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Critics are nob the Legislators , but the judges an . d police of literature . They do not raaie laws— they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Review .
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In the great Mahratta war , Lord Lake was so bothered by the number of letter-writing civilians about his camp , that , whenever he caught an officer ¦ with apervln his ljand , he used to burst out with "Damn your -writing ; mind your fighting , " Lord Lake ' s maxim is , in its way , a very good statement of the kind of relation that war has to literature . When people are fighting , they must give Tip writing ; and , when fighting is going on , those ¦ whose business it is to write must either not write at all , or must "write about that . As we have said more than once , the present-war is telling on our book-trade , both by diminishing the demand for works of pure literature , aad by increasing the demand for writings of a particular character . The former effect , indeed , may fail to be observed by those who glance over our literary advertisements , and see the announcements of new works of pure literature still so numerous \ but t he latter is palpable enough—as witness
the shoals of books about the war and . its seats published , or about to be published .. This indeed , is one striking way in which , the war operates on literature—that it sends out the national thought in new and unexplored geographical directions ; consecrates names and spots never heard of before ; makes new ground , rich with great acts and associations . A week or two ago and there wasa stream in the Crimea flowing oh , night and day , quiet and unregarded ; and at one place , where a road crossed this stream , high steeps rose above it , over which day and night passed too , disturbing nothing save , mayhap , a loose stone , that would roll , down into the gullies ; and now that spot belongs to the imagination of Great Britain for evermore , and a perpetual allusion in literature will be made i ; 6 the battle of the Alma . Does it not seem as if place and name had been alike predestined ? Who would not wish to see a photograph of those Crimean steeps , that have waited six thousand years , and , at last , are famous ?
Certainly the next thing to a photograph , and better , in some respects , is a letter of the Times' correspondent . All the world have been admiring the series of letters in which the correspondent of the Times , who accompanies the expedition in . the Crimea , has described the-successive phases of the Expedition—its embarkation at Varna , Jts voyage , its landing , &c . ; but no letter of the series has been more remarkable than that written on the heights of Alma and describing the battle . Lord Raglan ' s despatches are clear and good ; and the newspapers have published many excellent accounts from var ious sources ; but the Times' correspondent accompanies the expedition in the spirit of ah artist , a commissioner of literature sent out to seize events and scenes as they rise , and clothe them , on the instant , with the fitting
language . He is as good as a Horace V ernet . The war of course gives rise to still another kind of literature than that of the concrete description of scenes and facts connected with the war ; it gives rise to a literature of speculation as to the mode of conducting the business of war . The Edinburgh Review , just published , has one very striking article , ¦ whi ch , but for recent events , would not have been called for , and could not have been written—that on the " ¦ Reform of'the War Departments . " The ideas of this article are two : first , the simplification of our -wai' -business by putting an end to the present system of divided functions among the Secretaryship-at-War , Commandership-in-chief , Mastership of the Ordnance , &c , and consolidating all powers of army arrangement in the hands of one Minister of War 5 and secondly , the reform of the military service by a system of education for tho officers . The reviewer ' s arguments on the first head derive groat force from the terrible revelations of mismanagement and deficiency in the medical and transport departments which have been reaching us from the scene of the war—not half enough of Burgeons , no lint for bandages , miserable means of transport for the wounded * and so on ; what tho reviewer advances on the second head is sound in the main doctrine , but seems crude and exceptionable in its details . As the Review has but just reached us , we have spaco for no longer comment . The Quarterly has not reached us ; but the table of contents shows ua that there is not one word in it about the war . This is a neglect of duty .
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Among the perlodicala of the month wJiich have come into our hands az'O three new candidates for the public favour , " as tho phrnso is . There is No . 1 of The Statist ^ a Magazine of Statistical and Actuarial Information , loth Popular and Scientific , announced as under the editorship of 11 . Thompson . TorciNO , Esq ., F . S . S ., and to bo published every alternate month , at the cost of ono shilling and sixpence ; there is No , ] of the West of Scotland Magazine , a sixpenny monthly , published in Glasgow ; and there ia No . 1 of the Peoples Monthly Register and General Review , a penny periodical , to be made up of a r ^ sumd of th « month ' s news , and a selection of literary criticisms culled from various papers . None of these first numbers strikes us as of particularly good promise . Tho Statist has a paper , by tlic Editor , on tho Statistics of Accidental Death , and ono on Cholera Statistics , from neither of which enn we draw any notable inferences , though tho former ia evidently laborious . Lot us advise the Editor to liave as few articles as possible with Vto be continued" At tho end of thorn . Magazine-writers ought , as a
general rule , to discuss their topics in single articles ; and to admit more continuations than can be helped is an editorial blunder . In the Statist , three articles are " to be continued . " The same advice maybe given to the Editor of the West of Scotland Magazine , in which , small as it is , there are two "to be continued's . " This periodical is intended—in the usual phrase of prospectuses—to " supply an often felt and complained of want ; " that is , it is to furnish Glasgow and the West of Scotland with a high-class magazine of home manufacture , but avoiding local questions , and treating only general topics . Much of the writing in the present number is green and grandiloquent , suggesting very young men ; but we do not know how far Glasgow talent is represented in it . The People ' s Monthly Register is neatly printed , and a good pennyworth of paper ; and we should like to see its future numbers well edited in the spirit of the sensible opening address .
" We have the prospectus of another new monthly , the first number of which is to appear in November . It is to be called the Masonic Mirror , and is to be devoted to " the proceedings of masonic lodges , the welfare of the order , the interests of its charities , and to literature and news . " Nothing will appear in it " in any way trenching on masonic secrets ; " but it is hoped the brothers will find it suitable for their families .
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Apropos of the publication * of Mr . Bunckusy ' s Essay on Free-Trade , which gained the Anti-Corn-Law League prize of two hundred guineas , the Aihenceum has again been attacking the Prize-Essay system . The objection of our contemporary to the system is that it makes one or two hundred persons all devote time and labour to a certain work , and then pays only one of thera— -which , says our contemporary , is anti-mercantile and a swindle ., We do not exactly see the force of this reasoning , which would knock many other things on the head besides Prize-Essays ; but , certainly , the experience , the pfablic have had of the Prize-Essay system is not in its favour . Almost the only very striking book we have heard of owing its origin to competition . f 6 r a prize , is M . Proudhon ' s Treatise on
Property , which did not get the prize , and made the adjudicators ( honest citizens of Besancon , we believe ) stand aghast . It would , certainly , have been worth -while , in the opinion of most people , for society to pay M . Proudhon for not writing ; and there is many another man whose silence would be cheap at 50 OJ . a year . At this moment , however , the Prize-Essay system in Great Britain is being put to the test on a more magnificent scale than usual . Some sixty years ago , or thereby , a Mr , Burnett—a gentleman who * had been troubled with scepticism—died in the north of Scotland , leaving a certain property , under the care of Professors and other dignitaries in Aberdeen , the accumulated value of which , at certain intervals , was , by his will , to be invested in two prizes to be bestowed
on the writers of the best and second-best essays on the Being and Attributes , of the Deity . The idea of the deceased gentleman apparently was that there ought to be a new demonstration of the evidences of religion , natural and revealed , every forty or fifty years—so as to keep pace , on the orthodox side , with the science and speculation of the age . What the subsequent Bridgewater bequest accomplished once , Mr . Burnett , took care should be done , by 7 ns bequest , over and over again , periodically as needed . The first competition for the Burnett prizes took place many years ago , on- which occasion the Rev . Principal Browk , of Aberdeen , obtained the first prize ; and Dr . Sumner , the present Archbishop of Can ?
terbury , the second . The second cycle of the competition has now come round ; and at the beginning of this year , in compliance with advertisements which had been circulated for two or three years , a shoal of essays were sent in , for adjudication , to tho trustees in Aberdeen . The first prize this time , in consequence of the increased value of the property , ia certainly worth getting—some 1700 / , or 1800 Z . in cash ; and the second , is not despicable—400 ? ., or thereby . The trustees have done their best to select competent adjudicators—Mr . Isaac Tatxor , Mr . Baden Pov / ELt , and Mr . Henry Rogers , being the persons chosen . Each of these gentlemen receives a handsome honorarium for his trouble . Two of the tarce
were in Abordeen the other day , and announced that they had gone so far in the examination of the essays—having 30 t aside a largo proportion of mere " rubbish 11 after testing them , and reserved a certain portion for farther scrutiny . Some of tho reserved essays , it was intimated , were of high quality . Tho chance of a prize of 1800 / ., we should think—especially seoing that the former competition under the same bequest was dignified by tho appearanco of tho present Primate of the Church of England in the lists—ought to bring out the bost wranglers in Britain ; and , considering the character of tho judges , the probability is that the successful essays will exhibit philosophical British orthodoxy at ita best . *
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Among now works advertised as forthcoming , tho following arc announced for " next week : "—An Inquiry into the Principles of Church Authority ; or Reasons for recalling my Subscription to the Royal Supremacy , by tho Rev . R . J . WitniDRFOBCB ; and Lord Carusl . ic ' 8 Diary in Turkish and Greek Waters ;—both from tho prosa of Mossrs . Longman . Among works "just ready , " or ' * to bo published shortly , " are tho much anticipated Literary Life and Correspondence of Lady Blessing ton ; tho equally desired Thirty Years of Foreign Policy j or a History of the Sec rotary ts ? iipn of the Earl of Aberdeen and Viscount Pahncrston , by Mr . Disraeli's truculent biographer , whoever ho is 5 a book on the Military Forces and Institutions of Great
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976 THE LEADER . [ Saturday /
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 14, 1854, page 976, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2060/page/16/
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