We call the attention of our readers to a series of twelve photographic views of forest and lake scenery published by Mr. J.W. Black, Boston, from negatives taken by Mr. Stillman in the Adirondack country. The points of view are chosen with the fine feeling of an artist, and the tangled profusion and grace of the forest, with the moment's whim of sunfleck and shadow, are given with exquisite delicacy. Whatever the all-beholding sun could see in those woodland depths we have here,—sketches of the shaggy Pan snatched at unawares in sleep. One may study these pictures till he becomes as familiar as a squirrel with fern and tree-bark and moose-wood and lichen, till he knows every trunk and twig and leaf as intimately as a sunbeam.
Plutarch's Lives. The Translation called Dryden's. Corrected from the Greek, and Revised, by A.H. CLOUGH, sometime Fellow and Tutor of Oriel College, Oxford, and late Professor of the English Language and Literature at University College, London. Boston: Little, Brown, & Company. 1859. Five vols. 8vo.
In these five handsome volumes, we have, at length, a really good edition in English of Plutarch's Lives. One of the most delightful books in the world, one of the few universal classics, appears for the first time in our language in a translation worthy of its merits.
Mr. Clough, whose name is well known, not only by scholars, but also by the lovers of poetry, has performed the work of editor with admirable diligence, fidelity, and taste. The labor of revision has been neither slight nor easy. It has, indeed, amounted to not much less than would have been required for the making of a new translation. The versions in the translation that bears Dryden's name, made, as they were, by various hands, and apparently not submitted to the revision of any competent scholar, were unequal in execution, and were disfigured by many mistakes, as well as by much that was slovenly in style. At the time they were made, scholarship in England was not at a high point. Bentley had not yet lifted it out of mediocrity, and the translators were not stimulated by the fear either of severe criticism or of comparison of their labors with any superior work. The numerous defects of this translation are spoken of by the Langhornes, in the Preface to their own, with a somewhat jealous severity, which gives unusual vigor to their sentences. "The diversities of style," say they, "were not the greatest fault of this strange translation. It was full of the grossest errors. Ignorance on the one hand, and hastiness or negligence on the other, had filled it with absurdities in every Life, and inaccuracies on almost every page." This is a hard, perhaps an extreme judgment; but it serves to show the difficulties that would attend a revision of such a work. These difficulties Mr. Clough has fairly met and overcome. We do not mean to say that he has reduced the whole book to a perfect uniformity, or even to entire elegance and exactness of style; but he has corrected inaccuracies, he has removed the chief marks of negligence or haste; and, after a careful comparison of a considerable portion of the work as it now appears with the Greek text, we have no hesitation in saying that this translation answers not merely to the demands of modern scholarship, but forms a book at once essentially accurate and delightful for common reading.[A] We think, moreover, that Mr. Clough was right in choosing the so-called Dryden's translation as the basis of his work. Its style is not old enough to have become antiquated, while yet it possesses much of the savor and raciness of age. The book is interesting from Dryden's connection with it, but still more so—considering how slight that connection was, his only contribution to it being the Life of Plutarch—from the fact, that the translations of some of the Lives were made by famous men, as that of Alcibiades by Lord Chancellor Somers, and that of Alexander by the excellent John Evelyn; while others were made by men who, if not famous, are at least well remembered by the lovers of the literature of the time,—as that of Numa by Sir Paul Rycaut, the Turkey merchant, and the continuer of Dr. Johnson's favorite history of the Turks,—that of Otho by Pope's friend, the medical poet, Dr. Garth,—that of Solon by Creech, the translator of Lucretius,—that of Lysander by the Honorable Charles Boyle, whose name is preserved in the alcohol of Bentley's classical satire,—and that of Themistocles by Edward, the son of Sir Thomas Browne.
[Footnote A: For the sake of illustration of the care and labor given by Mr. Clough to the revision, we open at random on the Life of Dion, Vol. V., p. 291, and, comparing it with the original Dryden, we find, that in ten pages, to the end of the Life, there are but three, and they short sentences, in which changes of more or less consequence have not been made. These changes amount sometimes to entire new translation, sometimes consist merely in the correction of a few words. Throughout, the hand of the thorough scholar is apparent. The earlier volumes of the series would, probably, rarely exhibit such considerable alterations.]
But Mr. Clough's labors have not been merely those of reviser and corrector. He has added greatly to the value of the work by occasional concise foot-notes, as well as by notes contained in an appendix to each volume. So excellent, indeed, are these notes, so full of learning and information, conveyed in an agreeable way, that we cannot but feel a regret (not often excited by commentators) that their number is not greater. In addition to these, the fifth volume contains a very carefully prepared and full Index of Proper Names, which is followed by a list for reference as to their pronunciation.
When this version, to which Dryden gave his name, was made, there was no other in English but that of Sir Thomas North, which had been made, not from the Greek, but from the French of Amyot, and was first published in 1579. It was a good work for its time, and worthy of being dedicated to Queen Elizabeth, although, as the knight declares, "she could better understand it in Greek than any man can make it English." Its style is rather robust than elegant, partaking of the manly vigor of the language of its time, and now and then exhibiting something of that charm of quaint simplicity which belongs to its original, Montaigne's favorite Amyot. "Of all our French writers," says the incomparable essayist, "I give, with justice, I think, the palm to Jacques Amyot";[B] and thereupon he goes on to praise the purity of his style, as well as the depth of his learning and judgment. But, although Amyot had "a true imagination" of his author, he was not always exact in giving his meaning. The learned Dr. Guy Patin says: "On dit que M. de Meziriac avoit corrigÉ dans son Amyot huit mille fautes, et qu'Amyot n'avoit pas de bons exemplaires, ou qu'il n'avoit pas bien entendu le Grec de Plutarque."[C]
[Footnote B: Essays, Book II. 4.]
[Footnote C: Patiniana.]
Amyot's eight thousand errors were not diminished in passing into Sir Thomas North's English; but their number mattered little to the readers of those days, who found in the thick folio enough of interest to spare them from making inquiry as to the exactness of its rendering of the meaning of Plutarch. From the time of its first publication, for more than a hundred years, it was one of the most popular books of the period, as was proved by the appearance of six successive editions in folio.[D] Some of these clumsy volumes may, no doubt, have been put to uses as ignoble as that which Chrysale, in "Les Femmes Savantes," suggests for his sister's similar copy of Amyot:—
"Vos livres Éternels ne me contentent pas; Et, hors un gros Plutarque À mettre mes rabats, Vous devriez bruler tout ce meuble inutile";—
but duller books of the same size, of which there were many in those days of patient readers, would have had an equal value for such economical purposes as this, and "The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans by that Grave Learned Philosopher & Historiographer Plutarch" were too entertaining to young and old to be left for any length of time quietly upon the shelf. They were the familiar reading of boys who were to become the actors in the great drama of the Rebellion and the Commonwealth, or who a little later were to frequent the dissolute court of Charles, presenting in their own lives, whether in camp or court, as patriots or as traitors, parallels to those which they had read in the weighty pages of the old biographer.
[Footnote D: In 1579, 1595, 1602, 1631, 1657, 1676. Mr. Hooper, in his Introduction to Chapman's Homer, London, 1857, says, that "the edition of 1657 was published under the superintendence of the illustrious Selden." We do not know his authority for this statement. The fact, if it be one, is very remarkable, as Selden's death took place in 1654.]
Nor in more recent times has North's version failed of admirers. Godwin declared, that, till this book fell into his hands, he had no genuine feeling of Plutarch's merits, or knowledge of what sort of a writer he was. But the chief interest of this translation at the present day, except what it possesses as a storehouse of good mother-English, comes from the fact that it was one of the books of Shakespeare's moderate library, and one which he had thoroughly read, as is manifest from the use that he made of it in his own works, especially in "Coriolanus," "Julius Caesar," and "Antony and Cleopatra." It was from the worthy knight's folio that he got much of his little Latin and less Greek. He helped himself freely to what was to his purpose; and a comparison of the passages which he borrowed from with the scenes founded upon them is interesting, as showing his use of the very words of the author before him, and as exhibiting the new appearances which those words take on under his plastic hand. We have no space for long extracts; but a short illustration will serve to show that Shakespeare is the best translator of Plutarch into English that we have had. Compare these two passages:—
"Therefore, when she [Cleopatra] was sent unto by divers letters, both from Antonius himself and also from his friends, she made so light of it, and mocked Antonius so much, that she disdained to set forward otherwise, but to take her barge in the river of Cydnus; the poop whereof was of gold, the sails of purple, and the oars of silver, which kept stroke in rowing after the sound of the musick of flutes, bowboys, citherns, viols, and such other instruments as they played upon in the barge. And now for the person of herself, she was laid under a pavillion of cloth of gold of tissue, apparelled and attired like the goddess Venus, commonly drawn in picture; and hard by her, on either hand of her, pretty fair boys apparelled as painters do set forth god Cupid, with little fans in their hands, with which they fanned wind upon her. Her ladies and gentlewomen also, the fairest of them were apparelled like the Nymphs Nereides (which are the Myrmaids of the waters) and like the Graces; some steering the helm, others tending the tackle and ropes of the barge, out of the which there came a wonderful passing sweet savour of perfumes, that perfumed the wharf's side, pestered with innumerable multitudes of people. Some of them followed the barge all along the river side; others also ran out of the city to see her coming in. So that in the end there ran such multitudes of people one after another to see her, that Antonius was left post alone in the market-place, in his imperial seat to give audience."—NORTH'S Plutarch, Life of Antonius, p. 763. Ed. of 1676.
Enobarbus. When she first met Mark Antony, she pursed up his heart upon the river of Cydnus.
Agrippa. There she appeared, indeed; or my reporter devised well for her.
Eno. I will tell you. The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne, Burnt on the water: the poop was beaten gold; Purple the sails, and so perfumed that The winds were lovesick; with them the oars were silver, Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made The water, which they beat, to follow faster, As amorous of their strokes. For her own person, It beggar'd all description: she did lie In her pavilion, (cloth of gold, of tissue,) O'er-picturing that Venus where we see The fancy outwork Nature: on each side her Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids, With divers-color'd fans, whose wind did seem To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool, And what they undid, did.
Agr. Oh, rare for Antony!
Eno. Her gentlewomen, like the Nereids, So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes, And made their bends adornings: at the helm A seeming mermaid steers; the silken tackle Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands, That yarely frame the office. From the barge A strange invisible perfume hits the sense Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast Her people out upon her, and Antony, Enthron'd i' th' market-place, did sit alone, Whistling to the air, which, but for vacancy, Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too, And made a gap in Nature.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act II. Sc. 2.
The operations of Shakespeare's creative imagination are rarely to be observed more distinctly than in such instances as this, where we see the precise source from which he drew, in all its original limitations and native character. Books were to him like ingots of gold, which, passing through the mint of his brain, came out thence stamped coin, current for all time. Viewing some of his plays, it may be said, with no real, though with apparent contradiction, that no man ever borrowed more from books, and yet none ever owed less to them. For the Roman times Plutarch served him, as Holinshed and Hall supplied him for his English histories. Under Plutarch's guidance he walked through the streets of ancient Rome, and became familiar with the conduct of her men. He is more Roman than Plutarch himself, and by divine right of imagination he makes himself a citizen of the Eternal City. While Shakespeare was using Plutarch to such advantage, on the other hand, Ben Jonson seems to have borrowed little or nothing from him in his Roman plays. He got what he wanted out of the Latin authors, and he succeeded in Latinizing his plays,—in giving to his characters the dress, but not the spirit of Rome.
It was toward the end of the seventeenth century that Dryden's translation appeared, and for about fifty years it held much the same place with the reading public that North's had filled for previous generations. It was, no doubt, in this version that Mrs. Fitzpatrick amused herself during her seclusion in Ireland, as she tells Sophia Western, with reading "a great deal in Plutarch's Lives." But this was at length superseded by the translation of the brothers Langhorne, which, spite of its want of vivacity, its labored periods, and formal narrative, has retained its place as the popular version of Plutarch up to the present day. One can hardly help wishing—so little of Plutarch's spirit survives in their dull pages—that a similar fate had overtaken these excellent men to that which carried off the gentle AbbÉ Ricard with the grippe, when he had published but half of his translation of the Philosopher of Cheronaea.
It is a proof of the intrinsic charm of Plutarch's Lives, that thus, notwithstanding the imperfect manner in which they have been, up to this time, presented to English readers, they should have been so constantly and so generally read.[E] They have given equal delight to all ages and to all classes. The heavy folio has been taken from its place on the lower shelves in the quiet libraries of English country-houses, and been read by old men at their firesides, by girls in trim gardens, by boys who cared for no other classic. The cheap double-column octavo has travelled in peddlers' carts to all the villages of New England, to the backwoodsman's cabin in the West. It has taken its place on the clock-shelf, with only the Bible, the "Pilgrim's Progress," and the Almanac for its companions. No other classic author, with, perhaps, the single exception of Aesop, has been so widely read in modern times; and the popular knowledge of the men of Greece and Rome is derived more from Plutarch than from all other ancient authors put together. The often-repeated saying of Theodore Gaza, who, being once asked, if learning should suffer a general shipwreck, and he had the choice of saving one author, which he would select, is said to have replied, "Plutarch,"—"and probably might give this reason," says Dryden, "that in saving him he should secure the best collection of them all,"—this saying is but a sort of prophecy of the decision of the common world, who have chosen Plutarch from all the rest, and find, as Amyot says, "no one else so profitable and so pleasant to read as he."[F]
[Footnote E: We have not spoken of Mr. Long's translations of Select Lives from Plutarch, which were published in the series of Knight's Weekly Volumes, under the title of The Civil Wars of Rome, because, although executed in a manner deserving the highest praise, they presented to English readers but a limited number of Plutarch's biographies. Mr. Clough says, justly, in his Preface, that his own work would not have been needed, had not Mr. Long confined his translations within so narrow a compass.]
[Footnote F: "De tous les auteurs," says the Baron de Grimm, "qui nous restent de l'antiquitÉ, Plutarque est, sans contredit, celui qui a recueilli le plus de vÉritÉs de fait et de spÉculation. Ses oeuvres sont une mine inÉpuisable de lumieres et de connaissance; c'est vraiment l'encyclopÉdie des anciens." MÉmoires Historiques, etc., I., 312.]
Nor is it merely the common mass of readers who have chosen Plutarch as their favorite ancient. The list of great and famous men who have made him their companion is a long one. Men of action and men of thought have taken equal satisfaction in his pages. Petrarch, the first scholar of the Revival, held him in high esteem, and drew from him much of his uncommon learning. Erasmus, the first scholar of the Reformation, made his writings a special study, and translated from the Greek a large portion of his Moral Works. Montaigne has taken pains to tell us of his affection for him, and his Essays are full of the proofs of it. "I never seriously settled myself," he says, "to the reading of any book of solid learning but Plutarch and Seneca."[G] And in another essay he adds,—"The familiarity I have had with these two authors, and the assistance they have lent to my age, and to my book wholly built up of what I have taken from them, oblige me to stand up for their honor."[H] And again he declares,—"The hooks I chiefly use to form my opinions are Plutarch, since he became French, and Seneca."[I] The genial humanity and liberal wisdom of Plutarch claimed the sympathy of Montaigne, while his discursive style and love of story-telling suited no less the taste of his disciple. Montaigne, as it were, makes Plutarch a modern, and uses his books to illustrate the passing times. He introduces him to new characters, and reads his judgment upon them. He finds in him a hundred things that others had not seen. It is a wide step from Montaigne to Rousseau, and yet, spite of the naturalness of the one and the artificiality of the other, there were some points of resemblance between them, and they harmonize in their love for a common master, Rousseau has written of Plutarch as Montaigne felt,—"Dans le petit nombre de livres que je lis quelquefois encore, Plutarque est celui qui m'attache et me profite le plus. Ce fut la premiÈre lecture de mon enfance, et sera la derniÈre de ma vieillesse; c'est presque le seul auteur que je n'ai jamais lu sans en tirer quelque fruit."[J] Plutarch's Lives was one of the few books recommended to Catharine II. of Russia, as she herself tells us, wherewith to solace and instruct herself during the first wretched years of her miserable married life. It is, perhaps, not impossible to trace in some passages of her later life the results of what she then read.
[Footnote G: Essays. Book I., Chapter 25.]
[Footnote H: Essays, II. 23.]
[Footnote I: Ibid. II. 10.]
[Footnote J: Les RÊveries d'un Promeneur Solitaire. QuatriÈme Promenade.]
And thus we might go on accumulating the names of men and women whom all the world knows, who have confessed their obligations to the old biographer,—philosophers like Bacon, warriors like Bussy d'Amboise, poets like Wordsworth; while many a one has owed much to him who has made no open acknowledgment of his debt. Montaigne somewhere complains of the unlicensed stealings from his author; and Udall, in his Preface to the Apophthegms of Erasmus, declares,—"It is a thing scarcely believable, how much, and how boldly as well, the common writers that from time to time have copied out his [Plutarch's] works, as also certain that have thought themselves liable to control and amend all men's doings, have taken upon them in this author, who ought with all reverence to be handled of them, and with all fear to have been preserved from altering, depraving, or corrupting."[K]
[Footnote K: The following passage presents a view of some of the uses to which Plutarch's narratives were turned during the Middle Ages. "Or personne n'ignore que les chroniqueurs du moyen Âge compilaient les faits les plus remarquables de l'Écriture Sainte ou des histoires profanes pour les mÊler À leurs rÉcits. C'est ainsi que ceux qui ont Écrit la vie de Du Guesclin ont mis sur le compte de ce hÉros ce que Plutarque rapporte de plus mÉmorable des grands hommes de l'antiquitÉ."—SOUVESTRE. Les Derniers Bretons. I. 147.]
The question naturally arises, What are the qualities in Plutarch which have made him so universal a favorite, which have attracted towards him men of such opposite tempers and different lives? It is not enough to say that all real biography is of interest,—that every man has curiosity about the life of every other man, and finds in it illustrations of his own. Other writers of lives have not had the same fortune with Plutarch. For one reader of Suetonius or of Diogenes LaËrtius, there are a thousand of Plutarch. Nor is it that the subjects of his biographies are greater or more famous than all other men. Some of the noblest and best known men of Greece and Rome are omitted from Plutarch's list.[L] The true grounds of the general popularity of Plutarch's Lives are not to be found in their subjects so much as in his manner of treating them, and in the qualities of his own nature, as exhibited in his book. At the tomb of Achilles, Alexander declared that he esteemed him happy in having had so famous a poet to proclaim his actions; and scarcely less fortunate were they who had such a biographer as Plutarch to record their lives. He himself has given us his conception of the true office of a biographer, and in this has explained in great part the secret of his excellence. "It must be borne in mind," he says, "that my design is not to write histories, but lives. And the most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men; sometimes a matter of less moment, an expression or a jest, informs us better of their characters and inclinations than the most famous sieges, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest battles whatsoever. Therefore, as portrait-painters are more exact in the lines and features of the face, in which the character is seen, than in the other parts of the body, so I must be allowed to give my more particular attention to the marks and indications of the souls of men; and, while I endeavor by these to portray their lives, may be free to leave more weighty matters and great battles to be treated of by others."[M]
[Footnote L: In Rogers's Recollections, Grattan is reported as saying,—"Of all men, if I could call up one, it should be Scipio Africanus. Hannibal was perhaps a greater captain, but not so great and good a man. Epaminondas did not do so much. Themistocles was a rogue." It is curious that Themistocles is the only one of these men of whom we have a biography by Plutarch. His Lives of Scipio and Epaminondas are lost. Hannibal did not come within the scope of his design.]
[Footnote M: Life of Alexander, at the beginning.]
It is his fidelity to this principle, his dealing with events and circumstances chiefly as they illustrate character, his delineation of the features of the souls of men, that constitutes Plutarch's highest merit as a biographer. He is no historian; he often neglects chronology, and disregards the sequence of events; he omits many incidents, and he avoids the details of national and political affairs. The progress of the advance or decline of states is not to be learned from his pages. But if his Lives be read in chronological order, much may be inferred from them of the moral condition and changes of the communities in which the men flourished whose characters and actions he describes. Biography is thus made to cast an incidental light upon history. The successes of Alexander give evidence of the lowering of the Greek spirit, and illustrate the immemorial weakness of Oriental tyrannies. The victories and the defeats of Pyrrhus alike display the vigor of Republican Rome. The character and the fate of Mark Antony show that vigor at its ebb, and foretell the near fall of the Roman liberties. Thus in his long series of lives of noble Grecians and Romans, the motives and principles which lay at the foundation of the characters of the men who moulded the fate of Greece and Rome, the reciprocal influences of their times upon these men and of these men upon their times, may all be traced with more or less distinctness and certainty. It was not Plutarch's object to exhibit them in sequent evolution, but, in attaining the object which he had in view, he could not fail to make them manifest to the thoughtful reader. His book, though not a history, is invaluable to historians.
But the character of Plutarch himself, not less than his method of writing biography, explains his universal popularity, and gives its special charm and value to his book. He was a man of large and generous nature, of strong feeling, of refined tastes, of quick perceptions. His mind had been cultivated in the acquisition of the best learning of his times, and was disciplined by the study of books as well as of men. He deserves the title of philosopher; but his philosophy was of a practical rather than a speculative character,—though he was versed in the wisest doctrines of the great masters of ancient thought, and in some of his moral works shows himself their not unworthy follower. Above all, he was a man of cheerful, genial, and receptive temper. A lover of justice and of liberty, his sympathies are always on the side of what is right, noble, and honorable. He believed in a divine ordering of the world, and saw obscurely through the mists and shadows of heathenism the indications of the wisdom and rectitude of an overruling Providence. To him man did not appear as the sole arbiter of his own destiny, but rather as an unconscious agent in working out the designs of a Higher Power; and yet, as these designs were only dimly and imperfectly to be recognized, the noblest man was he who was truest to the eternal principles of right, who was most independent of the chances and shiftings of fortune, who, "fortressed on conscience and impregnable will," strove to live in the manliest and most self-supported relations with the world, neither fearing nor hoping much in regard to the uncertainties of the future, and who
"metus omnes et inexorabile fatum Subjecit pedibus."
In his whole character, Plutarch shows himself one of the best examples of the intelligent heathen of the later classic period. His Writings contain the practical essence of the results of Greek and Roman life and thought. His intellect, equally removed from superstition and from skepticism, was open with a large receptiveness, which sometimes approaches to credulity, to the traditions of early wonders, to the reports of recent miracles, and to the stories of the deeds and sayings of men.[N] The evidence upon which he reports is often insufficient to establish the statements that he makes; but his readiness to tell the current stories gives to his biographies a peculiar interest, adding to their entertainment, and at the same time to their value as representations of common beliefs and popular fancies. He is one of the best story-tellers of antiquity, and from his works a series of "Percy Anecdotes" of ancient men might easily be compiled. "Such anecdotes will not," says he, in his Life of Timoleon, "be thought, I conceive, either foreign to my purpose of writing lives, or unprofitable in themselves, by such readers as are not in too much haste, or busied and taken up with other concerns." It is this fulness of anecdote, which, perhaps, more than any other quality of his writings, makes him the favorite of boys as well as of men. He treasures up pithy sayings, and his own reflections are often epigrammatic in expression, and always full of good sense.
[Footnote N: There are two remarkable passages in the Life of Coriolanus which illustrate Plutarch's opinions upon these points. The first (ii. 91) treats of the divine influence on the human will and action; the second (ii. 97-98) relates to the mode of regarding events seemingly incredible. This latter is peculiarly distinguished by its good sense and clear statement. It closes with the memorable saying, "Knowledge of divine things for the most part, as Heraclitus says, is lost to us by incredulity."]
In his Life of Demosthenes, in a passage which is pleasant on account of its personal reference, Plutarch speaks of the advantage that it would be for a writer like himself to reside in some city addicted to liberal arts, and populous, where he might have access to many books, and to many persons from whom he might gather up such facts as books do not contain. "But as for me," he says, "I live in a little town, where I am willing to continue, lest it should grow less." And he goes on to excuse himself for his imperfect knowledge of the Roman tongue, which unfits him to draw a comparison between the orations of Demosthenes and of Cicero. But, although his acquaintance with the structure and powers of the language may have been insufficient to enable him to venture on literary criticism, his acquaintance with the books of the Romans was considerable, and he had thoroughly studied the Greek authors who had written on Roman affairs. His own library, or the libraries to which he had access at Chaeronea, must have been well furnished with the books most important for his studies. He is said to quote two hundred and fifty authors, some eighty of whom are among those whose works have been wholly or partly lost. He made careful use of his materials, which were, of course, more abundant for his Greek than for his Roman narratives. "If we would put the Lives of Plutarch to a severe test," says Mr. Long, than whom no one is better qualified to speak with authority upon the subject, "we must carefully examine his Roman Lives. He says that he knew Latin imperfectly, and he lived under the Empire, when many of the educated Romans had but a superficial acquaintance with the earlier history of their state. We must therefore expect to find him imperfectly informed on Roman institutions; and we can detect him in some errors. Yet, on the whole, his Roman Lives do not often convey erroneous notions; if the detail is incorrect, the general impression is true. They may be read with profit by those who seek to know something of Roman affairs, and have not knowledge enough to detect an error. They probably contain as few mistakes as most biographies which have been written by a man who is not the countryman of those whose lives he writes."
Yet, spite of his general accuracy and his impartial temper, the representations which Plutarch makes of the characters which he describes are not always to be accepted as fair delineations. Unconscious prejudice, or misconception of circumstances and relations, sometimes leads him into apparent injustice. Thus, for example, while he bears hardly upon Demosthenes, and sets out many of his actions in too unfavorable lights, he, on the other hand, interprets the conduct and character of Phocion with manifest indulgence, and presents a flattered portrait of a man whose death turned popular reproaches into pity, but was insufficient to redeem the faults of his life.
Mr. Grote, in his History, passes a very different judgment upon these two men from that to which one would be led by the perusal of Plutarch's narratives merely. And it is an illustration, at once, of the honesty of the ancient biographer, and of the ability of the modern historian, that Mr. Grote should not infrequently derive from Plutarch's own account the means for correcting his false estimate of the motives and the actions of those whom he misjudged.
In an excellent passage in his Preface, Mr. Clough remarks that
"Much has been said of Plutarch's inaccuracy; and it cannot be denied that he is careless about numbers, and occasionally contradicts his own statements. A greater fault, perhaps, is his passion for anecdote; he cannot forbear from repeating stories the improbability of which he is the first to recognize, which, nevertheless, by mere repetition, leave unjust impressions. He is unfair in this way to Demosthenes and Pericles,—against the latter of whom, however, he doubtless inherited the prejudices which Plato handed down to the philosophers.
"It is true, also, that his unhistorical treatment of the subjects of his biography makes him often unsatisfactory and imperfect in the portraits he draws. Much, of course, in the public lives of statesmen can find its only explanation in their political position; and of this Plutarch often knows and thinks little. So far as the researches of modern historians have succeeded in really recovering a knowledge of relations of this sort, so far, undoubtedly, these biographies stand in need of their correction. Yet, in the uncertainty which must attend all modern restorations, it is agreeable, and surely also profitable, to recur to portraits drawn ere new thoughts and views had occupied the civilized world, without reference to such disputable grounds of judgment, simply upon the broad principles of the ancient moral code of right and wrong. …. We have here the faithful record of the historical tradition of Plutarch's age. This is what, in the second century of our era, Greeks and Romans loved to believe about their warriors and statesmen of the past. As a picture, at least, of the best Greek and Roman moral views and moral judgments, as a presentation of the results of Greek and Roman moral thought, delivered, not under the pressure of calamity, but as they existed in ordinary times, and actuated plain-living people, in country places, in their daily life, Plutarch's writings are of indisputable value."
Of all the biographies contained in his work, none might excite greater suspicion of incorrectness than that of Timoleon, on account of the extraordinary character both of the man and of the incidents of his career. His story reads like a romance of the ancient times, like a legend of some half-mythical hero, rather than like the true account of an actual man. There is, perhaps, none among his Lives which Plutarch has written with greater spirit, with livelier sympathies, than this. And yet, in spite of all its seeming improbability, there is little reason to question its essential truth. It corresponds, with some minor exceptions, with all that can be ascertained from other ancient authors who wrote concerning the deliverer of Sicily; and even Mitford, with all his zeal in the cause of tyrants, can find little to detract from the praise of Timoleon, or to diminish our confidence in the truth of Plutarch's account of him.
But, in addition to the interest that belongs to these biographies, from their intrinsic qualities, as affected by the character of Plutarch,—beside the interest which the common reader or the student of biography and history may find in them, they possess a still deeper interest for the student of human nature, in its various modifications, under varying influences, and in different ages, from exhibiting to him, in a long series, many of the chief characters of the heathen world in such form as fits them for comparison with the prominent men of Christian times. The question of the effect of Christianity upon the characters and lives of the leading actors in modern history is not more important than it is difficult of solution. Plutarch, better than any other ancient writer, affords the means of estimating the motives, the principles, the objects, of the men of the old time. We see in his pages what they were; we see the differences between them and the men of later days. How far are those differences exhibitions of inferiority or of superiority? How far do they result from the influence of secondary causes? how far from the change in religious belief?
No man who knows much of the course of history will venture to insist greatly on any essential change for the better having been wrought as yet by Christianity in the manner in which the affairs of the world are carried on. Christianity has not yet been fairly tried. Nations calling themselves Christian are still governed on heathen principles. Christianity has been for the most part perverted and misunderstood. The grossest errors have been taught in its name, are still taught in its name. Falsehood has claimed the authority of truth, and its claim has been granted. The stream which flowed out pure from its source has been caught in foul cisterns, has been led into narrow channels, has been made stagnant in desolate pools and wide-spread weedy marshes. The doctrine of Christ has had thus far in the world but very few hearers who have understood it. Many a modern creed might well go back to heathenism for improvement. This perversion of Christianity is a chief element in the difficulty of tracing the real influence of true Christian teaching upon character. It is this which compels us to draw a parallel, not so much between the actual characters of ancient and modern times, if we would rightly understand the differences between them, as between what we may assume to be the ideal standards of the heathen and the Christian. But to treat this subject with the fulness and in the manner which it deserves would lead us too far from Plutarch, and we have done enough in suggesting it as matter for reflection to those who read his Lives.
One of the most marked differences in the position of the ancient and the modern man is that which has been quietly and gradually brought about by science; but its effect is little recognized by the mass of men or the most wide-spread churches. It is the difference of his recognized relations to the universe. While this earth was supposed to be the central point and main effort of creation, while the earth itself was unknown, and all the regions of space were regarded as void and untenanted, save by the inventions of fancy, man may have seemed to himself a creature of large proportions and of considerable importance. He measured himself with the gods and the half-gods, and found himself not much their inferior. In reading Plutarch, one cannot fail to be struck with the manly self-reliance of his best men of action. Their piety had no weakness of self-abasement in it. They possessed a piety toward themselves as well as toward the gods. Timoleon, who was attended by the good-fortune that waits on noble character, erected in the house which the Syracusans bestowed upon him an altar to [Greek: Automatia], which, as Mr. Clough well remarks, in a note, "is almost equivalent to Spontaneousness. His successes had come, as it were, of themselves." The act was an acknowledgment of divine favor, and an assertion at the same time of his individual independence of action. This spirit of self-dependence was the grandest feature of Greek and Roman heathenism; and it is in this, if in anything, that a superiority of character is manifest in the men of ancient times. The famous passage in Seneca's tragedy, in which Medea asserts herself as sufficient to stand alone against the universe, contains its essence and is its complete expression.
Nutr. Spes nulla monstrat rebus adflictis viam.
Med. Qui nil potest sperare, desperet nihil.
Nutr. Abiere Colchi; conjugis nulla est fides; Nihilque superest opibus e tantis tibi.
Med. Medea superest; hic mare et terras vides, Ferrumque, et ignes, et deos, et fulmina. Medea, Act ii. 162-167.
Here is self-reliance at its highest point; the strength of resolute will measuring itself singly and undauntedly against all forces, human and divine.
But, as a necessary consequent of this spirit, as its implied complement in the balance of human nature, we find, as a distinct trait in the lives of many of the manliest ancients, an occasional prevalence of a spirit of despondency, a recognition of the ultimate weakness of man when brought by himself face to face with the wall of opposing circumstance and the resistless force of Fate. Will is strong, but the powers outside the will are stronger. Manliness may not fail, but man himself may be broken. Neither the teachings of natural religion, nor the doctrines of philosophy, nor the support of a sound heart are sufficient for man in the crisis of uttermost trial. Without something beyond these, higher than these, without a conscious dependence on Omnipotence, man must sink at last under the buffets of adverse fortune. Take the instances of these great men in Plutarch, and look at the end of their lives. How many of them are simple confessions of defeat! Themistocles sacrifices to the gods, drinks poison, and dies. Demosthenes takes poison to save himself from falling into the hands of his enemies. Cicero proposes to slay himself in the house of Caesar, and is murdered only through want of resolution to kill himself. Brutus says to the friend who urges him to fly,—"Yes, we must fly; yet not with our feet, but with our hands," and falls upon his sword. Cato lies down calmly at night, reads Plato on the Soul, and then kills himself; while, after his death, the people of Utica cry out with one voice that he is "the only free, the only undefeated man." It may be said that even in suicide these men displayed the manliness of their tempers. True, but it was the manliness of the deserter who runs the risk of being shot for the sake of avoiding the risks and fatigues of service in war.[O]
[Footnote O: There is a striking passage in Seneca's treatise De Consolatione, which may, perhaps, be not unfairly regarded as the expression of a sentiment common among the better heathens in regard to death,—a sentiment of profound sadness. He says,—"Mors dolorum omnium solutio est et finis, ultra quam mala nostra non exeunt, quae nos in illam tranquillitatem, in qua antequam nasceremur jacuimus, reponit." xix. 4.]
Again, we must be content rather to hint at than to develop the matter for reflection and study that Plutarch affords, and unwillingly pass by, without even a glance at them, large domains of thought that lie within his pages. We are glad to believe, that, through the excellent edition before us, his Lives will be more widely read than ever. In this country, where the tendency of things is to the limited, but equal development of each individual in social and political life, and hence to the production of a uniform mediocrity of character and of action, these biographies are of special value, as exhibiting men developed under circumstances widely contrasted with our own, and who may serve as standards by which to measure some of our own deficiencies or advantages. Here were the men who stood head and shoulders above the others of their times; we see them now, "foreshortened in the tract of time,"—not as they appeared to their contemporaries, but in something like their real proportions. But the greatness of those proportions for the most part remains unchanged. How will it be with our great men two thousand years hence? Will the numerous "most distinguished men of America" appear as large then as they do now? Will the speeches of our popular orators be read then? Will the most famous of our senators be famous then? Will the ablest of our generals still be gathering laurels?
There is a story told by the learned Andrew Thevet, chief cosmographer to Henry III., King of France and Poland, to the effect that one Triumpho of Camarino did most fantastically imagine and persuade himself that really and truly one day "he was assembled in company with the Pope, the Emperor, and the several Kings and Princes of Christendom, (although all that while he was alone in his own chamber by himself,) where he entered upon, debated, and resolved all the states' affairs of Christendom; and he verily believed that he was the wisest man of them all; and so he well might be, of the company." The fantastical imagination of this Triumpho furnishes a good illustration of the reality of companionship which one who possesses Plutarch may have in his own chamber with the greatest and most interesting men of ancient times. If he be worthy, he may make the best of them his intimates. He may live with them as his counsellors and his friends. Whether he will believe that he is "the wisest man of them all" is doubtful; but, however this may be, he will find himself in their company growing wiser, stronger, tenderer, and truer.
It has been well said, that "Plutarch's Lives is the book for those who can nobly think and dare and do."
The Lost and Found; or Life among the Poor. By SAMUEL B. HALLIDAY. New York: Blakeman & Mason. 1859.
It has been asserted—most emphatically by those who have most fairly tried it—that no house was ever built large enough for two families to live in decently and comfortably. Yet in this present year of grace, 1859, half a million of men and women—two-thirds of the population of New York—are compelled, by reason of their own poverty and the avarice of certain capitalists, to live in what are technically known as "tenement-houses," or, more pertinently, "barracks,"—hulks of brick, put up by Shylocks anxious for twenty per cent., and lived in—God knows how—by from four to ninety-four families each. Of 115,986 families residing in the city of New York, only 15,990 are able to enjoy the luxury of an independent home; 14,362 other families live in comparative comfort, two in a house; 4,416 buildings contain three families each, and yet do not come under the head of tenements; and the 11,965 dwelling-houses which remain are the homes of 72,386 families, being an average of seven families, or thirty-five souls to each house!
But this is only an average. In the eleventh ward, 113 rear houses (houses built on the backs of deep lots, and separated only by a narrow and necessarily dark and filthy court from the front houses, which are also "barracks,") contain 1,653 families, or nearly 15 families or 70 souls each; 24 others contain 407 families, being an average of 80 souls to each; and in another ward, 72 such houses contain no less than 19 families or 95 souls each!
This seems shocking. But this is by no means the worst! There are 580 tenement-houses in New York which contain, by actual count, 10,933 families, or about 85 persons each; 193 others, which accommodate 111 persons each; 71 others, which cover 140 each; and, finally, 29—these must be the most profitable!—which have a total population of no less than 5,449 souls, or 187 to each house!
That part of Fifth Avenue which holds the chief part of the wealth and fashion of New York has an extent of about two miles, or, counting both sides of the street, four miles. These four miles of stately palaces are occupied by four hundred families; while a single block of tenement-houses, not two hundred yards out of Fifth Avenue, contains no less than seven hundred families, or 3,500 souls! Seven such blocks, Mr. Halliday pertinently remarks, would contain more people than the city of Hartford, which covers an area of several miles square.
Such astounding facts as these the industrious Buckle of the year 3000, intent upon a history of our American civilization, will quote to the croakers of that day as samples of our nineteenth-century barbarism.
"But," some one may object, "if the houses were comfortably arranged, and land was really scarce, after all, these people were not so badly off."
The "tenement-house," which is now one of the "institutions" of New York, stands usually upon a lot 25 by 100 feet, is from four to six stories high, and is so divided internally as to contain four families on each floor,—each family eating, drinking, sleeping, cooking, washing, and fighting in a room eight feet by ten and a bed-room six feet by ten; unless, indeed,—which very frequently happens, says Mr. Halliday,—the family renting these two rooms takes in another family to board, or sub-lets one room to one or even two other families!
But the modern improvements?
One of the largest and most recently built of the New York "barracks" has apartments for 126 famines. It was built especially for this use. It stands on a lot 50 by 250 feet, is entered at the sides from alleys eight feet wide, and, by reason of the vicinity of another barrack of equal height, the rooms are so darkened that on a cloudy day it is impossible to read or sew in them without artificial light. It has not one room which can in any way be thoroughly ventilated. The vaults and sewers which are to carry off the filth of the 126 families have grated openings in the alleys, and door-ways in the cellars, through which the noisome and deadly miasmata penetrate and poison the dank air of the house and the courts. The water-closets for the whole vast establishment are a range of stalls without doors, and accessible not only from the building, but even from the street. Comfort is here out of the question; common decency has been rendered impossible; and the horrible brutalities of the passenger-ship are day after day repeated,—but on a larger scale. And yet this is a fair specimen. And for such hideous and necessarily demoralizing habitations,—for two rooms, stench, indecency, and gloom, the poor family pays—and the rich builder receives—"thirty-five per cent, annually on the cost of the apartments!"
When a city has half a million of inhabitants who must content themselves with such quarters as these, which, even the beasts of the field would perish in, does any man wonder that 18,000 women were arrested in the last year? that in the three months ending January 31st, 1859, 13,765 arrests were made by the city police, of which over one-third were females, one in six under twenty years of age, and more than one-half under thirty? that in 1855 there was one death in every 26-1/3 of the population? that in 1858 the five city dispensaries were called on to treat (gratuitously) 65,442 infant patients? that, in 1855, 1,938 infants were stillborn, and 6,390, or 1 in 99 of the population, did not live the first year out? while, at the present time, 20,000 children roam the streets, and never enter a schoolroom? With such homes, is there cause for surprise that husbands murder their wives? that mothers abuse their children,—and would kill them, too, were they not profitable little slaves, as Mr. Halliday shows? that men and women live in drunken stupor upon the spoils of young children,—often not their own,—sent out to beg, to steal, or do worse yet? that even the very fag-end of humanity, the sentiment of "honor among thieves," perishes here?
For twenty years, Mr. Halliday has labored among these poor creatures, as the "agent" or missionary of the "American Female Guardian Society and Home for the Friendless," an association of noble-minded and unusually practical men and women. If any of our readers fear lest the fountain of benevolence may dry up within him, we commend Mr. Halliday's book to his perusal. He will find there some little stories which have a pathos beyond tears; some facts—happening, mayhap, within ten minutes' walk of his own fireside—quite as strange as the strangest fiction of Mr. Cobb or Mr. Emerson Bennett. We have not space left for any account of Mr. Halliday's labors. His Society provides not only boys and girls, but even men and women under certain circumstances, with present assistance and shelter, and afterwards a home and work in the country, at a distance from the temptations and miseries of the city. It is curious to read that Mr. Halliday receives frequent orders from various States—even the most distant West—for "a baby," "a boy," "a little girl." It is good to know that in that way many bright young souls are saved from the horrors of "tenement" life, and placed in kind hands; and it is touching to read, that, while many of these little ones are remarkable for good looks and bright spirits, all are reported as singularly quiet, sedate, and submissive. We are glad to know that the types of the paper published by the Society are set up by the women who have a refuge in its Home; and we were sorry to read of one boy, who always ran away from everybody and every place, being at last secured in the House of Refuge, where, being now nearly eleven years old, the monster! "he seems dejected, and I have never seen him smile," says Mr. Halliday. This boy—and a good many others who like the streets and the free air better than the black-hole of a tenement—should go to sea. The sea is an honorable trade, (it used to be a profession,) and the merchants of New York could not do a wiser or a better thing than in providing a school-ship where such lads could be taught the rudiments of seamanship and navigation, or, in default of that, sending them as apprentices in their vessels.
We have two complaints to enter against Mr. Halliday: first, that he has given his book a title which will deter most sensible people from opening it; and, second, that in his valuable report on the tenement-houses, he does not give the names of those enterprising personages who make thirty-five per cent, at the expense, not only of their poor tenants, but of every tax-payer in New York.
The New American Cyclopaedia: a Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge. Edited by GEORGE RIPLEY and CHARLES A. DANA. Vol. VI. Cough—Education. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 8vo. pp. 772.
More than one-third of the task assumed by the editors of this work is now completed; and the best testimony in its favor is, that, although it has been freely criticized, sometimes with closeness and severity, and sometimes with studied harshness and evident malice, its reputation has risen among candid and competent readers with the appearance of each volume. Faults, negative and positive, may undoubtedly be discovered in it; but the same is true, in a greater or less degree, of every other production of human labor; and the eyes neither of malice nor of hypercriticism have been able to find any sufficient reason why this Cyclopaedia should not be accepted as the beat popular dictionary of general knowledge in the English language. As the work advances, the comprehensiveness of its plan, the honesty of its purpose, and the truly catholic and liberal spirit which animates it, become more and more apparent; and the names of the authors of the articles (a list of which is to be published, we believe, with the last volume) sufficiently show the determination of the editors to secure the cooperation of the first talent in the country. Among the contributors to the present volume are the Rev. Dr. Bellows, Edmund Blunt, Dion Bourcicault, Professor Dana of Yale College, Edward Everett, Professor Felton of Cambridge, Parke Godwin, Richard Hildreth, George S. Hillard, William Henry Hurlbut, and Professors Lowell and Parsons of Cambridge.
Of the articles, we especially notice Cranmer, remarkable for the candor and the coolness of perception with which the character of its benevolent and gifted, but inconsistent and vacillating subject, is discussed:—Cromwell, which gives a completer, more authentic, and less prejudiced account of the eventful life of the great Puritan leader than is to be found in any other publication known to us:—Crusades, a complete picture in little of those great fitful blazes of religious enthusiasm by which it flickered into its final extinction; (for, afterward, only a semblance of it was made a stalking-horse by politicians;) and this article is quite a model of epitome:—Cuneiform Inscriptions, in which the writer has presented concisely and clearly the fruits of a careful examination of all the many theories that have been broached with regard to these important and puzzling records of the ancient world, without revealing a preference, if he have one, for any; a wise course, where, in a case of such consequence, the views of learned men are so conflicting, but one not always easily followed:—Damascus Blades, a very interesting, and, for general purposes, a very full description of the peculiarities of those famous, and, it appears, not too much lauded weapons:—Deaf and Dumb, a very copious article of eleven pages, rich in historical and biographical detail, and giving full accounts of the various methods of instruction adopted for this class of persons in all times and countries, with a large body of statistical information upon the subject; an article of great interest, but perhaps undue length:—Death, which conveys much information on a subject as to which the grossest and most deplorable misconceptions prevail; an article equally remarkable for its careful and minute presentation of the phenomena of death and for the placid and philosophical spirit in which it is written:—Deluge, in which, with the ingenuity before shown in the treatment of similar subjects, the various accounts of that event, and the facts and theories relating to it, are laid before the reader in a manner to which no one, of whatever creed, can object, and a new and very ingenious and rational mode of accounting for the phenomenon in question is proposed;—Dog, the fulness of which makes it acceptable to the lover of natural history, the sporting man, and the general reader:—and the last article, Education, one of great value, which describes the systems of instruction pursued in all ages and countries, and which, without entering upon the support of any one of them, presents to the reader such an impartial and detailed summary of the distinguishing features of them all, that he can form an intelligent opinion upon them for himself.
The volume is so meritorious, that we have not looked for faults; but, as we turned the leaves, we noticed a few such as the following:—that the river Dove, in England, should be mentioned as "noted for its picturesque scenery," and yet its association with Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton, its chief glory, be passed unnoticed; and that Discord should be defined as, "in music, a combination of sounds inharmonious and unpleasing to the ear"; whereas, although, out of music, discord means a sound inharmonious and displeasing to the ear, in music discord is the golden bond of harmony, the life and soul of expression, that for which the ear yearns with a yearning that is inexpressible, and enjoys with poignancy of pleasure. We asked, too, if Thomas Dowse should be honored with a page and a half, in which his fall from a tree, his rheumatic fever, and the head winds which prevented him from visiting Europe are chronicled,—while the eminent French painter, Couture, whose use of the pallet is marked by such striking originality, that it has produced an impression upon the works of a generation of painters, has twelve lines! And we can hardly be accused of hypercriticism, in directing the attention of the editors to a sentence like the following, in the article Diptera, p. 498, 2d col.:—"Though this order contains the bloodthirsty mosquito, the disgusting flesh-fly, and many insects depositing their eggs in the bodies of living animals, it is a most useful one, supplying food to insectivorous birds, and themselves [who? what?] consuming decomposing animal and vegetable substances," etc. But these are instances of oversight in not very important matters, or of inaccuracy of expression, or of difference of judgment between the editors and ourselves as to plan, which even in our judgment do not affect the value of the work in which they occur. Graver errors could be found in almost every work of great scope that ever came from the press. We indicate them that we may afford some help toward a nearer approximation to that perfection which is unattainable.
Tom Brown at Oxford: a Sequel to School-Days at Rugby. By THOMAS HUGHES, etc. Part I. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1859.
Many men write successful books; but very few have the power of making a book succeed by naturalness, simplicity, and quiet strength, as Mr. Hughes found the secret of doing in his "School-Days at Rugby." It is so easy to be eloquent,—scarce a modern French novelist but has the gift of it by the ream; so easy to be philosophical,—one has only to begin a few substantives with capitals; and withal it is so hard to be genial and agreeable. Since Goldsmith's day, perhaps only Irving and Thackeray had achieved it, till Mr. Hughes made himself the third. It is no easy thing to write a book that shall seem so easy,—to describe your school-days with such instinctive rejection of the unessential, that whoever has been a boy feels as if he were reading the history of his own, and that your volume shall be no more exotic in America than in England. Yet this Mr. Hughes accomplished; and it was in a great measure due to the fact, that beneath the charm of style the reader felt a real basis of manliness and sincerity.
His second book, "The Scouring of the White Horse," was less successful,—in part from the narrower range of its interest, and still more, perhaps, because it lacked the spontaneousness of the "School-Days." In his first book there was no suggestion of authorship; it seemed an inadvertence, something which came of itself;—but the second was made, and the kind fairy that stood godmother to its elder brother had been sent for and accordingly would not come.
In this first number of his new story Mr. Hughes seems to have found his good genius again, or his good genius to have found him. We meet our old friend Tom Brown once more, and commit ourselves trustingly to the same easy current of narrative and incident which was so delightful in the story of his Rugby adventures. We have no doubt the book will be instructive as well as entertaining; for we believe the author has had some practical experience as teacher in "The Working-Men's College,"—an excellent institution, in which instruction is given to the poor after work-hours, and which, beside Mr. Hughes, has had another man of genius, Mr. Ruskin, among its unpaid professors. The work is to be published simultaneously in this country and in England.
Avolio; a Legend of the Inland of Cos, with other Poems, Lyrical, Miscellaneous, and Dramatic. By PAUL H. HAYNE. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1859. pp. 244.
There is a great deal of real poetic feeling and expression in this volume, and, we think, the hope of better things to come. The author has not yet learned, and we could not expect it, that writers of verse tell us all they can think of, and writers of poetry only what they cannot help telling. The volume would have gained in quality by losing in quantity, but to give too much is the mistake of all young writers, and it is, perhaps, only by making it once for themselves that they can learn to sift. It is so hard at first, when all the sand seems golden! Of old the Muses were three, each of whom must reject something from the poem, but when verse-writing became easier and more traditional, their number was raised to nine, that they might be the harder to please. And what a difficult jury they are! and how long they stay out over their verdict!
But, after all, it seems to us that Mr. Hayne has the root of the matter in him; and we shall look to meet him again, bringing a thinner, yet a fuller book. The present volume shows thoughtfulness, culture, sensibility to natural beauty, and great refinement of feeling. We like the first poem, which is also the longest, best of all. The subject is an imaginative one,—and the choice of a subject is one great test of genuine aptitude and ability. In this poem, and in some of the sonnets, (which are good both in matter and construction,) Mr. Hayne shows a genuine vigor of expression and maturity of purpose. There is a tone of sadness in the volume, as if the author were surrounded by an atmosphere uncongenial to letters. The reader cannot fail to be struck with this, and also with the oddity of two or three political sonnets, in which Mr. Hayne calls on his fellow-citizens to rally for the defence of slavery in the name of freedom. The book is dedicated, in a very graceful and cordial sonnet, to Mr. E.P. Whipple; and it is seldom that South Carolina sends so pleasant a message to Massachusetts. Mr. Hayne need only persevere in self-culture to be able to produce poems that shall win for him a national reputation.
Fairy Dreams; or Wanderings in Elfland. By JANE G. AUSTIN. With Illustrations by Hammatt Billings. Boston: J.E. Tilton & Co. 1859.
This is a pretty book for children, written with no little feeling and fancy, and in a graceful style. The chimney-corner has been abolished by the economical furnace-register, and Santa Claus, if he come at all, must do it like an imp of the pit. The volumes for children to pore over, as they bake by the stove, or stew over the black hole in the floor, have also suffered an economic and practical change. No more fires, no more pretty fancies, seems to have been the doom. Parents who think, as we do, that children inhale practicality with our American atmosphere, and that a little encouragement of the imaginative side of their nature is not amiss, will be glad to drop Mrs. Austin's book into the proper stocking. The stories are well told; that, especially, of the Gray Cat is full of fanciful invention. The book is very prettily manufactured also, though we think publishers are carrying their fondness for tinted paper too far. Salmon-color is too much; the deepest tint allowable is that of cream from a cow that has grazed among buttercups.
Twelve Years of a Soldier's Life in India: Being Extracts from the Letters of the late Major W.S.R. HODSON, B.A., Trinity College, Cambridge; First Bengal European Fusileers, Commandant of Hodson's Horse. Including a Personal Narrative of the Siege of Delhi and Capture of the King and Princes. Edited by his Brother, the Rev. GEORGE H. HODSON, M.A., Senior Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. From the Third and Enlarged English Edition. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1860. 16mo. pp. 444.
This book should be widely read; or we might better say, this book will be widely read,—so widely, indeed, that there is no need for us to repeat its story here, or to give an abstract of its contents. Hodson was a man worth knowing, and his letters show him to us as he was. The special qualities of which Englishmen are proud, as the traits of national character, belonged in an uncommon degree to him. He was eminently truthful, staunch, and brave; he had a clear eye, a strong and ready hand, cool judgment, stern decision, and a tender heart. He might have borne the old Douglas motto on his shield.
He was trained under as good teachers as a young man ever had. At Rugby, under Dr. Arnold; then, for a year or two, living among the ennobling associations of Trinity College; then at Guernsey, as a young soldier, under Sir William Napier; then in India, with James Thomason, Lieutenant-Governor of the Northwest Provinces, one of the best rulers that India ever knew, "facile princeps of the whole Indian service"; and finally passing from him to serve under Sir Henry Lawrence, the noblest soldier of India, a man for whom common words of praise are insufficient,—Hodson had an unrivalled set of masters, and his life proves him to have been worthy of them.
The British rule in India is of such sort as to test the qualities of its officers to the last point. If they have anything good in them, it is sure to be brought into full action. Such responsibilities are thrown on them as at once to stimulate them to exertion of their best powers. Men who in the ordinary fields of work might remain all their lives mere commonplace mediocrities, under the discipline of Indian service, find out and show their real value. The Indian mutiny exhibited how common the rare qualities of foresight, energy, and enduring courage, and the still higher qualities of submission, patience, and faith, had become among those against whom the natives rose like a flood to overwhelm them in destruction. The little bands of English at Cawnpore, at Lucknow, and at many a less famous station, stood like rocks against the dashing of the storm. The qualities that enabled them to win the admiration even of their enemies, and to call forth the respect and the sorrow of the world, were the result, not of sudden stress, but of long and habitual training. The reader of Hodson's memoir will gain a knowledge of the processes by which such characters are developed.
The letters which make up the larger part of this book are written with animation and simplicity, and are full of spirited accounts of adventure, of rough and various service. The narrative which they afford of the siege of Delhi is of absorbing interest. The picture of the little army of besiegers, wasted by continual disease and exposure to the heats of an Indian summer,—worn by the constant sallies and attacks of a host of enemies trained in arms,—saddened by the receipt of evil tidings from all quarters,—feeling that upon their final success rested not only the hope of the continuance of British supremacy in India, but the very lives of those dear to them,—and, worst of all, compelled to submit to a succession of incompetent generals, whose timidity and irresolution baffled the best designs of officers and the dashing bravery of the troops;—the pictures which Hodson gives of this little army, of its unflagging spirit and resolution, and its valorous deeds, are drawn with such truth as to bring the successive scenes vividly before the imagination. Hodson himself was one of the best and most useful of a noble corps of officers. His modesty does not hide the grounds of the enthusiasm which was felt for him by his men,—of the admiration that he excited among his fellows. The story of the capture of the King and Princes, after the fall of Delhi, is one of the most interesting stories of daring ever told. You hold your breath as you read it. It was a gallant deed, done in the most gallant way.
Altogether, the book is one of thoroughly manly tone and temper,—a book to make those who read it manlier, to put to shame the cowardice of easy life, to make men more honest, more enduring, more energetic, by the example which it sets before them. Hodson's life was short, but its result will last. There was no sham about it, no meanness,—nothing but what was large, true, and generous. As one turns the last page, it is with no regret that such a man should have died in the fight, for he was a Christian soldier. He was the preux chevalier of our times. The words in which Sir Ector mourns for his brother, Sir Lancelot, are fit for his epitaph. "'Ah, Sir Lancelot,' said hee, 'thou were head of all christen knights! An now I dare say,' said Sir Ector, 'that, Sir Lancelot, there thou liest, thou were never matched of none earthly knight's hands; and thou were the curtiest knight that ever bare shield; and thou were the truest friend to thy lover that ever bestrood horse; and thou were the truest lover of a sinful man that ever loved woman; and thou were the kindest man that ever strook with sword; and thou were the goodliest person that ever came among presse of knights; and thou were the meekest man and the gentlest that ever eate in hall among ladies; and thou were the sternest knight to thy mortall foe that ever put speare in the rest.'"
Friends in Council. A Series of Readings and Discourse thereon. A New Series. 2 vols. Boston: James Munroe & Co. 1860.
The best class of readers in England and America are sure to give a cordial welcome to a new book by Mr. Helps. Nothing better need be said of this second series of "Friends in Council" than that it is a worthy sequel of the first. It is the work of a man of large experience and wide culture,—of one who is at the same time a student and a man of the world, versed in history and practically acquainted with affairs. Refined thoughtfulness and common sense combine to give value to all that Mr. Helps writes, and he is master of a style at once manly and elegant, quiet and strong. Two famous lines, which occur in a passage quoted in these volumes, serve well to characterize their merits:—
"Though deep, yet clear,—though gentle, yet not dull,— Strong without rage,—without o'erflowing, full."
Such books have a special worth in these days of hasty writing. They admit one to the companionship of thoughtful, well-mannered gentlemen. One feels that he has been in good company, after reading them; and, whatever he may have gained of wisdom from the friends he has met in council, he is also improved in temper and in manners by their society.
The conversations which form the setting of the essays in these volumes enable Mr. Helps to present in an easy and effective way various sides of the important questions that he discusses. Completeness of statement is rarely to be obtained upon any of the deeper topics of life. If the golden side be displayed, the silver side is likely to be hidden. The same man holds various, though not irreconcilable opinions upon the same subject, according to the different lights in which he views it or the different phases it presents. The most honest man must sometimes appear inconsistent for the sake of truth; and the clearer a man's own convictions, the wider will be his charity for those of others. Mr. Helps exhibits admirably this natural and necessary diversity of thought, existing even where there is a coincidence of principle and of aim.
The essays upon War and Despotism are, perhaps, the ablest in these volumes, and deserve to be seriously viewed in the light of passing events. They are distinguished by freedom from exaggeration and by their moderation of statement. As in so many of the productions of the best English writers at the present day, something of despondency in regard to the condition of the world is to be traced in them. And truly, to one who looks at the state of Europe and of our own country, there is more need for faith than ground of hope.
But at this Christmas season, this season of peace and good-will, let all our readers read the essay on Pleasantness. And if they will but take its teachings to heart, we can wish them, with the certainty of the fulfilment of our wish, a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.
The Marvellous Adventures and Rare Conceits of Master Tyll Owlglass. Newly collected, etc., by KENNETH R.H. MACKENZIE. With Illustrations by Crowquill. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1860. pp. xxxix., 255.
This is a very beautiful edition of a very amusing book. The preface and notes of Mr. Mackenzie will commend it to scholars, while the stories themselves will divert both young and old. A book of this kind, which can keep life in itself for more than three hundred years, must have some real humor and force at bottom. It is as good a specimen of mediaeval fun as could anywhere be found. With nothing like the satiric humor of the "Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum," it appeals to a much larger circle of readers. We are very glad to meet it again in so handsome a dress, and with such really clever illustrations. It is just the book for a Christmas gift.
Reynard the Fox, after the German Version of Goethe. By THOMAS JAMES ARNOLD, Esq. With Illustrations from the Designs of Wilhelm von Kaulbach. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 346 and 348 Broadway. 1860. pp. 226.
It is very well that Mr. Arnold should tell us on the title-page that his version is after that of Goethe. Nothing could be truer,—and it is a very long way after, too. By substituting the slow and verbose pentameter of what is called the classic school of English poetry for the remarkably forth-right and simple eight-syllabic measure of the original, the translator has contrived to lose almost wholly that homely flavor of the old poet, which Goethe carefully preserved. We do not mean to say that this is altogether a bad version, as such things go; on the contrary, it has a great deal of spirit, as it could hardly fail to have, unless it belied its model altogether;—but it is as far as possible from giving any notion of the characteristic qualities of "Reinaert de Vos." If Mr. Arnold must change the measure, Chaucer's "Nonnes Preestes Tale" would have been a safer guide to follow.
The book, in spite of its American title-page, is wholly of English manufacture. It is a very handsome volume, and Kaulbach's illustrations are copied with tolerable success, though with inevitable inferiority to the German originals. Kaulbach is hardly so happy an animal-painter as Grandville, but he has at least given his subjects in this case a more human expression than in his monstrous caricatures of Shakspeare.
