The present volumes, however, are not the less valuable on this account. They contain many of the most noted and some of the best compositions of the author. Among other articles of interest we have the celebrated “Discourse on the Objects, Pleasures and Advantages of Science”—a title, by the way, in which the word “pleasures” is one of the purest supererogation. That this discourse is well written, we, of course, admit, since we do not wish to be denounced as blockheads; but we beg leave to disagree, most positively, with the Preface, which asserts that “there was only one individual living by whom it could have been produced.” This round asseveration will only excite a smile upon the lips of every man of the slightest pretension to scientific acquirement. We are personally acquainted with at least a dozen individuals who could have written this treatise as well as the Lord Chancellor has written it. In fact, a discourse of this character is by no means difficult of composition—a discourse such as Lord Brougham has given us. His whole design consists in an unmethodical collection of the most striking and at the same time the most popularly comprehensible facts in general science. And it cannot be denied that this plan of demonstrating the advantages of science as a whole by detailing insulated specimens of its interest is a most unphilosophical and inartistical mode of procedure—a mode which even puts one in mind of the σκολαστικος offering a brick as a sample of the house he wished to sell. Neither is the essay free (as should be imperatively demanded in a case of this nature) from very gross error and mis-statement. Its style, too, in its minor points, is unusually bad. The strangest grammatical errors abound, of which the initial pages are especially full, and the whole is singularly deficient in that precision which should characterise a scientific discourse. In short, it is an entertaining essay, but in some degree superficial and quackish, and could have been better written by any one of a multitude of living savans.
There is a very amusing paper, in this collection, upon the authorship of Junius. We allude to it, now especially, by way of corroborating what we said, in our January number, touching the ordinary character of the English review-system. The article was furnished the Edinburgh Quarterly by its author, who, no doubt, received for it a very liberal compensation. It is, nevertheless, one of the most barefaced impositions we ever beheld; being nothing in the world more than a tame compendium, fact by fact, of the book under discussion—“The Identity of Junius with a Distinguished Living Character Established.” There is no attempt at analysis—no new fact is adduced—no novel argument is urged—and yet the thing is called a criticism and liberally paid for as such. The secret of this style of Review-making is that of mystifying the reader by an artful substitution of the interest appertaining to the text for interest aroused by the commentator.
Pantology; or a systematic survey of Human Knowledge; Proposing a Classification of all its branches, and illustrating their History, Relations, Uses, and Objects; with a Synopsis of their leading Facts and Principles; and a Select Catalogue of Books on all Subjects, suitable for a Cabinet Library. The whole designed as a Guide to Study for advanced Students in Colleges, Academies, and Schools; and as a popular Directory in Literature, Science and the Arts. Second Edition. By Roswell Park, A. M., Professor of Natural Philosophy and Chemistry in the University of Pennsylvania, &c. Hogan and Thompson: Philadelphia.
The title of this work explains its nature with accuracy. To human knowledge in general, it is what a map of the world is to geography. The design is chiefly, to classify, and thus present a dependent and clearly discernible whole. To those who have paid much attention to Natural History and the endless, unstable, and consequently vexatious classifications which there occur—to those, in especial, who have labored over the “Conchologies” of De Blainville and Lamarck, some faint—some very faint idea of the difficulties attending such a labor as this, will occur. There have been numerous prior attempts of the same kind, and although this is unquestionably one of the best, we cannot regard it as the best. Mr. Park has chosen a highly artificial scheme of arrangement; and both reason and experience show us that natural classifications, or those which proceed upon broad and immediately recognisable distinctions, are alone practically or permanently successful. We say this, however, with much deference to the opinions of a gentleman, whose means of acquiring knowledge, have been equalled only by his zeal in its pursuit, and whose general talents we have had some personal opportunity of estimating.
We mean nothing like criticism in so brief a paragraph as we can here afford, upon a work so voluminous and so important as the one before us. Our design is merely to call the attention of our friends to the publication—whose merits are obvious and great. Its defects are, of course, numerous. We mean rather to say, that in every work of this nature, it is in the power of almost every reader to suggest a thousand emendations. We might object to many of the details. We must object to nearly all of the belles-lettres portion of the book. We cannot stand being told, for example, that “Barlow’s ‘Columbiad’ is a poem of considerable merit;” nor are we rendered more patient under the infliction of this and similar opinions, by the information that Vander Vondel and Vander Doos (the deuce!) wrote capital Dutch epics, while “the poems of Cats are said to be spirited and pious!” We know nothing about cats, nor cats about piety.
The volume is sadly disfigured by typographical errors. On the title-page of the very first “province” is a blunder in Greek.
The Student-Life of Germany: By William Howitt, Author of the “Rural Life of England,” “Book of the Seasons,” etc. From the unpublished MS. of Dr. Cornelius. Containing nearly Forty of the most Famous Student Songs. Carey & Hart: Philadelphia.
Mr. Howitt has here given us the only complete and faithful account of the Student-Life of Germany which has appeared in any quarter of the world. The institutions and customs which his book describes, form, to use his own language, “the most singular state of social existence to be found in the bosom of civilized Europe,” and are doubly curious and worthy of investigation—first, on account of the jealousy with which the students have hitherto withheld all information on the subject, and secondly, on account of the deep root which the customs themselves have taken in the heart of the German life. The Burschendom, of which we have all heard so much, yet so vaguely, is no modern or evanescent eccentricity; but a matter of firm and reverent faith coeval with the universities; and this faith is now depicted, con amore, and with knowledge, by a German who has himself felt and confessed it. To the philosopher, to the man of the world, and especially, to the man of imagination, this beautiful volume will prove a rare treat. Its novelty will startle all.