BOOKS.
BENTLEY'S QUARTERLY REVIEW.*
IF literary merit alone would suffice to render a great periodical work successful, Bentley's Quarterly Review would have every prospect of success. The subjects of its papers are varied, ex- hibiting a judicious mixture of practical with literary and art topics, these two last having a current interest either from the po-
sition of the author reviewed or the nature of the themes. The writing itself is often distinguished by smartness, power, almost eloquence, and always by careful or solid composition. But lite- rary merit will not alone suffice to secure success in a leading periodical. There must be a definite purpose and some public want must be supplied, or, which is perhaps the same proposition in another form, the work must furnish some special information present some novel and practical views, and within prescribed limits its serve as a guide to its readers. Power of composition is of course needed, just as food is needful to the statesman or the sol- dier, as they would die without ; but as food does not constitute either soldier or statesman, se mere writing, even if backed by matter, will not suffice for a leading periodical. There must be contemporary, almost current, matter and interest ; the last word being used in its primary meaning of something substantial to be received.
It is on these grounds that a representative organ of some defined principle, if not of some party, has a great advantage, if not an essential, to permanent success. In the first place it secures a definite purpose—the course as it were is laid for it, without being servilely compelled to a particular line. Besides the more tangible benefit of party subscribers, a representative organ enlists in its cause the "choice spirits" the active, zealous, rising, and ambitious men of the party, and secures the best in- formation of all kinds in possession of the party, while it is just as able as the most isolated work to obtain literary, scientific, or artistical aid. It has, moreover, a great advantage in its con- tinuous power. Individuals die, remove, change their objects, or get exhausted ; but a party continually furnishes new recruits ; though of course a party also may change or die, as indeed is the case with parties before our eyes. These notions are supported by the actual fact. The two most enduring and successful Quarterlies are the organs of the two great parties into which the country is even yet divided, how- ever much they may really be cracked into sections. The West- minster, the next in point of age, started as a representative of one section of the "philosophical Radicals," with Colonel Thompson as leader, then represented another section of the same body, of whom we might name John Stuart Mill as representative man. It has since continued on much the same course, religion latterly being as distinctive a feature as politics. Dr. Vaughan's British Quarterly was quite as independent of party aid as was desirable for profit ; still it represented what may be called Constitutional Liberalism both in politics and religion, though the Review was both too forward and too elevated for the bulk of the body to which it nominally belonged, " the Congregationalists." It might, how- ever, be held to represent broadly liberal Protestantism, apart from mere forms; and drew to its pages the best scholarship of the Dissenters, if not of the Evangelicals. The North British again was a Presbyterian organ ; the Dublin a Romanist; and indeed, without extraneous support, it was difficult to see how the latter could live at all. The National started on grounds more avowedly independent than even Dr. Vaughan's Quarterly ; for it had to develop if not to form its party of men opposed to cants and exaggerations of all kinds, and holding only by reasonable truth.f And, we think, it has hardly sustained the promise of its opening in the peculiar line of politics and religion it chalked out for itself. The ' Oxford" and ' Cambridge Essays," though possessing, it might have been supposed, scholarly connections and advantages, and often exhibiting considerable ability, yet passed away in a few years for want of that tie which distinct ob- jects of some kind alone can give.
,.. The advertisement of Bentley's Quarterly Review eschewed party purposes, but claimed to be " patriotic and constitutional in character—progressive, practical, temperate, and independent." Speaking from papers that bear upon current affairs, we should i say that, in actual fact, too much individuality is the character- istic of the number. There is the writer's individual opinion rather than that reflex of general ideas, or at least of the ideas of numbers, which is requisite to inspire supporters; or where the subject matter compels the reproduction of its own substance, the treatment is that which suits or pleases the individual writer rather than what readers want or indeed expect. The opening paper on " English Politics and Parties " is a smart flashy article, freely commenting on men and affairs ; but past affairs are handled much as the present, or future. As respects the past, it tells us little that we have not met with before, and guides us for the present not at all. It may wear an air of novelty from unrestrained manner, a bold smartness of expression, and some- times exaggeration of facts, as at the commencement the histori- cal application to the whole Continent of what is true only of France ; but it is not, a paper to form a party creed. " Indian Conversion" is a crotchety article—a kind of cross between the orthodox sermon and the German metaphysical essay. The treat- ment is I priori ; the question proposed is " Can Brahmanism
• Bentley': Quarterly Review. No. I. March, 1859. Published by Bentley. t Spectator for 1855, page 731. %end?" (though, by the by„ there are such Indian religionists as Mahometans and Buddhists) ; and the prospect of Indian con- version is made to fundamentally rest upon the fact of whether the Hiudoo " is a man." • " We assume, that wherever existing under the sun, man is man, en- dowed with the plenitude of human reason in all that is essential to it, and with the whole moral' and religious nature of the true human being. The question then is, Does Brahmanism answer to the religious type in human nature ? Is it in harmony with the moral standard in human nature ? Is it in harmony with physical truth ? Is it in harmony with the ends of society ? If it is not, but is in disagreement with all these, then if human- nature has only time, fair play, and moderate encouragement, human nature must gradually cast it of We have, apart, from present progress, an ulti- mate appeal to the original type of rational humanity." The more worldly arguments are derived from blue-books and similar sources, and- inform us of such matters as that an Eng- lish scientific education makes many Brahmins infidels, without making them Christians-•' approves of Lord Stanley's determina- tion not to connect the Indian Government with proselytizing plans ; while as to the distant future, that will see what it will see. In like manner, " Civilization in Russia," a review of a book by M. de Gerebtzoff, just stops short of that which we want to know. What is the actual condition ? what are the early pro- spects of the people ? In lieu of which we have historical dis- cussions before and after Peter the Great, as to the borrowed cha- racter of Russian eiyilizetion ; and some industrial statistics, such as Russia allows to be published. One point of importance is made. In order to conciliate the nobles and protect the peasants, the vil- lage-land, the village-taxes, &o., will be in common, whence the author anticipates a growth of communism.
" The whole population of the oountry is now to receive a commercial or- ganization, like that which has existed for the crown serfs since 1839, So for as the people acquire the power to assess their own taxes, and are sad- dled with the duty of providing for the support of the sick and impotent in their districts, no one can fairly object to this change : similar or analogous powers exist in our own borough towns, and throughout the Continent. But it is a feature of the old communes that all the village-lands should be held in common, and divided afresh, by *eueral agreement or by lot, ut the expiration of a certain term of years. This, as we have already pointed out, is an obstacle to all agricultural progress, and must end, if it be maintained, ultimately in a system of socialism, without either science or capital. Neither is this the only evil that is involved. The constitution of a pro- letariat, possessing a common and indefinitely divisible property, without any incentives to its improvement, or to the private accumulation of wealth, can only tend to efface all differences between class and class. If other causes do not intervene, society will gradually sink to a stagnant and uni- form level of industrial pauperism in the villages. And this feature of the
present reibrm is the more terrible, because it comes at a time when it is certain that the whole of the upper classes will be reduced from wealth to a mere competence, or from moderate incomes to poverty. That slave-owners should be turned• into land-owners was the triumph of European ideas; but that wealth should be debarred of its natural rights in the labour-market by a system which provides the peasant with a maintenance independent of the wages of labour, was an original conception, which the world has un- doubtedly learned from Russian emancipationists.
" We speak in all sadness, for we believe the dangerous system has been forced upon the crown as a compromise and a make-shift."
" Austrian Italy," though more geographical and statistical than political, as regards the space occupied, is an able and solid paper. The author appears thoroughly acquainted with the country by observation, and gives some graphic sketches of its external features. He has also studied its history and its institu- tions, of which last under Austrian rule he furnishes a favourable account. He also leans himself to Austria, and conceives that the peasantry areperfectly satisfied. He does not attempt to deny that all the rest of the community hate the foreigner, and that it will never be otherwise.
"If the Austrian government were to grant tomorrow every reasonable demand of its Italian subjects, a few men of a practical disposition might be satisfied, but the mass of those who now hate their rulers would hate them still. All their grievances are trilling to them compared to this one—that they are ruled by strangers. They see the chief places in their administra- tion filled by Austrian officials, their strong places occupied by German and Hungarian soldiery, the seat of empire removed beyond the Alps, and their country no more than a dependency of a foreign power : these are things compared to which relief from taxation or constitutional privileges are un- important in their eyes. This, then, is the position of affairs—a govern-
ment not ill disposed to do justice, but afraid of any reform that would give strength to its subjects—a people whom no concession can appease, and who
desire but one thing of their governors—that they take themselves away from the face of the land. Let not any one imagine that upon this issue our verdict is against the people, or that we think they can be sufficiently answered by saying that their grievance is a mere matter of feeling. FeeL- ing is the strongest thing in the world, and will carry men further than either their reason or their interest; he is therefore no true statesman that omits it from his calculations."
His plan for a settlement is to unite Lombardy and Venice in a kingdom, to be ruled by an Austrian prince without German surroundings ; for the Venetians and Milanese would not like Piedmont very much better than Germany, and Austria will not give up the country to a stranger, perhaps an enemy. The argu- ments in favour of this plan are well put ; but the question will not be settled by reasonings; but by the prejudices, passions, and evil cupidity of men. Besides the papers on England, India, Russia, and Austria, there is an article on " Currency and the Commercial Crisis of 1867." As regards compactness and completeness it is the best of the five ' • but the matter, drawn from Reports of the Parlia- mentary Committees, is familiar, and the question of Currency is just now dormant. As we have already intimated, the critical papers are well up to the times in point of topic. There is Gladstone and Homer, Bul- wer's Novels, Walpole's Letters, in which the life and character of the writer are the prominent feature, " Historical Study at Oxford," treated from a practical point of view, and an elaborate, paper on "The Prospects of Art in England," also treated with reference to present affairs.
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