The Press. — 1857-07-25 (London, England)

PRESS, JULY 25, 1857.  " Suicide in Life and Literature" is one of the best papers in all the nuarterly periodicals. It contains a brief but able disquisition on the causes of suicide in real life, and a comparison of the manner in which it is usually introduced in literature. The conclusion arrived at is that suicide, when not the result of insanity, is usually found to proceed from either a weak mind or a diseased body impairing the mental vigour—and that the discrepancy between life and literature consists in the fact that in the latter it is usually represented as an effect of sudden passion, whereas in reality it is found to spring more often from less imposing causes. The following statistics will perhaps interest our readers, and we wish we had space to quote a great deal more of this remarkable paper : Thus, in the year 1851, there 'were 3,598 suicides re• corded in France, to each of which the presumed motive was affixed. Out of these no lees than 800 are set down to mental alienation ; and to that number we should add 70 cases of monomania, 39 of cerebral fever, and 54 of idocy—all ranking under the general head of uncontrol• lsbleness,—which will make a total of 963, or more than a fourth of the whole cases. If we now examine the remaining cases, we find " domestic quarrels " next in amount, being no less than 385 ; while grief for the loss of children amounts to only 48, grief at their ingratitude or bad conduct, to 10 ; sudden anger, only 1. Next in importance to domestic quarrels is the desire to escape from physical suffering: these amount to 313. Debt and embarrassment rank next-203. Want, and the fear of want, 179. Disgust at life—which may properly be called low spirits—stands high,-16t1; shame and remorse, very low, only 7. Thwarted love shows anly 91, and jealousy, 23. Losses at play, 0 ; loss of employment, 25.  In contemporary English literature, however, suicide has certainly been employed more in accordance with the above figures. The exposure of a long scheme of villany, the sudden loss of fortune, or forfeiture of the world's good opinion, are now assigned in novels as the motives of self-destruction oftener than the sentimental or heroic sufferings to which the reviewer alludes. In " French Politics, Past and Present," a difficult subject is handled in a philosophic spirit, and the writer's observations on the French army are well worth consideration. The essay upon Shakespeare's sonnets strikes us as strained and puerile. Witness the one following instance out of dozens : Hear how Shakespeare laments the bitter put:— Alas ! 'Os true, I have gone here and there, And made myself a motley to the view, Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear, Made old offences of affections new. Most true is it, that I have looked on truth Askance and strangely. Verily Meres could not have read these when he spoke of Shakespeare's "sugared sonnets to his friends:" for assuredly we know no such bitter records of a great soul struggling amidst trials and sorrows. They contain a greater tragedy, if properly considered, than any he ever wrote—the tragedy of real life—tbe tragedy of the greatest mind the world ever beheld, overwhelmed with a sense of its own sin and guilt. This is it that shows his real greatness. The great soul alone is conscious of its nwn defects, and that in proportion to its own greatness. Your little mind is self-pleased, self-satisfied, ever fancying itself in the right, sleeping too sound to be ever disturbed by dreams or tears. This kind of criticism can ho written by the yard. The passage quoted from the sonnets is by no means strong enough to carry all the spuriously sublime rant which is here based upon it. The American article and the Neapolitan article are each excellent in their way—full of thought and practical sagacity, though the latter is certainly in parts pitched in too high a strain. The London Quarterly contains a strong list of subjects. Among the best, we should mention the decimal coinage, Canadian agriculture, and the paper upon Curran as particularly interesting and well written. The essay upon Cicero and his contemporaries does full justice to the great Roman statesman, and is composed in a pleasing and unpretending style. The literary notices at the end of the volume are too exclusively confined to religious works to interest the general public, though doubtless acceptable to a large class of subscribers.