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Jan. 7, I860,] The Leader and Saturday A...
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PAPALISM AND PROTESTANTISM. IT is natura...
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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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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Saetob Triumphans. T He Government At La...
uleeved snrtout of the Regency did Geobge the OPoueth . But with much effort we have at last , as we say , succeeded . In Elizabeth ' s time , the old caricaturists represented an Englishman as standing naked , a bale of cloth in one hand , and a pair of scissors in the other , doubting as to what fashion his doublet should be cut . We have now outgrown all doubts ; and how mueh soever we once stole fashion from the French , no one who has travelled but will know that at present they steal quite as much from us . If our ladies imitated the bombast of crinoline , they have the merit of having -introduced the piquant hat , which , with pheasant ' s breast and duckwing feathers , renders the Amazone so bewitching . From us , also , our neighbours have taken the fashion of the morning coat , and that which Leech lias
do well to follow the precept of not caring wherewithal he shall be clothed , not running into debt in college or in town to procure fine garments , and above all in defying as strongly as possible the tailor ' s supremacy . .
close-buttoned and comfortable walking-dress Mr . immortalised ; and Mr . Punch has given the name of " Noah's Ark . " Vainly do they seek also to imitate our riding-coats , and to array their lower extremities in top-boots and white cords—garments which , in spite of the Gallic dictum that a Frenchman has the best legs in the world , never sit well on them . Vainly , also , does the young French " swell" aspire , with padding , to equal the broad-chested and stalwart young English gentleman . Manly , in perfect ease and freedom , the latter moves about , a well-dressed man . Neither the American , the Frenchman , the Italian , nor the Russian , can compare with him , and Pall Mall or Bond Street can boast ten times as many young fellows better dressed than the Corso , the Prado , the Rue Richelieu , Wall Street , or the Nevskoi Prospect
at St . Petersburg . ¦ « , ¦ . j -o This excellence we have attained with an effort , and Europe envies us . When M . Edmond About dresses out his Roman beggar with the end in view of making him surpass the prince , he does not go to a French artist , but to Poole and Buekmaster . Nor would a young Englishman order a coat to be built by a German Schneider , or a French or Italian operator . He knows the value of his compatriot ' s needle , and it is but just to say that he rewards him . Gold is the tailor ' s portion ; the young patrician
flings it to him as he does to his opera dancer , his comic-singer , or his jockey . A Jeniier , a Flaxman , a Tennyson , or a Forbes , never has one tithe of the chance oi' making a fortune that a fashionable coatmaker , or he who invents the " idoneous fitting . " trousers , has . We have even forgotten to assail him with the opprobrious names which were common enough when Foote wrote his farce . He grows rich and thrives . He despatches emissaries by railway who enable the Sir Francis Wron ^ lieads and the clergy of the provinces to vie with the latest " swell" on the town ; lie employs a thorough artist to delineate his patterns , and like the Times and other powers in Europe sends a plenipotentiary to the seat of war , to take care that Hotspurs , Rinaldos , and Captains Bobadil shall not be sent to their last account without a complete outfit from a " first rate hand . "
We say little of the " poets , ; " only inferior " hands " e . mpluy them ; but to do justice to the literary gentlemen we must own . that their invocations to the various seasons are written in numbers as smooth as those of Den-ham , and , were it not for the recommendatory bathos which lies perdu about the middle of each piece , would be considerably less ridiculous than the heroics of Sir Richard Bluckmore . But the worst remains behind . Our tailors are triumphant , and our young fellows well dressed , but they are all alike . They have no originality , and they are far beyond eccentricity . When of old they apparelled Gargantua it needed the genius of Rabelais to describe his costume , but now we have not half the variety in coats that our Shakesnerjan ancestors had in beards . We dress not as
" single spies , but in battalions . " We are regularly packed , sorted , and labelled in our dress . The artjst assumes a picturesque carelessness , and is as much a martyr In- his loose coat as was Beau Leslie when lifted into his buckskin tights . The high church priest in his M . B . waistcoat and straitcoat , is as much parcelled out in the street from the Methody in shabby black and dubiously white tie , as the Rector in the pulpit in the " richest armazine price sevenand-a-half guineas" is from the curate in the reading-desk , m his stuff cwssopk price twenty shillings . The " suit especially adapted for the counting-house '' distinguishes the city gent from the west end swell in his Grunville walking coat . The man who " boata dresses differently from him who " drives . " The person who affects a he whis
stable habit , has ' his trousers cut to look " ' ossy ; " o literary and studious varies much from him who belongs to a Government office and does a bit of Park at twenty minutes past four . Ovev all these is the tailor triumphant , nay the costume invades the tongue and infects ; the speech . The Cambridge or Oxford man talks differently from his fellows ; barristers and clergymen modulate their speech variously , and the latter assume an affectionately sympathising and Christian shako of the hand , and half pitying , half patronising manner of speech , which is excessively irritating to their poorer parishioners . The governing classes speak in the old loud Norman way , which irresistibly reminds one that they have footmen , and that the marble ' halls wherein they dwell arc spacious . Whether these habits which wo have so lightly touched are exactly calculated to bind class to class we doubt . Whether they are in sober truth
proper and Christian is another question . Society seems certainly to havo clothed itself very touch better , but they who dwell in Kings' houses arc as easily distinguished now-a-days , although they wear surtouts and round hats , as if they wore clothed in the soft raiment of the gospel . One thing is certain , lho tailor ' s supremaoy may do good fur trade , but it must bo hurtful to independent thought and feeling . He who in always thinking how ho is dressed , \ vill never be at ease and feel like a gentleman . Poor Goljdsmith in his iinmovtul plum-cploured suit , made by one Fixhy , waa no doubt a martyr , and not half so comfortable aa in his nigged dressing gown in Green Arbour Court . The true gentleman ! mil
Jan. 7, I860,] The Leader And Saturday A...
Jan . 7 , I 860 , ] The Leader and Saturday Analyst . H
Papalism And Protestantism. It Is Natura...
PAPALISM AND PROTESTANTISM . IT is natural to connect the end with the beginning ; and contemplate time as a large comprehensive circle , arid particular periods as smaller ones , or cycles , as they are called . There are few years > however >' that make such cycles of themselves ; even these require a larger periphery than the sweep of twelve months . Two or three of such periods at least , are usually demanded for the constitution of even a comparatively insignificant cycle , regarding a series of events as having abeginning , a middle , and an end . Theayear now * . closing 1 , ' however , is singular in this respect ; beginning ' , as it did , with the intimation of Napoleon III . to the Austrian ambassador , and ending with the pamphlet , Ze JPape et te Congres , which may be taken as the Imperial warning to the Papacy . In these two facts , we have at least the beginning , and if not quite the end , yet the beginning of the end clearly indicated . To some the latter fact will look like the commencement of a newseries , in which case , the pamphlet itself will be accepted as the close of the old . And such may even be its operation ; for , as we write , it is rumoured that Cardinal Antonelli objects to meet Congress , unless the fatal publication be disowned . It is probable * or possible , that on the same account the Congress may never meet : and thus the mysterious pamphlet of December will close the series commenced in the mysterious intimation of January . "Between the acting of a dreadful thing . And the first motion , all the interim is Like a phantasma , or a hideousdream . * And such has been the character of the interval to Europe , between that January and this December . The action of the world has been phantasmal , and we are but just now waking from the dream of war and ambition . The chief source of perplexity has been the general ignorance of the motive in which the difference commenced ^ and the ultimate purpose which . its originator intended it to subserve . Some men are so " loose of soul , " that all their policy is transparent at once ; others are so reticent , that the-end in . view . is not . guessed until it occurs . Wfe believe that the Emperor of the French is naturally-of the latter turn of thind . Secretiyeriess is , doubtless , among his prominent organs . Reason enough , however , exists for the exercise of the faculty in the nature of liis- position , and the necessities bf the age . It were not only unsafe , but . impossible , to predict what lie , or France , might aee <> mplisli . It is easy to propose much ,. and do little ; and hard to anticipate how much or how little can , under the circumstances , be effected .
The moral of the year , derived from its experiences , is m favour of this reticence . Ohee the Imperial mind was moved to speak plainly , to pronounce explicitly a noble and far-reaching purpose . ?' Italy , "it proclaimed , " shall be free from the Alps to the Adriatic . " The declaration proved , in its result , to be but a wise indiscretion . It was wise , because the announcement was one that went far towards its own fulfilment , and will , doubtless , notwithstanding temporary impediments , yet work out its own issue . But it was indiscreet , because difficulties lay in the way , which , for a time , of Villa
might be , and proved to be , insurmountable . The Peace - franca defined a different barrier , which needs . new operations in order to its removal . New forces must arise , before it can be broken through . -The wheel of--fortune , mayhap , must take sundry turns first . The fate of Italy could not be decided by war . It awaited the circumlocutions of diplomacy , and the chapter of chances . What remained to be effected of Italian liberty , became again a subject of doubt , a theme of suspicion , and the object of fresh complications , but tew of which it is possible to foresee . to the time much to the
That this same reticence belonged as as man , may be gathered from the conduct of the Derby . administration . How far it concurred with Austria , or with France it was afraid to state ; and , alternately , it censured both , while professing to serve either . Eventually , it became too apparent that the sympathies of the English Government were with Austria . I 3 ut those of the people of England were with Italy , and decidedly against the barbarian power " by which the peninsula was enslaved . That administration had therefore to wake way for one more popular , and in some measure pledged to assert the rights of the Italian people against their oppressors . On England itself , however , a certain silence was imposed , on account of her Protestant position , and her jmability to share in the initiation ' of the " idea , " which her spirited am ., ! . „ , ! ,. on ..... /><¦! < io flm unu / iliil nt'ivWaiYn hfllnnirinsr to himself and hum linnuiiiuu iuu oj / cviiun ( j « » # v «»»< tj
JXllj ua , wm « "m »"" o , " - ij the lively nation whoso destinies ho wan permitted to wield . England might look approvingly on , but she continued to preserve a singular taciturnity , awaiting events before she expressed a decided opinion as to the actual measures pursued ; simply intimating that , under any circumstances , the ItuliiMis must be left to choose their own form of government . Mcnmvhile , the Italians themselves have been laudably active ; but they havo siiflorod much from the prevailing reticence on all sides . They have put questions to Sardinia , to which the answer * have been equivocal enough . Nevertheless , they have not been daunted . They rightly gathered from the general silence , that the real anewor rested with themselves . On their own determination to win their independence ana secure their liberty , the whole depended . TImt fully pronounced , fb involved by necessity the reply of Victob Esmutvai ,. The attitude assumed by both partios ut the present time _ is worthy ot »" admiration .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 7, 1860, page 11, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_07011860/page/11/
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