberty," and the essay
or treatise upon " Representative Government !"
The former appears, distinctly, if not professedly,
as a disquisition. The latter, avowedly, as mere—
considerations." To the volume on Liberty is
prefixed the affecting Dedication through which the
gifted author of the book pays his tribute of
tenderest affection and profoundest veneration to
" the beloved and deplored memory of her who
was the inspirer," as he declares, in so many
words, of all that is best in his writings! "The
friend and wife," he exclaims, " whose exalted
sense of truth and right was my strongest incite-
ment, and whose approbation was my chief re-
ward." Further than this, he says, " Like all
that I have written for many years, it belongs
as much to her as to me ; but," he adds thereupon,
emphatically and apparently with a new pang of
regret, " the work, as it stands, has had, in a very
insufficient degree, the inestimable advantage of
her revision." Yet even then, as if all that were
not sufficiently expressive of his love and admi-
ration for his most cherished memory, Mr. Mill thus
ends what we must again designate this most
affecting Dedication,—" Were I but capable," he
protests, "of interpreting to the world one half
the great thoughts and noble feelings which
are buried in her grave, I should be the medium of
a greater benefit to it, than is ever likely to arise from
anything that I could write, unprompted and un-
assisted by her all but unrivalled wisdom." Well
might the shade of this departed woman of genius
aver in reference to the fame and glory won by her
husband's writings—Quorum pars magna fui !
Reading merely these two works already published
as the first in this serial re-issue, volume by
volume, of the writings of Mr. Mill— and
coupling with them this beautiful and touching
Dedication, the Electors of 'Westminster may
already feel capable of appreciating, let us say, just
a trifle more vividly, the worth of the man and the
genius of the philosopher, than they could reason-
ably have been capable of appreciating either,
when they were first startled into attention by the
utterance of his great name, as that of a candidate
for their suffrages. We shall watch, with peculiar
interest, the advance towards completion of this
wonderfully cheapyet thoroughly excellent "People's
Edition" of the writings of Mr. Mill, as a Poli-
tical Philosopher, as one of the most illustrious
among the small and select band of really pro
found political philosophers.

Man's Place and Bread Unique in Nature. By
a University Professor. Pp. 88. Edinonston
and Douglas.

As the epigraph of this impressive little treatise,
we have imprinted upon its very tittle-page the
golden sentence, " Nature conceals God ; man
reveals God." The argument here put forth--with
singular modesty (as it appears to us) unacknow-
ledged—by one of the University Professor's, is put
forth with a proclivity, as we may say, towards the
Angel rather than towards the Ape. Whereas as
Mr. Darwin has gone in for the Ape and
Mr. Disraeli (following in this, surely the instinct
of a nobler preference) has gone in for the Angel
—the anonymous writer sides, avowedly, rather
with the latter than with the former commentator,
upon the vexed question as to the origin of our
species. Such, indeed, is frankly avowed in the
very sub-title of the paper thus given to the public
as from the hand of " A University Professor."
For, in continuation of the title of the paper as
above given, " Man's Place and Bread Unique in
Nature," the writer adds, " And His Pedigree
Human not Simian ! " It is a little book written,
in point of fact, very strenuously and earnestly,
as well as quite frankly and avowedly, in
counteraction of certain views (views only too well
known) advanced (at once very superficially and
very persuasively) by Mr. Darwin, Professor Huxley,
and the Rev. Baden-Powell. It is an argument
the data for which are drawn, pretty equally, from
Physiology and from Psychology ! An argument,
on the one hand for the Supernatural in. Na-
ture—and on the other, for the Providential and
Divine in Human Nature. It is, in yet fewer words,
to put the gist of the whole pamphlet, a direct and
manful Defence of the Rights of Humanity—rights
recently outraged, if not threatened, by the claims
put forth in favour of the vilest and meanest of all
the Brute Creation, being seriously regarded as our
Progenitors.

Fleurs des Bords du Rhin. Par le Chevalier de
Chatelain. Pp. 320. Rolandi: 20, Berners-
street.

More industrious even than Dr. Watts' bee, the
Chevalier de Chatelain has been gathering honey,
not only all the day, but, seemingly, all the night
too, by the light of his student-lamp, from the
wild wilderness of Poetic Flowers that bloom
perennially on the banks of the Rhine, consti-
tuting the vast and varied area of Teutonic
Literature. Having gone the whole round of our
own poetic literature, as a translator from Eng-
lish into French, our accomplished author has
now boldly ventured, as an interpreter, beyond
the border-land of ballad lore in Germany. Here
is his first gathering of some among those
radiant flowers—a very garland of immortelles !
Among them versions of masterpieces as famous
as the Leonora of Burger, as the Song of the Sword of
of Korner, as the Erl King of Goethe, as the Diver
of Schiller. It is nothing less than an exploit, the
translation thus en masse of so many wonderful
poems—poems, many of them of far more than
merely European reputation. Several amongst
them, and these, it should be said, often
about the most difficult of successful accom-
plishment, are accomplished most successfully.
Insomuch, that we have reasons enow to congratu-
late the Chevalier, as we do hereby very cordially,
congratulate him upon the grace and dexterity with
which he has overcome so many of the difficulties
lying in his path—difficulties the conquest of each
whichmay be said to amount, in its way, to a
crucial experiment.

Debrett's Peerage. Illustrated. Debrett's Baronetage
and Knightage. Illustrated. Dean and Son.
The most radiant as well as the very readiest of
Guide-books to the Tipper Ten Thousand—for the
use of the Million—is DEBRETT. A guide-book that
has enjoyed a wide and extending popularity during
a period, now, of upwards of half a century. It was
famous, as such, in the days of Brummell and Byron.
It, doubtless, was in the thoughts of Thackeray when