1831.] Monthly Review of Literature. 331 



law and custom, and, with few exceptions, to take things as he found them. 

 He has been represented as exercising much cruelty, officially, and even supervis- 

 ing acts of torture. Sir James takes pains to examine the evidence on which this 

 charge rests ; but More's own " apology" supersedes further search. He meets 

 the charge in the most direct and satisfactory manner, and shrinks from none of 

 the details ; but, unluckily, the defence has never travelled along with the 

 charge ; and it still, in the impression of numbers, sticks a blot on his benevolent 

 character. 



Admiring Sir James as we do — as a man of research, and generally of sound 

 judgment — we confess he wearies us. He is a desperate reasoner ; he fastens 

 upon any and everything he meets in his way like a leech, and will leave nothing 

 till he has drained it dry. But More is a subject worthy of his diligence, and 

 deserving of discussion. He was an excellent man, and would have been an 

 excellent man in any age, and in some greater than he was in his own — that was 

 unpropitious. Henry would not be guided, and More was not made to con- 

 tend with a brute, much less to control him. Nor was he made for command 

 — he was too indifferent to enter zealously into the conflicts of life — more in- 

 clined to look on and smile, than mingle in the broil. 



Wolsey's Life is but a moderate concern — as poor as Mrs. Todd Thomson's— 

 with a great deal too much poetry and Shakspeare. 



Cranmer's is better, and, what is better still, is obviously not written by a 

 churchman. Cranmer wanted pluck. Fortune placed him too high for his 

 powers. He had head enough to conceive rightly, but not spirit enough to fol- 

 low up his conceptions, and present them to effect. He was destined by nature 

 for an underling — to execute the projects of others, under others' responsibility ; 

 when left to himself, he fell into the most pitiful and pitiable contradictions. He 

 meant well, and, had he been placed out of the way of temptation, would never 

 have done ill — but what does this amount to ? Why, that he was not fit for the 

 position he occupied, and the less that is said of him the better in the way of 

 defence. The attempt is both hazardous and useless. 



Burleigh's Life is a reprint from Macdiarmid's Lives of British Statesmen, and 

 need not be noticed here. 



The Solitary, a Poem in three parts, by Charles Whitehead. 

 The Solitary consists for the most part of gloomy musings, supposed to pro- 

 ceed from disappointment, or satiety — from anticipating and exhausting life — 

 from crowding too much of its energies into too small a compass — till the mind 

 falls back in weariness, and preys upon its own vitals. We are indebted to Lord 

 Byron for these morbid descriptions, the fashion of which is fast vanishing ; for 

 nature cannot support them and live. The folly of contending with nature, or 

 pouring forth grumblings and maledictions upon what is insensible to the torrent, 

 or tornado, and doing so, only because her bounties have been prodigally spent, 

 is becoming so obvious, that all but the very young (in age or reflection) can do 

 nothing but smile at the miserable exhibition ; and would rather bid the victim 

 hang or drown, than suffocate others with words without meaning. Mr. White- 

 head must still be allowed the praise of eloquence — of energy of words and 

 phrases. There is often great vigour of language, if not always of sentiment; 

 his sentences are pithy, expressive, antithetical ; occasionally exciting surprise 

 by their strength, and admiration by their felicity. The description of silence 

 and solitude at the outset, has touches of great beauty, strong feeling, and good 

 painting. A few lines will shew the tone of the whole. 

 How many in the deaf oblivious realm 



Of sleep are hushed beneath her dynasty ; 

 E'en he whom many a woe and grief^ o'erwhelm. 



Who but recruits his jaded strength to try 

 Another fall with stronger destiny. 



And will not be o'ermastered, sinks at last, 

 Kvcn as a dreamless babe, to rest ; while I, 

 liingering upon the bleak shore of the past, 

 My Hopes into that sea, like worthless pebbles, cast. 



