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HP i t-O V tt i ft W 3L i i £ i UiUi * ? :
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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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Hp I T-O V Tt I Ft W 3l I I £ I Uiui * ? :
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Although the week has produced no novelties , and the publishers' announcements raise no keen anticipations , there are , to those behind the scenes , several topics of gossip . A new edition—the fourth of Mary Barton is in the press , testifying to the continued interest created by that remarkable work ; and the public will be glad to know that , in spite of her many " firm resolves " never to write again , the authoress has written a Christmas Book , which will be published by the time we draw the deepfolded curtains and wheel the arm-chair close to the blazing fire—by many thought the only time to enjoy a book !
Thackeray also has just made an agreement for a new Christmas Book . And we hear that he intends tearing himself away from admiring Duchesses and dinner-giving Lords to visit America , there to deliver lectures on English Character and Literature . That the Americans will flock to hear our greatest satirist there can be little doubt . But will that grave and quiet smile , so fine and full of meaning , be fully appreciated by them ?
And can Thackeray himself restrain his irony from glancing at his audience ? One of his peculiarities is to excite your laughter at some absurdity , and then suddenly turn round upon you inculpating you in the ridicule . Will the sensitive Americans like that ? America seems to be the " Diggins " for Artists just now ; and we hear that Albert Smith is to carry his Entertainment there , and also produce some novelties of the same
genus . There seems no end to the industrial ramifications of this colossal Industry of all Nations : the copyright of a Descriptive Catalogue is now to be tendered for by daring publishers , the highest bidder to have the right of bringing it out how he pleases , but a shilling catalogue of humbler pretensions will be sold at the doors . A moment's reflection will set forth the immensity of this scheme . Fifty or sixty wood-engravers must be simultaneously employed with the illustrations—for the work
must not only be done rapidly , but well—and there will be no time to spare . When you think of the trouble and expense involved in getting permission to copy the works , and in producing the Catalogue , you will perhaps be less sanguine of the very great advantages to accrue from the speculation . Charles Knight announces for 1851 a Cyclopedia of the Industrial Arts—a timely publication , and one which , if he exerted some extra labour and
ingenuity , might almost supersede this said Catalogue . John Ruskin , the eloquent critic , has a volume on Architecture in the press , which is to prepare the way for his elaborate -work , formerly announced by us , on the Stones of Venice . He is one of the few writers on art who open new vistas to the mind ; vehement , paradoxical , and one-sided he may be , but no other writer clears the subject in the same masterly manner—no other writer suggests more even to those of opposite opinions .
Talking of art , let us notice the anxious discussion agitating artistic circles as to the choice of a President . It is said that Leslie will not accept the office if offered him ; Pickers gill is mentioned as likely to be appointed ; but it is understood that the general desire is for Edwin Landseer . And why , think you ? Because he is the greatest animal painter that ever lived—the ^ one who has most depicted the mental and moral life of animals—because he has elevated Low Art into High Art ? Amiable simplicity ! as if Academies
or other corporate bodies ever placed excellence in the first rank ! No , you adorably naive Reader ! not because he is Edwin Landseer , but because he " stands well at Court" ! To the profound snobbishness of nature there is a blinding grandeur about a Court , any reflex of which on some favoured mortal circles him like a halo ; and Jones —yes , oven Jones—who carved the famous Literary Monument of Ciiantrey , if he " stood well at Court" would take precedence of Titian or Paul Veronese .
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In Eraser ' s Magazine we have observed a paper on Tknnybon , written by a thoughtful and delicate critic , which we recommend for several reasons , and , among them , as indicating , though briefly , what may be called the new phase of the uoet's mind , viz ., the distinctly religious tone of
his muse . Indeed , the rapid strides taken within the last few years in the emergence from mere doubt or indifference into the free air of active Belief is one of the signs of the times ; and we see it typified in Browning and Tennyson . Among our own acquaintances we observe the same tendency . We observe it also in the increasing and rising class of publications , which , while throwing off the yoke of mere formulas with as stern a spirit as that which actuated the negative philosophy of the eighteenth century and the opening years of this century , recognizes the necessity of no longer living in the arena , of no longer wasting
energies in nothing but combat , but of endeavouring to bring forth whatever there is of positive and vital in opinions , and of acting upon them ; recognizes the necessity of a Creed as the ruler of life ; recognizes the fact that this life , and all our endeavours in it were mean , ignoble , unworthy of a care , did we not ennoble it by the grandeur of our aspirations . Of this growing tendency towards a new religious development the whole age speaks ; the most careless glance must detect the unequivocal signs that Society is in the travail-throes of some great new * birth of Thought , and that it cries out for that Church of the Future which this
Journal has so often demanded . To use the noble language of Giordano Bruno , " Con questa filosofia l'animo mi s ' aggrandisce e mi si magnifica l'intelletto "—" with this philosophy my soul enlarges and my intellect grows great . "
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In Germany some little stir is made by the announcement of a republication of Schiller ' s Antholoffie for 1782 , which for the last sixty years has altogether disappeared from the bookmarket . It was printed by Schiller on his own account , immediately after the publication of The Robbers . Only a few copies were struck off . The Anthologie is said to have been one of the causes of his flight to Mannheim . All the poems were not by Schiller ; but he contributed by far the greater proportion , fifty-two in number , and of these flfty-two only two-and-twenty were reprinted in his collected works .
We mentioned some time ago that Griepenkerl was reading his tragedy of Robespierre to admiring audiences in the various towns , like a modern Statius ; he has now sent it to press , and on the 1 st of November commences reading his second drama , Die Girondisten . Those unhappy Revolutionary Heroes ! how they must darken Hades with their frowns to know themselves caricatured as they are now by every ignobilis verborum opifex in want of a subject !
A Life of Sir Robert Peel , in two vols ., giving an historical account of his public career and his best speeches , is announced by Professor Kunzel , of Darmstadt . Hans Holbein's Altes Testament has juat been republished , the engravings are on a reduced scale , but very well executed . Ludwig Stein has brought out a third volume of his Socialismus und Communismus des heutigen Frankreichs j and Lady Morgan has a rival in the field about to detail more Germanico the whole
history of Woman and her Master : the first volume of this Geschichte der Frauen has appeared , but what Herr Jung makes of the subject we cannot as yet say .
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In France we hear of nought stirring ; articles on Balzac continue to appear , and all laudatory ; the death of Louis Phillips affords Janin the subject for one of his ultra feuilletons , in which he asserts with the air of a man uttering incontestable truths , that France was at the height of prosperity , security , and reverence when the catastrophe of 1848 overturned the dynasty of Orleans ! One gem from the last Kevue des Deux Mondes we must rescue . Our readers have often had
occasion to admire the incomparable felicity with which every Frenchman blunders when he touches vipon English subjects , great or small , so that they will understand the following . Speaking of Barbadoes the writer says , " La Barbade , en Anglais Barbados ( prononcez Btbideus ) . " This delightful explanation how to pronounce the word will be thoroughly appreciated . Indeed , in respect of English , one may apply to any French Litterateur the eulogium of Johnson upon Goldsmith—( with a trifling variation)—*• nihil tetigit quod nonmaculavit /"
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PHILOSOPHY AT CAMBRIDGE . A Discourse on the Studies of the University of Cambridge . By Adam 8 ed ? wick , M . A ., F . R . S . Fifth Edition , with Additions , and n Preliminary Dissertation . J . W . Parker . In the study of ancient Literature , Professor
Sedgwick tells us , we are to seek for models of taste . This is the commonplace most current among those who seem least to have acted on the maxim ; and the Professor ' s work is a curious example of how little academicians fulfil their own , precepts : for a volume less artistic in its construction , or less careful and deliberate in its plan , we seldom stumble against . It is composed of three parts : a preface of 442 pages , a discourse of 94 pages , and appendix and notes of 228 pages . This slovenly and inexcusable
construction is not compensated by any intrinsic value . The monetrousPreface flounders through various questions of Natural Theology , but is principally devoted to an intemperate and illogical attack upon the Vestiges and having waded through those arguments , we naturally ask , What has all this to do with the University studies ? If the Professor , having discharged his bile in " The Edinburgh Review" upon the Vestiges , still felt called upon to crush that book , no
one would have questioned his right to do so in a separate treatise . But , why select this Preface for the attack ? Was it because that form absolved him from a systematic and comprehensive work on the subject ? Or was it—and this we believe to be the case—that the Preface grew and grew under his hands till it equalled in bulk the work it attacked , and , after all , fell far short of a systematic answer ? In either case we see a manifest want of that classic taste .
that ancient art , which Academic Studies make it their chief boast to instil into the pupils . Has it intrinsic value ? Frankly , it has little . Professor Sedgwick has a respected name in Geology , and friends speak of him as a man richly endowed by nature ; his acquirements are considerable , and altogether he impresses you with the sense of his being a man of great capacity for the acquisition and retention of facts and arrangements , with a certain lucidity in his modes of exposition , but destitute
of the creative , originative faculty , and not above the average in ratiocination . He strikes us as singularly deficient in the power of grasping the thoughts of others when opposed to his own conclusions ; and betrays in every other page that tendency , commonly remarked in women , to fly off from severe logic into redundant rhetoric , to judge a theory by the consequences arbitrarily thrust upon it by himself , and to imagine he has settled an opinion by calling it * ' shallow , base , and
degrading . " He is in truth a great master of the Vituperative Syllogism ; he reasons with epithets . He is fond of discrediting opponents by coupling some offensive epithet with their opinion . Yet this same Professor is found complaining of " brawling and ignorant declamation , " and declaring that the author of the Vestiges ( usually considered a singularly mild and courteous writer ) •* braves out a bad cause by insulting language , and a confident tone of superior intelligence . "
Certainly , if ever man deserved that to be said of him , Professor Sedgwick is the man . Intemperate language and assumption of superiority are on every page . If anything in the work is more characteristic of it than vituperation , it is its flippant profundity . As a pleasant specimen of his habit of quiet assumption in argument , varied with side hits , let us quote a passage on
PUBLICATION OF OPINIONS . " 1 have amoral right to publish my opinions if I do so in sincerity , and try not to enforce them by dishonest means—by evasion and suppression—by impurity—or by scorn and mockery , not levelled merely against absurd conclusions , but put on in the very aim of distorting or concealing truth . Were it not so , civilized society would be but a great band of slaves , and religious men would be degraded into the mere unthinking creatures of a despotic authority ; without any power of obeying the high command of God—of honouring him by a reasonable service . 11 On the other hand , I have no right to toss out into
the turbid whirlpool of debate any fantastical hypothesis that may have started into life within my brain ; more especially , if thereby I put myself in collision with the faith and feelings of the sober men around me . If this be true in questions of physics , still more is it true in questions bearing on our social conduct or religious belief . "When a man offends in this way , he deserves and meets with very little mercy . Because men are equal in the sight of God , the socialist or the robber may hold that therefore in society they should have all good things in common—that property is usurpation—and that one who has less than his share has a right to help himself . We deny his principles , and we wage open war with their application . "
The delightful ease with which he classes the Socialist and the Robber , in the above , is only a glaring example of the spirit which dictated the whole passage , and which may be translated thus : I , Adam
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Critics are not the legislators , but the mages and poke * of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them- —Edinburgh Beview .
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566 © f ) £ It £ £ ft e ?? [ Saturday ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 7, 1850, page 566, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1852/page/14/
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