The Sun.
London, England, 1841-09-01 00:00:00

FRASER' S MAGAZINE.

As a matter of course, Fraser is quite de-
lighted with the present prospects of his party.
The Whigs being on their last legs;--in articulo
mortis—he thinks there is now every 'chance of
the speedy advent of a political millennium. The
" End of the Beginning" is a ,carious diatribe,
whose object is to show that the distress of the
country is almost wholly attributable. to the in-
capacity of the Whigs, and that with their re-
tirement from office a new and improved state
of things. will necessarily commence. The ar-
ticle is excellently adapted to the tastes of Tory
readers, fur whose express edification it is writ-
ten, but more impartial people will be apt to treat
some of its statements with contempt. . The
" Journal of an Autumn in the Country" are se-
lections taken ap-hazard from .a literary com-
mon-place-book, These selections. are .critical,
anecdotical, and descriptive, and evince both
taste
.and ingenuity. We differ, however, from
the author's remark, that " every person ac-
quainted with the lives and writings of Gray
and Walpole is • unavoidably • struck with
the resemblance between them," for never were
two authors more unlike each other, in their
habits, not less than in their genius. Gray was
stiff, reserved, scholastic, and of thoughtful.and
somewhat melancholy temperament; Walpole,
sprightly, social, ftypish, and a mere smatterer
in point of knowledge. The one was sensitive
to a degree ; the other as heartless as those are
apt' to be who have spent theirbest days in fashi-
onable society. .Gray was a poet; Walpole was
a satirist, and a would-be wit. Gray's prose
ritings are remarkable for their free, and easy,
and elegant flow ; Walpole's for their terse
smartness, and, constant affectation of brilliancy.
The one turned a trembling, ever-vigilant ear to
—what Wordsworth so beautifully calls—" the
still, sad music of humanity;". the. other had no

regard'fbrf ,no sympathy with, ariy other world
than that of aristocracy. Speaking of memory,
the author says:—
Strength and tenacity of memory are regularly for-
gotten in ancient panegyrics. Quintilian measured the ;
ge ius by the memory. Pliny, in one of his letters,
mentions a Greek philosopher who, having delivered an
extempore oration, could immediately repeat it without
a single error. Seneca, when a young man, was able to
recite 'two. :thousand words in the order in which they
had been pronounced. The anecdote of Cyrus, who re-
membered the name of every soldier in his army, seems
to belong to romance. An Eastern warrior of savage
renown—Hyder Ali—supplied by his memory the de-
fects of education. He was unable to read or write ;
and having desired his secretary to indite a letter for him
upon any occasion, hi directed him to read it aloud ; he
then ordered another person to do the same, and any
variation or descrepancy was punished by the death of
the scribe. Let us examine memory under more pleas-
ing aspect. •
It was the practice of Gassendi to recite every day six
hundred lines in various languages. He could repeat
six thousand Latin verses, and the entire poem of Lu-
cretius: He recommended the habit to others in very
alluring terms, assuring them that the memory retained
its vigour and health only through exercise. In very
early life, he used to say, acquire as many beautiful
verses as you can ; they not only amuse the mind, but
inspire it with dignity and grandeur of sentiment. We
notice the same habit in other men of great scientific
and philosophic reputation. Galileo—who attributed
the fluency of his style to the diligent study of Ariosto—
repeated very large portions of that poet and romancer,
Tetrarch, and Berni. Adam Smith—an unpromising
illustration—enriched his memory with numerous pas-
sages of great beauty from the works of ancient and
modern poets, and was fond of introducing them into
conversation. Leyden, the accomplished friend of Scott,
had a very peculiar memory. Dr. Abercrombie was in-
formed by a gentleman who knew him well, that he
could repeat correctly a long act of Parliament or any
similar document after having once read it. But this
faculty was rendered comparatively useless, and often
positively injurious, by a total absence of analytical
reason or judgment. Leyden could recollect the whde,
but not the parts. If he wished to recal a particular
fact, he could only accomplish his desire by repeating
the composition from the commencement, until he
arrived at the passage for which he sought. Bishop
Jewel was remarkable for his power of recollection. The
martyr Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester, upon one occasion
wrote down forty Irish words, which, after reading over
three or four times, Jewel repeated in exact order, both
backward and forward ; and Lord Bacon having read
ten lines from Erasmus, he repeated them in the right
and in the wrong connection.
The author adds that "memory seems to be
the necessary companion of genius," which we
doubt, professing rather to agree with Cobbett,
who declares it to be one of the most mechanical
of faculties. George the Third had a singularly
retentive memory, yet no one ever suspected him
of geniu.S. In his cursory remarks on the me-
moirs of Martinus Scribbens, the author greatly
overrat es the wit and power of this well-k n own sa-
tire. Itisat best but a tame, elaborate affair, and
no more to be compared to " Gulliver's Travels
than a wren to' eagle. The -observations on
.
Burnett are. excellent, . and- so. are those on
Shakspeare, whose glaring faultS of taste it is
•
now the fashion to cry as:exquWte beauties.
In tine " Chapter,oruTailors" .a just measure is
taken of
.the'subject We could havedispensed
with the• chapter, however; for who can be in-
spired when a tailor is his theme? "Budget of
a Blue-Jacket
.is. just _passable, and. no more.
Iu " Tile History of Samuel Titmarsh " there is
much humour and vivacity of dialogue. " The
Dissenting Convention at Manchester" is a
coarse, vulgar attempt at sarcasm and irony.
The writer lays clumsily about him with an
Irish bludgeon, and imagines he is doing skilful
execution with the light rapier of Meicutio.