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      No. 397, October 31, 1857.] The Leader. ...

      No . 397 , October 31 , 1857 . ] THE LEADER . 104 , 9

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      Critics Are Not The Legislators, But The...

      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 Review . . a ¦

      Our Readers Will Be Glad To Hear That Me...

      Our readers will be glad to hear that Messrs . Chapman and Halx have in preparation a complete library edition of Mr . Dickens's works . The volumes will be handsomely printed , and issued at a moderate price , and the edition will include everything which Mr . Dickens has hitherto published , arrangements having been made with Messrs . Bradbury and Evans to that effect . This work will supply a desideratum long felt by students of modern literature , and be a welcome boon to the whole reading public . To possess "Dickens's

      works , m one shape or other , has , in fact , become almost indispensable . Of all modern writers he is the one most frequently quoted and referred to . -The characters and incidents of his stories have become a kind of circulating social medium . Even the phrases in which he paints a typicaL individuality , or brands a popular evil , are so wrought into the texture of colloquial English , that acquaintance with his works Las become a social necessity . You may or may not have read Scoix and Byron ; but jou must know Dickens , or be continually at fault in the ordinary intercourse of life and the current literature of the day . There is only one drawback to the complete success of such an edition—that most readers have Dickens ' s stories in their heads already . This , . Jio \ vever will scarcely make them less anxious to place them in a handsome and convenient form on their shelves .

      The same publishers make another announcement that will be eagerly welcomed , not only in England and America , but on the Continent also—the issue , early next spring , of the first two volumes of Carlyxe's long-promised and long-expected life of Frederick the Great . , The -work is to be completed in four volumes , and the two latter will follow at no distant interval . This undertaking is in many respects a more ambitious one than any Caultle has yet attempted , for the life of Frederick the Great is the history of modern Europe and the key of modern politics . Nor is the subject at all deficient in those individual and picturesque traits which none can paint so vividly as Gaulylb , A better subject than the great Fbiiz and his court at Sans Sduci , en deshabille , could indeed scarcely be imagined for the historian of the French Revolution . And though nothing can surpass the latter in vivid interest , we believe that the life of Frederick will prove Carltie's greatest work .

      The Quarterly Review Aspires To The Posi...

      The Quarterly Review aspires to the position of a periodical county history , and promises to become an invaluable local gazetteer ; the elaborate and minute article on ' Northamptonshire , ' which appeared in a late number , being followed in the present by one equally elaborate and minute on c Cornwall . ' This , however , is quite in harmony with the character and position of the Review as the representative of the country gentleman , the county families of England . Whether the pages of a lleview are exactly the place for such articles may be a question , but we are glad to welcome them anywhere , as they are really well written and full of information . The present one is specially seasonable and instructive , Cornwall being , perhaps , ethnologically and historically , at once the most interesting and least-known county in England . Much yet remains to be done towards the fuller elucidation of its early history , language , and antiquities , and the writer in the Quarterly gives some valuable hints as to the direction which such inquiries should take . The most popular and interesting part of the article , however , is the account of the character and habits of the

      people . Take the following , for example , as an illustration : — One more quality we must allude to , as partly arising from their economical circumstances , partly , perhaps , innate in the race—the great predominance of the imaginative faculty . It may seem strange to assert this of a county which is totally without poetical legends—a county which has never produced a single English poet , hardly a few third-rate versifiers . So hard driven have the Cornish been to add a few bards to their very handsome list of local divines , la- \ vycrs , and men of science , that they have endeavoured to make & laureate even out of Peter Pindar ; but tliough that eccentric personage ( Dr . Woleot ) much affected the character of a Comishninnthough he calls on himself , in one of his odes , to 14 Answer ! for Fame is with conjecture dizzy—Did Mouaehole give thec birth , or Mevagiz / . cy ?"

      —though lie passed his best years in Truro , where his talk made him at once the scandal , terror , and pride of the sober little town—he was in truth a Devonian , by birth and parentage . Nor can we make an exception for two poets of the present day , Mr . Stokes and Mr . Hawker , -whom w « have quoted in these pages—for both , unless we are mistaken , are only settlers in Cornwall . But th « faculty in question is not less marked and powerful , although its usual manifestations are not of the poetical order , and it connects itself more readily with the practical . The sense of the vague and indefinite , which is of the essence of poetry , mingles greatly with that restlcsn aspiration after change of plnce . which makes the C'ornishman one of the most locomotive of mankind . Emigration has been so large of late years as to keep the population statio

      ( nary , notwithstanding u flourishing state of domestic industry : in all parts of the new world , in North « nd South America avid Australia , knots of Cornish emigrants will bo found , generally , but not always , attracted by their peculiar industry , and generally prosperous , though more through . speculative qualities tlmn tlio cool and thnity determination of tho sons of the north . The very recent outburst of the old English colonizing ardour , which has founded for us a fourth empire in the seas of the south , found its representatives and interpreters in . the late Sir W . Molesworth and Charles Bullcr-Cornishrocn both . Sometimes the same imaginative tendency tinges religious zeal : oh in Henry Marty ,, , the Cornish missionary , the moat magmauve , and by reason of that very faculty tho most influential , of that noblo band . Sometimes » t colours the pursuit of science , as in Sir Humphry Davy-tho most eminent of modern Com . shmen-in wliom undeniable eOnius , is well as great

      practical shrewdness , were united with a good deal of the visionary , and something —the words will out—of charlatamrk and pretension . Oftentimes we find it hovering on that undefined border which lies between enthusiasm and imposture , and leaving us uncertain whether he who exhibits it is really deceived or a deceiver . Easily affected by the wild and mystical , the Cornish seem calculated to become at once the frequent victims , and frequent originators , of imposture . They rose twice in rebellion for that enigmatical personage , Perkin . Warbeck—in whom , were ae true prince or pretender , no other part of the nation seems to have taken the smallest interest . The pseudo Sir William Courtenay , who led the blind Kentish peasants , a few years ago to confront with naked breasts the muskets of the soldiers , came from Cornwall ; so * if -we are not mistaken , did Johanna Southcott ; and many more of less note might be named , of-whom to pronounce with certainty whether they were crazed themselves , or the .-wilful producers of craziness in others , would be a difficult task .

      The notice of ' Torn Brown's School-Days' is a sketch of Rugby reminiscences , evidently by a pupil of the great master , who first gave the school a national reputation , and impressed on it an individuality as marked as it was noble—the reflex , indeed , of his own . Of the remaining articles the most elaborate and interesting are—one oil Communication with India—Suez andEuphrates Routes / marked by full local knowledge , graphic description and sound sense ; and another , entitled the ' Parish Priest : ' a sketch , partly historical , partly critical , of a clergyman's position iu his parish , and his duties towards his people—how they have been , bow they are , and how they should be discharged .

      The recent numbers of the Revue des Deux Mondes contain two articles of some interest to [ English readers : one , entitled ' Une Promenade Philosophique en Allemagne , by M . Vicxon Cousin , in which- the veteran champion ; of eclecticism and the reaction attempts to find a speculative basis for theology , by opposing the sentimental and pantheistic systems which in modern German thought have excluded the idea of a personal Deity from the domain of pure philosophy . The writing has all the well-known charm of M . Cousin ' s style , and the descriptive parts of the paper arc delightful . While sympathizing with the spirit aud purpose of the critic throughout , we cannot , however , congratulate him ou the success of his attempt , so far as its philosophic aim is concerned . How , indeed , could M . Cousin hope to bend the mighty bow for which the -intellectual strength of Kant and Hegel proved insufficient ? The other article is one in the last number of the Revue , entitled 'De l'Etat des

      Beaux-Arts en Angleterre en 1857 / by M . Pkosfer Merimee , well knovm to the readers of the Revue as an able critic in art and literature . M . Merimee . directs his attention mainly to the Pre-Raphaelites . While acknowledging the more prominent merits of the united brethren , he at the same time attacks their position and practice in [ a very lively , characteristic way . He considers Pre-Raphaelitism not simply as an extreme , as the exaggeration of a good principle , bat as altogether wrong in principle his position being very much that , to reproduce nature in all its details being impossible , the attempt to do so is absurd : that art , being the reflex , not of nature , but of nature as regarded by man , necessarily involves a point of view and a principle of selection . The criticism—acute and happily illustrated—is , however , based on too partial and limited a knowledge of the school he so intrepidly condemns .

      Mr. Tbubnek. Sends Us The Following Corr...

      Mr . Tbubnek . sends us the following correction : — " Permit me to correct a slight mis-statement in your issue of last week . The elaborate criticism on the work of Baron Korff by Mr . A . Herzen , which you speak of , will not be published by me as a portion of the Polar Star , but as a separate work in the llussian language . English , French , and German translations are likewise in preparation . "

      Studies Of Wine. The Chemisti-Y Of Wine....

      STUDIES OF WINE . The Chemisti-y of Wine . By G . J . Mulder . Edited by Bence Jones , M . D . Churchill 1 $ o one man , says Professor Mulder , could write a chemical monograph on wine . But he has himself supplied a treatise sufficiently elaborate , if not to exhaust one part of the subject , at least to open a broad lime of research in an important direction . Dr . Jones admits that English chemical knowledge has not yet been brought to the study of wine . He performs a good service , therefore , in editing this book , which collects and arranges all that has been scientifically determined and recorded , the author contributing additional matter from his own observations . The area ot inquiry is immense . When Chaptal was Minister of the Interior , in France

      he planted twelve hundred different species of vines , from the French' provinces alone , in the garden of the Luxembourg . Then , every species is capable of yielding several different grapes , according to the varieties of soil and cultivation . One cluster covered with a bell ot ' dark glass , is totally unlike another from the same branch exposed to tho light . The sunny side of tho Johannisberg alibrds a produce Jar richer and more fragrant than that from the opposite side of the mountain . In all cases , however , the juice is colourless ; purple grapes arc not necessarily pressed into purpk wine . Perhaps , suggests the professor , the heat of the sun penetrates more thoroughly the purple grape , while its dark skin partially preserves it from

      the action of light , which passes much more easily through the colourless skin of the white ^ ra pe . But wlmt , in a chemical sense , arc grapes ? The juice is a combination of sugax , gelatine , gum , i ' nt , wux , vegetable albumen and gluten , tartaric acid , cream of tartar , find lime ; rncemie , silicic and innlie acid , oxide of manganese and iron , sulphate of potash , ordinary ^ salfc , phosphate of lime , and magnesia may also exist . No other ingredionts have been discovered , but some must exist in small quantities—producing the vinous smell common to all wine , and the aroma and flavour peculiar to each quality in almost unlimited variety . Those csaentiuls have hitherto eluded analysis . They may be derived , in some instances , from tho skins

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 31, 1857, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_31101857/page/17/