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^ THEM1ADE it. [No. 31®, Sattoday,
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_.;. , ICttenittttt* *
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— w Wk. are a great people, and above al...
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From Professor Owen to Fishes is not a s...
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From Dublin to Belfast we are carried by...
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MOORE'S JOURNALS. 3femoi?-s, Journal, an...
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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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^ Them1ade It. [No. 31®, Sattoday,
^ THEM 1 ADE it . [ No . 31 ® , Sattoday ,
_.;. , Icttenittttt* *
SCitmmn * .
•"^Sseasflssss^
• " ^ ssEasflssss ^
— W Wk. Are A Great People, And Above Al...
— w Wk . are a great people , and above all it is our boast that we are a practical people ; yet , in certain very simple matters of practical importance we are singularly incompetent . The social machine is so constructed that , to get a hook which will clasp an eye , in any but a purely physical sense , is of rare ht laceandhaving
occurrence . How to find the right man for the rig p , , found both , how to bring the two together , seems a social problem above our powers This week the rare occurrence has occurred . The British Museum , one of the vastest collections in the world , is peculiarly rich in zoological and paleontological specimens ; and in Professor Owen England has long been proudly conscious of possessing the greatest of living Anatomists , and one who , like his friend and teacher Covier , is profoundly conversant with paleontology- ^ -in short , a man who , to great general culture , and admirable power of oral exposition , add 3 the special knowledge demanded by the Direction of such a Museum . Here , then , was the right man for the right
place . The two had been wide apart , longing to come together , for many a year ; and nothing seemed less likely than that they should ever hook-and-eye . The thing was " too good to be true . " The propriety of the union was too patent fa ? the union ever to take place . Yet it has taken place . Richard OV & n- has been appointed Director of the Zoological Department . The nation has reason to be gratified—and surprised at finding itself gratified . The remaining year 3 of our great teacher are removed from the oppressive shadow of a daily-increasing danger . He is no longer subject to the caprice , or jealousy , or arbitrary dictation of a council , having the power to turn him adrift at any time after thirty years of service . And it is no small pleasure to his friends and admirers that , while the new appointment is the very best that could have been made , in the interest of the nation , it is also one of the pleasantest , and most profitable to him personally , giving him ease and security , and a noble sphere of energetic labour .
Very opportune is the publication by Matjli . and Poi . ybi . ank of an admiraLle photographic portrait of Professor Owen in his professional robe , the right hand symbolically resting on the four vertebra ? of a skull , the head slightly inclined , the glorious eye , so full of genius , looking up at the audience whom he is addressing—altogether a portrait which his admirers will feel gratified to hang up in their studies . A brief memoir accompanies the photograph , from which we learn that Owen was born at Lancaster in 1804 , and was a " middy" till the close of the American war , when he left the " Tribune" to become a surgeon . The memoir is not so full as one might desire , nor does it enumerate any of his discoveries ; but we were interested to learn from it that Humboldt had pronounced him ^ le plus grand anatomiste de son siecle . "
Messrs . Matil and Poi / stbank have made a good commencement in this , the first of their series of Photographic Portraits of Living Celebrities ; a happy idea , which promises io be very valuable .
From Professor Owen To Fishes Is Not A S...
From Professor Owen to Fishes is not a step , but a transition , and our easy transit is to the article on " Fish-Ponds and Fishing Boats" in Blackwood this month , which let no reader pass over . After telling us about herrings and about salt-water ponds , the writer describes a pond he visited constructed by Mr . Macdowaix , of Logan : — It was low water at the time of our visit , and so the pond and its contents were distinctly visible . A flight of steps leads downwards to a small platform by the water ' s edge , and the moment the old woman , who was our conductress , showed herself in the act of descending these steps , the whole body of cod-fish and other creatures moved towards her , just as a flock of poultry follow a henwife . She had in her hand a basin filled with sand-eels and limpets ; and when we neared the surface of the pond , and were seen by the fish to be manipulating the contents of the basin , as many as could press themselves close in-shoro raised their heads , or at least the anterior portionquite out of the wateropened their mouths wide , and made a gurgling and
, , occasionally a snapping sound , the latter occasioned by the sudden shutting of their jaws , when they felt or fancied that something had dropped between them . The sense of taste or touch seemed quick and delicate in these ungainly creatures . While distributing the limpets , we somewhat idly cast in with them a few heads of the large "horsegowans" ( ox-eye daisy ) , which wo had chanced to pluck in an adjoining meadow . They also speedily disappeared , but only for a single second , being instantaneously rejected with considerable force . In this way they sometimes blew even the desired limpets into each other ' s mouths . The majority seemed quite as tame and familiar aa chickens or puppy-dogs . Wo observed that they were unable to swallow anything without previously making a downward plunge of their heads , and filling thejr months with water , the latter being no doubt immediately expelled through the gtylrCOverB , while the food passed down into the gullet . They rolled lazily about , laying their heads over each otherand kept all pressing in a mass within the space
, qf a few yards , clooe to the rocky ledge on which we stood , basin in hand , the latter being evidently the inducement to congregate , rather than any personal predilection for ourselves . The right waB singular , and showed how even the natives of the sunless ' deep- tatty be domesticated , and rendered as familiar as land animals . As wo stood pn the lowest step , au niveau of the surface of tho water , some of them laid their large languishing faces over our feet , allowed us to put our hands beneath them , and . roll them over , or even raise and replunge them ( as nurses do children ) out of and < then beneath their native brino . The species were chiefly cod , with a few lithe , a gurnard , and a small grilse or sea-trout . The last named was very shy and wary ; and although hunger is a great leveller , and is apt to bring down haughtiness to a par with humility , yet while approaching the scene of festivity , ho never asconned to the surface , but kept constantly darting about at a depth of six or seven feet below ; and as tho food , when thrown in , was instantaneously swallowed by the cloud of
codfish which hung above , certainly none was allowed to make its way to salmo in the lower regions . Again , speaking of the capacity of Fishes for tender emotions , the writer says : —\ We were considerably affected by the tenderness of feeling which seemed to exist between most of these fishes and their ancient feeder . They had entire confidence in each other , and this was , no doubt , the foundation of their mutual respect and happiness , as it is that of all the domestic affections . There can be no real and enduring cheerfulness without it , either on the steadfast earth , or within the glittering waters . We know that many strong attachments have existed between men and fish . One of the most noted on record is that which was felt by Hortensius for a lamprey , at the death of which the orator almost broke his heart , and somewhat morosely resented a friend ' s cajolery of his gr ief , by retorting that such despondency would never have
befallen him ( the cajoler ) , who had survived seven wives , and never shed a tear for one of them . Antonia , the wife of Drusus , entertained bo great a love for another lamprey , " that she could find in her heart to decke it , and to hang a paire of golden earerings about the guils thereof . " Many of the conscript fathers , who might have had other things to think of , were so charmed when they succeeded in training some docile favourite to feed from their fingers , as to be rapt in an elysium of delight . Tame fish are now quite out of fashion , although we hope that their recent introduction into the vivaria of our Zoological Gardens may revive the taste . We may add , that fish are great favourites in Otaheite . Mr . Ellis informs us , that he has frequently accompanied a young chieftain to the side of a hole . So soon as a whistle was sounded , an enormous eel would show itself upon the surface , where it fed fondly and familiarly from its master's hand . What about their souls and the " state" thereof ? Would it not be well
to offer these forlorn creatures a few tracts— " so comforting ? " No sooner do we prove their intelligence than we conclude their sin ! And from sin to Tracts .... the case is clear . Besides this pleasant natural history paper , Blackwood commences a new tale— " Metamorphoses , "—the scene of which is laid in Touraine at the outbreak of the Revolution of ' 89 ; a review of Montalemeebt ' s book on England , which is everywhere exciting so much attention ; a continuation of the " Scot Abroad , " and other articles which we have not read . Fraser also takes up Mostaiembebt ' s work , and severely castigates Choker for his translation , omissions and interpolations . " Kate Coventry " is continued ; so also the essay on " Old Rings . " But the most striking paper of all is one on " College Life at Glasgow , " giving a vivid and minute description both of the students and the college , admirably sketched , and from personal knowledge . Alison is reviewed in a searching article , the second part of which is promised for next month . And th ~ e German Caicses Celebres furnish the lovers of criminal stories with an interesting article .
Altogether , Fradtt is very attractive this month . The Dublin University Magazine , which after a brief London existence bas once more returned to its native land , keeps up its old character , and is g rave and gay by turns . This month it reviews the works of J ^ afojleon III ., and the unread novelist Afra Bkhbt . The " Age of the Earth" furnishes a pleasant geological paper ; " Early English Poetry , " a pretext for talking about Chaucer , of whom one always hears with pleasure .
From Dublin To Belfast We Are Carried By...
From Dublin to Belfast we are carried by the letter of a , correspondent , who sends a Belfast protest agai nst our recent article on the " Argument from Design . " We must decline to print it for many reasons ; mainly , however , because its argumentative portion is confined to mere assertions , when it does not iterate the simple facts adduced by all writers on design . It does not seem to have occurred to our correspondent that we must have been aware of the f acts and the arg uments he iterates , and that if they did not convince us in Paley , they are not likely to convince us when re-stated in a random style . But apart from the defects of his letter , he must see that no journal can admit criticisms on its criticisms . We have laid our views before our readers , for their acceptance or rejection , but we cannot lay before our readers the views which one reader may form of what we have written .
Moore's Journals. 3femoi?-S, Journal, An...
MOORE'S JOURNALS . 3 femoi ? -s , Journal , and Correspondence of Thomas Moore . Edited by The Right Hon . Lord John Russell . Vols . VII . and VIII . Longman & Co . Tiikse volumes , complete the work , and are furnished with a very cop ious index to the whole , an index certainly indispensable to those who in after yearavnmy wish to recur to the numerous anecdotes of persons which constitute the sole merit of the work . In the volumes just published , the remainder of Moore ' s journals and a few letters to and from Mooro give us stories and glhnpseaof people about whom wo arc interested : but the poet himself appears in no new lig ht . . vivacious
is still the same small creature , childishly vain , very sensitive and , " dearly loving a lord , " us oager to record trivial praise of himself as U he had rarely been praised . If he writes veraes in the Chronicle , he cannot resist quoting what the Courier and the Globe say of these verses . If ho sits next to Fonblanquo at dinner , and praises his wit , ana Fcnblunquo replies that such praise is " gratifying , from you especially , down it must go in the journal . And so on to the end of the chapter . , l > ut we will not waste more space on such matter * , The volumes will \ , many u pleasant anecdote for the dinner-table , and from them we will cui liberally : — (• ANNINO ON QKItMAN .
Somebody mentioned Canning having Haiti , on being asked what was tho German for Astronomy ( ho knowing nothing about German ) , " Oh ! twiukla crajt , to l > i > sure . Is not that admirable V especially from a man who kutsw no Owniim . Sydney Smith id always welcome . The laugh rises when Ins name us im ntionetl , as when a favourite comedian ' s voice is heard behind the scenes . HYON 1 SY HMIT 11 IANA . . . , A note from Sydney , fixing to call upon uui , and containing a bill of i ' nru wine i
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 3, 1856, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_03051856/page/16/
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