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LECTURES TO LADIES . Lectures to Ladies on Practical Subjects . ' Macmillaiu These lectures were delivered by Mr . Maurice , and those who take part witb him in his good work , at the Working Men ' s College . They are indeed practical lectures , the work of practical philanthropists , men of real knowledge and experience in their mission , with sound understanding aud warm hearts . Wo earnestly commend them to our readers , as full of interest and instrnction . The papers of Mr . Kingslcy on the Country Parish , of Dr . Johnson on tho causes of Bodily and Mentnl Disease among the Poor , of Mr . Davios on District Visiting , and of Dr . Chambers ou the Influence of Occupation on Health , strike us aa peculiarly oxcollont . Mr . Stephen's gi-ncml "count of "Law , as it affects the poor , " is also very clear and masterly , jiuu way be read with advantage by anybody , whether engaged in vlel } " ^ " ^ ^ or not . We quote- a few words of advice to visiting Imiioa huih » Kingsloj ' s paper : — . „ ,, „ , *_ I ciitroat you to Lear in mind ( for without thlaall visitIn * of tho . poor jv . ll ^ b , Hl ^ y void and uaelcHH ) that you mustrogulnto your conduct to '' l ?"' ; ' ^ " ,. „„ ,, « « f yo . tr owa the snout minute particular *) , by tho very wiinoriiteH wliicii T' ' v ,, j nc 0 nn inhume clas .,. Never let any woman eny of you ( though fat « to ul «*" ; . () l ( 1 ( 1 u , olia _» Yes , it iH all very kind s but hJio < 1 o «« not bo . « no to meu » * ^ ^ her own quality . " Piety , earnestness , nflVjcltonntoiuMW , iiioquonc . ,
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totality , this is only true of them relatively to each other . To speak of Goethe as a Realist , pure and simple , is erroneous ; and to speak of Schiller as an Idealist , pure and simple , is not less so . Gervinus strikingly remarks that , compared with Nicolai or Lichtenberg , Goethe appears as an Idealist ; compared with Kant and his fol . owers , Schiller appears as a Realist . If Schiller , in comparison with Goethe , must be called a self-conscious poet , in comparison with the Romanticists , he is naive and instinctive . Indeed I may repeat here what was said in a ft-rmsr chapter , that all such classifications are necessarily imperfect , and must only be used as artifices of language , by which certain general and predominant characteristics may be briefly , indicated . Goethe and Schiller were certainly different natures ; but had they been so fundamentally opposed , as ifc is the fashion to consider them , they could never have become so intimately united . They were opposite and allied , with somewhat of the same differences and resemblances as are traceable in the Greek and Roman Mars , In the Greet Mythology the God of War had not the prominent place he attained in the Roman ; and the Greek scuJptors , when they represented him , represented him as the victor returning after conflict to repose : holding- in hia hand the olive branch , while at his feet sits Eros . The Roman sculptors , or those who worked for Rome , represented Mars as the God of . War in all his tenors , in the very act of leading on to victory . But , different as these two conceptions were , they were both conceptions of the God of War ; Goethe may be likened to the one , and Schiller to the other : both were kindred spirits united by a common purpose .
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Tffnv . » . 18 S / 5 J .,. T H E REAPER . 1 Q 61
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THE LIFE AND TRAVELS OF HERODOTUS . The Life and Travels of Herodotw * in th 6 fifth century before Christ . An Imaginary " . Biography , founded on fact . By J . Talboys Wheeler , P . RjG . S . 2 vols . Longman and Co . The qualities remarked in Mr . Wheeler's treatise on the geography of Herodotus were those ^ of a ripe scholar and a liberal critic . The work , with its apparatus of indices , map 3 , aud diagrams—its analysis of historical evidence , its minute references and studied generalization ? , was less unpopular in style than most classical manuals . Mr . Wheeler was neither so dull as Rennell , nor so pretentious as Niebuhr , and he obtained and deserved the thanks of all students for the integrity of his purpose , no less than for the zeal of his investigations . His new work is of more questionable value . Mr . Wheeler , we assume , had an object . He says , indeed , that his object was " to give , in a popular form , a complete survey of the principal nations of the ancient world , as they were in the days of Pericles and Nehemiah . " For " complete " we should here like to read " correct . " But , by the use of this word , the candour of the book would have been sacrificed . As it is , the preface is frank enough , for it directs us , at once , to some of the weak points in Mr . Wheeler's p lan . For the saks of " completeness , " he is unwilling to pass by certain topics of large interest , but for the sake of " popularity , " desires to avoid criticism , and , without caution or reserve , " states boldly results which have not as yet received the approval of every scholar . " If , however , he aimed only at the production of a popular romance of ancient manners , there were abundance of materials for constructing a more entertaining narrative than this . I 3 y omitting some of the long historical digressions , and filling up his canvass with the details of social life , he would have attained , at once , greater completeness and a lighter tone . The purpose of sucli a -work as this Imaginary Biography must be that of laying open the young world , with its ripening arts , its philosophical systems , its institutions , and its social history , to the gaze of a generation indisposed to critical inquiries ; and if the end proposed be to inform as well as to amuse , something is surely lost by Mr . Wheeler's facile and evasive method . He is dealing with the manners , the beliefs , the character , the politics of the Greeks , Egyptians , Persians , Babylonians , Hebrews , Scythians , and other ancient races ; he is passing in review topics that have been and are still debated in all learned circles ; but lie glides over the surface whenever the waters are troubled , and , instead of recognising a doubt , makes a flank inarch , and covers a gap with a conjecture . By this defect in its plan , the book is taken out of the category of authorities . To indicate an example : Did the Greeks colour their marble statuary or architectural monuments ? Mr . Wheeler says they did not , for " the native beauty of the pure white marble" would have been utterly spoiled . Here is the very salient of the discussion . A surface of pure white marble is pronounced by the colourists " horrible , " and Mr . Wheeler ' s veneration of its brilliance and delicacy is placed among the vulgarities of tradition . We may concur with Mr . Wheeler on this point ; we may decline the barbaric theories of Mr . Owen Jones , and accept the conclusions of Landerer and llettner ; but the student learns nothing from the Biography of Herodotus . Tho writer ' s determination to veil one side of ancient life by concealing its vices , was perhaps necesaary , though not to the degree supposed by Mr . Wheeler . Wo allude to his suppression of the Hetairoa . The general subject is , in otLcr respects , freely treated . Thus : Herodotus is supposed to visit Perscpolisrand Jerusalem , and to converse with Nehemiah . To all this there can bo no objection . A more equivocal licence is exhibited in the retrospective summaries by which the relation is continually broken . Herodotus arrives at Corinth—there is an outline of tho Corinthian annals . Ho comes to Sparta—the story of Sparta is told - —lie lauds in Egypt . The dubious records of Egypt are summarised witb as much neatness as daring . In hia Assyrian and Median travels , he unravels the chronicles of centuries ; and thus at every turn , tho personal narrative is lost in tho profundities of ancient history . Instead of painting a broad picture of the ancient world at n particular era , Mr . Wheeler begins at tho beginning in a dozeu separate chapters , and loads tlio biography with the materials of an encyclopedia m the effort to moke his romantic Heredotus the hero of an universal epic . MrWheeler ' s isin generalgoodHis costumes and acccs-¦ + fc J ¦!»»¦««¦*•
. scenery , , . —— *• - •—* «* ** m w ¦ » - » j ** it * j * * ^~ i m j 1 * * * Uvllv * lilt r ^ ^ " ^ * - •« - * * ^ - * v » v « ¦ » x ^ »•* . » . ¦»*•* Bori . es , also , are effective—perhaps , as representations , accurate . He " restores " a Greek or Babylonian city with a careful reference to authoritios . He serves up a feast in due Athenian order ; and wo are not sorry that ho leaves Potter to discuss alone , with hie opaque and erudite loquacity , the question of precedence" at table , But the life of tho story is faint ; the dialogue ia never lively , and often falls into disquisition . There is seldom any realization of manners . ' The book is panoramic , not dramatic , The women introduced are etatueequo figures , delicately clad und disposed iu
lovely attitudes ; but the spirit of a arama'ls" ^'!!^^^' ' ^"' ' ^ ' ^^!*!^© ' this deficiency is not redeemed by systematic accuracy , is not the performance a mistake ? It is obviously impossible that in a drama of the ancient world the personages should not speak in a modern idiom . If an English author could write in the Doric or Ionian style , English readers would not understand him . But there is a clear diflereuce between affecting classical forms of speech ) and finding in every institution or liabit of the Greeks an analogy with one of our own times , which may be set forth in a popular modem phrase . There were '' parties " in Greece no doubt , even in our sense of the term , but why classify these mechanically as " Reformers" and « ' Conservatives ? " Why speak of " Young Athens , " as though history re-produced itself , and as though our ideas were mirrors of the ideas of Greece ? There was monarchy in the Hellenic period , but not the monarchy of a feudal or constitutional epoch . Not by time only , but by circumstances , by manners , by all the influences of religion and of society , was the Hellenic monarchist distinguished from the monarchist of the present day . Again , by styling the dikastries "jury-courts , ' tn& essential differences between those tribunals and English juries are overlooked . Mr . Wheeler , seduced by the example of Mr . Grote , suggests incessant parallels and analogies . He does not theorise upon them , it is true ; they are dropped into the narrative as coolly as the most mdisput-Mr Wheeler's remarks on marriage may be pointed out asallustratin ^ his loose and confident style . With an apparent preference for the institutions of Sparta , he represents the Greek women in nearly all other cities as in most respects degraded . If his survey had been as complete as it pretends to befit would have included an account of their education , and of the relations existing between them and their husbands , m Athens especially it would not have been confined to a vague statement of their wooispinnhm predilections . Mr . Wheeler is as positive on this topic as he is on , the subject of the Homeric poems , and in both cases presents results which " have not been as yet approved by every scholar . It is unnecessary to dissect Mr . Wheeler ' s view—an interesting , and m many respects , a very able view ; but his opiuions on controverted topicsmust not be allowed to rank with statements past criticism . Lt is ot particular importance to remark these qualities of his work , because , m all its sections , it is based on special and personal opinions . The summary of Athenian politics is liable , in some details , to con ^ ' ?^ on ; . " *? early annals of other states exhibit a confusion of myth with history . Those of Epypt rest on conjectural interpretations of symbols which are still mysteries -Those of the Medo-Pe » ian Empire are vague legends illustrating the state of historical science in the age of Herodotus , but not clearing up the discrepancies between sacred and profane tradition . Thus , Mr . Wheeler ' s biography is too imaginary . Neither is his scheme so complete , as from the prefatory announcement we had anticipated , lie deals with the externals of the antique society , to the comparative exclusion of that interior existence , which would leave many popular elements to the book . At Athens , too large a space is devoted to the architectural survey of the city , to its political factious , and to the aspects of its public life . From the street-scenes , and the outlines of Euphonone s bauquetroom , we should have liked to pass into the inner chambers , to see the Greek in their familiar hours , to look at their furniture , their wardrobes , at the materials of their feasts , at their marriage ceremonies , in their nurseries , at their villa life , their farms , gardens , and schools Mr . VV heeler b researches in this department seem to have been limited . Since he deairod to brighten his narrative with amusing details , why not » state boldly " that Herodotus . was invited to the marriage of Carauos , and entertained him after toe manner of Macedonia ? „„„«« . The book , it follows , whatever merit it may possess as an attempt , cannot have the praise of an entire success . It is elaborate , pleasantly written * carefully finished , and has not more than the inevitable pedantry ot tne subject ; but it does not lay open a full or accurate view ot the condition of the ancient world . Entertaining in parts it . is , bu ^ rendered dull at ; times by the amplitude of Mr . Wheeler ' s digressions J ^ oso d ^ eBSWOSj . moreover , exclude the realizations we Lad expected of social life in each ot tho regions fraveraed—at Coriuth , Athens , or in thoauthor ' * favourite . fcparta . Happily , Mr . Wheeier has not devoted his investigations in classical and ChrlJtiiii literature to this work alone . " The Geography of * J « - ° ° ° » is a book of substantial and enduring value , which would earn for him tho oratitude of many generations of students , even were tlna Imaginary Biography " less excellent than it is . Whatever its faults are , its mentis to refresh and invigorate tho mind , and incline it to serious and profitable , tudies .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 3, 1855, page 1061, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2113/page/17/
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