Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

JOHN A. GRAY'S

LAMANDER PRINTING OFFICE,

16 and 18 Jacob street, N. Y.

11-16-36

33157

INDE X.

EMBELLISHMENTS.

Cooper, James Fenimore-Dublin University
Magazine, .

313

Edinburgh Review,

513

1. PORTRAIT OF MARSHAL PELISSIER, engraved by Cromwell and the Civil Wars of England— Sartain.

2. DEATH OF LAS CASAS, engraved by Sartain.

[ocr errors]

3. PORTRAIT OF J. FENIMORE COOPER, engraved by Sartain.

D

4. TIME CLIPPING THE WINGS OF LOVE, printed by Devonshire Worthies-Fraser's Magazine, . Lebrun, and engraved by Sartain.

156

Dark Lady, the-Sharpe's Magazine, .
Descendants of Mary Stuart-Gentleman's Mag-

236

[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[graphic]

ECLECTIC MAGAZINE 4397

OF

FOREIGN LITERATURE,
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.

JANUARY, 185 6.

From the North British Review.

THE AUTHOR OF HUDIBRAS.*

THROUGH either of these editions of Butler's Poetical Works the new generation of book-buyers and readers have a good opportunity of becoming acquainted with a writer who, though two hundred years have elapsed since he lived, is still, in some respects, unique in our literature. The age is past, indeed, in which any one would be likely to take Butler's poems, as some rough country gentlemen, of last century, is said to have done, as his sole literary companion and general cabinet of wisdom; and most readers who have reached their climacteric have already a copy of Butler on their shelves, and have pretty well made up their minds as to what the man was, and as to the amount of service for any good purpose that is still to be got out of him. Young fellows, however, who have to complete their education, cannot do so without at least dipping into Hudibras; and, besides, the farther

*The Poetical Works of Samuel Butler. With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes, by the Rev. GEORGE GILFILLAN. 2 vols. Edinburgh, James Nichol. 1854.

The Poetical Works of Samuel Butler. Edited, with Memoir and Notes, by ROBERT BELL. 8vo. London, John W. Parker & Son. 1855.

VOL. XXXVII.-NO. I.

an old author such as Butler recedes into the past, and the more the miscellany of things interposed between him and us is increased by the advance of time, the less of him remains vital, and the more nearly is he reduced to his true and permanent essence. And hence-not alone for the sake of the young fellows in question-may it be worth while to devote a few pages to what otherwise might be thought a somewhat fusty subject. If Dryden, Addison, Swift, and Foote, are deemed worthy of resuscitation, even in the midst of a war with Russia, and a hundred other grave contemporary matters, who will have the heart to object to an hour's gossip by the way about old Samuel Butler ?

One peculiarity about Butler, as one of our British authors, is that he was fifty years of age before he was so much as heard of by his contemporaries. He was born in 1612, and it was not till the end of 1662 that the first part of Hudibras was given to the world. This is the more remarkable when we remember through what a busy age of literary production Butler thus contrived to remain silent.

He had twenty-eight clear years of life before the outbreak of the Civil Wars-years

1

during which he might actually, as a turn and write as much as they chose, young man, have welcomed into print the and when Waller, at least, thought it wise last literary performances of such surviving to make his peace with Cromwell and beveterans of the Elizabethan age as Ben come one of his panegyrists; Suckling had Jonson, Donne, Drayton, Chapman, and died almost at the beginning of his royal Ford; but though other young English- master's troubles; Izaak Walton, having men of this time, such as Waller, Davenant, quitted his cloth-shop, in Chancery Lane, Suckling, Milton, Denham, and Cowley, in 1644, was dividing his time between made good their entrance into literature fishing, the preparation of his book on before these giants of the elder generation that art, and pious recollections of Donne, had finally quitted the stage, Butler saw Hooker, Wotton, and other good men them vanish without so much as attempt- whom he had known before the king's head ing to put himself in any other relation to had been cut off; and, lastly, Milton, the them than that of an ordinary reader. true literary representative of Puritanism Then came the period of the Civil Wars and the Commonwealth, though he had and the Commonwealth, coinciding with forsaken for the time the softer muse of all that portion of Butler's life which his youth, was still conspicuously at work, elapsed between his twenty-ninth and his shaking the very soul of Royalism and forty-ninth year. This period, being one of Prelacy, by his noble prose treatises in deturmoil and political excitement, as well as fence of the Revolution and its leaders. of Puritan government, was not so favorable Nay, there were others, not mentioned in to the purer kinds of literary production, the above list, whose literary career began, i.e., to imaginative and calm speculative or or was continued, during the stormy pehistorical literature, as the age which it riod of the Commonwealth. The manhood had succeeded. Still it had an ample lit- of the great Jeremy Taylor corresponds erature, peculiar to itself a literature, at with this period, which he did not long least, of satire and incessant theological survive; Richard Baxter, and other nonand political discussion; and, in one way conforming divines, became famous during or another, some at home and others in it; the quaint Fuller then penned many of exile, such writers as Hobbes, Herrick, his writings; the philosophic Sir Thomas Izaak Walton, and the dramatist Shirley, Browne, calm as a mollusc in the midst of all of whom had been past middle age be- the social perturbations, was pursuing his fore the civil wars began, and such young fantastic speculations in his study at Norwriters as Waller, Davenant, Suckling, wich; the vagabond trooper Cleveland, Milton, Denham, and Cowley, who, as has now abroad with his Royalist associates, just been mentioned, had taken their de- and now risking his neck in England, was gree in literature before the same revolu- inditing his racketty squibs against the tionary outburst, continued, during the Roundheads, with especial reference to era of Puritan ascendency, to stand before that grand topic of fun with all the satirthe world as active men of letters. Shir-ists of his party, Oliver's copper nose; and ley, poor fellow, his source of livelihood Milton's friend, honest Andrew Marvell, cut off by the suppression of the stage in had at least given evidence to those who 1642, had gone into the country to teach knew him of his capacity of writing well a school and live on his reputation as an on the other side. Yet, in the midst of all ex-dramatist; Herrick, ejected from his this cross-fire of writings from Royalists charge in Devonshire, as not being the and Puritans, from poets and philosophers, kind of clergyman that a Puritan govern- from Englishmen at home and Englishmen ment could tolerate, was probably hum- in their exile in France and Holland, we ming over his old songs and fancies and hear not a word of any publication, pro or writing new ones to amuse his leisure in con, in verse or in prose, bearing the name some cottage near his old parish; Hobbes of Samuel Butler. It was not till after the was abroad, teaching mathematics to Restoration that-amid the general gathCharles II. in his exile, and writing his ering of the old wits from their haunts “Leviathan” and other works, which he around the throne of Charles II. and the afterwards came over to England to pub- sudden crop of new and younger wits lish; Waller, Davenant, Denham, and evoked by the license afforded to dramatic Cowley also lived abroad as royalist exiles, riot and all that had hitherto been represstill towards the end of Cromwell's Protec- ed-the face or the name of Butler emergtorate, when they were permitted to re-ed to challenge notice.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »