“Some men make their ignorance the measure of excellence; these are, of course, very fastidious critics; for knowing little, they can find little to like.”
“A witch’s skiff cannot more easily sail in the teeth of the wind, than the human eye lie against fact; but the truth will oftener quiver through lips with a lie upon them.”
“The most common disguise of Envy is in the praise of what is subordinate.”
Southey’s Common-Place Book. Second Series. Special Collections. Edited by his Son-in-Law, John Wood Warter, B. D. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1 vol. 8vo.
This volume contains the extracts which Southey made from the world of books, relating to special subjects of study. The general topics under which the extracts are grouped, are Ecclesiasticals, the Age of Cromwell, Spanish and Portuguese Literature, the History of the Religious Orders, Orientaliana, American Tribes, Natural History, and Curious Facts. The range of reading that the volume indicates, considered in connection with the number of Southey’s original works, is sufficient to astound a regular book-cormorant, and places Southey fairly among the “laboring classes.” The present volume is more racy in its matter than the preceding, while it does not yield to it in the amount of curious information given. The following passage, taken from Percival Stockdale’s Memoirs, conveys a capital idea of an English military commander. “When Lord George Germains commanded the camp near Brompton, and at Chatham in 1757, Whitfield went to Chatham, sent his respects by Captain Smith to his lordship, and requested permission to preach in the camp. Lord George replied, ‘Make my compliments, Smith, to Mr. Whitfield, and tell him, from me, he may preach any thing to my soldiers that is not contrary to the articles of war.’ ” From the same book Southey extracts an equally edifying paragraph, relating to the view entertained of the Christian religion, by the English naval captain of that time. Percival was appointed chaplain to Capt. Ogle’s ship Resolution, but, he says, “the duty of clergyman was very seldom required of me. One day, however, when I met my naval commander in a street of Portsmouth, and paid my respects to him, he proposed that I should do my duty on the ensuing Sunday on board. I replied that it was my wish to receive such a command more frequently. At all events, replied he, I think it is right that these things should be done sometimes, as long as Christianity is on foot.” The simplicity with which religion is patronized in both of these instances, makes them richly humorous.
Poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, A New Edition. Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 2 vols. 10mo.
This edition of Longfellow contains all his poems, and makes two finely printed volumes of some five hundred pages each, at about half the original price. In their present tasteful form they will doubtless have a large circulation, for their author is the most popular poet of the day on both sides of the Atlantic. His poems sell better in England than those of Tennyson, Browning, Mrs. Browning, Bailey or Milnes. This wide popularity he has fairly won by his merits, as he has not lacked carping critics or envious defamers to obstruct his path to success. The source of the fascination he holds equally over cultivated and uncultivated minds is partly owing to the fine humanity and sweetness of his spirit. Good nature is a portion of his genius; without this good nature, man, says Bacon, is but “a better kind of vermin;” but we are sorry to say that it is not a prominent characteristic of many minds largely gifted with the poetic faculty. Longfellow, in addition to this heartiness, full of seriousness which does not exclude cheer, has a broad and imaginative mind, which has assimilated and inwrought into its own substance the spirit of many literatures; and this gives a vital richness to his thought which no other contemporary poet but Tennyson can be said to possess. Probably few poets ever excelled him in the difficult art of preserving an equilibrium of ambition and capacity, so that nothing is attempted which is not satisfactorily performed. Many poets who aim higher than Longfellow, please less, because we are conscious of the stir and sting of great aspirations which are unaccompanied by sufficient imagination to give them adequate form and expression, and the result is that the mind is disturbed rather than exalted. In Longfellow aspiration and inspiration are perfectly harmonized.