Current:

Leader (1850-1860), 8th November 1856, Edition 1 of 2, Page 1073, Untitled Article

Page 1073
Page 17
17 of 24

On this page

  • Departments (1)
    • 'jP'-M-tvt+rt'l-tWiv ^U?VuIUF£»
  • Text (8)
  • Transcript

    • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

      Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

      Untitled Article

      Svekt one' las now been to Paris , and is of course familiar with the jisde Boulogne in its new splendours j but probahly that which most rests the attention is the richness of the equipages , and the costumes of the quettes ; surely the-wealth here represented must be enormous ? On this bject let us hear a writer in Jilackwood .. ——Though it was the end of February , the sun was shining evidently in total forgetful-53 that it was not June . Shining , warming , lighting , extracting such variety of exisite colour from the thousand splendidly-drest ladies who walked and strolled and

      inged about the open alleys in the wood , that it is quite possible he fancied he was 3 towing his favours on a prodigious bed of flowers . On the beautiful lake floated y boats with many-coloured sails , carrying cargoes of bright-hued parasols and iiant bonnets and richest glistening silk . In the road rested or slowly moved forird barouches and britzkas , and chariots and phaetons , all with brig ht panels and ttering wheels and gorgeous linings , with , horses trapt with , gold and silver , and ns of spotless white ; while behind hung suspended a bunch of peony or tulip six st high , with immense calves to its legs , and a cocked hat on its head , and someaes even a velvet-sheatlied sword at its side . Then the horsemen—gaiety of parel is not left entirely to the ladies in France . There were green coats , and blue its , and olive coats so shiny that they looked like pink , and grey coats so brilliant it they looked like white : and still the cavalcade passed on ; and beauties caraed on long-tailed steeds ; and bewbiskered men galoped past on strong-legged

      argers , and , countless as the combinations in a kaleidoscope , they formed in lines , squares , in circles ; and ever over all shone that cloudless sun , and beside them irkled that waveless water . And on seeing all that brilliancy , all that show , and that wealth , I said to old Busby , " Who are all these?—where does all the money nefrom ? There ' s more appearance of riches here ' than in Hyde Park ia the ight of the season . " Old Busby will certainly have a concussion of the brain if shakes his foolish old head with such disdainful jerks much longer * He shook his id as if he had been a mandarin for many years in a grocer ' s window , and said , Hy dear , how you are Wind ! These are nothing but a set of humbug foreigners ; indlers every man ; all adventurers on the Bourse or founders of the Cre'dit

      Mobir 5 lords to-day , beggars to-morrow , and galley-slaves the day after . But what ai ? the spectacle is the same to us . These same carriages will be here this day ek—so will these horses—so will these ladies ; but the proprietors , mark you , will different . That fellow ' s clerk will succeed to his fraudulent compagnie and his tzka , and lie himself will be marker at a billiard-table . That other fellow will be ) tin a duel by a co-forger of Government bills , and his Andalusian mare will be den Here by some gambler whose loaded dice are not yet discovered . But the Bois 11 be as gay , the lake as charming , and the sun as bright . I have been intimate , " d Busby , in a very foreign accent , " with some English squires on their short-; ged Suffolk cobs , whose rent-roll would buy the fee simple of all the vagabonds : e . ¦ ¦ ¦ .: ' . ¦ ¦ '¦ . " . . ¦ " .. ¦ . ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ : - ' - . ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ . - •¦ ' ; : . ' : •¦ ¦ : '• . -

      A . true picture , and forming' the appropriate introduction to an interestj story , called "A Cause worth Trying , " ia which the writer contrives to cite curiosity , though he has not taken the pains to work out-the dfnouent in a satisfactory manner . How rare it is to meet with a good story e do not allude to the want of invention displayed in creating newsituans—these will always remain rare—but in the want of that invention lich supplies all the details , which fills up the outline of an old anecdote , i makes it a new drama . Except poems , nothing is so abundant as ries , nothing so rare as stories that are really good .

      Untitled Article

      In the Revue de Paris there is a striking paper by Henri Martin , the torian , on Calvin , Loyola , and Rabelais , in which is quoted the frank t startling avowal of Calvkn ' s disciple , Theodore » e Beza , that " the erty of conscience is a diabolical dogma—Hberfas co ? iscientiis diabolicnm ma . " Frank the avowal is , because , as all history shows , whatever the tto of Protestantism may have been , its practice has considered this liberty conscience the prompting of Satan whenever liberty happened to issue the adoption of opinions not held by the denouncing sect ; startling the Dwal is , because if Protestantism does not protect and encourage perfect erty of conscience , what is its own raison d'etre ? M . Henri Martin 11 characterizes the Reformation as enfranchisement of national churches m the yoke of Rome , enfranchisement of particular churches , Christian urn-unities -within ill- defined limits , but no enfranchisement of the conence .

      Untitled Article

      After a period of dulness almost unparalleled , Literature seems , in Engid at least , to be entering once more into a season of activity , although v books of much promise are announced . In France there is an absolute 3 sation of literary life , which is almost certain , to continue as long as the eBent ignoble despotism continues . Much as we may deplore the blindas of fear—fear at the bugbear of Socialism so dexterously raised by one rty and so foolishly and treacherously stimulated by another—which ) ne has made France servile , it is a sources of great consolation to know at the intelligence of France had apt accepted the present regime , fcyonets may rule for a time ; but only over an ignorant people . Ideas © more powerful tlian bayonets , and Louis Napoleon is at war with cas .

      Untitled Article

      POETRY AND POLITICS ON THE DANUBE . Jiouman Anthology ; or , Selections of Roman Poetry , Ancient and Modern . Being a Collection of the National Ballads of Moldavia and Wallachia , &c . By the Hon . Henry Stanley . Hertford : Stephen Austin . Les Prmcipautfs de Moldavie et de Valachie . Par Paul Bataillard . Paris : Ainyot . Stephen Austin , is an artist . Sadi of Shiraz , that poet of rich fancies , would scarcely recognize his own " Rose Garden" in its illumination of gold and colours , from the press of the Hertford printer . Nor could the Rouman songsters ever have hoped to appear in the West so gorgeously costumed in Turkish and Byzantine decoration as in this volume by Mr . Stanley , kvery page is a picture . Between delicate-green covers , on ivory paper , with gilded edges , their verses lie , each in a frame of arabesque beauty , red , blue , green , and gold , -with superb initial letters , vignettes , and tailpieces , and faultless typo . Mr . Stanley ' s publication is thus recommended to noti it

      ce by a external characteristics . Upon opening its earlier pa ^ es the reader may be disconcerted b y finding a number of poems in a language probably strange to him ; he may take it for barbaric Italian , for some curious dialect of Sicily or Corsica , but there are translations for those who are not ltoumau scholars , and for those who are , as well as for those > vho are not , there is a well-written and informing preface , by Mr . Stanley .

      Untitled Article

      perhaps , the masculine hand throughout this autobiography , but no eyes will detect anything but free , healthy animal spirits . Kate is a dashing girl , fonder of horses than worsted work , but sound in heart and limb ; ana if she is enthusiastic about riding and hunting , -where is the woman who , having once surmounted the timidity of her sex , and made direct acquaintance with pigskin , can speak of these things without enthusiasm ? That Elate sometimes outrages the proprieties is very true ; mammas will think her . ' bold , ' and dyspeptic clergymen unfamiliar with pigskin will shake dolorous heads over her levity ; but the majority of Englishmen will admire her ¦ ' pluck , ' and rejoice in her final happiness . While the spirited pages of this novel carry us gaily to the end , -we are not much troubled by misgivings as to the commonplaceness of most of the incidents and a general defiance of minute probabilities ; there is a great deal of true observation in the book , amid much that evidently belongs to the invention of the circulating library . Here is a good hit :-

      —People may talk about country pleasures and country duties , and all the charms of country life ; but it appears to me that a good many things are done under the titles of pleasure and duty , which belong in reality to neither ; and that those who live entirely in the country , inflict on themselves a great variety" of unnecessary disagreeables , as they lose a great many of its chief delights . Of all receipts fox weariness , commend me to a dinner-party of country neighbours by daylight—people who know each other just well enough to have opposite interests and . secret jealousies ¦ who arri-ve ill at ease in their smart dresses , to sit through a protracted meal with hot servants and forced conversation , till one young lady on her promotion being victimized at the pianoforte , enables them to yawn unobserved , and-welcome ten o ' clock brings round the carriage and tipsy coachman , in order that they may enter on their long , dark , dreary drive home through lanes and by-ways , which is only endurable from the consideration that the annual ordeal has been accomplished , and that they need not do it again till this time next year .

      Very well observed also is the wayward recklessness with which Kate teazes her cousin—persisting in the very course she knows is making him grieve , and grieving while she persists . Here is an animated description of ahunt : — ' ' - ¦ ' . ' - ' . ¦ ; . '¦ ... ;¦ ; ., ¦ , ' , . ¦ ¦ ' ¦¦ . ¦ ¦¦¦¦¦ . .- ¦ ¦ ' . ¦ ¦/ : . ¦ . ¦ ' - . ' ' ¦¦ " Gone away ! " exclaims Squire Haycock , lifting his cap high above his red head ; " Yonder he goes ! Don ' t you see him , Miss Coventry , now whisking under the gate ? "' - . - ¦;¦ . ¦;¦ ' ¦ ' ¦ ;•• ;¦ ' \ 7 : . - . : : ' ¦ ¦¦¦ . ¦ : . . : - . - : ¦ ¦ , " Forward , forward . '" holloas Frank , giving vent to his excitement in one of those prolonged screams that proclaim how the astonished sportsman has actually seen the fox with his own eyes . The next instant he is through the hand-gate at the end of the ride , and , rising in his stirrups , with the wicked chesnut held hard by the head , ia speeding away over the adjoining pasture , alongside of the two or three couples of

      leading hounds that have just emerged from the ^ covert . Ah ! we . ; are all forgotten now , women , children , everything is lost in * that first delirious five minutes when the hounds are really away . Frank was gazing at me a minute ago as if his very life was at my disposal , and now he is speeding away a field ahead of me , and don't care whether I break my neck following him or not . But this is no time for such thoughts as these , the drunken huntsman is sounding lis horn in our rear . Will , the whip , cap in hand , is . bringing ' up" the body of the pack . Squire Haycock holds the gate open for me to pass , Cousin John goes by me like a flash of lightning j White-Stockings , with a loose rein , submits to be kicked along at any pace I like to ask him ; the fenceat the end of the field is nothing , I shall go exactly where Frank did ; my blood thrills with ecstasy in my veins : moment of moments ! I have got a capital start , and w-e are in for a run .

      As I sit here inmy arm-chair and dressing-gown , I see the whole panorama of today passing once more before my eyes . I see that dark , wet , ploughed field , with the ¦ white hounds slipping noiselessly over its furrowed surface . I can almost perceive the fresh wholesome smell of the newly-turned earth . I see the ragged , overgrown , straggling fence at the far end , glistening with morning dew , and green with formidable briars . I see Prank LovelTa chesnut rising at the weakest place , the rider sitting well back , his spurs and stirrup-irons shining in the sun ; I see Squire Haycock ' s square scarlet back , as he diverges to a well-known corner for some friendly egress ; 1 hear Cousin John ' s voice shouting , " Give him his head , Kate ! " As White-Stockings and I rapidly approach the leap , my horse relapses of his own accord into a trot , points his small ears , crashes into the very middle of the fence , and just as I give myself up for lost , makes a second bound that settles me once more in the saddle , and lands gallantly in the adjoining field , Frank looking back over his shoulder in

      evident anxiety aud admiration , whilst John ' s cheery voice , with its " Bravo , Kate ! ' * rings in my delighted ears . We three are now nearest the hounds , a long strip of rushy meadow-land before us , the pack streaming along-the aide of a high thick hedge that bounds it on our left ; the south wind fans my face and lifts my hair , as I slacken my horsed rein and urge him to to his speed . I am alongside of Frank . I could ride anywhere now , or do anything . I pas 3 him with a smile and a jest . I am the foremost -with the chase . "What is ten years of common life , one's feet upon the fender , compared to five such golden minutes as these ? Criticism , if inclined to be severe , might pick large holes in the book ; but its pleasant style disarms criticism . On one point only will we suggest to Colonel Melville the necessity of revision , and that is the somewhat too obtrusive odour of cigars which rises from his pages . Every body smokes , and is always smoking , till the word cigar becomes an impertinence .

      KATE COVENTRY . tic Coventry : an Autobiography . Edited by a . J . Why to Melville , Author of Digby Grand . " j . *\ y . Parker and Son . lUittBisBomethingfrcshandlicalthyinallthatColoneiVVhytoMelvillewrites , id tins Kate Coventry is very unlike the mawkish stories which delight the oranes , and weary all sensible people . It is the autobiography of a fast ung lady , and yet ia neither vulgar nor insipid . Feminine eyes may detect ,

      'Jp'-M-Tvt+Rt'l-Twiv ^U?Vuiuf£»

      $ mmtt . . -

      Untitled Article

      ? ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ tic 3 are not the legislators , but the judges aad police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce -them .. —Edinburgh Review .

      Untitled Article

      Kovember 8 , 1856 . ] THE LEADER . 1073 ——^ ——— ^^ . _____ ^^_ ^ _ ^^^ _ ^ _ ^ _ — ¦¦¦¦ ,

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 8, 1856, page 1073, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2166/page/17/