This new edition of the Essays is a reprint of the last English edition revised by the author, and both printer and publisher deserve high credit for the beauty of the volumes. The paper, press-work, and binding are all excellent, and of a sort not only to please the general public, but to satisfy the demands of the exacting lover of good books. We are glad to welcome Messrs. Brown and Taggard among our publishing houses, on occasion of the issue of a book so creditable alike to their taste and to their judgment, and we hope that the success of this edition of these Essays may he such as to encourage them to follow it with a reprint of the other volumes of the revised edition of Mr. Carlyle's works.
We trust, that, though the words "Author's Edition" are not found upon the back of the title-page, it is not because the moral, if not legal rights which the author possesses have been disregarded.
The Mill on the Floss. By GEORGE ELIOT, Author of "Scenes of Clerical Life" and "Adam Bede." New York: Harper & Brothers.
It is not difficult to understand how the reader's attention may he attracted and his interest retained by a romance of the old chivalrous days whose very name and dim memory fill the mind with fascinating images, or by a novel whose high-born characters claim sympathy for their dignified sorrows and refined delights, or whose story is illuminated by the light of artistic culture and adorned with gems of rhetoric and fine fancy; but it is sometimes surprising to observe the favor which attends a simple tale of humble, unobtrusive, we might almost say insignificant people, whose plane of life appears nowhere to coincide with our own, and to whom romance and passion seem entirely foreign. Such a tale was "Adam Bede," whose great success as a literary venture hardly yet belongs to the chronicle of the past; such a tale is also "The Mill on the Floss," by the author of "Adam Bede," and such, we are confident, will also be its success.
Both books have many elements in common, but the second is the greater work of art, and indicates more fairly the scope and vigor of the author's mind. It is written in the same pure, hardy style, strong with Saxon words that admit of no equivocation or misunderstanding; it is illustrated with sketches of outward Nature and tranquil rural beauty, none the less vivid or truthful that they are drawn with the pen rather than the brush; and it is instinct with an honest, high-souled purpose. In these respects it resembles "Adam Bede," but in others it surpasses its predecessor. It displays a far keener insight into human passion, a subtler analysis of motives and principles, and it suggests a mental and a moral philosophy nobler in themselves and truer to humanity and religion. The pathos, too, is more genuine; for it is not based upon the mere utterance of grief or of entreaty,—which the eloquent and the artful may, indeed, feign,—but it is found in that skilful combination of material circumstance and spiritual influence which impresses upon the feeling, more than it proves to the reason, that the hour of heart-break is at hand, and which depends less for its effect upon the dramatic power of the imagination than upon the instant sympathy of the soul.
The principal fault which will be found with "The Mill on the Floss," and probably the only one, is, that the action moves too slowly and tamely in the first three or four books, and that the author shows an undue inclination to reflection and metaphysical digression. This will, indeed, be a great objection to the superficial reader, who will impatiently regret that the tedious growth of a miller's boy and girl should usurp so many pages which might better have been filled with exciting incidents. But this very elaboration, tardy and idle though it may seem, was necessary to the completion of the author's plan, and—in our eyes—instead of being a blemish upon a fair story, is one of its principal charms. On this very account, however, the book will be less popular, and fewer persons will admire it wholly; but, as thoughtful readers draw near to the end of the narrative, and anxiously hasten on past trial, temptation, and conflict, to the dreaded and yet inevitable downfall, muse mournfully over the agony and remorse that follow, and slowly close the volume upon tender forgiveness and final joy, they will be thankful for the far-seeing genius which, by this gradual process of education, enabled them to understand clearly the fateful scroll at last unfolded to them, and which, if they have read in the true spirit, has made them wiser and better.
Nugamenta; a Book of Verses, By GEORGE EDWARD RICE. Boston: J. E. Tilton & Co. 1860. pp. 146.
The author of this little volume modestly waives all claim to the title of poet, and thus disarms severer criticism. His book, nevertheless, has the merit of being lively and agreeable, which is more than can be said of many more pretentious volumes of verse. His pieces are mostly of the kind called verses of society, a variety whose range is all the way up from Concanen to Horace. It is enough, if they are only passable; but good specimens are easy and sprightly,—their philosophy not worldly precisely, but man-of-the-worldly,—their morality an elegant Poor-Richardism,—their poetry whatever may be reached by the fancy and understanding. Sometimes, if the author have been lucky enough, like Béranger, to have enjoyed low company, his verses will gather a richer tone, his wit will broaden into humor, his sentiment deepen to hearty good-nature, and his worldliness ripen into a genuine humanity.
To embody primeval sentiments, to deal with transcendent passions, and to idealize those fatal moods by which not individuals merely, but races, are possessed, those tidal ebbs and flows which, for want of a better name, we call the Spirit of the Age,—this is a gift whose return among us we do not look for with as much certainty as that of shad and salmon, but meanwhile we are not too nice to be pleased with verses that express average thoughts and feelings gracefully and with a dash of sentiment. It is a vast deal wiser and better to express neatly, in language that is not alien to the concerns of every day, feelings we have really had, than to maunder about what we think we ought to have felt in a diction that has no more to do with our ordinary habits of thought and expression than Monmouth with Macedon. The contrast of matter and manner in much of our current verse is such as to remind one of the notes which are sometimes sent to their sweethearts by schoolboys, who cut their fingers (not too deep) that they may asseverate the eternal constancy of the three-weeks'-vacation in that solemn fluid proper to contracts with the Evil One.
It is pleasant to meet with one who is able to say a natural thing in a natural way, as Mr. Rice has shown that he can do. There is a very agreeable mingling of feeling and fun in his lighter pieces, rising into real grace and lyric fancy in some of them, such as "New Year's Eve" and "The Revisit."