The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 76, February, 1864: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
General
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 76, February, 1864: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
niceties of classical learning, and does not attempt Latin or Greek
composition during his stay at Trinity. Thus he escapes the fate of many
quick minds, which, running easily upon college grooves, that end in the
indorsement of a corporation, never make out to accept their own
individuality for better and for worse. Arthur enters upon legal studies
with acuteness, and not without interest. A few anonymous writings
occupy his leisure. He is now just rising upon the world,--a brilliant
orb, as yet seen only by a few watchers, who congratulate each other
upon the light to be. A fatal tour to Germany, and all ends in darkness
and mystery.
Judging from the writings before us, we should say that this young man
was destined to a greater eminence in philosophy than in poetry. His
father's opinion, in reverse of this, was perhaps based upon average
tendencies of character, instead of selected specimens of production.
The best prose papers here printed, the "Essay on the Philosophical
Writings of Cicero," and the "Review of Professor Rossetti," are far
more remarkable for the ease with which accurate information is
subjected to original, and even profound thought, than are the poems for
brilliancy of imagination or mastery over the capacities of language.
Still, it must be confessed, that the sonnets are full of melody and
refinement,--indeed, we can recall no poet who has written much better
at the same age. In all Arthur's compositions we recognize an exquisite
delicacy of feeling, without any of the daintiness of mind commonly
found in intellectual youths. He seems to have acquired much of his
father's command of reading, and to have inherited those rarer faculties
of selection and generalization which give to learning its coherence and
significance. In contrast to the precise and somewhat hard literary
style of the elder Hallam, the diction of the son glows with the
sensitiveness of a highly artistic nature. Arthur's attainments in the
modern languages appear to have been considerable. He is said to have
spoken French readily, and to have ranged its literature as familiarly
as that of England. His Italian sonnets are pronounced by competent
authority to be very remarkable for a foreigner. They are certainly
marvellous for a boy of seventeen after an eight months' visit to Italy.
In fine, upon the testimony presented in this volume, we think that no
considerate reader will hesitate to credit Arthur Hallam with a rich and
generous character, a wide sweep of thought rising from the groundwork
of solid knowledge, and the delicate aerial perceptions of high
imaginative genius.
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