The North British Review Volume 41 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1864 edition. Excerpt: ...induce a certain liking for poetry, arising from the force of contrast--as the worst times of the French Court aped the fashions of pastoral life; and this liking, though coming from no very pure origin, may nevertheless lead to good issues in the end. In some shape or other, it is very certain that love of poetry yet exists among us. Like religion, it can never be altogether driven from the heart of man; and though the divine light may be obscured by pleasure, or excitement, or the contentment of material prosperity, it will kindle into brighter life at the bidding of genius. And great the meed of gratitude and honour to be paid to him who renders such service. Mr. Car-lyle says somewhere, that " this age is incapable of being sung to in any but a trivial manner." Mr. Tennyson has shown that it can be sung to in a manner quite other than trivial; and if this be possible, it is surely most desirable. It seems to us that the worst thing connected with this so much-abused age is the literature on which it is forced to live. We have lost the only novelist who could raise us to true conceptions, or a pure ideal of life, and we are given over to the excitement of mere storytelling, or to the commonplace of Trollope, with its ordinary types and vulgar aims, stealing away our time pleasantly, without stirring one deep emotion, or inspiring one noble aspiration; not seeking to better the lives we lead, but rather doing honour to the mean reality; at its highest, holding up to us a photograph of ourselves, with our vices softened into weaknesses, and our prudences exalted into virtues. And yet we who are thus left desolate are not a generation apt to stone our prophets, as Mr. Carlyle himself can testify. Perhaps in this great scarcity we might do more...