The Quarterly Review. Whether it be from the Tory party

sticking closer together, and thus preserving their literary con- nexion more unbroken, or whether greater management, exertion, and liberality, with less of Whig squeamishness, be exercised in its conduct, we know not, but the organ of the Tories has far better maintained its character than that of the Whigs. Its sub- jects arc selected with more skill ; they are treated with much more of mastery, pains, and workmanlike ability ; the editor rarely admits passages—never articles—which exhibit such pert. or would-be-witty feebleness as the Edinburgh occasionally allows. In point of character, the Quarterly is as good as ever, it' we ex- cept want of heart. In its politics there is no longer the tri- umphant insolence of Toryism, as in the days of Gagging Bills and Habeas Corpus Suspension Acts; nor are there so much of pungency and spirit as was displayed of old when the Tory writers poured into their literary criticisms the fiery virulence and trenchant sarcasm of their party. Like well-beaten bullies, they are constrained to civility and argument ; and neither one nor the other becomes them well—they are not "native and to the man- ner born."

The present number of the Quarterly jt stifles the comparative praise we have given. The article on DeuaraNN's "Genealogical History of Rome," is a brief but spirited view of the exciting and extraordinary times which ensued on the virtual termination of the Republic and preceded the Empire, ably wrought out by taking the characters of SYLLA and CICERO, as the most marked persons of the time, and grouping the other persons and events about them. The paper, too, has the great merit of fitness : the work reviewed is valuable, dry, abstruse, and foreign. Of a similar kind, though of less power and interest, is the notice of the late works on China : the subject was too large for a hebdomadal journal to bring out the details. RAUMER'S " England in 1835 " is spiteful and fault-searching enough. It is also narrow in view, considered as a notice of a book— I, The critic's eye, that microscope of wit,

Sees hairs and pores, examines bit by bit."

But it is very clever; whilst the object of the writer gives a novelty to matter that would otherwise be stale,—this object being to degrade RAUMER to a mere "historical antiquarian," incapable of judging of passing politics, and to prove that, were it otherwise, his adverse judgments upon Lords and Toryism should go for no- thing, as he was be-Whigged in party coteries and at party dinners from the first moment of his arrival. There are also many attacks upon the fidelity of the translator ; which, however, has been de- fended in other places. One of the most important of these is, whether Lord JOHN RUSSELL appeared to RIMIER as a small person "with a refined and intelligent though not an imposing air, " or as "a little, sharp, cunning-looking man, with nothing of an imposing presence." The (second) review of NAPIER'S History is not only necessarily dry from its minuteness, but, what it need not have been, very dull. WARREN'S " Law Studies" is readable, and, better still, is brief; but it is difficult to guess the reason of its appearance in the Quarterly at this time of day. A notice of a Colonel R. FERMOY'S "Commentaries on the Life of Wolfe Tone" is very anti-Irish and very high Protestant. The "Zoological Gardens" is a very agreeable article; not very scientific, nor, in a learned sense, in- forming, but one of those light, gossipy, aneedotical papers, which _serve to relieve the massiveness of others.

The Edinburgh has no articles of striking or of considerable merit—" content to dwell in decencies for ever." The notice of "Cowper's Lives "is not without interest ; but it derives its qualities altogether from the subject, and from SOUTHEY,—whose biography it has the ingratitude to depreciate. The "Correspondence relating to the Slave Trade" is well designed: it embraces a book of travels and a long series of state papers which few will read : but the execution is spiritless and twaddling. The "Greek Pastoral Poets" exhibits no appreciation of their spirit, and displays a very undue idea of the merit of the translator : it also tries to be facetious, but is only dead lively. "Back's Arctic Land Expe- dition" and " Smyth's Expedition across the Andes" are good reviews, but nothing more. "Joint Stock Banks and Companies' Is a judicious exposé of jobbing projects, apropos perhaps to Basks, but somewhat too late as regards Railroads. We can all advise rightly after the fact.

With regard to the variety and importance of its contents, the accident of its title enables the British and Foreign Review to excel all its contemporaries : it is the only one of the Miscellane- ous Reviews that virtually differs in structure from the rest. The want of purpose in the editor, and of power in the contributors, defeat this advantage. Three great and taking subjects—the Public Men and Politics of France and Spain, and the Social and Political State of Belgium—form the Foreign articles of passing interest ; the outbreak of the Polish insurrection and its first suc- cesses, combine an historical and contemporary attraction. FREY.. name's Poems—a work of the thirteenth century—would seem to possess in itself antiquity and literature with a curious freshness. And, besides several other papers on politics and books, there is a review of the Reports of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. Yet these striking features of the plan are rendered nugatory by the execution. Except the article on Poland, which is more than re- spectable, time rest are unattractive. The %aides on Belgium, Spain, and France, are vague in view, and are expressed with a wearisome verboseness which flattens the effect of the knowledge which the writers evidently possess. FREYDANK, instead of bring-. ing before us the opinions, manners, and social character of the age, and painting, as it were, its picture, devotes. sonic three pages to the work and about three-and-thirty to an Clicyclopmdie sketch of the history of the German Empire, embracing too long a period to be made effective even if the author had the power. Whilst, (significant indication of the uselessness of such long-re- curring periods of publication for influence upon current affairs!) the Ecclesiastical article came too for late practical purposes ; and will not yield much pleasure to either party, from its tenderly trim- ming tone, which of course affects its character as a composition. In addition to these defects, there is at times a kind of imperial swagger about some of the writers, which would ill befit a man like BURKE or ADAM SMITII, and is very ludicrous in persons whose composition at once confutes their pretensions, amid for- cibly reminds one of the sarcasm, " Et nos ergo manum ferulre subducimus ; et nos

Consilium detlimiis Sylke, ut privatus altiim Dorm iret. "

The avowed peculiarity of the London and Westminster Re- view, by which each article should have an individual stamp, and various and even diverse although not opposite opinions, should be tolerated on the same subject, of necessity deprive the journal of that unity and wholeness of character—that variety without discord—by which the Quarterly was distinguished under GIP. FORD'S management, and has a tendency to make the work rather a collection of pamphlets than an organized Review. All decided evils, however, have their drawbacks: this trait in the plan, by leav- ing the writers unfettered, imparts more freedom to view and more unrestrained vigour to expression. Hence, perhaps, the greater freshness and directness that distinguish this Review, as well as its occasional articles of such combined profundity, force, and power. At the same time, it must be'said that the elements of good are casual, whilst those of evil are constantly operating.

The present number of the London, in variety and literary skill, is superior to the earlier numbers; but it contains no paper ' equal to "The Epicier," or the articles on Civilizatien and on time Political and Social Condition of France. Amongst the best, is the paper on French Novels—the result of careful and extensive reading well digested and well applied. The article on the translators of " Faust" is as minute, perhaps as clever, as the remarks on RAUMER in the Quarterly; but it of course wants the personal interest of the other. Its object is to depreciate the prose translation of HAYWARD: and hard enough it hits his German and his self-complacency; so far, however, as the paper furnishes means of judgment, its author is more of a linguist than a critic. "Early French Literature" is a learned, an able, and a useful précis of a subject on which every one ought to have an impression, but which very few in England will be at the pains of acquiring for themselves. "Protestant and Catholic Popery" is a rational and logical article, distinguished by a breadth of view and a calm elevation of thought befitting the discussion of such a subject by " philosophical Reformers." The books reviewed are SORIC publications of BLANCO WHITE'S and MOORE'S "Travels of an Irish Gentleman ;" whose fancies are dissipated before the touch of reason. The aim of the writer is to mark the difference between those doctrines of creeds which must be left to the respective theologians themselves to settle, and those which are open to reason, and to advocate the full right of private judgment. Here is a sample of his manner.

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

It is easy to see what must be the practical operation on society of the Romish and sectarian systems. The Reformation has simply made over the infallibility of the Pope to each individual Protestant. Every sect mimics on a small scale the spiritual policy of the triple crown, and the thunders of the Vatican are repeated by the thousand penny.trumpets of sectarianism. . The same devices for acting on the will of recusants anti keeping clear of their un- derstandings, the same outcry about the sin of unbelief, the same use of the fictitious crime of setting up reason against inspiration, the same menaces of everlasting ruin, which kept Europe in awe for centuries, are still extant in the village church and the conventicle. The difference is, that Rome enjoyed a monopoly of infallibility; its empire was undivided; the pretensiom. which it asserted, Christendom recognized; it presided over an unresisting subject lass, and pressed on their minds with dangerous and benumbing power. Protes- tantism is a competition of inftlhibihities, and affords the kind of liberty which the Roman empire sometimes enjoyed in its decline, from the existence of dozen rival candidates for the purple—sectional partialities, with universal warfare. It is a favourite notion with theologians, that the Reforiliatwn ex- changed an ecclesiastical monarchy for a republic of churches. It is all a fic- tion; for a republic implies a resignation of all separate claims to ascendancy

a voluntary distribution of power in small portions among all its members. Among sects there is no approach to this; with hardly an exception, no abate.

mitt is made by any from the full pretension to divine right. Each one speaks of all the rest, not as citizen of citizen, but as a king speaks of a pretender. Those who compare the sectarian communities to a democracy, se.m to imagine that the sovereignty of the people consists in every individual of the people aiming to be a sovereign. The only security which we enjoy is in the single impotence of these rival tyrannies ; the only quiet, in the equilibrium of their i mutual resistances ; the only equality s the surly and unrecognized equality of • discontented aspirants to authority.

The provincial and sectarian objects of the Dublin Review give it a unity of aim which no ether work of the kind can lay claim to. They also cause the choice of more timely topics than any of the rest. But these qualities, which give it, in a critical sense, dis- tinctness of character, limit its popularity and its power. It is not the friend of truth, but of Ireland and thc Popedom. The Jesuitry of the opening number is succeeded by casuistry in the second. It displays the earnestness, but the narrowness, of the colony and the cloister. Its writers exhibit none of that loftiness of thought by which philosophers rise above the consideration of personal and party interests, or of those pretended large and rational views by which men of the world disguise them. They write like monks and not like men. Their reasoning is naked pleading, looking only at one side of the question, and bringing out that with force and skill, but puzzling rather than convincing. The paper on the State of Ireland has a good case enough, perhaps, to show that Ireland is not so great a financial burden to England as is generally supposed : it contains an important hint, that in a more proaperous state it would be one of the best customers in the world for British manufactures : but it is absurd to say that Ireland is not responsible for its quota, whatever it may be, of the National Debt, on the ground that the war was not undertaken fer Irish interests. It may be doubted whether it was ler English interests: it is clear that Westminster, or any other former Oppo- sition place, might object to taxes on the same ground : it is cer- tain that such arguments arc not so much sophistical as dishonest. This is political. Turning to religion, what in the world does the nineteenth century care about the conversion to Catholicism of a Mr. CONNELY, a Protestant clergyman of the 'United States? and what popular writer in the same epoch would dream of inditing an article animated by such a train of mystic thought as appears in the following extract, and call it the "Philosophy of Art?"

The character of Christian art is not only essentially different from, but even opposed to that of ancient Greece; for Christianity, by displacing the centre of art, extended its circuit& retire ; and, whilst the tinnier had its origin bounded by time and by space, the latter, although equally limited in its ex- pression, was in its allusions infinite. Pagan art, completely ignorant of the future destiny of man as of his real nature, was limited to the beauty and power of the human form, and to the expression of certain violent passions, and that indeed rarely attempted; and only in the decay of art ; the general character of Grecian sculpture in its best days being a dignified repose and the total absence of all muscular effort. Thus, even in the Apollo, although in a state of action, the muscles are scarcely indicated. The Farnesian Hercules is, indeed, an exception, which the very nature of the subject rendered ne- cessary. But Christian art, aware of the identity of nakedness and shame, hastened to conceal that Joint which sin had deyraded, ander those ample draperies which became one of its peculiarities, and, at the same tune, one of its greatest charms; serving as a mystical veil, translucent, yet hopmetrable, revealing all its motions, but hiding its form—infinitely more beautiful than the most perfect reality, inasmuch as the sign is surpassed by the things signi- fied ; inasmuch as the ideal circle, circumscribed by a line without breadth or thickness, surpasses in perfection the rude diagram by which it is figured forth.

The Foreign Quarterly is the only Review the obvious utility of whose scope and objects might enable it to reject the aid of novelty of plan, and rely altogether upon its industry in catering and its skill in cookery. Conducted with common care, such a work might always command support : with great ability dis- played in its pages, its circulation would be considerable: its in- fluence, under any circumstances, could scarcely be great. The number before us maintains the reputation of the journal for solidity, variety, and information ; whilst it is destitute of anima- tion, grasp, and vigour.