The Sun.
London, England, 1861-02-14 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

The Recreations of a Country Parson. Second
Series. Parker.
We have so often had occasion to speak highly
of these essays when meeting them in the pages of
Fraser's Magazine, that their appearance in a
collected form is very welcome. The high repu-
tation which their predecessors have secured to
the author will suffer no diminution by their
appearance. The reader will at once recognise the
sound sense, the pleasant humour, the keen discri-
mination, and genial kindliness and sympathv
which have so long rendered the initials A. K. H.
B. familiar friends to many. While deeply
imbued with a sense of the vital influence
of religion, and of what its effect on our
lives ought to be, the writer is entirely
free from any approach to prejudice or
bigotry, although belonging to a church not gene-
rally remarkable for tolerance. But, though ani-
mated throughout by a kindly Christian spirit,
the essays are not in the least of a doctrinal or
sermonising character. They bear out their title
of being " Recreations," both to the writer and
reader ; such as might pleasantly vary the sterner
labours of the author, and such as might be turned
to for mental refreshment at the close of the day's
toil. As he himself tells us in the introductory
paragraphs of his discourse "Concerning the Worries
of Lite, and how to meet them," essays may be
read by the wrong people and at the wrong time
and place, and there are some to whom the
whole tone and tenour of these moralisings will be
totally antagonistic. The essayist, he observes,
has to contend against a difficulty unfelt by the
preacher, who knows exactly the class for whom
he prepares his discourse, and the time and place
where it will reach them. But the writer of
discursive pages like the present has to pro-
vide for a mixed and uncertain public; " for
people he has never seen ; who will read his
essay in chambers unknown to him ; in
comfortable easy chairs by warm fires; on stiff
chairs with no arms; in cold corners; in lonely lodg-
ings ; amid a great shouting of little children,with
the accompaniment of a stupid old woman talking ;
with their hard hats on their heads in the reading-
rnotnp of royal exchanges, athenaeums, and philo-
sophical insinutious ; in a great hutiy, aria stana-
ing ; quite leisurely, and reclining; beside a window
that looks out on evergreens and roses ; beside a
window, seldom cleaned, that commands a slushy
street, depressing with its brown, half melted
snow." And he asks in despair, how the same
thing can be adapted to all these varying circum-
stances. He solves the difficulty, however, prac-
tically, if not theoretically, by treating of the sub-
jects that come home to us all ; of the joys and
sorrows that chequer the days of most of us ; of the
petty griefs, petty perplexities, disappointments,
and annoyances that form so large a share of the
troubles of life ; of the hopes and aspirations which
we all set out with, but which grow fainter and
fainter on the road. Yet there is nothing morbid
in these glimpses of human sorrows. The whole
tone of the writings is vigorous, straightforward,
and practical. One of the best essays in the volume
is that "Concerning Giving Up and Coming Down,"
li
and the writer's definitions of what he means y
these terms is so characteristic that we give it in
his own words :
GIVING UP AND COMING DOWN.
I fancy my reader wondering at my excitement, and
doubtful of my meaning. Let me explain my terms. What
is meant by Giving Up ; what by Coming Down ?
By Coming Down I understand this : Learning from
the many mortifications, diappointments, and rebuffs which
we must all meet as we go on through life, to think more
and more humbly of ourselves, intellectually, morally, so-
cially, physically, resthetically : yet, while thinking thus
humbly of ourselves and our powers, to resolve that we
shall continue to do our very be-t : and all this with a
kindly heart and a• contented mind. Such is my ideal of
true and Christian Coming Down : and I regard as a
true hero the man who does it, rightly. It is a noble thing
for a man to say to himself, " I am not at all what I had
vainly fancied myself ; my mark is far, very far lower than
I thought it had been ; I had fancied myself a great genius,
but I find I am only a man of decent ability : I had fancied
myself a man of great weight in the county, but I find I
have little influence indeed : I had fancied that my stature
was six feet four, but I find I am only five feet two : I had
fancied that in such a competition I never could be beaten,
but in truth I have been sadly beaten : I had fancied [suffer
me, reader, the solemn allusion] that my Master had en-
trusted me with ten talents, but I find I have no more than
one. But I will accept the humble level which is mine by
right, and with God's help will do my very beat there. I
will not kick dogsnor curse servants : I will not try to detract
from the standing of men who are cleverer, more eminent,
or taller than myself : I will heartily wish them well. I
will not grow soured, moping, and misanthropic. I know
I am beaten and disappointed, but I will hold on manfully
still, and never Give Up 1" Such, kindly reader, is Chris-
tian Coming Down 1
And what is Giving Up? Of course you understand
my meaning now. Giving Up means that when you are
beaten and disappointed, and made to understand that your
mark is lower than you had fancied, you will throw down
your arms in despair, and resolve that you will try no more.
As for you, brave man, if you don't get all you want, you
are resolved you shall have nothing. If you are not ac-
cepted as the cleverest and greatest man, you are resolved
you shall be no man at all. And while the other is Chris-
tian Coming Down, this is un-Christian, foolish, and wicked
Giving Up. No doubt it is an extremely natural thing.
It is the first and readiest impulse of the undisciplined heart.
It is in human nature to say, "If I don't have all the pud-
ding, I shall have none." The grand way of expressing
the same sentiment, is, Ant Cesar ant nullus. Of course
the Latin words stir the youthful heart. You sympathise
with them, I know, my reader under five-and-twenty. You
will see through them some day. They are just the heroic
way of saying, I shall Give Up, but I never shall Come
Down! They state a sentiment for babies, boys and girls,
not for reasonable women and men. For babies, I say.
Let me relate a parable. Yesterday I went into a cottage,
where a child of two years old sat upon his mother's knee.
The little man had in his hand a large slice of bread-
and-butter which his mother had just given him. By
words nut intelligible to me he conveyed to his mother
the fact that he desired that jam should be spread
upon the slice of bread-and-butter. But his mother
informed him that bread and bu, ter must suffice, without
the further luxury. The young human being (how
thoreughly human) considered for a moment; and then
dashed the bread-and butter to the further end of the
room. There it was : Ant Cccsar act nullus! The baby
would Give Up, but it would not Come Down!
Alexander the Great, look at yourself ! Marius among the
ruins of Carthage, what do you think you look like here ?
By the time th youthful reader comes to understand that
Byron's dark, mysterious heroes, however brilliantly set
forth, are in conception simply childish ; by the time he is
able to appreciate Philip Van Artevelde (I mean Mr. Henry
Taylor's noble tragedy) ; he will discern that various
things which look heroic at the first glance, will not work
in the long run. And that practical principle is irrational
which will not work. And that sentiment which is irra-
tional is not heroic. The truly-heroic thing to say, as
well as the rational thing, is this : If I don't get all the
pudding, I shall be content if I get what I deserve, or
what God sends. If I am not Caesar, there is no need that
I should be nullus; I shall be content to be the highly
respectable Mr. Smith. Though I am not equal to Shak -
speare, I may write a good play. Though inferior to
Bishop Wilberforce, I shall yet do my best to be a good
preacher. It is a fine thing, a noble thing, as it appears to
me, for a man to be content to labour hard and do his
utmost though well aware that the result will be no more
than decent mediocrity, after all. It is a finer thing, and
more truly heroic, to do your very best and only be second-
rate, than even to resolve, like the man in the Iliad,
AUv cipterrei,stv, Kai inrEipoxov Ejzl. EVaa i/XXwv.
There is a strain put upon the moral nature in contentedly
and perseveringly doing this, greater than is put upon the
intellectual by the successful effort to be best. And what
would become of the world if all men went upon Homer's
principle; and rather than Come Down from its sublime
elevation, would fling down their tools and Give Up ? Shall
I, because I cannot preach like Mr. Melvill, cease to write
sermons ? Or shall I, because I cannot counsel and charm
like Mr. Helps, cease to write essays ? You may rely upon
it I shall not. I do not forget Who said, in words of praise
concerning one who had done what was absolutely but
very little, " She hath done what she could I" And what
would become of me and my essays, if the reader, turning
to them from the pages of Meat or Charles Lamb, should
say, " I shall not Come Down ; and if I find I have to do
so I shall Give Up ?" What if the reader refused to
accept the plain bread-and -butter which I can furnish, un-
less it should be accompanied by that jam which I am
not able to add ?
" Disappointment and Success" and " Growing,
Old" are two other subjects which give full lati-
tude for the author's powers; and his attack on the
supporters of the " Dignity of Dulness " will be
fresh in the memory of its readers. He happily
confutes the absurd theory, firmly believed in by
many, of the soundness and value of what is pon-
derous and tedious, and the necessary superficiality
of all that is brilliant and attractive. " Con-
cerning Churchyards " is another characteristic
topic, in considering which he discusses the
relative merits of burning or burying as a means
of disposing of the dead, a question which has
recently been raised among the scientific.
One of the advocates of the funeral pyre suggests
that the ashes of the departed might be preserved
in elegant urns, " replacing on our consoles and
mantelpieces the ornaments now found there."
Notwithstanding all the attendant solemnities of
the ceremony, we fully agree with our essayist,
who says it would be impossible for the survivors
to divest themselves of the feeling of sacrilegious
violence. " And only think," he indignantly ex-
claims, "of a man pointing to half-a-dozen vases
on his mantelpiece, and as many more on his chef.
fonier, and saying, There the wicked cease from
troubling and there the weary are at rest.' No,
no • the thing will never do !" In his list of epi-
taphs he cites some nel,7 and curious ones. The
gloomy fancy some have had to dwell on the cir-
cumstances of their own dissolution he condemns
as morbid, but goes on to say :
Nor but that such thoughts are well in their due time
and place. It is very fit that we should all sometimes
try to realise distinctly what is meant when each of us
repeats words 4,000 years old, and a ay's," I know that Thou
wilt bring me to death, and to the house appointed for
all living." Even with all such remembrances brought
home to him by means to which we are not likely
to resort, the good priest and martyr Robert South-
well tells us how hard he found it, while in buoyant
life, to rightly consider his end. But in perfect cheer-
fulness and healthfulness of spirit, the human being
who knows (so far as man can know) where he is to
rest at last, may oftimes visit that peaceful spot. It will
do him go.,d ; it can do him no harm. The hard-wrought
man may fitly look upon the soft green turf, some day to
be opened for him; and think to himself, Not yet, I have

more to do yet ; but in a little while. Somewhere there is
a place appointed for each of us, a place that is waiting for
each of us, and that will not be complete till we are there.
Well, we rest in the humble trust, that "through the
grave and gate of death, we shaltpass to our joyful resurrec-
tion." And we turn away now from the churchyard, re-
calling Bryant's lines as to its extent.

The essay entitled " Concerning Summer Days,"
affords ample evidence of the writer's peculiar
power of ranging " from grave to gay, from lively
to severe," without the reader's being sensible of
any incongruity or abruptness in the transition.
In the article in question he touches on a wide
range of subjects, suggested by the thought of
summer days, in somewhat of the fashion in which
a rambling train of thought presents itself to the
mind. He reflects on the varying aspects of the
gorgeous midsummer noon in the crowded city
court of law and marketplace, and in leafy wood-
land shades or lone moorland wastes. We quote
the following passages, both from the same essay,
as affording fair specimens of the author's varied
style :