Current:

Leader (1850-1860), 1st January 1853, Edition Country of 3, Page 16, Critics are not the legislators, but the...

Page 16
Page 16
16 of 24

On this page

  • Departments (1)
    • Cittrntttrf,
  • Text (4)
  • Transcript

    • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

      Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

      16 T H E L B) A D E R. [Saturday,

      16 T H E L B _) A D E R . [ Saturday ,

      Cittrntttrf,

      _Cittrntttrf ,

      Critics Are Not The Legislators, But The...

      Critics are not the _legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—tEey interpret and try to enfovcethem . —Edinburgh Review .

      We Have Learned To Look Forward To Each ...

      We have learned to look forward to each number of the Westminster Re view yvith expectations rising from a cause far superior to anything of per sonal sympathy . So much thought , learning , and eloquence we _rareh meet elsewhere . In the number for January there is a want of those lig hi agreeable papers which make the Quarterly so attractive ; yet there ii variety and brilliancy in the treatment of the subjects , redeeming the Review from all imputation of heaviness . Mary Tudor , the opening article is a splendid historical study , a rare sagacity giving weig ht to a brilliant style . The crisis of the Reformation , as regards England , is _admirably brought into view ; and the reader learns to understand and pity " Blood ) Mar }' , " while rejoicing in the calamities of those times , from which sprang a nobler freedom and more energetic nationality . Ireland , the conditions and prospects of which have been so bewritten that the very name becomes a name of terror to readers and politicians , nevertheless forms the subject of a bri ght and striking article , which no one will leave unread who begins it . The mistaken p hilanthropy which all men note as so active in our times , is discussed in an elaborate paper on Charities Noxious and Beneficent , full of curious details and sensible remarks . The English Stage and its Decline is the lig ht article of the number , and a very gay , p leasant , searching article it is , taking a rapid survey of the existing conditions , as respects authors , actors , managers , and public . One of its curious revelations we will quote : —

      " Thc public are so little acquainted with thc details of managerial speculation , and generally form so inadequate an estimate ofthe great cost ( if they ever trouble themselves to think of the cost at aii ) of those entertainments which they sometimes condemn so summarily , that it may be worth while to collect the items of a single case ( by no means an exceptional one ) in illustration of the hazards and charges of theatrical enterprise . The conclusion to which it will conduct us , we venture to anticipate , will surprise most of our readers . " We will take the instance of Sir Bulwer Lytton ' s comedy of Money , produced a few years ago at the Haymarket Theatre . . In order to give full effect to the representation , it was considered necessary to retain the services of Mr . Macready , in addition to whom , special _engagements , with reference to this play , were entered into with Miss Faucit , IMr . Wrench , and Mr . Vining . We believe we are correct in saying that these performers were expressly engaged to appear in Money , and that their salaries , therefore , formed , thr _» mghout the term of their engagement , au extra charge upon the resources eif the theatre , in _ailelitiein tei the expenses of the regular company . We are the more particular upon these points , as they are material to the _fornuitiein of a just view of the etlbrts that are made on such occasions . Let us now _se-e what were the increased expenses incurred in the production of this cemiedy , after which we will sum up the total cxpenelituro it entailed upon the management .

      " In the first place , the author received a sum of GOO /' , for the London right eif acting the play , extending , we presume , according to custom , over a period of three years ; Mr . Macready . received a weekly salary of 1501 ., Miss Faucit , 301 ., Mr . Wrench , 18 / ., and " Mr . Vining , 8 / . or 10 / ., making altogether an increased weekly outlay of 170 / . or 178 / ., without taking into _ace-ount any ofthe other costs of proeluctioii , in the shape of costume , " scenes , and decorations . The play ran for upwarels e ) f fifteen weeks . Hy the aid of the simple process of multiplication , we shall now arrive at some very curious and rather startling results . Multiplying Mr . Macready ' s salary by 15 , we shall find that for playing in this comedy , for which the ; author _received 000 / ., that gentleman received ne ) le ; ss a sum , from the Haymarket Theatre , than 2250 / . ; and if wo coulel follow him into the provinces , and through his subsequent appearances in Lonelon in the ; same play , anel add to this 2250 / . the furthe ; r receipts he netted from the same performance , the total wemlel present an amount whie-h , contrasted with thc amount paid to the author ( anel that , too , a very large ; sum , as _ceimpnrcd with the sums usually paid ) , might reasonably excite the ; astonishment of the play-goer , who i . s not in the habit of entering into calculations of this nature ' . We are ; far from desiring to draw any invidious inferences from this comparison be'fwee'ii the ; actor anel the ; author ; wu are merely jotting it down amongst the ; curiosities of stage _stafisfieas . Applying the same method of investigation to the ; other extra performers , wo find that in the run of iift . e ; en _wen-ks _, Miss Faucit _ree-e ; ive ; el 450 / ., Mr . Wrench , 270 / ., and Mr . Vining , 120 / . or 150 / . Now , adding all these ; sums together , the total additional expenditure upon the ; single ; comedy of Money will _stanel as follows : —¦ " A uthor L' ()( K ) Mr . _Mae-re'aely 2250 Miss _faue-il 4 _T > 0 Mr . _Wrcue-h 270 Mr . Vining , say 15 J 0 Total ii _' _MM )

      irrespective of the other costs of production and the ; regular unabated nightly expenses of _^ he , theatre , which , _aeleh'el to this amount , would bring up the total expen-( lit . urc , during the run of Money , to tbe ; prodigious amount of at least V . 1 , 0001 . Whether the ; manager realized any profit from this costly venture' we ; have ; no means of knowing ; but we think if may be ; safely assumed , that if he did , if coulel neit have ; been considerable enough to repay him lor the ; risk . " Slavery and emancipation arc treated in an article on Uncle Tom ' s Cabin , temperately and considerately ; though the mass of readers will yawn at thc very mention « if such a . subject . The writer ' s reference to _ourhcIvch is founded on a misconception . The Lcatler has frequently and energetically expressed itself against , slavery , however eng _^ ly it nuiy desire the Anglo-American alliance . Thc Atomic Th eory lUforc Christ and Since , is one of those ; fascinating expositions of a great scientific conception , iu it « historical p _lmaey , which _,

      Reviews , by the necessity of their miscellaneous audience , are forced _« o make popular . There is no need of popular science being shallow sciencr . ( quite the reverse , ) but there is great need of the " long results of time " being expressed in such untechnical forms as will bring them within the comprehension of all thinking minds . What Moliere says of women , that they should possess les clart _^ s de tout- —the lights and generalities gathered from the laborious details of men , m _^ y fitly be applied to the public . Such articles as this are very efficient in that direction . How finely it is said that" It is assuredly a centred and standing law that the very opposition , which is always being offered to the advancement of truth , whether by uncongenial circumstance or inconsiderate man , is overruled by principles as fixed , if not yet so calculable , as those disturbing forces that systematically retard the flight of Encke ' s comet , or drag big Neptune from his solar orbit . Both the new investigator and his hinderers may rest assured , that they unconsciously conspire at once to hasten and to steady the career of science . "

      The writer properly objects to the current laudations of Newton ' s guess that the diamond wag" combustible , because it was a strong refractor of light ; not only was it a mere guess , which turned out , luckily , to be correct , but , as the writer reminds us , combustibility has really no connexion with refracting power , there being notoriously stronger refractors than crystalline carbon , which are not at all combustible . To one fundamental idea of this paper , however , we object . It is the one running through the following passage : — " It is certainly the most provocative and wonderful thing in the history of positive knowledge , that many of the best results of modern science were anticipated , some four or five centuries before Christ , by the physiological and other schools of Greek or Egypto-Grecian philosophy . They did not , indeed , propose to draw forth some precious and unheard-of combustible airs from the olive-oils of their countrygroves , and send them all through Athens in a system of arterial tubes , to illuminate thc city of Minerva when Dian should be resting from the labours of the chase ; nor to cross the Hellespont , or tempt the broad aEgean in fantastic barges rowed by fire and water ; nor to whisper words of amity to their allies , defiance to their enemies , swifter far than the flig ht of a dove to her mate , through the invisible hollows of a copper wire ; nor to dash strange metals out of marble and natrum by means of subterranean levin-brands , filched from the carriers of Vulcan on their way to the heaven of Jupiter Tonans ; nor to make a hundred complex calculations of the disturbing forces exerted by one huge planet on another ; nor to go and seek another hemisphere , or make experiments with electron at the North Pole ; nor to dig extinguished worlds of animation from the laminated hide ofthe old Earth ; nor yet to sprinkle the ground with urine and the far-fetched dung of monstrous birds . Tt was never in the divining , the excavation , and the intellectual manipulation of the concrete facts of nature that tbey came before , excelled , or even equalled the men of renovated Christendom . In the art of experiment , " and in trying to find his way with untrippeel step among details , thc Greek was as feeble as a child : whereas in the sphere of ideas anel vast general conceptions , as well as in the fine art of embodying such universals and generalities in beautiful and appropriate symbols , it is not a paradox to say that he was sometimes stronger than a man . " The analogy , such as it was , which arrested the mind of Democritus , and orig inated that vague adumbration of the atomic theory , we are now in possession of , is eloquently set forth in this passage : —

      " It was the teeming bead of Democritus that first conceived of the proposition , for instance , that a pebble from the brook is not a blank extended substance or dead stone ( as it seems to the bodily eye , anel as it always remains tei the judgment of common sense , like the Yellow lVnnroso of Peter Bell ) but a palpable thing resulting from the congregation of multitudes of atoms , or particles incapable of being broken to pieces , as the stone is _breiken , when dashed against a rock , or worn te ) powder by friction with its neighbours . It was the ; secoiulary , but co-essential half of this definition , that these co-aggregated and constituent atoms of the stono are neit in contact with erne ; another , albeit that human eyesig ht is not fine enough to see ; the spaces between them . This marvellous view ( for marvellous it was and still is , although new as trite as the dust under toot ) was probably the lineal offspring of his earlier thought , to wit , that the Milky Way ( hitherto sacred to the white feet of down-coming gods anel the ; heaven-scaling heroes ) is no blank extensive show of far-spread light , but the _uniepie resultant of multitudinous heaps of stars , se _> distant anel so crowde'd in their single plane of vision ( though as free of one ; another as things in reality ) as tei render the interspace ! _, undistinguishable by the ; sight of man or lynx . The astronomical illustration of _WreifesHOi * Nichol app lies to the crystal-stone as well as tei the Hrmamcnf : —Aere > ss some vast American lake ; , the ; forest farnua- is accustomed to see ; fhe ; mass of forest over against his log-hut as if it were some ; vast anel silent and solid shadow on tho shore ; , ' somo boundless contiguity of shade ; ' but he knows , with the same certainty as he knows his homestead , that if is in reality a vast , clamorous , and unresting assembly of trees , standing respectfully apart . "

      We content ourselves with a quiet protest against the identification of the two conceptions of atoms—tffe Dai _. tonian and J ) emociutjan , having no space here to argue the question . The article on Thc Mormons is almost purely historical ; but the history is so dearl y and circumstantially written , that it forces tin ; reader to draw his own reflections . On the whole , this rise and progress of Mormon _^" is one eif the ; most instructive chapters in thc history of relig ion , fo r 1 _* _enables us to understand all the others . What existing barbarous nation " ire ; to us , in furnishing the Key to a correct understanding ofthe early hisory of Humanity , this Religion is , iu furnishing a key to the early history if ancient Religions ; the Mormon Prophet may have been u more ign ohle _Tcature ; than the founders of other religions , hut , whatever he may have _icen , the means he employed were ; very similar to theirs . There is u H'y _inlcasni in the ; following which will not escape the reader ; after _detailing ionic examples of miserable grammar in the Mormon Bible , the vvritci _uhla : 44 Tho Mormons admit these errors , but add , that for the inscrutubto

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 1, 1853, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_01011853/page/16/