The Sun.
London, England, 1846-02-02 00:00:00

DUBLIN UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE.

Foremost among the articles in the Dublin University
Magazine for February, is a review of " Carlyle's Crom-
well"--men adequately matched—the rugged self-
opinionaters of the pen and of the sword cheek-by-jowl.
It is interesting alone as a first specimen of Irish leniency
towards the Protector, but its merit is deteriorated by
sundry misgivings as to the excellence of the style of
authorship created by the writer of those two powerful
and noble volumes. What the reviewer thinks the bad-
ness of Carlyle as a book-man, is in our estimation his
especial goodness ; we mean the density of his lan-
guage, the Richter-like cast of his fancy, the bold and
sudden contrasts of his thought, the dauntlessness and
humanising efforts of his logic. In these respects Thomas
Carlyle is a vast and wonderful original ; he casts the
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stones of his irony at the juggernauts of history, instead
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—but they are maledictions upon the g oelkssg and
the
despot ; his love is lavish and intense—but it is re-
stricted to greatness, and to goodness, and to beauty -
his symbols are uncarven and unpolished—but they are
vivified with truth : his words are rude and barbarous,
but they are honest. Hence his powers are singularly
apportioned to the consideration of a " great earnest
man" like Oliver Cromwell. Other than in the above
exception, the reviewer is plain-spoken and judicious.
With him, as with all dispassionate students of that
great epoch of the great Oliver, the man stands forth a
vindicated hero—" the world-great thing" of English
history. No longer now does Cromwell loom upon us
through the darkness of past days, under mediums
and epithets the most malign ; he stands before us the
grand, solid bodiment of a man without strategies or
subterfuge—a doer of large deeds—a thinker of large
thoughts ; with probity of heart to back him ; a God-
lover and a man-lover after his rough, nervous way.
The huge marble effigy of Cromwell, so to speak, had
been obscured with the incrustations of inimical and
false reports. In chipping off these incrustations, and
displaying that huge effigy as in very truth it was
at first, Carlyle has acted nobly. Though we reverence
the old adage de mortuis nil nisi bonum we cannot
but say that this sixth collection of the poetical re-
mains of Mrs. James Gray have no prodigious claims
upon our estimation. Number two of the " Miscellanea
Mystics," are singular eccentricities enough ; but more
enthralling to us is " A Peep at the Mysteries of the
Heidelberg Students:"—it is a peep worth some little
trouble to obtain, and the descriptions are dashed off
with agreeable sprightliness. Of the verses scattered
through this number of tke Dublin University, we would
fain (but for our lack of space) transcribe those entitled
" Ali Pacha and Eminah," there is a nerve running
through them that we like amazingly. The golden
story about " The Poor Doctor," is simply done, but
inculcates a moral, and is picturesque withal : so also
in some measure is the concluding portion of the
" Captivity and Adventures of Joseph Pitts." A saga-
cious glance at " Servia—Her Revolution and Present
State," and a very superficial political summary on "The
Late Crisis," form limits either way of this month's
number, which is, altogether, very readable, very en-
tertaining, and not wholly uninstructive.