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Leader (1850-1860), 19th April 1851, Edition Town of 1, Page 368, timatnxt.

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      Untitled Article

      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 .

  • Citation
    • 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/