The Diary of a Dutiful Son. By Thomas George Fonnereau.
(-John Murray.)—Mr. Lockhart thought so highly of this little work that although printed only for private circulation it was reviewed in the Quarterly for March, 1850. He also recommended the author to pub- lish, who was, however, prevented by his death in the autumn of that year. The high expectations which this history of the book raises, it, however, scarcely fulfils. Short isolated paragraphs, table-talk, know no medium, and what pungency the thoughts have is commonly no more than the contented cynicism which is almost always the concomV- tent of lettered and fastidious indolence. "The only way," says thsi author, "to preserve your independence without ill-will is to do nothing." The remark is true enough, but it is all contained in the saying of Pitt, which he quotes, that an independent man is a man not to be depended on ; and unfortunately it leaves out the wit of Pitt's saying and tacitly introduces false morality—that a man is therefore justified in living for his own enjoyment only. Still there is a good deal of good sense in the book, and if the author had been poor enough to be compelled to write, he would probably have been a good critic instead of a merely second- rate spinner of paradoxes intermingled with shrewd truisms.
Previous page
