OXFORD ESSAYS. 1 8 5 8.• IN this annual volume
of the Oxford Essays the University dis- plays its traditional character of attending less to the actual business of men, or to questions of current interest, than its sis- ter competitor o/Cambridge. Of the seven papers in the present volume, two only have any bearing upon actual affairs; Mr. Gold- win Smith's " Oxford University Reform," and Lord Robert Cecil's " Theories of Parliamentary Reform." Four of the five literary essays treat of remote or curious subjects rather than mat- ters exciting general attention, the exception to this peculiar inte- rest being Professor Conington's article on "the Poetry of Pope."
If the subject had a more general attraction the best paper of the whole would have been University Reform." The author indeed proceeds upon the principle of compliments all round, looking at most things through rose-coloured spectacles. The reformers may not have done all that was desirable, perhaps necessary ; but they have done all that was practicable, and done it well ; while time and the influence of enlightened opinion may be trusted to perfect what has been so famously began. The obstructives might have been worse behaved ; perhaps upon the whole their natural and conscientious opposition was in some sense beneficial. One or two improvements that seem theoreti- cally objectionable will doubtless work well. The Essay, how- ever, is a close and sensible exposition of a great change, and exhibits a perception of what English University life should be in itself; drawing a clear distinction between what is desirable and what is attainable with reference to the circumstances of the time.
" Many desired a large extension of the University outside the colleges. Their desire was cautiously met by the clause in the Act permitting masters to open private halls. But these private halls have so far come to nothing, and probably will come to nothing unless one or two should be established as hothouses for exclusive religionists, or very sickly and precious heirs. As concessions to Nonconformists generally, they are nothing: College life is the real life of Oxford ; and if a student is excluded from it, he had better be elsewhere. It seems absurd to go back to the days of Chaucer's scholars, and to expect that swarms of English youth, of the middle and lower classes, will leave respectable and remunerative calings and come up to Oxford to live an uncomfortable and questionable sort of life in lodgings, merely for the sake of attending a few professors' lectures, when by the help of books, newspapers, and the public lectures which are now abundant everywhere, they may enjoy almost as much intellectual pleasure and instruction in their own homes. We shall draw from a wider area both of population and of intellect, now that the tests on the lower degrees are abolished, and the system of studies enlarged ; but the difficulty- of affording the time as well as the money will probably always confine within narrow limits the number of candidates for a long liberal education."
Lord Robert Cecil's paper on Parliamentary Reform is more remarkable for its animus than its excellence. The " idea," as the Germans have it, is based upon the notion that the poorer class of Englishmen would rob the rich if they only got the op- portunity. This might not be done in a direct form ; at least
Lost at present. "A bald proposition to seize the property of rd Overstone would probably be rejected by the most demo- cratic assembly that could be got together, unless the country was in a state bordering on revolution." The rogues would set to work more scientifically, and we may say profitably ; for what would even Lord Overstone's money amount to per head among the poor of the United Kingdom ? Several modes of artisti- cal procedure might be hit upon ; but, as his lordship says, " it is sufficient to mention one, the most powerful and the most sim- ple—a graduated income-tax." " Conceive " he continues- " Conceive a Parliament elected by manhood suffrage in the great towns, and a ten-pound suffrage in the counties ; conceive that by the suppression of small constituencies its members represented this mob-suffrage as accu- rately as the metropolitan members represent the tradesman-suffrage of their boroughs ; and conceive a ministry selected from men of that stamp of character and opinion. Would they scruple to impose an income-tax—it is even now called for—which should take a larger percentage from the rich- est, and a lower percentage as the scale went down ? "
That there is a tendency in classes to shift the burden of taxa- tion from their own shoulders to those of other people is perfectly true. The conduct is found in all countries at all times. The old noblesse of France particularly excelled in this way ; old England was not altogether free from various protective duties, • designed to favour particular classes at the expense of the com- munity, including, or we are much mistaken, sundry duties on corn and other agricultural produce. The subject touched upon by Lord Robert really involves important principles both of pro- perty and taxation ; though they cannot he discussed incidentally. The particular application is not original. Sir Archibald Alison has enforced the idea with less invidiousness and with greater appear- ance of truth ; for he did adduce some facts as well as arguments, to prove that since the Reform Bill taxation had uniformly taken a course in favour of the " ten pounders."-l- That any class with a predominating power in the state will strive to free itself from fiscal pressure is very probable. It is quite right that this considera- tion should be borne in mind in any inquiry as to the effects of Manhood suffrage or other form of extended voting. The objee- rum is not to Lord Robert Cecil's opinion, but to the exclusive Prominence which he gives to it, and the somewhat supercilious * Oxford Strays, contributed by Members of the University. 1858. Published by Parker and Son.
See Spectator for 1855, page 549. manner and the animus with which he urges it; an animus, be it said, in which, so far as our observation goes, he seems to stand, alone among lords. Another argument which he has adopted from Disraeli, relates to the preponderance of town-representation over that of the country. His lordship calculates that " the proportion of county-voter's influence in political affairs to that of a town_ voter is as one to more than two-and-a-half" ; having reference to numbers. The disproportion is greater as regards property " two pounds in a town is better represented on the average than seven pounds in a county," rating being taken as the base of calculation. Supported by this leaf out of Disraeli's book, and an apparent fear lest a large portion of his countrymen (if he will allow the poor to be his countrymen) should turn out con- fiscators at heart, Lord Robert Cecil would have votes for M. graduated upon a money-scale—so much property so many votes to its owner ; so that his supposititious case from "Finsbury or the Tower Hamlets," of the man of 501. a year being equal in political power to the man of 200,0001., should no longer continue, As nobody " of any eminent position has advocated such a measure," Lord Robert conceives it may be impracticable. He therefore comes to the conclusion to do nothing in the way of Reform.
In formal or mechanical literary features the Essay is well
enough. There is an of in the way the dif- ferent sorts of reformers are classified ; the treatment aims at exhaustive analysis ; the style has a kind of smart glibness garnished with a quiet self-sufficiency. It would be a clever party pamphlet, if the avowed party were much more numerous than Lord Robert Cecil himself. But the " Essay " is quite out of place in a volume like this. Politics are not of course to be ex- cluded from a collection professing to represent the general mind of a University like Oxford; but they should be treated in their philosophy ; and if contemporary questions are handled it should be with the view of applying or deducing political principles. The Oxford Essays should not be turned into a vehicle for publishing mire pamphlets. The most popular paper is likely to be that on Pope. Not- withstanding the number of disquisitions designed to prove that he is no poet, " only a versifier at best, the demand as shown by the railway-stall sales exhibits him as the most popular poet after Shakespeare, and this although contemporary allusions and tem- porary manners, deprive many passages and some entire works of their full force or felicity, unless to a reader tolerably acquainted with the history of the day. Nor—though the Essay is very able, are we clear that Professor Conington has altogether penetrated the distinguishing characteristics of Pope's genius, or even hit the bull's eye (though he may the target) in that feature of the poet which he makes his own starting-point—the " correctness" of Pope. Walsh, a man of narrow and feeble though of judicious mind, might mean exact versification when he gave the advice to the youthful poet to make correctness his " study and aim." But the principle as practised by Pope went far beyond any selection of "poetical" words or phrases, or removal of expletives, or scru- pulously polishing or strengthening weak lines. Whatever his own theory might be, his practice was to work up every piece into an equally finished whole. And by " equally finished," it is not of course meant that all parts were alike ; for the style, the thoughts, the images ought to vary with the nature of the subject, and we think Pope paid. as much attention to this necessity as any writer. What we mean is that all Pope's works are more complete and thoroughly finished pieces of their respective kinds, than will be found in any other modern works of equal length. As for minute correctness, poetasters might be found since his day who are more correct than their master. The opinion we have endeavoured to convey was obviously that i of Johnson, the idea continually welling up in his criticism, both on Pope and Dryden. Pope himself describes the faults of Mil- ton, in his " imitation" of the first epistle of the second book of Horace, to which Professor Conington alludes as illustra • the question, though he overlooks the following lines which est seem to settle it.
" Milton's strong pinion now not heaven can bound, Now serpent-like in prose he sweeps the ground, In quibbles angels and archangels join,.
And God the Father turns a school divine."
These faults were not minute, or latent, or inherent ; the " prose" by patient labour could have been raised to poetry; something more appropriate to the Deity substituted for the scho- lastic matter, expressed in scholastic terms.
From the general character of Pope's genies as connected with " correctness," Professor Conington proceeds to a successive exa- mination of the poems, and like most other critics deals hardly, we think, with the genius of the author, while admitting the excel- lence of the works. This is especially the ease with the Essay on Man, and the Epistle to Abelard ; the two poems, which after all the critics have said their say, are we suspect the most read, and the oftenest learned by heart in their more striking passages than any of his other works. Of his Homer the Professor speaks in unrestrained panegyric. " Bo much it was necessary to say on the theory of translation ; and now. we are free to do justice to the extraordinary and unrivalled excellence 01 the poem, as a product of Pope's peculiar power. Probably no other work of his has had so much influence on the national taste and feeling for poetry. It has been—I hope it is still—the delight of every intelligent schoolboy ; they read of kings,, and heroes, and of mighty deeds,' in lan- guage which, in its calm majestic flow, unhasting, unresting, carries them on as irresistibly as Homer's own could do were they born readers of Greek and.their minds are filled with a conception of the heroic age, not indeed Aridly true, but almost as near the truth as that which was entertained by Virgil himself. Their imagination is refined, exalted, satisfied. All the felicities of Pope's higher style are concentrated in this translation. It oc- cupied'ten of the best years of his life, and it adequately represents the fruits which powers like his were sure to produce by the mere force of con- stant exercise. The peculiarities of his own mind, which sometimes offend us when exhibited on a small scale, do not appear equally nnpleasing when we see them more at large. It may be only an arbitrary fancy, but I do not find the modernization of Homer nearly so frigid as the modernization of Chaucer. The language which Achilles and Agamemnon are made to talk seems less inappropriate than the words which are put into the mouth of
i Eloise. One cause doubtless is, that Pope was compelled to allow himself less latitude and exhibit himself less. His Homer, though a sufficiently free translation, is a translation after all. It was on this limited neutral ground, I incline to think, that his genius as a writer on heroic or ideal subjects was best qualified to expatiate. For such themes it was well that others should find the thoughts, he undertaking to supply the manner, the diction, and the numbers."
Of the Essays on more remote or antiquarian literary subjects sir Alexander Grant gives an interesting survey of " The Ancient Stoics"; Mr. George Webb Dann; of "The Norsemen in Ice- land." English " Hymns and Hymn-Writers " are pleasantly gone over by Mr. Charles Buchanan Pearson, and Mr. Phillimore, the Queen's Counsel, introduces the reader in an elaborate Essay to the European influence exercised by " The Canon Law."
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