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Hay Society , the Sydenham Society , and the Shakspeare Society , &c , and several times we have had cognizance of plans for a Philosophical Society , which have not , however , taken effect . Something of this kind has been started by Mr ; John Chapman , —viz ., a quarterly series , to be published by subscription . The works of " learned and profound thinkers , embracing the subjects of theology , philosophy , Biblical criticism , and the history of opinion , " are to be published , as in
the ordinary way , at prices varying , according to size , but averaging nine shillings a volume . The advantage to subscribers is enormous ; they receive four volumes for one subscription of twenty shillings—a saving of nearly one half . The advantage to the publisher , of having a certain reliable sale from which to start , is also obvious . A sufficiently varied and attractive selection of works would make this series eminently successful ; at present we notice what seems to us rather too great an inclination towards theology . The first volume is Parker's Theism , Atheism , and the Popular Theology , which we shall notice shortly ; the second is to be
Newman ' s History of the Hebrew Monarchy , but , as the work has already appeared , subscribers to the series need not take it , they can limit their payment to fifteen shillings , for the three other volumes . These two works are to be followed by Feuerbach ' s celebrated treatise , The Essence of Christianity , which will considerably startle the English mind ,- —Ewald ' s History of the People of Israel , a Sketch of the JSise and Progress of Christianity , by the learned and accomplished R . W . Mackay , — -and The Idea of a Future Life , hy the translator of Strauss .
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BOOKS ON OUR TABLE . Theory of Politics . By Richard Hildreth . Clarke , Beeton , and Co . Fern Leaves from Fanny ' 8 Portfolio . Ingram , Cooke , and Co Yankee Humour and Uncle Sam ' s Fun . Ingram , Cooke , and Co . Burton and its Sitter Seer . By J . S . Bushman . W . S . Orr : and Co . The Destructive Art of Healing ; or , Facts for Families . G . Koutledge . The Churches for the Times , and the Preachers for the People . By W . Ferguson . B . L . Green . Audrey . A Novel . By Miss J . L . Jewry . T . C . Newby . Tangleioood Tales , for Girls and Soya : being a Second Wonder-Booh . By Nathaniel Hawthorne . Chapman and Hall . Fireside Politics ; or . Hints about Home . By F . B . Young . Watson . Characteristics of the Duke of Wellington , apart from his Military Talents , By the Earl de Grey . T . Bosworth . Christie Johnstone . A Novel . By Charles Keade , Esq . R . Bentley . Private Trials and Public Calamities ; or , the early Life of Alexandrine des Echerolles , during the Troubles of the first French Revolution . 2 vola . R . Bentley Water ' s Magazine . j . w . Parker " and Son . The London Quarterly Review . No . I . . _ - Partridge and Oakey . The Biographical Magazine . Partridge and Oakey . The Home Companion . W . S . Orr and Co . The Portrait Gallery . W . 8 . Orr and Co .
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. BUSKIN IN VENICE . The Stones of Venice . Volume II . The Sea Stories . By John Buskin ; with . Illustrations drawn by the Author . . Smith , Elder , and Co . Euskin is one of the . most eloquent writers of our day ; he loves Art with passionate devotion , and both feels and understands more on this great subject than any other critic ; nevertheless every one who can resist the entrainement of his enthusiasm , and the imposing authority of his dogmatism , must regard him as a writer of charming paradox , always worth hearing—seldom worth following . He ill bears criticism . Those trenchant and iconoclastic assertions , those sweeping- generalizations , those
apparently wilful and capricious outbreaks which disfigure all his writings , reveal a mind essentially unfittedfor the high ambitious task it has set before it—the task , namely , of indoctrinating Englishmen with a philosophy of Art . There is , also , an inordinate degree of coxcombry in his writing which renders it suspicious . But after all—having made the most liberal allowance for drawbacks and demerits—wo must welcome every work he produces , more than we welcome the works of any other writer on Art . In this new volume of the Stones of Venice , there is matter to make Architects
wild with rage , and Amateurs wild with delight . As the Art treated of lies beyond our competence , and will not be greatly interesting to the generality of readers , wo shall best consult our interest and their pleasure in saying nothing about it , leaving to more experienced mon the task of combating or confirming the principles laid down . Let us rather indicate the sources of pleasure which the non-architectural taste will . ) ' \ .. /"^ volume ; ^ no one familiar with Buskin ' s writings will suppose it iilled only with technical details . It
contains two periods—the Byzantine and the Grothie . The first is illustrated in five chapters— The Throne ( by which Venice itself ia designated ) Torcello , Murano , St . Marks , and the Byzantine Palaces . The B « cond , in three chapters—T // Nature of Gothic ( a most interesting and paradoxica l dissertation ) , Gothic Palaces , and the Ducal Palace . Sovoral ° w Tnatfcerfl ttr 0 treated in an Appendix . Wo shall select a few extracts , showing wi ( , h wlint gusto and pictorial sensitiveness ho has looked upon Venice and its splendours . Head this weount , for example , of the approach to Venice from the Canal of Meatre . vvo have italicized a few flentoncea of peculiar ami pociic felicity ; but uio word-painting of the wholo ia wonderful . Wo sco Vonico ; and the
stranire—Kitting of its walls mid towers out of the midst , as it eecmod , of the iloei ) •» . ¦ ior it was impossible tlmt tho mind or tho eyo could nfc on < : o comprehend , tho milovvnes . s o f the va . it sheet of wider which stretched awnt / in Imams of rippling eiwf ' t / ' 1 ' 0 nOHlh alul 8 Ollth ' <) imco iho "arrow lino of Mots bounding ifc to tho set ' - HUlt l ) rt ¥ CZe ' * »« white-moaning seu-binls , the . masses of Mack weed * vparalm ( j and disappearing gradually , in knots of heavim / shoal , under tho l ) « . sa"Tl (> i Uk ° Hl ; t ! iul - V tul ° ' Proclaimed ifc to ho indued ' tho ocean on whoso ihu ' isr , h rrait citv r «» fc (>< 1 H ( > "ilnily ; not Mich blue , soft , hiko-liko ocean m buthes sna 7 / " l ) rom " ntori <) rt » or h 1 u « 1 >« bonouth iho innrblo roekn of Clonon , but a stra , Uaak poWf ! r ° f aur ou " northern waves , yet subdued into a nhhet Sp . j ' WUS rest * aml < - ' « "W < l from its- angry pallor into afield of hurdmn ' l mi m tlwJ HUU ( loi ' ' " > eliind tho belfry tower of tho lonely Island cit ' h y lMUWi l ' S < " < 1 h \ v -, » i THt Which ih 0 tnivcllor hiul J " « fc J « Hi sunk behind him into ono long , » » iw » colourcd line , tufted irregularly witU brushwood mid willowu « but , ub
what seemed its northern extremity , the hills of Avqua rose in a dark cluster of purple pyramids , balanced on the bright mirage of the lagoon ; two or three smooth surges of inferior hill extended themselves about their roots , and beyond these , beginning with the craggy peaks above Yicenza , the chain of the Alps girded the whole horizon to the north—a wall of jagged blue , here and there showing through-. its clefts a wilderness of misty precipices , fading far back into the recesses of Cadore , and itself rising and breaking away eastward , where the sun struck opposite upon its snow , into mighty fragments of peaked light , standing up behind the barred clouds of evening , one after another , countless , the crown of the Adrian Sea , until the eye turned back from pursuing them , to rest upon the nearer burning of the campaniles of Murano , and on the great city tvhere it magnified itself along the zvaves , as the quick silent pacing of the gondo la
drew nearer and nearer . And at last , when its walls were reached , and the outmost of its untrodden streets was entered , not through towered gate or guarded rampart , but as a deep inlet between two rocks . of coral in the Indian sea ; when first upon the traveller ' s sight opened the long ranges of columned palaces- —each with its black boat moored at the portal—each with its image cast down , beneath its feet , upon that green pavement which every breeze broke into new fantasies of rich tessellation ; when first , at the extremity of the bright vista , the shadoxvy JRialto threio its colossal curve sloivfy forth from behind the palace of the Camerlenghi ; that strange curve , so delicate , so adamantine , strong as a mountain cavern , graceful as a bow just bent ; when first , before its inoonlike circumference was all risen , the gondolier's cry , Ah ! Stall , ' struck sharp upon
the ear , and the prow turned aside under the mighty cornices that half met over the narrow canal , where the plash of the water followed close and loud , ringing along the marble by the boat's side ; and when at last that boat darted forth upon the breadth of silver sea , across which the front of the Ducal palace , flushed with its sanguine veins , looks to the snowy dome of Our Lady of Salvation , it was no marvel that the mind should be so deeply entranced by the visionary charm of a scene so beautiful and so strange , as to forget the darker truths of its history and its being . Well might it seem that such a city had owed her existence rather to the rod of the enchanter than the fear of the fugitive ; that the waters which encircled her had been chosen for the mirror of her state , rather than the shelter of her nakedness ; and that all which in nature was wild or merciless—Time and Decay , as well as the waves and tempests—had been won to adorn her instead of to destroy , and might still spare , for ages to come , that beauty which seemed to have fixed for its throne the sands of the hour-glass as well as of the sea . " Do not suppose , from that gorgeous description , that you are treated with grand phrases in lieu of specific and accurate details : Uuskin knows his Venice by heart , and will not vaguely rhapsodize about her ; indeed , he expressly says :- — " The Venice of modern fiction and drama is a thing of yesterday , a mere efHoreseence of decay , a stage dream which the first ray of daylight must dissipato into dust . No prisoner , whose name is worth remembering , or whose sorrow deserved sympathy , ever crossed that ' Bridge of Sighs , ' which is the centre of the Byronic ideal of Venice ; no great merchant of Venice ever saw that Itialto under which the traveller now passes with breathless interest ; the statue which Byron makes Faliero address as one of his great ancestors was erected to a soldier of fortune a hundred and fifty years after Faliero ' s death ; and the most conspicuous parts of the city have been so entirely altered in the course of the last three
centuries , that if Henry Dandolo or 1 < rancis 1 * oscari could be summoned from their tombs , and stood each on tho deck of his galley at the entrance of the Grand Canal , that renowned entrance , the painter ' s favourite subject , the novelist ' s favourite scene , where the water first narrows by the steps of the church of La Salute , —the mighty Doges would not know in what spot of the world they stood , would literally not recognise ono stone of the great city , for whose sake , and by whose ingratitude , their grey hairs had been brought down with bittcrneaH to tho grave . The remains of their Venice lie hidden behind tho cumbrous masses which were tho delight of tho nation in its dotage ; hidden in many a grass-grown court , and silent pathway , and lightless canal , where the slow waves have sapped their foundations for five hundred years , and must soon prevail over them for ever . Ifc must be our task to glean and gather them forth , and restore out of them somo faint image of the lost city . " With this caution , lot us look steadily at another landscape : — -
VENICE AT LOW TIDE . " A fall of eighteen or twenty inches is enough to show ground over tho greater part of the lagoon ; and at the complete ebb the city is seen standing in the midst of a dark plain of sea-weed , of gloomy green , except only whore the larger brandies of the Urcnta and its associated . streams convcrgo towards tho port of tho Lido . Through thin salt and soinhro plain the gondola and tho fishiiiff-boat advunco by tortuous channelH , seldom more than four or five feet deep , and often so choked with slime that the heavier keels furrow tho bottom till their crossing tracks are Been through tho clear sea water like tho ruts vjwn a wintry road , and the oar leaves hive gashes upon the ground at evert / stroke , or is entangled among the thick weed that fringes the banks with the weir / ht of its sullen waves , Uaninq to and fro
upon the uncertain sway of the exhausted tide . The scene i « often profoundly oppressive , even at thin day , when every plot of higher ground hears wimo fragment of fair building : but , in order to know what it was once , lot tho traveller follow in his boat ufc evening tho windings of hoitui \\ nt'v ( H [ w . nU'dv \\ mnwl far into the midst of the melancholy plain ; let him remove , in 1 uh imagination , the brightness of the great city thai ; still extend * itself in the distance , sind the walls and towers from tho inlands that , are near ; and ho wait , until the brig ] it , inve . stitnro and M \ veet warmth , of tho suiKinli arc withdrawn from tlie water . s , and the black desert of their nhoro lias in its nakedness beneath the night , pathless , comfortless , infirm , lost in dark langour and fearful silence , except where the salt run lets plash into thn lideless pools , or fJie sea-birds flit from their margins with m questioning cry ; and he will bo enabled to outer in nonio soi-fc into the horror of hem fc with which thin solitude wim
anciently chosen by man for ifn habitation . They little thought , who first drovo tho stakes into the Hand , and strewed the ocean reeds for their rest , that tlioir children wor e to be tho princes of that ocean , mid their palaces its pride ; nnd yet , in tho great natural luwn that ; rulo that norrowful wilderness , let it bo remoinbored what Hfcrnngo preparation hud been nia . de for the things which no human imagination could have foretold , and how the whole oxin < enco and tortuno of tho Venetian nation woni anticipated or compelled , by tho setting of those bars and doora to tho rivorn nnd tho hoii . Had deeper currentM divided their islands , hostile navies would again and ngjiiu havo reduced the lieing city into servitude ; had wtrongov BurgoB b « nten
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September 17 , 1853 . ] T HE L E A BER . v 905
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 17, 1853, page 905, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2004/page/17/
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