Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Critical Notices Of The Literature Of The Last Three Months,
CRITICAL NOTICES OF THE LITERATURE OF THE LAST THREE MONTHS ,
AND OP MATTERS CONNECTED WITH SCIENCE AND AET . " Why should not divers studies , at divers hours , delight , when the variety is alone able to refresh and repair us ?"—Ben Jonson's Discoveries . OF all stles of writingthat least understood is the biographical .
y , Authors seem leagued in conspiracy against the public and , if we may venture to be so severe , against good taste , when they insist upon making the life of an eminent individual subservient to some secondary object . Why they should persist in the practice , we are at a loss to conceive . The life of a celebrated man , or even of one whose celebrity consists chiefly in the good or evil fortune , as the case may be , of having lived in stirrin g and eventful times , is , if it is worth recording at all , of interest , not because it
illustrates any particular social or political theory , but because it is history more or less individualized , and supplies the reader with information relative to a state of society which has passed away , or gives him a picture , faithful or not , according to the industry , talent , and Eruth-lovingness ofthe biographer , of the mind of a man living uncier circumstances and acting under influences , of which we know but little , aud are anxious to know more . Into the fault to which we here allude , Mr . Madden , iu
his " Life and Martyrdom of Savonarola , " * has undoubtedl y fallen . He has made the biography of the bold monk subservient to a history of Church and State connection . To this end , translations of some of tho writings of Savonarola are produced , and the incidents of his life , which illustrate the evils ancl advantages of this connection are pointedly brought forward , to the neglect of others , -which would have been a thousand times more interesting , as illustrative of the struggles and agonies with
whieh new opinions are born into the world . The best part of the work , and we do not hesitate to bear witness to the industry and attention which the author has paid to his subject , is that which is devoted to pictures of the different branches of that society with which SaA'onarola had to contend , and which finally condemned him to martyrdom . From a life of voluntary suffering , the result of a stern and unbendingreligious ascetism , we pass to a detailed account of the lifesufferings
, , and death of young Louis XVII ., t who , in obedience to the wicked villany of the Jacobins , and the more than brutal and debased spirit of the times , was the victim of as foul a conspiracy as ever disgraced the history of mankind . Perhaps some of our readers may think that enough has been written concernina : the horrors oE sans-culottism and tho French llevolu-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Critical Notices Of The Literature Of The Last Three Months,
CRITICAL NOTICES OF THE LITERATURE OF THE LAST THREE MONTHS ,
AND OP MATTERS CONNECTED WITH SCIENCE AND AET . " Why should not divers studies , at divers hours , delight , when the variety is alone able to refresh and repair us ?"—Ben Jonson's Discoveries . OF all stles of writingthat least understood is the biographical .
y , Authors seem leagued in conspiracy against the public and , if we may venture to be so severe , against good taste , when they insist upon making the life of an eminent individual subservient to some secondary object . Why they should persist in the practice , we are at a loss to conceive . The life of a celebrated man , or even of one whose celebrity consists chiefly in the good or evil fortune , as the case may be , of having lived in stirrin g and eventful times , is , if it is worth recording at all , of interest , not because it
illustrates any particular social or political theory , but because it is history more or less individualized , and supplies the reader with information relative to a state of society which has passed away , or gives him a picture , faithful or not , according to the industry , talent , and Eruth-lovingness ofthe biographer , of the mind of a man living uncier circumstances and acting under influences , of which we know but little , aud are anxious to know more . Into the fault to which we here allude , Mr . Madden , iu
his " Life and Martyrdom of Savonarola , " * has undoubtedl y fallen . He has made the biography of the bold monk subservient to a history of Church and State connection . To this end , translations of some of tho writings of Savonarola are produced , and the incidents of his life , which illustrate the evils ancl advantages of this connection are pointedly brought forward , to the neglect of others , -which would have been a thousand times more interesting , as illustrative of the struggles and agonies with
whieh new opinions are born into the world . The best part of the work , and we do not hesitate to bear witness to the industry and attention which the author has paid to his subject , is that which is devoted to pictures of the different branches of that society with which SaA'onarola had to contend , and which finally condemned him to martyrdom . From a life of voluntary suffering , the result of a stern and unbendingreligious ascetism , we pass to a detailed account of the lifesufferings
, , and death of young Louis XVII ., t who , in obedience to the wicked villany of the Jacobins , and the more than brutal and debased spirit of the times , was the victim of as foul a conspiracy as ever disgraced the history of mankind . Perhaps some of our readers may think that enough has been written concernina : the horrors oE sans-culottism and tho French llevolu-