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Leader (1850-1860), 3rd April 1852, Edition Country of 2, Page 17

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    • 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.

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      Afbm, 3, 1852.] The Lea O'Er. 325

      AfBM , 3 , 1852 . ] THE LEA O'ER . 325

      Wuttnmt

      Wuttnmt

      Rritics Are Not The Legislators, But The...

      rritics are not the legislators , but the nudges and . poliee of literature . They do not ^ i & alte laws—they interpret am .

      Thehb Has Been A Discussion Opened This ...

      TheHB has been a discussion opened this week by the Times and the new number of The Westminster Review , which very nearly interests all authors , and very materially affects the public : it is nothing less than the question of whether the Free Trade ^ so just and so beneficial as applied to Corn , would not be equally just and beneficial also if applied to Literature ? Of course , the persons most interested in the monopoly loudly repudiate the justice and the benefit of free trade . But the highest literary authoritiesthe Macaulays , Hax . lams > Gladstones , and Carl . yl . es , are emphatically against the present system | and a higher authority than all , Common S ense , emphatically applauds their opposition . The case is simply

      this : Books are published at a price which is calculated as allowing for the enormo per centage , varying from 25 to 40 per cent ., besides the 13 to the dozen : this per centage being in no way necessary to the publication and profit of the work so priced , but only to the profit of the Retail Bookseller . Get rid of the Middleman , the Retail Bookseller , and this per centage becomes unnecessary ; the public maybe charged so much less for the work , and by this reduction in price , the work beednies so multiplied in circulation as to pay its expenses , and perhaps leave a profit to the author . As , however , the transmission of books through the Retailers is a necessary part of our machinery , it is obvious that a per centage must be

      affixed , to enable the Retailer to make his profit ; he must be paid for his trouble . It will , perhaps , scarcely be believed , that the Bookseller is not at liberty to take a smaller reniuneration for his trouble than the sum fixed by the great monopolists ! If Jones is a man of enterprise and activity , and will content himself by small profits rapidly made , he must not sell a work at fifteen shillings , because Smith chooses to take . no farthing less than twenty shillings , and Smith " protects the respectability of the trade . " Thus the public has to pay twenty shillings when fifteen would be ample ; and the poor author finds his * sale limited to the twenty-shilling public ; and all because Smith is so intensely respectable , and rides on " Long-Acre

      springs ' ! _ We have endeavoured to express in a paragraph the situation so ably and so fully exposed-in the article on the Commerce of literature , which the Westminster has given in the April Number . To it we refer the reader . He will find therein the details of the Obstacles to Literature , truly called " Taxes on Knowledge . " It treats of the paper duty , the stamp duty , the duty on foreign books , and finally , of the monopoly of the Booksellers ' Association . That the Times has taken up this subject is sufficient to bring it into prominence ; and the public need only to be instructed on the matter , to side with Lord Campbell , MacaulaYj Gladstone , Hallam , and Cajrlyle , against " the Row . "

      Besides this paper on the Commerce of Literature , the new Westminster contains an elaborate survey of the ( Government of India j an extremely readable , dashing article on Homoeopathy , Mesmerism , Hydropathy , Vegetarianism , in short , the physical puritanism , as the writer calls it , which in our day manifests itself in manias . The off-hand statements sometimes thrown before the reader perhaps contribute to the piquancy of this article , which has also some capital things in it . The Conditions and Prospects of Europe affords one of our most eloquent and impassioned politicians , whose signature is in every paragraph of this article , an opportunity of givin g utterance to opinions which will find a deep response from the liheral party , not the less so perhaps because certain pages are insulting to certain sections of that party . The question of population has a new and

      most important light thrown on it by the promulgation of a new Theory of Population deduced from the general Law of Animal Fertility . This article is so important that we shall subsequently return to it ; meanwhile we recommend the reader not to be frightened at its abstract and somewhat severe exposition , but to work bravely through it , and he will be repaid . A rambling , inconclusive paper follows , on Shelley and the Letters of Poets . Lord Palmerston and his Policy are considered at length . Quakerism finds an eloquent and thoughtful defender and historian ; and the contemporary literatures of England , America , Germany , and France , are touched upon in a brief sketchy way . Altogether , it is an entertaining and valuable review this new Westminster , and worthy the support of all advanced tlrinkers . Of the other Magazines we will speak in our next .

      In France, Literature Cannot Hope To Flo...

      In France , literature cannot hope to flourish . Arc we wrong in reading the fatal signs of decadence in the moral , no less than in the political , aspects of that nation ? If France aces not the danger , it ' will be engulphcd ! fi T ° * a nat i ° n prosper , how fulfil its destinies , and , lead the destinies Europe ( the . modest pretension of France I ) , when its sooial condition is s profoundl y corrupted ? The straws which indicate the direction of the wind , nil point that way in France . nIs there nothing terrible in their morbid delight—to pause at one example—in the pictures so constantly exposed to view of courtezan life ? Is the immense Success of La Dame

      au «! CamJHas not significant ? Arc men ' s minds so deadened to all healthy stimulus , are their emotions so " used up , " that life has no longer poetry lor them , unless it bo the life of disease ? Are Youth , and Hope , and a , and Love , and noble aspirations , incapable of furnishing the Artist m" \ a subject , the public with a delight ; and are we to seek Art only in

      the hospital ? When will Frenchmen learn that , although there are few subjects more tragic than the life , of a courtezan—the tragedy social , no less than individual—^ -yet there never was , and never can be , poetry in it ; no , not even in Rome , where the idea of Woman was less reverential and jess capable of . poetry than With us ; npt even in Horace , nor in Catullus , nor hi Tibullus ( whom a young poet has recently put on the stage in Les Trois Amours de Tibulle , and drawn forth from us these remarks )—

      can genius transmute that subject into poetry ; or only into poetry fitted for periods of decadence . Ne demande jamais aux femmes le plaisir sans amour , is the profound counsel of George Sand ; and there can be little doubt that every time that counsel is disregarded , something is lost of the chivalrous feeling for Woman which gives her the distinctive position in all ppetic minds . A step is taken towards the degradation of Woman from that Ideal to which Humanity has raised her , and towards a recurrence to her position in pagan life !

      Mallet 3>Tt Pan. Memoirs And Corresponde...

      MALLET 3 > TT PAN . Memoirs and Correspondence of Mallet du Part ; Illustrative of the History of the French Revolution . Collected and arranged by A . Sayoua . In 2 vols . Eentley . These two handsome library volumes deserve a place in every collection , and * beside their historical interest , have a personal and anecdotical interest , always tobe found in French memoirs . Mallet du Pan was a journalist ; he lived and died one . Yet , though poor , tinfriended , independent , opposed by men of all parties , suspected as an aristocrat by the Jacobins , and as a Jacobin by the aristocrats , he contrived to preserve his independence , and to enforce the respect of those who disliked his counsels , and rebelled against his plain speaking . Born a republican and a Protestant , he neither fell in with the reigning infidelity , nor with the reigning fervour of revolutionary inspiration . He was something of a Whig . The old regime he saw was effete ; the new he saw was

      an extravagance . It was , in 1783 that the intrepid journalist first came to Paris , and began to write in the Mereure de Prance . In 1788 , when the struggles between Parliament and the Court began the serious prelude to the Revolution , Mallet du Pan ' s position began to clear a space for itself . Y ' et all he wrote bears the impress of a sad misgiving . He looked with no love on the present , but he dreaded the future . The same hesitation followed him into the Revolution . He gained the confidence of Louis 3 £ yX by his courageous sincerity , but he lost the confidence of all parties . ^ The Republicans attacked his house , and vehemently ordered

      him to cease his diatribes against the Revolution ; while at Coblentz they talked of hanging him as soon , as " order was restored ! " His position at last became untenable . He was forced to quit France . But wherever he went his pen was ready for the service of the Royalists , who repaid them with undisguised scorn . In Switzerland , in London , he never ceased writing . His words were prophetic , and , like most prophecies , were disregarded : events justified ^ them ; but the men to whom they were addressed neglected them . How bitterly he felt the ineptitude of these Jacobins d ' aristocratie , as he energetically called them !

      The memoirs and correspondence of such a man are pretty certain to be interesting , and the times in which he lived are sufficient to render them important . We confidently recommend the volumes . The translation is superior to the ordinary standard of translations , but is wanting in that precision , elegance and tournure , which form the charm of French diction ; and here is a sentence unintelligible from its very awkwardness : — " His great principle in style is always to refer to man by a word , an expression , inanimate object or the themes of philosophy . ' We defy explanation ! Leaving to others the historical portion of these volumes we will turn to its anecdotes for an extract or so to enliven our columns . Hero is

      A MODEL PUBLISHER : " M . Panckoucke was a native of Lille , in Flanders , whoro his father had a , largo book-trade . He was destined by the course of his studies , and his mathematical talents , for a professorship ; but , at his father ' s death , he resolved on following his business for the support of his mother and family . He aimed at making Iris trade subservient to new and largo objects . Ho repaired to Paris , where he settled , with two of his sisters , in the chief literary quarter , then also the handaomest , near the Come'die Francis and the Procopo Cafe . With him , and through Iris exertions , commenced a very remarkable amelioration in the position of literary received from

      men , kept so long in poverty by tho humiliating wages they publishers , and by tho very honourable , but insignificant remuneration of men in power . Panekoucko regarded whatever excessive profit he might derive from their oxertions , as not pertaining to his personal fortune . His honourable conduct made him tho equal and tho friend of the men of genius for whom his presses worked . His carriage was often to bo mot on tho road to Rousseau ' s house at Montmorency , BufFon's at Montbard , or Voltaire ' s at Fcrnoy ; nnd , as tho works of these immortal writers had become mattors of state , his carriage took him from their abodos to tho King ' s ministers at Versailles , who received him as a mnctionory possessing , like thomselvoa , a portfolio of his own . "

      Hero again is something worth adding to tho foolish list of prohibited " The publication of tho * Histoiro'Naturello' was commenced in tho same year n ' s tho ' Esprit do Lois : '• both works ' wore condemned by the Sorbonno , which sonfc n deputation to the two authors to indued them to retract thoir errors . ' Tho deputies , ' said Itaflbn , ' spoke very politely with mo , and I retracted ; Montesquieu , moro quick of tompor , refused . ' Tho Abbe * Tamponnot , and tho Abbe " Jiiquot attacked him , among other things , on the ground that , not bolioving in tho existence of matter , ho could not consequently believe in thef resurrection , " Two very Fronoh and very witty anecdotes wo will bring togothor : —

      " When tho Abbo" Doljllo was at Fornoy , ho road Voltairo a few passages of hiH poom of ' Lob . Tardins , ' and drew Voltaire's attention to n purallol between tho cardon of Eden and modern gardons . Voltairo began crying out against tho garden of Eden . "Oh ! yes ; ' said tho Abbo" Dolillo to him , ' t / our prejudices against tho gardener are known . ' " " Piron , meeting tho procession of tho Host ono day , took off h s hat . ' What ,

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), April 3, 1852, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_03041852/page/17/