GUESSES AT TRUTH. By TWO BROTHERS. From the fifth London edition. Boston: TICKNOR AND FIELDS.
THE PROVERBS and ECCLESIASTES are still without rival or peer, notwithstanding that LACON has given us some good apothegms, and MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER, who undertook to render King SOLOMON into polite English, has had an amazing 'run.' A good proverb is always acceptable: a poor one vexes us always, because the maker assumes the position of teacher, and has no right to be either stupid or mediocre. To set one thinking is more difficult, and indeed more laudable, than to furnish one with thoughts; as it is more praiseworthy to put one in the way of earning a living, than merely to bestow a charity. It is easy, however, to assume the air oracular; in fact there is more or less strength, _prima facia_, in a pretentious position; and a platitude let off under cover of high-sounding words may be very imposing. We have in 'Guesses at Truth,' a book of five hundred and fifty-five pages, originally published in England more than thirty years ago by two brothers, clergymen, we believe, and now reprinted by the respectable house of TICKNOR AND FIELDS. We have looked carefully through the volume; and for once are forced to differ with the publishers as to the taste of reproducing the book here. With the exception of some very fair criticisms on SHAKSPEARE, MILTON, and one or two others, borrowed a good deal from GOETHE and SCHLEGEL, and certain extended disquisitions absorbed evidently from WORDSWORTH and COLERIDGE, the book is utterly common-place. A good deal of it we remember to have met with in our various newspaper clippings--a good deal we confess never to have before encountered. In 'Guesses at Truth' the French come in for very severe hits from the 'TWO BROTHERS' whenever opportunity serves: they are full of the English prejudices of the last century. Mark the following sagacious comparison: 'The French rivers partake of the national character. [We should think it would be just the reverse.--ED.] Many of them look broad, grand and imposing, but they have no depth; and the greatest river in the country, the Rhone, loses half its usefulness from the impetuosity of its current!' Hear this precious piece of intelligence: 'France--the only region between Lapland and Morocco where youth is without bloom, and age without dignity!' Here is something new about the 'best talkers in the world:' 'Talk to a dozen Englishmen on any subject: there will be something peculiar and characteristic in the remarks of each. Talk to a dozen Frenchmen: they will all make the very same remark, and almost in the same words.' But let us give the reader a specimen of the more abstract 'Guesses:' 'What a pity it is there are so many words! Whenever one wants to say any thing, three or four ways of saying it run into one's head together; and one can't tell which to choose. It is as troublesome or as puzzling as choosing a ribbon or a husband.' Read the following. It is Blackstonian: 'A use must have preceded an abuse properly so called.' The next strikes us as exceedingly original: 'A little management may often evade resistance which a vast force might vainly strive to overcome.' And this: 'Children always turn toward the light. Oh! that grown-up people in this world would become like little children!' The art-world owes much for what follows: 'A portrait has one advantage over its original: it is unconscious; and so you may admire without insulting it. I have seen portraits which have more.' (_Sic._) Here is something worthy a place in the 'Rules of Etiquette:' 'A compliment is usually accompanied by a bow, as if to beg pardon for paying it.' We have puzzled over the following and 'give it up:' 'What way of circumventing a man can be so easy and suitable as a period? The name should be enough to put us on our guard; the experience of every age is not.' Further on we read: 'Truth endues man's purposes with _somewhat_ of immutability.' This reminds us of the cautious writer who stated that '_most_ men were mortal!'