The Sun.
London, England, 1847-07-17 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. No. CLXI.
Not the leading article in point of position, but
certainly the leading article in point of ability, among
the nine papers contained in the hundred and sixty-
first number of the Quarterly Review, is the one en-
titled "Pantagruelism." Much erudition is scattered
through the contribution, but its excellence is frit-
tered away by the entire absence of arrangement, and
the rather doubtful purpose of the arguments.
To an ordinary reviewer it would be a rather
embarassing thing to have to compile an
article complete and one in itself upon the
triple theme of the political caricatures by H. 8.,
the " Sartor Resartus" of Thomas Carlyle, and the
" Doctor" of Robert Southey. Yet upon this literary
and pictorial tripod, as it were, has the Quarterly
Reviewer raised a very able, and, in many respects,
elaborate disquisition. The incongruity, or more
strictly speaking, the want of unity in his subject,
has however, deteriorated so far from the intrinsic
merit of his compilation, as to render it at times
diffuse and disconnected. The writer sets out by
stating that his object, if he can be said to have one at
all of a definite character, is to afford illustrations
of a style of composition which he distinguishes
by the generic title of Pantagruelistic. Every one
who is a lover of the vis conzica has read, of course,
Rabelais or if he has not, he deserves to be—like one
of the monks depicted by that prince of jesters—
kicked to death in a desert. Every lover of the vis
conzica, therefore, is at once familiar with the mean-
ing of the term Pantag,ruelistic, a word compounded
of 7:'23'-rz, which in the Greek signifieth all, and gruel,
which in the Arabic signifieth thirsty. For Panta-
gruel, according to the authority of the incomparable
author of " Gargantua," was born on a certain Fri-
day, when the people were all at their orisons, and
great drops of water exuded from the ground like
sweat, which, when the observers had collected and
drunk they found to be salt and brackish as the brine
of the sea : wherefore the father of Pantagruel so
christened him as a commemoration of the time of his
birth when all were thirsty. Rabelais further ex-
plains the signification of Puntagruelism, declaring it
to be "a sort of high spirits worked up in despite of
accidents—ready to drink too if you will," or as the
reviewer, yet more distinctly expresses it " that sort
of gaiety which a moderate allowance of good wine
is calculated to produce ;in plain English—a ten-
dency to skylarking !" Plain English enough
we opine, language which Mr. Roebuck would call the
vernacular. From the assertion that although Rabelais
created the expression 7:x, 72- gruelism, he was far
from being the creator of the thing
gruelism,
the reviewer dashes off into an episodical eulogium
Upon Aristophanes. And in the course of this
man n
panegyric irec tts a passage to which we would in a particular
er sage to
of the Royal Academician,
DANIEL AIACLISE, containing, as it does, a sugges-
tion oon pregnantr with opportunities for the manitesta-
his very great artistic genius. "As we can-
not hope to see Aristophanes restored to the stage,"
says the reviewer, " though Sophocles has, after
a fashion reviewer,
resumed his buskins, we should be
truly glad to see the next best thing—a series
of illustrations of his comedies—say the "Knights"
or the " Peace"—by an artist of real skill and real
humour; he must be a better draughtsman than
theßetzsch, and less formal than Flaxman ; he must have
fun of a caracaturist, and the feelings of a poet ;
ike 1-1.13 , he must be able to preserve an identity of
face in the leading characters, but he must be able,
at the same time, to sport with an unlimited variety
°f attitudes and groupings." " There is an artist
"long us," continues the reviewer, " who toc
of n dmistakes his own calling, but who could
Aristophanes Which
he could occupy in the nineteenth century."
well onN;°.'rds of Challoner, let Mr. Maclise " think
the followingA sense of justice prompts us to give
of Aristophanes forcible and specious vindication
Socrates. regard to his conduct towards
saying Still we must premise the quotation, by
that the writer
blasphemy in his rem is guilty of almost as much
putes with such fli arks about Socrates, as he im-
of Socrat to Rousseau. The name
es how ppever,ancy
defies all aspersion and oblo-
quy—Socrates the wisest of the sagesof antiquity—So-
ca rates thesan greatest of all pagan philosophers—Socrates
floss in principle, in the midst of licentious-
and polytheism !
." It is impossible," proceeds the
Quarterly Revie,
strict
understand the death of Socrates, without w a
reference to the history of the times in which
he lived."
We believe the case to have stood thus. A great
r.,..,uee4i3 was introduced into the Athenian character of
atorircles, who was a disciple of the philosophical speeu-
, Anaxagoras. AVe shall best characterise this
Change by saying that it consisted in the rise of the
el!tss of xr.6%oricayasol—that is (according to the Athe-
'.'wn meaning of the phrase) of those who were for lodg-
PoVver with an aristocracy, not of birth and wealth,
w`.t of talent. In this state of things great influence
07,s exercised by the Sophists, par excellence the men of
7„l'eloss resting on intellectual accomplishment ; and
:3"ei t every educated man subsequent to Pericles was
selfishd tO, the old established democracy either from
Motives or on theoretical grounds. We may
Prieedlicate this distinctly of Critias, Antiphon, Thucydides,
the'AcrtZad and Soph-ocles. As for Euripides and So-
Mover:, Y Were considered as fellow-workers in a
movement for the exaltation of the middle class, and as
pure So (See Aristoph. Ran. 771, and Asch. c.
xenz rat. n
nt; -4). Aristophanes was the great solitary
at exception to this tendenc on the part of literary men
Athens ;
Socrates hence his antagonism 3 to Euripides and
the vho, although they would never have favoured
Ifioerr establishmentt,he..s of a pure oligarchy, and were rather
'OO.O than for the 400 or the 30, had given ear-
animations than any others of their wish to place the
above the Demus. In one of his most
iot_c tragedies Euripides had ventured to put into the
mouth of Theseus the words—
And 7f su):1 iE u.sqov r'v o-xZeir!)),Elc.—Suppi. 244.
tician Ther'amenes, who, if he had been a consistent
poli-
Vmight have brought these views to a practical ex-
QlPent, was certainly a favourer of middle measures.
?°_erhave no doubt then that Aristophanes looked upon
. rtes as a mischievous advocate of the cant of the
reformers, to whom he attributed hyp-ocrisy
and selfishness, selfishness, the usual qualities of the talking patrons
°,,l,atheoretical changes; and if we are right in supposing
dm_ a sort of Stoicism—not that which was positively
,"eleped by Zeno, but that which is practically adopted
y all men of genius and sincerity in a vicious age—if
ewe nuty suppose that a sort of Stoicism is the necessary
oneornitant of true Pantagruelisrn, then the feeling of
Aristophanes may not have been ver
Which y different f
Rome,
was subsequently expressed by the model Stoic of
rne, who used to say that Socrates was a loquacious
and overbearing person, and endeavoured, as tar as it
bas possible for him, to get the mastery over his country
Y abolishing established customs, and drawing or bring-
ing over his fellow citizens to opinions contrary to the
laws.' (Plutarch, Cato Major, c. xxiii.) After all, we
Socratesmuat remember that the question for us is not whether
the
rough deserved the punishment which he incurred, or
handling which he had some years previously
received from Aristophanes, but whether our Pants-
Were for poet sincerely believed, and on grounds which
Were for him, as a conscientious and clear-headed man,
sufficient and satisfactory, that this father of many
schools of philosophy was a mischievous character, whose
cTtip.o:qoy was as much a piece of cant and quackery as
bAlthe lying spirit of divination possessed by Lucian's
exander, or any other qiE:.;r3su.av-.-z5- and Sweden-
borgian of ancient or modern times. If Aristophanes had
reasons which we must admit to have been sufficient for
a contemporary, who could not estimate all the important
Consequences which might one day flow from the doc-
trines of Socrates, and who was bred up in the belief
that toleration is a cowardly vice; if he had reasons for
believing that this was the case, and was besides com-
pelled to identify Socrates with the proceedings of a
party which paved the way for the subversion of the old
constitution of Athens,we cannot but extol him for acting
with unshrinking courage on the strength of his own
convictions, and we willingly
me strong hand which cut
recognise in The Clouds'
the same good heart and the same
Up Cleon into shoe-soles for the knights.'" (Ach. 300.)
After a few gallant slashes at the now popular
Tory bugbear of Popery, mentioning it as a " mysti
&cation of Christianity," and as a system assuming
a right to " enslave the
individual conscience, and
to cramp the individual intellect," the writer
Merges into a milder and less polemic strain by re-
ferring to the Divina Commedza of Dante, which,
however, from its strictly allegorical character and
its Pervading solemnity, is not counted in the category
of Pantagruelism. Speaking of the contributions
,made to the raw materials of the English language
'1 Skelton—a true Pantagruelist—the reviewer ob.
-
serves—" A certain shrewd Professor of the Unt-
vrsity of Cambridge was once asked, in our hearing,
hether Shakspere or Milton had the greater
e°nlniand of the English language : he replied, briefly
I.lough, Shakspere couldhave slanged Milton into a ditch
4ft/se minutes." Swift, in like manner, is mentioned,
and with reason, as one gifted with this pantagruelistic
Nubility. Jean Paul Frederick Richter is received
14to the same number, while Sterne, and Hogarth,
and Churchill, and Voltaire are rejected. We cordi-
ally agree with the writer in his depreciatory epithets
3lts to the sincerity of Southey's facetiousness in that
;oderful monstrosity of modern literature, The
five
We have devoured the five first volumes,
sixth we have not yet seen, but from those
ac')e volumes, it is as impossible to deny the
I,4lltbnd reading and the profound learning of the
thlos"er as it would be to regard his grins as other
his asPasms produced as by galvanism, or look upon
affeetat -
tavagant gaiety as other than an extravagant
ho ion and a gigantic humbug. No affectation,
tervrever, have we ever been able to see in the charac-
eemh ,eompositions of Thomas Carlyle, and as an
fou°
Ivirl 4.tle vindication of the latter we transcribe the
Ittuell
)l,rlFS' Paragraph :
th regar grd to Mr. Carlyle's style--we have heard
feet,dOf its affectation. If it be true that he is an af-
fli an a „Wiriter, no one can have any business to claim for
!itself ae`aee among the Pantagruelista; for affectation is
hen nk• But we believe that the case is not so.
°fMe ens. power of thinking transcends his power
,
' colouring of quaintness And pecifilltrY