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generally preserve their health by a residence in any of the Australian colonies The climate , however , may only safely be recommended for instances as have simply a disposition to disease of the lungs , but on whom the enemy has as yet made no direct attack ; for when once the disease has made a fatal breach on the lungs , the decay is much hastened by the enervating influence of excessive heat , and death goon closes the scene . " We will close our notice of this excellent work by a brief passage on
THE PEOS AND CONS OF THE BUSH . " The wild life of a bushman presents few charms to tempt the cockney , dwelling amongst and enjoying the luxuries of civilization , to desert the quill and the ledger for the shepherd ' s crook . True , the wealthy squatter , who , unable to procure shepherds and stockmen to tend his fast increasing flocks and herds , and which , for want of a better paying beef and mutton market , are consigned by hundreds to the melting-pot , may , for the best of breeches-pocket reasons , indite flaming epistles to his friends in Britain , describing the Australian bush as a terrestrial paradise , where only pleasure and plenty hold their court . But let this same individual be , as is the case with his shepherd , confined to the bush for a twelvemonth round , and , during that time , see scarcely a person but his chum , the hut-keeper ; let him go the same eternal round , day after day , all weathers and seasons , live on nothing but damper—flour and water baked in wood embers—mutton , tea , and tobacco smoke , sleep at night in a hut alive with fleas , and neither wind nor water tight ; and withal , be tempted , too often successfully , to spend all his earnings at the potliouse during his sojourns in town . Such individuals would probably then paint life in the bush in colours more true , but less glowing . Bush cuisine he might thus describe : — " You may talk of the dishes of Paris renown , Or for plenty through London may range , If variety ' s pleasing , oh , leave either town , And come to the bush for a change . " On Monday we ' ve mutton , with damper and tea ; On Tuesday , tea , damper and mutton , Such dishes I ' m certain all men must agree Are fit for peer , peasant , or glutton . " On Wednesday we ' ve damper , with , mutton and tea ; On Thursday tea , mutton , and damper , On Friday we ' re mutton , tea , damper , while we With our flocks over hill and dale scamper . "'" " Our Saturday feast may seem rather strange , 'Tis of damper with tea and fine mutton ; How surely I ' ve shown you that plenty of change , In the bush , is the friendly board put on . " But no , rest assured that another fine treat Is ready for all men on one day , For every bushman is sure that he ' ll meet With the whole of the dishes on Sunday . " Nevertheless , bush life has its charms , especially to the hope-blighted citizen , the hater of etiquette , and the hollow c onventionalisms of civilization , and the Mr . Skimpole , whose highest ambition is to live a free , independent , lazy life .
" In the bush there are no roads , no villages , no shops , schools , nor churches ; no ministers of the gospel ; no law , except that of might , and very few women and children . The Sabbath is rarely observed . Individuals are born and buried like heathens , without the aid and the consolation of doctors and parsons . The rude dwellings are akin to the huts of savages , and in fact it would be difficult to devise a more effectual mode of uncivilizing individuals than that of isolating them in the hush . To the needy Australian settler , the bush is a dernier ressort , like the workhouse to the poor in England , affording ready employment , a rough home , and a bellyful of food . It is also notorious that a bush life , even if begun in the greatest poverty , will in a , few years lead the industrious , persevering , self-denying settler to honourable independence . Many of the most wealthy colonists thus commenced their colonial career , and all who deem the isolation and privation more than counterbalanced by the enjoyment of health in a salubrious climate , and the certainty of fast-augmenting ^ wealth , will experience but little hardship in the wild life of a bushman . "
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. TEKDAN'S AUTOniOGKAPIEY . The Autobiography of William Jordan . During tho last fifty years . Vol . III . ^ ^ Arthur Hall , Virtue , anrl Co . "I am not aware that I am yet overtaken by the foible of garrulous old Ji tfe . " This romark gravely made in the pages of so garrulous and insipid a work will bring a smile over the face of every reader ; recalling tho earnest protestations hiccupped forth by men who insist that they arc sober , ft ia not garrulity , however , that we complain of most ; in this unfortunate work ; the garrulity of age might oven have had its charm , had the wandering stream of memory borne with it any real fragments of tho past ; but Mr . Jordan as a young man . seems to have lacked the art of vivid representation , and in not likely to have acquired it in his seventieth year . , . . , , and
Volume " the third is , like its predecessors , a whining apology unpleasant self-cloriiicatioji ; the staple is frivolous , the anecdotes most y pointless , and the personal recollections umntereHtmg . 1 ho best anecdote "We have met with before , but if , bears repetition : — " Unequal marriages are , it is true , seldom happy , but sometimes those which » l > pear to be < mi mil at the outset , turn out no better . Huron Il <» llaiul , <> i tall memory , used to toll that in walking out near London one dny ho suw un old wizened Italian Tramp on one side of the road with two or three monkeys , and on tho other a rather buxom woman trudging along in the biiiiio manner with a tam-I'oimne Ho was . strut * by the contrast , mid entering into chat with the hit y found she was the SignoiVwife , and asked her , How she could marry Unit old »» m ? « Oh , Sir , ' said she , wi th ¦ h tlwip drawn si ^ h , and a inclining glance ut tlio « l > H'nt , ioricr , ' when I married him , be bad a dromedary ! ' "
L . IS . L ., to whom the volume is dedicated , forms tho greatest attraction among these " phonal recollections , " and considering how much of her WHtory was bound up with Mr . Jordan . w « lulco it as «>»» V » " -I ^ |) 1 /' ' proof wore not everywhere manifest , of us want of I . ml , s lulf > efo alluded to , when we ' find ho colourless and vague a portrait as tho one R ivonhoro . The Jirat glimpse is charming : — " My cottage overlooked the mansion and grounds of Mr . Landon , the lather oi *' . K . L ., at Old Hromptou ; a narrow luno only dividing our rewduium My lire
recollection of the future poetess is that of a plump girl , grown enough to be almost mistaken for a woman , bowling a hoop round the walks , with the hoop-stick in one hand and a book in the other , reading as she ran , and as well as she could manage botti exercise and instruction at the same time . The exercise was prescribed and insisted upon : the book was her own irrepressible choice . " A slight acquaintance grew out of neighbourhood ; and I was surprised on © day by an intimation from her mother that Letitia was addicted to poetical composition , and asking me to peruse a few of her efforts and say what I thought of them . I read , and was exceedingly struck by these juvenile productions—crude and inaccurate , as might be anticipated , in style , but containing ideas so original and extraordinary , that I found it impossible to believe they emanated from the apparent romp , and singular contradiction of the hoop and volume . An elder cousin , who took a part in her education , seemed to me to be the real , and Letitia only the ostensible writer ; and the application made under this disguise to conceal the diffidence of a first attempt at authorship . But the bill was a true bill , and
my doubts were speedily dispelled . Why is this charming , and why are the other passages so unsatisfactory ? Because in this he allows memory to recal the met , in the other he allows bis pen to maunder into " reflections . " The visible fact of L . E . L . trundling her hoop with a book in one hand , simply set down as it lives in Mr . Jerdan ' s memory , is to us very interesting ; will Mr . Jerdan be persuaded in future volumes to give us more such facts and spare the supremely siiperfluous " remarks" with which he fills his pages ? That one glimpse of the poetess is the only one we get , except from her letters from Paris , which are not uninteresting . She appears to have been " lionized" in . Paris . Heine , St . Beuve , Mdme . Tastu , Mdme . Recamier , Chateaubriand , Odillon Barrot , Buloz , the proprietor of the Revue des Deux Mondes ( called Beulot , and named ridacteur by mistake —rSdacteur meaning " contributor" ) move across tbe scene ; and L . E . L . is delighted with them , and with French literature , which " we know nothing of here , " and especially delighted with her own effect .
" What I liave enjoyed most at Paris , " she writes , " has been my own . reception . I have met with , the most flattering kindness , and have produced a very proper effect . All say that I speak French with an Honnante facilite and avec une grace tout afaitjparticuliere . " How naive this is ! Those wicked French will always be astonished at the way foreigners speak their language ( and with reason !) and turn the corner of any difficulty in the way of discrepant genders , hazardous idioms , and unmistakeable accent , by saying we speak avec une grace ! We never knew a Briton who had not astonished himself by the way he " astonished the natives . " By George , sir , they took him for a Frenchman everywhere .
Miss Landon being a very charming person , was doubtless very charming to French people , even though she did call M . Sainte Beuve , tres spirituelle , " to use the national'expression "— an expression which would have made that critic smile . And the French wits ' were glad enough to forgive all sorts of natural mistakes , * for the sake of the bright nature and the fascinating manners of the young poetess . This sentence amused us greatly : — " I have received so much kindness and attention from Monsieur Merimee ; he is very amusing , speaks English ( a great fault in my eyes ) like a native , and tells you all sorts of anecdotes in the most unscrupulous fashion . "
We were also amused , though in a different way , by her saying she had been to the opera , and was delighted with the Teutchon of Sainte Antoine ; upon which Mr . Jerdan remarks in a note , " I am not sure of the name . " We have no doubt that Mr . Jerdan has astonished Frenchmen with his etonnante facility , and are surprised , therefore , that lie did not decipher the word into something more like French than Teutchon ; what does he think of tentation ? and of the opera being on the temptation of St . Antony ? The mention of M . Buloz in a preceding paragraph , reeals to ris tho witticism of the amusing llarel , on some one mentioning that Buloz was proprietor of two reviews . " Oui , il est en effet , I'time des deux revues , mats avec V attention habile den en etre jamais V esprit . " ( It is not translateable ; we can only paraphrase it by ' say ing " Yes , he infuses his whole soul into the two reviews , but with the delicate attention of not adulterating it with any of his intelligence . " )
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J 5 OOKS ON OUR TABLE . A Plan for the Formation of a Maritime Militia , or a Sea ' JPcncilla Force . In a LcI . Ut to tho . Karl of J )» rby . liy Charles Elliot , Captain , U . N . Jtidgway . Captain . Kujot ' s Plan deserves serious attention . He proposes that a convenient division of tbe whole coast should be made , in sections ; each section having a head quartern , placed in its centre , with outlying posts on tbe right mid left hand . In each section he would provide for the enrolling of a Sea I'Vncible Force , strictly for Home Service , and divided into " Moveuble" and " Keserve . " The " Movcable " body to bo required to serve , either on shore , or afloat wit-bin a certain number oi leagues from the part where they nre enrolled ; tin ; '" Keserve" formed specially for service in the parts or places where they are enrolled . The whole to lit ) under the command of a distinguished naval oflieer . Provision to be made for training and exercise . This force , composed of 40 , 000 men , would , it is estimated , cost about 4 , 60 , 000 / . All the details , as to pay , clothing , pensions , &c , are provided for . Tbe whole plan is based on strict but manly treatment of the men enrolled . Such is an outline of tbe plan , for tho filling up wo refer to the pamphlet . We pronounce no , judgment on it ,, but we re-assert that it well deserves tbe most serious consideration . tihirlf . i / : a Tale . Hy ( Jurrer iiell , Author of . Juno . Myre . In One Volume . A New Kdiliou . Smith , Khler , uiul Co . It will bo agreeable news to many of our readers that a chciip edition of Shirle y in the form of a companion to the one previously issued oi' Jane . I'hjrr , in now obtainable ; and even pleasanter news , thai a new work by tho same authoress is "in the press . " Of Hhirh-ij and tho clump edition before us , we need only say that it \ h compact , readable , and handsome enough for tho library shelves . Critical lliograjthies . liy ( ieorge Honry l'Yuncis . . ) . W . Parker and Son . Two separate volumes , ench containing u " study" of a remarkable man , ' —tho tirat , / Sir Mobert I ' etl , tho second , Jtenjamin l > israt < li . They arc expanded reprints oi
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Dec ember 11 , 1852 . ] THE LEADER . 1191
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 11, 1852, page 1191, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1964/page/19/
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