III. SIR ARCHIBALD ALISON. THE present is very prominently a criticizing age. From the quarterly review, whose writer aims at immortal re nown, to the daily newspaper, whose writer aims at saying what will please readers, and gain him the reputation of being a smart and spirited young man, every sort of periodical is more or less critical. And yet it may be questioned, whether the facility of forming a correct, adequate estimate of any marked writer, is, in a material degree, furthered by this vast amount of reviewing. The very opinion increases the difficulty of Each reviewer professes impartial facility of having an having a correct one. ity; many honestly endeavor to be fair. But it cannot be doubted that many, whatever their professions, are really and consciously influenced by motives of party or interest; that many more, striving honestly to divest themselves of all such considerations, are yet, unconsciously but fatally, moved thereby; while the utter inability to take the correct measure of a distinguished man, by no means necessarily precludes self-satisfied dogmatism in pronouncing an opinion concerning him. Thus arise innumerable errors; and, in each instance of error, the great speaking-trumpet called public opinion (which, almost as much as any other trumpet, utters sounds that are produced by another), is made to give forth uncertain or discordant sounds. Hence it is, that certain literary maxims or cries, analogous to certain watchwords in the political world, become bruited about in society respecting known authors; originating with political opponents, or struck off, more for the sake of their smartness than their truth, by some clever litterateur; and always, in part at least, erroneous. The influence such cries exert is incalculable. They seem so smart, they are so easily retailed, and they so pleasantly save all trouble. Equipped in this manner, every spruce scion of the nobility, whose intellectual furniture consists mainly of certain longdeceased conservative maxims, can pronounce decisively that the great whig essayist and historian, Macaulay, is "a book in breeches;" while every new-fledged politician, who steps along in the march of intellect, panoplied in ignorance and conceit, feels himself of quite sufficient ability and importance, to sneer at the king of literary conservatives, Sir Archibald Alison, and sublimely remark that his writings are the "reverse of genius." In endeavoring to attain a correct opinion respecting any celebrated contemporary, almost all such prepossession must be resolutely and conscientiously laid aside. We say almost, because every cry will be found to contain one small grain of truth, and, while fatal if taken as keynote, to be valuable as a subordinate contribution. With as thorough impartiality as is attainable by any effort of the will, in full sight of encompassing dangers, the author must be studied, must be communed with, as it were, face to face, through the works he has given to his fellow-men; and as great a sympathy as is possible must be attained. with him in his views and objects. The grand principle also must never be lost sight of, that God makes nothing in vain; that the moral world is as varied, as vast, and as complex as the physical; and that it is only when, coming out of the little dwelling of our own ideas and maxims, we gaze over the thousandfold developments of mind, that we perceive the harmonious grandeur of the whole. In all cases, narrow intensity marks imperfection. The worker of limited power excels in some one particular: the private soldier knows when to put his right foot foremost, and when to draw his trigger; the commissariat officer knows how to arrange the provisioning of a division; the Murat or Lambert can command a body of cavalry, and bring it down with overpowering vigor upon an enemy; but it is only the Napoleon or the Cromwell that can do all in his single person, and so prove himself born to command. The same holds good of writers. The narrow, limited author has one particular idea, by which he thinks he has taken the measure of the universe; he sympathizes with one sort of excellence, he has one formula in politics, he has one dogma in religion; while the king in literature--the Richter, the Goethe, the Shakspeare-displays à countless variety of excellences, sympathizes with every sound human faculty, and at last almost attains the serene and all-embracing tolerance of “contradicting no one," These men can take a comprehensive view of nature in all her forms and all her workings; they know well that, when the magnificent island exalts its head in the ocean, not the smallest insect that formed it has died in vain. It is with the earnest desire to attain as close an approximation as possible, to the impartiality and width of view and sympathy we have indicated, that we approach the literary measurement of Sir Archibald Alison. Our position, purely literary, precludes political bias; and, though not subscribing to every article of his political creed, we hope to do him some measure of justice. The fundamental stratum on which Sir Archibald Alison's character, with all its feelings and faculties, is based, is that which is in all cases indispensable, but which in many instances has been wanting. That basis is thorough, fervent, well-applied honesty. He is a man who believes with the whole power of his soul. He is not cold and formal as Robertson; he is not tainted in his whole nature, as was Gibbon, by mistaking a sinewless phantom, called "philosophy" — evoked, like some Frankenstein, from vacancy, by the literary necromancy of French savans - for an embodiment of celestial truth: friends and foes alike respect the genuine fervor, linked with earth and with heaven, which pervades and animates the writings of Sir Archibald Alison. This it is which must, we think, make his works essentially pleasing to every honest man. In one place, we may question an inference; in another, we may detect an imperfect analogy; here we may smile at the identification of the advocates of organic reform (revolution) with the powers of hell; and there we may think the laws of chaste and correct imagery infringed; but we always feel that the company of this man is safe-that his breast holds no malice or guile that he believes really, and believes in a reality. Such is the base of Sir Archibald's character a basis of adamant. With this comports well the general tone of his mind. He is always animated; he is always energetic. But here a distinction must be made. Sir Archibald is not one of those men whom a class of modern writers would specially characterize as "earnest." We cannot discover that he has undergone any of those fierce internal struggles which figure so largely in modern literature, and which give such a wild and thrilling interest to certain writings of Byron, Goethe, and Carlyle. He seems never to have wrestled in life-and death struggle with doubt; he seems to have early discerned, with perfect assurance, the great pillars of human belief, and calmly placed his back against them; his mind is essentially opposed to the skeptical order of intellect. Hence it is that his beliefs, though honest and unwavering, are not intense; that he throws all his energy out upon objective realities; that we have no syllable as to the author's subjective state. We believe that the two latter writers, whom we have referred to as entering largely upon subjective delineation, would declare this to be the more healthy mental state of the two; it is that, indeed, towards which all their efforts tend. We see as little of Sir Archibald Alison when he discusses any question, as we do of Homer when he narrates. But this order of mind may be characterized by various degrees of intellectual power; and, as a general fact, its beliefs will not be held with such intensity as in the other case. When one grasps a precious casket from his burning dwelling, he grasps it more tenaciously, and proclaims his triumph with more intense exultation, than if he had never doubted for a moment his safe possession of it. Sir Archibald's beliefs, then, are not intense; we must add, that his energy is not concentrated. The stronger the spirit distilled from any substance, the smaller the quantity; a small cannon will do as much as a huge battering-ram. We are often reminded of the fact in perusing the works of Sir Archibald Alison. In one point of view, his energy may be wondered at, and in some measure commended; in another point of view, it must be pronounced defective, and almost to be regretted. That readers may obtain an idea of his powers of working — of the amount which he can perform-wé extract the following from a very able article upon Sir Archibald, which ap - |