The Sun.
London, England, 1846-04-15 00:00:00

SUN,

APRIL 15, 1846.

LITERATURE.
THE PEOPLE. By M..Miehelet. Translated fro.

the French by C. Cocks.
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of his readers, but, on a rigid examination, his
" Gorgon's shield" proves a very wooden one indeed, and
its spleidour turns out in the end to be mere tinsel.
We are perfectly conscious that our ideas are the very
converse of those entertained by a vast multitude of
individuals ; we are conscious that the productions of
this author are bought up with avidity, that they have
been lauded with extraordinary panegyrics, that his
name is bruited about as a marvel of intellectual vigour ;
we are conscious that a mere inuendo as to his being a
charlatan in authorcraft will be received just now with
more than astonishment by thousands. But how is
this ? M. Michelet has the courage (or whatever else it
may be called) to advocate principles which have long
lurked in a large section of the popular mind, and the
open declaration of which has been hitherto suppressed
by the trepidation of individuals. To speak more defi-
nitely : some portions of the people, composed of men
half-educated, men of ardent fancies and of little
rationality, have long 'cherished a kind of libertine in.
diffefence to many of the laws which regulate the social
system. Their passions have rebelled against the in-
" fluence of these laws, but secretly and silently ; the
awful majesty of antiquity pervading that social juris-
prudence, together with the reverence still conceded to
it by millions, deterring them from an announcement of
their antagonism. M. Michelet has stepped forward as
the exponent of these covert views, he has possessed the
audacity to declare himself the enemy of things which
haie received the accordant voice of ages ; to brand as
infamous classes who have been revered by immemorial
generations ; to point, steadily and scornfully, with an
untrembling finger and an unblushing cheek, at a policy
sanotified by the wisdom of all past and present times.
In this lies the whole secret of M. Michelet's popularity.
A consummate daring is the trumpet through which his
fame (or shall we term it, his notoriety ?) has been
blown over a large segment of Christendom : a daring
which has not hesitated to assail the purest, noblest,
holiest, and most revered tenets of the social system ; a
daring which has revealed what was hitherto latent,
and ridiculed what was hitherto only obeyed. By so
doing he has rallied round him a mighty battalion of
free-thinkers ; his first declaration in their favour,
under the title of " Priests, Women, and Families," has
gone very rapidly through many editions, it has been
translated into more than one language, its dogmas have
been denounced as impious, as irreligious, as subver-
sive of all order ; the panegyrists of M. Michelet have
waxed warm in their retaliation, and thus have his
doctrines become bruited about from mouth to mouth,
and himself put forward as a contemned patriot, as a re-
generator of his race, who has been repaid only with ec-
clesiastical vituperation. The sympathies of the indis-
criminating have in this specious manner been aroused in
his behalf, and the popularity of the French scribe ex-
tended more and more. To adapt himself adroitly to
this position of affairs, to insinuate himself as it were into
a yet more Catholic celebrity, and to instil in the most
subtle manner possible, his new clerico-political, or
politico-clerical creed into the mind of the multitude,
M. Michelet has issued another production of a similar
character, but entitled by a more showy and seductive
name, " The People." This book is really a curiosity :
it is a beautiful deformity, incongruous to a wonderful
extent. So much pure and lofty thoughtfulness, so much
dangerous and demoralising rhetoric; such excellence in
one part and such insidious promptings in another, were
possibly never before compressed into so small a compass.
The weeds, however, infinitely outnumber the blossoms.
What a mass of egotism alone is the introductory
chapter ! What a cumulation of modest self sufficiency
and vain-glorious bashfulness ! Nor does this intolerable
spirit of complacency restrict itself to the person, it
enlarges to the bulk of the gigantic nation of which the
writer's person is a sectional part. Let us see if this
declaration of ours be not correct. And in the quota-
tion we are about to make let the reader especially
observe the melodramatic flashiness of the composition ;
let him note the mock solemnity of manner gradually
swelling out into hyperbole as the climax of egotism is
attained ! At page 14 M. Michelet speaks as follow:

" Who does not see that from east to west a shadow of
death is pressing upon Europe, and that every day there
is less sun ; that Italy has perished, that Ireland has
perished, that Poland has perished, and that Germany is
bent on destruction ? 0 Germany, Germany !
"If France were dying a natural death, if her hour had
come, I should perhaps be resigned ; and, like a pas-
senger on board a sinking ship, cover up my head, and
commend myself to God. But her situation is nothing
like that ; and hence I am indignant ; the idea of our
ruin is absurd, ridiculous ; it proceeds only from our-
selves. Who has a literature ? Who still sways the
mind of Europe ? We, weak as we are. Who has an
army ? 'We alone.
"England and Russia, two feeble, bloated giants, im-
pose an illusion on Europe. Great empires, weak
people I Let France be united for an instant ; she is
strong as the world."

Parolles all over again—this I A most delicate
morsel of vain-glory ; so meekly done too : it is just the
thing to tickle the vanity of our Gallic neighbours. That
is a most gloomy, a most baseless, and (we cannot but
declare it) a most base notion, that a moral darkness is
settling over Europe. In the principles which are
now gaining ground among the populace, and be-
coming engrafted on the constitutions of the
earth, we recognise a promise of brighter,
loftier, happier days than the Earth has ever witnessed
since the expulsion. Our politics should be hopeful,
buoyant, reliant—those of this French pseudo philosopher
are, on the contrary, darksome, mournful, woe-begone.
Which is the wiser? Has Italy perished? Has Ireland
perished? Has Poland perished? He must be arrogant
forsooth! who shall answer "Yea" thrice. And France
it appears, according to M. Michelet, is the only coun-
try with what can really be designated a literature ! A
very marvellous discovery truly! That sublime litera-
ture, no doubt, being marshalled by M. Michelet himself,
and Eugene Sue, and Paul de Kock. Has England then
no literature, or Scotland, or America, or Germany,
or Ireland? Is Wordsworth no poet, Hallam no histo-
rian, Macaulay no Essayist, Wilson no monarch of the
pen and of the heart, Dickens no wit? Are Whewell,
and Brougham, and Buckland, and Lingard, and Jeffrey,
and De Quincy nothing? But the catalogue would be
tarn ost interminable. Then France being the only power
with army! Sobraon of course will not alter such a
notion of the incapacity of foreign soldiers. There is
no mentiln whatever of a navy, be it observed! As to
the remaiirder of the paragraph, it is mere balderdash,
unworthy or further notice. We are unwilling to tarry
any longer over this eccentric publication, we believe
the shallowness of the arguments are, in its instance at
least, their own preventative against the propagation of
evil. " The Peop:e" are in this book reflected as in a
flawed mirror: the
dissimilarity of the two, and the in-
congruity of the last-mentioned is fortunately too evi-
dent to innoculate the
popular mind with its fallacies.

THE FORTUNES OF TURLOGH O'BRIEN,

ivip, L

a gAnother owf
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tp nb cy
ll;avhe
ue
td sße rrivawl mwahnicceus , with
some
three years since obtained such .an extraordinary circu-
lation under the prestige of " Irarry Lorrequer." No
author's name is attached to " Tltzrlogh O'Brien," and,
we think, judiciously enough. The conception of the
scenes depicted is clear and smart in itself, but the com-
position is defective beyond measure..
To
inexpress a
single thought, or to define a solitary pc.sinta land-
scape, an unconscionable abundance of fine Iknguvalie over-
loads.ting a
the description. This blemish gives the writing
character most wretchedly jejeune and crude.- The ap-
petite for richness, whether literary or gastr
be-
comes cloyed by a superfluity. The author
__ o
should bear that wholesome truth in his reco.Vection.
He leaves nothing, or scarcely anything, to the reader's
,
oni ernis ie
novel
v
el
ly
l P
andicu lb r
means, what might otherwise be brilliant, is marred be-
simomageitnimateison; every every
fibre leaf
upon i s
ictasref surface;u
be-
yond all redemption. To imitate those who lame
rendered themselves remarkable for an actual te-
arto,y riled;
sometimes
this
nuity of style is preferable to that turgid passion foi•
a kind of effervescence in language which has occasionally
all the pomp of Johnson, without his solidity or sym-
metry of construction. Saving, however, this blemish
in the manner, the matter is pleasant and readable; with
a little less of the ostentation of the lexicographer, the
story may develope itself into a very stirring narrative.
The period in which the incidents are supposed to trans-
pire is an excellent one for romance, namely, the time of
the wars of James the Second. hat with the Irish
adventures of that unhappy monarch, whom Miss Aikin
designates, very beautifully and very appropriately, as
" the modern Lear," what with Sarsfield, and the other
celebrated men of that epoch, much interest may be
thrown over the fiction. The title-page, by "Phis" is
most appropriately and elegantly designed ; on one side
is the last regnant of the Stuarts embarking from his old
kingdom, on the other is the first regnant of the Bruns-
wicks disembarking in his new kingdom. Let the
writer prune, and he may succeed.

7 HE MISCELLANEOUS WORKS OF
ROBERT HALL.
Ju publishing this noble effort of rhetorical genius
at a charge of such comparative insignificance, Mr. Bohn
has: at once benefited the public and beautified his
"S tandard Library." Robert Hall has unquestionably no
par allel in the language : his sentences have all the re-
sonance of Tully, though at times they lack that divine
fur. or which burst from the Latin rostrum like lightning-
flas hes. But in all the essential elements of his art,
He'll was infinitely more than a proficient. With Irving
tilt ire was no deficiency of the " thoughts that breathe
and 'words that burn," but his extraordinary intellect was
too. 'effete and shapeless ; his imagination had a para-
mount tendency to rhapsody, Robert Hall, on the con-
trary, was equally teeming with lofty images
and subtle thoughts, while his sentences were perfect
spa cimens of rhetorical symmetry. Besides this, he was
a lc 'gician ; his tenets were suffused moreover with an
atis 'osphere of the most transparent metaphysics, en •
he acing their sweetness by a solemn grandeur. He is
th e Canning of the pulpit, without his natural advantages,
bi it with more than his succinctness of exposition.
neat as the Oraisones Funares of Dossuet are, noble

and pathetic as they are individually, and incomparable
as they are collectively, we would venture to classify
with them, for its deep and earnest beauty, its mournful..
ness of decoration and impressive train of inferences,
the funeral sermon preached byy-Bobert Hall, on the
" Princess Charlotte of Wales. Were we to dilate
upon each constituent portion of she volume before
us our writing materials w ould be exhausted long
before we arrived at the conclusion, $0 lofty, so
enticing, so pure, so suggestive, so brilliant are the,
oratorical displays contained in its pages.
may the Dissenters of this country priJe them-
selves in the memory of this renowned mad,. who
delivered front their pulpits words stamped with the
lustre of genius, the sanctity of convietion, and the
lambent splendour of immortality. To listen to thosd
ravishing torrents of eloquence, the loftiest and most
fastidious of the contemporaryintellects numbered them-
selves among the auditors of Hall; to linger over the
record of that eloquence, to drink in the silent but visible
voice of the great Orator, the students of many ages to
come will dwell over the volumes in which they are
transcribed. Such a volume is the one at our elbow: it
is replete with solid wisdom and with superb rhetoric.
We need not as in other cases commend this book to the
public: it is its own advertisement and eulogium.

•
THE 7'OPIC.—No. 1. The Indian War. No. 11.
The Tariff: No. 111. The Oregon Question.
These are the first numbers of a new periodical, the
object of which, as stated by the projector, is " to fur-
nish an article each week of the same kind that the es-
tablished Reviews do quarterly," and, as far as the two
numbers before us are concerned, that object has been
successfully achieved. The first number opens with a
geographical description of the Punjaub, followed by a
sketch of its history up to the present time, and con-
cludes with reflections on the consequences of the recent
English victories, in the course of which the writer
strongly urges the policy of immediate annexation, in
preference to that proposed by Sir H. Ilirdinge. The,
second number is a complete history of the progress of
the sound principles of political economy from the days.
of their first announcement by Adam Smith up to the days
of Sir Robert Peel, to whose glory it will be recorded by
the future historian, that he converted the abstract
truths of political economy into the great fact of prac-
tical free trade. The writer, who is a sound political
economist, thus speaks of the future prospects of Eng-
land.

" It cannot be concealed that it is a condition of her ex-
isting state that she possesses a vast productive power, for
whose healthy and regular action a commensurate range
of employment is indispensable. Her creative energies are
extraordinary, and have a tendency to accumulate faster
than the objects upon which they can be fixed and occupied.
The increase of capital, population, and machinery, does, in
their present extent of development, require to be provided,
to avert mercantile reactions constantly occurring, with a cor-
responding increase in the outlets and demands upon which
they can be remuneratively employed. Free trade is likely
to afford this relief and opening to our rapidly expanding
resources. The earth, in truth, is only beginning to be
civilised and reclaimed in earnest. At home and abroad
there is wide scope for extended consumption, for that con-
sumption which multiplies the material comforts and enjoy-
ments of mankind. Even in our own island there are nu-
merous classes whose condition would be elevated by more
and better food, by superior clothing and more wholesome
habitations. Foreigners in the main exist under still greater
privations. Hardly anywhere has the condition of the la-
bouring classes been essentially ameliorated, in food, personal
or domestic conveniences. In the north-east of Europe many
provinces are desolate, thinly-peopled, and their inhabitants
destitute. In Egypt and Syria, in India and China, and in
America, North and South, the range is boundless for the
beneficial interchange of .commodities. It is the mission of
England to effect this desirable consummation, to supply the
wants of nations, and to bring them together by the recipro-
cation of benefits, and thus complete the cycle of her glories
by realising the poet's vision of the future world of London :
The time shall come when, free as seas or wind,
Unbounded Thames shall flow for all mankind;
`Whole nations enter with each swelling tide,
And seas but join the regions they divide;
Earth's distant ends our glory shall behold,
And the new world launch ferth to meet the old."
The Third Number consists of an interesting article
on the Oregon Question.