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694 THE LEA DEB. [I^tebary
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N AT URE v. CONVENTION . — THE TWO PATHS...
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THE LIFE OF JOHN STEGGALL, A Suffolk ITa...
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SERIALS. Blackwqod's Edinburgh Magazine,...
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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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Kxgland And Jlkll Soliukus. Ky Hurrk-T M...
tineau insists that henceforth they shall have "both . Her aim is to utilise the experience of the late war . She would establish responsibility , and link it -with the . system , so that the blame thrown on it should include individuals , and Tjrihg the culprits to account . . . The diagrams with which the work is illustrated show the causes of mortality that operated on our armies in the East , and the amount of it in the hospitals and elsewhere . But what are such illustrations to the graphic one contained in the following fine description ? It relates to the question of food : — " We might call a sickly child ' a sickly plant / and do our best to nourish it ; but we did not regard a thronged city , or an army , as a forest of trees , -whose Vigour depends on their nutrition . I have seen in Kentucky woods , where for miles therewas scarcely a stunted plant , —the trees growing far enough
apart for a carriage to pass every where , —the soil light and dry , and producing fine turf instead of rank weeds , and the verdure of each season lying thick about the roots , so as to manure every tree abundantly and without intermission ; so that , the beeches and hollies spring to a height that we have no idea of in England , and nothing but our British oaks can compare with the Kentucky forest trees in stability . I have also seen a forest in the Mississippi valley , where the state of things was very different . Underwood and parasitical plants shrouded the whole space , so that the air was stagnant ; rank weeds impoverished the soil ; vermin pierced the bark , and corrupted the heart of many a tree : each one that fell left a slimy under its upturned root , and the poisonous water spread till it loosened the soil far and wide . Then , if a ~ gale came from the
east , after frollicking the Kentucky giants , and doing them no harm in the playful wrestle , it had all its own way . in the ill-fed and ill-ventilated forest . Down went ev'ery outward tree at the first stiff blow : and if the gale strengthened to a hurricane , the very heart of the forest was at its mercy . I have seen a wide gap through , the very midst , where not a tree remained standing , but every one was snapped off at its weakest part . Thus was it with our force at the Crimea . Sapped by hardships , exhausted by want , infected with disease , when the epidemic came it laid everything low , felling thousands in their prime , and breaking them down at their weakest part . Now we know how it happened , may we not say that it can-never happen again ? We have only to say that it never must happen again . " We leave this citation to make its due impression on the reader ' s mind . It will surely induce him to peruse the whole treatise .
694 The Lea Deb. [I^Tebary
694 THE LEA DEB . [ I ^ tebary
N At Ure V. Convention . — The Two Paths...
N AT URE v . CONVENTION . — THE TWO PATHS ; being Lectures on Art , and its Application to Decoration and Manufacture , clivered in 1858-9 , by John Kuekin , Sl . A . With two plates . —Smith , Elder , and Co . Tsce sculpture or painting of organic form is the vital law on which all noble design depends . It lies , says Mr . Kuskin , at the root of all that he has ever tried to teach respecting ^ architecture or any other art . But it is the one least attended to . In consequence of the neglect of this principle , so-called Gothic or Romanesque buildings are now , says our author , " rising every day around us which be the
appear to sign the warrant of their own rum ; and from the nioinent in which a perfect statue appears in Florence , a perfect picture in Venice , or a perfect fresco in Rome , from that hour forward , probity , industry , and courage seem to be exiled from their , walls , and they perish in a sculpturesque paralysis or a many-coloured corruption . " Are these things related as cause and effect ? In the two nations above opposed we but see the effects upon moral sentiment of art without nature , and of nature without art . Each suffers on account of its specific deficiency . Art , however , irrespective of the interpretation of nature by it , is and noblest in
destructive of whatever is best . humanity ; while nature , however , simply observed or imperfectly known , is , in the degree of the affection felt for it , protective arid helpful to all that is noblest in humanity . Let art be also devoted to the record or the interpretation of nature , it likewise will be healthful and ennobling . Thus purified of the traditional and the conventional , art is no longer deteriorative , but will recover and impart vigour . These principles Mr . Ruskin has illustrated at great length . He is particularly hard on the architects who , without knowledge of other arts , protest ag * ainst natural beauty ^ and endeavour to substitute mathematical proportions for the knowledge of life they do not possess , and the representation of life of which they are
Such ; , in the fewest words , is the spirit of Mr Ruskin ' s new volume , which is embellished with two steel engravings , and other Occasional illustr a tions . It is well calculated to encourage the humblest worker , and stimulate him to " artistic effort .
incapable . The history of architecture proves , from its earliest dawn in Lohibardy to its last catastrophe in France and England , that sculpture , founded on love of nature , was the talisman of its existence ; " Gothic , " exclaims'the lecturer , "is not an art for knights and nobles ; it is an art for the people ; it is not an art for churches or sanctuaries ; it is an art for bouses and homes ; it is not an art for England only , but an art for the world ; above all , it is not an art of form or tradition only , but an art of vital practice and perpetual renewal . And whosoever pleads for it as an ancient or a formal thing , and tries to teach it you as ah ecclesiastical tradition or a geometrical science , knows nothing of its essence—less than nothing of its power . "
Here is the gist of Mr . Ruskhi ' s new book . . Of the two paths , above described , this is the one he recommends . He speaks like Sir Oracle , and expects acquiescence . " Let no dog bark . " The moral character of the man has , however , some " thing to do with his work . The perception of nature is never given but under certain moral conditions , He grants , therefore , to the student the choice between " two paths . " He may produce
conventional ornament— " may approach the task as the Hindoo does , and as the Arab did , without nature at all—with the chance of approximating his disposition somewhat to that of the Hindoos and Arabs ; or , as Sir Joshua Reynolds and Velasquez did , with , not the chance , but the certainty , of approximating his disposition according to the sincerity of his effort—to the disposition of those great and good men . "
The application of art to manufacture and decoration is the end and purpose of the volume . I ) ecorative is distinguished from other art only by being fitted for a fixed place , and in that place related , either in subordination or in command , to the effect of other pieces of art . Then comes the fact of facts , that all the greatest art is that which is so fitted and so related . There is no existing highest art , says Mr . Ruskin , but the decorative . " The best sculpture yet produced has been the decoration of a temple-front—the best painting the decoration of a room . Raphael ' s best doing is merely the wall-colouring of a suite of apartments in the Vatican , and his cartoons were made for
tapestries . Correggio ' s best doing is the decoration of two small church cupolas at JParma : Michael Angolo ' s , of a ooiling in the Pope ' s private chapel ; Tintoret's , of a ceiling and side wail ^ belong ing to a charitable society at Venice ; while Titian and Veronese threw out their noblest thoughts , not even on the inside , but on , the outside of the common brick and plaster walls of Venice . " These be stirring facts for the decorator . May they inspire him with a worthy ambition ! He must have genius—he must have industry . Without work , genius is barren ; but without genius , sympathy , and imaginationwork is of little worth .
^ The deoorative builder iu an author with special I he deoorative builder iu an author with special privileges . Ho has not " to plead for a heaving , or to tear oblivion . Do but build largo enough , and carve bolUly enough , and all the world will hear you ; they cannot choose but look . "
might supposed by public more or less to embody the principles of those styles , but ¦ which embody not one or them nor any shadow or fragment of them , but merely serve to caricature the " noble buildings of past , ages , and to bring their , form into dishonour by leaving out their soul . " The deteriorative power of conventional art over nations forms the subject of Mr . Buskin ' s first lecture . The want of art-structures among the scenery of a country , as in Scotland , is a great drawback from the beauty of the landscape . In India , on the other hand , decorated works in all materials capable of colour , whether marble or metal , are frequent ; and these materials are almost inimitable in their delicate application of divided hue and fine arrangement of fantastic line .
The two races of the jungle and of the moor exhibit two separate national capacities , distinctly and accurately opposed . The Indian rejoices in the art with which ho is eminently and universally endowed ? the Highlander is careless and apparently incapable of it . Similar are the differences in their moral character ; and the balance of these is in favour of Scotland . Moreover , the records of history prove that the nations which possessed a refined art were always subdued by those who possessed none . Singularly , too , " the period in which any given people reached their highest power in art is precisely that in whioh they
The Life Of John Steggall, A Suffolk Ita...
THE LIFE OF JOHN STEGGALL , A Suffolk ITau Narrated by Himself , aud Kdited by the Authw ol " Margaret Catchpolc . " Simpkin , fcar & ifiuEd C ° It will be sufficient for us to record the second and enlarged edition of this work . A man who has been " a gipsy , a soldier , a surgeon , a fellowcommoner of Corpus Christi Coll ege , Cambridge and is now a clergyman—a curate of many years ' standing in the Church of England "—will be sure to find a wide circle of readers .
Serials. Blackwqod's Edinburgh Magazine,...
SERIALS . Blackwqod ' s Edinburgh Magazine , No . DXX 1 V . - ^ Political matter constitutes much of . this nu mber but it is of a thoroughly harmless character . For instance , we are told that by social freedom is meant " independence of the tyranny of clique , of which perhaps the strongest examples appear to befoundin America ; and France , though in comparison with England she may not be a free country , has a perfect right to be the . champion of freedom as against Austria , bound hand and foot by her fatuous concordat with the See of liome . " Very well . " L , uck of Ladysrriede" adds a fourth part ; and a paper on Lords Macaulay and Marlborough takes a fail * estimate of the faults and merits of the historian . The number on the whole is solid , but heavy .
Fraser . —The number for this month opens with a defence of Sir John Coleridg-e from the charges of Mr . Buckle , made in the previous number , in relation to the trial , at Bodniin , of one Pooley , for blasphemy , written on gates and styles . The subject is continued in the following paper on the essay concerning " Man and his Dwelling Place , " of which we ourselves gave a full account some month or two since . The tale of " Sword andGown" is continued , and also that of " Holmby House . " There is , also , a paper on Bacon ' s History of King Henry VII ., in which the critic dwells on the remarkable
resemblance between the mind of Bacon and that of Shakespeare . " Bacon ' s powers , " he says , "in their diversity and in their strength , passed all ordinary human limits ; he was as much an actor as a thinker , and his mind was capable of the utmost variety of exertion . In this variety , in a flexibility that can follow the remote and -winding passages of every theme ; iu a deep penetrating insight into the dispositions of men ; in an exquisite sense of humour , and especially in a candid impartiality ( the result , probably , of that flexible thought rather than of any effort at justice ) , he resembles Shakespeare ; while there is in his serious meditation a deep majestic pathos , such as is hardly to be found in any other author . " The number is one of more than average excellence . .
Titax . — The story of " Getting on" is continued from the 18 th to the 21 st chapter . The number opens with a fanciful paper on " An Unknown Land , " or , as it is interpreted , the land of exile . There are in it profound reflections on the Revolution of 1848 .-9 , which in the writer ' s opinion destroyed the prestige of royalty , thoughitseeuredforthetimethe absoluteness of despotism . Three sentences merit citation . " Freedom is of no particular country . Liberty has Who reads
no nationality , liight is cosmopolitan . " " all the Novels ? " is the title of a clever paper on a subject of more importance than it seems , lne number is altogether one of considerable merit . Art-Journal . — -The present is a most excellent number . Among the illustrations arc Sir C . h Eastlake ' s " Sisters , " and Michael Angolo ' s Last Judgment : " Berghem ' s " Herdsman , " and several works of art in Borne , which really enrich the pages . The Exhibitions , also , furnish ample reports . Arts and Sciences
English Cyclopedia or . Conducted by Charles iKnight . — Port V . contains some interesting articles on Beauty , Bayoux-1 apestry , and other topicB comprehended under tho same initial . Tho alphabetical arrangemont carries us down to the term " Bombardier . " National Magazine . — Part XXXII . An admirable collection of elegant ossays and tales . Mr . Brough ' s " Miles Cassidy" bocomes moro and mow interesting ; There is also a report in lull ot Mr . Horaud ' s Lecture « On Poetry and itaConnoxiottVitlj tho Arts , " whioh will bo read with great interest ,, w concludes with an extract from his poem , pf ine Pln ^ niu . ! . nf fZnnint * " nilhlishcd ill tllO " MontJUy
of 1839 . Mr . Heraud would do good sorvioo itiio would suffer the whole of this excellent diduotio to » e reprinted . The illustrations are excellent . Loud Byhon ' b Pohtical Woiucs .---John Murray . Part y , contains " Werner / ' "Thei Hours of Mfe rioas , " " Hints from Horace , " " Tho Walt * , "' & o . I Ho engraving is illustrative of Purlslnn ' s death , » y Westall .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 4, 1859, page 10, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_04061859/page/10/
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