Star.
London, England, 1831-05-03 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

The Megrepolitan.—COCHWlllC AND PICNZ RBOl LL.
In the first number of Mr. Campbell's New Magazine,
just published, and which, doubtless, will be a formidable
rival to its contemporaries, we have an exquisite article on
the " Literature of the Day," from which we can give at
present but a brief extract—intending to recur to the other
contents of the new periodical on a future occasion : .
st One signal advantage which literature has gained by the modern
state of things, is to be found in the downfal of authority. The hot-
bed growth, and rapid succession of authors, allow no time. for any
one of them to be erected into an infallible standard, to which his see-
saws in all future generations shall be obliged to conform. Had
Meiotic written foe .filessrs. Longman, or Murray, there would have
boo no danger of his philosophy ruling despotically for fourteen
ittnitlYnd years; and it may be asses than doubted whether Homes
himself, so circumstanced, would have set a fashion in Epics, and
compelled all future spinners of Cantos to dedicate their second book,
in imitation of his catalogue of ships, to an enumeration of the ' mate-
rielle' of their subsequent campaign. We, of the present day, 'come
like shadows; w deli= and this bull-in-a-china-sluip sort of influ-
ence is not within our teach. There will he no more conning of Ci-
cero, nor giving of days and nights to Addison, to form a style. Each
see, liersetler, will choose its own manner of writing, as it will the
esfiion of its clothes, or the cut of its political constitutions. As the
monotony of Grecian atchitecture has yielded to the pleasing, thotesh
capricious fancies of the emancipated Mr. Nash, so the quaket-like
simplicity of Homer has given place to the arabesque originality, of
cream living libenitors of the English Parnaesus. The competition
which has arisen between the authors of modern times, has had the
further advantage of quickening all their various movements.—
Compare the cumbrous periods and floundering verbiage of
the very beset writers of King James's day, with the snip-snap epi-
granunutic style of newspeper penny-line men.l tis the difference between
a bread-wheel waggon, and a reilway steam-carriage. The sweat busi-
ness of a modem nuttier is to seize his opportunity. He knows that the
world t: ill neither await his leisure, nor suffer him to bestow all his
tediuusness upon his readers. The age of things is arrived, and we
have 110 longer time to throw away upon encase Formerly, when books
were scarce, and a well-locked el:es-case contained the whole Boating
eapi,el of a nation's literary amusement, a voluminous proser was a
' public benefactor • fur he hail helped to pass away the long winter's
niebts, that too frequently hung heavily on hand. Burton's folio on
3lelenclioly was an inexhaustible mine of cheerfulness ; and a ponder.
ous romance that took a year in; perusal, prevented more suicide than
the stomach-pump. • But now, u man who is before-hand in his
literature, must be a hard reader ; and a literary preset is as sedulously
avoided, as a button-holding monopolist in conversation. He who does
eot condense his subject within the smallest passible space, has nil
more chance of the public car, than a country put, amidst the epidemic
coughing of the House of Commons.
" 'f bat this rapidity is generally unfuvourable to the interests of 11.
terature, is an old woman's prejudice. Brevity is not only the soul of
' wit, but of clearness. That which cannot be well expressed in a few
avails, rarely becomes. Hews intelligible by being wriipt up in many.—
it is in vain that objection may be taken to the want of clearness in
brevity, or tu the example of Tacitus, whose ohscuriry is at least as
conspicuotts as his ter.-cocas. Exceptions only prove the rule; and it
may be questioned whether the enigmatical puzzles of Tacitus do not
reside mere in the quaintness of his conceits, and a purposed implica-
dun of ideas, rendered necessary by the timer in which he wrote, than
in the mere sbortness of his affected sentences. How many verbose
definitions are less expressive, than the simple term to be d. fined ?
What speaking can be plainer, and at the 141112 C time more brief, than
the energetic style of the orators of Billingsgate ? Lawyers have at-
tempted to make things clear by tautologies and circumlocutions ; aetl'
instead of arriving at the unequivocal communication of a vender of
haddock and Mounding, they have deluged the world with fraud, sopliia.
try, anti injustice.
" We rail books now like music, at sight; and a cramped passage
that rseuires study to comprehend, is a beDWOCe. of 4:mulcts:flatlet
against its author. 'Whatever may be thought .f this result, its attain.
went is rut to be insured without labour; and it is some proof of the
merit of those authors, in whom it is most conspicuous. Questrfteite,
says an Italian panto e difiteile. With eight hundred folio pates to
turn in, a man must he a blunderer indeed, who cannot tell his story ;'
and it may be questioned whether there is any meaning at ell in that
head, which does not contrive to convey its ideas to the seeder, before
he arrives at so remote a "fihis r but to condense rut entire science
within too pamphlets of useful knowledge, or to bring the history of
I an empire into as many volumes of a family library, requires that the
subject rhuuld be well digested by the author before he puts pen to
paper. If it be true that nvelern book-makers take less pains than
their predecessors, it must follow that they come better prepared for
their task ; and let critics say what they will of an indolent recourse to
dictionaries, r.bridgments, and indexes, a man is not less meriturioue
for availing himself of the improvements of his age, than he is less a
traveller for having circumnavigated the world in a steam-boat."
• " Tant quo nous autism dee livrea," says Mad. de Sevigne,
" nous ne nuns pendrons pas."