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Leader (1850-1860), 7th June 1851, Edition Town of 1, Page 539, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      England will have but one agitation at a time the anti-Catholic tempest has , thank God , subsided , and now only rages in small provincial puddles , having been replaced by the more serious and every way more respectable subject in Hyde-park . Yet , although that Fairy-Land of Labour by no means palls , but retains its charming empire as absolutely on the last visit as on the first , we must

      say that the Literature which it calls forth has a very considerable infusion of poppies . The French press has sent its scribes , but they can do little but spin phrases , and their reports are tantalizing and wearisome . If any be worth a passing glance—except for the delicious blunders in which Frenchmen surpass mankind—the letters of Michel Chevalier in the Debats deserve that honour . He

      at any rate is not a phrase-spinner , making the shuttles of his loom fly , merely to produce a certain amount in columns ! And yet it is strange how little he finds to write about in a satisfactory manner . His first letter must have wounded the " susceptibilities" of his nation by its elaborate demonstration of the fact , that although the idee mere of

      the Exposition is French , yet its development and successful execution are—as they ought to be—essentially English . He rejoices in it . He points out our superiority , and its causes—national , political , and geographical . The remarks upon the non-intervention of Government in this enterprize will strike'home to his countrymen .

      Untitled Article

      Recently we announced a forthcoming pamphlet —Plus de Girondins—by Louis Blanc . It is now published , and excites a " sensation" by its courageous attacks upon the dangerous policy which seems to actuate some of the democratic sections ( among them those captained by Ledru Rollin and Victor Considerant ) , and which consists in destroying the sovereignty of the people by a sophistic aggrandizement of popular power . Louis Blanc vigorously attacks this notion of direct government by the people , and shows its impossibility .

      Untitled Article

      Ascot week has deprived us of Thackeray s third lecture , postponed till next Thursday , and of the first public performance of the Amateurs at the Hanover Rooms ; and although it is Magazine Week , we have seen nothing to solicit attention beyond the admirable paper in Fraser on Hartley Colkkiuge . But this dearth of home produce is compensated by the appearance of certain little yellow volumes which make Jeff ' s counter radiant in promises of pleasure , and which on inspection bear the names of George Sand and

      Alexandria Dumas . In the Chdtcau des ' Discrteswhich , by the way , Sani > dedicates to Macready , although this Brussels edition does not give any signs thereof ( an unpardonable omission)—we have certain theories of dramatic art set forth with all the eloquence and ingenuity to be expected from such a writer , and betokening how her recent dramatic experience has opened new issues for her energy . But as a story it is . somewhat fantantic , though with charming passages , and " bits" of character that display the master . It is not one of her best ; but it is ho delightful to get a new novel by her , that one is not inclined to be critical .

      As for Dumas he in always welcome , in one volume or twenty ; arid if Ik ; is always the same , you cannot say but that h « is always agreeable . Here we have Aiujr Pitou , a tale of that inexhaustible French Revolution , written with his usual gaiety , verve , ease , and rapidity ; carry in tf you at a handgallop over tin ; course , though you never care , to pause by the way . There are only two volumes as yet published , for it in now appearing in the feuilletoii of liii I ' rexxe . A new periodical in about to be started by

      Albert Smith , with illustrations by the incomparable Leech . The rumour which brings us this information does not distinctly specify the details of which this periodical is to be composed , but vaguely intimates that it will treat the passing topics of each month . One series of papers is to be a quiz upon the evening- parties , under the head of London Labour and the London Rich .

      Untitled Article

      swedenborg' s heaven and hell . Heaven and Us JVondert , the TF'orld of Spirits , and Hell . From the Latin of Emanuel Swedenborgr . Translated by the Reverend Samuel Noble . Second Edition , carefully revised . James S . Hodgson . In" the anxious year 1745 , while war and its chances , political intrigues , and their anticipations , were the subjects that filled the minds of men and formed the material of their daily talk , a Swedish gentleman was residing in London ,

      devoted apparently to scientific research , and occupying himself in the publication of a series of religious and philosophical works . The son of a Lutheran Bishop , and ennobled by his sovereign for his many services to science and the state , accomplished in the arts of both war and peace , he had gained an European reputation as a speculative and practical philosopher . His services were valued , and his conversation was sought after by the rulers and nobles of his own and other countries . In Sweden the estimate of his worth

      was shown by an important Government appointment , and by the honours of the Royal Academies of Stockholm and St . Petersburg . The pursuit of science , and the publication of his discoveries to the world , were the occupation of his life ; and in his unfailing exertions and industry he found his best reward . Affable and courteous , he affected no seclusion from society ; he was accessible to all of congenial habits and companionship , and men looked on him as one from whose information much might be gained , and on whose judgment they could rely .

      In the fifty-eighth year of his life as a man , and the thirty-sixth of his career as a writer and worker , he announced his assumption of an entirely new character . He declared that he had been favoured with a direct revelation of the Supreme , that his spiritual sight had been opened , and that heavenly and earthly things were made equally accessible to his investigation . Abandoning henceforward all scientific pursuits , he confined himself to religious study , to meditation and the propaganda of his views at home and abroad , leisure for

      which he sought in the relinquishment of his official appointment . Attacked by a few narrowminded opponents , one of whom confessed his entire ignorance of the religious system he impugned , he retained the confidence and respect which he had won before his claim to spiritual intercourse was made , and dying at last after twentysix years of exertion in his new capacity of a religious seer , he gave his solemn testimony to the truth of all that he had written , said , and taught , on the great work for which he had lived , and in which he died .

      Laying no claim to special inspiration , he was content to represent himself as the recipient of information on invisible things , and the instrument to convey that information to the rest of mankind . His teachings were varied and voluminous . Heaven and Hell , as in the present volume , are not objective but subjective , the future state being but a reflex and correspondence of the present and the condition of the unclothed spirit therein , being a continuance of that which was its own while in the flesh . Thus the angelic and daemonic ranks are continually recruited from tho . se of mankind , either in this or in other worlds , and no individual devil

      is recognized , the term being taken to signily the aggregate of evil spirits . The soul of man is judged immediately after death , and united to a spiritual body , in all respects resembling that which it ; wore on earth , and in conveyed through an intermediate state by various degrees to its final abode of happiness or-misery . It does not appear that this intermediate state is purgatorial , but that in it the tjue character of man is ascertained by an unfailing scrutiny , which constitutes , in fact , the l ; ist judgment , and his destiny is thereby fixed for ever .

      The doctrine of the ( iodhead , us taught by Swedenborg , resembles that of SabelliuH : discarding the idea of three persons in one deity , he represents the Saviour Jchiih Christ as combining in himself a divine trinity ; divinity , humanity , procession— Father , Son , and Holy Spirit . ; belief in Him , and obedience tlircu ^ h grace , to lii \ cinnni . uu !¦ ¦¦ ¦ , are made the conditions of Milvation . Cod's word ,

      or revelation , is of a twofold aspect , containing a literal sense in which it is apprehended by the natural understandings of men ; and a spiritual , or heavenly sense , in which it is at once received by angelic natures , and which it is given to man to discern by the special gift of God . Every image and expression in the former has its correlative or correspondence in the latter . This spiritual sense is not possessed by all the writings ordinarily

      included in the Church ' s canon ; the Epistles are expressly said to be devoid of it , but useful in many respects , and as such to be regarded and esteemed . The necessity of the sacraments and of spiritual grace are insisted on ; the freewill of man is maintained : the providence of God over all his works is asserted ; the first Christian Church is said to have come to an end ; and the last judgment or second coming of Christ to have taken place in its destruction and the establishment of the New Jerusalem ,

      or new Church founded by Swedenborg-, and now consisting of his followers . Such is a very brief sketch of the doctrines taught by Swedenborg . Much interesting information may be gathered from his work on Heaven and Hell , the second edition of which , now before us , has been edited with extraordinary care by its translator , the Reverend Samuel Noble . It contains also a preface by one of the translators of the first English version ( the Reverend Mr . Hartley ) , in which the realities of a spiritual world and of Swedenborg ' s intercourse with it , are both strenuously maintained . An original letter of the Seer himself is also given , in which he distinctly asserts his claim to divine illumination .

      Untitled Article

      VIOLENZIA . Violenzia .: a Tragedy . J- W . Parker and Son . The evil influence exercised by the Old English Drama upon our modern writers , owing to the fanaticism which attended the " revival" of that extinct literature , has been more than once touched upon in our columns . If men would but understand the drift of Goethe's profound saying , that everything which falls has deserved to fall , that nothing dies which has vitality in it , — -they would not thus hopelessly endeavour to " revive " forms of art which the stern centuries condemn . Here on our table lies a work written after the approved Elizabethan model : with follies and atrocities , huddled together , and precious jewels sparkling amidst the rubbish . If any one can wade through the earlier portions , lured by the traces of a high and thoughtful mind , which even there are visible , he will get into the deep water of noble tragedy ar > d wonder that the latter scenes could be the conclusion to the earlier . Criticism upon the invention or conduct of the plot up to the point where Violenzia , ravished by the King , flies despairing to her lover ' s tent , would be wasting sagacity " on faults too gross for observation , too evident for detection , " as old Samuel Johnson said of one of Nhakspcare ' s plays . We should call these scenes childish if we knew not so many patterns in the works of " the great old English Dramatists . " But we may point out , in passing , one fundamental dramatic error which the author has committed . Granting for a moment that Malgodin , the corrupt old Atheist , has any semblance to humanity , that the means by which Violenzia is made to appear the mistress of tinking are in themselves probable and acceptablegranting , in short , all the author could ask with respect to these early scenes , we still say that they are worse than inartistic , they are totally superfluous ; for the tragedy of the story dors not lie in Ethel ' s suspecting his mistress to be false , but in his appalling knowledge that the king has violated her . In this great , horror all petty details and suspicion sink into nothingness . Up to this point the , play is feeble , though lit up with some lovely lines ; hut from this it rises into a poetic grandeur , . such as gives us the highest hopflH of the unknown author . Commonplace as the structure is up to this , directly the trajjwly begins the poet forgets his models , and is earned away by his own imagination . His flight is liitfh , but on a strong and steady pinion . As a « ani | il « of tragic writing , very unusual in our tunes , take tain scene . Violeir / . ia has been ravished . Ethel , her lover , is alone in his tent ,, and thus soliloquizes : " lith . How the wind r" « l » ' « . » " < i , R uaty rain Conum puttering in tl »« I'auseH «» 1 the bluHt . CorneliuH will Hoon rep "' """• . ., Meanwhile Viol .-i . zin liv . r . s at .-.. «• in the Ururt . A i . < I wh . n th .-s < - laxly luot . 'l wars » n- past I'll ki . ii h . T "' in . - ' ¦ " •¦ < vrl - " ' u S ' () 1 mul-. ^ ui !» : •

      Tumaimt.

      tumaimt .

      Untitled Article

      Critics axe not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Review .

      Untitled Article

      June 7 , 1851 . ] ®|) £ & £ && £ ?* 539

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), June 7, 1851, page 539, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1886/page/15/