RECREATIONS OF A RECLUSE.*
.OccasioNAL allusions in these essays to the Country Parson as a popular writer make us fear that we are to have a fresh instalment -of wire-drawn twaddle after the manner of those papers " Con- cerning nothing in particular, and the way of making it seem aomething peculiar," with which we have so often been indulged. But the Recluse's style of writing is of a different order. We .question if he will attain to equal popularity. We are sure that his fountain will not flow with equal volubility. His lot is to be taken up at odd moments by idle readers, and skimmed in the -intervals between one kind of occupation and another. Perhaps his papers may serve to furnish materials for future theorists, and 'may be worked up into a more pleasing shape by others who are -not as diligent as himself. But as he has studiously refrained from making this use of his labours, and as his essays are mere collec- tions, he cannot wonder if the public passes him by. The taste for curious compilation is not general. In the present volumes, too, we have nothing more than compilation, no attempt to group --and classify, no distinction between different schools of writers. Everything is fish that comes to the Recluse's net. He is an omnivorous reader with a weak digestion. If be did not live a secluded life, without exercise and without talking, there might be some chance of his assimilating his food. But at present he seems to prefer the company of his books, and the copying-out of -extracts, to any more tangible result ; and therefore, while we 'regret that he has not followed out the thoughts which have been suggested to him, we mast leave him to his own devices. It is a pity that a book of this kind, full as it is of quaint remark and of hints awakening trains of reflection, should resemble those sermons -which are made up of texts adapted to some skeleton form by -means of Cruden's Concordance.
The very titles of the Recluse's papers are suggestive. "Dunces -at School who became Prizemen in after Life," "The Dinner Test of -Grief," "An almost Wish of Thomas Hood's," "About inferring the Man from the Book," "People who can't say No," "Sleeping l'artnership in Crime," "At the Tower Window with Sir Walter Raleigh," "Historical might, could, should, or would have beens," afford the most ample room for speculation. It is true that when we come to look into each of these papers, we find that the writer 'merely shows us how much might be said on the subject. Take the essay on "People who can't say No." We begin with the story of Lady Charlotte Lindsay, who argued that if any one word -of the English language was to be taught a foreigner it ought to be the word "no," because, though "yes" never stood for "no," "no" very often stood for "yes." Brougham often made use of this story in Court; a remark of Moore's suggested it to him on one occasion. Sydney Smith told Lord John Russell to stick to "yes" and "no." Sir Philip Francis preferred the good manly words of assent and 'denial to such phrases as " unquestionably " and "by no means." 'Then we come to the word No, and the sufferings to which those -will not make up their minds to use it are exposed. Chamfort, 'Goldsmith, Johnson, Desdemona, Chrysale in Moliere's Femmes .Savantes, Lord Chesterfield, Cicero, Plutarch, Pisistratus Caxton, Tepys, Motley, Scott, Byron, Henry Taylor, Arthur Helps, .Dickens, Trollope, Lord Lytton (this time in his own name), Richardson, Steele, Plutarch again, Prescott, Mrs. Stowe, ilorace Walpole, Southey, and Sainte &nye, are quoted one after the other in the order which we have followed, to show the 'necessity of firmness and the advantage of using the monosyllable an question. The miscellaneous character of the Recluse's reading and the extraordinary retentiveness of his memory appear suffi- ciently from such an analysis, yet that is not a method which does him justice. There is more sequence and connection in his writing than this enumeration would imply. The regularity with
* Recreation, of a Rectum 2 vole. London: Bentley, 1$70.
which one such compilation follows another, and the family like- ness running through them all, lead us to regard him as a magazine Disraeli the Elder. It is quite possible that any one of the papers appearing in a magazine would produce a favourable impression. But in a work of two volumes we feel the want of sustained method and order. It is not enough to justify a man's writing on a subject that a great many others have treated it from the most various points of view, and that he has read everything which can possibly bear upon it. The Recluse has apparently been beguiled by his own faculty of finding out resemblances between thoughts, and of bringing together mental relations which were unknown to each other. He takes an idea in one of George Eliot's novels, and says to it, "Do you know your first cousin in Shakespeare? If not, I shall have great pleasure in introduc- ing you." No doubt the acquaintance is equally gratifying to both parties, but the reader who applauds the first introduction, and looks upon the Recluse as a reconciling influence, becomes gradually alarmed at the growth of all these families. It looks very much as if some of the new-comers may be entitled to a settlement in a parish which is already overstocked. Then, too, some of the new-comers are not of the most reputable character. We have no objection to a living classic being ranked with a dead classic, but the Recluse's charity does not stop there. While George Eliot is talking with Shakespeare, some forgotten work of past fiction is brought up in company with another work which has earned, but has not yet attained, the same oblivion. The line ought to be drawn somewhere. We might make room for Trollope, Arthur Helps, and some other living writers, even if we objected to Miss Braddon, A.K.H.B., and the Saturday Review.
When we have discussed the Recluse's method, there is not much to be said about his matter. A happy choice of subjects, a quickness in apprehending analogies, a wide range of reading, are his conspicuous merits. If we could count on our readers confining themselves to one or two papers, and resisting that curiosity which if gratified would almost certainly give way to weariness, we should recommend the first paper, called "The Logic of Smith the Weaver," in addition to some of those already mentioned. Taking as his "cue from Shakespeare" the statement of Smith the weaver that Jack Cade's ancestor "made a chimney in my father's house, and the bricks are alive at this day to testify it, therefore deny it not," the Recluse brings forward a number of instances of this ocular demonstration. The head of the cross-bow bolt which one of the witnesses against Rebecca in Ivanhoe saw miraculously extracted from a wound, the wooden head of our Saviour which Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was shown as having spoken during the siege of Vienna, the ink spot on the wall of Luther's room in the Wartburg, the scar proving that George IV. tried to commit suicide for Mrs. Fitzherbert, the chest in which Chatterton dis- covered old Rowley's MSS., the linen marked A. C. for "Admira- ble Creechton," the chair in which the Duke of Wellington sat in the farmhouse after the battle of Waterloo, with other instances of the same stamp, are shown to be the logical consequences of the logic of Smith the weaver. Here, perhaps, the Recluse is at his best. There is something so absurd in the process of reasoning which makes people conclude that because they have seen a thing all that is said of it must be true, that the mere accumulation of anecdotes speaks volumes. In other papers the thought that underlies the whole is less remarkable, and the result is that the coincidences excite little surprise. The Recluse has collected all he could, but it was hardly worth collecting. We fear this will be the verdict in many cases, and we will stop, for fear of being led to show how often it might be pronounced.
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