Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1852-11-06
NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER.
NOTES ON NEW BOOKS.

I've In has researches, Mr.. Trench has gwen us a
work replete with suggestions that cannot fail to
awaken interest even in the most unrefecting read
er indeed it is to such that this treatise
with almost startling discovery of truths that to
them had before been hidden, like those of the
Greek philosopher, at the bottom of the well-a
well, too, from which during all their lives they
have been making with :" silly buckets" their daily
and hourly draughts Every one has heard OF that
wise parsonage who, after hearing its definition, was
surprised and delighted to find that he had been
talking prose all his life without knowing it. We greatly
suspect that many after the perusal of this slight vo
lume would be equally surprised discover that they
have been, every day Of their lives, talking not only
prose but poetry WELL and that, without being very
profoundly mbued with the facts of history they have
nevertheless constantly recalling in their daily speech
the most condensed records and striking "reminiscences of
the past and that without being able perhaps to repeat
the Deoalogue they have still been in the habit of point
ing grave moralties by the words most their
lips How few meropoi anropoi, {. artieulae-speakng
men, old Homer most Enthusiastically defines the
genus homo of the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge stored up in the words which, it may be, they
idly utter many random counters which mere hap
hazard pure convention has hit upon in order carry
the play of human intercourse. How few pause
count and examine that intellectual wealth the
possession of which they born in nhertng the Ian
guage of their athersa language enriched by the
mutations of successive ages which genius has embamed
in immortal verse and eloquence illustrated by
Grating it the highest trophies she has in the pull
pit the bar the senate Words have been called "the
coinage of the mind - how few they who
Germ themselves look at the image and superscrp-
ton which they bear, while the "great vulgar with
curious dizziness allow them to pass without needing whe
ther they bear the genuine stamp of the mint
ther the counerfets which it would be wiser and better
to discard.
Bacon whose great large mind has left scarcely any
subject untouched and whose pages therefore, every
scribbler even, ud nos may turn by aid of that in
dex-learning which
"--makes student pale,
But holds the eel of science by the tail,
in hope of finding something the pont-Bacon say
justly observes that false appearances imposed up
by eords which framed and applied according
to the concet and capacities of the vulgar sort and al
though think we govern words and prescribe it
WELL Loguepdum at ruigus, seaendum at sopentes,' yet
certainly do words Tartar bows shoot back upon the
understanding of the wises and entange and peryert
their judgment" Language says another powerful wr
ter from whom Mr.. Trench quotes than once will
often WISER merely than the vulgar but
the wses of those who speakit Being like amber in its
efficacy circulate the electric spirit of truth it is also
like amber in embaming and preserving the relics of
%
pher its contents Sometimes it locks up truths which
were well known but which, in the of ages,
have passed of sight and been forgotten In other
cases holds the germs of truths Of which, though they
were plainly discerned the genius of its trainers
caught glimpse in happy moment of divination. A
meditaye cannot refrain from wonder when he digs
down to the deep thought lying at the root of many
aphorical term employed for the designation of spiritual
things those with regard to which processing phi
losophers have Numbered grossly; and often it would
though rays of truths, which still below the
horizon had dawned upon the imagination as it was look
ing up to Heaven.
"The most familiar words and phrases, says William
whewe as appostely quoted by Mr.. Trench at the
cluson Of his chapter the rise Of Words are
connected by mperceptble ties with the reasonngs and
discoveries of former men and distant times Their know
ledge an nseparable part of the present genera
ton nhers and uses the scientific wealth of all the past
And this is the fortune only of the great and rich in
the intellectual world of those who have the key to the
ancient storehouse and who have accumulated treasures
of their own the humbes inquirer, while he puts his
reasonngs into words benefits by the abors of the great
est When he his little wealth he finds he has in
his hands coins which bear the image and superscpon
of ancient and modern intellectual dyaasties and that in
virtue of this possession acquisitions in his power
solid knowledge within his reach, which could
nave II were nol once
dug out Of the mine circulates more and widely
among mankind"
We have heard language called the "armory Of the hui
man mind containing the trophies of its past
and the weapons of its future oonquests. How many
are the words Of deep psychological spiritual sgnif
canoe which seem in their ethereal mould and temper to
have been fashioned for this armory," it were by
that Great Spirit which is sharper than any twoedged
sword" bearing they do the stamp and seal of
thorshp than human just the choicest blades of
Paynim knights are dedicated to "Allah and his Pro-
phet BY line Of the Koran inscribed their polished
surfaces To prove that is Of divine birth and
stock coming from God and, when he fulfls the law and
intention Of his creation returning to Him again. need
says author nothing than the words of his Ian
guage How else could all those words which testify of
his relation God and Of his consciousness Of that rea
ton and which ground themselves thereon, have found
their way into this the vertabe transcript Of his inner
most lfe the genuine utterance Of the faith and hope
which is in him And if in language there arc remni-
Of Eden and the bowers of Paradise it is no less
Of it than OF the prmeyal garden that the trail Of
the serpent it all " for how rich the vocabulary
Of men in words Of and wretchedness and sim 1t
is thus that very dictionaries attest the great funda
mental verities which ancient philosophy and Christian
revelation have alike conspred interpret and settle
the contest between Oromazdes and Arimanes between
Good and Evil as it waged in the person Of each and
every man. also has in all the tongues Of earth its
watchwords and its slogans Every reader remembers
the fierce controversy which engaged during the Mid
die Ages between Nominasts and Reasts. Into the