The Sun.
London, England, 1846-07-02 00:00:00

TAII'S.

With extreme pleasure we observe an accession of
talent to this able periodical, in the person of Mr. George
Gilfillan, as a contributor. What he has commenced in
his eloquent volume of " Literary Portraits," he appears
determined to complete here—namely, a gallery of those
personages who have during the present century adorned
the literature of Great Britain by their writings. And
we are glad to observe, in the first paper of his second
series, a very remarkable improvement in the style of
composition. What was previously extravagant in
brilliancy is now modulated to something approaching
to rhetorical correctness ; what was an exorbitant
elongation of paragraphs, heaped one upon the other for
the expression of a single idea, is now reduced to a brevity
more consonant with the object—namely, the utterance
of that single idea. Still Mr. Gilfillan must
guard himself from falling into an extreme of
condensation when he is thus endeavouring to correct
this tendency to copiousness. Despite the sneers of
certain frigid critics, he must, if he would not utterly
ruin his genius, avoid cramping his powers by a too
strict subjection to the rules and formalities of composi-
tion. We would the more particularly urge this upon
him, as in his writings we recognise the impetuosity of
an enthusiastic thinker. Mr. Gilfillan throws his
thoughts upon paper with a nerve and earnestness which
we would not see abated one jot, even though it were
at the risk of encountering the blemishes of pre-
cipitation. Originality and depth of sentiment, and
spontaneousness of diction may be frittered away byla
too great anxiety to produce sentences peculiar for ele-
gance, or arguments of a precise sequence, and a prim ap-
propriateness. We say thus much because we believe
Mr. Gilfillan to have received his credentials as an
author rather from nature than from the book-
shelf ; his mind is animated rather by an in-
nate vigour than by reflections from the dilectus or
schoolings from the dorninie. " Sir Edward Bulwer
Lv tton" is the first contemporary writer considered in
this new series, and forms an admirable opening paper to
Tait for July. It is to be hoped that Dickens, and
Carleton, and Marryat, and the rest of that fraternity,
will be anatomised by the same cunning hand. Full
justice is done to Bulwer as an essentially u..ique ro
raancer. He is shown to be no copyist of others, but to
have formed for himself a class of novel writings, and
(what is still more) a class of readers. But we conceive
the critic rather exa7:•Yrates when he observes that Sir
Edward's " stile is vicious from excess of vi, ue, weak
from repletion of strength ; that every word is a'
point, every clause a beauty, the close of every
sentence a climax," The analogy drawn be-
twe( n the characters of Byron and Bulwer is
eccentric enough and Plutarchian enough; and the eccen
tricity of it is eveeillly visible in the concluding remark
that while Byron, by way of doing penance, threw his
jaded system into the Greek war, Bulwer has with better
result leaped into a tub of cold water !" Cordially do
ee coincide with Gilfillan in regarding " Zanoni" as in
all respects the masterpiece of Btdwer Lytton ; the
memory of that beautiful book clings to us like a vision,
the like pf which is never seen but once—a vision of the
mysterious, the solumn, and thepathetic. As a specimen
of the novelty with which Mr. Grilfillan invests oven
themes kindled a thousand times bef,re, and us an ex-
ample also of the briLiant mannerisms of his style, we
tifa,iscribe a few observations about Byron. After
Perusing il4em, the- reader will acknowledge that, as
ReheFt Hall- said about doh lion, ofinti4n ship most
on the anglas of a thong it.
" Byron's mind, in itself essentially unspeculative, was
forced upwards upon those rugged and clanderopa trap, s of
thought, where he has gathered the rarest of his beauties,
by intimacy
.with Shelley, by envious emulation of his Lake
~on'tettil~o -srand, above all, by the pale hand of his mi-
sery, Unlielllng Whim le-.:ightp and depths in his nature and
genius, which lverd 'previouslY 'tinktiowu an 4 unauspe,a:!4,
and beckonbg him onward through theiegrini and shadowy
region„ He grew, at once, and equally, in 'guilt,' misery,
'arid nTwet.' .41,4 inticeier, too, on domains, where sonic other
6411,40 A their cal and permanent dwelling,
his appearance Vas e 4vti, as a dandy
discussing the great questions of natural' and inoral obil;