The preface suggests great things;
but they are not forthcoming. There is much careful finish, much
sententious rhetoric, much elegant description; but there is little of
racy humour (the play is a 'romantic comedy'), little of poetical
freshness, little of lively flesh and blood portraiture, and more of
melodramatic expedience than dramatic construction. Neither comedy nor
melodrama is our author's _forte_.
In 1836 Mr Taylor published _The Statesman_, a book which contained
the 'views and maxims respecting the transaction of public business,'
which had been suggested to its author by twelve years' experience of
official life. He has since then allowed that it was wanting in that
general interest which might possibly have been felt in the results of
a more extensive and varied conversancy with public life.[9] In 1848
he produced _Notes from Life_, professedly a kind of supplemental
volume to the former, embodying the conclusions of an attentive
observation of life at large. The first essay investigates in detail
the right measure and manner to be adopted in getting, saving,
spending, giving, taking, lending, borrowing, and bequeathing 'money;'
and a weighty, valuable essay it is, with no lack of golden grains and
eke of diamond-dust in its composition.
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