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Leader (1850-1860), 21st July 1855, Edition 1 of 2, Page 703, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      ^ eon charnel-houses Huitzilopochtli Tezcatlipuk must have seemed to the Spaniards an ill-omened dream . Years would pass away , and they would become veterans , covered with wounds and with renown , before they would ' have time to think over and to realise to themselves the full 'horror of the accursed things which they had looked upon that day . The length to which these extracts have extended prevent our drawing more froin these volumes , but the reader will have seen enough to stimulate iiis curiosity for the whole . There were several points upon which we should gladly have enlarged were greater space at disposal ; but the foregoing remarks indicate in a general way our opinion of the book , and the extracts indicate its style , so that between the two our office of " Taster" to the public has been fullilled . We must add , however , that the book is profusely illustrated with maps let into the text , and repeated from time to tirne , so as io save the reader the trouble of seeking them ; these maps , mostly newmade , greatly facilitate our comprehension of the narrative , and are valuable documents .

      Untitled Article

      THE MORALITY OF WILHELM MEISTER . WUhelm Meister's Apprenticeship . From Vie German of Goethe . Translated by R . l > illon Boylun , Esq . ( Holm ' s Standard Library . ) II . G . Bonn . Perhaps Mr . Lcwcs ' s Life of Goethe , which we now sec advertised , may throw some new light on the structure and purpose of the much-debated novel—WWielm Meister ' s Aj > prenticcsMp . In the meantime , we are tempted by the appearance of a new translation to give the opinion which our present knowledge enables us to form on one or two aspects of this many-sided mrorlc * Ask nineteen out of twenty moderately educated persons what they think

      of WiUielm Aleister , and the answer will p robably be— "I think it an immoral book ; and besides , it is awfully dull : I was not able to read it . " Whatever truth there mav be in the first half of this judgment , the second half is a sufficient guarantee that the book is not likely to do any extensive injury in English society . Parents may let it lie on the drawing-room table without scruple , in the confidence that for youthful minds of the ordinary caat it will have no attractions , and that the exceptional youthful mind which is strongly arrested by it is of too powerful and peculiar a character to ho trained according to educational dogmas . But is irWiclm Meister an immoral book ? We think not : on the contrary , we think that it appears immoral to some minds because its morality has a "rander orbit than any which can be measured by the calculations of

      the pulpit and of ordinary literature . Goethe , it is sometimes said , seems in this book to be alinost ' destitule of moral bias : he shows no hatred of bad arrtions , no warm sympathy with good ones ; he writes like a passionless Mejnour , to whom all human things are interesting only as objects of intellectual contemplation . But we question whether the direct exhibition of a moral bias in the writer -will make a book really moral in its influence . Try this on the first child that asks you to tell it a story . As long as you keep to an apparently impartial narrative of facts you will have earnest eves fixed in to

      on you in rapt attention , but no sooner do you beg betray symptoms of an intention to moralise , or to turn the current of facts towards a personal application , than the interest of your hearer will slacken , his eyes will wander , and the moral dose will be doubly distasteful from the very sweetmeat in which you have attempted to insinuate it . One grand reason of this i * that the child is aware you are talking //; - it instead of from , yourself , so that instead of carrying it along in a stream of sympathy with your own interest in the story , you give it the impression of contriving coldly aud talking artificially . How , the moralising novelist produces the same eHeet on his mature readers ; an effect often heightened b y the perception that tor

      the moralising is rather intended to make his book eligible taraiiy readinT than prompted by any profound conviction or enthusiasm . Just as far from bein" really moral is the so-called moral ( L ' nouemcnt , in which rewards and p unishments are distributed according to those notions of justice on which the novel -writer would have recommended that the world should be governed if he bad been consulted at the creation . The emotion Of satisfaction which a reader feels when the villain of the book dies of some hideous disease , or is crushed by a railway train , is no more essentially moral than the satiation which used to be felt in whipping culprits at the carbtail . So we dismiss the charge of immorality against IVilhtlm Meister « n these two counts—the absence of-moral bias in the mode ot narration , and the comfortable issues allowed to questionable actions and questionable characters

      . . .... But there is anollior ground for the same accusation which involves deeper COMiderationa . It i . s said that some of the scenes ami incidents are such as the refined moral taste of these days will not admit ti > be proper subjects or art , that to depict irregular relations in nil the charms they really have ior human nature , and to uswoointe lovel y qualities with vices which society makes a brand of outlawry , implies a toleration which is at once a sign and a source of perverted moral sentiment . Wilhelm ' s relation to Mariana , and the charm which the reader is made to feel in the lawless I hilina , many _ incidents that occur during Wilholm ' s lite with the players , and the stonos ot Lothario ' s loves in ; the present , preterite , and future , aiv . shocking to tie prevalent English . It . is no answer to this objection to say—what ir » tne that the ot almost

      fact—that Goethe '« pictures are truthful , career every younc man brinirs him in contact wilh far more vitiating irregularities than any presented in the experience of Willn l . n Meister ; for no one can maintain that aM fact is a fit Hubjectfoi- art . The sphere ot the artist has its UmiUomowhoro , and the first question is , Has Goethe overstepped thus limit , *>* hnt the more fuct of artistic representation is a mistake , t i lie . seeonu . Ifhis . aubjectn arc within the legitimate limits of art , ih his mode ol treat-«« tr 8 ncTi a * to make his pictures pernicious ? Burely the sphere- ot ait <* tench » wherever thcro is beauty either in form , or thought , or looting .. A «» r , pf unlight fulling on tho dreariest sandbank will often serve tl 10 piuntoi ff ^ ftne picture ; the tragedian may take for Ins . subject the most hideout ftriSouitaioy servo as tile background for some divine deed ol tenderness ftferrim , « nu so pho novelist TnVy place before us every aspect . ol ; -human life where there b some trait of love , or endurance , or helplessness to call

      forth our best sympathies . Balzac , perhaps the most wonderful writer of faction the world has ever seen , has in many of his novels overstepped tins limit . He drags us by his magic force through scene after scene of unmitigated vice , till the effect of walking among this human carrion is a moral nausea . But no one can say that Goethe has sinned in this way . Everywhere he brings us into the presence of living , generous humanitymixed and erring and self-deluding , but saved from utter corruption by the salt of some noble impulse , some disinterested effort , some beam of good nature , even though grotesque or homely . And his mode of treatment seems to us precisely that which is really moral in its influence . It is

      without exaggeration ; he is m no haste to alarm readers into virtue by melodramatic consequences ; he quietly follows the stream of fact and of life ; and waits patiently for the moral processes of nature as we all do for her material processes . The large tolerance of Goethe , which is markedly exhibited in Wilhelm Meister , is precisely that to which we point as the element of moral superiority . We all ; begin life by associating-our passions with our moral prepossessions , by mistaking indignation for virtue , and many go through life without awaking from this illusion . These are the * ' insupportables justes , qui du haut de leurs chaises d ' or narguent les miseres et les souffrances de l'humanite . " But a few are taught by their own falls and

      their own struggles , by their experience of sympathy , and help and goodness in the " publicans and sinners" of these modern days , that the line between the virtuous and vicious , so far from being a necessary safeguard to morality , is itself an immoral fiction . Those who have been , already taught this lessen will at once recognise the true morality of Goethe ' s works . Like Wilkelm Meister , they will be able to love the good in a Philina , and to reverence the far-seeing efforts of a Lothario .

      Untitled Article

      TWENTY YEARS CONFLICT IN THE CHURCH . The Twenty Years Conflict in the Church , and Its Remedy . John Chapman . The writer of this honest and well-meaning little Tract must be a fortunate man , for he tells us that " he has himself proposed reforms in religion equal in extent to the reforms effected by Lord Bacon in science , and in no case was he ever met by a reply , or involved in any controversy . " His present object is to heal the divisions in the Church of England , and avert that disruption which he justly conceives to be imminent between the Evangelical and High Church ( and we should add the Latitudinarian ) parties . The mode ir ? which he proposes to carry out this object is certainly in the highest decree Baconian , or whatever else may designate philosophic

      comprehensiveness aud simplicity . He would reconcile the two hostile parties by the effectual method of subtracting from the creed of each all the most vital and characteristic doctrines — Apostolic Succession — the Supernatural Etlicaey of the Sacraments—Justification by Faith—Original Siu—and Predestination . For these tenets he would substitute , by way of compensation , the Eight of Private Judgment , or the Authority of . Reason and Conscience —Free Will—Uesponsibility , and roan ' s power to perform good as well as evil . These changes are to be embodied in a Keformed Liturgy ( of which an outline is given ) by a Reformed Convocation equally composed of Laity and Clergy . To an arrangement so manifestly tending to obviate the inconvenience of doctrinal discrepancies , the writer thinks all parties would readily accede . In what theological Paradise has he lived ?

      The writer's general view of parties is clear and sensible . In particular , he sees the service which the High Church movement rendered to the cause of truth , by destroying the belief in the perfection of the Anglican Church , lie is also quite correct in giving the same party credit for reasserting against the dominant Calvinism that doctrine of Free Will on which _ morality depends ; though unhappily they asserted at the same time doctrines concerning the nature and effects of sin , of which it was justly said that , if they were true , it would be better to be a blade of grass than a man . We may add that some remarkable attacks on Bibliolatry were made in the " Tracts lor the Times ? , the object of which was of course to exalt Church , authority at the expense of the Bible , but which tended , in effect , to assist the emancipation of reason and the development of a critical spirit . The Newnianites in truth are not a little answerable for the encouragement 0 / that love of truth , which , when they see its legitimate consequences , they will ersecuteand are beginning to persecute already .

      p , We cannot encourage the author to hope that bis remedy will be accepted , or oven that the spirit of charity aud benevolence in which be tenders it will meet with a response . We would recommend him , instead of trying to reconcile the irreconcilable , to eliminate the essential , and avert the inevitable , rather to labour for the independent establishment of pure religious and moral truth , and the preservation of our moral and spiritual life , as individuals and as a nation , from that abyss of confusion into which ecclesiastical institutions and ecclesiastical creeds all over Christendom are too manifestly about to fall .

      Untitled Article

      THE CUSTOM OF DUNMOW . liallw l * : Itotnantic , Fantastical , ami Humorous . By " \ Y . Uurrisou Ainsworth . Koutltjilgo ana Co The Fiitch of Dumnow . By W . Harrison Aiuaworth . Koutledge and Co 'L ' ni' collected versification of Mr . Harrison Ainsworth ' s novels , from ltookwood down to his latest work—the line historical fiction rolorrcd to in . tnc title of the present notice—has furnished forth a book of ballads , classified as Legendary and Konmntie , Fantastical , and Humorous . Iho r ° niantit and fantastical disposition of Mr . Ainsworth seems always to liavoJed 4 "i into slums and gaol-yards for a good deal of hislegendary ™ £ " » U *** into Dryasdust remains of antiquated phraseology tor all Jj » ^^ ppened . * .. ! if .,, nnn « nn . * l . if « nr » h nnd such a thuurcould hardly liaye iittPi M - «»' " i uiawut DU |» ii «»

      „ , „ , u > « u ... ... - — -- 1--, oiwi is hilarious aDouxuc Mr . Ainsworth wots that » t aenrce mote have been , a . d ^ is h nu . o , straightway . . Excepting one or two of the sonjp 1 » eio bro . ht tq , andiiotabfy the one called " f ^*^ * ^?^^^* , S refrain attributed to the Duohosao , U « G ^^ J ^ Sd a more worthless baa "—ia very tunefully introduced , we never oncouni .

      Untitled Article

      ( E of a tog ^ a . ; ig » . ] q ? s lea deu . 703 — 1 ¦ ' —___— : —l : — ¦ . _ . ' ¦¦ ——_____ .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), July 21, 1855, page 703, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2100/page/19/