Brief Literary Notices. 541 back. It is of no avail that the noble Lord is sincere in his admiration, as well as unwearied in his praise, of Demosthenes and Cicero ; for this praise and admiration of pure and lofty oratory are seen in conjunction with a style the most feeble, slovenly, and incorrect. Even his Lordship's speeches are of very unequal merit; and the rude force and biting sarcasm, by which they are supposed to be distinguished, form not the staple, but the exception, of a style that is greatly overlaid with verbiage of the most indifferent sort. In the sketches before us, composed expressly for the literary world, the same defects prevail, almost to the exclusion of those redeeming qualities. We have, it is true, some sensible criticism from his Lordship's pen; but we are only the more surprised, on that account, to observe how frequently and obviously he lays himself open to literary censure. The construction of some of his sentences is not merely clumsy, but ungrammatical, and that in more numerous instances than we could possibly find room to quote; but one characteristic specimen may be given. The following sentence is found at the commencement of a tribute to the ability and worth of John, fourth Duke of Bedford: "The purpose of the following observations is, to rescue the memory of an able and an honourable man, long engaged in the public service, both as a Minister, a negociator, and a Viceroy, long filling, like all his illustrious house in every age of our history, an exalted place among the champions of our free constitution, from the obloquy with which a licentious press loaded him when living, and from which it is in every way discreditable to British justice, that few if any attempts have, since his death, been made [to relieve his memory ? no, but] "to counteract the effects of calumny, audaciously invented, and repeated till its work of defamation was done, and the falsehood of the hour became confounded with historical fact." We leave the reader to construe this curious sentence for himself. But the remarks of our author are frequently as trite in substance as they are feeble in expression. Nothing but an unusual felicity of phrase could fairly warrant, in an author of such mark, an observation so common-place as this: "Popularity is far from being contemptible; it is often an honourable acquisition; when duly earned, always a test of good done or evil resisted." If only a "test of good done or evil resisted," when it is otherwise found to be "duly earned," it is surely no test at all. "But to be of a pure and genuine kind, it must have one stamp, the security of one safe and certain die; it must be the popularity that follows good actions, not that which is run after." We submit that writing of this description is possible to any one who can hold a pen and spell correctly. A fluency, unchecked by reflection, is, unfortunately, no rare accomplishment in any age or country. We are not more satisfied with our author as a moralist. Adopting always an air of deference and reserve, in regard to the claims of Christian truth, he more than once betrays an inclination to lower the authoritative standard of duty and belief, and admit the variable dictates of individual opinion and caprice. Thus, in his temperate, but unsound, defence of Voltaire, we find the following aphorism: "An atheist is wholly incapable of the crime (of blasphemy). When he heaps epithets of abuse on the Creator, or turns His attributes into ridicule, he is assailing or scoffing at an empty name, at a Being whom he believes to have no existence." Is it indeed so? Some startling corollaries of this proposition may well make the reader doubt if it be sound in ethics. On the same principle, for example, his Lordship might equally maintain that the Heathen are incapable of idolatry, since they ignorantly pay that homage to images of wood and stone which is due only to the true God. This is surely to bring an extenuating circumstance in disproof of the very crime itself. If blasphemy consists in speaking against the character and claims of the true God, it is not a matter of opinion, but a matter of fact; and if the plea of sincere and profound unbelief be boldly urged, judgment is, indeed, removed from the lips of fallible men, but it stands over to that Being who searches the heart. If God has indeed left Himself without an adequate witness, either in nature, conscience, or Scripture revelation, verily He is a just God, and will not gather where He has not strawed. But this is an awful position to assume; and those who have dared to blaspheme His name, may well tremble, to put in the plea of honest unbelief before Him whose eyes are as a flame of fire. Our remarks have necessarily been of a very general character. The subjects of these volumes are not only multifarious in themselves, but each might readily become the suggestive text of some wide and important inquiry. To enter into a minute criticism is therefore impossible in the space to which we are now confined. We must remark, however, that in addition to faults of execution, these memoirs are very imperfect in outline and design. They are too sketchy; and the biographical and critical matter is carelessly as well as unequally disposed. The author seems to have written them without any previous plan, neither including nor omitting by express design, but inditing his thoughts in the order of their casual occurrence. Many of these sketches-as those of Pitt and Fox-are quite unworthy of the subject and the author; while some evince his Lordship's political bias (no doubt unconsciously imparted) in a marked degree. On the whole, we prefer the literary and philosophical portraits to those of eminent lawyers and politicians. The latter have more of novelty and personal character, but the former are drawn with greater care. Though so faulty and defective in his own writings, the noble Lord has much critical acumen, and is, for the most part, just in his strictures and awards. His remarks on the tragedies of Voltaire are favourable evidences of his literary taste. Of Robertson the historian he speaks, we think, in terms of unmerited eulogy, and forms too lofty an estimate both of his character and genius. Of Hume, the rival of his Lordship's famous kinsman, he forms a judgment correct enough in the main, but the merits of his History are not admitted to the full. The Lives of the Philosophers are quite equal in interest to those of the Men of Letters. We prefer the sketches of Priestley and of Black. But we must not be led into any further observations on this interesting gallery, but conclude with a hearty commendation of the author's industry and judgment; for in spite of the drawbacks which we have thought it proper to indicate, the work is substantially a great work, the product of vast intellectual energy, and of wide personal experience. Brief Literary Notices. 543 Ramus, (Pierre de la Ramée,) sa Vie, ses Ecrits et ses Opinions. Par Charles Waddington, Professeur agrégé de Philosophie à la Faculté des Lettres de Paris, et aux Lycée Louis-leGrand. Paris: Meyrueis. IT is some years since the illustrious French philosopher, Victor Cousin, called the attention of the literary world to one of the founders of modern metaphysics, Peter Ramus or La Ramée. Up to the publication of the volume now under consideration, very little indeed was known concerning the life and doctrines of the great anti-scholastic teacher. Traditionary reports ascribed him a rank amongst the worthies who are indebted to their own exertions for the high station they occupy here below; vague and ill-defined rumours of his success as a lecturer were abroad, and we may say that his tragical death, on St. Bartholomew's day, 1572, was the best-known circumstance in his eventful career. In fact, a biography of Pierre de la Ramée was still a desideratum, and it is with feelings of no small satisfaction that we find that task to have been admirably performed by a writer who, both as a Protestant, and as one of the most promising French savans, was doubly qualified to undertake it. M. Charles Waddington's volume is written with that lucidity of exposition, and that elegance of style, which we have long been accustomed to find in French philosophers; but there is, besides, a deep vein of feeling running throughout the whole work, and imparting to it all the vigour of heart-inspired eloquence. To quote from the Preface :: "We have to study, in Ramus, the lecturer, the philosopher, and the Christian:-the philosopher who contributed so much towards the emancipation of the human mind, whose influence throughout Europe was so long and so wholesome, of whom a writer belonging to the last century said, that the Paris University never produced a greater thinker; the lecturer whom the historian Pasquier beautifully describes as a 'statesman, when engaged in teaching young men ;'-the Gospel Christian, in fine, who sealed with his blood his faith in the Saviour. On all these accounts, I confess it, his memory is dear to me; on all these accounts, too, I have felt called to the honour of composing his éloge, since, through a concourse of circumstances which I cannot help regretting, I am, at the present time, in the French University, the only Protestant Professor of Philosophy." M. Charles Waddington goes on to assert, that the nineteenth century is not agitated by any of the angry passions which characterized the sixteenth: whether this is quite the case, may be safely left as a matter of doubt; at all events, the tables are turned now; and if Rabelais were to make his appearance in the midst of us, he would certainly not look for the advocates of persecution within the precincts of the Sorbonne. The life of Ramus was one long protest against Aristotle, and no party leader ever fought on the battle-field with half the determination, the spirit, the self-denial, exhibited by that learned champion. Jurists, Councillors, the King's Ministers, the King himself, the University of Paris, the Academy of Geneva, the majority of public schools in Europe, joined together for the purpose of crushing the bold innovator. They succeeded, verily, in destroying him; but they found it impossible to stop the spirit of inquiry which he had helped so powerfully to spread abroad; his books were quickly circulated from one end of the land to the other, and, despite of the "Sorboniseques, Sorbonicoles, and Sorbonisants," the emancipation from the Stagyrite's yoke was soon universal. Whether the reader is anxious merely to peruse a biographical sketch, drawn with consummate ability, or to study a chapter in the history of modern philosophy, he cannot do better than spend a few hours in perusing the work to which we have been referring. We quote one more passage from the author's Preface: "Ramus was a tall man, handsome, and of an agreeable countenance. His head was large, his forehead well developed, and his face stamped with masculine beauty....... Full of eagerness for work, indefatigable in his studies, he shunned the pleasures of the senses, as the root of all vices, and the greatest enemies to a scholar's existence. His mode of living was extremely severe: satisfied with a truss of straw by way of bedding, he was always up before the crowing of the cock, and his days were spent in reading, writing, and meditating. His fare was of the coarsest; for twenty years he never drank anything but water, nor would he have dreamt of tasting wine, had not the physicians prescribed its use to him as absolutely necessary. Gifted with a strong constitution, he supported it, not by remedies and medicines, but by abstinence and exercise. He avoided, as a poison, all conversations of an immoral character......His love of truth amounted to a passion, and the extreme anxiety he felt, to become more and more perfect, induced him to correct and revise his writings with constant diligence......Humble in prosperity, he was never pulled down by misfortune, and nothing could shake his trust in God. He knew how to forgive injuries, and he had acquired the difficult habit of never answering his adversaries, endeavouring, by long patience, to overcome the extreme bitterness of their attacks. "His sentiments were noble and refined; he could not stoop to flatter any body. Satisfied with the fruit he derived from his labours, he refused, more than once, to sell the talents with which he was adorned. Eloquence,' he used to say, 'is a gift of God, and a holy prophecy; the orator worthy of that name should never be a dealer in falsehood. Not only was he disinterested, but, remembering his original poverty, he liked to help poor scholars, giving away part of his income to those who appeared most worthy. More than one foreign student found at his house a generous hospitality......Every year, when, during the vacations, he visited his native town, Ramus solicitously inquired for such poor children as manifested dispositions for study; and he brought them up in his college, at his own expense." It would be quite superfluous, to add here, by way of comment on the above, the expression of our own admiration for the character of Ramus: à propos, however, of M. Waddington's excellent work, we would just say that we view with the greatest interest the steady development of Protestant literature amongst our French neighbours. Whilst want of space forbids us from giving more than a very brief notice to a production fully deserving an extensive and detailed criticism, scores of new publications claim our attention on equally good grounds. Let us, at least, hope that some opportunity will Brief Literary Notices. 545 soon offer, of reviewing, in extenso, the Histoire Critique des Doctrines Religieuses de la Philosophie Moderne of M. Bartholomèss, and the Histoire de la Théologie Chrétienne au Siècle Apostolique of M. Edouard Reuss. Essai sur la Vie et la Doctrine de Saint-Martin, le Philosophe Inconnu. Par E. Caro, Professeur Agrégé de Philosophie au Lycée de Rennes. Paris: Hachette. THE title of philosophe was one which, during the last century, came to be applied in a very one-sided and extraordinary manner. The smallest scribbler, the most contemptible écrivassier, could strut about as a philosopher, if he had only mastered Voltaire's pamphlets, and learned to preach a sermon on the famous text, "Crush the wretch." All such were philosophers; none else seemed qualified to bear that name. Nor would the Condorcets, the Raynals, the SaintLamberts, the d'Holbachs of former days have been slightly astonished, had they been told that, at the very time when all enlightened men were aspiring to become hommes-plantes, or hommes-machines, an obscure officer in the Regiment of Foix entered a protest against the materialism of a society on the eve of dissolution. This man was Louis Claude de Saint-Martin, a writer who hitherto has not met with the attention his works assuredly deserve; and who claims, on account of the influence he enjoyed, far greater notice than he has obtained up to the present time. We may just state, en passant, as a curious symptom of the age w e live in, the fact, that eminent metaphysicians and critics have now set about deciphering the dark sayings of the philosophe inconnu. Whilst the current, in France especially, seems directed towards views quite as gross as those maintained of yore by Helvetius; whilst a proud scepticism has made its prey of most of those who have not yet sunk entirely under the thraldom of the senses, it is noteworthy that several thinkers are now renewing the attempt to rouse men to spiritual consciousness by the rehabilitation of mysticism. The volume which we propose examining here very briefly is not the first, but it is certainly the most complete, sketch we have seen of Saint-Martin's doctrines; it is written with the greatest impartiality; and, although M. Caro takes up every now and then the critic's scourge against doctrines which he rightly conceives to be dangerous both in theory and in practice, it is not difficult to ascertain that, between the Encyclopédie and the Homme de Désir, his sympathies are altogether for the latter work. M. Caro introduces his biography by an interesting chapter on mysticism in general during the eighteenth century. Swedenborg, Boehm, Lavater, Law, Mesmer, Cagliostro, are in turns noticed by him; and the singular group which he thus brings together, forms a sort of planetary system, in the midst of which appears the remarkable man who, notwithstanding many feats and vagaries of an ultra eccentric description, has yet left behind him one of the best refutations of sensualist errors on record. It is not our intention to give here any particulars respecting Saint-Martin's life. Born in Touraine, January 18th, 1743, he had |