The Sun.
London, England, 1831-10-24 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

EDINBURGH .RE iV.—No. CVII.
EDINBUB.GII, 1831.
If this number possessed no other article than the
Review of " Croker's Edition of Boswell's John-
son," it would still be entitled to very considerable
praise. In this merciless but just critique we recog-
nize the brilliant pen of Macauley, as much by the
energy and eloquence of its style, as by the bold
assumptions in which it abounds. Mr. Croker will,
doubtless, be of opinion that it is but a very indif-
ferent sample of critical justice or perspicacity, for
it makes sad work of his pretensions as a literary
character. It floors him with a fact ; demolishes
him with a date. Nay, it not only punishes; it ab-
solutely annihilates him. Stern, plain-spoken, in-
controvertible facts are the implements of destruc-
tion which Mr. Macauley wields with such unrelent-
ing energy. He proves that Mr. Croker is an utterly
incompetent editor; that he is negligent—ignorant
—indiscreet—presurriptuous,—guilty of repeated
anachronisms and mis-statements,—and so wholly un-
acquainted with classical literature as to rush head
long into blunders, for which a fourth-form boy at
Eton or Reading, would he visited by no stinted
allowance of birch.
We have always considered Mr. Croker an
over-rated man ; we have said so a hundred times
in The San, and are proud to find that Mr.
Macauley coincides with us in opinion, and has
reduced him to his fitting level. We have never,
indeed, denied Mr. Croker's possession of a certain
smartness and flippancy of manner, which by many,
we know, is apt tobe mistaken for wit ; still less have
we accused him of being a prosing orator or a heavy
writer; all we contend for is, that he is a mere
showy, superficial man of the world, with just suffi-
cient tact and ingenuity in literary matters to enable
him to keep his head above water. To ability of a
higher order he has no mere pretensions than to
super-eminent bashfulness. He is an ingenious
writer, nothing more ; the first of the third-rates;
a " Triton among minnows; a wit among Lords,
and a Lord among wits." He is a small poet—a small
humourist (his very puns being the feeblest of the
feeble)—a small critic—a small, a very small, orator.
And yet this is the man who presumes to grapple
with the genius of Johnson ! Assuredly, the fox who
requested an introduction to the lion, never made a
grosser blunder than this.
But the Reviewer has done Mr. Croker justice,
while he has canvassed the pretensions of Johnson,
with much eloquence, certainly, tact, and sagacity,
though in rather too depreciating a spirit. The
Shakspearian criticisms of the great lexicographer
lie considers " as wretched as if they had been
written by Rymer himself." Now we must beg to
enter our protest against this very sweeping judg-
ment. The wit, fancy, fire, arid versatility of
Shakspeare, Johnson has perhaps under-rated; but
to his shrewdness, his justness of observation, his
intimate acquaintance with the most recondite mys-
teries of the human heart, he has done ample justice.
Shakspeare, the poet, is misinterpreted; but Shak-
speare, the man of the world, receives the fairest
treatment at the hands of Johnson. And after all,
it is his consummate knowledge of life that still
keeps the name of Shakspeare green among us.
He lives in his lago, his Othello, his Falstaff, his
Macbeth, his brief but matchless sketch of Master
Barnardine, his Hamlet, his Benedict, and, above
all, in that character of characters, Mercutio. As a
poet he is surpassed by Spencer, and often equalled
by Beaumont and Fletcher ; but as a painter of the
passions, as an artist whose colouring, though at
times extravagant, has always the freshness of truth
and reality about it, he is, and we suspect will
long continue to be, unrivalled. All this Johnson
understood, and was fully able to appreciate, and if
he fails in his criticisms on Shakspeare, it is chiefly
in a point to which Hazlitt alone has done justice ;
we mean in the great dramatist's various and
unequalled delineations of female character. But
Johnson was no relined or imaginative critic; his
tastes were rough and masculine, and peculiarly
worldly. Still, though blind to the poetic and fairy-
like beauties of the7'empest or thelllidsurnmer Night's
Dream ; though unable to appreciate the character of
an Ariel ; to sympathise with the archness of a Rosalind;
to relish the sweet pastoral touches which lend such
exquisite magic to the Cymbeline and the Winter's
Tale, or even to walk through the forest of Amiens
in the fitting spirit of poetic sadness ;—let it never
be forgotten that Johnson has said finer things of
Shakspeare than any man before or since his time.
One remark alone will live as long as the language;
" The stream of thee which is continually washing
the more dissoluble fabrics of other poets, passes
without injury by the adamant of Shakspeare."
On Johnson's style Mr. Macauley is nearly equally
severe. Assuredly it is not without its faults : it is
vicious—formal—stiff—at times pedantic, and al-
ways monotonous; still it bears marks of a giant's
strength, and is put forth with a giant's power. It
is besides full of character, just what might have
been expected from a man of Johnson's rude physi-
cal energy. His style rolls, as lie himself rolled in
walking; is full of might and power in every sen-
tence. In his oriental tales it is wonderfully effec-
tive. ":11.asselas," or that fine moral story" Seged,"
would have been perfectly intolerable, if told by any
other writer in any other language. It is remarkable,
however, that in his later works, much of Johnson's
pompous grandiloquence disappears; he descends
from his stilts, becomes more easy, more familiar ;
nor do we know a finer or purer specimen of ster-
ling writing in this or any language, than the
pamphlet on the " Falkland Islands." Johnson's
pomp is misplaced only when he draws from the
life and manners of his day. Here he is certainly at
fault. No matter whether he hits off a flirt, or
a pastorally inclined Cockney; whether he repeats the
conversation of an actor—a philosopher—or a
country squire ; still there is the same manner—the
same dialect—the same measured cadence for all.
Clarinda, the flirt, speaks like Imlac the sage ; Sus-
pirius is as sublime as Seged. In short,
" Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother,
And half the platform just reflects the other."
This is a fault certainly, but it is one not peculiar
to Johnson alone. It is equally characteristic of
Junius and Robertson, and Gibbon, and that shal-
low, prosing old woman, Dr. Blair. We have
dwelt on this subject at more than ordinary length,
because we cannot but perceive that the popular
current is just now setting in strongly against the
great lexicographer. We regret to perceive this
unworthy spirit of depreciation. It is ungenerous,
and what is more, cannot be justly maintained.
With all his faults, with all his occasional verbose_
ness, • and pompous way of tricking out a
common-place truism, so as almost to make it ap-
pear original, still the fine old fellow of Bolt-
court remains Lord of the ascendant in literature.
Who will compete with, who will even presume to
come near him, in his bold, manly turn of thought;
in his shrewd, critical sagacity; in his oracular opi-
nions on men and books; in his solemn pathos; his

caustic wit; his unerring, worldly wisdom. The
new school of criticism, with its affectation of supe-
rior feeling and refinement, is, we know, driving the
old fast out of the field; nevertheless, we will not
give up one Johnson for as many sentimental cri-
tics as there are bigots on the Episcopal Bench.
" Greek Philosophy of Taste," displays much re-
search, but comes to no conclusion. It is full how-
ever of ingenious theories, and may be perused with
advantage. " Southey's Uneducated Poets" is a
criticism worth nothing, on a book worth just as
much. " Jones on the Theory of Rent" is ela-
borate and desperately heavy. It is really most
formidable reading, persuasive to sleep, and redo-
lent, in every page, of laudanum. It is in fact, a
treatise on the hacknied, humbug subject of Poli-
tical Economy, the whole of whose principles, to
adopt the language of Squii.e Crotchet, need no
lengthened exposition, as they may be comprised in
a nut-shell, viz. " to take as much as one can get,
and to pay no more than one can help." The ana-
lysis
of the " Pretensions of the Evangelical Class"
is conceived and executed in a most felicitous spirit.
The writer does not mince matters ; he speaks out
shrewdly and fearlessly, though we are not with-
out our misgivings that his sincerity may be con-
sidered offensive, and that the " children of light"
may feel a disposition to look upon him as one of
the " children of darkness." But saints are not
immaculate either in their judgment or their con-
duct, whatever they may think to the contrary.
There are more Dr. Cantwells in the world than
is usually supposed. In politics they are,wonder
fully prolific. What can be truer to life than these
remarks ?

" 'We have thus tracked the serious class in their quest
after riches, till we find them quietly and fearlessly reposing
amidst the many luxuries wire!' wealth enables them to
procure. The natural effect of these on ordinary minds
is to stimulate them with ambition, to excite a desire for
fame, and power, and consequence among men, and thus
to multiply the dangerous influences of wealth upo❑ the
heart. Such effects are by no means confined to the
' worldly' class. Rank and importance are discarded by
none of the serious, as unfitting the appendages of a spiri-
tual life. Nay, they are sometimes sought after with an
avidity that, to vulgar apprehension, seems strangely at
variance with the lofty religious pretensions of such men.
He who shuns the theatre as a sink of corruption, may be
found in the atmosphere of an electioneering contest, can-
vassing for votes, courting the favour of the dissolute and
profane, and engaging in all the complicated scenes of in-
trigue and deception, by which the politics of the world
are conducted. Do we allege that the principles of such
men are corrupted by this course ? No. But this is not
the question. It is simply whether the objects of their pur-
suit are of a cast calculated to corrupt them ? This is the
purport of our present enquiry, and it will not answer to
tell us that they may come forth pure from the trial. We
are showing from unquestionable fact, that a el 1138 of per-
sons eminent for their reprobation of certain worldly f
jDyments, on account of their sinful tendency, do actually
disregard such tendencies in numerous instances; that they
overlook the obvious applications even of their own inter-
pretation of Scripture, when it suits their purpose to do
so ; that while they call on others to separate from the
world, their only intelligible meaning is, that they should
unite with theist ; and that, although with a rigorous ad-
herence to the letter of the gospel, they proclaim t the
friendship of the world to he enmity with God,' they prac-
tically court the very objects to which that friendship alone
can conduct them. The conclusion we arrive at, then,
fit= these facts, is plain anti irresistible. Considering the
nature and tendency of the things sought after, and enjoyed
by these evangelical Christians, they are not one whit snore
scrupulous than other persons in using the world so as
not to abuse it.'"

Of the remaining articles—and they are nume-
rous—we have merely left ourselves space to say
that they will richly repay an attentive perusal, the
review of " Moore's Life of Lord Edward Fitz-
gerald" in particular, which is, in every sense of the
word, a superior article.