The Liverpool Standard, and General Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-07-18 00:00:00

Quarterly Review, and .Digest of Current
No. XI. London : Hookham

This periodical, like some others of recent origin,
Ind even more ephemeral growth, has been put before
he public under a title which lays it open to the

suspicion of endeavouring to reap such a
as may flow from a surreptitiously acquired prestige
The benefits to be derived from such juggling
cannot be looked on as unmixed; from the observant
public the book will naturally meet with a more
jealous scrutiny than it might otherwise have had
to encounter, and it may well be doubted whether
the hesitancy occasioned by the supposed borrowing
of its plumage may not more than compensate for
the amount of adventitious attention bestowed on
it by the unthinking in consideration of assumed
merits to which it had no real claim. Even a cur-
sory glance at its style and contents, renders the

'antages

reader fully aware that the periodical before us
aims at the twofold character of being an instru-
ment of what is called "the movement," and a
chronicler of the progress of that ebullition of
popular commotion. A movement, indeed, which

bhieatens to overturn and subvert all that has
hitherto been considered stable in political ethics,
and to uproot the essential doctrines of Christian
purity, substituting for the former a conolomera-

ion of trite apothef-;ms derived from the dangerous
eachings of expediency ; for the latter vain and
Ichismatic theories whose professors, addressing
hemselves to the passions of the multitude,

fawn and seek for power,
By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour.

The opening sentence of the New Quarterly is
eminently characterised by the affected smartness
peculiar to the movement advocates, and singu-
larly apposite to the class of small wits accidentally
elevated into prominent positions. "If even laws
are silent amid the clash of arms," asks the New
Quarterly witting, " how shall the little puffs
from Paternoster-row be heard amid the booming
of the guns of the Danube ?" Having delivered
himself of this oracular query, and without con-
descending to inform his readers as to the analogy
between the little puffs and the assumed silence of
the law, or the connexion of either with the guns
of the Danube, the reviewer goes on to pass judg-

ment on such works as neither the clash orarms
nor the booming of the Danube's guns have pre-
vented from falling into his hands. Having, with
the eager haste which characterises disciples of
" the movement," dismissed an important work,
"'Erskine's History of India," with an impatient
nod, and a patronising promise of future recogni-
tion, he addresses himself to the congenial task of
hacking at the reputation of Sir Archibald Alison,
selecting as his point of attack the recently pub-
lished volume of the History of Europe. In that
volume the historian furnishes evidence of the
'inextinguishable hatred which guides the wars of
race—the fierce vindictiveness which inferiors
entertain and express towards their superiors ; Sir
Walter Scott sings of

the stern joy which wariors feel
In foemen worthy of their steel.
knd few experience much difficulty in understand-
ng why, to certain natures, the labour of mangling
reputation is a welcome— indeed, a joyous
pupation. The historian of modern Europe is
lo leader in "the movement." He stands con-
ricted of being a contributor to Blackwood's
Vag azine ; and last and worst, daring to think
for himself, he doubts the infallibility of that self-
lauding judgment which admires and worships
" free trade" as the Alpha and Omega of human
wisdom, at all events with these enormities he is
gravely charged by the reviewer, and there-
fore, by fair means or by foul, he must be
put down. In this organ of one-sided opinion,
accordingly, he is assailed as " neither indus-
trious nor well informed." The most volumninous
writer of the day is, his astonished country-
men are informed, by this labourious incubator of
hybrid figments, an ignorant idler ! His want
of information is easily accounted for, as the re-
viewer, to add to the list of incorrigible offences
for which Sir Archibald is remarkable, tells us he
will not submit himself to the meek teaching of
this new-found and strange friend, who deploringly
assures us, "Notwithstanding our rather forcible
hints to him, he still never strays away in search
of a classical allusion, but he misconceives it when
obtained, and distorts it when using it." How
perverse and naughty in Sir Archibald to overlook
the teachings of so amiable and accomplished a
preceptor ; one who, in the mere exuberance of his
abundant good nature, makes his reader acquainted
with several little matters which less simple-
minded men would have retained as secrets. His
want of success as a teacher, notwithstanding
the forcibleness of his hints, must be severely
mortifying to his self-love ; and that cannot
be much soothed by the supposition that, in
all probability, his involuntary dem( mistook
the force for absolute rudeness, we had almost
••11 lownright impudence. Some PVCM

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