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

LITERATURE.

7'H F. !; .R 1' RE VI EW. No. CL XL
Not the icediete article in point of position, but
certtiii,ly the lea,lieg article in paint of ability, among
the nice papers contained in the hundred and sixty"
first number of the Qitait,rly Review, is the one en-
titled " Pant agi tielism." Much erudition is scattered
through the contribution, but its excellence is frit-
tered away by the entire absence of arrangement, ona
the rather doubtful purpose of the arguments.
To an ordinary reviewer it would be a rather
embarassing tiling to have to compile
article complete, and one in itself upon the
triple theme of the poi !ical caricatures by IL 13''
the Sartor Raaartus" of Thomas Carlyle, and the
" Doctor" of Robert Soutl-ley. Yet upon this literary
and pictorial tripod, as it were, has the QuarterlY
Reviewer raisu-d a very able, and, in many respects,
elaborate disquisition. The incongruity, or more
strictly speakima, the want of unity in his subject,
has however, deteriorated so from from the intrinsic
merit of his compilation, as to render it at tirres
diffuse and disconnected. The writer sets out by
stating that his object, Vile 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 nee
who is a lover of the cis comica has read, of course,
Rabelais, or it 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
camica, therefore, is at once familiar with the mean:
ing of the term Paulagruelistie, a word compounded
of iraaara, which in the Greek signitieth all, and grile4
which in the Arabic signitieth thirsty. For POT
gruel, according to the authority of the incomparsb!
author of " Garg.rioutt," was born on a certain Fil;
day, when the people were all at their orisons, an"
great drops of water exuded from the ground likea
sweat, which, when the observers had collected all,
drunk they found to be salt and brackish as the brie
of the sea : wherefore the father of Pantagruele
christened him as a commemoration of the time of
birth when all were thir.,ty. Rabelais further
plains the signitieatton of Pantagruelism, deciaringli
to he "a sort of high spirits worked up in despite 00
accidents—ready to di ink too if you will," or as tbrt
reviewer, yet more distinctly expresses it "that so
of gaiety which a moderate allowance of good oriee
is calculated to produce ;in plain English—a tent;
dency to skylat king !" Plain English ale
we opine, language which Mr. Roebuck would call t .
vernacular. From the assertion that although Rahelfr
created the expression irays.a. gruelisrn, he Was I"
from being the creator of the thing irawra grueli4ll4
the reviewer dashes off into an episodical eulogie.
upon Aristophanes. And in the course of OS,
panegyric is a passage to which we would in a patios!'
manner direct the attention of the Royal Academia,
DANIEL MACLISE, containing, as it does, a sggi;
tion pregnant with opportunities for the maniti!...
tion of his very great artistic genius. "As we ‘ll-0°
not hope to see Aristophanes restored to the etoget4f
says the reviewer, though Sophocles has, 61 be
a fashion, resumed his buskins, we should .es
truly glad to see the next best thing—a 5e,,110,"
of illustrations of his comedies—say the "Knigli el
or the " Peace"—by an artist of real skill and theiso
humour; he must be a better draughtsman t
Ritzsch, and less formal than Flaxman ; he must it ;
the fun of a caracaturist, and the feelings of a Pof
like H.B , he must be able to preserve an identittiel
face in the leading characters, but he must be 0./li
at the same time, to sport with an unlimited var,,,le• t
of attitudes and groupings. " There is an
among us," continues the reviewer, "
often mistakes his own calling, but who e
do all this—Maclise ; and if it were
staffdoper
Aristophanes would be restored to the only if
which he could occupy in the nineteenth centUrliii
in the words of Challoner, let Mr. Maclise "cc
well on't." A sense of justice prompts us to Tics
the following very forcible and specious vindies,do
of Aristophanes, in regard to his conduct to
Socrates. Still we must premise the quotatinelo-rjs
saying that the writer is guilty of almost as °3jor.
blasphemy in his remarks about Socrates, as he tole
putes with such flippancy to Rousseau. The, vg,b-lo•
of Socrates, however, defies all aspersion and "so'
quy—Socrates the wises of the sages of antiquitr;sto
crates the greatest of all pagan philosophers
a Christian in principle, in the midst of licent2
ness and polythei-m Refit ' "It is impossible,". proceeds the Quarterly iis•
"to understand the death of Socrates, wit`tbich
-trict reference to the history of the times in " •
he lived."
" We believe the case to have stood thus. og
change was introthiced into the Athenian charaewiecty
Pericles, who was a disciple of the philosophiool his
lator An )xagoras. We shall best characterise °
f
change by saying- that it consisted in the rise AO"
elass of gre,:eereete/2.ol—that is (according to the par
nian nwanii.g oi the phrase) of those who were for
rug power with an aristocracy, not of birth and zoo
but of tale-it. In this state of things great inP ee of
seas ext rcised by the Sophists, par excellence them OO4
claims resting on intaliectual accomplishmeati;4 Nay
almost every educated man subsequent to Peric'e-froo
appost d to the old estaaltstad democracy either tosl
selfish motives or on theoretical grounds. II °dips'
aredicate this distinctly of Critias, Antiphon, 0
ThueY, 60.
.I.lo3iades, end Sophocles. As for Euripides 50..
,rates, they were considered as fellow-worker
S l';00
inovement for the exaltation of the middle class, anti e,
mire Sophists (See Aristtiph. Ban
rimarch. p. 21). Aristophanes was the great sou_o
xception to this tendency on the part of litei.e!reyl;ol
at Athens ; hence his antagonism to Euript_ti
Socrates, who, although they would never have 101,700
the establishment of a pure eligarehy, and were .
771, and. lEscjoory
for the 5,000 than for the 400 or the 30, had give 'eyse
'ler indicatiens than any others of their wish to plavot
xa.Xoo‘27cd'.'il above the Demos. In one of hi?tetfie
.atriotic tragedies Euripides had ventured to put I°
nouth of Theseus the words—
iwy
Af.l.olpv 7).-/ 1.1.5TCA., TWZEi iroXEic.--ourr,
Theratnenes, who, it he had been a consistur.olo'
tician, might have brought these views to a Ptscti_.%tire°
periment, was certainly a favourer of middle 03"te
We have no doubt then that Aristophanes looked( the
Socrates as a mischievous advocate of the ea" Lcrof,
middle-class reformers, to whom he attributed hYr-atroa:
and selfishness, the usual qualities of the talking POO7 51
of theoretical changes; and it' we are right in 6611rge.A4
that a sort of Stoicism—not that which was non
developed by Zeno, hut that which is practically
by all men of genius and sincerity in a vicieus>erif
we may suppo,e that a sort of Stoicism is 'helloing °/
con 'oinituni of true Pantagruelism, then the le 0 fhb
t
Aristophanes nay not have been very different I,ooo'
which was subsequently expressed-by the na0d,e,,,,1 0001
Rome, who used to say that ' Socrati was 'T.,. o_4'
and over person, and endeavoured, "Lee/
was possible fur Imre to get the mastery over his rola;
by abolishing establithed customs, and drawing
c' to old;
ing over his knew citizens to opinions contrarYoot
e
laws.' (Plutarch, Cato Major, c. xxiii.) After abetted
roust remember that the question for us is nOt
Socrat -s deserved the punishment which he
the rough handling wh ch he had sonic years Pre ras,t,,hl
received froin Aristophanes, but v,hether our ow-
gruelistic laiet sincerely believed, and on gtotied_ds ‘010;
ass*aticstfants.tcoier3ii%tii itubsatartidhisclefa.rth-hereadoy:
7uetrliecite.nirithiamnd,
schools of philosophy was a mischievous character,' r
60,p,0a10y was as much a piece of cant and qusecu-eeiso
the I)itig spirit of divination possessed bl
Alexander, or any otto r tkv,i6orharrif an "liebve
borgian of ancient or modern times. It ristopint-et
reasons which we must adroit to have been euffielol3
a contemporary, a ha could not estimate all the imhre
consequences Inch might one day flow Iron] S' bell
ifles of Socrates, and who was bred up in the
thA toleration is a cowardly vice;
he heving that thi, was the case, and was besideeno
pelted to identify Secretes with the proce.
party which paved the way ter the subversion 01..roctift
constitutien Athees,we cannot but extol him his 00.1
with unshrinking courage on the strength of mod :I
if he had r!a500!„0.
convictions, and we willingly recignise in 'Ther,"cbcl)
the same good heart and the same strong bitu,cll,lllStr
air Cleon 'in 'o shoe s, lea for the knights.'" (""fioptill-
After a few gallant slashes at the nowee my
Tory bugbear of Popery, mentioning it as a
55.003L4
fication of Christianity," and as a syston 03, -er
a right to " enslave the individual conscie°
to cramp the individual intellect," the by fe
merges into a milder and less polemic strain ivbic l;
(erring to the Divina Commedia of Dantet'cter Sflor
however, from its strictly allegorical obur-ditego
its pervading solemnity, is not counted in the t
•botion,o
of Pantaeruelism. Speaking of the con
h ab'
made to the raw materials of the Eoglis- erer
by Skelton—a true Pantagrueli.t—the reviebe
serves—" A certain shrewd Professor et t besrieg;
versity of Cambridge was once asked, in our ittestift
whether Shakspere or Milton had th,leed. brie. di,
command of the lish language :he reP'*.sioatilled,
enough. Shaltspere eon Id have slanged Mato ° evtio°,o
in five minutes." in like manner, is niaraelPea
and with reason, as one gifted with this pantgvreee/,.,,
volubility. Jean Paul Frederick Ilichterisoogol'i:
into the same number, while Sterile, an we 040
and Churchill, and Voltaire are rejecte'd• r.)' efitliot
ally agree with the writer in his depreciato_.4
as to the sincerity of Eeuthey's facetiotoOtore,
wonderful inonstrosity of modern liter:0,00o;
Doctor. We have devoured the five tijtba
the sixth we have not yet seen, but) deey
the
five volumes, i, ,s impos,iWe „,0. of bet
sound reading end the profeued
author as it vveu be to regard his grirr"jeok telit
learnl"l4o, o
01
0
than spasms prattled as by galvanism, oextrovegfioof
his extravagant g .iete ;IS other than e,"o affeutstroi
affectation and a gegantic humbug. the ells to
however, have we ever been able tA, see it:, an OOO
ter or compositions of Thonia- Carl.P`
transcribe
rd
0 10 p
empheic vindieatioe of the Litter
we
f Blowing paretzreph :• - r have s
" With reg•ocl t., Mr. Carl)l,'s he is -._,. for
Innen of its arfec It it he true thcb chor_ id
• business romPio.
feeted writer, lei our Cu, have sii) itur,c 008 r
'•im a place smog the P•intagruelista;
sV ben a mai.'s rof tai. king traotie r'
itself a cant. Bat we believe that o°. 71'4 is
14',11-
9f language, a colouring of.quaiuta ,