Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-08-11
RECENT PUBLICATIONS.


are certain to mention that model before
they have progressed very far. N. 2.
Willis, in his narrative poem OF The
Lady Jane" obviously modelled on Don
Juan" cannot get the name OF Byron
off his pen, and Byron himself. when writing
the prose Introduction to his poem on the
"Waltz," which first appeared under
feiyned name, plainly initiates the Style of
the 4" Vicar Of Wakefield" and CANNOT escape
a reference to the book before the end of his
letter 81, evidently, the book that was In
Remains mind when he began his " Recolec-
lions, ~as Goethe's - Trlsh ans Poetry, and
he accordingly Is inpellsd TO mention it be-
fore he hss gone ve-y far with his prsfsce.
The preface is a review of the pressat condt-
tions under watch literature and religion lit
Themselves up to-day. 81. Rensa regards
unanimity Of religious feeling in country ss
narroR wing to in electusl expansion, and re-
jOices that to-day religion is q matter of per-
sonal taste only. The social condisisn lie
regards as tending toward universal Ameri-
cauism, which he uses anonymously with
vulgarity, and as American vulgarity Is not
given to burning men at the stake for scien-
tific limo ations, ne hazards the statement
that one day general vulgaiity may be the
condition Of happiness. Still, as mature has
infiDity before her to correct her blund
ers, he thinks he may afford to believe
in the ultimate good OF the race. The
book proper begins with description of the
growth of NJ. Remains native town in Brit
tany-Treguier-f a conventual circuit to
q city, and tells of the tn eiage Of the author,
during childhood, by the clergy Of tae place.
To the pure lives Of these priests M. Reaan
pays frequent and admising tribute. He
himself was destined for the priestly Office.
The chapter called the "fA crusher is in
reality, about the fax .crushers daughter, and
is what M. Rsnan calls a study in amorous
psychology. 1t is story, told thu author by
his mother. and given here to Illustrate some
mental traits of the Bretons. It is the story
of the dreamy and undeclnred, but no less
consuming, love Of stupid young girl Tor
priest. and the various phases of it that
drive her to insanity and death.
She was q girl Of limited intelli-
gsnce, and condemned by her fathers poverty,
and position as peasant, noble, to almost I'M
interrupted solitude, her ideal devotion
to her confessor is made very touching. There
follows an enthusiastic chapter on Athens
and the Greek civilization az the time when
"a whole public Of cnnn9isseurs greeted
artistic produc ion, and M. Renan then pre-
cents very French prayer, which be says
he 4" said on the Acropolis, when he had sue
ceedsd in understanding the perfect beauty OF
it." It is aa address to nobility, reason and
beauty, and il, with all it's apostrophes. q
most scholarly prayer. He Sums himself up,
in the words of one Of his critics, as one who
"thous ht like a man, felt like womsn, and
acted like child" and adds that this
constitution has procured for him the
keenest intellectu joys which man can
taste" In note he remarks on the analogy
of his name to st. Roman, ia Wales, fixed il
the memory by the name of Scotts novel
"St. Romans Well" A st. Repan figures
among the list Of the cancnized in Brittany.
Thsre follow other sketches OF characters
that came under the authors observation in
youth, an account Of the effects of the revo-
luton of 1898 upon his family and immediate
circle, and the remainder OF the book Is given
up to history OF Roman Catholic education
as Mr.. Rensn experienced it in his own case,
an analysis Of tina struggle IL his own breast
between secular and clerical impulses,
aud the mental pain which he en-
dured in casting eff the ecclesiastical
shackles, while quite persuaded that his
intellect could no longer submit to them,
The impression made by these Recollec.
tions" is quite the same So that produced by
6 perusal OF M, Rsnsn's Life OF Jesus"
and Life of St. Paul"-that here is q man
who wishes not to be bound by dogmas ar
ranged and crystalizsd by people who never
conferred with him about matters concerning
which one person is as fl IS another to judge
from the existing data, but man who leans
to goodness, uprightnsss and wholesome sense
in the exercise of his Judgment. NJ. Renan
speaks very slightiESly of the great and good
Auguste Comte, as having " expressed in bad
French what all scientific MINDS had seen for
the last two hundred years as clearly as he
had DONE" "The Recouect:ons" are COZ
scientiously and dramatically translated,
though expressions like 1.-THE same race as
Them" and "Guyomsr and myself, as if the
use of " u in its proper case might prove per-
picking, lar the nerves of 8 fastidious reader.
For sale by A. L. Bancroft & Co., San Fran
cisco.
HENRY FIELDING By Austin Dobson. New York
Harper & Brothers.
This is the latest number of John Morley's
scholarly edition of English Men of Let
ters." Although Mr.. Dobson states in his
PREDATORY note that the many published
studies Of Fielding have caused him to con-
fine himself to the purely biographical side
Of his subject, he only adheres to this plan in
the early part of the book, the latter part
being given up to q sprigetly. sympathetic
and understanding review of the work of this
"Father of the English Novel" as Sir Wal
ter Scott calls Fielding. However, Mr..
Dobson couscentiously traces Fieiding's
lineage, which was long, and reminds US that
Lady Mary Wortley Montague was his sec
ond cousin The family was formerly spelled
Fielding, and Mr.. Dobson tells the story of
Lord Denbigh, o relative, asking Fielding
why he had adopted the more modern form of
tina name, az cannot tell, my lord, re-
turned the novelist, "uDless il be that my
branch Of the family was the first that
learned to SPELL" The narrative of Field
ing's early life, his living by bis wits, his
hastily coucOcted plays for the London thea
ters, his burlesque, TON Thumb" said to
be the best burlesque ever written and one OF
the two things that won laugh from Swift
during his whole lifetime; his friendship with
Hogarth, the artist, with whose lite'liks genius
Fielding's own was somewhat akin the shifts
and hard times of his first married years,
although his affection for his wife and hers
for him are uadoubted-all these yicissitudes
are interestingly sketched in by the biogra-
pher. Although Fieldiug's Life was wild and
reckless be yet possessed the capacity for sp-
plcation, as was shown by his successful
study Of the law He was called TO the bar
in 1741, and that sama yesr wrots his first
work of fiction, "Joseph Andrews" which
began by being parody on Richardson's
"Panels,n had middle which diverged from
that plan to a story OF manners, and at the
end wound up Ia unison with the first design.
Ia this novel the character of Abraham
Adams IS said to be the ideal priest in purity
aud probity, even prototyps OF Gotdsmlth's
"Vicar of Wakefield, and useful to Seerne
in ''TTistram Shandy" Mrs. Shpslop,
another character in the same novel, is
called the original, both of Sheridan's
Mrs. Mslsprop and Dickens Mrs.
Camp Fielding'5 publisher gave him
e1SS lis for Joseph AuoreTs," and
$500 for its brilliant successor, Tom Jones,
adding elO0 upon the susssinsd popularity
of the book, numbers of which, q surviving
booksellers notice ststes. were to be had
sewed into paper covers, the demand being
80 great that there lacked time TO bind them.
"Jonathan Wild" Mr. Dobson characterizss
as composed with distinct moral purpose,
but not pleasing TO readers for whom the evo.
luton Of purely intellectual conception is
either unmeaning or uninseresting. Wild is
a villain, but Fielding meant him to be
villain, and approximate MS misdeeds with
great adroitness to those of securer and more
illustrious criminals. "The book is model
of sustained and sleepless irony" says Mr..
Debson. The absence of fastidiousness in