Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

may be classified with the best performances in reviewing."

The Grenville Papers, being the Private Correspondence of Richard Grenville, Earl Temple, and his brother, George Grenville, their Friends and Contemporaries; including Mr. Grenville's Diary of Political Events, 1763-65. Edited by Wm. J. Smith. The first two volumes of this important contribution to the political and personal history of this stirring and eventful period, have been published. Among the contents are letters from King George the Third; William, Duke of Cumberland; Dukes of Newcastle, Devonshire, Grafton, Bedford; Marquess Granby; Earls Bute, Temple, Sandwich, Egremont, Halifax, Hardwicke, Chatham, Mansfield, Northington, Suffolk, Hillsborough, Hertford; Lords Lyttleton, Camden, Holland, Olive, George Sackville; Marshal Conway; Horace Walpole; Edmund Burke; Géo. Grenville; John Wilkes; William Gerard Hamilton; Augustus Hervey; Mr. Jenkinson, (first Earl of Liverpool;) Mr. Whately; Mr. Wedderburn, (Earl of Roslyn ;) Mr. Charles Yorke; Mr. Hans Stanley; Mr. Charles Townsend; Mr. Caleraft; Mr. Rigby; Mr. Knox; Mr. Charles Lloyd, and the author of the Letters of Junius.

Memoirs and Adventures of Sir John Hepburn, Governor of Munich, Marshal of France under Louis XIII. and Commander of the Scots Brigade under Gustavus Adolphus, by James Grant, the well-known author of the Great Metropolis-a very important historical work, sketching the career of the Scottish heroes that mingled in the Thirty Years' War.

The Life and Times of Dante, by Count Cesare Balbo, edited with notes by Mrs. Bunbury.

The Passions of Animals, by Edward P. Thompson-spoken of as a very erudite yet graphic and amusing work on Natural History.

Petrifactions and their Teachings; or a Handbook to the Gallery of Organic Remains of the British Museum, by Gideon A. Mantell, LL.D.— an admirable work, by the author of the "Wonders of Geology."

cannot say that Mr. Hildreth's two bulky volumes are either the one or other. While they present, and even in an increased degree, the good qualities scientiousness, and accuracy of detail,-they exhibit of the volumes which preceded them-fulness, conin quite an equal degree the faults which we complained of in their predecessors-dryness, insipidity, want of power to arrest the reader's attention or stir his feelings, and absence of scientific breadth and generality. It is positively a matter of surprise to us how Mr. Hildreth could go over a period of history so abounding in notable men and incidents, with such fidelity to all the minutiae which make up their series, and yet with such absolute incapareaders-such imperturbable apathy with regard to city to convey any strong interest in them to his every person, place, or thing named or referred to. Here is a work treating-and treating with laborious and scrupulous amplitude-of the lives and actions of Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton, and their American coevals-men, surely, whose lineaments are worthy of being scanned and remembered by every member of the Anglo-Saxon race, as well as by many who do not belong to that race

and yet the execution of the work is so dull, stolid, and jejune, that the most wakeful reader will hardly be able to keep himself from falling asleep while perusing it. In the Preface to the fourth volume the author observes, that the nature of the subject must necessarily give to some portions of the work somewhat more of an emotional character than was consistent with the multiplicity and rapid succession of events in the former volumes:'-and adds, that 'very likely the charge of partisanship may now be urged by some of those same critics who thought those volumes too apathetic and coldly impartial.' The remark might have been spared. The charge of partisanship we care not particularly to bring forward; but we find not one trait of that 'emotional character' of which Mr. Hildreth desires thus apologetically to apprise Were he making out an inventory of goods for a sale, or copying a lexicon, Mr. Hildreth could not be more unemotional. American history ought to be written in the spirit of social philosophy:—it ought to be viewed both by writer and

us.

A Naturalist's Sojourn in Jamaica, by Philip by reader less as the epic of the fortunes of a special Henry Gorse.

A Sketch of Suwarrow and his last Campaign, by the late Major Edward Nevil Macready.

Wesley and Methodism, by the celebrated essayist, Isaac Taylor, author of the Natural History of Enthuiasm.

History of Greek Classical Literature, by Rev. R. W. Browne.

REPRINTS OF AMERICAN BOOKS.

Of American books, imported and reprinted, we notice some interesting notices in the leading critical journals.

Mr. Hildreth's History of the United States, published by the HARPERS, has been reprinted by Low, in London, and calls forth a long review in the Atheneum, the most serious and critical part of which we quote, as one indication of the estimate the work obtains abroad:

“A vivid and spirited narrative, or a truly scientific history of this period of the career of the people of the United States, would certainly be a welcome contribution to English literature. We

nation (in any case the epic element is but small) than as an illustration on a large scale of the doctrines of political science. But as Mr. Hildreth's work is deficient in the one species of interest, so it is deficient in the other. For philosophic views of the political progress of America, and of the function of the American race in human civilization, we must go to such writers as De Tocque ville, not to Mr. Hildreth, whose work may be described rather as a laborious résumé of the minutes of the meetings of Congress than as a his tory of what the great American people did, thought and said, from 1788 to 1807."

The Literature and Literary Men of Great Britain and Ireland, by Abraham Mills, originally published by the HARPERS, has also been republished in London. It receives a review from the Atheneum, which regards it as a fair work, but too superficial to give the book anything more than a alfied value as a literary treatise. "Coperable pains have been taken in gathering erials from various available sources; by and verifying his ch the author says he has been enlarg lectures during their cessive repetition for the

last twenty years. His data, as to matters of fact, may, with some exceptions, be accurate enough. But his power of giving a lively view of these or of the more genial part of his subject does not equal his industry; and the effect of the several essays, as now read in sequence, is, on the whole, both dry and fragmentary."

first an European reputation by his capital legend of Rip Van Winkle?'-and pleasantly, according ly, Mr. Washington Irving ha written, to illustrate the striking landscape in question."

LITERARY ITEMS.

-The French papers state that Lord Brougham, in his retreat at Cannes, is preparing for publication a work entitled, "France and England before Europe in 1851."

- The Royal Netherlands Institute of Sciences Letters and Fine Arts recently petitioned the King of Holland, in consequence of their limited income, for letters of dissolution. The King took the Institute at its word, and granted letters which fix the 31st of December for the term of its existence. From the 1st of January, 1852, the Institute will be replaced by a Royal Academy, which will specially devote itself to exact and natural sciences. This

Mr. Whipple's Essays and Reviews, recently republished in London, get the following notice from the Athenaum: Prosy, but rich and droll,' was Miss Martineau's general character of American conversation. Of this we have been reminded by Mr. Whipple's 'Lectures.' The prosiness, however, makes the largest third in the compound. He has collected numerous examples and anecdotes, unfamiliar and familiar. There is a general want, however, of perspicacity of view and of decision of language. Are these utterly to vanish from the Essay, because of our fear of dogmatism?-or because of our love of intellectval dissipation, which thirsts for pleasant songs rather than for those plain truths that grow importunate unless they be acted on? There ap-ordinary, twenty-two extraordinary, and five free pears to be some chance of such a catastrophe on the other side of the Atlantic. Rarely has there ever existed a more practical people than the people of America. Their magnificent enterprises-their rapid growth in wealth and in the love of wealth announce it. But rarely has there been, at any period of the world's literary history, such a body of hazy literature as now floats about in their cities and lecture rooms."

body will receive from the state an annual grant of 6,000 florins. It will be composed of twenty-six

members. There are to be eighteen foreign members, and an unlimited number of correspondents.

- A cargo of books on Oriental languages and literature recently arrived in Cork, as a present from the East India Company to the Queen's College in that city. The good people turned over the leaves of these works, admired the curious twists and contortions of Sanscrit and Arabic letters, and wondered what was meant by sending such a present to the capital of Munster. The secret has now come out in the agreeable shape of an announcement that the President of the Board of Control, Lord Broughton de Gyfford, has placed at the di:• posal of Lord Clarendon, in his capacity of Charcellor of the University, a Writership in the civil service of the great company, to be bestowed by him on one of the students as a reward for academie merit.

Mr. Samuel Beaseley, the dramatic writer and novelist, recently died. Of his literary works, the chief were-novels, "The Roué," and "The Oxonians;" farces, Old Customs, Bachelors' Wives, Is He Jealous? and others of less merit.

The Book of Home Beauty, by Mrs Kirkland, and the Home Book of the Picturesque, published by PUTNAM, have been well received abroad. The Athenæum says: "These are both magnificent books; and the care and cost which have gone to their production can be repaid only by a very extensive sale. It is not long since that we were led to comment on the avidity with which our Republican kinsfolk desire to be on a par with us in all that is most sophisticated in European proceedings and tastes;'.but scarcely did we expect to receive so signal a warrant to the truth of our remark as this 'Book of Home Beauty.' Its twelve clever engravings are not after pictures in which the Allstons and Sullys of the New World have given to the loveliness of the Transatlantic Mona Lisa or Fornarina that artistic consecration which removes it beyond the pale of watering-place curiosity and draw-published in Germany no less than 3,860 new ing-room enthusiasm. They are spirited transcripts of pretty drawings made apparently on purpose, and equalling in style those which have been furnished to our boudoir books by Messrs. Parris, Rochard and Buckner."

"If the Beauty' bears the bell on the other side of the Atlantic, the Picturesque' will prove the more acceptable of these two books in England. Many, like ourselves, will turn with avidity to these records of American scenery by American landscape painters. Good justice has been done by the engravers; and a few of the subjects fulfil the promise of the title. Especially do we like the vignette of "The Cascade Bridge, Erie Railroad,' for the sake of its character. Let us also specify Mr. Kensett's 'Catskill Scenery' as one of the landscapes which has pleased us best; because it is free from a certain insipidity and stiffness in the treatment of the trees and foliage which we have remarked in other of the designs. Then, who should write about 'Catskill Scenery' but the Geoffrey Crayon who gave it

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

-The catalogue of books for the Leipsic fair shows, that in the short space of time between the Easter fair and the 30th of September there were

works, and that there were on the latter date 1,130 new works in the press. Nearly five thousand new works in one country of Europe in one half year! The amount of intellectual labor dimly represented in the catalogue appears to have had on the whole a healthy impulse. Of the 3,860 works already published, more than half treat of various matters connected with science and its concerns. That is to say-descending to particulars 106 works treat of Protestant theology; 62 of Catholic theology; 36 of philosophy; 205 of history and biography; 102 of languages; 194 of natural sciences; 168 of military tactics; 108 of medicine; 169 of jurisprudence; 101 of politics; 184 of political economy; 83 of industry and commerce; 87 of agriculture and forest administration; 69 of public instruction; 92 of classical philology; 80 of living languages; 64 of the theory of music and the arte of design; 168 of the fine arts in general; 48 of popular writings; 28 of mixed sciences; and 18 of bibliography.

[graphic][subsumed][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Two hundred years ago the Puritan dwelt in Oxford; but, before his arrival, both Cavalier and Roundhead soldiers had encamped in its Colleges. Sad was the trace of their sojourn. From the dining-halls the silver tankards had vanished, and the golden candlesticks of the cathedral lay buried in a neighboring field. Stained windows were smashed, and the shrines of Bernard and Frides wide lay open to the storm. And whilst the heads of marble apostles, mingling with cannon-balls and founders' coffins, formed a melancholy rubbish in many a corner, straw heaps on the pavement and staples in the wall reminded the spectator that it was not long since dragoons had quartered in All-Souls, and horses crunched their oats beneath the fower of St. Mary Magdalene.

However, matters again are mending. Broken windows are repaired; lost revenues are recovered; and the sons of Crispin have evacuated chambers once more consecrated to syntax and the syllogism. Through these spacious courts we recognize the progress of the

The Works of John Owen, D. D. Edited by the Rev. WILLIAM H. GOOLD, Edinburgh. Vols. 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 14, (to be completed in Fifteen Volumes.) London and Edinburgh.1850-51.

VOL. XXV. NO. II.

man who has accomplished the arduous restoration. Tall, and in the prime of life, with cocked-hat and powdered hair, with lawn tops to his morocco boots, and with ribbons luxuriant at his knee, there is nothing to mark the Puritan,-whilst in his easy unembarrassed movements and kindly-assuring air, there is all which bespeaks the gentleman; but were it not for the reverences of obsequious beadles, and the recognitions of respectful students, you would scarce surmise the academic dignitary. That old-fashioned divine, his square cap and ruff surmounting the doctor's gown,-with whom he shakes hands so cordially, is a Royalist and Prelatist, but withal the Hebrew Professor, and the most famous Orientalist in England, Dr. Edward Pocock. From his little. parish of Childry, where he passes for "no Latiner," and is little prized, he has come up to deliver his Arabic lecture, and collate some Syriac manuscript, and observe the progress of the fig-tree which he fetched from the Levant; and he feels not a little beholden to the Vice-Chancellor, who, when the Parliamentary triers had pronounced him incompetent, interfered and retained him in his living. Passing the gate of Wadham, he meets the

10

upbreaking of a little conventicle. That no treason has been transacting, nor any dangerous doctrine propounded, the guardian of the University has ample assurance in the presence of his very good friends, Dr. Wallis the Savilian Professor, and Dr. Wilkins the Protector's brother-in-law. The latter has published a dissertation on the Moon and its Inhabitants, "with a discourse concerning the possibility of a passage thither;" and the former, a mighty mathematician, during the recent war had displayed a terrible ingenuity in deciphering the intercepted letters of the Royalists. Their companion is the famous physician Dr. Willis, in whose house, opposite the Vice-Chancellor's own door, the Oxford Prelatists daily assemble to enjoy the forbidden Prayer-Book; and the youth who follows, building castles in the air, is Christopher Wren. This evening they had met to witness some experiments which the tall sickly gentleman in the velvet cloak had promised to show them. The tall sickly gentleman is the Honorable Robert Boyle, and the instrument with which he has been amusing his brother sages, in their embryo Royal Society, is the newly invented air-pump. Little versant in their pursuits, though respectful to their genius, after mutual salutations, the divine passes on and pays an evening visit to his illustrious neighbor, Dr. Thomas Goodwin. In his embroidered night-cap, and deep in the recesses of his dusky study, he finds the recluse old President of Magdalene; and they sit and talk together, and they pray together, till it strikes the hour of nine; and from the great Tom Tower a summons be gins to sound, calling to Christ Church cloisters the hundred and one students of the old foundation. And returning to the Deanery, which Mary's cheerful management has brightened into a pleasant home, albeit her own and her little daughter's weeds are suggestive of recent sorrows, the doctor dives into his library.

For the old misers it was pleasant to go down into their bullion vaults, and feel that they were rich enough to buy up all the town, with the proud Earl in his mortgaged castle. And to many people there is a peculiar satisfaction in the society of the great and learned; nor can they forget the time when they talked to the great poet, or had a moment's monopoly of Royalty. But

"That place that doth contain

My books, the best companions, is to me A glorious court, where hourly I converse With the old sages and philosophers;

And sometimes for variety I confer With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels."

Not only is there the pleasant sense of property,-the rare editions, and the wonderful bargains, and the acquisitions of some memorable self-denial, but there are grateful memories, and the feeling of a high companionship. When it first arrived, yon volume kept its owner up all night, and its neighbor introduced him to realms more delightful and more strange than if he had taken Dr. Wilkins' lunarian journey. In this biography, as in a magician's mirror, he was awed and startled by foreshadowings of his own career; and, ever since he sat at the feet of yonder sacred sage, he walks through the world with a consciousness, blessed and not vainglorious, that his being contains an element shared by few besides. And even those heretics inside the wires-like caged wolves or bottled vipers-their keeper has come to entertain a certain fondness for them, and whilst he detests the species, he would feel a pang in parting with his own exemplars.

Now that the evening lamp is lit, let us survey the Doctor's library. Like most of its coeval collections, its foundations are laid with massive folios. These stately tomes are the Polyglots of Antwerp and Paris, the Critici Sacri and Poli Synopsis. The colossal theologians who flank them, are Augustine and Jerome, Anselm and Aquinas, Calvin and Episcopius, Bellarmine and Jansenius, Baronius and the Magdeburg Centuriators,-natural enemies, here bound over to their good behavior.

behavior. These dark veterans are Jewish Rabbis,-Kimchi, Abarbanel, and, like a row of rag-collectors, a whole Monmouth Street of rubbish, behold the entire Babylonian Talmud. These tall Socinians are the Polish brethren, and the dumpy vellums overhead are Dutch divines. The cupboard contains Greek and Latin manuscripts, and those and Sir William Davenant. spruce fashionables are Spenser, and Cowley, And the new

books which crown the upper shelves, still uncut and fresh from the publisher, are the last brochures of Mr. Jeremy Taylor and Mr.

Richard Baxter.*

In his elaborate "Memoirs of Dr. Owen," (p. 345.) Mr. Orme mentions that "his library was cold in May, 1684, by Millington, one of the earliest of our book auctioneers;" and adds, " Considering the Doctor's taste as a reader, his age as a minister, and his circumstances as a man, his library, in all probability, would be both extensive and valuable." Then, in a foot-note, he gives some interesting particulars as to the extent of the early Non-conformist

This night, however, the Doctor is intent | on a new book nowise to his mind. It is the "Redemption Redeemed" of John Goodwin. Its hydra-headed errors have already drawn from the scabbard the sword of many an or thodox Hercules on either side of the Tweed; and now, after a conference with the other Goodwin, the Dean takes up a ream of manuscript, and adds a finishing touch to his refutation.

At this period Dr. Owen would be forty years of age, for he was born in 1616. His father was minister of a little parish in Oxfordshire, and his ancestors were princes in Wales; indeed the genealogists claimed for him a descent from King Caractacus. He himself was educated at Queen's College, and, under the impulse of an ardent ambition, the young student had fully availed himself of his academic privileges. For several years he took no more sleep than four hours a night, and in his eagerness for future distinction he mastered all attainable knowledge, from mathematics to music. But about the time of his reaching majority, all his ambitious projects were suspended by a visitation of religious earnestness. In much ignorance of

libraries, viz: Dr. Lazarus Seaman's, which sold for £700; Dr. Jacomb's, which sold for £1300; Dr. Bates's, which was bought for five or six hundred pounds by Dr. Williams, in order to lay the foundation of Red Cross Street library; and Dr. Evans's, which contained 10,000 volumes; again subjoining,

"It is probable Dr. Owen's was not inferior to some of these." It would have gratified the biographer had he known that a catalogue of Owen's library is still in existence. Bound up with other sale-catalogues in the Bodleian, is the "Bibliotheca Oweniana; sive catalogus librorum plurimis facultatibus insignium, instructissimæ Bibliotheca Rev. Doct. Viri D. Joan. Oweni (quondam Vice-Cancellarii et Decani Ædis Christi in Academia Oxoniensi) nuperrime defuncti; cum variis manuscriptis Græcis, Latinis, &c., propria manu Doct. Patricii Junii aliorumq. conscriptis: quorum auctio habebitur Londini apud domum auctionariam, adverso Nigri Cygni in vico vulgo dicto Ave Mary Lane, prope Ludgate Street, vicesimo sexto die Maii, 1684. Per Eduardum Millington, Bibliopolam." In the Preface, the auctioneer speaks of Dr. Owen as" a person so generally known as a generous buyer and great collector of the best books" and after adverting to his copies of Fathers, Councils, Church Histories, and Rabbinical Authors, he adds, "all which, considered together, perhaps for their number are not to be paralleled, or upon any terms to be procured, when gentlemen are desirous of, or have a real occa sion for the perusal of them." The number of vol umes is 2889. For the knowledge of the existence of this catalogue, and for a variety of curious particulars regarding it, the Reviewer is indebted to one of the dignitaries of Oxford, whose bibliographical information is only exceeded by the obligingness with which he puts it at the command of others, the Rev. Dr. Macbride, Principal of Magdalene Hall.

the divine specific, his conscience grew tender, and sin appeared exceeding sinful. It was at this conjuncture that Archbishop Laud imposed on Oxford a new code of statutes, which scared away from the University the now scrupulous scholar. Years of anxious thoughtfulness followed, partly filled up by his duties as chaplain successively to Sir Robert Dormer and Lord Lovelace, when about the year 1641 he had occasion to reside in London. Whilst there he went one day to hear Edmund Calamy; but instead of the famous preacher there entered the pulpit a country minister, who, after a fervent prayer, gave out for his text-" Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?" The sermon was a very plain one, and Owen never ascertained the preacher's name; but the perplexities with which he had long been harassed disappeared, and in the joy of a discovered gospel and an ascertained salvation, the natural energy of his character and the vigor of his constitution found again their wonted play.

[ocr errors]

Soon after this happy change, his first publication appeared. It was a "Display of Arminianism," and, attracting the attention of the Parliamentary Committee for purging the Church of Scandalous Ministers," it procured for its author a presentation to the living of Fordham, in Essex. This was followed by his translation to the more important charge of Coggeshall, in the same county; and so rapidly did his reputation rise, that besides being frequently called to preach before the Parliament, he was, in 1649, selected by Cromwell as the associate of his expedition to Ireland, and was employed in re-modelling and resuscitating Trinity College, Dublin. Most likely it was owing to the ability with which he discharged this service that he was appointed Dean of Christ Church in 1651, and in the following year Vice-Chancellor of Oxford. It was a striking incident to find himself thus brought back to scenes which, fourteen years before, he had quitted amidst contempt and poverty, and a little mind would have been apt to signalize the event by a vainglorious ovation, or a vindictive retribution. But Owen returned to Oxford in all the grandeur of a God-fearing magnanimity, and his only solicitude was to fulfil the duties of his office. Although himself an Independent, he promoted well-qualified men to responsible posts, notwithstanding their Presbyterianism or their Prelacy; and although the law gave him ample powers to disperse them, he never molested the liturgical meetings of his Episcopalian neighbors. From anxiety to promote the spiritual welfare of the students, in

« AnteriorContinuar »