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Leader (1850-1860), 14th April 1855, Edition 1 of 2, Page 356, Untitled Article

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      painting . The great characteristic of the revival of Art in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was a return to the study of naturf , -which was pushed to a greater extent than it had ever been before , and sometimes led to an abuse which it has been agreed to call Naturalism . It was a reaction against this tendency in Art , commenced in . modern times by the great Savoyard de Maistre , with purely ecclesiastical views that culminated at length in the work of M . Rio , of which we have spoken . The same ideas , somewhat modified , have recently been maintained in England ; but we shall not at present attempt to follow their eccentric development . The

      discussions which they naturally give rise to amongst young students are not without their utility . We strongly recommend , however , all those who engage in them to consult frequently Kugler ' s admirable Handbook , m which * they will find the claims to attention of all the rival schools , from the mystical to the naturalistic , fairly dealt with in a manner which evinces a lar ^ e and hearty appreciation of Art in general . We may add that the numerous woodcuts , by Mr . George Scharf , by which the work is illustrated , are elegantly executed , and not only assist the reader to understand the text , but are in themselves intrinsically interesting . We refer especially to the series of Raphael ' s Madonnas and Holy Families , which Sir Charles Eastlake , in his able preface , very justly selects for a special notice .

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      BOOKS ON OUR TABLE . The Crimea : With a Visit to Odessa . By Charles W . Koch . G . Routledgo nud Co . The World and its Beautiful Lights and Sympathies . By Jamoa Waymouth . James Blftckwoou . The Simple Truth : A Tract for Young Men . Bull , Himton ami Co . The Vicar of Wakefield . Bv Oliver Goldsmith . ( With thirty-two Illustrations , tyl William Mulready , It . A . " J <* n Vu" Voorst . Westward Ho ! or , the Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh , Anight oj ^ , - , ;' in the County of Devon , in the Reign of her most Glorious Majesty Queen Julttiwein Rendered into Modern English . By Charles Kingsley . 3 vols . an and Co

      Ireland ' s Recovery ; or Excessive Emigration and Us Reparative Agencies tn ^ elatd An Essay , with ppendix . By John Locke , A . B . John AV . ark ° . ' . ^ ° , , ' j Natural Philosophy . First Treatise . Mechanics , including the Laws oj M «««\?» Motion , and Pyronomics , or the Laws of Heat , with Questions for f *?/« " ?' By Richard Grccu Parker , A . M . ( Par / cer ' s Edition C ™ 2 ' a"Znntnndfcj on . The Works of Virgil , closely rendered into English Rhythm , ai ^/ j ' ^ " { fTj { ^ Poets of the lGth , 11 th , and \ % th centuries . By the Rov . Robert ^ ™ 5 Th , Poring oJie - Kirydom , a Series of Tracts . I ? y ' «« j ^^ X « d ^ J ^ ayer and the War . . „ . „ . nv Francis The Serf and the Cossack : a Sketch of the Condition of the Russian PeopU .. lJy A ^ Marx .

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      NORTH AND SOUTH . North and South . By the Author of " Mary Barton . " Chapman and Hall . North and South is an exceedingly good novel of life in——the Midland Counties . By this paradox we mean to say that the book under notice is a "ood novel in all the generalities that make a novel good , wherever the scene may be laid ; but , as relates to anything special to either the North or the South , or to those two Districts in contrast , it is not so successful : is , not to mince matters , a failure . As this tale appeared originally in Household Words , of course the story and characters are too well known to need our doing anything here but the purely critical . Presuming so much , therefore , we affirm that the Hales , father , mother , and daughter ; the Lennoxes , Mr . Bell , and all that here represent the South , represent simply the well-bred , unmercantile middle-classes of England , and not any class peculiar to any district or county . While on the other hand the Thorntons , the Higg inses and others , as well as the incidents laid in Milton , are no fair picture of the cotton realms of which Manchester is the metropolis . That such characters may exist there as exceptional varieties we cannot deny , of course , but they are not types , nor even generalities : and obviously enough , if you are to put exceptional North against uncharacteristic South , you might as well call a book " Christ and Vishnu , " proceed to discuss the- mvthoiosrv of Central Africa . ^ _ - ' -

      .. Lancashire and the Cotton Trade seems to be the pons asinorum of novelists—with this exception , that none get over it . Mrs . Trollope ' s Michael Armstronjfwas a gross , dauby libel ; Disraeli's Sybil was a sketch of the trade from a Caucasian point of view ; Miss Jewsbury , a Manchester lady , only saved Marian Withers from being a failure by ceasing to make it a Lancashire tale ; and here we have Mrs . Gaskell , if not a Manchester lady , a settler therein , failing distinctly , not in the tale , for North and South is a successful and a good novel , but in an attempt to dramatise spinning and weaving , and throw a light on the vexed questions of corn and cotton , of masters and men . Such failures we hold to be inevitable . A novel must have the same essential dramatic characteristics , the same principles of incident , lay the scene where jfy

      yQ ^ y ^ . ou -iay the scene in Lancashirer and aretrue -men ana present arrangements , you cannot have those essential requirements ; if you idealise your men and melp-dramatise your incidents , you are false to Lancashire , and might as well have laid the scene in Timbuctoo . A newdubbed hedge is not more level than is Lancashire cotton life . Your grand ideal manufacturer , with we know not how much sunk in business , who keeps an acute eye on all the markets of the world , ready to change his productions to meet any demand , and who . makes some awful venture to a distant port , and waits returns with furrowing brow and grizzling hair , till , adverse winds keeping argosies out of port , half a day stands between him and ruin , when suddenly the gale shifts , and blows in a colossal fortune and general denouement of prosperity , is as utterly false as it would be to describe such a man selling yarn on the Manchester Exchange in doublet and trunkhose . The division of labour is too well understood in Lancashire . The merchant and the manufacturer are quite separate beings . Six months' study six inree i

      will teacn you spinning , days , manuiacturing ; pounua » wceu . w « buy a first-class manager for a spinning , and thirty shillings the same for a weaving , mill . Men who can neither read nor write , and with capacities little removed above that of the swine , make fortunes in the trade : men with education and ideas are not more successful , rather less . For ono-andtwenty years the history of the potfcon Trade haa been one of septennial crises . A demand arises , a crisis being past , and for three years or more , anybody who can manage to spin or weave has only to spin or weave and sell the product at the market price , settled by competition to a fraction , to make money ; the demand slackens , and be ho tho wisest or the stupidest of men . his profits crow smaller , change into a loss , a fresh crisis reigns , until

      tho corner is turned , and money-making recommences . On tho other hand , the workpeople placidly spin and weave , placidly receive their wages , and very i inplacidly at wakes and fairs and dog-fights spend them , every now and then , and always at tho wrong timo , flying into open mutiny for more wages . While , as regards the question of masters and men and strikes , the masters , making of money being their highest ideal , always endeavour to mako as much as they can by keeping the operative ' s wages as low as they can ; while tho oporativo , spending as he , gets , is always ready to use his real or fancied power to get more without any reference as to whether tho Masters can afford more at the timo in question . Now , as regards painting characters and subduing them into a dramatic story , the material is not hero ; and as to assisting to solve vexed questions of capital and labour by a fiction , why take two round-about volumes to say what wo can say in thirty words ? There can bo no solution of this question till both master

      and man have learned that neither money , nor things purchasable by money , are the highest ends of man ' s being here . We therefore are of opinion on general grounds , deduced b y abstra ct reasoning , that the Cotton Trade presents ample field for the philanthropist ^ the practical reformer , the political economist , and the general writer , that it affords no proper material for the veracious delineator of human life in a harmonious , interesting whole ; in a word , for the writer of fiction . And here , in North and South , we have an instance of the truth of our theory . The book is interesting , but how ? By Thornton being made an untrue picture of a Lancashire millowner , by . Biggins and the hands being made embodiments of Mrs . Gaskell ' s ideas of the workpeople ' s feelings , but not of their real feelings , independent of this , so much of the book as relates to Lancashire is full of errors which it is inconceivable for a resident in

      Manchester to have made , and which none but a lady could have so made . Thornton is described as a very extensive spinner and manufacturer—trading to all parts of the globe , and known all over the kingdom , and he rents his mill on a lease . We will engage to say there are not two large concerns in Lancashire that rent their mills : except in small concerns , to own them being the invariable rule . Error number one . Thornton , again , is a merchant shipping to all quarters of the globe : this again is extremely exceptional . There are not ten concerns that so ship as a rule , and these ten are owned by millionnaires who deal in all manner 6 f produce in the countries to which they ship . Only in times of great depression do manufacturers export on their own account , and this is the time when Thornton ceases shipping . Error number two . Again , Thornton has bills drawn on

      him for his cotton—cash payments in ten days being the immutable and never invaded rule of Liverpool ; a fact that needy men wishing to spin know to their cost . Error number three . Again , accounting for the necessity to keep wages lower , Thornton says , " The Americans are getting their yarn so into the general market , that our only chance is to beat them by producing at a lower rate . " We have heard all manner of reasons assigned for bad trade , but this is the first time any man , woman , or child found this out . American competition is altogether a bagatelle , and in yarn it is less than nothing . They cannot even supply themselves , with high protective duties . Error number four . Again , Thornton stocks heavily , and that after the strike . To stock at all is so much at variance with the custom of Lancashire manufacturers

      as coupled with the fact of that stocking following on the strike , to make this Error . number five . Again , when Thornton is in difficulties , Higgins stops to work after the mill has closed . To do this the engines must have run for the generous Higgins ' two looms , in which case , for every twopence his generosity gave Thornton , that gentleman would lose five pounds . Error number six . Again , Thornton gets into his difficulties partly by his stocks falling one-half . From October , 1853 , to December , 1854 , occurred the greatest fall on record in the history of the cotton trade , and yet stocks never fell one-half , nor one-quarter . Error number seven . Lastly , to ll the closing absurdity in two in a trade sense and a iiuoui jlu iwu ju t ^ —

      crown a , comes senses , crown aii ) uum . es me v ; iusiu > £ un ^ ocuacs , « n »* v *« - < >~« u » . •«• — literary sense . This great millowrier , this extensive merchant , this man rich enough to stock heavily , when he has made a severe loss and his stoeks have fallen one-half , can be set on his legs by what ?—by 1875 / . ! Why , as many thousands would hardly have done it . This is the trade absurdity . 13 ut this Thornton , who is in desperate love with Margaret Hale , and is firmly convinced that she dislikes him , when she in his difficulties—he in hers having been a sound friend—offers , out of her forty thousand pounds , to lend him this 1875 / ., is so staggered with the munificence , that _ he construes it at once into a declaration of her love for him . This is the other

      absurdity .. ' .. _ ' _ , If our objections seem too technical , we have to allege in excuse that we take so deep an interest in the questions that agitate Lancashire and its trade arrangements ; are so convinced that nothing but sound , strong , masculine , practical insight can aid their solution ; are so sure that in this , above all other social complications , sentimental yearnings and feverish idealisations only complicate matters ; are so certain that if there are two classes that should give trade and maste » s-and-men questions a wide berth , those classes are clergymen and women ; that we have taken especial pains to show , and it could only be shown by such technicalities , that our authoress knows too little of the Cotton Trade to be entitled to increase the confusion by writing about it . . _ , Apart from these things , we can heartily praise North and South , inc tale is deeply interesting . And it has all that purity of style and true appreciation of character and skill in its delineation for which Mrs . Gaskell lias hardly a rival among our lady novelists .

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      356 THE-IiE ' AD BS ; [ Saturday ,

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), April 14, 1855, page 356, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2086/page/20/