BOOKS.
MR. BARTER'S ESSAYS.*
BAD novels and weak essays make up between them more than one-half the literature of the day. A man without observation, without imagination, without any gift to distinguish him from the race of dolts, undertakes to write a novel, and the circum- stance that there are people who will read anything that is pub- lished ensures his success, and encourages him to add another to the worthless books which already encumber the libraries. Rarer even than a good novel is a collection of thoroughly good essays. Essays in the nature of newspaper articles or reviews are plentiful enough, the forcing system in vogue of late years having brought out a throng of writers more or less clever in expressing common-place thoughts in a taking style. Perhaps with the majority of these dilettante essayists, it is the manner rather than the matter that captivates the public. It is pleasant to find thoughts that have been in one's own mind for years expressed by another boldly, clearly, and with sufficient originality to give them the appearance of being profound and new. There are so many training schools now that a sounding style is as common as empty heads. Thus, though the demand for this kind of lackered ware is large, there is never a deficiency in the supply. We have every failing of human nature, every disease of human passions, pulled about and dangled before our eyes till there is no part of ourselves that we ought not to know as well as we know the shape of our own face. All this is done with an air of pity, an affectation of cynicism, or a benignant compassion that would have inexpressibly amused the older essayists, who, if they sometimes rebuked their con- temporaries, could yet be the very soul of geniality and good humour. Let any one read an essay of Charles Lamb's -and contrast it with one of the "subtle analyses" now in fashion. Lamb knew quite as much of human nature as the present anato- mists, and yet he did not bring himself to hate it, and least of all did he try to lead his readers to do so. There is but one recent essayist who has caught his spirit,—who is an original thinker, whose style is pure and simple, and refreshing as the sight of green fields, and whose writings are full of those delicate touches of humour or pathos which the cynics would be ashamed to give to their pictures even if they possessed the capacity. Those who
have read the volume entitled " Nugas " will not need to be told that " Shirley" is the only writer of our day who will deserve to be placed by the side of Charles Lamb.
Mr. Barter, we regret to say, does not rise above the flattest level of thought. He beats his drum loudly, but we can never mistake that sound for the melody of the flute. The first essay on ancient and modern poetry is a very fair sample of the others. It is words without thought. Mr. Barter in entitled to the dis- tinction, such as it is, of saying nothing in as grandiloquent and solemn a manner as any writer of the day. The first sentence, for instance, has a truly imposing look—it is a large package, but con- sists of nothing but string and paper :—" If we consider the occu- pations of the bulk of mankind in their waking moments, they may be conveniently divided into what men must do, what they ought to do, and what, falling under neither of these heads, may be designated as what they may do." Mr. Barter thought so well of this idea that he repeated it in his eighth essay, evidently with satisfaction and applause. His essays are full of these bladders—they look solid, but if we prick them nothing more valuable than sawdust runs out. Turning back to the first essay, we find the following grave opinion :—" Every great social fact must have resulted from many causes, some of them, perhaps, inscrutable, but which rally round and are ancillary to the more prominent ones, all concurring to one result. The leading causes, therefore, can alone be indicated." We do not see that an obvious truism could be expanded more pompously than this. Events are produced by many causes, some of which we can, and others we cannot, understand. This is Mr. Barter's
a Life, Law, and Literature; Essays on Various Subjects. By W. G. T. Barter, Esq., Barrister-at-Law. Bell and Dahl". 1866.
statement, and we are not aware that any one has ever denied it. But it is the kind of tinkle that perfectly satisfies some people's ears. The essence of the essay is merely this :—Ancient poetry was founded on action ; modern poetry is founded on sentiment. Mr. Barter requires thirty-seven pages to say this in, and natur- ally he is obliged to use a crowd of brave words to cover the poverty of the thought. Mr. Barter deals with a shallow stream, and having seen his own reflection in it, he fancies that it must be deep. Consequently he dips often into it, but can bring up little good water, owing, as he might say himself, to a cause which is ancillary to the more prominent one, namely, that the pool is nearly empty and very muddy. His second essay, on periodical literature, has nothing in it but this single dry stick :— The taste for knowledge has spread, and popular literature was originated to supply it. Those who have improved this oppor- tunity are to be commended ; those who have abused it, to be blamed. Thus shortly expressed, Ur. Barter himself must see that his thought is not new, that if it were, there is nothing in it, and that his tendency to be oracular is strongest when his mind is most barren, just as the hen cackles loudest when it only fancies it has laid an egg.
It is not without some difficulty, we are told; that Charles Lamb could be induced to republish some of his charming pieces. Here was a characteristic of the great essayist that Mr. Barter might, at least, have imitated with success. But, unfortunately, the less a man has to say in this world the more determined are his pains to make himself heard. Some of the " essays '' in this volume occupy but a page and a half—they are the best in the book, simply because they are the shortest ; but it is quite incomprehensible that any man should have been so fond of them as to think them worth reprinting. There is one originally designed as a preface to a new magazine, which failed, as was natural ; another was written for the same magazine, announcing an advance in price, but not published ; yet it is gravely laid before us in this volume. A man must be very much in love with his own writings not to have the heart to consign a mere trade announcement to the flames. Conceive the pass we should oome to, if each man who writes for the press were thus to gather every scrap that may have proceeded from his pen, including the notice that correspondents must not expect their communications returned. It is true that there are few who can do these things quite in Mr. Barter's style. His essay on the "Homeric Poems" is the noisiest contribution to literature that we remember. It is full of" sound and fury," the evidence, as Mr. Barter doubt- less considers, of a masculine style. "Three names,".so runs one passage," stand out conspicuous —Homer,Dante, and Shakes- peare. Like beacon-towers, they fling their broad light across the weltering waves of time, that restless rage around, other things devouring, but beating in vain against these, that stand scathe- less as at the first." What can be grander? The weltering waves of time ! It is almost equal to General Choke's philippic against the cruelty of the British lion :—" In freedom's name I advert with indignation and disgust to that accursed animal, with gore-stained whiskers, whose rampant cruelty and fiery lust have ever been a scourge, a torment to the world." Neither Mr. Barter nor General Choke deal with the highest form of 'eloquence; but it is the form best adapted to the communica- tion of discoveries like their own to the world. Their cast of mind is a very common one. Some men spend half their lives in coining and uttering platitudes, and if they can give to the base metal the ring of the true, they acquire a certain reputation by the proems. A smooth, glib style will buoy a man up for many years. Mr. Barter has yet to acquire this, but when be has done so, when he has learnt to repeat sonorous nonsense, he will have no rival in his own field. He may beco me the prose Tripper of the age, a career the prospect of which might well animate him to fresh efforts to perfect himself in so simple a thing as style. There seems to be nothing in his mind likely to prove an impediment to success. We are convinced that he has many pleasant things to tell us, and much good advice to give. There is an earnest of this in one of his present essays, entitled, "Our Duty to Society." The gist of it is that we ought not to work if we dislike work. "It is," says Mr. Barter, "to yourself that you are in the first place responsible—a responsibility cast on every living soul from above. If you like work, and feel it your duty, do it; but, if your conviction be the other way, be not laughed, or sneered, or cajoled, into doing what, in the long run, will not avail you or others" (p. 194). "The abnegation of private judgment, which some preach up, is but a moral Hindooism, and, roundly consi- dered, more pernicious" (p. 195). Now this train of reasoning will be immensely consoling to some, whose convictions about work are decidedly, as Mr. Barter puts it, "the other way," and who will be glad to be told in so civil a manner that their con- victions should be respected by the world. That refusing to work is a really noble exercise of independent private judgment, and that to work against the will is a kind of "moral Hindooism," will be a great comfort to many who bate it with the hatred which Mr. Barter so forcibly indicates in the above passage.
One of Mr. Barter's speculations is concerning the destination of the body when separated from the soul. His appreciation of the solemnity of the theme is shown only in the use of words which convey even less meaning than his words usually bear. His supposition is, that the soul will be "companioned by an in- destructible floating germ" of the body, which will eventually ex- pand into a new body. "Together the twain journey, whither it is their Creator's will they should, free as the thistle-down on this earth of ours, that mounts in the air and away." This is but too common an illustration of the manner in which the most serious subjects that can engage human attention are treated by the essay-writers of the day. Life and death—what are they? There is nothing that these men are not ready to explain, in the half-childish, half-flippant tone which leads Mr. Barter to tell us that we shall "know ourselves to be the same" after death through the medium of "the gentleman-usher, conscious memory." Did not life, law, and literature offer a field wide enough for Mr. Barter's thought ? Was it necessary to pursue his vain trifling to regions beyond the. grave ? "Thought is imperishable," he says, and it may be so. Unfortunately, human presumption and human folly are imperishable too, and seek to invade with their petty cries the sad stillness of that domain which stretches out before us dark and inaccessible, solemn as the eternity by which it is surrounded.
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