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to the English public , this article would have had its interest , as indeed it will now to those who know little of him . . ' . ' ¦ A defence of superstition , as . in-. itself a healthy , useful thing , could find no more appropriate organ than one which manfully upholds Toryism . There is one in BlacTcwood this month , in an article on Mrs . Jameson s Legends of the Madonnas . We indicate , we will not argue the point . Fine Arts and the Public Taste in 1853 is a paper of the Blackwood stamp- ^ powerful , hitting hard , and hitting random occasionally , merciless on Ruskin ' s " fine writing" and extravagancies of judgment—altogether , an article which cannot be left unread . _
Nor can you leave unread the paper on Carps , in Fraser , wherein the old familiar pen , dropping the quaintest erudition , and the pleasantest of ichthyologic digressions , traces the Carp through ancient and modern pages and ponds . Tables Turned is a scientific exposition of the way in which muscular action operates on the table—a paper to be read in conjunction with Faraday ' s letter on this subject . We commend it to Mr . Henry Spicer , who has just published a sequel to his Sights and Sounds , under the title of Facts and Fantasies , and who , we may mention in passing , declares the Leader ( among other journals ) to have been " universally silent on the merits of the actual controversy , " and to have shown '" a disposition to make my work its scapegoat . " Are we to class this as one of the " facts" or one of the " fantasies ? " Whatever we may have been , we certainly feel a desire to be silent now !
While running through the magazines , let a pause be made at the article on chloroform in Bentley ' s Miscellany , as both useful and interesting . The writer disproves the current notion of chloroform being used as a means of aiding highway robberies : — " When administered gradually , chloroform can be breathed easily enough by a person willing and anxious to take it ; but ho has to draw his breath many times before he becomes unconscious . During all this interval he has the perfect perception of the impression of the vapour on his nose , mouth , and throat , as well as of other sensations which it causes ; and every person who lias inhaled chloroform , retains a recollection of these impressions and sensations . If chloroform be given to a child whilst asleep , the child awakes in nearly every instance before being made insensible , however gently the vapour maybe insinuated , and no animal , either wild
or tame , can be made insensible without being first secured ; the chloroform may , it is true , be suddenly applied on a handkerchief to the nose of an animal , but the creature turns its head aside or runs away without breathing any of the vapour . If a handkerchief wetted with sufficient chloroform to cause insensibility , is suddenly applied to a person ' s face , the pungency of the vapour is so great as immediately to interrupt the breathing , and the individual could not inhale it even if he should wish . From all thfese facts , it is evident that chloroform cannot be given to a person in hia sober senses without his knowledge and full consent , except by main force . It is certain , therefore , that this agent cannot be employed in a public street or thoroughfare ; and as the force that would be required to make a person take it againsb his will , would be more than sufficient to effect a robbery , and enough to effect any other felony bj ordinary means , it would afford no help to the criminal in more secluded situations . "
We must conclude this survey by noticing the appearance of two new magazines—one , Hogg ' s Instructor , elevated from its weekly to a monthly form ; the other , The British Journal . The former contains papers by De Quincey , Gilfillan , and Aird ; the latter by Horace Mayhew , Mayne Reid , Alfred Cole , and Angus B . Reach .
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THACKERAY'S XECTTJBES . The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century . A Series of Lectures delivered in England , Scotland , and America . By W . M . Thackeray . Smith , Elder , and Co . Charmed ( as all but the very churlish were ) with these Lectures when Thackeray delivered them , we have been charmed beyond expectation with the reading of them , for they owe leas to manner than we thought . They are truly beautiful , suggestive Essays on topics fertile in suggestion .
Aa criticisms , in the narrower sense of the word , they are often questionable , sometimes absurd in their exaggeration of praise . As characteristics they arc more picturesque than Hfe-like . But as Essays , of which the Humourists arc merely the texts , they aro unaffectedly humourous , pathetic , subtle , pleasant , and thoughtful . Few will accept Thackeray ' s exaggerated verdicts on Swift ' s and Addison ' s genius , an exaggeration rhetorical , and almost ludicrous ; but where , in our language , aro more charming Essays than the two devoted to these writers P
Thackeray ' s style , always lighted with ah ineffable smile , half sad , half playful , is seen to perfection in this volume ;; its careless grace occasionally lapsing into eareless incorrectness ; its idiom falling into mere colloquialism , but rising with the occasion into sustained and stately rhythm , or tempered into brief and delicate epigram . You will find passagos in almndanco of this kind : " Scarce any man , I believe , ever thought of that grave , that did not cast a flower of pity on it ; " but turn the page ,, and you will meet with some felicity of expression , some epithet carrying an image , some epigram of singular force . There are Thaclcerqyisms , too ( wo must use tho word )— rhoaes of speech peculiar to himself , arising out
of his modes of thought ; for example speaking of tho past age , " Tho honest chairmen ' pipes aro out , and with their hrawny calves they have walked away into Hades . " In that sentence may bo detected the two fundamental tendencies of hia writing—tho light falls upon a physical and characteristic detail , thereby shaping an image to tho oyo , and it also falls on , an antithesis ( which , on a former occasion , wo declared to bo one distinguishing peculiarity of his mode of thought ) . "The pipes aro out : " thorp is an imago , carrying tho mind backward to tho scene of tho chairman 8 life , ^ and forward to tho idea of his doath ; and by tho epithet brawny , " wo aro made to fool tho vigorous but inelegant life which had "foJM into Hades . " Xixo uufcjoncG betweoa travelling in the olden timea and travelling in
our own times , has often been described and lamented ; can it be better expressed than in the epigram which closes this account of * ' ¦ ' ¦ ENGLAND AS SEEN IN THE " TATLEb P " " The May-pole rises in the Strand again in . London ; the churches are thronged with-daily worshippers ; the beaux are gathering in the coflfce-houses—the . gentryare going to the Drawing-room—the ladies are thronging to the toy-shops—the chairmen are jostling in the streets—the footmen are running with links before the chariots , or fighting round the theatre doors . - In the country I see the young Squire riding to Eton with his servants behind him , and Will Wimble , the friend of the family , to see him safe . To make that journey from the Squires and back , Will is a week on horseback . The coach takes five days between London and the Bath . The judges and the bar ride the circuit . If my lady comes
to town in her post-chariot , her people carry pistols to fire a salute on Captain Macheath if he should appear , and her couriers rid . e «* head tq prepare apartments for her at the great caravanserais on the road ; Bpni % ! e receives her under the creaking sign of the Bell or the Ram , and he and his' chamberlains bow her up the great stair to the state-apartments , whilst her carriage rumbles into the courtyard , where the Exeter Fly is housed that performs the journey in eight days , God willing , having achieved its daily flight of-twenty miles , and landed its passengers for supper and sleep . The curate is taking his pipe in the kitchen , where the Captain ' s man -having hung up his master ' s half pike—is at his bacon and eggs bragging of Eamillies and Malplaquet to t&e townsfolk , who have their club in the chimney-corner . The Captain is ogling the chambermaid in the mistressthat has
wooden gallery , or bribing her to know who is the pretty young come in the coach ? The pack-horses are in the great stable , and the drivers and ostlers carousing in the tap . And in Mrs . Landlady ' s bar , over a glass of strong waters , sits a gentleman of military appearance who travels with pistols , as all . the rest of the world does , and has a rattling grey mare in the stables which will be saddled and away with its owner half-an-hour before the . « Fl y * sets out on its last day ' s flight . And some five miles on the road , as the Exeter Fly comes jingling and creaking onwards , it will suddenly be brought to a halt by a gentleman on a grey mare , with a black vizard on his face , who thrusts a long pistol into the coach-window , and bids the company to hand out their purses . ... • • It . mu 9 t have been no small pleasure even to sit in the great kitchen in those days and see the tide of human kind pass by . We arrive at places now , but we travel no
more . ' - ' ¦ . The volume , which is printed with great carelessness , has numerous notes , -and no index . In a second edition we trust that an index will be added , for it is unwarrantable to send forth a volume crowded with names and details , unaccompanied by any means of reference . The interest ^ of the volume would also be greatly aided—or , to speak more accurately , would be less interrupted—if the notes were removed from the foot of the page to the end of the volume . For the most part these notes might be omitted without their absence being felt ; but in every case , where they extend beyond the brief registry of a fact , they are intrusions on the interest of the text . They destroy the harmony of the composition . The Lecturer has his art , and what his art caused him to reject , nothing should induce him to thrust in . The sculptor does not pack up his chips in the same case withhis statue .
, Many of these notes are illustrative , some curious ; for these the reader will be thankful—but at the end of the volume . A correction of the old story of Voltaire and Congreve , given in one of these notes , is worth . citing : — " It was in Surrey-street , Strand ( where he afterwards died ) , that Voltaire visited him , in the decline of his life . " Tho anecdote in the text , relating to his saying that lie wished 'to be visited on no other footing than as a gentleman who led a life of plainness and simplicity / is common to all writers on the subject of Congreve , and appears in the English version of Voltaire ' s Letters concerning the English nation , published in London , 1733 , as also in Goldsmith ' s ' Memoir of Voltaire / But it is worthy of remark , that it does not appear in tho text of the same Letters in the edition of Voltaire ' s ( Euvres Completes in the JPantMon Litteraire . Vol . v . of his works . ( Paris ,
1837 )/' Can this story have been foisted in by tho English translator , from a rumour of the day , or did Voltaire tell the story to his friends , but omit it in his Letters ?
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A SCORE OF NEW BOOKS . Ms . John William Kaye has already established for himself such a name as a writer on India , and a very agreeable writer too , that the mere announcement of his volurno on The Administration of the JEast India Company : a History of Indian Progress , ( Bentloy ) will bo sufficient to cause all persons interested in tho governmental affairs of our swarthy subjects to look after it . It is , indeed , written with something of partisan zeal , and a desire to make tho best of evorything ; but it is , we believe , a trustworthy narrative , well grouped , the facts well massed , and tho stylo easy ami spirited . Tho more bringing together , in one accessible place , of' so much widely scattered mate-rial , would havo been
a serviceable piece of work ; but Mr . Kaye has done more than this—ho has produced an animated , history of one of the grcatost examples of merchant entorpriso over known . A companion volume to the one juafc named has also boon published by Mr . Bbntley : Memorials of Indian Government , being a Selection from tho Papers of Henry St . George Tucker . This volume of papers , written by tho lato director of tho East India Company , is also edited by Mr . Kayo : they aro selected from a muss of papors placed in his hands by Mr . Tuckor ' s ropresontativos , and aro partly of an official partly of an unofficial haracterTheir
c . , object avowedly was to convince the public that the Court of Directors is not unmindful of its serious responsibilities , and to show tho public how carefully alj ; questions which come before it aro considered . Ihoy must bo considered thorofore « & , ex parte documents , having thoir valuo from tho known integrity and ability of the writer . They trout of tho Administrative Authorities—Military Establishments—Kevenues and . Resources of India—the Judicial ( Worn—Political relations— Hindooism and Christianity- —Finance , and other tomes . The presont parliamentary interest of the Indian , question gives tOwbotb . these volumes an extra interest of Apropos .
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668 \ THE LEADER . ? - [ Sattopay . ' ¦ - ^ ¦«— —w ^ w , i . _^—j—i ——* M——^ - ¦ . '¦ . *¦ .. ¦ ¦ ... '¦' .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 9, 1853, page 668, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1994/page/20/
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