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is 404 Tlie Leader and Saturday Analyst....
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OWEN MEREDITH'S NEW POEM.* fTYHERE is in...
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* LiwUe, By Owen Mbubpitu. Chapman and H...
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STATE OETIIE AYEST IXDIES.* TIlT'HENEVER...
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* ^ lavqrff and Freedom, in tho British ...
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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 Churgh History Of Scotland.*! H /Tac...
and by the cross- % ht of various contexts , do we catch their meaning vao-uely , and it may be incorrectly . But tins want of objectiveness affects the treatment of the subject generally , preventing the cosmopolitan student from extracting- from the work its lull lessons and advantages . We are left to ourselves to discover m most cases what of the facts mentioned are the specialities of fecottish religious history and life . They are given in their places , but are not explicitly distinguished from those features which are commonly characteristic of all the reformed countries of Europe . As jurymen sitting upon the book , we have to allege no want of testimony , plainly and amply given ; but for our purposes we should have liked and benefited by more summing up and comment . 1 ms . cannot be alleged as a fault against the writer , but it cannot but be an inevitable deduction from the value and popularity of his book out of Scotland . ... ' ....
,, Praiseworthy industry , workman-like care in compilation , lucid and unpretending narration , and , above all , a degree of candour rarely found in . any clerical - camp , are the points which call for the most marked praise . Scotland has never been very keenly interested in the religious history of its pre-reformation ancestors . Hie Bannatyne , Maitland , and Spalding Clubs have disinterred much authentic and interesting matter about the old days of the monks of Melrose , who " Never wanted beef nor ale , As long as their neighbours' lasted ;"
of Michael Scott of Balmearie , Thomas the rhymer of Erciidoune , visits to Scotland of JIneas SYkvrus , and other legates , Sec . The dark and more distant era of the Culdees has been illuminated by much new light ; and Dr . Daniei / Wilson has built up a very full arcliEeology of pre-historic times . In spite of all this erudition and its fruits , Scottish scholarship has , for the most part , been arrested in its backward researches at the barrier of the Reformation . In Scottish ecclesiastical history , there are no pre-reformation parallels to oiir Bede , AifSELir , liANFEANC , Becket , Bontface , BEADVfAEDiJsrE , OocAm , and Wycliffe . Although , accordingly , Mr . Cunningham makes very diligent use and citation of the
republished remains of early Scottish history , he compresses all he las to say on the centuries before the Reformation into about a sixth jqf his whole space . On Druids , Culdees , the rise of monachism , disputes about papal supremacy , the foundation of universities , early literary churchmen , the development of simony and other corruptions , " he is painfully concise and meagre . But the motive of this is obvious . He had to consult the tastes of his own reading . fellow-countrymen ; and the price of this cursory treatment of the Catholic times is paid in about six hundred pages devoted to the jrise and growth of the Reformation , using that expression in its largest sense , as denoting the struggle that commenced with Pateick Hamilton , and ended on the d « y when " Bonnie Dundee "
fell dead at ' Killiecrankie . John Ifrsroi , of course , is made much of ; and Mr . CtxNNiNGTJAjir , with ourselves , evinces a great historic regard , but little personal love for him . Anything more inherently dry than the whole history of the long " troubles" in Scotland , history does not know . There are , indeed , bright though rare exceptions . The soul of the reader is waked from its torpor when the tedious argumentation of church courts , and kings , queens , or regents' council-chambers is alternated by the sharper and surer argumentation of the unsheathed blade at the fights of Langside , Philipbaugh , Dunbar , and Both well Brig . Mr . Cunningham is not eloquent , and does japt rise to any higher flight when these gleams of interest oqcur ; nor even , when the pathetic stories of some of the martyred reformers would , if anything could , provoke some pathos and Involuntary fire . The silent but significant eighteenth contnry is treated well and
with great candour . Principal Robertson , leading tlio Moderate party in the Assembly , is a portrait more within Mr . Cunningham ' s powers , than the old Marshal of JGustavus Adolphus routing the ill-fated Monteose on the banks of the Ettrick , or Oliyer Crom-• WELL riding through the blood and bones of the Scots shun at JDunbar . The Church of Scotland had two fights to wage last century—one with' Ebenezee JSrskinje and revived Covenanting Puritanism ; one with David Hume and revived Philosophic Pyrrhonism . Both her fights were arduous , and she carries the hardly cicatrized scars of both on hoy face still . It is , indeed , then , a very high commendation that we are enabled to give Mr ; Cunningham when we avow that , to our eyes , he has narrated the recent contests of liis Church with wondrous candour and liberality . His book altogether , if it will not suit the lounging study choir , will grace the shelf of the library , whore reliable books of referonce stand . If not brilliant or striking-, it is sound , good , and conscientiously compiled .
Is 404 Tlie Leader And Saturday Analyst....
404 Tlie Leader and Saturday Analyst . [ April 28 , I 860 .
Owen Meredith's New Poem.* Ftyhere Is In...
OWEN MEREDITH'S NEW POEM . * fTYHERE is in the new poem by the eo-nnmed Owon Meredith , a JL diish , a daring , and an occasional felicity , both of . thought and diction , which will undoubtedly go far to make it the . chief pooticul production of the season . Onco got over tho startling" novelty oi the measure , and we meet with much that is really attractive . Iloro we tiro startled wjth \ a grace or an elegance—thore wo ore waylaid with a bold figure , simile , or metaphor—in another place , a sage reflection , or a piece of worldly wisdom , an apt description or A real philosophical formula ; and everywhere a life of soul and heart
and mind , which certifies that a living seer is pouring his . { v-p . nuine prophecies through those wild and vagrant and too . often careless verses , and reaching in ourselves the sacred sources of thought and feeling . The metre , however , will be objected to . It consists of a lilfc of anapestk : and other feet ,- which will scarcely bo regarded as grave enough by those who have accepted the usual heroic couplet as the mOst ^ suitable vehicle for an epic argument . We can recollect , however , when the charming measiire of " Christabel" was objected to on similar grounds , notwithstanding the melody that was inseparable from all Coleridgean verse . Mr . Meredith has certainly tuned
his lines to his ear , and frequently given a grandeur to their swing-. The variety which he has sought and found is infinite , and sometimes beautiful . He has but one fault—that he has evidently written it with too ranch ease , and has indulged in the-facility of rhyming , and not thought ife worth his while to bestow critical revision" on the false , imperfect , or too frequent . Wherever we have " world , " we are sure to have " furled " or " hurled , " though it would be hard to say what the " furling " the " hurling" had to do with the subject matter . . Undoubtedly , the pen should have ' been put through stich couplets . Old S penser , in the infancy of rhyming , might take such licence ; but our language has since nvultiplied its resources , and the indolence is unpardonable which neglects to avail itself of them . chief in the drama
This conception of the character of the person , whose good and evil sensibly influences all that is good -and evil in the destinies of his ' associates , is a powerful one , and in its embodiment is colossal . That of the heroine is also more than an ordinary ideal , and stands out in most effective relief . They are both exponents of strength , intellectual or emotional , and have stamped the impress of their might on the burning page . Neither of them would have been proper to an ancient epic , they are too subtle , top ' individual ' ; -but they are precisely the characters for a modern novel , for a . novel in verse , like the present . Cannot we find in this a sufficient justification why the author has rejected the usual heroic CQii ' pletj ¦ aiwl preferred a . lighter measure ? It would have been unwise to have set . his composition to the oVgan-r-he has chosen instead the piano for his instrmnent , and arranged his score accordingly . His work will suit many , and we think prove extensively popular : .
* Liwue, By Owen Mbubpitu. Chapman And H...
* LiwUe , By Owen Mbubpitu . Chapman and Hall .
State Oetiie Ayest Ixdies.* Tilt'henever...
STATE OETIIE AYEST IXDIES . * TIlT'HENEVER , we meet with an opinion , more than commonly VV . absurd , we expect to iind it based on practicalexperier . eeon something seen and misunderstood . Such has been tho case with nearly all that has been written concerning our "West India possessions , froiw the time when Slavery was abolished to the present All of us hate Slavery . Most of us believe that it is so radically contrary to the laws ' ' . human nature and the primary dictates of religion , that no fear of pecuniary loss to the ' sugar-planters , or of political and commercial entanglement to ourselves , ought to have stood in the way of emancipation for a moment ; and yet , such is our ignorance of the social state of the West Jmlios , that a few
designing rpen have almost succeeded in convincing , us Unit the abolition of negro slavery , one of the noblest corporate ! ¦ su-is to be found in the world ' s annals , has been a failure—an injury to the slaveowner , without benefit to the slave—in fact , a . romantic blunder , only to be excused as we excuse the Crusades , on account of the noble spirit of self-sacrifice that actuated .. the blundi-rers . That the Aicts are not so , hap always been known to u few advanced liberals , who havd carefully examined the statements of those whose interest it was to deceive . Had it not been for their influence , and that of a small knot of Tories belonging to the religious Lotly called Evangelical , the results of this great act of restitution would linvo tho both in Parliament
been entirely unknown . As it is , ignorance and country is vory dense . The time would bo wjsely spent , if some one of our professional thinkers , whose aim and whoso lot is , if they are faithful to their high calling , to direct the world in its progress towards a higher- and more perfect civilization , would give us an extended history of the sugar islands from that time when tho first slave ship landed its cargo to the present era , when ireedom has been established for upwards of a quarter of a century . Such a work as we suggest should enter fully into detail ; it should take us to the hunting grounds , whore tho froo men of tho wilderness were captured , and give us a picture of the horrors of the middle passage—should detail what was the kind of life endured by
these human chattels before tho Home Qovernment intorlored to protect them from their masters' cruelty—and how , as one by one the burthens of tho slave were lightened , these owners of h mnan property from time to time protested against such intermeddling of tho State with vested interests and tho rights of capital . Information on all those matters is to bo had , but to tho general reader it is not aecosaiblo , for it Hob buried in Anti-Slavory reports , Parliamentary J 3 UiO-books , and party pamphlets , long sinco forgotten , whore none but students ever think of prying . Englishmen ought to know those things , that they may hilly ostimato tho importances of tho great Act of 183 'A ; but m they arc not usually oxact or careful nnalysts of human nature , they tin a «» notwithstanding Vnole Tom ' 9 Cabin and The White Slave , mva to believe that tho owning of slaves ia the hardening and bvutuliBing thing 1 all experience has proved it to bo .
* ^ Lavqrff And Freedom, In Tho British ...
* ^ lavqrff and Freedom , in tho British 7 f ost > XniUoa . By CMAlifcEG BPXTON , i \ I , P . Longmans .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 28, 1860, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_28041860/page/16/
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