From The Examiner. have no objection to be taught by an angelic The Correspondence of Leigh Hunt. Edited little child. "For God's sake, let us say no more of these unhappy disputes, be the mistakes whose they may. I speak as one who am out of the pale of them, which enables me to be calmer than those who are in it: and if this will leave me without any merit in trying to put an end to them, compared with those who will agree to do so (as I am others will do themselves will be only so heartily sure it would), the honor which the much the greater. But what signify such words among friends and fellow-creatures? If there were anybody left who distrusted the simplicity, the honest kindliness, and the depths of a genuine religion in Leigh Hunt's nature, his eldest son has, by publishing his letters, wiped away the last stain of unkind thought from his father's memory. We do not like the publishing of private letters, least of all do we approve the publication when the correspondents are al-The question is, not who can have most most all of them living. But here the matter is, on the whole, so simple, the correspondents give living assent to the act of publication, and the purpose is so sacred, that the volumes can be no occasion of offence; their single purpose being, indeed, the removal of offence. How true a Christian speaks in this letter, written by Leigh Hunt, after the death of a child, to heal a family sore the source of which had, indeed, been his intercession between suffering and wrath : "Highgate, 25th September, 1827. “You know what took place on Saturday last with my poor little boy. "I think, if you could see his little gentle dead body, calm as an angel, and looking wise in his innocence beyond all the troubles of this earth, you would agree with me in concluding (especially as you have lost little darlings of your own) that there is nothing worth contesting here below, except who shall be kindest to one another. honor, not even who has been most right, but who can agree that there shall be no more question at all. Nobody knows of this letter but Thornton and his mother. There has not been a hint of it; and I shall keep it a secret till the moment when I think you have received and considered it, at which moment I shall communicate the copy of it elsewhere; that nobody may be able to say that they have been the first to agree to it. And so in the hope that it may turn to good (which is a hope, I confess, I strongly entertain), I remain your mourning but affectionate friend, "LEIGH HUNT. "P.S.-Shall we not all meet together very speedily at Ham, or Highgate, or St. Paul's not one of the merriest of my old evenings? Churchyard, and have one of the best, if Allow me to say without meaning offence to any one, that as the object of this letter is to end and not continue discussion, the readers will be good enough not to discuss anything past in their answer to it, nor take it amiss if I decline receiving any answer, in case they cannot oblige me with a happy one. The only additional thing I have to say, provided the latter comes (and it need only be verbal, if writing is troublesome), is, that while care be taken among ourselves that no allusion be made to past differences, unless to show our joy that they are over, be said but that the differences have been so, among our other friends, nothing need put an end to, and nobody remains in the and keep us all in peace and charity. And wrong. so, once more, God bless you! "There seems to be something in these moments, by which life recommences with the survivors:-I mean, we seem to be beginning in a manner, the world again, with calmer, if with sadder thoughts, and wiping our eyes, and re-adjusting the burden on our backs, to set out anew on our roads, with a greater wish to help and console one another. Pray, let us be very much so, and prove it by drowning all disputes of the past in the affectionate tears of this moment. We cannot be sure that an angel is not now looking at us, and that we shall not bring a smile on his face, and a blessing upon our heads, by showing him an harmonious instead of a divided family. It is the only picture we can conceive of heaven itself. He was always for settling disputes when he saw them. He showed this disposition to the last; and though in the errors and frailties common to us all, we may naturally Such words never were meant to be printed, dislike to be taught by one another, we can but there are none who may not be the wiser "When a trouble takes place, of any sort, the best way is to try and turn it into a good, and make greater peace than there was before. The question is not of merit or demerit, on which, perhaps, all the circumstances of life being considered, all persons to one another." are equal; but we can be more or less kind and the gentler for having read them. Let- hundreds of men of letters, and has been anters from other men here and there illustrate swerable to the publishers and to the public Leigh Hunt's correspondence. His own easy for the whole. Of course he has been under and idiomatic English when he first became a contributor to the Quarterly Review greatly alarmed the editor. A lecture from Macvey Napier on dignity of style was so wholly occupied with its subject, that some harshness of phrase was not observed, which wounded Hunt, as it would have hurt even a less sensitive man. The perplexed reviewer went for counsel to Macaulay, who replied with tact and kindness. We may quote the letter, as it bears upon the main question of style as directly as the letter we have just quoted illustrates personal character: "Albany, 29th October, 1841. the necessity of very frequently correcting, cles; and is now as little disturbed about disapproving, and positively rejecting artisuch things as Sir Benjamin Brodie about performing a surgical operation. To my own personal knowlege, he had positively refused to accept papers even from so great a man as Lord Brougham. He only a few months ago received an article on foreign style was not to his taste; and he altered it politics from an eminent diplomatist. The to an extent which greatly irritated the author. Mr. Carlyle formerly wrote for the Review,-a man of talents, though, in my opinion, absurdly overpraised by some of his admirers. I believe, though I do not know, that he ceased to write because the oddities of his diction and his new words compounded à la Teutonique drew such strong remonstances from Napier. I could mention other instances, but these are sufficient to show you what I mean. He is really a good, friendly, and honorable man. He wishes for your assistance, but he thinks your style too colloquial. He conceives that, as the editor of the Review, he ought to tell you what he thinks. And, having during many years been in the habit of speaking his whole mind on such matters almost weekly to all sorts of people, he expresses himself with more plainness than delicacy. I shall probably have occasion to write to him in a day or two. I will tell him that one or two of his phrases have hurt your feelings, and that, I think, he would have avoided them if he had taken time to consider. "MY DEAR SIR,-I do not wonder that you are hurt by Napier's letter, but I think you a little misunderstand him. I am confident that he has not taken any part of your conduct ill, and equally confident that by the expression gentleman-like, which certainly he might have spared, he meant not the smallest reflection either on your character or manners. I am certain that he means merely a literary criticism. His taste in composition is what would commonly be called classical, not so catholic as mine, nor so tolerant of those mannerisms which are produced by the various tempers and trainings of men, and which, within certain limits, are, in my judgment, agreeable. Napier would thoroughly appreciate the merit of a writer like Bolingbroke or Robertson; but would, I think, be unpleasantly affected by the peculiarities of such a writer as Burton, Sterne, or Charles Lamb. He thinks your style too colloquial; and, no doubt, it has a very colloquial character. I wish it to retain that character, which to me is exceedingly pleasant. But I think that the danger against which you have to guard is excess in that direction. Napier is the very man to be startled by the smallest excess in that direction. Therefore I am not surprised that, when you proposed to send him a chatty article, he took fright, and recommended dignity and severity of style; and care to avoid what he calls vulgar expressions, such as bit. The question is purely one of taste. It has nothing to do with the morals or the honor. "As to the tone of Napier's criticism, you must remember that his position with regard to the Review, and the habits of his life, are such that he cannot be expected to pick his words very nicely. He has superintended more than one great literary undertaking,the Encyclopædia Britannica, for example. Charles Lamb is among the correspondHe has had to collect contributions from ents. Among other talk he writes: "If you ask my advice, it is this. Tell him that some of his expressions have given you pain; but you feel that you have no right to resent a mere difference of literary taste; that to attempt to unlearn a style already formed and to acquire one completely different would, as he must feel, be absurd, and that the result would be something intolerably stiff and unnatural; but that, as he thinks that a tone rather less colloquial would suit better with the general character of the Review, you will, without quitting the casy and familiar manner which is natural to you, avoid whatever even an unreasonably fastidious taste could regard as vulgarity. This is my honest advice. You may easily imagine how disagreeable it is to say anything about a difference between two persons for both of whom I entertain a sincere regard.-Believe me, dear sir, yours very truly, T. B. MACAULAY." "I have got acquainted with Mr. Irving, the Scotch preacher, whose fame must have reached you. He is an humble disciple at the foot of Gamaliel S. T. C. Judge how his own sectarists must stare when I tell you he has dedicated a book to S. T. C., acknowledging to have learnt more of the nature of Faith, Christianity, and Christian Church, from him than from all the men he ever conversed with. He is a most amiable, sincere, modest man in a room, this Boanerges in the temple. Mrs. Montague told him the dedication would do him no good. That shall be a reason for doing it,' was his answer. Judge, now, whether this man be a quack." The volume is hardly one to discuss, or largely to quote from. Its place is beside Leigh Hunt's "Autobiography," to which it adds much of that personal coloring which was wanting to an autobiographer who talked more willingly of his friends than of himself. THE RAILWAYS OF THE WORLD.-It is | United States, estimated that there are now completed and in Confederate States, operation throughout the world 70,000 miles of Mexico, railway, which cost the sum of $5,850,000,000. The extent of railway known to be in operation, from actual returns, according to the London Engineer, is as follows :— Cuba,. Peru, 22,384 1-2 8,784 20 500 49 1-2 111 1-2 8 195 50 32,102 1-2 69,072 Scotland, Total, Great Britain and Colonies, 14,277 Continental Railways. Grand total of all the railways in the world, It will be seen that the United States possess the most extensive system of railways of any country in the world. This method of intercommunication has been developed with extraordinary rapidity in the United States, and although temporarily checked by the civil war, will, when the rebellion is crushed, be even more rapidly extended than in the past. PEACE CONGRESS PROPOSED IN 1693.-Who is the author of a little book, of which the following is the title : "An Essay towards the Present and Future Peace of Europe, by the Establishment of an European Dyet, Parliament, or Estates. Beati Pacifici. Cadant Arma Soga (sic). London: Printed in the Year 1693. 24mo, 67 pp., and 3 pp. To the Reader.'" The writer proposes that the sovereign princes of Europe should meet by their stated deputies in a General Diet, Estates, or Parliament; and then establish rules of justice for sovereign princes to observe to one another. The volume has the appearance of having been privately printed, and the copy which is here described belonged to Bindley and Heber, having been formerly in the possession of an earl (Qu. the name), whose coronet is on the side of the book. -Notes and Queries. P. C. P. From The Boston Daily Advertiser, 18 March. BRITISH SYMPATHY AND JUDGMENT. IT is not a little interesting to see the rapidity with which our people are becoming emancipated from their dependence upon English opinion. Whoever will recall the extraordinary interest with which Mr. Russell's earlier letters from this country were looked for, will be sensible how great is the change. His reports aud the comments of the London Times were followed from week to week, with intense eagerness to learn the view which a foreign observer would take of our affairs. And even before that, English comments on the progress of the secession movement were watched and repeated with never-failing curiosity. It was not a dignified position however for a great nation, conscious of being in the right, to stand thus listening for a European echo; but the nation, in extremity, craved sympathy for its misfortunes and condemnation of traitors, and thought that both were sure to come from our kindred in blood. It was the common failing of our human nature,-aggravated, we must add, by a long education in a half provincial deference to English judg ment. Without allusion to any other changes, we have now to notice an indifference which strangely contrasts with the old anxiety. The letters of the correspondent Russell and the essays of the Times cannot now find readers on this side of the ocean. The other organs of English opinion equally fail to awaken attention. If any English statesman now proclaims his views upon our affairs, his words are noticed only as they seem to bear upon the military question of the day. We do not say that it is or is not well to be thus negligent of the praise or censure of others. The fact is as we have stated. Our people have sounded the depths of foreign criticism and show no disposition any longer to look to it as a test of their conduct. And we apprehend that this liberation is not temporary merely, but that it will prove lasting, and that increased independence and self-reliance as a nation will be one of the compensations which are to offset the miseries of this unhappy contest. It seems the more probable that this new independence will be lasting, from the peculiar manner in which the nation has been forced into it. This is no voluntary emancipation. Our people would gladly have leaned upon that moral support which they so fondly hoped to receive. No nation ever suffered more severely from wounded vanity, or ever endured a more mortifying surprise, than our own, when instead of sympathy it found cold indifference, and thinly disguised contempt in the place of respect. It was purged as if by fire, of all remnant of regard or desire for, or reliance upon opinion abroad. It was forced to pass through the heaviest trial that can befall a nation, not only unaided and unsupported, but with the constant assurance of disapproval and the constant suspicion of worse; and we have little belief that when the crisis is past and less important topics fill the public mind, the country will resume that dependence upon the opinion of others, which it has now been compelled to cast off with such a signal sacrifice of national pride. The cause of the change, however, has not been merely that English opinion has proved unfavorable. It has proved to be worthless, whether favorable or otherwise. With a few signal exceptions, the opinions of the English press and of English public men have been based upon palpably defective information, and glaring misrepresentation of fact. The ignorance of fact and history may not surprise and ought not to wound us; but it is impossible to respect the judgment, which confidently pronounces opinions drawn from the depths of that ignorance. Whether we will or not, we are compelled to recognize the unsound character of the conclusions reached from such slender premises; and thus it happens that at this moment, when the sentiment of England begins to show an unmistakable leaning in our favor, it concerns our people as little as the unsparing condemnation, as to which we had to learn indifference a short time since. In neither case does it appear that the judgment passed upon our affairs is based upon anything more than a mere superficial view of the chances of success. its capital. . . . Keep the truth out of a wicked man's heart, and he has perfect peace; he is under a ceaseless opiate. . . We need at every point to be convinced that the best thought we ever thought, the noblest word we ever spoke, the grandest deed we ever did, weighed in the scales of the sanctuary, is altogether wanting." Upon these three sentences, which are the keynotes of the whole, is founded one of the most impressive readings in the volume; as much characterized by its fervid eloquence as by its calm reasoning, as earnest as it is practical in every line. As a sample of the explanatory portion of the book we give the following, taken from the first reading, the text commented upon being,-" The destruction of the transgressors shall be together. And they shall be ashamed of the oaks which ye have desired: "— "The Druids were called so from Açuç, From The Press. READINGS ON THE PROPHETS.* DR. CUMMING informs us that these expositions were read in church on Sunday evenings; that he considers them more useful and practical than learned, and that they are therefore well adapted for reading in families and schools; that they have interested a congregation, and that they may now profit a larger circle. After a close examination of the book, and an attentive perusal of many of the readings, we have no hesitation in expressing onr belief that the opinion of the author upon his own work is far within the truth and modest in the extreme. It is true the readings are familiar and practical in their style and application; but they abound in learning-in intelligible, interesting, and masterly expositions of doubtful and difficult passages, and in zealous and eloquent exhortation. The subject matter commented upon is so grand in itself, so full of the most beautiful imagery, and so rich in the most appropriate illustrations of all kinds, that it could not fail, especially in the hands of Dr. Cumming, whose writings are generally distinguished by an eloquent style, to become more than ordinarily interesting and attractive. Yet all is simple and natural; nothing is forced, and nowhere is perceptible the least straining after effect. The good old rule has been strictly followed of allowing great things to speak for themselves in the simplest yet beautiful language. Each reading contains an exposition of one chapter, the scope, difficulties, and application of which are concisely explained in a few pages, so that almost every paragraph contains matter of interest or import, to attract the attention and make even the careless pause either to consider or admire. We have much pleasure in recommending We would point to the reading on the fifty-this volume to all readers. It is fitted both seventh chapter, entitled "Peace," as one for the old and the young, the ignorant and of the best examples of the exhortatory the learned, the wise and the simple. It style. "There are some people," says the fully explains and illustrates the sublimest author, "who think God, on the whole, is in of all the Prophetical Books. It often their debt, and that, on the whole, they makes clear what to the ordinary reader have done so well that they honestly have a must seem dark and obscure; while the claim upon heaven, or a right to draw upon treatment of its subject matter cannot fail * Readings on the Prophets-Isaiah. A Famil- to set more enlightened readers upon many iar and Popular Exposition for Sunday Reading. a lofty path of thought which, when not By the Rev. John Cumming, D,D., F.R.S E., Minister of the Scottish National Church, Crown fully dwelt upon, is always clearly pointed Court, Covent Garden. London: Bentley. out by the learned and eloquent author. the Greek, perhaps from an earlier word, I which means the oak, because the oaks were the first temples; and very magnificent and solemn ones they were too. In fact, the architecture of a magnificent medieval cathedral is merely man's poor copy of a more magnificent forest. If you go into a great forest of full-grown trees, when the leaves able to see the exquisite interlacing of the have all dropped off in winter, you will be branches, and stretching forward you will see the long-drawn aisles, nave and transepts, and choirs, and you will feel the effect of the beautiful perspective, heightened by the deep and sombre gloom that settles over it all. All this was the original type of a far short of God's grand original. The Jews mediæval cathedral; only man's copy falls also worshipped idols below oaks; but they shall be ashamed of them." |