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    Untitled Article

    « wriai 5 ^ gain 8 tihe . x ) eftccof Eurppe with , tinsrhaodfaliof fever-patiBttt » aDd . old > MM « . fTfaTPoles were rconstantty Hi-treated : two or three ^ were aas ^ sinated . A Greek officer insulted a Pole on the road to thePirams :. the Pole caTled ^ hiin to account ; . * he Creek refusedto fight , saying that he . did not know whom he had to do with- " Sir , tetifedthe Pole , "lam an Officer , as you are , arid more than you . are , forI have ft&t , and atn ' re * lyto fight agam . " The Oreek had the courage to hold ^ tonis * biot , krtd did notBght . ^ Despite tMs « trworthy treatment , the poor Poles tried to £ aW themselves useftl . A « re * r © ke oat at Athens . The Greeks epected ^ as usnal , iailoolron aad intake iatwoise . XhePoles exposed their fiwes .. Skortly afteriney swere « ilfiven « tfay irom Attoew *> eeause they gave umbrage to Russia . They-were ar «« rod from their feou « s = witha brutaJity which added to the odious nature of the tbBj&wetvM . They-were , embarked without being allowed to . aminge tbeir affiuro , aiid « ta * ted *> r America without money . The Greek , government , to justify its conduct , published in its official journal those documents seized in the house -of the-chief of the Poles , General Milbitz—their , proclamations addressed two years before to the Greeks * f 'Bulgaria and ^ Servia to exhort . them to beware of Kussia .

    The . most amusing . part of Greek policy is . this , that whilst : the whale nation Affects to commiserate the wretched ^ condition of . the rayas of the Turkish empire , it . pevmBts . in -maintaining the law -which excludes . those «? ayas , mho -may be induced by : false reports ; to come -and replenish the ^ sohiudes of the young country , fiom all the honours , and , above all , from all tke j emoluments of office . The&ctis that the true Hellen—rthe niatt'whoifaneies he - can . see Constantinople from the top © f the-mountains of Arcadia , . and who Reaches his wife to proanse Constantinop le ; as a reward to good childrenlooks forward to the time-when Jhe-shall be able to conquer the new empire of-T * u ? kevexoelor slaughter tie Moslems , and keep the Christian rayas in

    , ^/ bondrof , modified serfdom ; oi-, as the prudent express it ior European ea » s , ina kind of tutelage until they have reached a . political and moral development equal in magnificence to that of ibe : | ren < uine Autochthons . It will be well for statesmen to keep in mind this feeling in any future ansangeaneets . ; for , whateveranaybe the destiny of the much-talked-of Christian population of Turkey , they-must not . change their condition for the sole jwxjfit of " free Greece . " . ..,., ,,., We iaid noted ; 8 eveTaL other : points » for observation sn- M . Aboub ' aIrveiy smd fascinating volinae ; iand : peri » aps * vhat we have -said -will- ( scarcely give & oerretet idea © fits ¦ coateirts . 'We have insisted on matters that -specially interest "us . ^ M . About goes over the whole ground , talks of manners as well tasofgovemment , ' -andprefers telKnga ; goodstory to . givmg a statistical table . "He is eminently a cheerful traveller , and knows how to record , his agreeable imuressioHS in eDiarrammatic and sparkHng language . Will he allow us , in

    . parting ,- to say , however , that we wish : he would discard for the future from his-, pages . theJTrench conventional Englishman—the imbecile islander . who will notgiveAihaBdto-a fello w-creature- in distress- untiLhe has obtained an - answer to the question , " Are you a gentleman 2 " - — : the fabulous fop -who rcarefully preserves : his own accent in speaking foreign , languages , for fear of not beingrecognised as aBriton—above all , the branchy peer of the realm , wio as always ^ marrying some exquisite beauty , treating her ( as was to be «^ pected from the commercial principles of one of sa nation of shopkeepers ) as " a < thing he has bought , " and finally abandoning lier to a . succession of - ainiable foreigner's — -for , shame . upon them !—all lovely , barbarous ladies , 3 Trench included , are extremely , naughty , and love to punish the honest . Awkward boobies who marry , without appreciating them , in a way peculiarly . pleasant to-themselves ? If M . About can get through this breathless questhe hint it containsHis lishman is

    lion , we hope he will ponder on . - Eng an unreal being ; and his presence in such agreeable pages i& liable to perpe-: tuate the extraordinarily erroneous ideas existing in France as to our national . character . What is intended as harmless , pleasantry is taken by the mass o € readers . as positive fact . Nine ^ tentihs of our neighbours look upon the ^ Englishas a set of idiotic sentimentalists , perpetually going about the world fowling " Qw Jenny C to the first , pretty jaee thejyneet . In other departjments . the mfsapprehension " . is "kept Sp by fliuailar meansTWe "heard the other day a grave artist state that thousands , of English . go every year to Itafy and buy pictures to persuade the world that they , appreciate tho arts ; iiut they don ' t want their purchases—send them ^ home by water , andaever wrish ; to . see them again;—there is , in fact , \ a large warehouse built on the ibaaaks of the Thames—he had seen it—in which all the works of art bought in ~ Italy for * the last fifty years by private Englishmen . still remain in bond !

    J ^ obody doubted the fact ; and ; the only remark the aneodote excited was anade by a well-known political writer , who said , " It must be true because it > is extraordinary . " We should like to see this absurd impression done . away with , because it is . not -good , for the French to believe that the . principles of liberty can bo best applied by a . nation of eccentric buffoons .

    Untitled Article

    FIVE . FICTIONS . JPkiftp Lancaster . By . Maria Norria . Sauaders and Otley . Matilda Lonsdale . By Charlotte . Adams . Eoutlaage . HUdrei ; the Daughter . By Mrs . Newton Crossland . liouaedyo . The Old Chelsea Bun Howe . Hall , Virtue , and Co . The , Step-Son . By F . JT .-Dyer . Bcntley . Mies Nobri 8 possesses in a very eminent degree all the qualifications for a Jiighly successful novelist except one . She has . a clear insig ht into the delicatc individualisins which mai-k the various components of middle-class isociety ; she can paint them faithfully and in good keeping throughout a — 1 . _ ...-. . « l- » v-v ' 1-knn n "knmtir if /\ in r \ ^* l \ n iiiAnti ol-k rk iu nv /> nn ( 11 11 trl ir M Mf > l * jl . l 111 Ilf ^ l * 0 fc # •»«^* -. » -r-

    JOliUVY i DW \ 3 lliVO «* * ti ( J * *** XJA A ** AU * V » L * A f AJIU *< - > V-T . V * W ^* - *»^* J --- —— - viewp , free from social , political , or religious prejudices , sensible in her own Views and suggestions , and she writes clear , intelligible English without any . attempt . at fine writing , or that vulgar weakness of strongminded penwomen laborious struggles after mystic profundity . All this she can do—but this she cannot do —or , at any rate , shows no signs in Philip Lancaster of the power to do it—she cauuot construct a story . A more fragmentary , desultory , rambling , an * unexciting series of incidents strung together more at random , without any view to 11 whole or to a definite conclusion , we have seldom read . At the same time , wo must statp that we . wore constrained to road the entire three volumes from beginning to end , and even with xnbi'tt pleasure than is often our fate when journeying through this territory of our literature . TJ 10 want of the power to construct a . story is ft

    deficiency not remediable by study or volition— -the . « tory-teller no . more Jit than rthe . poet , poei&s and stories beiag equallyof the creative power . Hence , in our inability to tell whether Miss Norris possesses or . does'not possess that power , we can offer no advice to h . er . If the former be the case , we can predict a high rank for the writer of PMUp . Lancaster anaoag oar female novelists— -if the latter , the sooner she leaves this department of letters the better . We should have considered Matilda Lonsdaje as belonging to that delightful class of books of the -tenderest insipidity , spiced with cant , called Books for the : Youag , had it not been for the absence of any intimation to

    that effect on the title-page , and the presence inside of , too many words . nofc eadable by the young . We do seriously hope , for the honour of oar country , that there does not exist in the . British islands one person capable of reading Matilda Lonsdale fluently , who could possibly take t he slightest interest in it . Story therei » none ; not even the meagrest . attempt at one . characters there Are none ; there are only a few incidents that must have fatigued , the actors , and that should have been -forgotten in theacting . A wet day in the smallest country town could not be tamer and flatter than the life of Alatilda Lonsdale . The writer can spell correctly , and that is all the power « he manifests in this book .

    Hildred is very little . removed from Matilda Lonsdale r and is only removed at . ail by the fact'of there being a story ; a good one potentially , but spoiled in the telling . Hildred ' s father is an immensely wealthy merchant , and wtcn she was a , anere child he settled twenty thousand ; pounds . upon her by deed of gift , which has been amassing interest until she comes of age , -which « he does immediately on the story opening . She . then discovers that tire money bo invested thad been placed in her father ' s hands by . a French Count just before the Reign of Terror , that he had been executed together with his-wife , and that her father had invested the money in her behalf without tanking the slightest inquiry regarding the heirs of the dead Count . Hildred-decides that she will not touch a penny of the money , but will find out the , heir -and restore it intact- Now it is evident that out of this material an excellent story might have been made—the search of Hildred t

    for the count ' s heir might have become , in adequate hands , a companion o Evanweline—a Pilgrimage of Principle as hers was a . Pilgrimage of Love . No such thing , howevei-, does Mrs . Crossland do . After having talked bi » - about- what she is going to do , Hildred never does anything whatever towards finding the heir , but simply dist ils the most feverish Methodism with a consumptive sempstress until a young man proposes to her and . is accepted , who turns-out , without any effort on Hildred ' s part to discover it , to be grandson of tie executed Count , so that Hildred pays the money to Jier own husband , «« d . the « tory ends with justice being done by the blindest chancerand -without the ; sUghtest self-sacrifice- The quantity of scriptucephraseB in the book will , however , ensure its sale . , . Many and singidar are the avocations and employments that human beings will of theirown will select as their contribution to the progress of socie ^ p-. Nothn ^ so lofty but some man will scale it—nothing so mean but some one

    will descend to it ; noihing so . perilous but some will daxe it ; so pusillanimous but a small soul is found to do it . Here we have somelady or genUeman unknown , who . forfleven years has placidly walked out of the worlds arena , and leaving Com Laws , Crystal . Palaces , Ministerial incapacity , and the Crimean war to settle themselves , has taken his or her camp-stool into a corner , and busied himself in reading some twenty volumes of two-centuryold literature , and in assiduously unlearning the English language of to-day , not to get out of the Bast the lesson for the Present , but simply to be able to write a batch of possible episodes of human existence with a certain vraisemblanceand local colour correct to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries . The Old ChdstaBim House is the last note of this strildng-backwards clock . Weiave little sympathy with this bastard antique . We cannot see -whvttrmesrarre-tafe , ^ that . < no ^ one ~ could . jwxite . in . .. modem Eng hsh without its

    meagreness being sun-clear , should possess any additional < A « aa to notice oecauseTall words now ending in " ancy" or "ism" are spelt with " aiaon' instead , and " worser " . is . always used for " worse . " Neither can we see whya work wliich no publisher . would think of printing in to-day ' s type ,- should tee worth printing . in red . and black , in the imitated typography of last century . Surely the Present has . other , claims-upon its sons and daughters ; ( surely the dead Past has enough dead of its own to bury , without a member , of the liyiqg Present sending a supererogatory £ unily of illegitimate Passings for it to inter Waiving 4 bis serious fundamental objection , and imagining the Ota Chelsea Bun House to bo a bond fide production of last century , it is pleasant reading enough . We read it with a kind of feeling that it is genuine , and that we are imorovinir our acquaintance with a past age ; but when we

    come -to recollect that it is . not genuine , we feel how our time J » as been wasted , and conclude that if we have received . any impressions from . the book we had better erase them as so many delusions . When we have paid our lialf-dollar to see Joiee Hoth , and learn after that she was not 17 X years old , and did not nurse Washington , it is no satisfaction to beitold that she was . a very good . make-up of that-age , andreally was -a physical curiosity . Mr . JPyer , the aotborof the Step-Son , is , wo believe , a young man , who , when much younger , went through that phase of literary wild-oats sowing , tho writing and printing of a volume of verse . It is . a great proof ot Mr . Dyer ' s good sense that he has now taken up with plain proae . For this reason , and also because we think that of first attempts nil nisi bonum is a good critical onaxhn , we deiiuo to speak as favourably of the Slep ^ Son a * wo conscientiously can . The wholo work bears unmistakable . marks ot tue writer having sedulously and persistently done his best : he hascuremuy compiled a story , and has told it with the most scrupulous care . Xho Mep-« v ,. -V 11 ... _ __ 1 ., : * T ? ., ^ f ; oi , om an nixjeuce ox accoi weii written uo ± k > * j .. ««

    „ don is 'uwjgiy us ru- ^ m 6 ., any conceit or effort rcmovesa host of aninor Oiults . Wo would , ^ however , suggest to Mr . Dyer that tho elements of liifl story only appeal to the lowo » J etaaeofcultivatioin , and that he seems to have ignored »^ 7 « ° progress of sterlin g fiction . Mr . Bode . nnl is a country . S ^^^ ^ j »** 3 V * Catholic , and wea&iy . He . hiis a « on Frederick , a »{ W yo » f J * J * £ & ** Julia ; a second wife , and two young children by her ; his w ^ fo fii r » a den aunt ; his father ' s confessor , Bertraudi ; and Iiw wooo Gia"JS ^^ i ? jX pose his household . Mr . Bodcuial ' s second wife is a Protestant , ondKlulw

    Untitled Article

    ] gjSMuAa , Y i 3 , 1855 ] TiH . fE liiEAD ^ E ^ 01 *

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 3, 1855, page 115, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2076/page/19/