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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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IiEGAXIZED POISONING . Sir Charles Wood adheres to the Treasury minute which legalizes the fraudulent use of chicory , under the specious pretence that he does not wish to send an army of " Excise officers" into every grocer ' s shop . What wretched cant ! This is not an Excise question , but a police question . Mr . Hume backs Sir Charles in his thimble-Tigging game at commonplaces , and thinks that the public " must protect itself" against adulteration . Of course it might , if the pensive public would only study chemistry for two or three sessions , and furnish itself
with microscopes and chemical apparatus . Folks might also protect themselves against thieves and robbers , which would enable us to disband the police force . " Would Mr . Hume like to see every man his own constable ? In that case , even Bryanstone-squaTe would probably be the scene of rather sharp practice between the douce member for Montrose and some Hiram Smith , i n which the balance of blows and pelf would be newly distributed . We do not find it profitable to society that there should be free trade in personal safety ; why then free trade in fraud upon the general health ?
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CAPTAIN J . D . CUNNINGHAM . Among the facts announced by the overland intelligence from India there is one peculiarly painful—the death of Captain J . D . Cunningham , one of the sons of Allan Cunningham , in the flower of his age . He died a victim to the harsh and unjust conduct of the East India Company . In his History of the Sikhs , touching upon the battle of Sobraon , he disclosed some truth , unwelcome in certain quarters , but not to the public , about Lord Hardinge . Revenge has been sure . He was accused of
having made " unauthorized" use of documents entrusted to his charge as a public officer . In point of fact application was duly made to the court for permission , and the reply appeared to intimate that the East India Company was indifferent about the matter . The company now denies having granted permission , and it dismissed Captain Cunningham from his political employment . Having been thus unjustly dishonoured , Captain Cunningham has only survived his dismissal a few months—a victim to official pride wounded by the truth .
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KEY TO RELIGIOU 8 FREEDOM . It society , instead of busying itself about the faith of the Catholics , would simply enact that no church or spiritual corporation should hold property of any kind , there would soon be an end to priestcraft . It would die out , as men die when they want food . Pure religion is spiritual and individual . The responsibility is from each man to God . Assuming that an account is to be rendered , each must make up his own account , and priests would not be anxious to state other men ' s accounts gratuitously . Take away from them in their character of priests , the mammon of the world , and they will not set up as spiritual statists for other men , any more than they will set up as gratuitous book-keepers . Take away the worldly profit , and you change the spiritual anxiety for other men ' s souls . Bishops' palaces and incomes belong to theologies , not to religion .
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ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION . The John Bull , which has become notorious for its discovery of alarming plots and marvellous conspiracies , surpassed itnelf last week in a startling revelation regarding the " Fanatic Nuz . " Few people , we dare say , had any suspicion of the dark plot contrived by the printing and spelling reformers , as reveuled in the following passage from our alarmist contemporary : — " Our readers may recollect , two years a ^ o passing a shop in Charinc-crosa , from the windows of which one of the most ineffable humbugs we ever set eyes on was displayed in the shape of the ' Fonetic Nxiz . ' We have reason to know that this extravagant and ridiculous undertaking sprang from th « fertile but unostentatious brain of that arch-schemer Sir P . Kay Shuttleworth ; and we have heard it whispered that the expenses of the villanous attempt to aasasfmiate the Queen ' Knglish , was defrayed , some how or other , by money wrung from the English people in the shape of taxes . "
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THIS MAZZINI LOAN . Tun imaginative correspondent of the Times in Italy states that the Muzzini loan is succeeding through the very people that hate it . They treat it as a sort of life assurance , and take shares to assure " their persons and property from popular vengeance should the evil day arrive . " If thin be true , and we will not have the audacity to question it , would it not show that the prevailing impression in Italy in that , the Italian People , generally , are in Muzzini ' s interest ; uIko that they will one « l » iy ( the " evil day ") free tlu-ir country and consolidate their mitionulitv ?
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Among the announcements of new works there are two which appeal peculiarly to poetical students : — ( 1 . ) Mrs . Browning ' s new poem , Casa Ghiidi Windows , which gives , we understand , a vivid picture of the tumult and heroism of Italian struggles for independence , as seen from the poet's windows , with the fervid commentary of her hopes and aspirations ; ( 2 ) The Life of Wordsworth , written by his nephew . When we consider how great a figure
Wordsworth is in modern English Literaturehow deeply involved in most of the aesthetic questions which have perplexed the age—and how uneventful was the story of his life , it becomes obvious that the only Biography capable of interesting the public must be one which brings these artistic and literary features prominently forward . How Dr . Wordsworth has accomplished his task we may tell you next week .
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The Edinburgh Review , just out , is more varied and interesting than usual . There is a forcible paper on England as it Is , wherein the writer undertakes to prove the material and moral prosperity of England , in answer to those who talk of " decline . " It is an admirable plaidoyer , but must be read as such . How could England be other than prosperous under Whig guidance ! The article on Lamanism in Tartary and Thibet ( presumably by Sir John Davis ) contains curious matter ; that
on Cousin gives a pleasant sketch—en beau—of the brilliant rhetorician , and ingeniously represents all his plagiarisms ( " Convey , the wise it call" !) as the consequences of the progressive and assimilative intellect of the eclectic Chief . It would be easy with the same facts to tell a very different story ; and we may , in passing , correct the reviewer ' s mistake , where he talks of Cousin as the translator of Plato . True , Cousin ' s name is on the title-page ; but not one dialogue did he
translate ; we even doubt his ability to translate one . What he did was to take old translations by De Gbow and others , here and there polishing the style ; and the dialogues that were untranslated he gave to certain clever young men in want of employment and glad of his patronage . He touched up their style and wrote the Preface to each Dialogue , for which the
work bears Ins name ! I'his explains the puzzling fact that the translator of Plato should so completely misunderstand the purpose of the dialogue he is prefacing ! Gigantic indeed would be the labours of Cousin ... if he performed them himself ! However , when all deductions are made , this theoretical Hercumch remains a striking and important perwonage ; and the article in question will facilitate the study of his works . Literature on the continent i . s even less lively than here . Lamaktink ' s new work — History of the Restoration—has been purchased by an union of publishers , who are endeavouring to counteract the ruinous Nyatein of piracy pursued in Belgium and Germany . All such efforts tend towards that eminently desirable thing—international copyright —and as such we observe them . A few months past M . Komikij- —formerly a writer in Figaro , subsequently sous pr / fet under Louis Phii .. ii' 1 'K—startled men with a pamphlet , Jj'Ere des ilesurs , in which he uttered , with a certain crude energy , his conviction that Fokok was the only Ruler needed by France . The Sword was to rectify the confusion produced by the Idka . The jargon of Orators and Debaters was to cease ; the bright-glancing irresistible Sword was to be King . His pamphlet met with something of the Maine reception uh saluted Carlylb ' s fierce cannonade at Shams , lie may be taken as a French Caki-, yi , ic—minus the genius I M . Romiicu beats the same drum in his new pamphlet , Le Spectre . Rmujn dp | Hft 2 . He predicts
a jacquerie ; with pythonic fury he splutters and stamps , declaring as inevitable an universal and terrific outburst of Les Rouges , who will " Do deeds to make heaven weep , all earth amaze , " unless he—the philosophic Cassandra in bottes vernies—be listened to betimes . That is the Spectre Rouge . How to exorcise it ? By national palaver and stump oratory ? The idea is as risible to him as to Carlyle . By a fusion of the two Bourbon branches ? He has no sarcasm sardonic enough for a reply ! All " solutions , " all " cabinets , " all ministerial adroitness and parliamentary orations
he laughs to scorn . To meet the danger and to crush it there is but one syllogism—a roll of musketry . A dictator—bold , resolute , scorning all " constitutional" tigments , and relying solely on his soldiers—some one who shall say L ' etatc'est moi ! —he , and he alone , can save France . A Cromwell , a Francia , or in default of such a Louis Napoleon—any one who will constitute himself the autocrat of France , will become the saviour of France !
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THE DOCTRINE OF HOMCEOPA-THY . The British Journal of Homoeopathy . Vol . X . 8 . Highley . The inquirer may he pretty sure that everything , which has at any time won for itself a broad footing in the world , must have been possessed by some spirit of truth . Every thoughtful person knows that nowadays . No system stands fast in virtue of the errors that may be about it . It is the amount of truth it contains , however little and overlaid that may be , that enables an institution or a doctrine to keep its ground . The extent and quality of that ground , taken together with the length of time it is kept , constitute , in fact , a sort of rough and
rendy measure of the quantity of truth by which a militant institute is inspired and sustained . It is not their entanglements of human defect and excess , for example , that animate and prolong the existence of the Roman , the Greek , and the Teutonic Churches ; but the sparks of divine fulness that glow within the secret hearts of each and all of them . Thanks to Carlyle , it is now possible for a Christian writer to perceive the phosphorescence of sacred doctrine that quickens even the Koran of Mahomet . While Miiller has satisfied every open heart that the Dorian theology , with its worship of Apollo , was the body of a soul full of grace and truth .
These things are as true in science as they are in religion , politics , art , philosophy , and life . The Ptolemaic astronomy may be set aside by the very superficial historian as a memorable instance of the aberrations of the mind of the ancients . But the man of insight knows another story . He perceives that the Greek doctrine was a positive advance upon the Chaldean ; that its facts , considered as truths of appearance , were good and sufficient ; that the Alphonsine and ( for the most part ) even the Prutenic Tables were calculated upon it ; and that it was the necessary and organic predecessor
of the Coperrncan system . In like manner the phlogistic theory of chemistry , albeit often denounced by lean and ilashy lecturers as a delusion , was a noble thing . It saw that the act of combustion was a central or fontul fact in chemistry ; that the calces and common acids are one # reat class of creatures , in a chemical point of view ; and that the combustible elements and the metals are congenerous . It put an end to alchemy , and it prepared the way for the Lavoisierian science of ( so-called ) elements and compounds . All honour to Hipparchus and Ptolemy , to Ueceher and Stahl , the epicycle and phlogiston maintained their historical existence , not by reason of their nonentity , but in the name of the positive truths which they
logically represented . They superseded astrology and alchemy , because there was more truth in them . They yielded to Copernicus and Lavoisier , for these discoverers had found more truth than they possessed . But neither astronomy nor chemistry have ceased to stretch away forward to new epochs of development ; for sciences grow like trees , and every propitious year adds a new ring of suhstance to their strength , enclosing and superseding , but also preserving the rings which preceded it . The great and humane thing to be noticed in this connection , however , is the fact that no doctrine has ever gained a distinct and indisputable footing in the world , which has not brought some truth or great half-truth in its hand . It has occurred to im in the course of some inquirien , instituted for the purpose of keeping our
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368 ftt ) C HeabCt . [ Saturday ,
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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 .
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Leader (1850-1860), April 19, 1851, page 368, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1879/page/14/
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