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    J& 5Q THE LEADER, [No. 507. Dec. 10, 185...

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    author confesses, already appeared in Ho...

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    AUSTRALIAN FACTS AND PROSPECTS : to whic...

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    At Home Axd Abeoap. By Bayard^Aylor.—Sam...

    " Of course , such experiences are very rare ; and as they generally occur at the most unexpected moments , it is next to impossible to go back , and ascertain how the impression first makes itself felt . . Oncei only , have I been conscious of the operation of the fiiculty . This took place in Racine , Wisconsin , on the morning of the 1 st of March , 1855 . My bedroon * at the hotel was an inner chamber , lighted only by a door opening into a private parlor . Consequently , when I awoke in the morning , it was difficult to tell , from the imperfect light received through the outer room , whether the hour was early or late . A lecturer , especially after his hundredth performance , is not inclined to get up at daylight ; and yet , if yon sleep too long , in many of thrisk of losing

    the western towns , you run e your breakfast . I was lying upon my back , with closed eyes , lazily trying to solve the question , when , all at once , my vision seemed to be reversed—or rather , a clearer spiritual vision awoke , independent of the physical sense . My head , the pillow on which it rested , and the hunting-case of my watch , became transparent as air ; and I saw , distinctly , the hands on the dial pointing to eleven minutes before six . I can only compare the sensation to a flash of lightning on a dark night , which , for the thousandth part of a second , shows you a landscape as bright as dav . I sprang up instantly , jerked forth my watch , opened it ; and there were the hands , pointing to eleven minutes before six—lacking only the few seconds which had elapsed between the vision and

    its proof . "Is this , after all , any more singular than the fact that a man can awaken at any hour that he chooses ? What is the spiritual alarm-clock which calls us at four , though we usually sleep until six ? How is it that the web of dreams is broken , the helpless slumber of the senses overcome , at the desired moment , by the simple passage of a thought through the mind hours before ? I was once , of necessity , obliged to cultivate this power , and brought it , finally , to such perfection , that the profoundest sleep ceased as suddenly , at the appointed minute , as if I had been struck on the head with a mallet . Let any one tell me , clearly and satisfactorily , how this is done , before asking me to account for the other marvel . .

    "But in certain conditions , the mind also foresees . This may either take place in dreams , or in those more vague and uncertain impressions which are termed presentiments . I will ' only relate a single instance , since it is useless to adduce anything which is not beyond the range of accident or coincidence . I spent the winter of 1844-5 at Frankfort-on-the-Main , living with Mr . Richard Storrs Willis , in the family of a German merchant there . At that time there was only a mail once a month between Europe and America , and if we failed to receive letters by one steamer , we were obliged to wait four weeks for the next chance . One day the letters came as usual for Mr . Willis , but none for me . I gave up

    all hope for that month , and went to bed in a state of great disappointment and dejection ; but in the night I dreamed that it was morning , and I was dressing myself , when Mr . Willis burst into the room saying : ' The postman is below—perhaps he has letters for you . Come up into the dining-room , and you can see him from the window . We thereupon went tip to the dining-room on the third story , looked down into the street , and there stood the postman—who , as soon as he saw us , held up a letter at arm ' s length , holding it by the lower righthand corner . ; Though he was in the street , and I in the third story , I read my name upon it . " I arose in the morning with my head full of the dream . When I was about half dressed , Mr , Willis

    came into my room , repeating the very words I had heard in my sleep . We went into the dining-room together , looked down , and there stood tho postman , holding up a letter by tho lower right-liand corner I Of course I could not read tho address at that distance ; but my name was upon it . In this case , tho circumstances were altogether beyond my control ; and the literal manner in which the dream was fulfil led , in every minute particular , is its most astonishing feature . Nothing was added or omitted i the reality was a daguerreotype of the vision . Never before had my friend entered my room at so oarly an hour—never before had tho postman hold up a letter in that manner . If a coincidence only , the occurrence is therefore all tho . more marvellous . " It is not often that we have such clear testimony to events of this kind . Wo must believe Mr . Taylor , who thus witnesses to his own case . Tho facts cannot be doubted ; but the philosophy calculated to explain them has not yet received such development as to satisfy sceptical minds .

    J& 5q The Leader, [No. 507. Dec. 10, 185...

    J & 5 Q THE LEADER , [ No . 507 . Dec . 10 , 185 Q .

    Author Confesses, Already Appeared In Ho...

    author confesses , already appeared in Household Words . He hints , also , that we are to accredit him with care in drawing and correctness in detail . He has , if we understand him rightly , photographed " Spanish Life , " with ah intention to be as literally accurate as possible . We believe that to a great extent he has succeeded ; but Mr . Thornbury is too much of an artist in his work to exclude the ideal altogether from his painting . Sometimes Mr . Thornbury condescends to matters of mere daily life . There is a lively article of this kind on sherry . In * it we are told , that English sherry is a cheniieal compound made , like a French side-dish , of many ingredients , and of various ages and qualities of wine . The facts are these : — " In Xeres there were five hundred thousand arrobas of wine—^ thirty of which went to a bota ( butt )—made annually . This made thirty-four thousand butts , nine thousand of which were of first quality . Sherry is too strong and too dear for Spaniards ^ and too feverish for the climate . The best is , in Xeres , a dollar a bottle . The best in the bodega is worth from fifty to eighty guineas a butt ; and , after insurance , freight , and sale charges , it stands the importer in from one hundred to one

    first eagle that pounces on it from the peak of th Q Pyrenees . " e _ Two volumes of more entertaining and instructive matter are not discoverable in the literature of the day . They unite the charmsi of travel and romance .

    hundred and thirty guineas , before it reaches his cellar ( say ) in Belgrave-square . " ? How many gallons to the butt , Don Sanchez ?' "' About one hundred and twelve . This will bottle into about fifty-two dozen , and tlie duty is five shillings and . sixpence the gallon . So you may form your own opinion about cheap London sherries , which are , generally , very ' curious ' indeed—mere doctors' draughts , in fact , niade up according to certain swindling prescriptions : '

    " Here was a blow for ray old friend Binns , who opens a bottle of forty-eight shilling sherry with the air of an antiquarian unswathing a mummy Pharaoh . Thought I , the next time the deluded man points to the oily stickiness of his ghiss , I will leap up , seize him by the white cravat ^ a ind . say in a hollow

    : "' Binns ! you are the victim of a life-long delusion ; that stuff you drink , you think is the j uice of Spanish grapes , plucked by men playing guitars , and smoking cigars : you call it , in poetical moments , bottled sunlight , sun fire , and so on— -bah ! ( after the mariner of Napoleon ) it is only a chemical compound made of drugs and infusions , like Daffy ' s elixir or James ' s powder . It is cooked up with boiled , treacly wine , and brandy . It is a compound ' mixed from a dozen barrels , and made to order for a particular market . If the vines of Xeres grew till they got black in the face , Binns , they could not yield wine like your forty-eight shilling sherry . '

    " The Don laughed , and said that certainly the sherry wine district was very small ; not more than twelve miles square . Therefore , it could not yield honest wine enough even for half London . The sherry grape grew only on certain low chalky hills , where , the earth being light-coloured , is not so much burnt—did not chap and split so much by the sun , as darker and heavier soils do . A mile beyond these hills , the grapes deteriorate . The older the plants the better , but the fewer the grapes . "

    Perhaps , most of our readers knew these facts already . Probably , they have been told something like this ; but not with the requisite particularity . It can at any rate do no harm to have the matter set down , exactly as it is . The use to be made of the truth is quite ^ another thing . People none the less , we dare say , will drink 48 s . sherry , if they can get nothing better . The literature of Spain is not -neglected any more than tho wines . lu ' proof , we need only refer to a chapter on Spanish ballads , in which , in the verse of Don Fullano—a Spanish balJadist , for our . knowledge of whom we are indebted to Mr . Thornbury—the Cid flourishes not only alive but dead . There is another similar essay , discriminating between the Spain of Cervantes and the Spain of Gil Bins , which is also good . In this there is a reflootive mournfulness , in which the pensive reader will readily join . It might , " says Mr Thornbury , " make tho thoughtful roan woop to take now the map of Spain , and look at its ohoked-up harbours and forsakbn soa ; its ruined oities ; its sluggish people , eager only for vice and folly , slow to work , and swift to stab . To see its plains of Paradise mouldering away into deserts , its pastures cankering into barrenness , its mines unheeded , its ports unused j the very limbs of this groat country festering frpm the trunk $ the land that could produce all tho treasures of east and west , the wheat of Europe , tho jrioo of Asia , the ougar-oano of South America , tho palm-tree of Africa , now lying tho dustheap of the nations | the beggared , despised , neglected , sightless country , ready , like a sick aheop , to be torn in pieces by tUe

    bISro IN SJtfAIN . By Walter TJUombury . Two vola . —Smith , Elder , and Co . The . reader is probably acquainted with many of these se rks of essays ,. tW hulk , of them having , the

    Australian Facts And Prospects : To Whic...

    AUSTRALIAN FACTS AND PROSPECTS : to which ie prefixed the Author ' s Australian Biography Bv It n Home . —Smith , Elder , and Co . ' ' In 1852 , Mr . Home , the author of '' Orion " in a fit of mental despondency , left England and literature , for the gold diggings ; Besides a change of occupation had become almost necessary to him ; he had been , to use his own words sickened of hope , as a dramatist mid' a poet ' and accordingly it was natural that lie should be overtaken by " the London fever of that day , " and form " a determination to sail for Australia . " Since that time a few stray notices of him , as a gold escort commander , in the colonial journals have reached us ;—but nothing particular had arrived in England until the present publication , and this , it must be acknowledged , contains matter of considerable interest and importance . It may seem precipitating results , but we prefer to . begin the subject of our review with its moral ; premising , also , that Mr . Home himselfcommences his report with it . It is contained in these few words :- ¦ — " If you are doing at all well at home , rest assured it would be risking , everything in a foreign lottery to come out here at the present period . To the great majority it must be certain disappointment , and to some utter ruin . "

    Mr . Home ' s autobiographical sketch is a piece of graphic writing , which may challenge comparison with our best descriptive authorship , and must excite regret in the reader that so mue ' Ti talont should have missed its reward in England . Poetry , and the drama ,. in its higher forms no longer command their fitting recompense in this country . The more , the merit , the less the success;— the more ambitious the aim , the less possible its realisation . It is time the public should know this ;—and Mr . Home ' s example may speak out "

    trumpettongued " the disgraceful truth . Have the reading , the theatrical , public of the time no taste ? Is the popular mind entirely vitiated Y And will the " deaf adder" not listen to the sweet singer , " charm he never so wisely ? " Let our leaders look to this;—for it is a state of things that "is not , and it cannot come to good . " \ Vlie . genius can no longer find its place in a country , " it is not long after" that virtue will also bo found an emigrant , and , like justice from the earth , retires to some refuge more congenial to its principles and aspira tions , from whence it is not likely to return . Mr . Home ' s Australian Facts are of the roughest . Literature has no standing in Melbourne—no chair in its University . Politics alone are the lever by which an educated ninn can make his thousand a-ycar—politics , and u robust constitution , with pedestrian energy-r—not art , nor refined speculations on mind , nor elegant productions , whether critical or poetic . The barrister , with a strong political hend and body , lias a chance . " Special energies , applied to the talents which are desiderated , " will avail , sooner or later , in any case . But of classes of men , " small capitalists and small farmers , together with the hewera of wood and drawers of water ( meaning experienced navvies ) , stonemasons , bricklayers , and some other mechanics , " have the best prospects . The statements in Mr . Frank Fowler ' s li Southern Lights and Shadows" are not at all to bo depended on . , Mr . Home , certainly , does not look on the rosy side of things . Here is an illustration : •—" The sums of money publicly aiinouncod to have been gained by , or given to theatrical stars in Sydney and Molbourno , . must bo rognr < loil as jnere managerial and professional puffs . Wo know , in reality , nothing about tho matter , except in "Aeos oi failure ; and then , it sooms , ou tho contrary , tnoy have made nothing , and paid everything away . * sot down , therefore , the ^ 10 , 000 said to havo neon promised to Mr . G . V . Brooke , and tho otlior ^ » ° "" offered to the conjuror Andoraon , as sums oi money the real amount of which , privately agrbod upon , has been , or will bo , duly paid j but what suon amounts may actually be , wo havo no moans oi knowing . Tho sum of £ 10 , 000 , just now , sooms w bo a favourite munificence j and as wo hoar it ww been offered to Mr . Bpurgcon to delivor a series oi sermons in America , wo should nob bo surprised a *

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 10, 1859, page 18, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_10121859/page/18/