NOTES OF A READER.

QUARTERLY REVIEW. No. 87.

Character of Mr. Canning.

There have been some who equalled him in acquirements—many who have possessed sounder judgment and sounder principles; but never was there in any legislative assembly, a person whose talents were more peculiarly and perfectly adapted to the effect which he intended to produce. With all the advantages of voice and person—with all the graces of delivery—with all the charms which affability and good-nature impart to genius, he had wit at will, as well as eloquence at command. Being frank and sincere in all his political opinions, he had all that strength in his oratory which arises from sincerity, although in his political conduct the love of intrigue was one of his besetting sins. By an unhappy perversion of mind it seemed as if he would always rather have obtained his end by a crooked path than by a straight one; but his speeches had nothing of this tortuosity; there was nothing covert in them, nothing insidious—no double-dealing, no disguise. His argument went always directly to the point, and with so well-judged an aim that he was never (like Burke) above his mark—rarely, if ever, below it, or beside it. When, in the exultant consciousness of personal superiority, as well as the strength of his cause, he trampled upon his opponents, there was nothing coarse, nothing virulent, nothing contumelious, nothing ungenerous in his triumph. Whether he addressed the Liverpool electors, or the House of Commons, it was with the same ease, the same adaptation to his auditory, the same unrivalled dexterity, the same command of his subject and his hearers, and the same success. His only faults as a speaker were committed when, under the inebriating influence of popular applause, he was led away by the heat and passion of the moment. A warm friend, a placable adversary, a scholar, a man of letters, kind in his nature, affable in his manners, easy of access, playful in conversation, delightful in society—rarely have the brilliant promises of boyhood been so richly fulfilled as in Mr. Canning.

Political Economists

Are the most daring of all legislators, just (it has been well said) as "cockney equestrians are the most fearless of all riders." But the confidence with which they propose their theories is less surprising than the facility with which their propositions have been entertained, and their extravagant pretensions admitted. We need not marvel at the success of quackery in medicine and theology, when we look at the career of the St. John Longs in political life. From the time in which the bullion question came out of Pandora's Scotch mull, parliament has been wearied with the interminable discussions which they have raised there. Youths who were fresh from college, and men with or without education, who were "in the wane of their wits and infancy of their discretion," imbibe the radiant darkness of Jeremy Bentham, and forthwith set themselves up as the lights of their generation. No professors, even in the subtlest ages of scholastic philosophy, were ever more successful in muddying what they found clear, and perplexing what is in itself intelligible. What are wages?—this, we are told, is the most difficult and the most important of all the branches of political economy, and this, we are also told, has been obscured by ambiguities and fallacies. What is rent? What is value? Upon these questions, and such as these, which no man of sincere understanding ever proposed to himself or others, they discuss and dilate with as much ardour and to as little effect, as the old philosophers disputed upon the elements of the material creation; bringing to the discussion intellects of the same kind, though as far below them in degree as in the dignity of the subjects upon which their useless subtlety is expended. But it cannot be said of them, that they, when all is said,

for they mystify those readers who are not disgusted by such ineptitudes, perplex weak minds, and pervert vain ones. Of such discussions it may be said with the son of Sirach, that "when a man hath done, then he beginneth; and when he leaveth off, then he shall be doubtful."

Homer.

Seneca reckons among the idle questions, which were unworthy of wise men, the dispute whether Homer wrote both the Iliad and Odyssey, and in what countries Ulysses wandered. Notwithstanding the "Stoic's philosophic pride," these inquiries have still an interest to minds of the highest order—such is the homage which genius extorts from the remotest countries and from the latest ages. We noticed, in an article in our last Number, the curious fact of native youths in India performing parts of Shakspeare, and thus on the shores of the Ganges countless minds are deriving delight, perhaps improvement, from the careless and unlaboured verses of the light-hearted Warwickshire deer-stealer. So, in this country, and over all the continent of Europe, which, when the songs of Homer first gladdened the halls of the chieftains on the shores of the Aegean, were vast unknown deserts, unpeopled, or wandered over by a few rude hunters; which, to the Greeks, were regions of more than Cimmerian darkness, beyond the boundaries of the living world—men of the loftiest and most powerful understanding are examining, and discussing, and disputing the most minute points which may illustrate the poetry of the blind bard; scholars are elucidating, antiquaries illustrating, philosophers reasoning upon, men of genius transfusing into their native tongues, poets honouring with despairing emulation, the whole mind of educated man feeling the transcendent power of the poet of the Iliad and Odyssey. Surely, the boasted triumph of poetry over space and time is no daring hyperbole—surely, it is little more than the boasted reality of truth.

Power of Memory.

It is indeed not easy to calculate the height to which the memory may be cultivated. To take an ordinary case, we might refer to that of any first-rate actor, who must be prepared, at a very short warning, to "rhapsodize" night after night, parts which, when laid together, would amount to an immense number of lines. But all this is nothing to two instances of our own day. Visiting at Naples a gentleman of the highest intellectual attainments, and who held a distinguished rank among the men of letters in the last century, he informed us that the day before he had passed much time in examining a man, not highly educated, who had learned to repeat the whole Gierusalemme Liberata of Tasso; not only to recite it consecutively, but to repeat any given stanza of any given book; to repeat those stanzas in utter defiance of the sense, either forwards or backwards, or from the eighth line to the first, alternately the odd and even lines—in short, whatever the passage required, the memory, which seemed to cling to the words much more than to the sense, had it at such perfect command, that it could produce it under any form. Our informant went on to state, that this singular being was proceeding to learn the Orlando Furioso in the same manner. But even this instance is less wonderful than one as to which we may appeal to any of our readers that happened some twenty years ago to visit the town of Stirling, in Scotland. No such person can have forgotten that poor, uneducated man, Blind Jamie, who could actually repeat, after a few minutes' consideration, any verse required from any part of the Bible—even the obscurest and least important enumeration of mere proper names not excepted.

Origin of the Homeric Poems.

It is said that the art of writing, and the use of manageable writing materials, were entirely, or all but entirely, unknown in Greece and the islands at the supposed date of the composition of the Iliad; and that if so, this poem could not have been committed to writing during the time of such its composition; that in a question of comparative probabilities like this, it is a much grosser improbability that even the single Iliad, amounting, after all curtailments and expungings, to upwards of 15,000 lines, should have been actually conceived and perfected in the brain of one man, with no other help but his own or others' memory, than that it should, in fact, be the result of the labours of several distinct authors; that if the Odyssey be counted, the improbability is doubled; that if we add, upon the authority of Thucydides and Aristotle, the Hymns and Margites, not to say the Batrachomuiomachia, that which was improbable becomes absolutely impossible; that all that has been so often said as to the fact of as many lines, or more, having been committed to memory, is beside the point in question, which is not whether 15,000 or 30,000 lines may be learnt by art from a book or manuscript, but whether one man can compose a poem of that length, which, rightly or not, shall be thought to be a perfect model of symmetry or consistency of parts, without the aid of writing materials; that, admitting the superior probability of such a thing in a primitive age, we know nothing analogous to such a case; and that it so transcends the common limits of intellectual power, as, at the least, to merit, with as much justice as the opposite opinion, the character of improbability.—H.N. Coleridge.

LIBERALISM AND MUSIC.

It seems that the day is come again when musical airs are ranked in political importance with proclamations, manifestoes, &c. Everybody knows the story of the Swiss hired troops, the Ranz des Vaches, and the prohibition of this tune in France. A Polish air, the Dombrowski Mazourka, which the regiment of General Szembek played on entering Warsaw, has been forbidden by the Grand Duke Constantine, on pain of a penalty of 400 florins; the consequence of which is, that it has become the outward and audible sign of patriotism in every part of Poland; just as the Marseilles March and la Parisienne are in France and the Netherlands the signals of liberalism. During Mr. Pitt's administration an organ grinder was committed to Newgate for playing "Ah! ça ira" in the streets. This was a silly step; but the fellow excited little commiseration, for the tune was the war-whoop of a few savages who were at that time deluging France with blood. It affords another proof, however, of the power ascribed by statesmen to instrumental music, uninterpreted by words in exciting ideas and producing associations.—Harmonicon, Feb. 1.

TURKISH MUSICAL GUSTO.

A modern traveller informs us, that the band of an English ambassador at Constantinople once performed a concert for the entertainment of the Sultan and his court. At the conclusion it was asked, which of the pieces he preferred. He replied, the first, which was accordingly recommenced, but stopped, as not being the right one. Others were tried with as little success, until at length the band, almost in despair of discovering the favourite air, began tuning their instruments, when his highness instantly exclaimed, "Inshallah, heaven be praised, that is it!" The Turkish prince may be excused, when it is known that at the commemoration of Handel in 1784, Dr. Burney thought the mere tuning of that host of instruments more gratifying than the ordinary performances to which he had been accustomed.—Ibid.

RODE, THE VIOLINIST.

In 1814, he was resident at Berlin, where he gave a concert for the benefit of the poor, and on quitting that capital, returned to his native city, not again to quit it, except for one ill-starred visit to Paris in 1818. This visit threw a fatal colouring over all the rest of Rode's days, and probably contributed to shorten his life. For several years he had played only in a small circle of admiring friends, who persuaded him (nothing loth to believe) that his talents were still unabated. The habit of hearing no one but himself had extinguished emulation, and deprived him of all means of comparison. Rode suddenly determined to re-appear in the musical world, and on his arrival in Paris sought for opportunities of playing in private parties, with as much eagerness as though he had still been a young man with a reputation to make. His old admirers were at first delighted to greet him; but they soon saw with unfeigned regret that he was compromising a great and well-earned name. His tone, once so pure and beautiful, had become uncertain; his bow was as timid as his fingers, and he no longer dared to indulge fearlessly the suggestions of his imagination; in short it was too apparent that, in spite of his delusion, Rode's former confidence in himself was gone; and we know the importance of that feeling of self-reliance which men of talent derive from the innate consciousness of their own superiority: once destroyed, everything else vanishes with it. He was applauded; respect for the last efforts of what had once been first-rate talent secured him that meed; but he was applauded because his audience considered it a kind of duty, and without any symptoms of enthusiasm. He felt the distinction; a dreadful light broke in upon him, and for the first time he became conscious that he was no longer himself. The blow was the more severe as it was unlooked for: he left Paris overwhelmed with grief; the check he had received preyed incessantly on his mind and injured his health. A paralytic stroke toward the end of 1829 deprived him of the use of one side and affected his intellect, in which state he languished for nearly twelve months, till on the 25th of November, 1830, death relieved him from his sufferings.—From a Memoir of Rode in the Harmonicon.

PROGRESS OF SCIENCE.

It may be considered as sufficiently proved, that the sciences had not acquired any degree of improvement until the eighth century before the Christian era; notwithstanding great nations had been formed in several parts of the earth some centuries earlier. Fifteen hundred years before Christ there were already four—the Indians, the Chinese, the Babylonians, and the Egyptians.—Cuvier.