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    cinct but complete educational Manuals , by Professors of distinction , on Plane Trigonometry , Mechanics , and Hydrostatics ( Longman and Co . ); the Steppingstone to Animal and Vegetable Physiology , by Mary Shield ( Longman and Co . ) , a modest but not ineffective conversational introduction to the science of -what the authoress not inaptly calls the " physical revelation" of the Creator ; an , illustrated Byron ( Tizetelly and Co . ) , which would be better without the illustrations ; the first number of a new story , by Frank Jairlegh , called Harry Coven / ale ' s Courtship , and What Became of ll ; a temperate and reasonable pamphlet , by a Catholic Priest , on the reconciliation of science and religion ( 7 s / % - steal Science the Handmaid or the Enemy of the Christian Mevelalion ?) , by the Rev . Jaraes A Slothert ( Marsh and Beattie , Edinburgh ); and an Essay , with the startling title of Ireland ' s JRecovenj , by a gentleman with the famous name of Jolin Locke ( John W . Parker and Son ) , of which we may say a few words .

    We have been so used to hear of nothing but difficulty and agitation in connexion with Ireland , that the very title of this Essay is a recommendation which its contents do not disappoint . In twenty-four pages , supported by a copious and careful appendix of the data on which , the Essay is founded , Mr . Locke discusses , with the closeness and precision of a practised statist , the convalescent symptoms of the " first flower of the earth , fisrt gem of the sea , " whose virtues and capacities have so long been a mere figure of speech for agitators , who lived on the sickness , and would have been ruined by the cure , of their distracted country * In emigration and its accompanying reparative , agencies of decreased

    pauperism and industrial progress , in a solvent proprietary , in a reproductive workhouse system , in practical educational efforts , in the rise of wages , in agricultural improvements , in social concord , in renewed commercial and manufacturing activity , in the development of national resources , in railway enterprise , and last , but not least , in the operation of the Encumbered Estates Commission , Mr . Xocke discerns the slow but sure recovery of Ireland . Poor Ireland has been so much regarded as a hospital of incurables , and its doctors have been so generally mad-doctors , or quacks , that we may well be glad to meet with one who feels the pulse without shaking his head , and promises a cure without the alternative of killing .

    * . J " rutKs Conflicts and Truth ' s Triumphs ; or , the Seven-headed Serpent Slain , by Stephen Jenrier , M . A .. . —an allegory , and a series of Essays of a theological tenor , directed , apparently , against Puseyism and other " serpents" in the Church ' of England .

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    MR . MOONCALF AMONG THE AUTHORS . Recollections of Literary Characters and Celebrated Places . By Mrs . Thomson . Author of " Memoirs of the Court of Henry VIII ., " &c , &c . Bentley . On turning to Mrs . Thomson's Preface , after looking through her two volumes of so-called Recollections ^ it afforded us considerable relief and satisfaction to read the following explanatory sentence : — - " In venturing to offer , from my own personal knowledge , reminiscences of some of the departed literati of England , I wrote under the appellation of ' A Middle-a « ed Man / in order that , by better disguising myself , I might at the same time express myself the more unreservedly . " For Mrs . Thomson herself we have a great respect . She has hitherto , as far as we know anything of her

    works , honestly enough endeavoured to turn what literary ability she possesses to the best account ; and we should have been "very sorry if -we had beer , obliged to say to her , what we must positively say to some responsible person , in reference to the volumes "before us . This person we now find ready-made to our hands in the shape of " A Middle-aged Man ; " and we propose , in a critical point of view , to " collar" him forthwith , on the charge of having produced an extremely absurd and wretched book . To Mrs . Thomson herself , we respectfully bow our farewell at the outset . To Mrs . Thomson ' s assumed character we say : — " Come into court , and be judged ! You are , in a meek and mild way , one of the most arrant humbugs we have encountered for vc long time past ; and you shall not show yourself in publi c ¦ with impunity . "

    Though the name of the " Middle-aged M " an" does not appeal-, earnest investigation of his character , manners , habits , and style of writing , convinces us that he must certainly have been announced , when he got himself asked to parties by his famous literary friends , as Mr . Mooncalf . By that name we will call him—subject of course to correction , if we have mado any mistake , and if ho will honour us by leaving his card at the office of this journal . Wo consider Mr . Mooncalf to be a humbug , because , by his own confcssion > lie knows next to nothing of most of the literary characters about whom Le protends to inform the public in his soft and slip-slop way . Ho begins ¦ with Dr . Maginn . U I saw him one evening , " says Mr . Mooncalf ; " how well I remember it ! nnd with what throes and throbs the remembrance is

    oven now i-ecallctl 1 " What wont oh to produce all these " throes and throbs" in what our author , a little further on , touchingly calls his " elderly henrt ? " Did Maginn and Mooncalf burst into tears and fall on each other ' s necks ? Nothing of the sort . Mooncalf was not oven introduced . A cixclc of adoaii'ors stood round Maginn . Mooncalf pottered about outside the circle , looked , listened , passed on—and there waa an end of it for that time . Again , Mooncalf meets Maginn , looking shabby , at a friund ' s house . Madnn does not oven glance at him—ho shuts down a window—

    -Maginn ( don ' t be excited !) says , " Thank you "—and , on the friend coming into tU <) , Jrooin , adds , "lam going out of town . " Whereupon , " sorrow , aicknoss , weariness of spirit , embarrassed circumstances , and a mournful list of etceteras , " suggest themselves to Moonoulf , and ho runs " down thu dingy Rtiwrt ) - \ vitU a mournful conviction that adversity with her rapid strides had overtaken poor Maginn . " On thu third occasion , h « actually yets a day ' s talk with tho doctor , who enters into a narrative of i \ duel in which ho was engaged , and speaks of a certain " beaten and affrighted publisher ? Ili a lip , whilo talking on thin latter tonic , " quivered , hia frame writhed , a tear

    dimmed his eye , " &c , &c . Under these distressing circumstances , what does Mr . Mooncalf do ? " Eleven o ' clock came , and I rushed into the street . " What else ? "I saw Maginn no more . " On Coleridge Mr . Mooncalf is wonderfully strong . He sat on Coleridge ' s knee ; he heard Coleridge tell the story of Mary of Buttermere , withthe tears running down his cheeks all the time , and " a circle" ( there is always " a cirele" in Mr . Mooncalf ' s recollections ) " of admiring and sympathetic young women" for audience . Coleridge paid a visit at a house , and Mooncalf was in that house at the time . Coleridge lectured , and Mooncalf was

    among the audience . Any more evidences of Mooocalt's intimate knowledge of Coleridge , and perfect fitness to inform the public accordingly ? No more . Let us wipe our eyes after Mary of Buttermere , and get on to Mackintosh . Mooncalf has only a " dawning acquaintance" here , when he is so fortunate as to fall ill . His " disease" resembles " at first the fatal disease of which Mackintosh ' favourite daughter had died . " Mackintosh in conaequence calls to inquire after him , and lends him "books . He . gets convalescent , and peeps out of the window at Mackintosh walking in the garden . He gets well , and dines in Mackintosh ' s company . Anything more in the way of familiar knowledge of this " literary character ? " Nothing more . Take away Mackintosh , and bring in Campbell .

    Our readers will be glad to hear , on the indisputable authority of Mr . Mooncalf , that Locliiel was thus composed : —" Tire rhymes were written first , and the lines filled in afterwards ! " They will be grieved to hear that Mooncalf , when young , read the Pleasures of Hope , and then angled all day , " seated with the bearish inconsiderateness of boyhood , on the verycentre of the middle step" ( of some house—Campbell ' s , as far as we can guess ) , " with my great feet on the lower one , my stupid eyes fixed on my line . " One day , these " stupid eyes" saw Campbell disembarking from a boat . "I ran" cries Mooncalf , " for my life ; the neatly-chiselled 'profile was all I could perceive . " Another day , Mooncalf calls for a friend in a hackney-coach . The friend comes down stairs . Heaven and earth ! Mr Campbell is with him , and jumps into the coach . " Mr . Campbell and I , " 8 ays miserable Mooncalf , u sat side by side , my friend opposite . I was again disappointed , for Campbell never turned Ms face to me—I saw nothing

    but the faultless and beautiful outline of his profile . " Anything more ? Yes . A Literary Fund Dinner at the Freemason ' s Tavern . " It is there , '' writes Mooncalf , rapturously sycophantic , " that I have mourned with the accomplished Lord Carnarvon over the monstrous cruelty of the dog-cart ; and my blood has boiled at the recitals in the Cruelty to Animals' meetings . It is there that Sussex was , and Cambridge is , perennial chairman . It was there that this far-famed literary dinner took place . I crept in among the humble ! " Oh , Mooncalf ! Mooncalf ! " Among the humble" —after curdling our loyal blood by talking of two Royal Dukes as " Sussex" and " Cambridge !"—But what went on at the dinner ? Among other things , Campbell tried to make a speech , and broke down , and was groaned at , and Mooncalf was indignant , and Campbell died some time afterwards , and Moonoalf saw him once before he died . So end the author ' s personal recollections of Campbell . Other " recollections , " with some ideas and moral views of Mr .

    Mooncalf s , we must lump together generally . Ho -writes of Genius , that " she . ought to liave some one to look after her affairs "—of drunkenness ( when ifc is the drunkenness of a poet ) , that it is " a dark shadow which the righteous might venture to pity , the ri gid to forgive "—of Mrs . Siddons , that she wa a " a splendid specimen of humanity "—of Letitia Landon , that she " bowled her hoop in one hand , and created verses at the same time ' - —of the history of the gifted , that it is " a mournful history "—of Sir Thomas Lawrence , that "he looked more like tho Star of the West than the plodding artist" — . of G . P . It . James , that " one strives to see in him the lofty annalist of the Field of the Cloth of Gold "—of Reynold ' s Portraits of Ladies , thut they " bequeath to us the memory of tho graceful matron , and of the feminine young creature just emerging into maturity in the higher ranks' '—of the Essay on Theodore Hook ' s Life , in the Quarterly Revieio , that he ( Mooncalf ) " could not recover it for days "—and of Sir Walter Scott , that " he never could have written a modern English novel .

    We have nearly done Avith Mr . Mooncalf ; hut we cannot possibly let him go till we have exhibited him in one of tlie amorous phases of his disposition . Ho falls in love—of course with a " literary character . " In fact , with no lesa a person than the once famous and now forgotten poetess , " 1 ... K . L . " Mr . Mooncalf ia introduced to tho beloved object by thut old-established transactor of general mortal business , " Fate . Ho gets a commission in the army—is ordered to Canada—goes to take leuvo of " L . E . L . "—finda her " chatting with an antique lady of literary faint )' about going to a partyfears he is u de trop "—feels " stupid" and " choked" —shukes hands , goes down stairs—is followed by "L . JK . L . " with ft little book . " 'Tin my / irsfc poem , " slio said ; " perhaps you will be so very good as to read it —/ believe

    no one else hax . " ( How accurately " L . K . L . " had taken JYlr . Mooncalf ' s exact mental measure ]) Tho year 1830 arrives , and with it Alooncnlfirorn Canada , lie goes to a dinner party , and is , of course , tho first , in bin regular capacity of bore , to "join the ladies "—" a crow , " as ho siiyH of himself , " among a covey of delicate woo ( l-pi <* oons . " The door opena , " A lady , young and fair , and dressed in tliat . . stylo that murks a mixture with all . sorts of society , came into the circle . " ( Circles agoin !) I \ loon <; n ) J'having become * uncouth in ideas from long rumblings , " in nilimUal U > tears . II « duea not believo th at tho adored pool , ie object euros for him ; but he becomes her i ' nnt friend , and vinits her constantly itt a houae where hIhj boards with " three maiden ladiod and a venerable iatlior . " Oftou Iiuh Mooncalf found her in

    the "dingy garden" of that house , " talcing breath i ' wm the Jiot preHcnoo ot n reviewer . " Why "hot ? " JJut kit , uia proceed . Mooncalf goes abroad ¦ again , comes back , and finds * ' JL . E . L . " in bud spirits , thinking society

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    November 18 , 1854 . ] THE LEADER . 1099 ^^^ ^^______ ^ _____ _ . . ' - . - 1— I !

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 18, 1854, page 1099, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2065/page/19/