5 DECEMBER 1829, Page 11

THE EDINBURGH REVIEW, No. XCIX.

THIS number of the Edinburgh Review is, we are inclined to believe , from the articles we have looked at, rather a poor one. It is worse; indeed, than poor, for it contains more than one article written in a ' Spirit of illiberality and bad taste. The only article of value which we have met with is one on the French Commercial System ; a paper which contains a vast amount of information, and turns that infor- mation to the best possible account. There is an article on Ger- man Metaphysics, by a writer on the chaos of whose brain the true spirit of metaphysical investigation never dawned. , It is a piece of vulgar mysticism from beginning to end. The author and the article are equally unworthy of notice ; but the stage on which he is allowed to play his fantastic tricks gives to these an importance which of them- selves they could never command. There is one remark on this sub- ject which we must be permitted to make. The Edinburgh Review, the professed chronicle of contemporary literature:and science, has witnessed the birth of the metaphysical system of Dr. BROWN, and the growth of its influence, without vouchsafing one word in the way of exposition of its peculiarities. There may exist differences of opinion as to the value of Dr. BitowN's philosophy, but none as to its intel- lectual character. It is more original, more comprehensive, more searching than any other which the world has yet seen, on the sub- jects which it embraces ; and whatever may be its faults or defects, it breathes a spirit of tenderness as well as of love for truth, which must recommend it to the affections, we might almost say, of those who devote themselves to the study of it. That the Edinburgh Re- view has been silent as to the existence of such a system, some may be illiberal enough to ascribe to the inability of any of the supporters of that work to grapple with its doctrines ; while others; in the same uncharitable spirit, may ascribe that silence to unwillingness on the part of the admirers of DITGALD STENVART to put themselves to school Again. With such delicate questions we do not meddle. But we must be allowed to remark, that it is bad taste in the Edinburgh Review to admit articles, professing to furnish estimates Of the Scottish school of metaphysics, which yet avoid all allusion, however remote, to Dr. BROWN'S system. His fame, luckily, is not dependent on the counte- nance of any review; nor need his admirers care how lie may rank in the opinion of partisans as a member of the Scottish school, while he is so rapidly rising to his proper rank as a member of the great world of thought.

The estimate of Dr. CHANNING'S talents, in another paper, we think illiberal ; but we will not enter at great length upon the subject. His criticism on MILTON is sneered at in a very elaborate style, as being simply a piece of ambitious commonplace. This is rattier an amusing charge to be preferred by a journal which, at the very time when CHANNING wrote the criticism in question, gave place to an article on the merits of MILTON, quite as ambitious as CHANNING'S,, without being leavened by the slightest portion of that truth which commonplaces frequently involve. The paper in the Edinburgh, with all its brilliancy, was but the elaboration of a paradox, utterly false in itself, on the relations which poetry and philosophy must assume to- wards each other in diffe,rent stages of soeicty ; and it was a paradox, , without the stimulant of novelty, for it had been made to serve a rpose in the same work, twenty years before. Dr. CHA.NNING'S ,.ticism contained, by the way, an exposition of the fallacy of that ry paradox. It is odd that CHANNING'S commonplaces should be far in advance of the Review's most curious speculations.

In a notice of Mrs. HEMA.NS'S productions, the Review favours us th an opinion on the essence of poetry. "It has always been our • inion," says the writer, "that the very essence of poetry, apart from e pathos, the wit, or the brilliant description which may be em- sued in it, but may exist equally in prose, consists in the fine per- • ption and vivid expression of that subtle and mysterious analogy hich exists between the physical and the moral world,—which makes tward things and qualities the natural types and emblems of in- ard gifts and emotions, and leads us to ascribe life and sentiment to .erythIng that interests us in the aspects of external nature." Then ,lows an amplification on this" our opinion "—which we presume to • neither ambitious nor commonplace in its substance or illustrations. As we have been indulging in a condemnatory tone, it is but fair , state, that there are four or five articles, out of the fifteen which the umber contains, that we have not found leisure to read.