The Sun.
London, England, 1857-05-19 00:00:00

THE QUARTERLIES.

The Edinburgh Review, No. CC XI V. —The ere
traordinary nature of the political article in
Edinburghwe hive already taken occasion to notl
in our leading columns. It constitutes, in litef,,
truth, a formal secession of the Old Whig Quarter')
from Whigg;sin—seeing that the Review utterly c,
nounces Lord John RuFzell, in a sudden and Ceet
tainly a not very decorous preference fcr his al°ll
conspicuous (and for the time being successful) riv`i
Viscount Palmerston. Englishmen have no gre:-,
liking for what are called fair-weather friends-
more than they regard with complacency the LD'„a
ministration of a kic t o mm who is down. i,41
here, in the current " Political" of the Edinbtlfvi,
are BOTH—the kick and the fair-weather friendsl:lo
The former bestowed upon Lord John, the latteiq
Lord Palmerst on. Decidedly, the best part of ;e.
etc ver but flagitious paper is that which his part obi
larly reference to Mr. Gladstone. The wholeietbe
tributiou is entitled "The Past Session atia4l
New Parliament." Previously, the old thread-70
subject of " British Relations with China" is lily
yet more threadbare than ever.,—trituratng t°ep
utmost possible tenuity—by another revi",,eff
notwithstanding that the whole gloss has so: 06
recently been t Ilan off the Chinese by the de° itt
in Parliament and by contemporary discussielos
the newspapers. A generous tribute of admira
is offered to the heroic memory of " Alexander
Great" in the opening article of the number-141
this principally, be it observed, in deprecatilrtett
the depreciatory view recently taken by Mr.
of the career and character of that renowned
Tumor. As to the sources of information uOiliosid
subject preserved to the world from the old c'

times, the critic remarks : atif/
" Of the life of Alexander we have five cense° pod
narratives, besides numerous allusions and fragff
scattered up and down various Greek and Latin,
tern.Of these last, the greatest in number o%p
most curious in detail are to be found in the Pr;
valuablemlsc
eila
are ny of
dueA t hteon mtoue judicious
s ;bu t per
andha p s
accurate the n, ost
trr-te
Of our five chroniclers, Arrian and Quintus Cuerrii.
have written separate histories of the great con Void
The work of Arrian has come down to us entire,
the exception of a siugle lacuna : Curtius has B,,evA
such gaps, and the whole of the two first WO,/
wanting. Plutarch has devoted to Alexander
his longest biographies ; Diodorus bestows on .uleo
whole book of his universal history ; Justin givri
more succinct narrative in his epitome of Trogo%iillt
peius. But we have again to regret a very c°,l3'ijof,
able lacuna in the narrative of Diodorus, which ntf
ever is partially supplied by the headings of the Cl*

being preserved. -
‘r Here, it might be thought, are authorities efl.)!
but unluckily, among all the five, there is not 11
gle contemporary chronicler. All five write at ee'lo,
hand, the earliest of them about three centur/O?
Alexander's death. The value of all, it is clearce'll
depend upon the faithfulness with which they
sent the original documents, and upon the ani°°-bri
critical power which they may have brought t°g‘f
upou their examination. Unluckily again, aea°,°"o4
the five, only one has any pretensions to the name
critic. Arrian alone appears to have combined tb°oV
and power to exorcise a discreet judgment uP°
statements of his predecessors."
,46/1
Aided by these five rather dubious lights,
left to form our own conclusion as to the care.eelyi
character of Alexander. The conclusion arrl'olf,
by the reviewer being; for the most part, Of/
with that formed some time back in his great 10,
by Bishop Thirlvrall. In the subsequent d
" The Last Census of France," namely,
1856, is analysed. From the third contra
relating to The Atlantic Ocean, we take the J„.,:e
ing extract—premising that it appears there V
as a quotation. It is a brief but elegant descf
by Lieutenant Maury, of—
THE GULF STREAM. Peri
" There is a river in the ocean. In the fledi
droughts it never and in the mightiest tdt
never overflows. Its banks and its bottom are,ll,,
water, while its current is of warm. The 'yr;
Mexico 'is its fountain, and its mouth is in the rid/
Seas. It is the Gulf-stream. There is in the 1/!:150,0
other such majestic flow of waters. Its current;op
rapid than the Miesissippi or the Amazon, *-0
volume more than a thousand times greater. it,: ofekvi
as far out from the Gulf as the Carolina coss;;e,'o
an indigo line. They are so distinctly reaviotie
this line of junction with the common sea-water a 9
traced by the eye. Often one-half of the vessel
perceived floating in Gulf-stream water, while tlibel#l
half is in common water of the sea ; so sharp i 4 ;
and such the want of affinity between these viate„.o,o
such, too, the reluctance, so to speak, on the or,
those of the Gulf-stream to mingle with the °
water of the sea."
fief)
Kaye's " Life of Malcolm " is next re oiy
-tb- df ePifrec

—tne review icse. cons ~acting an -- javr(ll
biography. Boeresco's " Roumania" being Ai,
after selected by another contributor, as a PlePit'
which to hang an instructive geographiea' ///:1
sitiou. " The Festal Letter aof Athanasiti'be
ainined in a subsequent article, prepare difiefeel6
rather oddly for a scrutiny of some voile -weld
epistles indeed, the Familiar Letters (14 -„re y
These latter being very generally and ea" 10,1,4
derly handled in a contribution, enticing bra I
" Boswell and Boswelliana." It seems t°ll;fini
strange, by the way—when we find the 61;
this exceedingly clever and entertaineltio tf
cavilling thus at the errors disfiguring
he is reviewing : Pliie°lldi
" The Letters are well edited on the whole/ -hove
marks of haste (in consequence of the sudden °,911‘,11'
editorship) are occasionally discernible. Th"s .
Bolton' is printed Duke of Breton ' (p. 39*/,eLllolll
right Shippen' downright Skipper' (p. 182.)/ffee(V
Cub' (the title of Boswell's first production) is °rilto,
printed The Club. To the list of Bosvvell'ecriAtte/
trod. pp. xli, xiii.) should be added his See" sal: clic
the People of Scotland. Temple's Essays' e bee ,o',
(pp. 239. n. 251. a.) to br lost or missing, "Zidge:s,
covered in the University 'Library at Cave'ublio"
his Essay on Dr. Johnson (the ' unknown
mentioned p. 405. a.) is in the British Dillig-et°l',t
see no reason for stating in the introdnctor.7
prefix,id to each section of the correspondencoeltbecor
contained in the letters ; and perhaps some in in 'OO
marks might be advantageously compresse ll
rected edition, which, we take fur granted, Wt to
appear."
o',
And yet this self same reviewer, so Ice yerl,,lll
the blunders of another, himself in the 011
article talks of " The Triumphs of T„e and e,l,
stead of " The Triumphs of Tempel at .13°511..
sequently after having mentioned cribiag„
was bi-xn in 1740, talks of his des 1740yei,
studies " in a letter dated December.,,._,rc
stead of December, 1753 ! Thus elLl..ibr) ;di
out to he (by this preposterous blu u b-T
suovia
cocious law student of some eight Ye4r, the per
to speak profanely it is the Moto
e
Onethe
Boci
tiiiTti b-ua4r.ritlitclyee:-tLI alone
remains
st et etuu-e'rLeine)tay:lilqrellitilel:r9iii:ili.t,:'
It is an interesting chap` Pr upon y of)
tanti Society"—:a literary go ._ t
labor
found to repay the reader for tha
perusal,