The Sun.
London, England, 1846-04-06 00:00:00

OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE RE VIE TV.

After a hiatus of one month, the Oxford and Cam-
bridge Review is revived. From the circumstances of
this interval, one might reasonably have anticipated a
new infusion of vigour into its lucubrations, but such
an anticipation would, on the perusal of the present
number, have proved thoroughly erroneous. Far from
any additional ability being incorporated in this really
clever periodical, there is a mournful deficiency of that
ability which has hitherto decorated its pages. The gap
in its publication has virtually deteriorated its merits.
A non-issue of a month has, as it were, salivated a very
healthy constitution to the most remarkable stage of
debility. Two articles only are at all compatible
with its reputation, " Horace Walpole's Memoirs—
George III.," and "A Chapter of Roman His-
tory"—the latter of which is terse and erudite. For
one paper, however, we can express our cordial thank-
fulness to the reviewer, we mean the notice of Thomas
Carlyle's " Oliver Cromwell." It is indeed more than a
satisfaction to us when we see a great, bold, muscular
effort like that of Carlyle recognised and appreciated.
We acknowledge there are obstacles to such a recogni-
tion and appreciation in the case of that strange biogra-
pher ; the obstacles of diction almost his own ; the
obstacles of a quaint and startling mannerism. Carlyle
indeed is apart from all writers, and all thinkers of
which there is any record ; he is neither German or
English in his style, wholly; neither is he a combina-
tion of the two. He is, as Gilfillan has said, " above us
like a star—apart from us like a spirit." In rolling for-
ward the great, solid body of his thought to a conclu-
sion he seems like some vast Titan groping his way on-
wards through the darkness of a moor—stumbling con-
stantly—shaking the ground with his footsteps—yet
striding ever towards the lights of truth that blaze up in
gleams upon the horizon. His words are harsh and dis-
onant, but they burn with intellect : his books are in
defiance of the commonest rules of rhetoric, but they
are luminous with something above rhetoric—they are
glorious in this very deformity. Before we conclude
our remarks upon the Review, we would utter
our protest against another of those unseemly
personalities which occasionally bespatter the arena
of letters with anything but harmless ink. What
we allude to is a most irrate diatribe upon a
gentleman whom one would have imagined common
delicacy, not to say common decency or common
gratitude, would have forbidden them alike to attack— c
namely, one of the former contributors to the Review,
and one whose " most successful essays," according to
the acknowledgment of the reviewer himself, " have ap-
peared in its pages 1" To the habitual readers of this
periodical we need scarcely say that the gentleman in
question is Mr.Keon —one of whose papers in the Oxford
and Cambridge Review attracted such general and de-
served attention to the publication. On this account,
to say the least of it, the present unaccountable ebulition
of spleen is indicative of absolute ingratitude. That
there is something exceedingly like spleen in the so-
called criticism must be evident from such expressions
as—P satisfied apostacy," " ferocious audacity," " a rich
mixture of folly and fustian," " exotic impertinence,"
" itinerant writer," and so forth: phrases which go for
less than nothing in argument, and are scarcely con-
sonant with the character of a gentlemanly critic.
Though we cannot coincide with Mr. Keon in regarding
the writings of Carlyle as " ragged nonsense" (and
why we do not, the foregoing paragraphs will testify),
we are not inclined to asperse Mr. Keon on that
account, in the terms of the reviewer, as an " arrogant
author." Surely writers may indulge in a diversity of
opinion without descending to sheer abuse !