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102& THE LEADER, [No. 3963 October 24, 1...
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. ' .- .Xittrnttttti
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w —• Critics are not the legislators, bu...
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The Edinburgh Revietc opens with an arti...
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Messrs. Gambaut and Co., of Bcrncrs-strc...
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The Russian Polar Star, edited by M. Ale...
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MEMOIR ON THE ACCESSION OF NICHOLAS I. T...
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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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102& The Leader, [No. 3963 October 24, 1...
102 & THE LEADER , [ No . 3963 October 24 , 1857 .
. ' .- .Xittrnttttti
. ' .- . Xittrnttttti
W —• Critics Are Not The Legislators, Bu...
w —• Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh llevieio .
The Edinburgh Revietc Opens With An Arti...
The Edinburgh Revietc opens with an article on ' Spedding ' s Complete Edition of the "Works of Bacon / which is in every respect a striking contrast to the last paper that appeared in its pages on the same subject . It is almost as dull and wearisome as Macatjlay ' s essay was brilliant and attractive , and , though only half the length of the latter , will be read through only by those ¦ who are really interested in the subject . In the first place , the paper wants connexion and arrangement , tie little plan there is being worked out in a dull , wandering , fragmentary , manner . While a good deal of detail is introduced , this is too loose and unconnected to produce any broad general effect . The writing wants throughout the illumination of large views , aiid is deficient in anything like sustained grasp , vigour , and insight . The writer undertakes , for instance , to show how Bacon ' s great work arose and shaped itself in his own mind , but lie does this in the merest external and superficially historic way , as that he wrote a first sketch at such a date , and another a few years afterwards , without attempting in the least to trace how his mental gaze gradually expanded over the field of knowledge as he rose to new heights of thought , until at length the vast panorama of possible science , the new and illimitable fields of undiscovered knowledge , burst upon his view , the majestic prospect kindling that cool and massive intellect into poetic fervour , ay , even into prophetic inspiration . The article is deficient , "too , in the ordinary graces of good composition , the style being at once heavy and careless , abounding with such sentences as the following : — "Moreover , in order to estimate Bacon ' s meiit as regards this philosophy , we must not regard as most important and essential on his method that which he so regarded . ''' The best part of the paper is the latter , in which the writer attempts to trace the influence of Bacon ' s method on the history of science since his day . While the sketch is imperfect , and the illustrations by no means so numerous or apt as they might have been , Baton ' s sagacity in detecting the true method of science in all its breadth and fulness , as well as his prescience in foreseeing some of its results , are well brought out . Take the following for example : — But science necessarily involves ideas as well as facts : the framework of all sound theory must rest on a basis of facts , and , as Bacon says , the ideas are the very nails by which this framework is held together . Without these the facts have no coherence . Has Bacon seen this condition of the existence of science ? Has he given any directions for the use of ideas as well as for the use of facts ? Here also his sagacity did not fail him . He enjoins upon his disciples that if the ideas which they mploy—notiones is his word—are confused and rashly abstracted from thing-s , there is no hope of real knowledge . He says that even the most limited notions , as man or dog ; the most immediate impressions of the senses , hot and cold , white and black ; have some taint of confusion , and that all the more large and general notions are
but wretchedness and rapine—if the solitude was made long before the English invaders sought it , and if ( keeping here to the particular case unluckily lighted upon by Professor Blackie in his poetical flight ) there happened never to have been in that district eitlier evictions or Highlanders ? The tourist , steaming through the Hebrides some summer day , when an emigrant ship is waiting at her station , sees boat-loads of the departing people , with teav-soiled countenances and hanging heads , shooting out from ' the dusky shores of Mull , or from beneath the riven peaks of Sk ye ; his ear is assailed with wailings , as if i » i roproacli to Heaven , sent up from women crouching ¦ wi th covered heads on the uttermost rocks ; and he is amazed , saddened , and indi gnant . But what if he knew that these people are only doing now , with tears and struggling , what has been done willingly and long ago by the population of other and bappier districts , and is being done at this day in every other class and almost every family of the British community ? What if he knew that they are leaving behind them chronic and hopeless misery—a misery that has lasted from time immemorial , and threatened to last in all time to corne ? What , in short , if it can be shown , not by mere argument but from the teaching of all experience there and else where , that the ' depopulation of the Highlands , ' though in particular instances it may have been accompanied with more or less haste and harshness , is , on the whole , and so far as it has yet gone , and much further than that , a work of necessity and mercy ? The sum of the popular belief or outcry regarding the Highlands seems to be , —that those regions once contained a large population , happy in peace and serviceable in war ; that , without necessity and against true policy and profit , that happy population has been forcibly and unduly reduced ; and . that this cruel process is at present undergoing aggravation in order to make artificial solitudes for the sport of strangers . The sum of what the facts , so far as we can find them , establish , is , that the popul ation never was otherwise than socially -wretched ; that the removal of a portion of it , by one means or another , was absolutely necessary ; that , after all , the population of the Highlands is at this moment greater than ever ; that it is in many places greater than it ought to be , or than population is in districts much better fitted for employing and sustaining human beings ; that the changes of position or employment undergone bv portions of the population , in some Highland counties are only similar in character and extent to what has taken place in non-Highland districts , not subjected to any compulsion ; that the so-called ' cleared' district were manifestly fitted by nature rather for sheep than for men ; and that the deer is no more of an intruder , and is less of a depopulates , than the sheep . The last number of the llecue de Paris contains a delightful extract from a new study of natural history by the celebrated historian M . Miciielet . M . Hichelet has already proved by 3 ns charming work L'Oiseau that he is as capable of becoming the historian of nature as of man ; and the new volume entitled VInsecte assures us that the picturesque and sensitive lustorian ' studies tlie humble commonwealth of ants and bees as carefully , and records " their doings as graphically , as he has already done those of the larger empires . with whose histoi-y his name is identified . By the way , we have heard ifwhis-[ pered that in these holiday studies a double sense , or rather a mingled ini iluence , is perceptible—of the' naturalist and of the poet ; and that what the one has so tenderly and delicately observed , the other has , with almost equal \ , tenderness and delicacy , expressed . We cannot say whether , in this instance . Madame Michel * : ? has been the naturalist , and her gifted husband the poet : > no doubt a woman ' s hand may be imagined here and there in the pages ; but ] the truth is , that to genius something of womanly feeling and insight is never . wanting . ¦
utterly fantastical and ill defined : as matter and form , attraction ana repulsion , yeneration and conception , dense and rare , heavy and liyht . Any one who has traced with any attention the history of science will recollect what an important share in that history has been held by discussions concerning the necessary meaning and definition of words of this class : for example , force , gravity , momentum , inertia , element , matter , polarity , organization , life . And he will be aware of the truth of Bacon ' s assertion , that so long as these notions , the essential parts of the respective sciences to which they belong , are thus loose and wavering , the superstructure which is erected bv means of them can have no strength or stability . Nor do we know of any other teacher of the philosophy of science who has added bis exhortations respecting
the elucidation and definition of notions to those other more common exhortations concerning the necessity of beginning from facts . .... In speaking of the points in -which Bacon showed his sagacity by foreseeing the course which in succeeding times scientific research would have to make , we ought not to forget several of the experiments which be recommends for the purpose of KP . tt . Hncr nueations then undecided : for instance , his proposal that in order to
determine whether the gravity of the earth arises from the gravity of its parts , a clock pendulum should be swung in a mine , as lias recently been done at Harton Colliery by the Astronomer Royal ; and his suggestion that men should examine whether the protuberance of the ocean which causes the tides and high water extend across the Atlantic , so as to make high water on the opposite sides of the ocean at the same iiiun ¦•¦^ jri * - ™
lime , xneae ana several otners oi me expuruneuu * Huggcaicu " b . ...... ~ - the ' Novum Organon' show , tliat whatever might be the defects of Bacon ' s own method of constructing science , his comprehensive and diligent exploration of the limits of the known and the unknown did not fail to lead him to the gates of new provinces of knowledge . The article on 'The Atlantic Ocean , ' in a late number of the Review , is followed ia the present by one on The Mediterranean Sea , ' equally interesting from the fulness of its knowledge , and the amount of graphic detail the writer introduces . ' The Mediterranean Sea' is followed by a paper on ' Henri historians
Martin ' s History of Prance / winch gives a good sketch of < J ! rcn . cu , , and the progress of history as a science in France . Amongst the best and most readable articles of the present number , however , is one entitled ' The Highlands : Men , Sheep , and Deer , ' which effectually replies to the romantic outcry raised on the alleged ' depopulation of the Highlands . ' TLie writer proves , by the most ample evidence , in the first place , that the Highlands arc
not depopulated ; and , in the second , that , if they were , it would l > e an immense advantage to tho country and to the Highlanders themselves . The following extract will illustrate the way in which the subject is treated : — Professor Blackie , from Edinburgh , seeking pastime for his vacation , and work for his somewhat vagrant muse , marks on tho banks of Deo tho bright turf and untapded tree which ' show where a garden has been , ' and straightway his imagination bodies forth homesteads * once bright with Highland cheer' nnd filled with an industrious and thriving population , all made to give place to an artificial desolation for the pleasure of some English Nimrod . But what if there never was any tiling thore
Messrs. Gambaut And Co., Of Bcrncrs-Strc...
Messrs . Gambaut and Co ., of Bcrncrs-strcct , have published , m lithography , from a family miniature , an admirable portrait of General IIavelock . The head is noble , the face most characteristic—the- face of a bravo , kindly , generous man—tlie face , indeed , of ' old Phloss' IIavelock , Hero of Cawuporc . Britain ' testimony to her-gallant soldier ' s deeds would be the acceptation of tliis portrait as a household ornament , a ' likeness to be enthroned ma uiche of gold . '
The Russian Polar Star, Edited By M. Ale...
The Russian Polar Star , edited by M . Alexaxdiik Herzen , will shortly issue an elaborate criticism on the work of Baron Kobtf . Tor this work the public will look with extreme interest . It is sure to be an ' original ( mid faithful ) essay .
Memoir On The Accession Of Nicholas I. T...
MEMOIR ON THE ACCESSION OF NICHOLAS I . The Accession of Nicholas T . Compiled , by Special Command of the Emperor Alexander II ., by Ilia Imperial Majesty ' s Secretary of State Baron M . Korlt , ana ilAU
Translated from the Original Russian . J In the year 1848 , upon the suggestion of the Grand Duke Alexander the Emperor Nicholas ordered one of his ministers to draw up a Memoir oi iuu events which preceded his accession to the throne of Alexander 1 . aiwji repeatedly correcting the narrative with his own pen he refused to sanction its publication . It was printed , however , and twenty-five copies wcreJMtributed among the members of the imperial family and a few e" »» ™"" friends . Fresh materials were afterwards collected , and twenty-live come ? of the amended version were produced . But , upon the coronation oiiu to circuit ¦
Czar Alexander , he fancied it would bo an act ot policy "" " ;» Europe an account of the first day of his father ' s reign and of the P ™ T circumstances bearing upon it . Something like a mystery bad hung ov ( ? * entire transaction . UBtrialoffhad glossed it over in ten small pages ; oe uniwit had only vaguely described it ; by the race of compilers it had been repr ^ sented under one aspect or another , but always imperfectly . 1 " tnc mibliahed diaries of Cantain Shoe , who drilled the Persian nrnvy tor ¦ w Aicxanu
fate Shah , and who was in Russia at the period of the death ot I ., we find hints of tho suspicious that then floated through tlie empu , giving Pestel and his friends a stronger hold upon public opinion that , i « / might otherwise have possessed . It was in the full knowledge that postu ^ would arraign him on this count that Nicholas acquiesced in U » u ' " , j , becoming tho historian of at lenst that episode of his own career w seemed to implicate him in a charge of conspiracy against his brother , w i it is asserted , was by him cajoled out of his birthright and inheritance , then , decorated witU the crown and golden double-headed eagle , is a uoo
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 24, 1857, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_24101857/page/16/
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