The Sun.
London, England, 1858-02-15 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Fifty Years' Recollections. By Cyrus Redding.
C. J. Skeet, King William-street.
Any man with a tolerable amount of ability, who
has measured his "three score years and ten" in an
active and desultory literary life, must needs have
much that is interesting to record in his
career ; but Mr. Cyrus Redding possesses
talent of superior order, and perception of
acute degree ; and has, therefore, succeeded
in producing iree volumes of more than average
merit in the autobiographical style of publication.
For our own part, we entertain a degree of moral
and mental objection to this class of writing ; con-
sidering and perceiving too generally that the
recollections embodied are tinged with pri-
vate prejudice and loquacious inaccuracy--
thereby at once invalidating the, integrity of
the author, the acquirement of the reader, and the ,
characters of those who are treated of in the work.
Autobiographies are doubtless intended to plea-
santly amuse and truthfully enlighten ; but there
is seldom sufficient delicacy or care displayed in
the revelations of past circumstances and connec-
tions ; and the relater is apt to degenerate into
gossipping vacuity or injudicious betrayal of
confidential association. Mr. Cyrus Redding has
not neatly so much to answer for in this respect as
many who have issued similar books ; yet he is not
exempt from the prevalent habit, and not a few
instances of incorrectness and exaggeration mark
his pages, but the large amount of faithful intelli-
gence and intellectual interest pervading the
volumes would prevent a more captious spirit than ,
ours from wishing to break a lance with him.
Mr. Cyrus Redding was well-born, well-bred,
and well-connected, having the advantages of
highly-educated and classical friends in early life,
and numerous excellent positions for the
exercise of his talent throughout his career—
having been responsibly established on seve-
ral first class papers and periodicals ; in-
cluding Gafignani's Messenger, The New Monthly,
aad Metropolitan ; which latter serial he founded
in conjunction with the poet Campbell ; but he
does not appear to have bmefitted much by his
opportunities, and wo fear that his love of excite-
ment and change tended somewhat to hinder
big solid well-doice—the case with many
clever men—thereby causing Dame For-
tune to incur an odium which might be

more justly assigned to want of steadiness of pur-
pose and directness of application. After long ser
vice in the worLi of letters, with ardent zeal for
liberal politics, and enthusiasm for literary pursuits,
it is painful to find a gentleman of upwards of
seventy obliged to have recourse to his autobio-
graphy for the means of respectable existence, and
working harder than he probably did in manhood's
prime ; however, we can only hope that Mr. Red-
ding may receive some bounty at the hands of
Government borore long ; for though not among
the original geniuses or most prominent minds of
the age, he has laboured well and unceasinly in
the service of the reading pub:lc,
We shall present a few specimens of his work,
beginning with the following, relative to a famed
and favourite poet :
" It to:)k time to know Campbell in his better days.
He had most estimable qualities, with some peculiariTies;
these made many mistake his real character. He was
oftea thoughtless, disliked labour, and was forgetful.
Ile required a hint to make him do what to people in
general was the most obvious thing in the world, lle
was way ward at times, cow particular, and then careles.,
By fits and starts be was grave, and then frolicksome,
both upon slight excitements, and sometimes ready to
push things to exces', at others to evade them. He was
accused of being wanting in his friendships, I never saw
it, but it he were judged by his omissions, his conduct
often bore that appearance. No man possessed a more
kindly temper or wished more to do good to others, but
he was not forward to do so because of his abstractions.
He was perpetually occupied by some subject from
which nothing came. Political economy, Hebrew,
Eastern history employed his thoughts in turn, and
were dropped. I never found him wanting towards
myself, it I had I should have openly told him of it, as
I once did when I thought ho was guilty of an omission
on an indifferent matter. Though ha early flc that
without rue he should not he able to remainlangas editor
of the Nov Monthly, from his want of forecast and little
regard to the effects that woull fellow, acting on the
impulse of the mei:sent, and that this would have pro-
duced a much earlier break up, yet he did not hesitate
to offer me the professorship of English at the Univer-
sity of Warsaw, which Prince Csartorisky, then ruler of
Poland under Alexander of Russia, placed at his disposal
to fill up by an Englishman. I declined it, fortunatisly
for myself, on account of the difficulty of the language,
not long before the revolution that was provoked by the
Grand Duke Constantine. His countrymen accused
him of not laying himself out to procure profitable
places for them from the Whigs. They esteem it a
duty in any of the natives of the north, who become .
possessed of influence of any kind, to work for thorn in
this way, but Campbell was too independent to job for
any body. He would scarcely solicit the most trivial
thing for himself, which almost anyone might ask and
haTe."

We hare often proved that complimentary dinners
to popular individuals are questionable affairs on
some ground or other, and the one given to Hogg,
the Ettrick Shepherd, does not impeach our expe-
rience. Mr. Redding says—
Hogg was a much quieter man than Wilson made him
out, and was reported to say things he was too well-
informed to utter. His writings are eminently Scotch,
and were not adapted to make a sensation in this coun-
try. I confess in all I ever saw of Hogg, which was
not much, I was greatly prepossessed in favour of his
abilities. While he was in town, it was proposed to give
him a dinner on the anniversary of the birthday of Burns.
I was named a steward with Lockhart and several
friends. Campbell was nominated ales, but he was in
the country. On repairing to the Freemasons' Tavern
to make preparatory arrangements for a meeting of the
stewards to provide the dinner, we found that the whole
had been clandestinely done. The tickets were 225. One
et the stewards, who want with me, was equally surprised
at this intelligence, and we neither of us attended. Sir
John Malcolm was in the chair. I had a note of °roue
from Campbell, which, as I did not attend, I sent to the
chairman for the purpose of its being read. Sir John
declined doing so, saying be was in the hands of the
stewards, but what stewards were his instructors we
could never learn. I wrote to Sir John, who exonerated
himself by a note, explaining the matter as far as he
was concerned. Two or three out of the eight or ten
stewards nominated, bad secretly settled all, binding Sir
John to heir toasts, not having communicated with any
others. Nor was this all, the dinner was paltry—the
affair looked like a job—there was not enoegh food fur
the guests present, four shillings a head would have
amply covered it. I sent au account of the whole dia.
graceful affair to the" A.therteum," which had shrewdly
inquired what was the reason myself and others were
absent from the lenten affair. It had good ground for
the question, but surmise would not prove the facts of a
disgraceful character connected with that affair. Hogg
was never in London afterwards.

What will the idolaters of "Betty Foy" and
'The Excursion" think of this iconoclastic heresy ?

When Wordsworth died there was a contest about
his merits as a poet. I got into a contention on
the subject. It cannot be denied that the projector of
a new scheme for poetical writing, not to be challenged,
merits especial notice, for with Wordsworth all was ex
cathedra. His lyrical ballads I read on their first ap-
pearance, with a perfect ignorance of what end their
author could have in view, except to strip poetry of all
that is attractive, and send her a doggrel ballad singer
en chemise through the world. Dogmatic, haughty,
and self-sufficient, there was nothing of sonl.kindliness
in Wordsworth, and a poet without a heart is a non-
descript creature. He bad no relish for Shakapeare,r and
s
affected an abstractedness, which he imagined, or
friends for him, was a communing with the black or
with
grey spirits of the Cumberland mountains. When the
friend who admired the poem
Ecursion' appeared, a
difficultyere and
tlh wadedere
is a
d tu it throughteii,
te.n t it toThat
bat it is too much to have to grope through a bushel of
there e
were It was
fine wlitnhe e it
chaff to find a grain or two of wheat. Wordsworth was
a man who, I hope, only affected a sort of ascetism in
order to cultivate solitaryness, and obtain credit for
profundity or rather obscurity. He would fain be
oracular and austere as well, in order to be taken for a
second, and no doubt in his own opinion an improved
Milton. Yet so far from being worthy of the compari-
son, he endeavoured to frame a newnearly eoetical system
n
yienvdisolaetxetdollied in the face of his
but
tiehwhich
n notoriously
all he wrote,
violations. All phrases and forms were to be rejected
that were not included in the language of common life.
He would degrade all to the humblest I inguege of the
gratification reality, th a t was
whichhiey
f fancy
n elaw.
He
the language of _would give nothing of the
proffers. He as,erted, too, that
poetry should be that of prose, and that
fact •
or frnagleation were the same. It must be con•
leased his own language is sufficiently prosaic. Tt o
convinced by his own example of the i of
his theory, be advocated it as
strenuously as ever.
All the poetry of England, with one or two reluctant
exceptions, were beneath his lofty endurance. He affected
an equal regard and interest for the meanest as for the
grandest object, an error self-evident. Vain and ego-
tistical, destitute of genial feeling, intellectual in his own
way, he moves no passion, raises no heart-warmth,
excites no sympathy, works upon nature, and nature
clone, but does not depict nature in her glories.
We conclude our notice with a few words on
modern clubs—cordially recommending Mr. Bed-
ding's "Recollections" as a highly interesting and
entertaining work.
Social clubs wore a past inetitursn. They were fowl

in the number of members, and linked in mutual kind.
bore no resemblance to the unsocial, cumbersome
anti-domestic establishments of the present day. A-
peculiar. mark of the time is the pushing to sloes*
everything that suits the fashion, until it loses US
forri legal
layl h a
intercourseract e r i n discomfortzoleru
bvesaxpta
does gnaonto e. The
exist in
the new. Nothing 'Can than the con-
versation in modern club-houses. Not that men of
ability are not members of them, but that for one MGM*
berable to support a conversation, there are ten without
anidea of anything but themselves or their professional
avocations. ill must be lowered to theirtone. The
old clubs consisted of a few persons, who were more
equal in regard to talents, or nearer upon an equality
in mind, and attached to the end of the institution, if
it were of any peculiar character. Thus mutual infer-
maticn was imparted,
.and men drawn more towards
each other by congenial pursuits, formed friendships
that lasted through life, Even asto exclusiveness
little is now gained, notwithstanding the black-ball
system, The truth is, the ballot goes much by interest.
In a well-known club which has many candidates and
few vacancies, it is quite common to black-ball all down
to a particular name, which the members feel desirous
should he among them, and interest is made for the
particular candidate accordingly. They have no scruple
about rejecting men of high honour and unimpeachable
character, to whom they have no objection except that
they prefer or are pressed to admit another, who stands
perhaps forty down upon the list in order of applioatiou.
Justice and the principle of honour have no hold here.
Nor is the ballot at any time a security against obnoxi-
ous persons, unless they are publicly and notoriously
known to be so. Even common honesty and decent
manners are not guaranteed by it. In one club a
member may be discovered walking away with a
purloined quire of paper, and a stink of sealing-wax in
his pocket ; in another, acts happen which rigid cons.
mittees endeavour to prevent, that would hardly have
occurred in the most uneducated and vulgar classes of
society. Compared to the old club, the resemblance,
therefore, is but small. The multitudinous, tulle%
ostentatious, modern establishments, without friendly
intercourse, are but reflections of the fashion of the
day—aimless, heartless, but superficially imposing.
There is nothing gained in these social bodies by the
lapse of half a century.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Tins DAT—Morn., 3 min. aft. 3 —Even., 20 na:n aft. 3
To-Mointow —Morn., 35 min. aft. 3—Even., 51 min. aft. 3