On this page

• Departments (1)
  • 
• Text (6)

  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.

  • 

    JNo. 397, October 31, 1857.] THE .LE1DEB...

  • 

    Blackjiukn Puuuc Pauk was opened on Thur...

  • 

    'K^i IT I'tllT I f IT ^m-44-UUU* ?

  • 

    .4 We should do our utmost to encourage ...

  • 

    a jf^gwf-& < w*&z&2&&m<® s^spaesss Behtg...

  • 

    BIRTHS, MARRIAGES, A!ND DEATHS. JJ1RTIIS...

• Transcript

  • 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.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Horace Walpole In 1857. The. Letters Of ...

    nothingto do with them , and glad you have not much more . When one-can do no good , I have no notion of sorrowing oneself for every calamity thathappens in general . One should lead the life of a cofl ' ee-house politician , the most real patriots that I know , who amble out every morning to gather matter for lamenting-over their country . . It is a supreme silliness that despises public affairs . But there was more pretence than sincerity in Will pole's' scorn ; he lived in ' topics of the day . ' In this passage he supplies us with a glance at Naples , as it was last spring , for it h ; is not been heard of since : — What a blessed life does Count d'CEyras pass , wlio is forced to lock up himself and

    all his power at the end of his palace , -with guards in every room , and with every door barred and bolted I As superior power cannot bestow superior wasdom or strength , nor destroy the real equality between man and man , is it not -wonderful that any man should stake character , life , and peace of mind , against the odious prerogative of being feared ? Hated alive , and reviled dead , they risk everything for the silly satisfaction of turning voluntary into trembling sycophants . Every minister is sure of flatterers enough : no , those flatterers must be slaves . He returns to his disdain of politics , which he never under-stood . There is some biting irony in this , however : —

    Politics and abuse have totally corrupted our . taste . Nobodj- thinks of "writing a lino that is to last beyond the next fortnight . We might as well b « given up to controversial diviuity . The times put me in mind of the Constantinopolitan empire ; where , in an age of learning , the subtlest wits of Greece contrived to leave nothing"behind them , but the memory of tlieir follies and acrimony ' . Milton did not write his * Paradise Lost' till he had outlived his politics . " With all his parts , and noble sentiments of liberty , who would remember him for his barbarous prose ? Nothing is more true than that extremes meet . The licentiousness of the press makes us as savage as ¦ our Saxon ancestors , who couly only set their marks ; and an outrageous pursuit of individual independence , grounded on selfish views , extinguishes genius as much as ¦ despotism does . The public j , ood of our country is never thought of by men that hate half their country . Heroes confine tlieir ambition to be leaders of the mob . Orators seek applause from their faction , not from posterity ; and ministers forget foreign enemies , to defend themselves against a majority in Parliament . When any Cajsar has conquered Gaul , 1 will excuse him for aiming at the perpetual dictature . If he has only jockeyed somebody out of the borough of Veii or Falernum , it is too impudent to call himself a patriot or a statesman .

    The following is not for an hour or a man , but for all time and all species of men : — — It is very lucky , seeing how much of the tiger enters into the human composition , that there should be a good dose of the monkey too . Walpole has his own . way of being serious . He would talk in this way of Delhi : — It is amusing too , to live at the crisis of a prodigious empire ' s fate . Consequently , . you must take care that Constantinople does not escape . I do not insist on its being racked , or that , according to a -line of Sir Charles Williams , in a parody of bombast rant of Lord Granvilie , there ¦

    • " Should vizirs' heads come rolling down Constantinople ' s streets !" I have no Christian fury to satiate , and wish revolutions could happen with as little bloodshed as in the Rehearsal . As prophets , gentlemen of Ills class are seldom accurate : — Modem nations are too neighbourly to quarrel about anything that lies so near Ihem as in the same quarter of the globe . Pray , mind ; we dethrone Nabobs in the most north-east corner of the Indies ; the Czariua sends a fleet from the Pole to besiege Constantinople ; and Spain huffs , and we arm , for one of the extremities of the southern hemisphere . It takes a twelvemonth for any one of us to arrive at our object , and almost another twelvemonth before we can ' learn what we have been about . Youv patriarchs , who livel eight or nine hundred years , could afford to wait eighteen or twenty months for the post coming in , but it is too ridiculous in our ' post-diluvian ¦ circumstances . By next century , I suppose , we shall light for the Dog Star and the Great Bear .

    Not ibr the Great Uear , or the Dog Star , is ' the next century ' fighting , but for the ' north-west corner of the Indies / exactly in the old-fashioned way . A j ) roj ) os of India , Mr . Malcolm Lewin may take a hint , -which we ¦ quote for him in extreme good humour : — The East Indies are going to be another spot of contention . Such a scene of tyranny and plunder lias been opened as makes one shudder ! T ? ie heaven-born hero , Lord Clive , seems to bo Plutus , the demon who does not give , but engrosses riches . Thero is a letter from one of his associates to their Great Mogul , in which our Christian expresses himself with singular tenderness for the interests of the Mahometan religion ! \ Yc are Spaniards in our lust for gold , and Dutch in our delicacy of obtaining it . That would be a stroke for a Court of Proprietors . 15 ut it is presently surpassed : —

    V > e beat Rome m ] eloquence and extravagance ; and Spain in avarice and cruelty and , likeboth , ve shall only serve to terrify schoolbo ys / and for lemons of morality ' " Here stood St . Stephen s Chapel ; here young Catiline spoke ; here Was Lord Clivf ' s diamond-house ; this is Leadenhall-street , and this brokea column was part of til palace of a company of merchants who were sovereigns of Bengal ! They starved millions in Indxaby monopolies and plunder , and almost raised a famine at home by the luxury occasioned by their opulence , and by that opulence raising tie price of everything , till the poor could not purchase bread ! " Conquest , usurpation , wealth , luxury , famine—one knows how little farther the genealogy has to go ! " cail - » We have a criticism on the Abbe Raynal , which , though false as concerns that writer , should be taken to heart by authors of the exh austive school I am almost too indignant to tell you of a most amusing book in six volumes

    called ' Histoire Philosophique et Politique du Commerce des Deux Tndes . ' It tell one everything in the world;—how to . make conquests , invasions , blunders , settlement ? , bankruptcies , fortunes , & c .,- tells you the natural and historical history of all nations ; talks commerce , navigation , tea , coffee , china , mines , salt , spices ; of the Portuguese , English , French , Dutch , Danes , Spaniards , Arabs , caravans , Persians , Indians , of Louis XIV . and the King of Prussia ; of La Bourdonnais , Dupleix , and Admiral Saunders ; of rice , and women that dance naked ; of camels , ginghams , and muslin ; of millions of millions of livres , pounds , rupees , and cowries ; of . iron cables and Circassian women ; of Law and the Mississippi ; and against all governments and religions . This and everything else is in the two first volumes . I cannot conceive

    what is left for the four others . And all is so mixed , that you learn forty new trades , and fifty new histories , in a single chapter . There is spirit , wit , and clearness—and , if there were but less avoirdupois weight in it , it would be the richest Look in the world in materials—but figures to me are so many ciphers , and not only put me in mind of children that sa } ' , an hundred hundred hundred millions . However , it has made me learned enough to talk about Mr . Sykes and the Secret Committee . Again , on India : — We have no . public news , but new horrors coming out every day against our East India Company and their servants . The latter laid a tax on bur Indian subjects , without the knowledge of the former . One article was twenty-four thousand pounds a year—yes—to Mr , Sykes for his table—yes , yes , —and this appeared at the bar of the House of Commons from a witness he brought thither himself—ex uno disce omnes . Poor Indians ! I fear they will be disaffected . Would you believe , I read that epithet the other day in a Portuguese relation of a meeting among tlieir negroes in the Brazils . Hacked , hewed , lame , maimed , tortured , worked to death , poor Africans do not love their masters . Oh , Tyranny , thy name should henceforth be Impudence ! And again— -a paragraph well pointed : —

    There is an Eastern empire to be settled , governed , or held in commendam ; and there is a little war , and not a little tyranny , at St . Vincent ' s ; but none of them will give the Parliament a quarter of the trouble that a turnpike bill has often done . A fewbankrupts have hanged themselves ; we , I doubt , shall have langed many 1 poor Caribbees ; and we shall not hang the East India Company and their servants , -who richly deserve It . One more quotation , suggested by India : — The House of Commons has embarked itself in a wilderness of perplexities . Though Lord Clive was so frank and high-spirited as to confess a whole folio of his

    Machiavelism ; they are so ungenerous as to have a mind to punish , him for assassination , forgery , treachery , and plunder , and it makes him very indignant . T ' other night , because the House was very hot , and the young members thought it would melt their rouge and shrivel their nosegays , they all on a sudden , and the old folks too , voted violent resolutions , and determined the great question of the right of sovereignty , though , till within half an hour of the decision , the whole House had agreed to weigh and modify the questions a little more . Being so fickle , Lord Clive hns reason to hope that after they have voted his head off , they will vote it on again the dav after he has lost it . We have many among us who think with Walpole , and . who would settle imperial afiiurs as easily , if the ink ran so fluently from their pens .

    Jno. 397, October 31, 1857.] The .Le1deb...

    JNo . 397 , October 31 , 1857 . ] THE . LE 1 DEB . 1051

    Blackjiukn Puuuc Pauk Was Opened On Thur...

    Blackjiukn Puuuc Pauk was opened on Thursday week with great pomp nnd ceremony . Sx . Jamics ' s Park Imu'kovkmmnts . —The iron suspensipn bridge across the basin in the enclosure in St . James's Park was opened to the public last Sunday . Additional Mails to and j'lto . u Jkusicv and Gukiix . sky . —Arrangements have been made for the conveyance of additional mails to and from Jersey and Guernsey by means of packets wliich at present run between those islands and Weymouth— . leaving Wcymouth on the mornings of Monday , " Wednesday , nnd l'riday , and returning from Jersey nnd Guernsey on the mornings of Tuesday , Thursday , and Saturday . The maila from London forwarded l > v this route will be despatched on the evenings of Tuesday , Thursday , and Saturday , on which days there ia no mail by way of ' Southampton . llE ^ i / ri . ok- London-. —The total number of deaths rogstcrcdm London in the week Unit ended on Saturday , October 24 th , ia <) S . In tho corresponding weeks foO 9 *™ » ***** * 18-17-f >( i - the avwiw , number was 1002 . lhe sumo rate of mortality In the present increased population , would produce 1102 deaths- nnd « comparison oi tho real with the estimated result « hoWfl a djlleronco , » iuvoiirof last weak to tho extent of 114 . There have been 42 death * from diarrhea ; six iron , cholera and choleraic dwrrhcoa . —Last week , tho births of 814 boya and 7 C 8 girls-iu all 15 « 2 chi dren-wero

    registered in London . In the ten corresponding weeks of the years 18-17-50 , the average number was 1475 . — From the lieyistrar-General ' s Weekly Jielurn . Du . IjIVIngstonjc addressed a lurge audience in the Town Hall , Birmingham , on tho evening of Friday week . He was received with great enthusiasm , and a resolution was carried appointing a committee to bring before the townspeople tho best way of aiding the dis- ; tingnistied traveller . A Gkickic Licoion kou Ini > ia . —An Ionian gentleman suggests the formation of a Greek Legion for India . Greeks , he observes , would light with peculiar zoal against Mahometans , on account of the atrocities committed by tho Turks on tlieir countrymen and countrywomen during tho wur of independence—atrocities oven exceeding those of the rebels at Delhi and 0 awnpore . Tins BouoixiU Bank , Livkui-ooi ,. — Tho following notice was posted on Wednesday morning on the ( lours of the Liverpool Borough Bank : —" Tho arrangements with tlio Bunk of England not having yet been completed , the business of Lhe bunk will not be resumed until further notice " Tins Fruit Show or tiik noimaifi / riuiAi , Sociktv . —An exhibition of autumn fruits took plucu last Saturday in the ( Jli is wick grounds . It . was open to foreign competition , but our own fruits well maintained their reputations .

    'K^I It I'Tllt I F It ^M-44-Uuu* ?

    3 tatfoliu .

    .4 We Should Do Our Utmost To Encourage ...

    . 4 We should do our utmost to encourage the Beautiful , for the Useful encourages itself . —Goethe . ? js b

    A Jf^Gwf-& < W*&Z&2&&M<® S^Spaesss Behtg...

    a jf ^ gwf- & < w *& z & 2 && m <® s ^ spaesss Behtg the Letters ofJoseph Andrews Wilson , Esq ., from London , to his friends at Woodsjmw / , Somersetshire , relating the most remarkable events of the day , with incidents and particulars not elsewhere 2 ) itblisficcl , Will be commenced in this department of the ' Lea » eb . ' on Saturday next , and will be continued from week to week .

    Births, Marriages, A!Nd Deaths. Jj1rtiis...

    BIRTHS , MARRIAGES , A ! ND DEATHS . JJ 1 RTIIS . BATTISOMUE . —On tho 10 th September , at Hydranad , Sciude , the wife of Lieutenant Uattisomljc , lionabay Artillery n son . HOWAltD . —On the 28 lh hist ., at Glossop Hall , Derbyshire , ' Lady Edward Howard : a daughter , PHILLll'S . —On tho lUtli Sutibcnibur . at Socunderabad , tlio wile o ! Lieutenant F . LJ . Phillips , 22 ud Regiment Madras Native Infantry : u son . MAURI AGES . 0 IK ) ULES-ANGUS .-On t ! ie 27 th iiist ., at St . Paucras , by the ltcv . J . Andrews , It . ChouU-s , ICsq ., of . Coventry , to Louisa , eldest daughter of tlio iato . 1 . Angus , Esq ., Kentish-town , London . PATTKN— . 1 ONKS . —On tlio 25 Ih inst ., at St . lintolnli Chiii-ch , AlilKiito , C ' apt . Charles \ i . J ' uLlen , of Kal . li Maine , U . S . A ., to Miss Jessie J . Jones , of ICutliin , Denbighshire , Wales . DEATHS . HUNT . —On tho Mill July lnst , at THoiiKhvr , of cholera , Captain Uooruro llcury Hunt , 7 Mth Highlanders , oldost sou ol' Colonel Robert Hunt , Into -tilth Ki-kIiiumH , duuply and deservedly lamented by his silllictcil l .-umly IL » d a numerous eirelo of I ' rionils . KKLSO . —On Monday , thd 2 ilfch inst ., nt , Sloiiffli . in eoiiNoqtUMico of an iicoiik-ul , Kdwunl . loliu iViuurls Kolso . Ksq .. of Kolsolund and llorkesloy I ' tivli , Into Vni > U \ inui tho 72 nd Highlanders . HAWLINSON .-On tlio Mnl & o . \> L , at Malabar-hill Bombay , Uio IIov . ( Sooi-k « Ituwlinsmi . Professor of A |»|> ll < jd iScioncca , liliminstono Colloffo , lioinbay , m his 30 th year .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 31, 1857, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_31101857/page/19/