language, very readily
learned in the "Fudge School,"--a style of language with which our
author is very apt to indulge himself; but the argument it so
ostentatiously clothes, and which we hesitate not to call a bad one,
is nothing more than this, (if we understand it,)--that the dead are
dead, and cannot hear our praise; that the living are living, and
therefore our love is not lost; in short, as a _non-sequitur_, "that
if honour be for the dead, gratitude can only be for the living." This
might have been simply said; but we are taken to the grave--with "He
who has once stood beside the grave," &c. &c.; we have "wild
love--keen sorrow--pleasure to pulseless hearts--debt to the heart--to
be discharged to the dust--the garland--the tombstone--the crowned
brow--the ashes and the spirit--heaven-toned voices and heaven-lighted
lamps--the learning--sweetness by silence--and light by decay;" all
which, we conceive, might have been very excusable in a young curate's
sermon during his first year of probation, and might have won for him
more nosegays and favours than golden opinions, but which we here feel
inclined to put our pen across, as so we remember many similarly
ambitious passages to have been served, before we were graduate of
Oxford, with the insignificant signification from the pen of our
informator of _nihil ad rem_. As the author threatens the public with
another, or more volumes, we venture to throw out a recommendation,
that at least one volume may serve the purpose and do the real work of
two, if he will check this propensity to unnecessary redundancy. His
numerous passages of this kind are for the most part extremely
unintelligible; and when we have unraveled the several coatings, we
too often find the ribs of the mummy are not human. We think it right
to object, in this place, to an affectation in phraseology offensive
to those who think seriously of breaking the third commandment--he
scarcely speaks of mountains without taking the sacred name in vain;
there is likewise a constant repetition of expressions of very
doubtful meaning in the first use, for the most part quite devoid of
meaning in their application. One of these is "palpitating." Light is
"palpitating," darkness is "palpitating"--every conceivable thing is
"palpitating." We must, however, in justice say, that by far the best
part of the book, the laying down rules and the elucidating
principles, is clearly and expressively written. In this part of th