Chapter VI: Part 6

The volumes before us contain the various political and philosophical writings of Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke. Of these, the political tracts are the most valuable: in a measure, for their matter, but chiefly for their style. Among these, the “Dissertation on Parties,” the “Letter to Sir Wm. Wyndham,” the “Idea of a Patriot King,” and the letters “on the study of History,” are the most celebrated. The philosophical essays, occupying two of the volumes on our table, are comparatively valueless, and inferior, both in style and matter, to the political tracts. They are deeply imbued with the sceptical opinions of the author, and we should have willingly seen them omitted in this edition, if it were possible to get up a complete one, with nearly one half of the author’s works left out. Little, therefore, as we value the philosophical works of Bolingbroke, we commend the publishers for not expunging them as too many others would have done.

The style of Bolingbroke is unrivalled. No library is perfect without his works, and they should be studied by the public speaker, or the author, night and day. We boldly aver that there does not exist a writer in the language, the reading of whose works, so far as diction is concerned, would be more beneficial to young men. Bolingbroke’s choice of words is singularly fine. Nothing can be clearer, stronger, or more copious than his language. Terse, nervous, epigrammatic; diffuse in general, but condensed when necessary; at times racy, at times vehement, at times compact as iron; rhetorical, yet easy; elegant, yet convincing; bold, rapid and declamatory, his writings carry one away like a spoken harangue, without betraying the carelessness of the extemporaneous style. The very absence of method, which, in others, would be faulty, is, in Bolingbroke, from the air of frankness it gives to his cause, and its consistency with his essentially oratorical style, a merit: at least not a defect. In grace he has no equal. The euphony of his sentences is like the liquid flow of a river. No writer in the English tongue so much resembles Cicero—to our mind—as Bolingbroke. Burke has been called his rival here; but Burke wanted the ease, the elegance, the chastened imagery of Tully, and in all of these St. John rivalled the friend of Atticus. Deeply imbued with the Latin literature, Bolingbroke has caught, as it were, the spirit of the Augustan age; and we feel, in perusing his pages, the same chastened delight which we enjoy over no modern, and only over Tully among the ancients.

We repeat it: no library is complete without these volumes. Hitherto, the difficulty of obtaining a set of Bolingbroke’s Works, and the high price at which the English editions were sold, have confined the study of his writings comparatively to a few.

The life of Bolingbroke, affixed to these volumes, is altogether a mongrel affair, being made up of shreds and patches, like an old grandam’s best bed-quilt. The text is Goldsmith, interpolated with Brougham, Cooke, and the Encyclopædia. It is true, the preface states this at large, but it also conveys the impression that the memoir has been re-written, and that only the _materials_ have been used. Now, if so, a more unequal, ragged, piebald piece of composition was never perpetrated than this same memoir, and the author—if any one but a pair of scissors there be—ought to be condemned to the now obsolete, but not less effective punishment, of the cutty-stool. If ever a man deserved a horse-pond, it is the inditer of this biography.

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_A Memoir of the Very Reverend Theobald Mathew. With an Account
of the Rise and Progress of Temperance in Ireland. By the
Reverend James Bermingham, of Borisokane. Edited by_ P. H.
Morris, M. D., _and by whom is added the Evil Effects of
Drunkenness Physiologically Explained. Alexander V. Blake: New
York._

It is scarcely too much to say that the Temperance Reformation is the most important which the world ever knew. Yet its _great_ feature has never yet been made a subject of comment. We mean that of adding to man’s happiness (the ultimate object of _all_ reform), not by the difficult and equivocal process of multiplying his pleasures, in their external regard, but by the simple and most effectual one of exalting his capacity for enjoyment. The temperate man carries within his own bosom, under all circumstances, the true, the only elements of bliss.

The book before us will essentially aid the good cause. The memoir of Mathew is deeply interesting; but, excellent as it is, we prefer the essay of Dr. Morris on “the Effects of Drunkenness Physiologically considered.” Through the influence of the physical, rather than of the moral suggestions against alcohol, the permanency of the temperance reform will be made good. Convince the world that spirituous liquors are poison to the body, and it will be scarcely necessary to add that they are ruin to the soul.

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_The Life and Land of Burns: 1 vol. J. & H. Langley: New York.
1841._

This is an excellent work, got up in a style of exceeding beauty. The Langleys, indeed, are becoming celebrated for the beauty of their publications.

An essay by Carlyle, written in his usual barbarous style, but sparkling with brilliant thoughts, like diamonds in a mine, forms one of the chief features of the contents.

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Transcriber’s Notes:

Table of Contents has been added for reader convenience. Archaic spellings and hyphenation have been retained. Obvious punctuation and typesetting errors have been corrected without note. A cover has been created for this ebook and is placed in the public domain.

In E.A. Poe’s article A FEW WORDS ON SECRET WRITING, a page image of a cryptograph has been used for the ebook formats other than plain text, rather than a transcription, due to limitations of modern fonts and devices. It is interesting to use that illustration image as indicator of the problems which could occur with old physical typesetting methods. Looking at the image of the cryptograph we can see the first 6 characters of the first line are $0.£][ which according to the list of characters above the cryptograph would be "wm eust" but were meant to represent the words "we must". Unfortunately the typesetter made an error and transposed the e (.) and m (0) so the first characters should have been printed as $.0£][ to be a correct representation of the paragraph.

[End of Graham’s Magazine, Vol. XIX, No. 1, July 1841, George R. Graham, Editor]