Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/513

 io» s. iv. NOV. 25, loos.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 423 protest An enormous proportion of it consists of denunciations of the Papists, and announcements of the approach of the end of the world. It is not too much to say chat he is principally occupied in disseminating, as widely as possible, mutual dis- trust and indignation between two great religious communities, and in unsettling the minds of his own immediate flock in the pursuit of all their ordinary duties.'' Spurgeon was also severely dealt with; but in many ways he quietly took advantage of criticism. He had criticisms and caricatures bound into volumes, and they were preserved by him at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. Bellew and Gumming are almost forgotten, but the name of Spurgeon will for long years yet to come kindle a glow in many hearts. The Saturday Review took the same course in regard to the literature of the day as it did to foreign and home politics: it attempted no complete record, but merely reviewed such books as were considered to be of special interest. From the first two volumes I have made the following notes. On November 10th, 1855, Longfellow is congratulated on his new poem, 'The Song of Hiawatha,' and "on the success which has attended his labour." The reviewer recog- nizes him as "a scholar and a poet In him we shall find, if not always masculine vigour and terseness, yet always freshness, tenderness, simplicity — the thoughtful brain of a scholar, and the loving heart of a man." In the same number Christopher North's "withall their faults, which are palpable enough, a valuable contribution to our literature. They are the effusions of a powerful mind—wide and various in their subject, embracing the current topics of their time, and throwing no small light on its history The pervading spirit is noble and generous. There is no smallness or soreness, no petty personal jealousy, no flippant disparagement, no malignity. Christopher North is eager to acknowledge merit in a political opponent. Even while he is holding up some unhappy wight to the derision of all mankind, his own temper is one of thorough kindliness and good humour. On the 24th of November Browning's ' Men and Women ' is subjected to a furious attack. It is described as "a book of madness and mysticism power •wantonly wasted, and talent deliberately per- verted We can find nothing but a set purpose to be obscure, and an idiot captivity to the jingle of lludibrastic rhyme. This idle weakness really appears to be at the bottom of half the daring nonsense in this most daringly nonsensical book." Goethe's ' Life and Works,' edited by Lewes, is reviewed on the 8th of December, and in the same number Brougham's contributions to The Edinburgh Review are described as " a most interesting record of the manifold activity of an extraordinarily powerful mind." Macaulay's third and fourth volumes of his- History' are the subject of three articles, the first appearing on the 29th of December. The historian's style is thus described :— ' He seldom substitutes in the second clause of a sentence a pronoun or an equivalent expression for a word which has been used in the first. The antithesis is completed and pointed by the repeti- tion of the same subject in relation to predicates- which are always various, and often studiously contradictory. Almost every page of the ' History'' furnishes instances of this verbal peculiarity Mr. Macaulay may justly boast, notwithstanding the objections which critics may urge against his composition, that he has taught thousands to read> history who had never before attempted so dry a study—and that one of the most obscure portions of English annals is now more familiar to the great mass of educated persons than the struggles of the Commonwealth, the wars of Marlborough, or the- loss of America." On January 19th. 1856, George Meredith's. 1 The Shaving of Shagpat1 receives the highest praise:— " A quaint title ushers in an original and charm- ing book, the work of a poet and a story-teller worthy to rank with the rare story-tellers of the East, who have produced, in the ' Arabian Nights,' the 'Iliad' of romance Although written in prose, liberally sprinkled with verses, the work is a poem throughout. In every page we are aware of the poet The charm [of the book] has surpassed that of any Eastern work we ever read since the Arabian tales; and George Meredith, hitherto- known to us as a writer of graceful, but not very remarkable verse, now becomes the name of a man of genius—of one who can create." In the same number an affectionate tribute- is paid to Humboldt in a review of his ' Kleine Schriften,' dedicated by him to " the greatest geologist of the present day, the most acute observer of nature," Leopold von Buch, "in memory of a sixty years' un- troubled friendship." Rogers's 'Table Talk ' brings forth a light, chatty article on the 16th of February— Rogers, who " had known all, or nearly all, the celebrities of Eng- land. His first poem was published in 1786, before Darwin, now long forgotten, was heard of—before Crabbe had written his best poems—while Cowper was gaining a little celebrity—and while Johnson still reigned in Bolt Court." He saw Lady Hamilton, at a party given- to the Prince of Wales, go through all those " attitudes" which have often been engraved. He saw Nelson spin a teetotum with his one- hand during a whole evening for the amuse- ment of some children. Of Wellington it is related that he was once in danger of being drowned at sea. It was bedtime, and the captain told him, " It will soon be all over with us." " Very well," answered the Duke ;.
 * Noctes' are noticed,