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Westley, Mr.

Weydemeyer, H. E. Mme., born Princess Herkhe

oulitzoff.

Whishaw, Mr.

Whitehead, Mr., Her Britannic Majesty's Consul at

Archangel.

Wicoulin, Mr.

Wielhorsky, the Countess.

Wilson, General, Alexandroffsky.

Wilson, H. E. Mr. Lewis, Alexandroffsky.

Wilson, Mrs.

Wilson, Mr.

Wistinghausen, Mr. Edward.

Worhmann, Mr., Biga.

Woronzoff, Count, Governor-General of New Russia

and Bessarabia.

Woronzoff Daschkoff, the Countess.

Wylie. H. E. Sir James, Bart.

Z.

Zagemehl, Mr.

Zavadoffsky, the Countess.

Zinovieff, Mlle.

Zubkoff, Mr., Tsarskoe Selo.

Zvenigorodsky, Mr., Orenburg. Zacharevitch, Mr., Neginn.

ST PETERSBURG

ENGLISH REVIEW.

ENGLISH LITERATURE.

PART I. PERIODICALS.

"

"The March of Intellect»«The Nineteenth Century The Progress of Science are the phrases which perhaps strike most frequently upon the ear of him who stands, a listener, in the crowded Burse or Exchange of Society. Yet true are the simple words of Geoffrey Chaucer,

<< Ther n' is no newe gize that n' has bin olde. »

In spite of discoveries and improvements in the material world which daily weary our wonder, the Intellect, whether of Nations or Individuals, seems to be in a state, less of progression, than of eternal and regular revolution; and appears to return to the same phases and aspects as inevitably as the celestial wanderers, as blamelessly, to use the beautiful

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expression of Coleridge, as they in Heaven. »

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All that is, and now perchance « overcomes us with a special wonder, has been, and perhaps will be again, when the majestic cycle of causes shall have again completed its mighty course. Of this vast circle but a single point can be at once presented to our limited and imperfect vision; whence we ignorantly, if not arrogantly, conclude, that this point is

VOL. I.

1

rather a portion of some progressive line, than of that sublime orbit whose centre is the Primæval Intelligence, and whose circumference is Infinity.

Nations, like Men, have their infancy, their manhood, and their dotage; like the Year, their seasons of development, of fruition, and of decay: nor would the benevolent harmony of Nature be less violated by the productions of one age being confounded with those of another, than by the husbandman who should expect to make his seed-time in the dog-days, or his harvest in the spring.

These considerations were suggested to us by remarking how singularly the character of the present age seems to reproduce the intellectual physiognomy of remote antiquity, in countries, like Greece and England, which, in their different epochs, have reached a high degree of refinement and civilization. We observe the same boldness of speculation which distinguished the age of Socrates, the same impatience, not only of tediousness, but even of a sustained and long-continued tone of discussion; like the Ancients, we demand results and not processes; and scientific or literary language has acquired an almost epigrammatic brilliancy and emphasis which recalls the magnificent condensation of the Platonic philosophizing, and the splendid but frequently fallacious rhetoric of the Sophists.

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The Middle Ages,-when the intellect of Man, chained and tortured by feudal tyranny and persecuting superstition, resembled in its rude strugglings and throes, the gropings of the blinded Cyclops in his cave,-were essentially the era of gigantic, though often misdirected, energies. The intellectual, like the physical warfare of that period, was conducted by huge uncouth, unwieldy machines. The Books, like the Armour and military Engines, of these ages, are vast and cumbersome, yet complicated contrivances; the learned brought the whole battery of knowledge, their ponderous treatises de omni Scibili, to bear upon some position in Ethics which a single glance at the Bible would have enabled them to master, or some dogma in Natural Science which Experiment would have settled at once and for ever This is the age of all

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such reading as was never read; » a library of this period is a strange arsenal of grim and ponderous weapons,

« De Lyra here a dreadful front extends,

«And there the groaning shelves Philemon bends,» (1)

equally unlike the light and polished arrows of the Greek, The subtle Greek,

« Blest in the lovely marriage of sweet words; » (2)

who garlanded Philosophy with roses, and expounded her oracles in music; and that electric brilliancy which plays and sparkles through the airy discussions of the present day.

What we have suffered in the loss of those beautiful apologues, half playful, half profound, which often conveyed such solemn and moving verities, we may feel from the fragments which remain scattered up and down and which the Scholar has so laboured to seek for and to reunite-for Time and Barbarism, « as the story goes of the Egyptian Typhon with his conspirators, how they dealt with the God Osiris, took the virgin Truth, hewed her lovely form into a thousand From that pieces, and scattered them to the four winds.

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time ever since, the sad friends of Truth, such as durst

appear, imitating the careful search that Isis made for the mangled body of Osiris, went up and down, gathering up limb by limb, as they could find them. (3)

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Alas! for us the wit and wisdom of Plato, the

<< Truth severe in fairy fiction drest,

:

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is but dim and fragmentary of the polished comedy of Menander, the darling of his age,

<< That sharp-witted Poet, whose sweet voice

« Male heavenly Gods break off their Nectar draughts,
« And lay their ears down to the lowly earth,

(1) Pope. Dunciad, Book 1. Line 153.

(2) Massinger. Picture, Act. 1. Scene 2.

(3) Milton. Areopagitica.

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