The Sun.
London, England, 1857-02-02 00:00:00

THE QUARTERLIES.

The Edinburgh Review, No. COXIII..

The specious sophistries for which the political
article of the quarter in this newly published
number of the Edinburgh is remarkable, we have
already endeavoured at once to expose and to de-
nounce* in our leading columns—the tenth and
last article, we mean, relating to "India, Persia,
and Affghanistaii." Further comment upon the
subject a- treated by the great Whig apologists of
Lord Palmerston's Government, as affected by its
policy towards the Courts of Teheran and St.
Petersburg, were, therefore, we cannot but think,
at the present moment altogether superfluous.
Another political treatise of a more truthful and,
therefore, be it added, in more senses than one, of
a more practically useful character, precedes this
illusory argument as to the origin and progress of
the new Oriental war—the war proclaimed against
Persia at Calcutta, on the Ist of November,
1856, by the overnor- General of India,
speaking in the name of his Most Gracious Sove-
reign, and on behalf of her Supreme Government.
This Penultimate, or ninth contribution to the new
number of the Edinburgh, relates in an especial
manner to " Parliamentary Committees and Rail-
way Legislation." In earlier pages of the same
number will be found by those who list, two very
genial and painstaking criticisms, referring the one
to Prescott's " Philip the Second," and the other
to Ferguson's "Handbook of Architecture." There
are, later on, moreover, a couple of essays exceed-
ingly attractive, each in its peculiar way—the first
relating to " Husband and Wife" considered, in
allusion to their Rights and Liabilities (suggested,
as every one might guess, principally by the
Honourable Mrs. Norton's " Letter to the
Queen"), and, the second, referring to
"Lawyers and Critics," the Critic's English,
the Lawyers Scottish. The last-mentioned con-
tribution, no less obviously elicited, we should con-
jecture, to the generality, by the Memorials of his
Time, written by Henry Cockburn (one of the
Lords of Session), and published posthumously.
Here is a pen-and-ink sketch of that popular Scotch-
man, as dashed off by the ready and graphic quill
of the reviewer in the Edinburgh
"Henry Cockburn was rather below the middle height,
firm, wiry, and muscular, inured to active exercise of all
kinds, a good swimmer, an accomplished skater, and an
intense lover of the fresh breezes of heaven. His face was
handsome and intellectual ; a capacious brow, which his
baldness made still more remarkable, large, lustrous, and
in repose rather melancholy eyes, which, however, when
roused by energy or wit, sparkled like a hawk's, and a well-
formed nose, were the principal characteristics of a very
striking physiognomy. His manner and address were,
among his friends and intimates, singularly winning and
attractive. He was the model of a high-bred Scotch gentle.
man of the last distinctive sell( ol which his country possessed.
He spoke with a Doric breadth of accent, such as was used
by the higher classes in Scotland towards the end of the last
century, untinged alike by mere provinciliasm, or vulgar
affectation of the language of the South. In temperament,
while he could assume any mood, and sympathise with all,
and was master alike of the stern and the pathetic, he was
naturally of an easy and careless hilarity. His flow of good
humour was never failing, and neither care nor anxiety,
nor time could quench it. He had high thoughts, noble
ambition, deep reflection on men and things, but they never
weighed heavy enough upon him to repress the elasticity
of a spirit which bore him up through all the vicissitudes
of an active life, and burned as brightly at the age of
threescore and ten, as it did during the period of his vigo-
rous manhood recounted in these volumes.

" He had a word and a good deed for all; a skating
holiday for the school-boy—a half-hour's gossip, spiced
perhaps with ancient scandal, for the nonogenariatt—old-
school flirtation for the girls—and exhaustless stores of
unrivalled wit and anecdote for his younger associates, all
as ready, genial, and heart-springing as his daily inter-
course with his contemporaries."

oufpuonagthiaenti;_o liatstisvloelsusma ecsriotfic7sAlm
As to the elaborate paper in the Whig Quarterly
a thanc aul
aa yp' sa History
gi sytroirey.
Nor can this, after all, be very greatly won-
dered at. For, say what his most virulent depre-
ciators may, there is an immense amount of truth
in such sentences (in regard to this wonderful
literary performance) as the following :—" Its
rhetorical power fills the world with admiration,
and chains the attention by a charm rarely pos-
sessed by history, and which even fiction sel-
dom attains." Or again, when the Edinburgh
Reviewer, speaking of the reception accorded to
the two introductory volumes published now some
seven years ago, observes :
" Malignant critics sneered. Silly women, and sillier
men chattered about Mr. 11-acaulay's historical novel, and
the more superficial of the public took for granted that
because the work was brilliant it could not be solid. To
our minds, as said seven years ago, herein truly consisted
the accomplished author's highest praise. His rare combi-
nation of the powers of the imagination and the reasoning
faculty, enables him to sway the judgment while he warms
the fancy. With resources of fact, laid up and made avail-
able by a marvellous memory, he paints the most dry and
uninviting details with a pencil dipped in the brightest
colours. This union of qualities, so seldom found united in
the service of history, produced a result of its kind entirely
without a parallel.'. _ . _

There can be no mistake at all about it, that the
m"
orrstalpiganrat notnecrietmicisn" henteraensdpovkeetn oferan mreeavn fo
reviewer
the
rin
particular, to wit, no other than the Right Hon.
John Wilson Croker, of the Quarterly—the Mr.
Rigby of Disraeli's " Coningsby"—the didicatee of
Southey's " Life of Nelson"—the editor and anno-
tator of Bcswell's " Life of Johnson." In which
last-mentioned capacity, don't we all of us very
well remember how once upon a time he was taken
in hand by Mr. Macaulay in the Edinburgh, and
flayed alive from head to heel, and then soused in a
sort of a diabolical literary cauldron of green
vitriol? Afterwards, too, long years afterwards, don't
we all of us remember equally well how he avenged
himself The Edinburgh review intimates that
he did so in a manner that was " malignant." At
any rate he did so in a way that must have won
him a place is Dr. Johnson's liking, if that un-
wieldy humorist was really and literally in earnest
when he said he " loved a good hater I" As an
antidote to the poison of the malignant critics of
the Quarterly—hero, in these cordial comments of
the Edinburgh, are unctuous droppings of the honey
of encomium I Encomiuni seems but a weak word,
however; let us call the article in question—rather
than this—a kind of a grandiose literary apotheosis!
Here is the Reviewer's congenial reference to the
Demi-God of Mr. Macaulay's idolatry—