The Sun.
London, England, 1854-01-24 00:00:00

THE QUARTERLIES.

The Edinburgh Review. No. CCl.—Elsewhere
we have referred in our leading columns to the most
remarkable paper in the current number of our
great northern contemporary. The contribution
we mean in reference to the exceedingly compli-
cated " Machinery of Parliamentary Legislation"
—a paper evidently written by one perfectly mas-
ter of his subject, and calculated, we may add, to
prepare the way fol• a variety of important and
desirable innovations. The article is one in every
way creditable to that sagacity and ability which
have built up for the Edinburgh its high and stable
reputation. Already, moreover, in the leading
columns of this journal we have taken occasion
to excerpt from the paper on " The Ottoman
Empire," a declaration which commanded our
attention to the new number of the Edinburgh
almost from the earliest moment of its appearance.
That earnest and decided declaration, which merits
to be here repeated, to the effect that—" Every
Minister of the Crown who advises, and every
member of Parliament who votes for, a war with
Russia, must, if he understands the true interests
of England, be prepared to make the utmost
exertions, to strike the hardest blow, and to
inflict the deepest wound which the vast re-
sources of this country will permit." Observe—
no partial measures, but—" the utmost exer-
tions, the hardest blow, and the deepest wound !"
A reminder coming before the public signifi-
cantly from the organ of the Whigs, and ap-
positely just prior to the re-assembling of the Im-
perial Legislature. A recommendation that we do
hope may not be lost either upon Ministers of the
Crown or upon members of Parliament. A care-
fully-written and most commendatory criticism of
" Lord John Russell's Memorials of Fox" leads off
the Edinburgh for the quarter just commenced.
The next contribution, having reference to
" The Blind, their Works and Ways," will be
found one of singular interest, and re-
plete with a variety of curious facts illus-
trative of the mode adopted in the process of their
education. A store of valuable information may
also be discovered in the paper relating to " Public
Works in the Presidency of Madras." " Eccle-
siastical Economy" is the designation, moreover, of
a Chapter on the Protestant Establishment,
abounding in note-worthy statistics. Besides an
article on " Government Education Measures
for Rich and Poor, " there is still another contri
bution in the Edinburgh not yet particularised—a
genial criticism on the writings of " Thackeray."
To this eloborate but confused criticism, the
attention of many scores and scores of in-
telligent readers, we doubt not will be di-
rected. In it will be found no opinion
whatever in regard to the wonderful Fit zboodle,
or the still more wonderful Michael Angelo
Titmarsh. Barry Lyndon and the Book of Snobs,
Men's Wives and Brown's Letters, the Yellow
Plush Papers and the Prize Novelists, are all
passed over with merely a mention of them,
strictly apologetic and incidental. The Paris
Sketch Book, and the Irish Sketch Book, and the
Hoggarty Diamond, appear to have been either en-
tirely forgotten by the reviewer or contemptuously
overlooked. The notice of the Edinburgh only
condescends to fix itself upon the " three great
novels" mentioned at the head of the article—
" Vanity Fair," and " Pendennis," and " Henry
Esmond "—followed by a supplementary sentence
or two of eulogium upon the " Lectures on the
English Humorists." Allusion, of course, could
not be made in any way to the new serial story of
" The Newcomes," from the same master hand,
that work being still only in course of publication.
But what is here said by the Edinburgh in regard
to the remarkable . works already specified,
will be altogether satisfactory to the admirers
(who aro now " legion ") of the genius of
William Thackeray. The criticism' is from first
to last eminently, and wisely, and genially
appreciative. The reviewer has a wholesome
horror of that " whimpering little goddess," whom
Mr. Thackeray (says he) " deifies in every novel "
—as for example Amelia in " Vanity Fair," and
Laura in "Pendennis." Closing the notice of the
former work, it is here said of Vanity Fair by the
Edinburgh—" We have been reviewing one of the
.most remarkable books of this age—a work which
is as sure of immortality as ninety-nine hundredths
of modern novels are sure of annihilation." In
allusion to one of the most admirable por-
tions pf that great novel, that in which the scone
shifts to the neighbourhood of Waterloo, the
critic very happily remarks :

" Mr. Thackeray never was more happily inspired
than when he removed his theatre to Belgium. Every
reader will admit that the events in Brussels are those
which are the most strongly imprinted on his memory.
Every one recollects, as well as if he had witnessed them,
the perplexities of Lady Bareacres, the undaunted self.
possession of Becky, and the terrors of Joseph Sedley.
But it is not merely to the exquisite truth with which
these scenes are imagined that they owe their apparent
reality. The solid foundation of fact by which all that is
invention is supported, gives to it a stability which no
pure fictions can possess. We know that thousands
must have been startled at -their mid-day meal, like
Sedley and Mrs. O'Do wd by the dull distant mutterings
of Quatre Bras. We know that tens of thousands felt
Amelia's terrors when the cannon of Waterloo began to
roar. Every Scotchnian who visited the British Insti-
tution last year, and admired Drummond's charming
picture of John Knox bringing home his second wife,
felt what probability was given to its imaginary details
by the curious gable ends and projecting windows and
outside staircase of the still existing house at the head
of the Netherbow, which the serious bridal procession is
reaching."

" Pendennis " is regarded by the Edinburgh, as
by almost every one who has read the two works,
as decidedly inferior to its predecessor. At th e
close of the analysis of " Pendennis " we meet
with this excellent suggestion :
"We have said nothing about the tragical parts of
the story—about Colonel Altamont and his frightful
secret and mysterious threats ; or Warrington's discarded
wife. They are tacked so slightly to the comic portions,
that they might easily be detached altogether. And if
Mr. Thackerary should think fit hereafter to lighten
Pendennis, and so improve its chances of floating down
to posterity, we recommend that these be the portions of
its rigging that are first cut away."
Speaking of " Esmond," the reviewer acknow-
ledges that "it is a wonderful tour de force"—
adding a little later on :
" Even Walter Scott, though, in order to please critics
who are intolerant of anachronisms, he endeavours to
copy the manners and feelings of a past age, does not try
to speak in its language or in its style. His events may
be medieval, but he relates them like any other novelist
of the nineteenth century. Though the scene of Rob
Roy is laid 140 years ago, and though Osbaldiston is his
own biographer, he tells his story as if he had just
finished his education in the new town of Edinburgh.
The courage, the diligence, and the skill of Mr. Thacke-
ray have enabled him to avoid this inconsistency. Col.
Esmond writes as one of the best of her wits might have
written in the reign of Queen Anne."

Nevertheless, says the writer, " we cannot avoid
thinking that this merit has been purchased too
dearly ; the reader feels always that he is listening
to falsetto notes ; that he is looking at the imita-
tion of an imitation." Towards the conclusion of
the whole criticism it is observed with reason, " Mr.
Thackeray, in his' English Humorists,' resembles lit-
tle Mr. Thackeray as a satirist. He is as indulgent to
his real as he is severe towards his imaginary charac-
ters." One thing in this review we are somewhat
surprised at, namely, that from certain allusions at
page 240, the writer of it does not appear to esti-
mate at its true value the loveable character of
George Warrington.