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Leader (1850-1860), 6th January 1855, Edition 1 of 2, Page 17, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      the mor als of this system are pure ; but it is as capable of being perverted to the ¦ w orst immorality as the most antinomian Gnosticism of former times . Curious and rather out of the way articles in the same number are one on " the British Government and Buddhism , " accusing the Government of supporting Buddhist idolatry in Ceylon ; and one of a particularly interesting nature on " Life in Lunatic Asylums . " The following passage from the ¦ first article will startle some of bur good folks at home : — : ... Perhaps one or two vouchers for sums expended " on her Majesty ' Service" possess an interest justifying their insertion here . _ . ' . ., •* . " The Government of Ceylon Dr . to , Kandy , 1846 . For the cost of the undermentioned articles supplied for performing the ceremony waliyafam , or ' devildance , ' at theper ahera festival in this month : — 16 parras of paddy , at Is . 6 d . £ 1 4 0 60 cocoa-huts .. 0 3 9 . 60 cakes of jaggary 0 3 9 45 measures of oil 1 2 6 14 measures of salt 0 3 9 2 lbs . rosin — 0 0 9 £ 2 18 6 ' " Received from the Government Agent for the Central Province the sum of 21 . 18 s . 6 d . sterling , being in full as above account of particulars furnished for her Majesty ' s service , and for which 1 have signed two receipts of the same tenor and date . " Witnesses , ( Signed ) " I do hereby certify , that the within-mentioned charge is correct , for the service specified , to the best of my knowledge and belief . V \ * ( Signed ) •¦ " Government Agent . " " The Government of Ceylon Dr . " To B . Yakadessa and C . Yakadessa . " For our hire as dancers , as allowed by Government , for performing the ceremony ol waliyakun , or ' devil dance , ' at the perahera festival in this month , at 5 s . each , 07 . 10 s . Od . " ( Signed as before . ) These are same of the fruits of the connexion between the British Government and idolatry in the island of Ceylon . Tait this month is extremely good . There is a strong and decisive article , in which the Leader naturally takes more than usual interest , advocating the establishment of a " new National Party , " and considering the best constitution and the probable prospects of such a party . There are also various articles of literature and information ^ in-one ofwhich—a light , dashing , and suggestive article on American literature—we find the following note referring to Edgar Poe ' s celebrated poem of the " Raven : " "It is current talk in literary circles , that thw production ( which has provoked as ihany parodies as anything ever written , with the exception of Wolfe ' s " Burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna" ) is a paraphrase from the Persian . It was Mr . " Mofussilite" Lang who , hearing it repeated by a literary friend , is . said to have looked up from his book with " Hallo ! that ' s very g 6 od ~ Per § iaTr ! I' instantly quoting the original . Poe "was a goodvPersian scholars : Bentley ' s Miscellany bears internal evidence of a thorough change . This sounds encouraging , but the subject must be examined . The Magazine had a distinct character—for light reading from writers who were not to be met elsewhere ; Shirley Brooks and Charles Reade , for instance . Now , the Magazine has precisely the same elements which constitute the New Monthly . The New Bentley contains the first portion of a story by Harrison AinswoRTH , ; audjthis , _ coupledjvvrith the fact that Ainsworlh ' s Magazine is this month discontinued , explains the case . ~~ TH e ~ T i ^ terial ~' c ^ nsi glied ~ to ~ "th ' e - Editor of the New Monthly is considered so valuable , that another Magazine made out of the refuse , is considered worthy of public support . However , we are bound to admit that there is some variety , and even instruction and amusement to be found in the Magazine under its new management .

      Untitled Article

      A correspondent who'has visited M . Cabana in Paris , and seen the alleged MS . novel of Sir Waltek Scott , the story of which we told last week , sends us the following particulars , which will doubtless be interesting to our readers : — " I decidedly believe M . Cabany to be of perfect good faith in the affair . With the most frank and obliging courtesy he enabled me to look over the MSS . of the first vol . of Moredun . The writing is small but easily legible , rapid , and without any decided character . As far as a hasty glance could satisfy me of the style , I could detect nothing grossly improbable . The dialogue here and there seemed vivid and strong , and a description of scenery from the top of Dunsinnan Hill was much in the manner of Sir Walter : the touches broad and at the same time careful , with , however , a certain something trivial in the general manner . There is a picturesque and animated conference between the Scotch and English kings more particularly in Sir Walter ' s vein . On the whole , I could not bo convinced , on so cursory a glance , tha it might not be written by a dexterous imitator ( I do not say forger ) of Sir Walter ' s

      stylo , while all I saw of M . Cabany certainly convinces mo that ho is a man of perfect sincerity , I may almost say nawetd , in the affair , and believes in hia own story . He is Secretary to the Society of Archivists . ' . .. . . . I should not omit to mention a chapter describing an inundation at Scone , which for power of word-painting M . Cabany says is finer than anything of the sort ho ever read— * it is terribly reaV .... He does not affirm the authenticity of tho MS . ; ho merely relates how tho MS . came into his possession , with its history attached -to it—and ho leaves it to the critics and to tho public to juilge . M . Cabany says that Moredun is so crammed with incident and dramatic interest that Alexandra Dumas would have made fifty volumes of it , and ho intends himself to put it , after publication , into tho hands of a dramaturge . M . Cabany encourages tho supposition that it was thrown aside by Sir Walter as a rough framework of a story to be filled up with his usual elaboration at some future time . At all evonts , I think it looks like tho work of a young hand . Tho scene is mostly laid in Scotland , in" the neighbourhood of Perth , with episodes on tho Border . " Our correspondent adds that M . Cab any , so fur from exulting in tho possession of the MS ., has found nothing but trouble and inconvenience

      from it as yet . He seems also to have no idea of Bamumizing the discovery in England . He has even opened a subscription-list at the Union Bank to pay the expenses of the publication in , English , promising the surplus to the Patriotic Fund . Is there no publisher in the Row , or at least in Broadway , bold enough to relieve M . Cabany of his generosity , and to convert it into a speculation ? Authentic or not , Moredun can scarcely fail to pay . .. ,.-:. ¦¦

      Untitled Article

      The Art Journal enters on a new series with the new year . There is no actual change in the form or appearance of the work , and the editor ' s motive in announcing an era is very frankly avowed—he desires to give tardy patrons the benefit of a fresh start , without breaking faith with his oW subscribers . No . CXCIII . is therefore , so far as the new subscribers ajre , concerned , " a sleep and a forgetting" of No . CXCH ; and , to all tho $ e interesting persons , dawns a bright and hopeful " No . I . The journal start * afresh with the commencement of a course of engravings in the possession of the Queen , which engravings are published in a separate form as the t ' Royal Gallery of Art . " A recent visit to Nuremberg has furnished

      Mr . Fairholt with material for an antiquarian article on Albbecht Durer , to be continued in four successive numbers . The opening paper is cleverly embellished with the author ' s own drawings . Mr . Pyne , the admirable painter of lake and mountain scenery , resumes his contributions on the " Nomenclature of Art . " There is an editorial paper , with illustrative woodcuts , on the ** Marlborough House Exposition ; " and there is an editorial " Memoir of Constabub , " with five elaborate wood-engravings of his best-known pictures . Among the minor articles and notices we find an interesting geometric analysis of the Portland Vase , by Mr . Weij > Tayior . On the whole , the merits of the number seem to justify the appeal to an

      extended class of readers . Let us say a word about the Newcomes . The story lingers , and loses itself willingly in those bypaths of humour and sentiment which are worth all the beaten tracks of all the most exciting novels in the world . To enjoy Thackeray demands the palate of a degustateur , not the gross appetite of a novel reader , ravenous for plot and incident . To drain a number of the Newcomes at a draught is to drink Lafitte or Clos-Vougeot in pewter , and to insult your host by swallowing what you are expected to si p > pouring down your moiith what you should first taste with the breath of you *

      nostrils . Thackeray ' s stories , we say , are to be sippedJikejthe finest and rarest wine ; and it is , -neither to his praise nor to his shame , _ but simply to his liking , to invite none but the epicures of life ' s various-feast x > f-joys and sorrows to his select table . Gnly ~ ttrose ~ who have shed their illusions and passed through a premature eyniGism into a larger and more complete phi--losophy of life—less bitter and more compassionate ,, less trustful and more sympathetic , saddened rather than sad , and smiling genially through unshed tears at human weakness and human vanity—only those can feel the subtle charm of a humourist like Thackeray . "

      We may take this opportunity of noticing Mr . Lever ' s new story , the Martins of Cro' Martin ( Chapman and Hall ) , of which we have the second number . The scene is Ireland , and Mr . Lever ' s favourite part of Ireland—Galway ; the materials are pretty much as usual , the only variation of his former explorations ; in the samc-direction being ^ hero is a heroine—a Diaka . Vernon , of painful , impossible masculinity , who manages a dairy and an election , hunts and moralises , with equal vigour and absurdity . The first number of a new monthly periodical , The Literary Mail-Coach , claims aline ; it seems to be conducted by young gentlemen , and its merits are—slang .

      Untitled Article

      THE LAWYER IN THE CAMP . A Month in the Camp before Sebastopol . By a Non-Combatant . Longman and Co . The Non-Combatant is a Templar , who , believing the " seat" of war large enough to afford him a corner , resolved to go thither in vacation time , and see the siege of Sebastopol . He is not the only votary of Themis who has offered parenthetical sacrifices at the shrine of Mars . There be many lawyers who delight in the stud y of strategy . Only the other day a legal member of the Commons' House instructed that assembly in matters military there are but few strategists who delight in the stud y of law . In some

      sort , indeed , your lawyer is the soldier of civil life ; he fights your battle tor you as the soldier does , with this difference , that while he charges the opposing party to the suit , ten to one but in the very nature of things he charges the luckless wight who may enlist his services rather more severely . The gentlemen of the coatee shako are only more expensive than the gentlemen of the long robe and wig , because there are so many of them ; and it certainly would be a nice question for a casuist , whether a nation has gained more by its soldiers than by its men of law . Seriously ; our Non-Co mbatant , our Templar on a tour in the Oamp , is a mind devoid of

      man of sense and spirit , with a healthy tone of , quite anything that can bo called croaking . He went out to tho enmp , taking witn hinvhis own tent , his own horse , his own commissariat , and ot course ma own servant , a Greek of the Ionian Islands . He departed from Malta four days after the battle of tho Alma , and mot the intelligence of that splendid exploit as the ship came to an anchor in the Golden Horn in a fog , on the very day when the same great story sot all England ablaze . FromStamboul hoinadb nis'way to tho Crimea in the CumGria ,. touching at Eupatona . steaming thence at a safe distance past the big forts of Sebastopo 1 , rounding Capo Chorson , and swooping into Balaklava [ Jay , whore he landed on the 5 th , twelve days after tho arrival of tho Allies in that once-aequestered spot . It is curious that those twelve days had sufficed to make tho atmosphere

      Untitled Article

      January 6 , 1855 ] THE IE A PER . i ?

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 6, 1855, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2072/page/17/