warranted in calling this Carlyle's best work; the one genially meditated, most earnestly worked out; yet (we can't help discovering it) the work, which first records that tortuous style of writing, which we cannot avoid thinking a vile form of affectation, itself one of the most disagreeable of the venial sins of authorship. When we compare the earlier and later styles of this same writer, the difference is more obvious. The life of Schiller is a model of pure English, while some of Carlyle's later works are horrible distortions of the language. The cause of this great change is to us clear some have conjectured it to result from confusion of ideas, the common apology for a dark style, but we believe it to arise from a perverse imitation of the worst parts of certain German authors.-Carlyle is utterly destitute of genuine wit, though his admirers claim that for him, as well as partial genius. He sometimes discovers a streak of surly humor, as it were, such as Quin, the actor, was said to possess. Of light, pleasant raillery, he has not a particle. His jests are as awkward as the gambols of the elephant, in Milton. His wit-to copy an expression of his own, is a sort of small-beer faculty. Carlyle's favorite characters are rough, hardly Saxon men-somewhat in his own vein, as Knox, Luther, Johnson and Burns; and daring revolutionists preserving the parallel, as Napoleon, Danton, Mirabeau. Force of character and sincerity furnish his requisites for a hero. Carlyle paints with a bold hand-firm and free-uses strong colors without much grace or art, and with no elegance or taste. Still he has a certain peculiarity, that is very striking. Among painters our critic would rank with Hans Holbein the court painter of Henry VIII. and friend of Erasmus. His descriptions have something of Salvator Rosa in them, as wild and savage. He is no Vandyke, no Sir Joshua Reynolds, no Sir Thomas Law rence. He has no hand for depicting female grace he paints men, heroes. Among artists of the last age, he would rank with Fuseli. Like him he succeeds in strong characters and tumultuous scenes. This is but a slight profile sketch of a very able man, a man of consummate talent, but no pure, original genius; of great capacity but no invention; most acute, yet deficient in simple, deep sentiment-a writer of most vicious taste and perverted manner, wanting in the individual impress of personal power-of great acquisitions and consequent aggregate increase of faculty and mental power rather than of vigorous internal impulse in a word a man of talent of the first rank, but not to be classed with men of real genius. After the names of these two master critics, Macaulay and Carlyle, none can be placed except at a very considerable distance. Some of the critics of the London weeklies are very excellent, as Foster of the Examiner, and the writer of the notices in the Spectator, in particular. The ladies have done something very respectable of this kind-we might mention Miss Martineau and Mrs. Jamieson. Mr. Stephens (we omitted), a very close imitator of Macaulay and almost worthy of being called a rival, were it not for his evident imitation.-Before we come to the Poets (with whom we shall conclude), we must say a few words of the professed wits of the day; writers displaying that peculiar and attractive quality in the tale, review, sketch, newspaper editorial, and indeed every form of minor and miscellaneous literature. These being the best known, we suppose, of all contemporary writers next to the novelists, will not delay us long for any detailed criticism. It is almost sufficient to mention their names Sydney Smith, Hook, Hood, Fonblanque, and Douglas Jerrold. A different classification might unite them, that of periodical writers; as they are such, to a man, in the different forms of journalism, the newspaper, the magazine, the review. First, there is Sydney Smith (namesake of the gallant Knight who distinguished himself at the siege of Acre), the wittiest and most sensible of living parsons-the last of the good old line of clerical Satiristsnot mere savage butchers of reputation, but moral censors, and except, perhaps, in one case, kindly teachers of truth, and priests of humanity-Bishop Hall, Donne, South, Swift, Eachard and Sterne. The peculiar wit of the canon residentiary of St. Paul's, we all know well from hearsay and reading, so that we shall only stop to make one remark about it, and that is, that it is another form of logical acuteness,the growth of a clear, sharp intellect, exercised on prac tical matters-it is not purely sportive pleasantry, designed merely to amuse. It has always a practical, and generally a moral aim. With certain extravaganzas, that a careless reader might mistake for imitations of Rabelais, it is still full of meaning. The sketch of this most useful of the wits, is very well done in the New Spirit of the Age, as are also the portraits of all these clever writers, whom we have associated under the same general head. Hook represents the school of vulgar humorists, whose chief weapon is coarseness itself; a writer and man of great cleverness and mental activity, but utterly wanting in refinement, taste, and sometimes to be taxed with far heavier sins, a want of humanity and of justice. Hood is a character of a quite opposite description, a poet, a humorist, a punster-the equal of Lamb, in everything but the exquisite criticism and sentiment of Elia. His head is a perfect mine of puns, and all sorts of oddities and comicalities. His "Up the Rhine" is almost as good as Humphrey Clinker, of which it is a professed copy. He has written herein some very fanciful, and some very sweet poetry. All his satire is sportive and affectionate his descriptions fresh and lively. The author, too, as Hazlitt said so handsomely of Hunt, translates admirably into the man. He is said to be as gentle, kindly, loving and humane, as one might readily suspect from the best of his writings. He has Sterne's feeling, without his affectation or hardness of heart. And with equal wit he has none of the violence or the rancour of the editor of the John Bull. Fonblanque, as a political wit, is first rate; his argument is none the less close because his irony is fine. His pat allusions to farce, comedy, and the comic novels, are almost equal to good original witticisms. His style is neat and full of pith and point. His views are in general just and fair, and dictated by feelings honorable to the man as well as the politician. Douglas Jerrold, we know too little of, to speak very confidently in the way of criticism. He is perhaps at the head of the English magazinists, uniting the talent of journalist, critic, writer of tales and sketches of life and manners, and dramatist. Some of his farces and domestic dramas are standard pieces, and hold possession of the stage. The critic claims a moral character for all his writings, which we believe they really possess. He is a generous critic and an honest man. The Poets of the day.-This is a portion of the general subject of contemporary literature that we shall not venture to go very deeply into at present, for two reasons, viz., because the best poetry of the finest living poets belongs to the generation that has passed, and because we hope soon to be enabled to present a fuller view of the claims of the poetry of the nineteenth century upon our admiration and regard, than we can do with anything like justice, in a niche of an article quite short enough without any additional condensation. Wordsworth and Hunt and Proctor, perhaps the first poetic names among English bards now living, belong to the school which preceded the present: at all events, they gained their laurels before most of the present race of writers of verse commenced writing at all, and indeed before most of them were born. Compared with these genuine masters, the cleverest of the new generation are but faithful disciples and ingenious imitators. Most of the contemporary English poets are rather tasteful scholars, brilliant men of talent, clever women of high culture and fine fancy, than original painters, authors of real genius, true poets. Whoever considers the high claims of poetry, the manifold requisites of the great poet, will be loth to style every clever or even fine writer of verse by that holy name. Minor poets are more appropriately classed with clever writers. Judged by the Miltonic standard, Wordsworth is our sole English poet; a lower standard would admit Hunt, Proctor, Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett; a yet lower deep (still far from low) would include Elliott, Milnes, Mrs. Norton. In a small class of poetic wits, may be placed Hood, Praed, and a few others. As classical copyists, Talfourd, Knowles, and Nelson Coleridge, deserve a respectable place while Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton and Satan Montgomery would lead off a file of poetasters, writers of philosophic verse, and mystical transcendentalists, to the lowest pit of the critical Tartarus, there to endure the pangs and agony of damned authors and hopeless projectors. Yet though taste, cleverness, and inge nuity are the chief traits of the existing school of English poetry, we still discern much of real excellence in it. Though most of the writers of poetry are rather able writers of verse than genuine poets-(we do not mean any disrespect in speaking of verse, we refer only to the form and vehicle of composition)-still they have left their mark. Not to rewrite the standard criticisms upon Wordsworth, Hunt and Proctor, none of whom, except the second writer, adequately represent the spirit of the age, if, indeed, they appear to be imbued with it at all we must pass to the younger apprentices in the school of art-the candidates for immortality. We have just run over the names of most of these, of which, at present, we will only subjoin a word or two of criticism. The music of Tennyson, his remarkably fine ear in the management of rhythm, is his great charm: this has been very judiciously remarked by a critic in this Journal, about two years since, and to that notice we can add nothing of consequence. Tennyson is ingenious and imitative, sweet, sad, thoughtful, classic and romantic, severe and luxuriant alternately. This command of styles and variety of talent of themselves denote second rate genius, in which skill in execution exceeds the conception or capacity. The very greatest poets have a marked manner of their own, and leave a distinct impression of individuality on their works, which is apt to run into mannerism, yet which includes a personality not to be mistaken. Milton and Wordsworth could never have become Butler or Moore; yet Tennyson is in one place a follower of Wordsworth, then of the old ballad writers, then a sportive wit. The critic, in the new spirit, demands too high a place for him altogether, as we expect to show hereafter. Talfourd is a chaste, correct copyist of the Grecian drama in its purest translation; a fine scholar, a man of delicate taste, he is no poet though he can write pleasing verses, and has produced a tragedy superior to Cato. Of Miss Barrett, the only poetess we shall mention, we shall say no more than to refer the reader to another page in our present number which he will find graced with her name. Of the manly Elliott and the elegant Milnes, we have said elsewhere what we do not now con : sider it necessary to repeat-(vide Poetry for the People). Hood, full as he is of his punning and comicalities, has penned some very delightful verses, and one poem at least, of singular beauty the Dream of Eugene Aram. The plays of Knowles are almost the sole new tragedies that deserve to keep the stage. Having thus run over most rapidly the surface of contemporary English literature, we stop to ask ourselves a few questions-what is the present state of poetry and the belles-lettres in that country? What is the prevailing scope and character and aims of the great body of living writers? Is the vigor of the national mind, as exhibited in the works of its writers, unimpaired? What are its prospects, and how does our young but rapidly developing literature compare with it? To answer these in a few paragraphs, the questions that might be expanded in a full consideration to the extent of a volume. We are one of that class who believe not only (as indeed all to a certain degree must) in the parallelisms of history, but also in the perpetually recurring changes to be noted in the literary history of every people. Every nation that has had a literature thus far, has gone through certain epochs, periods of literary glory and of the decline of letters. With the exception of Russia, every country on the continent of Europe has had its day of literary splendor, its Augustan age and now at the present time even Germany, the last in the field with an original literature (previously to the beginning of this century, she was the country of pedants and commentators), has no distinguished original living writers, Tieck and his compeers not being included, as they flourished contemporaneously with Göthe and Schiller. Italy and Spain are as good as excluded from all remark at this time. Some centuries have passed since either land has produced an universal classic. And England, at this moment, is the land of exceeding intellectual activity, cleverness, scholarship, brilliant talent, and initative genius, but though with a few original minds (not of the first class, however), she can lay no pretence to reviving her former literary greatness. She can institute no parallel between her present literary condition and that of the age of Eliza beth and James I., or of the Commonwealth, or even of Charles II. No great dramatists, epic poets, divines, Jike Taylor and Southey, wits like Butler or Swift, no such prose as Cowley or Temple could write. Yet we have an infinite number of good, if no very great writers. The same criticism applies pretty nearly to the state of American literature, which will probably be corrupted (the little we have) by similar or the same causes, i. e., great general activity of mind, exhausted in numberless brief labors, which do not allow repose for a great work: the rapid growth of physical science and the material philosophy that accompanies it. In some departments, we think American authors of the present day may fairly claim an-equal rank with their English rivals. In poetry, exclude the great name of Wordsworth as the poet of a former era, and we challenge comparison between Dana, Bryant, Halleck, Holmes, Lowth, Willis, Street, and Longfellow, and the remaining best living English poets. They are fairly met on their own ground and in their own vein of delicacy, taste, fancy, speculation, humor, pathos, and descriptive power, to say nothing of a mastery of style, rhythm and the finest poetical dialect. Then, too, in humor, we have referred to Irving, in sketching Dickens, there is Paulding, a strong satirist, Wirt, a delicate wit, Willis, full of sparkling gaiety, and in certain of his best sketches, the author of the Motley Book. In all England, we know not the writers of late, who could surpass these four writers in their respective styles (to say nothing of a host of clever magazine sketchers beside)-Irving, Dana, Willis, and Hawthorne. Rip Van Winkle are the best attempts of Irving all of Dana's romantic tales, as Paul Fellow, Edward and Mary, &c., are, we believe, without an equal in English contemporary literature. Willis, as a lighter writer, is the cleverest English and American author now living; and our prose poet, Hawthorne, can be paralleled only in Germany. We have three classic writers of history; we have produced the best popular moralists of the day; Dewey, Channing, and the intellectual Unitarian sect. Our orators have, in many cases, pronounced orations perfectly admirable in their way, as those of Wirt, Ames, Web ster, the Everetts (of all parties). Since We argue the gradual decline of English and American literature (joined much as the established church of the first country and the branch of it here), of the same stock, though ours being the younger in all probability will sur vive the elder, and at least more than outlast our day, not only from the number of merely clever writers and the general prevalence of imitation, but also from the love of periodical criticism and the success with which it is cultivated. Criticism has always flourished in the absence of all other kinds of genius: it is best when others are in decay or gone, and this seems to us one of the most remarkable of the Signs of the Times. From the great increase, too, of periodical literature, most of the minor kinds of writing are more cultivated than the longer and more imposing. We have few histories, and long poems (thank heaven!) but abundance of critiques of all kinds, political, literary, theological and characteristic essays, on all subjects, of manners, morals, medicine and mercantile policy; sketches of life and scenery; letters, from abroad and at hoine, tales, short biographies and every possible variety of the lesser orders of poetry. We apprehend that literature of this grade and character-short, to the point, interesting--will be the prevailing literature for a long time to come. The chief instruction of the people, their main intellectual resource of amusement, also, will be found in the periodical press. In a busy age of the world, the mass of men (even of readers) have little leisure. This they cannot and will not devote to long, abstract to give him sufficient occupation, of treatises on religion or politics. Our whatever sort circumstances demand, middle age epoch may not come for is the primary duty of society; but, ten centuries; meanwhile we need to immediately next to that, to seek to read much and rapidly. The infusion elevate and refine, deepen and expand, of popular feeling into our works of the characters of all men, till they speculation, the great aims of re- come to know, appreciate, and act upon forming, enlightening, and, in a word, the immutable principles of Justice and educating the people and impressing Humanity; to recognize one Father the importance of the individual,-this and Master above, and all brothers and is one of the great problems of the equals below. This is the great lesson age, and perhaps the Problem. To of life, the very object and end of render man physically comfortable, and being. INFLUENCE OF EUROPEAN ON ASIATIC CIVILISATION. EUROPE is commonly said to be the centre of human civilisation, and the extension of European civilisation the hope of mankind. We do not mean to dispute this position in the sense in which it is probably understood, for European civilisation is, without doubt, the highest that has yet been attained, although it promises more from the principles which it contains, almost buried out of sight, than from the fruits which it has hitherto actually produced. The European race, however, is not primary and aboriginal, but derived and composite; not indigenous to that continent, but sprung from eastern sources; and the germs of its civilisation, such as it now exists, were found in the Celtic, Gothic, and Slavonic tribes, of which it is composed. Now that Europe has gained an unquestionable ascendency in controlling the affairs of the world, it is both convenient and instructive to assume that continent as a central or starting-point, and to trace the influences which, by means of its peculiar civilisation, it is exercising over the rest of mankind. There are only three main directions in which it can make its influence felt-to the south, to the west, and to the east. In the south, Europe has been to Africa a curse; the European has been to the African race a spoiler and a tyrant. In the west, Europe has taken possession of America, trampling with almost equal audacity and recklessness on the rights of the Aborigines, but affording some compensation, not to them, but to the race at large, by casting off the slough of feudality, and substituting somewhat improved forms of its own civilisation. The influence of Europe has not been confined to the south and west, but has extended to the east. In the same manner as America, which derives its existing civilisation from Europe, is reflecting its own proper and independent influences, and essentially modifying public opinion and social institutions on that continent; so Europe, which still more remotely derived its civilisation from Asia, has exerted, and continues, with accelerated force, to exert, its influence over the destinies of the Eastern continent. The law of action and reaction is found to prevail not only in the physical, but in the moral world; affecting not only the character of individuals but the condition of nations. Asia, which formerly sent forth her hordes to overrun and subdue Europe, is now revisited in her most ancient seats, and in her securest recesses, by its disciplined armies, and controlled by its civilized governments. The inquiry naturally arises: In what condition does modern find ancient civilisation? In what guise does Europe present herself to Asia? What character does she assume? What benefits or evils does she carry along with her? What instruments does she employ? What are the actual results and the apparent tendencies of this concurrence of the two most important |
