New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1870-02-26
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
MR. LoWELHs NEW VOLUME.

Mr. Lowell has chosen yJr his new NoIulllo Oh lug-
five prose pieces, gathered from the pages of The
North American Rep;x1 a title which fifty expresses
their pleasant and somewhat miscellaneous charac-
Ter He presents himself to us neither exclusively
ma the acute critic the professed essayist he
Is rather seen III the more delightful guise of the
poet and scholar IN the quiet of bis library, where
he passes vt random from shelf to shelf, and takes
down book after book as the fancy of the moment
STAYS his hand. He runs over the pages of Dryden,
and with the eye of master spies out their beauties
and thcir blemshes the grandeur and nobility OF the
veroe, the flashes of PrOmethean fire and the prodi-
gics of fustian. Here Mr.. Lowell INDUCES in much
OF that acute literary criticism of which America
has seen so little and needs so Emuch. He has
studied Dryden with the appreciation of the true
poet, and rare mixture of enthusiasm aud Judg-
mont, and he enlivens almost every paragraph Win
sparks of that gentle wit which to the author Oh
The Biglow Papers" is like an essential
part of his nature. He has rare faculty
of telling the truth in epigrams-a FACULTY
which the most brilliant epigrammatists
generally Lakeland condensing whole pages OF
sound sense into humorous figure of speech Tell
ing us that Dryden was capable of better things than
the deceased spirit of the time would suffer him to
attain, he exclaims Thrice unhappy he who, born
10 see things as they might be, is schOoed by cir
cumstances TO see them as people say they are-to
read God in a prose translation" Drydens illustra-
tive comparisons Mr.. Lowell remarks, occupy, like
himself middle ground between poetry and
prose. Has not Mr. Lowell much of the same cOpious
fclicityi Speaking of plagiarism, for instance he
writes 1T should be carried to Dryden's credit that
we catch the poets of the next half century oft
oner with their hands IN his pockets than in
those Of any one else" OF redundant phrases:
% do not like to say it, but he has some
times smOtheTed the childlke simplicity of
Chaucer under feather-beds of verbiage. What this
kind of thing came to in the next century, when
everybody unceremoniOusly took q bushel-basket to
bring wren's egg to market in, is only too sadly IA
mar" OF his satire, as contrasted with that OF
Pope: If he was sometimes rough he never took
a base advantage. He knocks his antagonist down,
and there an end Pope seems to have nursed his
grudge, and then, watching his chance, to have
squrted yitTiol from behind o corner, rather glad
than otherwise if il fell on the women of those he
hated or envied." The summary of Dryden's liter
ary character is so true and charmingy expressed
that we shall cite it nearly in full:
Was he then a great poets Hardly. in the narrowest
carried common to hight where It catches the
hight Of divner air aud warmed reason I'll II had Well
nigh the Illuminating property OF Intuition certainly
he is not like spenser the poets poet, but other men
brother and is entirely right so Far he sees To de-
Maud more Of him 10 be unreasonable And he sees,
amosg other things that man who undertakes to write
should first have meaning perfectly defined TO himself
aud hep should be able to set forth clearly IN me best
JicSey sentiment looming pig thro99gn i misy
lure, to read him is braciug as northwest wind.
He blows the mind clear In rpeness Of mind and bluff
heaness Of expression, he takes rank with the best
His phrase is always shortcut 10 his sense for hls
estate was too spacious for him to need that trick Of
out with clumps of epthet, by which the landscape
gardeners Of literature give to psy hsaSre the ar
be nothing and yet TO be among the first In kind Of
snail eonpany He hae, beyond most the gift Of the
night word And If he does not like one or two OF the
ms Yer nj fir ~
oenable aroma so magical in arousng the subtitle asso
cations Of the soul, he has this with the few
great writer's that the winged seeds OF his thought rmbed
themselves in the memory and terminate there. II |
could be guilty Of the absurdy Of recommending to
young man any author on whom TO form bis style, |
should tell him that next 70 having something That viii
The paper on Leasing" is fine sample of the
biographical essay as well a study in literary his
tory. We shall not stop TO follow it in detail but
our readers viii be glad to taste few tid-bts.
Here is capital characterization of German cnti
csm
There 10 be in tho average German mind in
ability dsncnaton TO thing as II really IT,
unless be matter OF science. 1t finds It's keenest
pleasure in dvinnga profound significance In tho most
been stared into by the German Geehrr through his
tPeeaeles passes calculation They are the one object
happy and they seem 10 be common as those OF the
ads them EN- ts 8alo
The greater part Of English criticism Is apt only
TOO often burrows delighted quite beneath It's
subject til the reader feels the ground hollow beneath
him, and fearful Of caving into unknown depths OF
staenant metaphysic air at every step. The Common
tary Shakespeare OF Gervinus really superior man,
reminds Of the Roman Campagns, penetrated under
ground 10 all directions by strange winding caverns the
work OF human bOTers IN search OF know what.
Above the divine poets laIks and daisies, bis ncou.
muncabe skies his broad prospects Of life and nature;
and mean while our Teut0nle teredO his way be-
low ana offers to be our guide into obscurty OF his
own cOntriying.
And of the dullness of German perception of the |
ludicrous, and the with which German senti- |
Inent runs over into sentimentalsm, he remarks |
what be Odder than the mixture of sensibiity
and sausages IN some Of Goetbes earlier notes to
Frau Won Stein unless TO be sure, the publishing
them y short essay on " Rousseau and the Senti-
Ientasts" is not easily classified. II abounds with
excellent passages (sucb the sketch of Petrarch
and with evidences of just Judgment and catholic
taste but it is the least satisfactory whole of
any of the six essays in the book. There two in
which Mr. Lowell has given a frcer rein to
his humOr. When lie writes of " Witchcraft,'
or of "New-England Two Centuries Ago" we
imagine him ntrenehed behind pile OF old volumes
in some quiet acove Of his library and startling the
dust now and then with gentle laugh as he turns
the musty leaves lie is not blind to the tragedy of
the old superstitons-" degraded and distorted relics
Of religious beliefs he is far from turning into joke
the hateful history of human folly or the stern gran
deur Of the old Puritan life; but all these gloomy
figures turn a cOmcal side and then, and Dir.
Lowell has too quick a wit to miss IT, He traces the
belief in witchcraf and diabOlical appearances to
the first ages of Christianity; detects. with Grimm,
the dethroned gods of Paganism "skulking about
IN strange DISCUSSES, and living from hand to
mouth on the charity of Gammer Grethcl
.snd Mere rOe;' watches the development
OF that belief into the horrors and
sisurdites Of medieval Europe and comparatively
modern Salem and charitably warns us that we have