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976 THE LEADER. [Saturday,
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^y* ^LlutHutnL
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Critics are not the legislators, bat the...
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In the great Mahratta war, Lord Lake was...
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Among the penodjcala of tho month which ...
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Apropos of the publication of Mr. Dkncku...
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Among now works advertised as forthcomin...
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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Transcript
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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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976 The Leader. [Saturday,
976 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,
^Y* ^Lluthutnl
ICitenttnrL
Critics Are Not The Legislators, Bat The...
Critics are not the legislators , bat the judge 3 and police of literature . They ao not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Review .
In The Great Mahratta War, Lord Lake Was...
In the great Mahratta war , Lord Lake was so bothered by the number of letter-writing civilians about his camp , that , whenever he caught an officer "with a pen in his band , he used to burst out -with " Damn your writing ; mind your fighting , " Lord Lake ' s maxim is , in its "way , a very good statement of the kind of relation that war has to literature . " When people are fighting , they must give up writing ; and , when fight-ing is going on , those whose business it is to write must either not write at all , or must write about that . As we have said more than once , the present war is telling on our book-trade , both by diminishing the demand for works of pure literature , and by increasing the demand for writings of a particular character . The former effect , indeed , may fail to be observed by those who glance over our literary advertisements , and see the announcements of new works of pure literature still so numerous ; but the latter is palpable enough—as -witness
the shoals of books about the war and its seats published , or about to be published . This , indeed , is one striking way in which the "war operates on literature— -that it sends out the national thought in new and unexplored geographical directions ; consecrates names and spots never heard of "before ; makes new ground rich wi th great acts and associations . A week or two ago and there was a stream in the Crimea flowing on , night and day , quiet and unregarded ; and at one place , where a road crossed this stream , high steeps rose above it , over which day and night passed too , disturbing nothing save , mayhap , a loose stone , that would roll down into the gullies ; and now that spot belongs to the imagination of Great Britain ' for evermore , and a perpetual allusion in literature will be made to the battle of the Alma . Does it not seem as if place and name had been alike predestined ? Who would not wish to see a photograph of those Crimean steeps , that have waited six thousand years ,, and , at last , are famous ? .
Certainly the next thing to a photograph , and better , in some respects , is a letter of the Times' correspondent . All the world , have been admiring the series of letters in which the correspondent of the Times , who accompanies the expedition in the Crimea , has described the successive phases of the Ex . pedition ^ -its embarkation at Varna , its voyage , its ianding , & c . ; but no letter of the series has been more remarkable than that written on the heights of Alma and describing the battle . Lord Raglan ' s despatches are clear and good ; and the newspapers have published many excellent accounts from various sources ; but the 1 J imes * correspondent accompanies the expedition in the spirit of an artist , a commissioner of literature sent oufc to seize events and scenes as they rise , and clothe them , on the instant , with the fitting language . He is as good as a Horace Vernet .
The war of course gives rise to still another kind of literature than that of the concrete description of scenes and facts connected with the war ; it gives rise to a literature of speculation as to the mode of conducting the business of war . The Edinburgh Review , just published , has one very striking article , which , but for recent events , would not have been called for , and could not have been written—that on the " Reform of the War Departments , " The ideas of this article are two : first , the simplification of our war-business by putting an end to the present system of divided functions among the Secretaryship-at-War , Commandership-in-chief , Mastership of the Ordnance , & c , and consolidating all powers of army arrangement in the hands of one
Minister of War ; and secondly , the reform of the military service by a system of education for the officers . The reviewer ' s arguments on the first head derive great force from the terrible revelations of mismanagement and deficiency in the medical and transport departments which have been reaching us from , the scene of the war ^ -not hal f enough of surgeons , no lint for bandages , miserable means of transport for the wounded , and so on ; what the reviewer advances on the second head is sound in the main doctrine , but seems crude and exceptionable in its details . As the Review has but just reached us , wo have space for no longer comment . Tho Quarterly has not reached us ; but the table of contents shows ua that there is not one word in it about the wnr . This is a neglect of duty .
Among The Penodjcala Of Tho Month Which ...
Among the penodjcala of tho month which have come into our hands are three " new candidates for tho public favour , " us the phrnso is . Thoro is No . 1 of The Statist , a Magazine of Statistical and Actuarial Information , both Popular and Scientific , announced as under tlio editorship of IX . Thompson Joplino , Esq ., F . S . S ., and to be published every alternate month , at tho cost -of one shilling and sixponuo ; there is No . 1 of the Wat of Scotland Magazine , a sixpenny monthly , published m Glasgow ; and thoro i » No . 1 of tho People ' s Monthly Itegixtar and General Review , a . penny periodical , to bo made up of a rjswng of tho month ' s news , and n selection of litornry criticisms culled from various papers . None of those first numbers strikes us as of particularly good promise . The Statist hna a paper , by the Editor , on tho Statistics of Accidental Death , and one on Cholera Statistics , from neither of which can we draw nny notable inferences , though tho former is evidently laborious . Lot us advise tho Editor to have as few articles as possible with * to be continued" at tho end of them . Magazine-writers ought , as a
general rule , to discuss their topics in single articles ; and to admit more continuations than can be helped is an editorial blunder . In the Statist , three articles are " to be continued . " The same advice maybe given to the Editor of the West of Scotland Magazine , in which , small as it is , there are two to be contimied ' s . " This periodical is intended—in the usual phrase of prospectuses—to " supply an often felt and complained of want ; " that is , it is to furnish Glasgow and the West of Scotland with a high-class magazine of home manufacture , but avoiding local questions , and treating only general topics . Much of the writing in the present number is green and grandiloquent , suggesting very young men ; but we do not know how far Glasgow talent is represented in it . The Peoples Monthly Register is neatly printed , and a good pennyworth of paper ; and we should like to see its future numbers well edited in the spirit of the sensible opening address .
We have the prospectus of another new monthly , the first number of which is to appear in November . It is to be called the Masonic Mirror , and is to bei devoted to " the proceedings of masonic lodges , the welfare of the order , the interests of its charities , and to literature and news . " Nothing will appear in it " in any way trenching on masonic secrets ; " but it is hoped the brothers will find it suitable for their families .
Apropos Of The Publication Of Mr. Dkncku...
Apropos of the publication of Mr . Dknckuex's Essay on Free-Trade , tvhieh gained the Anti- Corn- Law League prize of two hundred guineas , the Athenaum has again been attacking the Prize-Essay system . The objection of our contemporary to the system is that it makes one or two hundred persons all devote time and labour to a certain-work , and then pays only one of them—which , says our contemporary , is anti-mercantile and a swindle . We do not exactly see the force of this reasoning , which would knock many other things on the head besides Prize-Essays ; but , certainly , the experience the public have had of the Prize-Essay system is hot in its favour . Almost the only very striking book we have heard of owing its origin to competition for a prize , is M . Proupeeon ' s Treatise on
Property , which did not get the prize , and made the adjudicators ( honest citizens of Besancon , we believe ) stand aghast . It would , certainly , have been worth while , in the opinion of most people , for societ y to pay M . PnoiXDHLON for not writing ; and there is many another man whose silence would be cheap at 5001 . a year . At this moment , however , the Priza-Essay system in Great Britain is being put to the test on a more magnificent scale than usual . Some sixty years ago , or thereby , a Mr . Burnett—a gentleman who had been troubled with scepticism- —died in the north of Scotland , leaving a certain property , under the care of Professors and other dignitaries in Aberdeen , the accumulated value of which , at certain intervals , was , by his will , to be invested in two prizes to be bestowed
on the writers of the best and second-best essays on the Being and Attributes of the Deity . The idea of the deceased gentleman apparently was that there ought to be a new demonstration of the evidences of religion , natural and revealed , every forty or fifty years—so as to keep pace , on the orthodox side , with the science and speculation of the age . What the subsequent Bridgewater bequest accomplished once , Mr . Burnett took care should be done , by 7 « s bequest , over and over again , periodically as needed . The first competition for tho Burnett prizes took place many years ago , on which occasion the Rev . Principal Brown , of Aberdeen , obtained the first prize ; and Dr . Sumnek , the present Archbishop of
Canterbury , the second . The second cycle of the competition has now come round ; and at the beginning of this year , in compliance with advertisements which had been circulated for two or three years , a shoal of essays were sent in , for adjudication , to the trustees in Aberdeen . The first prize this time , in consequence of the increased value of the property , certainly worth getting—some 1700 / . or 1800 J . in cash * , and the second is not despicable—400 J ., or thereby . The trustees have done their "best to select competent adjudicators—Mr . Isaac Tayj-or , Mr . Bapen Powell , and Mr . Henry Rogers , being the persons chosen . Each of those gentlemen receives a handsome honorarium for his trouble . Two of the three
were m Aberdeen the other day , and announced that they had gono so fay in tho examination of tho essays—having sot aside a large prop ortion of mere " rubbish" after testing them , and reserved a certain portion for farther scrutiny . Some of the reserved essays , it was intimated , were of high quality . Tho chance of a prize of 1800 J ., we should think—especially seeing that the former competition under tho same bequest was dignified by tho appearance of tho present Primate of tho Church of England in tho lists—ought to bring out tho boat wranglers in Britain ; and , considering tho character of tho judges , tho probability is that tho successful essays will exhibit philosophical British orthodoxy at its best .
Among Now Works Advertised As Forthcomin...
Among now works advertised as forthcoming , tho following arc an " noun cud for ' next ' week : " —An Inquiry into the Principles of Church Authority ; ar Reasons for recalling my Subscription to the Jioyal Supremacy , ty tho litev . 31 . J . WiiiiJKRFOKCi : ; n . » d Lord Carmsjlic ' s JJian / in Turkish «'"• Greek Waters;—both from tho press of Messrs . Longman . Among works "just ready , " " to bo published shortly , " are the much antici pated Literary Life , and Correspondence of Lady lilcsdngton ; tlio equally do .-firoil Thirty Years of Foreign Policy ; or a History of the Secretaryships of the Earl of Aberdeen and Viscount Palmcrston , h . y JNJr . Disraeli ' s truculent biograp her , whoever ho is ; a book on tho Military Forces and Institutions of Great
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 14, 1854, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_14101854/page/16/
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