Richard Garnett

“ History of New York, although the air of mock solemnity which constitutes the staple of its humour is peculiar to no literature, manifests nevertheless a power of reproducing a distinct national type. Had circumstances taken Irving to the West, and placed him amid a society teeming with quaint and genial eccentricity, he might possibly have been the first Western humorist, and his humour might have gained in depth and richness. In England, on the other hand, everything encouraged his natural fastidiousness ”

“ He was far from possessing his brother’s subtlety of reasoning, but he impresses by a transparent sincerity and singleness of mind not always displayed by the more celebrated writer; his style is too individual to be taken as a model, but is admirable for its simplicity and clearness. His character is vividly drawn by Carlyle in his life of Sterling, of whose son Newman was guardian: “a man of fine attainments, of the sharpest-cutting and most restlessly advancing intellect and of the mildest pious enthusiasm.” ”

“ The 18th century was, indeed, the age of satire. Serious poetry had for the time worn itself out; the most original geniuses of the age, Swift, Defoe and Richardson, are decidedly prosaic, and Pope, though a true poet, is less of a poet than Dryden. ”

“ The ridicule of Ulric von Hutten’s Epistolae obscurorum virorum is annihilating, and the art there for the first time fully exemplified though long previously introduced by Plato, of putting the ridicule into the mouth of the victim, is perhaps the most deadly shaft in the quiver of sarcasm. It was afterwards used with even more pointed wit though with less exuberance of humour by Pascal, the first modern example, if Dante may not be so classed of a great tragic satirist. Ethical satire is vigorously represented by Sebastian Brant and his imitator Alexander Barclay ”

“ Alike intellectually and morally, Cardan is one of the most interesting personages connected with the revival of science in Europe. He had no especial bent towards any scientific pursuit, but appears as the man of versatile ability, delighting in research for its own sake. ”

“ The clergy were scourged with their own rod by a poet and a Puritan too earnest to be urbane. Satire is a distinct element in Chaucer and Boccaccio, who nevertheless cannot be ranked as satirists. The mock-heroic is successfully revived by Luigi Pulci, and the political songs of the 14th and 15th centuries attest the diffusion of a sense of humour among the people at large. The Renaissance, restoring the knowledge and encouraging the imitation of classic models, sharpened the weapons and enlarged the armoury of the satirist. ”

“ Melincourt is a comparative failure, the excellent idea of an orang-outang mimicking humanity being insufficient as the sole groundwork of a novel. Headlong Hall, though more than foreshadowing the author’s subsequent excellence, is marred by a certain bookish awkwardness characteristic of the recluse student, which reappears in Gryll Grange as the pedantry of an old-fashioned scholar, whose likes and dislikes have become inveterate and whose sceptical liberalism, always rather inspired by hatred of cant than enthusiasm for progress, has petrified into only too earnest conservatism. ”

“ The general impression is highly favourable to the writer, whose impetuosity and fits of reckless dissipation appear as mere exaggerations of the warmth of heart which imparted such strength to his domestic affections, and in the region of science imparted that passionate devotion to research which could alone have enabled him to persevere so resolutely and effect such marked advances in such multifarious fields of inquiry. ”

“ Numerous other pamphlets appeared, inspired or controlled by Sarpi, who had received the further appointment of censor over all that should be written at Venice in defence of the republic. Never before in a religious controversy had the appeal been made so exclusively to reason and history; never before had an ecclesiastic of his eminence maintained the subjection of the clergy to the state, and disputed the pope's right to employ spiritual censures, except under restrictions which virtually abrogated it. Material arguments were no longer at the pope's disposal. ”

“ The origin of life depends upon cosmic laws, which Cardan naturally connects with his favourite study of astrology. The physical divergencies of mankind arise from the effects of climate and the variety of human circumstances in general. Cardan’s views on the dissimilarity of languages are much more philosophical than usual at his time; and his treatise altogether, though weak in particular details, is strong in its pervading sense of the unity and omnipotence of natural law, which renders it in some degree an adumbration of the course of science since the author’s day. ”

“ In no age was the spirit of satire so generally diffused as in the 19th century, but many of its eminent writers, while bordering on the domains of satire, escape the definition of satirist. The term cannot be properly applied to Dickens, the keen observer of the oddities of human life ”

“ His chief defects as a historian are want of imagination and an undignified familiarity of style, which, however, at least preserves his history from the dulness by which lack of imagination is usually accompanied. His dryness is associated with a fund of dry humour exceedingly effective in its proper place, as in The Book Hunter. As a man he was loyal, affectionate, philanthropic and entirely estimable. ”

“ It has been injurious to his fame to have been compelled to labour, partly in fields of research where no important discovery was then attainable, partly in those where his discoveries could only serve as the stepping-stones to others, by which they were inevitably eclipsed. ”

“ About the same time we notice the appearance of direct imitation of the Roman satirists in English literature in the writings of Donne, Hall and Marston, the further elaboration of the mock-heroic by Tassoni, and the culmination of classical Italian satire in Salvator Rosa. The prodigious development of the drama at this time absorbed much talent that would otherwise have been devoted to satire proper. Most of the great dramatists of the 17th century were more or less satirists, Molière perhaps the most consummate that ever existed ”

“ Galileo would not have wasted his time in corresponding with a man from whom he could learn nothing; and, though Sarpi did not, as has been asserted, invent the telescope, he immediately turned it to practical account by constructing a map of the moon. ”

“ In Lucian comedy appears adapted to suit the exigencies of an age in which a living drama had become impossible. With him antique satire expires as a distinct branch of literature,—though mention should be made of the sarcasms and libels with which the population of Egypt were for centuries accustomed to insult the Roman conqueror and his parasites. A denunciation of the apostate poet Hor-Uta—a kind of Egyptian “Lost Leader”—composed under Augustus, has been published by M. Revillout from a demotic papyrus. ”

“ IRVING, WASHINGTON (1783–1859) , American man of letters, was born at New York on the 3rd of April 1783. Both his parents were immigrants from Great Britain, his father, originally an officer in the merchant service, but at the time of Irving’s birth a considerable merchant, having come from the Orkneys, and his mother from Falmouth. Irving was intended for the legal profession, but his studies were interrupted by an illness necessitating a voyage to Europe, in the course of which he proceeded as far as Rome, and made the acquaintance of Washington Allston. ”

“ In 1855 Newton declined the regius professorship of Greek at Oxford. In 1860 he was made British consul at Rome, but had scarcely entered upon the post when an opportunity presented itself of reorganizing the amorphous department of antiquities at the British Museum, which was divided into three and ultimately four branches. The Greek and Roman section naturally fell to Newton, who returned as Keeper, and held the office until 1885, declining the offer of the principal librarianship made to him in 1878. ”

“ His biographies bear the stamp of genuine artistic intelligence, equally remote from compilation and disquisition. In execution they are almost faultless; the narrative is easy, the style pellucid, and the writer’s judgment nearly always in accordance with the general verdict of history. ”

“ The book’s quaint resolute paganism, however, is very refreshing in an age eaten up with introspection; it is the kindliest of Peacock’s writings, and contains the most beautiful of his poems, “Years Ago,” the reminiscence of an early attachment. In general the ballads and songs interspersed throughout his tales are models of exact and melodious diction, and instinct with true feeling. His more ambitious poems are worth little, except Rhododaphne, attractive as a story and perfect as a composition, but destitute of genuine poetical inspiration. ”

“ Though almerciless assailant of individuals, Archilochus was also a distinguished statesman, naturally for the most part in opposition, and his writings seem to have fulfilled many of the functions of a newspaper press. Their merit is attested by Quintilian; and Gorgias's comparison of them with Plato's persiflage of the Sophists proves that their virulence must have been tempered by grace and refinement. Archilochus also gave satiric poetry its accepted form by the invention of the iambic trimeter, slightly modified into the scazonic meter by his successors. ”

“ It was followed some years later by a similar treatise, De Varietate Rerum (1557) , the two making in effect but one book. A great portion of this is occupied by endeavours, commonly futile, to explain ordinary natural phenomena, but its chief interest for us consists in the hints and glimpses it affords of principles beyond the full comprehension of the writer himself, and which the world was then by no means ready to entertain. The inorganic realm of Nature he asserts to be animated no less than the organic; all creation is progressive development; all animals were originally worms ”

“ This memorable book, together with the rival and apologetic history by Cardinal Pallavicini, is minutely criticized by Ranke (History of the Popes, appendix No. 3) , who tests the veracity of both writers by examining the use they have respectively made of their MS. materials. The result is not highly favourable to either; neither can be taxed with deliberate falsification, but both have coloured and suppressed. They write as advocates rather than historians. ”

“ In 1853, after the grant of a constitution to New Zealand, he took up his residence in the colony, and immediately began to act a leading part in colonial politics. In 1854 he appeared in the first New Zealand parliament as extra-official adviser of the acting governor, a position which excited great jealousy, and as the mover of a resolution demanding the appointment of a responsible ministry. ”

“ The oviparous habits of birds are explained by their tendency to favour the perpetuation of the species, precisely in the manner of modern naturalists. Animals were not created for the use of man, but exist for their own sakes. ”

“ Having successfully terminated the affairs entrusted to him, he returned to Venice in 1588, and passed the next seventeen years in study, occasionally interrupted by the part he was compelled to take in the internal disputes of his community. In 1601 he was recommended by the Venetian senate for the small bishopric of Caorle, but the papal nuncio, who wished to obtain it for a protégé of his own, informed the pope that Sarpi denied the immortality of the soul, and had controverted the authority of Aristotle. ”

“ The body of the work, however, is fruitful in seminal ideas, though some statements may be rash and some conclusions extravagant. It contains the distinct proposal that the transport of letters should be wholly gratuitous— the precursor of subsequent reform— and the prophecy that, under given circumstances, "the Americans would raise cheaper corn than has ever been raised." In 1836 Wakefield published the first volume of an edition of Adam Smith, which he did not complete. In 1837 the New Zealand Association was established, and he became its managing director. ”

“ As frequently is the case with men incapable of rightly ordering their own lives, he is full of wisdom and sound advice for others; his ethical precepts and practical rules are frequently excellent. To complete the catalogue of his accomplishments, he is no contemptible poet.
The work of Cardan’s, however, which retains most interest for this generation is his autobiography, De Vita Propria. ”

“ Sarpi had another maxim, which he thus formulated to Dohna: Le falsità non dico mai mai, ma la verità non a ognuno. It must further be considered that, though Sarpi admired the English prayer-book, he was neither Anglican, Lutheran nor Calvinist, and might have found it difficult to accommodate himself to any Protestant church. ”

“ As a mathematician, on the other hand, he effected important advances in science, but such as merely paved the way for discoveries which have obscured his own. From his astrology no results could be expected ”

“ Bracebridge Hall, or the Humourists (2 vols., New York) , a work purely English in subject, followed in 1822, and showed to what account the American observer had turned his experience of English country life. The humour is, nevertheless, much more English than American. Tales of a Traveller (4 pts.) appeared in 1824 at Philadelphia, and Irving, now in comfortable circumstances, determined to enlarge his sphere of observation by a journey on the continent. After a long course of travel he settled down at Madrid in the house of the American consul Rich. ”

“ NEWTON, SIR CHARLES THOMAS (1816-1894) , British archaeologist, was born on the 16th of September 1816, at Bredwardine in Herefordshire, and educated at Shrewsbury School and Christ Church, Oxford. He entered the British Museum in 1840 as an assistant in the Antiquities Department. Antiquities, classical, Oriental and medieval, as well as ethnographical objects, were at the time included in one department, which had no classical archaeologist among its officers. ”