The Sun.
London, England, 1848-09-09 00:00:00

THE QUARTERLIES.
Trip EI)IVBIIR(;11 REVIEW. No, CLXXVII
THE QUARTERLY RE VIE 11. No. CLXV. •
I'hE WES TMIN ST ER REVIh'IV. /1-0. Xls V/I
I'll E CHURCH OF ENGLAND REVIEW.
No. X VII.
THE BRITISH QUARTERLY REVIEW.
No. X V.
('HE JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. No. XXI
Another section turned of the earth's annual orbit,
Ind there falls upon our desk for criticism another
itch of the Quarterlies. We have become so habi-
uated to their arrival periodically that we welcome
-hem as old acquaintances, from whose wisdom we
nay draw at pleasure the nutritious refections of
truth, or the blooming flowers of imagination. We
eke them in their inevitable sequence—the Edin-
intrgh first, by reason not only of its fame and its age,
nit because its superiority over its contemporaries is
e ill conspicuous and undeniable ; the Quarterly
:econd; the Westminster third ; fourthly, the Church
If England Quarterly, a distinguished organ of
he opinions of Protestantism ; fifthly, the Bri-
tish Quarterly ; and sixthly, the Journal of the
Royal Agricultural Society of England. Taking the
Edinburgh, therefore, at once into consideration, the
irst contribution in the current number which ar-
rests our attention, not only from the circumstance
-tf its being the first in point of position, hut also from
!Is elegant pedantry in regard to a rather abstruse
eortion of the belles lettres of Europe, is the paper
levoted to the subject of " Provencal and Scandina-
nian Poetry." It is remarkable for that curious, and
we might almost call it eccentric research, which is a
characteristic of the literary explorations of Bulwer.
\nd to Lear the writer discoursing of the scalds and
-he minstrels, the minne•siingers, and the rneister-
lingers, the Celtic and Teutonic bards, the French
ind Provençal troubadours, the songsters and the
trouveres, the lays of the langue(Toe and of those of
'he langue d'oil, one would almost fancy that it
was the author of " Harold," speaking to
us from behind the mask of the reviewer. Whoever
•he writer be, he evinces a charming familiarity with
the researches of Frederick Diez, of M. Arthur Dinaux,
of M. l'Ablie de la Rue, and most of all with those
of hl. Flauriel. As conveying a just evidence of the
tendencies of the article, we tray transcribe the clos-
ing sentence, which runs thus:—" The voice is gone
forth; natural feeling and expression have been
heard ; and the conceits, exaggerated sentiments, far-
fetched allusions, and mystical obscurity of the lyrics
of Arnaud Daniel, Guiraud de Borneil, and Bertram
de Born, though once admired by Dante and still re-
commended by M. Flauriel, will scarcely revive a
-ante for the poetry of the Provençal troubadours."
Mr. Forster's biography of Oliver Goldsmith is re-
viewed in a very congenial strain by one who
can appreciate both the glorious English
classic—for classic already are the works
of Goldsmith in our English literature—
and his admiring and intelligent biographer. Speak-
ing of the period of the death of poor Gol 'smith's
father, the reviewer says, in a tone of dry sad humour
worthy of Augustine Caxton himself—that in the
petty loans obtained from his College friends by the
impoverished sizar, the latter learnt " that worst and
surest lesson in the Art of Sinking—the practical
bathos of human life—viz., to borrow without shame."
Martinus Scriblerus would have cracked that little
nut of experience with a relish. " The humour that '
draws tears," says he, in another part, " and the
pathos that provokes smiles, will be popular to the
end of the world." The remark is exquisitely truth-
ful, and in further illustration of the cause of Gold-
smith's popularity as a poet, a novelist, and a drama-
tist, he continues—
But it is in the narrowness of his range, and in the
close identity of his characters with his own heart and
experience, that we are to find the main cause of Gold-
smith's universal and unfading popularity. He had in
himself an original to draw from, with precisely those
qualities which win general affection. Loveable him-
self, in spite of all his grave faults, he makes loveable
the various copies that he takes from the master pot-
tratt. His secret is this—the emotions he commands
are plea.snret.ble. He is precisely what Johnson calls
him, the atrectuum lenis dorninutor' polens b cause
lenis. He is never above the height of the humblest un-
derstanding ; and, by touching the human heart, he
raises himself to a lev€l with the loftiest. He has to
peefeeion what the Germans call Anmuth. His Muse
wears the zone of the Graces."
Of his meek and beautiful character, it is said fur-
ther on—" No wound to his vanity, no outrage to
his pride, ever made him malignant and revengeful.
Ile did not smile and hate, he writhed and forgave.'
In allusion to the affected dandyism of poor Oliver
Goldsmith, with his plain, nay ugly face, and his
clumsy, loutish figure, the reviewer observes :—" We
may smile at Chathatn, scrupulously crowned in his
best wig, if intending to speak; at Erskine, drawing
on his bright yellow gloves, before he rose to plead;
at Horace Walpole, in a cravat of Gibbon's carving;
at Raleigh, loading his shoes with jewels so heavy
that he could scarcely walk; at Petrarch, pinching
his feet till he crippled them ; at the rings which
covered the philosophic fingers of Aristotle ; at
the bare throat of Lord Byron ; the Ar-
menian dress of Rousseau; the scarlet and
gold coat of Voltaire ; or the prudent careful-
ness with which Cmsar scratched his head, so as
not to disturb the locks arranged over the bald place:
—the peach blossom coat 'Popham Beauclerk could
have borne away on his well-bred shoulders as an
elegant audacity ; but it is out of all keeping on the
form which Goldsmith himself indignantly suspects
has been taken fur a tailor's:' Again, in another
part, further on—" Goldsmith's sensitiveness was as
to his person, his dress, his manners, his gentility—
the attention he sought to exact, the effect that he
laboured to create : and sensitiveness of this kind can
only be characterised as the epidermis of self-love in a
state of chronic inflammation." Altogether, the paper
is a delightful fragment of gossip about the age
of Dr. Johnson, and terminates with a de-
served and graceful compliment to Charles Dickens,
to whom the biography of Mr. Foster is happily
dedicated. In a profound and learned notice of the
" History of Egypt," by Samuel Sharpe, there is
grouped together a noble store of facts relating to
that venerable laud; and in an admirable passage on
" Piracy in the Oriental Archipelago," there are some
eulogistic allusions to Sir James Brooke, the Raja of
Sarawak and Governor et Labuan. Those who may
have rejoiced in the perusal of the recent astronomical
revelations, written so eloquently by Professor Nichol',
and disclosed to his enrartured iinaginatton by the
colossal speculum of the Rosse telescope, will turn
with peculiar zest to the critical examination of,
Herschell's Survey of the Southern ileaveres,,'
contained in the current number of the Edin-
burgh. As the reviewer emphatically sad s, the
wolk lately published by Sir John F. W. Her-
schell, Bart., K.H., the distiguished son of an illustri-
ous sire, "forms the record of the com-
pletion of the greatest astronomical enterprise that
was ever undertaken by the members of one family"—
that enterprise being the systematic survey of both
of the celestial hemispheres, the northern and
southern heavens. And it has been achieved by the
inspiration of the genius of the drummer boy who
discovered the great planet Georgium Sidus with its
satellites (we mean Sir William Herschel!), and by
the subsequent labours of his eminent son, Sir John
Herschel!—of his sister Caroline, who died in the
beginning of 1848, aged ninety-seven years—and of
his brother Alexander, who was singularly skilful as
a mechanic. In the article which follows imme-
diately afterwards, " The Revolt in Lombardy," al-
ready considered by Mr. George Bowyer, by Massimo
D'Azeglio and by Fortunato Prandi, is re-considered,
is traced back to its origin, and is followed out in
its probable consequences. Of all the papers, how-
ever, in the present number of the Edinburgh Review
for 1848, the most remarkable, and altogetner the
most studiously composed, is that on the " Academical
Test Articles." We hope to refer to it at a more
available opportunity. Two other contributions com-
plete the number for July, namely, that on " Strauss's
Political Pamphlet," contrasting Julian the Apostle
and Frederick William IV., and that on the prospec-
tive " Germanic Empire," a theme which to us
appears to be just now rather crude and indigestible.
The contempusary number of the Quarterly is led off
with no inconsiderable ability both literary and ar-
tistic, its first consisting of commentaries upon the
recent lucubrations on Spanish painters by William
Stirling and Sir Edmund Head. The paper is
crowded with illustrative anecdotes. " Modern
Chemistry" is one of those bold and harmonious pro-
ductions in the shape of a quarterly article which
places the least instruction in the space of a couple of
h urs delightful reading, quite au courant of the pro-
gress made during late years in this noble department
of natural philosophy. The accumulation of the
materials has been influenced by a catholic taste and
eclectic discrimination, culling alike from the sober
records of Graham and the erratic investigations of
Liebig. " Clement XI.V. and the Jesuits" will be
devoured of course with that avidity which
is inseparable from the mention of the great
society of Ignatius Loyola. Otherwise the Alf
Errant would not have acquired such an increase of
celebrity to the Feuilletoniste. Otherwise Mrs. Trul-
lope would never have attempted to write a romance
with the extract of galls. Otherwise Mr. G. P. R.
James would not have attempted to blow his penny
trumpet of calumny through the chapters of the " Con-
vict." Otherwise Andrew Steinmetz would at this
time perhaps be starving in a garret in London,
instead of fattening upon the proceeds of his
" Nov:elate." A paper of agreeable gossip fol-
lows upon the "Correspondence between Horace
Walpole and the Countess of Oseory"—reminding us
that some of the most delightful. books in the language
have been penned by old-fashion fribbles only
one remove from fools. For example, there are those
inimitable letters from the fastidious owner of Straw-
berry Hill—there is the diary of good Master Pepys
who loved wine-posset and doated on a brocade coat,
and there is the masterpiece of biography composed
by James Boswell, Esquire, of silly, contemptible,
drivelling, immortal memory LA political article of