boldly encountered, it would become much less fearful in a very few years. The English leanings and prejudices are so contrary to Romanism that it is only the semblance of persecution and the fortuitous opportunities of recent years which have occasioned its recent prominence. Would not the Tractarian movement have come to a point sooner, have gained less strength, have effected less for the Roman Church, if the Oxford men had from early youth seen exactly what Catholicism was? Familiarity will spoil romance: the charm of Romanism is its mystery. But anyhow, if what has been said be in the least true, if Oxford is, as we have hinted, to educate our thinkers, - how absurd to train them in ignorance of what is how peculiarly foolish to deny them the instruction of associating with people formed in other disciplines and bred in other faiths, the only sure mode of comprehending those disciplines and estimating those faiths! how wretched to make them say exactly beforehand what they will believe, and that with an accuracy which hardly any cultivated man would like to apply even to his most elaborate or mature speculations! What wonder if this ends in the common doctrine that the Articles are "forms of thought," irremediable categories of the understanding, - certain by nature, as clear as if they were themselves revealed? - Lastly, Oxford has vexed the English people she has crossed their one speculative Affection, she has encountered their one speculative Hatred. So often as a Tractarian clergyman enters a village, and immediately there is a question of candlesticks and crosses and rood-lofts and piscina, immediately people mutter, "Why, that is Oxford!" More than that: a hundred educated men (as Romanists boast), with her honors to their names and her token on their faces and her teaching on their minds, have deserted to the enemy of England. This can not be answered. These people are ever busy; their names are daily in the papers; they visit out-of-theway places; they are gazed at in the quietest towns: and wherever one of the grave figures passes, with a dark dress and a pale face and an Oxonian caution, he leaves an impression, the system which trained him must be bad. Such is our axiom. Tell an Englishman that a building is without use, and he will stare; that it is illibera!, and he will survey it; that it teaches Aristotle, and he will seem perplexed; that it don't teach science, and he won't mind but only hint that it is the pope, and he will arise and burn it to the ground. Some one has said this concerning Oxford; so let her be wise. Without are fightings, within are fears. LIST OF ALTERATIONS. EXCLUSIVE OF BRACKETED ADDITIONS AND OF CHANGES TO WHICH ATTENTION IS CALLED IN FOOT-NOTES. 66 FOURTH VOLUME. 6- was " for "is." 26- -"palpable" and "impalpable " transposed. without formally "has" for "have." 3 66 66 16. for "formally without." hope" for "hoped." legislature" for "legislative." "are" for "were." 61, 64, 66 21 16 136, 138, 139, 27 'separable" "legislature" for "legislative." 34 "-dence" for "-dent." 35-"chose" for "choose." 31, 32-"does" for "did" in each. 356, 28-"it is" for "they are." 3-"place for "have placed." 181, 66 184, 66 191, 66 192, 239, 243, 66 251, 66 263, 66 15 306, 66 30 12-"polity" and "no polity" transposed, comma put before 7, 21, 27-"polities" for "politics" in each. 31 "this" for "these." 14 "have been" for "be." 10-"have been" for " be. 24-"or" canceled before "had." 2- "have" for "had." 33-"was" for "is." 17 "are - -"or" for "and." 16- "so" for "how." 11-"or" for "and." 31-" polities of" for "politics or." 11"were" for "are." FIFTH VOLUME. Page 71, line 30-"which" for "who." 86, 26-"were" for " was. 16-"which (at" for "(which at." 112, 66 20 66 5 5 "spoke" for " spake." "shall" for "should." 66 money lender" for "money lenders." "exist" for "exists." are for "is." "their" for "his." 2-"adopt for "have adopted." 1-"is" for "are." LITERARY STUDIES. THE FIRST EDINBURGH REVIEWERS.* (1855.) IT is odd to hear that the Edinburgh Review was once thought an incendiary publication. A young generation, which has always regarded the appearance of that periodical as a grave constitutional event (and been told that its composition is intrusted to Privy Councilors only), can scarcely believe that once, grave gentlemen kicked it out of doors; that the dignified classes murmured at "those young men" starting such views, abetting such tendencies, using such expressions; that aged men said, "Very clever, but not at all sound." Venerable men, too, exaggerate. People say the Review was planned in a garret ; but this is *A Memoir of the Rev. Sydney Smith. By his Daughter, Lady Holland. With a Selection from his Letters. Edited by Mrs. Austin. 2 vols. Longmans. Lord Jeffrey's Contributions to the Edinburgh Review. A New Edition, in one Volume. Longmans. Lord Brougham's Collected Works. Vols. i., ii., iii. Lives of Philosophers of the Reign of George III. Lives of Men of Letters of the Reign of George III. Historical Sketches of the Statesmen who flourished in the Reign of George III. Griffin. The Rev. Sydney Smith's Miscellaneous Works, including his Contribu tions to the Edinburgh Review. Longmans. The Earl of Buchan, a fanatical Tory Scotchman, had the number for October, 1808 (containing Jeffrey's article on Don Cevallos, which caused Scott to sever his connection with the Edinburgh and led to the foundation of the Quarterly), laid on the floor of the lobby in his Edinburgh house and the front door opened, and then solemnly kicked it into the street. See Lord Cockburn's "Life of Jeffrey," Vol. i, page 151, note. - ED. A rather intense expression, even though Jeffrey himself calls it "the dear little Lawnmarket garret." Jeffrey was poor, but many fine people lived in anything but fine quarters in old Edinburgh. — ED. VOL. I. - 1 (1) incredible. Merely to take such a work into a garret would be inconsistent with propriety; and the tale that the original conception, the pure idea to which each number is a quarterly aspiration, ever was in a garret, is the evident fiction of reminiscent age, striving and failing to remember. * Review writing is one of the features of modern literature: many able men really give themselves up to it. Comments on ancient writings are scarcely so common as formerly; no great part of our literary talent is devoted to the illustration of the ancient masters but what seems at first sight less dignified, annotation on modern writings, was never so frequent. Hazlitt started the question whether it would not be as well to review works which did not appear, in lieu of those which did; wishing as a reviewer to escape the labor of perusing print, and as a man to save his fellow creatures from the slow torture of tedious extracts. But though approximations may frequently be noticed, though the neglect of authors and independence of critics are on the increase, this conception, in its grandeur, has never been carried out. We are surprised at first sight that writers should wish to comment on one another, it appears a tedious mode of stating opinions, and a needless. confusion of personal facts with abstract arguments: and some, especially authors who have been censured, For the story of its establishment, besides Sydney Smith's account in the Preface to his Works, which makes it a sort of "lark," started on a "sudden thought" like that which makes Canning's heroes "swear eternal friendship," see Jeffrey's more probable account written to Robert Chambers in 1846 (Cockburn's "Life," Vol. i., pages 109, 110), which shows that (as was likely) there were many anxious consultations and grave doubts. The meeting in his tenement was merely the first serious council over it.-ED. "Essay on Criticism," in the "Table Talk.” Indeed it has, more than once. The sometime famous "Rolliad" (which existed only in the "extracts" made by its "reviewers") was one instance. A still racier one was that of "Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk," "reviewed" with copious 66 extracts by Lockhart in Blackwood's for February, 1819: the "review" excited so much curiosity that Lockhart and others actually wrote the book (ingeniously incorporating the "extracts "), and Blackwood published it as a "second edition.” — ED. |