It would doubtless be unjust to deny Carlyle’s claim to be considered a thinker, but he is an intense rather than a calm and comprehensive one. A comprehensive thinker looks at every thing, not singly, but in its relations; an intense thinker seizes hold of some particular thing, exaggerates it out of its proper place in the economy of the world, and looks at every thing in its relation to his own hobby. In reasoning on the evils of society and government, it is useless to growl or snarl at what you desire to improve. If a man cannot look an evil in the face without rushing off into rage at its prevalence, and considering that evil as the root of all others, he will do little for reform. Indeed, Carlyle appears to us to find delight in getting the world into a corner. Nothing pleases him more than to shoot a sarcasm at statesmen and philanthropists who are grappling practically with some abuse; in this way warning everybody to avoid particular medicines, and come to him for an universal panacea. Thus his works on social evils are substantially little more than savage jests at the depravity of mankind, and contemptuous fleers at those who are attempting to mitigate it. It is needless to remark that he is not always consistent; but this, it seems to us, is the general character of his political writings. He criticises human life as he would a play or a novel, and looks to his own taste alone in passing his judgments.
Many objections have been made to Carlyle’s style. Now style, to be good for any thing, should be characteristic of the writer; and certainly Carlyle’s style, viewed in this light, is very good. It is an exponent of himself. The fault lies in the man, not in the style. Those who contrast the diction of the Life of Schiller with Past and Present, should recollect that a change as great has occurred in the character of the author. No other style than his present could fully express the whole meaning of his thoughts. Most of his ideas are commonplace enough in themselves; and their originality consists in the peculiar modification they have received from his own mind.
The Constitutional History of England from the Accession of Henry VII. to the Death of George II. By Henry Hallam. From the Fifth London edition. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1 vol. 8vo.
This great work was originally published in 1827. Since that period the author has made many additions to it. The present edition is printed from the latest London issue, in 1846, and is therefore the best and most complete edition in the country. The Harpers have printed it in clear, readable type, on good paper, and have placed it at a price so moderate as to bring it within the means of the humblest student. Of the value and importance of the work it is hardly necessary to speak, as it has forced reluctant praise even from those whose principles and policy it condemns. It has taken a prominent place among those standard books which no library can be supposed to be without. There are probably few books since Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, which have equaled this in the task of demolishing prejudice, and guiding public opinion aright. The space of political history which the volume occupies, has long been the battle-ground of opposing sects, factions, and parties. Historians, who have explored it most successfully, have generally been unduly influenced by their political or religious prejudices, in their accounts of events and estimates of persons. The Whig and the Tory, the Catholic, the Churchman, and the Puritan, each has bent the truth of history to the purposes of party, and accommodated, like poets, the shows of things to the desires of the mind. This has turned English political history into historical romance. Cranmer, Burleigh, Charles I., Strafford, Laud, Hampden, Cromwell, Sidney, Marlborough, Somers, Sunderland, have been so often passed from the partisan who daubs to the partisan who damns, as to appear like the heroes of bad novels, rather than mortal men.
Mr. Hallam has been especially able and courageous in his opposition to all this perversion of facts and character. Though himself a moderate Whig, and a sturdy friend of the popular element of the Constitution, he is as remorseless in breaking the idols of the Whigs as of the Tories. He holds no terms with the declamation of either side; and, indeed, takes a peculiar delight in weighing in his impartial scales every English politician who has been the object of stereotyped admiration or hatred. Parties naturally individualize their principles, and depend a good deal for their influence on the character of their great men, and the charm of their catch-phrases. They naturally dislike that their saints and martyrs should be subjected to calm scrutinizing criticism, and deprived of their exaggerated virtues, and exhibited, naked and shivering, to the profane eyes of the crowd. Mr. Hallam, from his mind and disposition, was admirably calculated to perform this work well. Without doing positive injustice to any statesman, and heartily praising all who have labored in their generation for the public good, he has considered truth of more importance than the service of party, and has not spared the excesses of tyranny and fanaticism, even when committed by the champions of freedom and toleration. Many a fine bubble, blown up to a beautiful magnitude by the breath of political superstition, bursts the moment it feels the prick of his pen, and is “resolved into its elemental suds.” A critic very happily characterizes his work as eminently judicial. “Its whole spirit is that of the bench, not of the bar. He sums up with a calm, steady impartiality, turning neither to the right nor the left, glossing over nothing, exaggerating nothing, while the advocates on both sides are alternately biting their lips to hear their conflicting mis-statements and sophisms exposed.”
Clarsach Albin, and Other Poems. By James M. Morrison. Including his Correspondence with Clark, McCammon, and Longlap. Phila.: Zieber & Co.
We advise those who understand the Scottish dialect to read this unpretending little book. The subjects of the poems are not such as to excite much attention, and the interest of the very clever rhyming correspondence carried on by the author with Messrs. Clark, McCammon, and Longlap, must, of course, be in a great measure evanescent; but there is a sly humor, a readiness of rhythm, and very often a burst of pure poetical feeling, which will repay the reader. While we thank him for this little book, from which we have derived much pleasure, the author will allow us to say, that he is capable of far better things; and we hope to have from his pen, at some future day, a collection of pure lyrics, in good broad Scotch, both serious and playful.