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September 17, 1853.] THE LEADER. 905
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BOOKS ON OUB TABLE. Theory of Politics. ...
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BUSKIN IN VENICE. The Stones of Venice. ...
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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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The Principle Of " Publishing Societies,...
Rav Society , the Sydenham Society , and the Shakspeare Society , & c , and several times we have had cognizance of plans for a Philosophical Society , which have not , however , taken effect . Something of this kind has been started by Mr . John Chapman , —viz ., a quarterly series , to be published jby subscription . The works of " learned and " profound thinkers , embracing the subjects ' of theology , philosoph y ^ Biblical criticism , and the history of opinion , " are , to be published , as in the ordinary way , at prices varying / according to size , but averaging nine shillings a volume . The advantage to subscribers is enormous ; they receive "four volumes for one subscription of twenty shillings- —a saving of nearly one half . The advantage to the publisher , of having a certain reliable sale from which to start , is also obvious . A sufficiently varied and
attractive selection of works would make this series eminently successful ; at present we notice what seems to us rather too great an inclination towards theology . The first volume is Parker ' s Theism , Atheism , and the Popular Theology , which we shall notice shortly ; the second is to be Newman ' s History of the Hebrew Monarchy , but , as the work has already appeared , subscribers to the series need not take it , they can limit their payment to fifteen shillings , for the three other volumes . These two works are to be followed by Feuerbach ' s celebrated treatise , The Essence of Christianity , which will considerably startle the English mind , —Ewald ' s History of the People of Israel , a Sketch of the Rise and Progress of Christianity , by the learned and accomplished R . W . Mackay , —and The Idea of a Future Life , by the translator of Strauss .
September 17, 1853.] The Leader. 905
September 17 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . 905
Books On Oub Table. Theory Of Politics. ...
BOOKS ON OUB TABLE . Theory of Politics . By Richard Hildretk . Clarke , Beeton , and Co Fern Leaves from Fanny ' s Portfolio . Ingram , Cooke , and Co Yankee Humour and Uncle Sam ' s Fun . Ingram , Cooke , and Co Burton and its Bitter Beer . By J . S . Bushman . W . S . Orr and Co The Destructive Art ofSealing ; or , Facts for Families . G . Eoutledge The Churches for the Times , and the Preachers for the People . By W . Ferguson . B . Li Green Audrey . A Novel . By Miss J . L . Jewry . T . C . Nevrby Tanglewood Tales , for' Girls and Boys : being a Second Wonder-Boole . By Nathaniel Hawthorne . ¦ ' ; Chapman and Hall . Fireside Politics ; or , Mints about Some . By P . K . Young . Watson . Characteristics of the Duke of Wellington , apart from his Military Talents . By the Earl de Grey . _ T . Bosworth . Christie Johnatone . A K * ovel . By Charles Eeade , Esq . - E . Bentley . Private Trials and Public Calamities ; or , the early Life of Alexandrine des Echerolles , during the Troubles of the first French JZeoohition . 2 vols . ' * E . Bentley . Fraser ' s Magazine . - J . W . Parker and Son . The London Quarterly Reviewi . No . I . » > Partridge and Oakey . The Biographical Magazine . Partridge and Oakey . The Some Companio ? i . W . S . Orr and Co / The Portrait Gallery . ' TV . S . Orr and Co .
Buskin In Venice. The Stones Of Venice. ...
BUSKIN IN VENICE . The Stones of Venice . Volume II . The Sea Stories . By John Ruskin ; with Illustrations drawn by the Author . Smith , Elder , and Co . Huskin is one of the most eloquent writers of our day ; he loves Art with passionate devotion , and both feels and understands more on this great subject than any other critic ; nevertheless every one who can resist the entrainement of his enthusiasm , and the imposing authority of his dogmatism , must regard him as a writer of charming paradox , always worth
hearing—seldom worth following . He ill bears criticism . Those trenchant and iconoclastic assertions , those sweeping generalizations , those apparently wilful and capricious outbreaks which disfigure all his writings , reveala mind essentially unfittedfor the high ambitious task it has set before it—the task , namely , of indoctrinating Englishmen with a philosophy of Art . There is , also , an inordinate degree of coxcombry in his writing which renders it suspicious . But after all—having made the most liberal allowance for drawbacks and demerits—wo must welcome every work he produces , more than wo welcome the works of any other writer on Art .
In this new volume of the Stones of Venice , there is mattor to make Architects wild with rage , and Amateurs wild with delight . As the Art treated of lies beyond our competence , and will not be greatly interesting to the generality of readers , wo shall best consult our interest and their pleasure in saying nothing about it , leaving to more experienced men the task of combating or confirming the principles laid down . Lot us rather indicate the sources of pleasure which the non-architectural taste will find in the volume ; for no one familiar with Kuskin ' s writings will suppose ib filled only with technical details . It contains two periods—the Byzantine and the Gothic . The first is illustrated in five chapters—The Throne ( by which Venice itself is designated ) , Torccllo , Miirano , St . Marks , and the U j / zantine Palaces . The second , in three chap tors—The Nature of Gothic ( a most interesting and paradoxical dissertation ) , Gothic Palaces , and the Ducal Palace . Several other matters are treated in an Appendix .
Wo shall select a few extracts , showing with what gusto and pictorial sensitiveness ho lias looked upon Venice ! and its . splendours . Maud this ' w ° i ' - ox . l ' of t / UO approach to Venice from the Canal of IVTostre . Wo have italicized ii . few sentences of peculiar ami poetic felicity ; but the word-painting of the whole is wonderful . We soo Vemco ; and the strange" losing of its walls and towers out of tho midst , as il ; neomed , of tho deep "j- » . for i (; WU n impossible ; tliafc tho mind or tho oye could at once comprehend tho MlmllowneHs of tho vast sheet , of water which " stretched away in leagues of rippling "sire to tho north and south , or trtioo tho narrow lino of '' islets bounding it to the 'list . Tho . salt breeze , \\ w white moaning sea-birds , the masses of black toecd S ' parati . iu / and disappearing gradually , in knots of heamnq shoal , under tho 'Klvanee of the . steady tide , nil proclaimed it to bo indoed ' thoOcean on whose /| Tm ° V ( i ! lt Clly ri ' ' ° (> all "l y ; not sueh blue , Kol ' tlake-like ocean as bathes ¦
^ , »« Neapolitan promontories , or sleeps beneath tho marble rocks of ( lonoii , but a < -a with tho . llc . ak power qf our own northern waves , yet . subdued into a ¦' . '" ""/ A' spacious rest , and changed from its angn / pallor into a field of bur-- ° H « ; « h <> ho wm iltirlituMl behind tho belfry tower of tho ' lonely ' island ,.:, "' ; - »»»"!< l ' «*• < 4 «« r «;« « 'f the Seaweed . ' Ah the boat diw nearer to the luw 1 KWMt Whl t ! h th ° iriivellor lmtl J » l « ft «< " » k behind him into ono long , yr > MiuUcolourutl Uuo , tufted in-eguluriy with brushwood nnd willows i but , at
what seemed its northern extremity , the . hills of Arqua rose in a dark cluster of purple pyramids , balanced on the bright mirage of the lagoon ; two or three smooth surges of inferior hill extended , themselves about their roots , and beyond these , beginning with the craggy peaks above Viccnza , the chain of the Alps girded the whole horizon to the north—a wall of jagged blue , liere and there showing through its clefts a wilderness of misiy ' precipices , fading " fat hack into ,, . the recesses of Cadore , and itself rising and breaking away eastward , where the sun struck opposite upon its snow , into mighty fragments of peaked li ght , standing up behind the barred clouds of evening , one after another , countless , the crown of the Adrian Sea , until the eye turned back from pursuing them , to rest upon the nearer burning of the campaniles of Murano , and on the great city where it 'magnified itself along the waves , as the quick silent pacing of the gondola
drew nearer and nearer . And at last , when its walls were reached , and the outmost of its untrodden streets was entered , not through towered gate or guarded rampart , but as a deep inlet between two rocks of coral in the Indian sea ; when first upon the traveller's sight opened the long . ranges of columned palaces—each with its black boat moored at the portal—each with its image cast down , beneath its feet , upon that gi'een pavement which every breeze broke into new fantasies ' of rich tessellation ; when first , at the extremity of the bright vista , the shadowy Rialto threw its colossal curve slowly forth from behind the palace of the Camerlenghi ; that strange curve , so delicate , so adamantine , strong as a mountain cavern , graceful as a bow jusfc bent ; when first , before its moonlike circumference was all risen , the gondolier's cry , ' Ah ! Stall / struck sharp upon the ear , and the prow turned aside under the mighty cornices that half met over the narrow canal , where the plash of the water followed close and loud , ringing
along the marble by the boat ' s side ,- and when at last that boat darted forth upon the breadth of silver sea , across which tlie front of the Ducal palace , flushed with its sanguine veins , looks to the snowy dome of Our Lady of Salvation , it was no marvel that the mind should be so deeply entranced by the visionary charm of a scene so beautiful and so strange , as to forget the darker truths of its history and its being . Well might it seem that such a city had owed her existence rather to the rod of the enchanter than the feat * of the fugitive ; that the waters which encircled her had been chosen for the mirror of her state , rather than tho shelter of her nakedness ; and that all which in nature was wild or merciless—Time and Decay , as well as the waves and tempests—had been won to adorn her instead of to destroy , and might still spare , for ages to come , that beauty which seemed to have fixed for its throne the sands of the hour-glass as well as of the sea . " - ^
Do not suppose , from that gorgeous description , that you are treated with grand phrases in lieu of specific and accurate details : Ruskin knows his Venice by heaut , and will not vaguely rhapsodize about-her ; indeed , he expressly says : — " The Venice of modern fiction and drama is a thing of yesterday , a mere efflorescence of decay , a stage dream which the first ray of daylight must dissipate into dust . No prisoner , whose name is worth remembering , or whose sorrow deserved sympathy , ever crossed that ' Bridge of Sighs , ' which is the centre of the Evronic ideal of Venice : no great merchant of Venice ever saw that llialto under
which the traveller now passes with breathless interest ; the statue which Byron makes Paliero address as one of his great ancestors was erected to a soldier of fortune a hundred and fifty years after Faliero ' s death ; and the most conspicuous parts of the city have been so entirely altered in the course of the last three centuries , that if Henry Dandolo or Francis Foscari could be summoned from their tombs , and stood each on the deck of his galley at the entrance of the Grand Canal , that renowned entrance , the painter ' s favourite subject , the novelist ' s favourite scene , where the water first narrows by the eteps of the church of La Salute , —the mighty Doges would not know in what spot of the world they stood ,
would literally not recognise one stone of the great city , for whose sake , and by whose ingratitude , their grey linirg bad been brought down with bitterness to the grave . The remains of their Venice lie hidden behind the cumbrous masses which were the delight of the nation in its dotage ; hidden in many a grass-grown court , and Silent pathway , and lightless canal , where , the slow waves have sapped their foundations for live hundred years , and must soon prevail over them for ever . Jfc must be our task to glean and gather them forth , and restore out of them somu faint image of tho lost city . " With this caution , lot us look steadily al ; another landscape : —¦
VENICK AT LOW TIDK . " A fall of eighteen or twenty inches is enough to show ground over the greater part of tho lagoon ; and at the completo ebb the city is seen standing in the midst of a dark plain of sea-weed , of gloomy green , except only where the larger brandies of tho Brenta and its associated streams converge towards tho port of tho Lido . Through this salt and sombre plain tlie gondola and tho fishing-boat advance by tortuous channels , seldom more than four or five feet deep , and often so choked with slime that the heavier keels furrow the bottom till their crossing tracks are seen through tho clear sea water like the ruts upon a wintry road , and the oar leaves blue gashes upon the ground at evert / stroke , or is entangled among tho thick wood that fringes tho banks with the weight of its sullen waves , leaning to and fro upon the uncertain sway of the exhausted tide . The scene is often profoundly
oppressive , even at this day , when every plot of higher ground bears f-onic ; fragment of fair building : but , in order to know what it , was once , lot the traveller follow in lii . s boat at overling tho windings of some unfrequented channel _/«?• into the midst of the melanchol y plain ; let him remove , in his imagination , the briefness of tho grout city that still extends itself in tho distance , and tho walls and towers from tho islands that , are near ; and so wait , until th <> bright investiture and sweet warmth of the sunset aro withdrawn from tho waters , and the black desert of their shoro lies in its nakedness beneath tho night , paflik's . s , comfortless , infirm , lost in' dark , langour and fearful si'fence , except where the salt runlets plash into the tideless pools ; or the sea-birds / lit from their margins with a questioning on ) ; aitdhe will bo
enabled to enter in . some . sort' into the horror of hcail . with which this solitude was anciently chosen by man for its habitation . They little thought , who first drove tho HlakoH into tho sand , and strewed tho ocean rerd . s for their rest , that their children wore to bo the princes of that ocean , and their palaces its prido ; and yet , in tho groat natural lawn that rule that sorrowful wilderness , let it bo romomborod what strange preparation had been made for tlio things which no human imagination could have foretold , and how the whole ; existence and fortune of tho Venetian nation were anticipated or compelled , by tho witting of those barn and doors to tho rivorn and tho sea . Had deeper currentH dividedthcir islands , hostile navies would again and again Imvo reduced tho i-ining city into merviludo ; hud sfcrongor surgeo bentoit
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 17, 1853, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_17091853/page/17/
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