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« rioweeL " ' ' * ' maneuver , " &c , &c . And then there are certain pet epithets « uS phrases which recur again and again . Throughout the first volume Napoleon is ever introduced with a " pale brow and feminine appearance ; from his «* emaciated frame" issue " trumpet-toned" proclamations , bulletins , and speeches : in every battle he " hurls ' his " bleeding , mangled columns ^ at some very obstinate enemy ; and the weapons of this " bleeding , mangled soldiery" are always " dripping , " while in naval combats the jiecks are invariably " slippery with gore . " The assault at Acre began with " dripping sabres and bayonets , " and was maintained with " sabres . and dripping havonets" In India , " English soldiers , with unsheathed swords , ever
dripping with blood , hold in subjection provinces containing uncounted millions of inhabitants . " And at Waterloo—where the English were defeated— " Blucher and Wellington , with their dripping swords , met , with congratulations , in the bloody arena . " It is pleasant to turn from these gloomy images to contemplate Mdlle . St . Simon , " a graceful and fragile maiden , " interceding for her father ' s life ; but it is still more pleasant to lay aside the book for ever , after cutting out the engravings , and so bid a long adieu to Mr . Abbott and his " trumpet- toned" periods .
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THE BULGARIAN , THE TURK , AND THE GERMANThe Bulgarian , the Turk , and the German . By A . A . Paton . Longman and Co . Mr . Paton allows his personal narrative to be absorbed in a pamphlet . He has few incidents to relate , and , therefore , takes a generous latitude of declamation . But , in a book with such a title , we have a right to look for some illustrations of national character , some social criticism applied to the varied population which spreads from the Rhine to the Danube , and from the Danube to the Dardanelles . Here is a subject for an observing and philosophical writer . The German people is that which now , amid the commotions of the old world , thinks most deeply , and reposes most securely on the hope of the future . The Bulgarian sees his race aspiring to an independent destiny . The Turk is on the debatable land of Europe , and has must d rise renewedAnd
reached ' -that point in his history when he ecay or . Mr . Paton sojourned among these nations , talked with their ministers and chiefs , saw the latest development of their energies , and heard them judging of the Russian war and its results , and yet he indites a volume of feeble and affected commonplace about the high policy of Lord Aberdeen , the musical compositions of Lord Westmorland , the table-gossip of the aristocracy , and other trivialities , fit only for the tittle-tattle of a private letter . This is , indeed * ' the way of one who has opportunities only to waste them , and who makes no other Use of experience than to flatter his own self-esteem . For , if we must deal justly with Mr . Faton , we have to describe his work as a dreary { amplification of self-love . Mr . Paton is the main idea . He lauds himself in every allusion to a friend , in every pompous epigram , in every harsh antithesis , in all the wanderings of his rhetoric , as lie enlarges on the titles and qualities of his " worthy friends / ' Not that he comes to the point . and ; sines a paean over himself , after the heroic manner of Mr . Samuel individuals introducedwith the di f
Warren * but a number of are , gnities o Peers , Pachas , or Princes , and eacli of these is made , by an account of his assiduous politeness to Mr . Paton , to demonstrate how far honoured he feels by that gentleman ' s acquaintance . In return for so much affability , Mr Faton takes- the glorious company of statesmen and diplomatists under his protection . If there be in Europe a man who has sunk his name by incapacity , or sullied ; it by public crimes , or rendered it unpopular by acts of an equivocal colour , that man becomes at once the object of our author ' s solicitude . In the right , or in the wrong place , be speaks of him ; and if he cannot defend his character ; praises his conversation ; or , if his obvious qualities are of a low order , ascribes to him secret merits of the very highest . The style in which he patronises Lord Westmorland must be peculiarly agreeable 10 that nobleman . His lordship " has not a voluble facility and precision of expression , " but " as acquaintance rolls on it is easy to see that his mind goes straight to the quintessence of a question" —an ingenious mode of reminding the reader that Mr . Paton is quite on familiar terms with the British Minister at Vienna .
we perceive only an effort , absurd and distressing , to compose smart , new curious sentences , and this is another indication of that torturing selfexaltation which forces Mr . Paton to forget the Bulgarians , the Germans , the Turks , that he may reflect upon himself and compensate for his want of observation At Berlin , for example , Mr . Paton tells us , that lie had a long conversation with Lord Bloorafield . W . hy is this told ? That we may learn our Prussian envoy ' s opinions on any subject ? No , but that we may be informed of Mr . Patoi / s conversations with Lord Bloomfield , since the report of it merely is " least said is soonest mended , " a mystic sentence , interesting us to know what it was that Mr . Paton heard at Berlin ! With dislike and weariness we follow him through chapters of this obsequious self-attention , written , like the Diary of Tom Moore , in humble acknowledgment of aristocratic civility . For the book is full of contrasts . Proud of himself , our author is more proud of his friends , and contrives to reconcile a minute description of their courtesies with the body of tropes and figures , in which he exhausts his opinions on events and parties in Europe . Parallel with his lordly allusions to the liigb-bred , are Ins invectives against the low-born , who dare , unless they are Anglo-Saxon to the heart , to think themselves qualified to manage public affairs . After all his travels , Mr . Paton is an islander in prejudice . He has oppressed Ins intellect -with certain Cockney epigrams about foreigners , and thinks that the French and German nations are only capable of existing so long as they have a single will to prescribe the order of theiv lives . There is this manifest absurdity in the idea : that , whereas Germany and France have not a class of citizens capable of voting rationally at elections , they are certain to produce men with all the qualities of genius , learning , and virtue , necessary for them to determine wisely the opinions , acts , and conditions of millions of the human race . Marshal St . Arnaud is Mr . Paton ' s ideal of a hero . ' 1 he present French Emperor he considers a greater man than his uncle . 1 nnce Metternich seems to him the incarnation of statesmanship , and he ( the author himself ) the representative of all philosophy . For , while lie explodes in terms of gratuitous malevolence against every liberal man or section of men in Europe , Mr . Paton announces himself to be a liberal , though his liberalism is evinced by ungenerous sarcasms on the failure of every liberal movement that has recently been attempted in Christendom . To force these views upon his reader , Mr . Paton states , gracefully enough that they are the views of all persons who have travelled extensively , studied deeply , or reflected rationally ! May we modestly doubt it ? 1 here are travellers , and not a few , who have seen more of the world than this writer , and whose knowledge and judgment are at least equal to his , who have come to opposite conclusions . As we have said , indeed , his politics are the most confined . He reasons as if there were none sober-minded , no , not one , out of the limits of the Anglo-Saxon race . This , let us say , is a home-bred , insular , contracted form of thought , astonishing in a traveller , uuless that traveller , like Mr . Paton , has accustomed himself to set down half of humanity as a composition of idiots , incapablcs , and slaves , fit only for tutelage , and to be " pulverised into infinitesimal , atoms" whenever they interfere with the action of " a set of men" assuming to control them . Sucti a writer should take an example from his fellow tourist , a religious lecturer who was seized at Naples , and thrown into jail , on the charge of having a revolutionary cockade in his writing-desk . The cockade turned out to be a two penny pen-wiper , of red and blue cloth , and the doctor was released . Many of Mr . Paton ' s bugbears are cockades of red and blue cloth , which would alarm none but a Neapolitan policeman , or a declaimer with a taste for political foppery . Tliere is no foppery in the statement of a public question , will Mr . Paton reply ? Possibly so ; but what is it to meet the Honourable Mrs . Norton at an hotel , and to call her " the salt of the earth" ' —" Corinne and R camier rolled into out ? ' If this is not puerility , Mr . Paton is a solid writer ; but if it is , his book contains so much that is . similarly weak , or similarly offensive that we must pronounce it , from beginning to end , a mistake and a failure .
An American lady , a few months ago , published a delicate panegyric on the personal appearance of the Earl of Derby , and brought it to a climax by saying that he had all the elegance of an accomplished waiter . Exactly similar , though less entertaining , is Mr . Paton ' s style of showing off his friends . It is refreshing to read the passage in which it is recorded that he ( Mr . Paton ) was good natured enough at Schumla , where lie was entirely beyond the range of lorgnettes in the Embassy box at [ the Grand Opera , to consort with individuals " of the democratic persuasion ' and " got on pretty well with them , all things considering . " After this , why not go as a missionary to the cannibal Kaffirs beyond Waterkloof ? They also are savages , and it needs the suavity , the considerateness , the forbearing disposition of a man like Mr . Paton to combat their errors without provoking their ferocity . To resume , however , with a topic suggested by Lord Westmorland's defect—that he is not voluble or precise in his expressions . We doubt whether Mr . Paton be a competent judge ; at least , we refer to " precision "
of language , for we are jealous of no gossip's claim to the merit of volubility . It is garrulity deprived of its humour—and is a characteristic frequently discovered by sextons , showmen , street-ranters , and the orators of itinerant quackery . With " precision" we associate truth , grace , and power , and our readers shall judge , from a specimen or two of Mr . Paton ' a most emphatic diction , whether lie possesses the style of which he laments a want in the Earl of Westmorland . That diplomatist , a patron of the elegant arts , is not an advocate of continental liberalism , for to be such would be " to perpetrate the most screeching discord in ethnical history . " We submit that this is not precise but ridiculous , arid it is an example of the false , cbarae , and conceited style , in which the whole volume is written . Mr . Paton has a notion , of which more presently , that the Anglo-Saxon is the only . ' race fitted for political freedom . With a people of steady , tolerant , ana phlegmatic character " a large and liberal measure of self-government is both safe and normal . " To such " constitutional liberty may bo conceded " ( by whom ?) , because they have " an inherent cement . In such phrases
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A BATCH OF BOOKS . The Reign of Terror ; or , the Diary of a Volunteer of the Year 11 . Translated from the French . By Samuel Copland . W . and V . CI . Cash . The Ilag-Bag , a Collection of Ephemera . l \ y N . P . Willis . New York : Charles Scribncr . Out-doors at Idlcmld . By N . P . Willis . New York : Charles Scribuor . The Story of a Nun . A Novel . By Mrs . A . Crawford . Thomas Cautley Newby . The Dwarf ; or Mind . and Matter . By E . L . A . Berwick , E * q . Thomas Cautley Ncwby .
An historical character , oflen quoted for the wisdom of his remarks , although a royal personage and a Jew , had reason to complain many centuries ago that " of ' the making of books there was no end . " If the nuisunce was sufficiently great to excite peevishness in Solomon , some indulgence is due to ourselves if we display an equal degree of petulance under a fur larger amount of provocation . At the heading of this notice we have placed the titles of / ive new works , nil of which we can honestly recommend to line trunks or wrap up cheese and bacon . But we protest against this waste of paper ot a time when that useful commodity is becoming rnrc and oxperftive . Nor do we recognise any man ' s right to insult the understanding and occupy the sennly
leisure of his neighbour by selfish exhibitions of intellectual vanity . lo pas 9 , however , from general denunciations to particular charges , wo summon before the bar of public opinion the author , the translator , and the editor of the Diary of a French Volunteer—it is n triune production — and we dqmnnd to know how long the patience of the general reader is to be abused by the Catilines who conspire against sound and healthy li ^ J't literature . The Diary is simply an . attempt to string together u certain number of very common-place incidents in an egotistical stylo , for the glorification of the lie to , a curious compound of bravery and cowardice , whenever Alexis meets a stranger , which happens about every other p »/ 4 <\ the latter becomes violently prepossessed . in hiu favour , and straightway relates the most secret particulars of hia life . His only friend , however , is an Herculean soldier , a ci-devant friar , who walks up and down the streets o
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THE LEADER . [ No . 284 , Saturday , nain' _ . ¦
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 1, 1855, page 846, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2104/page/18/
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