The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1902-01-26

8 the soul Of that charitable and courteous
author who. for the common benefit OF
3,is fellow-au.hors. introduced the in
glorious way of miscellaneous writing =
quite naturally drifts across ones re-
Elections as he concludes his reading OF
Augustine BirrcIl's Essays and Ad-
dresses. Very interesting, most engag-
znE little book Like Bagehot Blrreli
..writes like gentleman. and these
essays and addresses furnish one with
the sort of intellectual exercise which
corresponds to the physical enloymert
Of saunter in the park Of holiday
afternoon.
At first there is an unnistakable i'm
preston that IT is not up to 'Obiter
Dicta" but the prejudice should be dis
PEELED as you proceed and take in the
ripper wisdom and the Tneilower wit OF
this latest effort. IF. as Renan tells US.
1.-THE beauty of a work lies in the phi
losophy il contains" there is natural
beauty about Birrell's thought and style
which is irresistible: if, as tredefich
Locker wrote Gin substance). man >
character may be judged by what he
thinks laughabIe.'' there is a humorous
orality in BirrelIs wit which holds itseif
s upon a singularly elevated plane and yet
permits it to glow with polite gemallty
which is not attractive and stimulating
Birrell is one of those authors VINO Is
q companion spirit for solitude. OF whom
the uneducated are ignorant, whom the
f1alf-educated can only half appreciate,
and of whom the educated Will never
tire He is like Basehot in this.
He gives up thrty-ninc pages to Walter
Bagehot and, quite as it should be,
about twenty-one of those pages are in
quotation marks! How can one dis
course better upon Bagehot than by
quoting him? Goethe expressed the oPln-
son that "A mans writings were his au-
photography" and Birrell is content to
Jet Bagehot speak for himself. His in
terpretations. however, are invaluable,
pointing out as they do, the full signlli-
canoe of the products Bagehots expo
rience lima ination, and humor He re-
marks of him that The most surely had
an experiencing nature, and impressed
The stamp of life on everything ne
wrote. This is the reason why
MIR Bagehot is so great faVorite with
literary men," and. by the way. true
saying: Most authors who write books
fn their libraries cherish at the bottom
of their hearts. if not a dislike, at ieasl
a gloomy suspicion, of books and book
3sbness; they banker after life
..CiVe the world time and 1t VIII DC
right" lie continued. There Is some
one said "a great man of the world,
wiser than Voltaire and wiser than
Napoleon: (c'est tout lie monde D. and
The last person it will willingly. forget
is a writer like Mr. Bagehot. who loved
life better than books. In the excellent
appreciation OF his contemporary MI.
13irrell was shaping material for his own
mansion in the sky
Walter BaEehot was the subject Tor
The fifth of the ten papers III the book.
The others range from John Wesley to
Sir Robert Peel and embrace, very CYL
IDENTIFY, an almost startling variety oil
topics. There is much that is susSes-
Live in the odd title. What Then, Did
Happen at the Reformation" and in
THE Christian Evidences, The Ideal
University. James Anthony Froude.
Robert Browning - THE House of Com
mons, and last, but not least, is II
Possible to Tell a Good Book From
Bad one?" He does not attempt to
write Gonclusivey upon what really hap
pened at the time of the English Rcfor-
nation, but gives us rather q tentative
consideration of the time and its men.
Events, d discourse of suggestion rather
than of assertion, containing much of
information which is fresh TO many Of
us, and leaving us. very properly to
think it over for ourselves. Somewhat
similar i'll character is the paper on
Christian Evidences. 1t is thought
fully written, but leads nowhere. On:
of the most pleasant of the papers is
that upon Robert Browning It shows
keen appreciation of the great poets
ideal of life and utterance, and contains
fund of sound critical thought, which
should appeal strongly III the great
many to whom the name of Browning is
a shibbolcth.
The most amusing contribution, beside
The House of Commons Che pokes a. good
ceai of amiabie fun at the tower house,
is the conundrum: Us it possible to tell
a hnn II l.
the author works in the frequent and
snevitahle quotations with which his
writings Automobiles for the sake of
illustrating their gifts. as Quiler-CouCn
remarked OF him, than for the sake Of
HnneXing their thoughts by the simple
process of adding, j say SO. too.
Speaking for myself writes Mr. Biz
relI, seriously, Il could wish for nothing
better. apart from moral worth, than 10
be tho owner of taste at once manly,
refined and unaffected. which should en-
able me to appreciate real excellence in
atraturc and art, and to deprecate bad
intentions and feeble executions where
ever ! saw them what is
good faster Ny kingdom for q defini-
lion. 1 think the best is Burke's, given
l,y him in that treatise on the Sublime
wore taste no more than that faculty or
those faculties of the mind which are
affected with or from a judgment of the
works of imagination and the elegant
arts. The cause OF a wrong taste is a
defect of judgment, and this may arise
from a natural weakness of the under
standing or which is more commonly
the case, it may arise from .. want of
proper and well-drected exercise which
alone can make it strong and ready
The moral of it AL is simply this 10
read anG, digest good literature. of which
The authors own book is a commendablc
example.