MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. 



EDINBURGH CABINET LIBRARY. VOL. XI. LIFE of RALEIGH. EDINBURGH. 

 OLIVER AND BOYD. 1833. 



No man should presume to .indite a biography unless he come to the task 

 prepared to deal out the strictest truth with the most conscientious im- 

 partiality. But, from a biographer of Sir Walter Raleigh, we expect some- 

 thing more. We look for one, in the first place, who can comprehend the 

 greatness of which he is about to speak ; who can imagine the- possibility, 

 and the existence in another, of various, if not of opposite talents ; and who, 

 above all, can succeed in bringing before the eye and the mind of his reader 

 a character, not perfect, indeed, but an idiosyncratic being, and not a personi- 

 fied abstraction. 



We remember to have read a life of Charles Fox, written by an inveterate 

 Tory. The effect produced was something between disgust and laughter. 

 There was the owl we beg pardon, we think it was a goose, taking excep- 

 tion to the flights of the eagle ; and the mole had much to say touching the 

 blindness of the lynx. Now, although we object to a biographer of this 

 description, inasmuch as he is, by his own confession, unqualified for the 

 office, yet we have no such objection to urge against one who comes to his 

 task determined to make the best of his subject. Provided he do not injure 

 others by his indiscriminate zeal, we hold that he is bound to take the most 

 favourable view of the character of his hero : and the admiration which 

 originally inspired him to undertake the office of a biographer, is the best 

 evidence that such view will, in all probability, be the true one. 



These remarks will, we think, apply to the w r ork of Mr. Tytler. This 

 gentleman is duly impressed with a sense of the greatness of Sir Walter 

 Raleigh without question, one of the brightest stars in the glorious galaxy 

 of the court of Elizabeth. He has ably vindicated him from the aspersions 

 of Hume and of many other writers, and he has interposed his shield 

 between Raleigh and the wrath, armed with a bulrush, of D'Israeli. We 

 especially thank Mr. Tytler, for the manner in which he has exposed the 

 malignant meanness of this last person. Mr. D'Israeli, as naked ^'as a Pict 

 of literary reputation himself, delights occasionally to pick holes' in other 

 peoples' coats, and would fain make us believe, on the credit of MSS. and 

 conjecture of his own, that Raleigh did not write " The History of the 

 World." To some authors, indeed, such an attempt to prove an alibi on the 

 part of the writer from his own work, would be a piece of serviceable friend- 

 ship ; but if Mr. D'Israeli really did discover this " mare's nest," let us, at 

 least, have a sight of the foals. 



To conclude. We .thank Mr. Tytler heartily for his Life of Sir Wal- 

 ter Raleigh, to whom justice has at length been done. Our author has 

 not slighted or passed over any one of the extraordinary faculties, and various 

 abilities of Raleigh, who indeed might claim, if man ever possessed, what 

 Shakspeare gives to one of his heroes, 



" The courtier's, scholar's, soldier's, tongue, pen, sword." 

 We strongly recommend this work to the perusal of our readers. 



AN HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT OF THE COAST OF SUSSEX. 

 BY J. D. PARRY, M.A.S. LONDON. LONGMAN AND Co. 1833. 



It appears from this author's preface, that this work has been carried on 

 and completed under every possible discouragement and want of support. 

 This does not redound much to the honour of the gentry of Sussex, from 

 whom the author probably expected, and had good right to expect much. 



There is certainly some labour bestowed upon this work, and there are 

 many evidences of careful research ; but we are bound to say, that there is very 

 much that might with great advantage to the book, have been omitted. For 



