On this page
-
Text (3)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
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
passed , but the following morning hisbrother met him about ten miles from home . Leaning upon the arm extended to him , he trailed Ids limbs along until he reached his fether ' s house . With his brother's help he ascended to his room , and though from the time when they had met upon the road no word had been spoken by either , 3 « et when entering Ms apartment he appeared to recogaise it ; the feeling of consciousness was hut momentary , and he sank upon his bed powerless and senseless , prostrated in mind and body . He was ill for twelve months : — The whole system seemed shattered . His head ached 90 violently that , iu his paroxysms of pain , hia body rocked with an involuntary motion so violently that , as his head rested upon his mother * breast , it required all the latter ' a strength to curb
the violent swaying of the sufferer . "It seemed , " he said , " as if the brain were surging through the skull from rear , to front , and from front to rear , alternately . " He lost all anxiety for his profession or for literature , no occupation could interest . him , he could rarely be induced to leave the house , and wheu he did go abroad he quickly became wearied ; he seldom spoke , and thus his first love laid the seeds of that frightful suffering which , during the greater portion of his existence , rendered him . one of the most miserable of men . The three nights of suffering and exposure to which at Anne P - ' s decease he was subjected , broke down the stamina of life , and left him , at twenty years of age , a victim to spinal disease , which , but a fevr years later , reduced him to a crippled body , whilst gifted with a mind active as ever genius possessed : bis fate indeed was harder than that of Tantalus .
"Well might Ireland love a man who bore Tip so long anil bravely under -these terrible afflictions . His letters are manly , and generally evince a ripe and noble intellect . It may be conceived with what a melancholy spirit he ¦ wrote , at the suggestion of his friends , the following sad , yet not abject letter , explaining thus the grounds of his appeal for public assistance : — " The circulation of my books through the United Kingdom ; their reprinting in America ; their having been translated into Preach and German ; and their uniform political tendency , viz ., the formation of a good and affectionate feeling between England and Ireland . In my own name I add , that until the hand of Heaven visited me , I am conscious of having passed from early youth a life of industry , always with
a view to independence . For instance ( and I quote facts easily ascertainable ) , that . at seventeen I obtained the first prize as the first draughtsman in the Dublin Academy of Arts ; that at nineteen I wrote into wide circulation a AVhig journal the Leinsier Journal ) in my native city of Ivilkenny ; at tweatv-one I received a vote of thanks from a general meeting of the artists of Ireland , for nay advocacy with the Irish Government of their demands for an incorporated academy , which they now possess , that at twenty-two I produced a successful tragedy , .. ' * Damon and Pythias / at Covent Garden ; that at twenty-five I was known , at least as a national novelist , even though of an humble order , to European literature ; and that since that period I hare written twenty successful novels and five successful dramas . And I trust most
respectfully that you will not consider this mere idle boast , bat rather as a proof of my deep and conscientious anxiety to show that no habitual want of the pride of independence forces me now before you . "My friends suggest to me to add , that theyconsider ma called on to make known my position , in order to afford to the amuent protectors of literature the opportunity of saving me from death hi poverty . " To * save him from death in poverty '—poor Banim ! This book is the . memorial of a good and gifted man , and niay serve to deepen the sympathies between the prosperous and the unfortunate who make together , as contemporaries , the Pilgrim ' s Progress of art and literature / .
Untitled Article
LETTERS FROM CANNES AN"D NICE . JLetters from , Cannes and iWc-e . By Margaret Maria Brew-ster , Author of ' Work ; or , Plenty to Do and and How to Do It . Illustrated by a Lad } -. Edinburgh : Constable and Co . These letters are "written , -with uncommon vivacity . Miss Brewster , having -enjoyed a brilliant winter away from Scotland , brings home a book of descriptive gossip , with historical interludes and lithographs from sketches by a lady companion ' s pencil . Possibly , the ordinary reader , who has not the honour of knowing the various English residents at Cannes or Nice , may feel it an infliction , to be told all about Mr . Wooilield ' s speculations and Mr . Evans ' s villa , while he may object , with even more emphasis , to the writer ' s everlasting and exclusive reference to Scotchmen : "but these habits are born
in the north , and not even the perfume of orange groves can exorcise the beloved evil . Miss Brewster , with her two or three frailties as an authoress , contrives to be interesting , and chats pleasantly all the way from Paris to Auribeau and Aries , taking notes of memorable incidents , and unlocking thecabinets of tradition in search of serviceable illustrations . At the French capital she had the good taste to start in horror at the sight of the barbaric decorations applied to the roof of Notre-Dame , in pursuance of imperial order 3 , and at Fontainebleau explored the beautiful forestunder the guidance , we infer , of M * D'Hericourt , that sublime cicerone who styles himself the Creator of so many fascinations from Franchard to the Gorges of Apremont . The object of her journey , however , was Cannes , on the Mediterranean , within sight of the magnificent Estrelles , or lastspuu's of the Maritime Alps . Cannes is likely to become a very famous locality , especially if tourists follow Miss Brewster ' a example and extol it with so lavish commendation . It is , she says , the loveliest of all lovely places , the sea exquisitely blue , the sk ht
y inimitably brig , the landscape a garden of olives , oranges , and flowers , the town a cluster of dream-like villas , turreted , balustraded , and nested among groves and hillocks rosy and purple with a matchless growth of flowers . This might easily be mistaken for fairyland , but it is in reality the abode of Henry Lord Brougham and Vaux . That veteran and inexhaustible peer , once representative of Yorkshire , then occupant of the woolsack , thirdly , author of a philippic against the institutions of 1348 , and now a general guide , philosopher , and friend to the provinces , is also of opinion that Cannes is a sort of fragraut and luminoua pamdiso . Ho made calculations there , and found that out of one hundred and eleven days there wore only three on which he could not make experiments upon light , whilo at Brougham Hall the figures were reversed . Miss lirowator adds that inhaling the air is like quaffing champagne , « remark which may send a few bold travellers to that territory of unrivalled butter and sweet odours . At Cannes , in fact , the highways resemble the -warm paths in a conservatory , the hedges seeming to breathe of India and Italy , the jessamine growing in fields , vnt \ y roses , tuberoses , - lavender , jonquils , aud . rosemary in vast limitations ol
, white and blue . Rimmolmight fill many a crystal urn with the dh " tillations of Cannes and its sister city Grasse . Orange-flower water is ™ S " duced hore m cargoes , with cassin , jessamine flowers , rose-leaves vio !*> £ and geraniums—all sold by weight . Then , the department of ' the S yields also lemons , quinces , plums , pears , apples , apricots , peaches , fi ™ pistachios , almonds , cherries , mulberries , and pomegranates . The w the cypress , the laurel , the bay-tree , the chesnut , the plane , the walnut tui palm , and the lilac ornament that soft and sunny coast , besides the doe anl caper , and numerous large ibrest trees . The quarries contain \ mirblo jasper , and alabaster in abundance . But Miss Brewster , after hoverimJ like a bee among these blossoms , and glancing like a geologist at the rocks enters the prison of the Man with the Iron Mask , and does not quit it until the whole array of theories aud conjectures have defiled before her To some readers the following may be new : — '
Among the many fables which cluster . - ' around the ' Tron Mask , ' there is one con nected with the above supposition which 1 cannot resist giving you . If one onlvdared , one would certainly believe it ; but pleasant as it is to lly in the face of historv even I am obliged to say , " Hold , enough ! " In the early days of that dreary cantUvifcy—those days in which the prisoner ' ( whether from fancy or memory ) avis thus described— ' as of handsome face , middle height , brown skin , clear complexion and beautiful voice , '—there was a lovely young lady in the fortress of Ste . M-ir » -ue ' rite she was the daughter of one of the oiHciiu . s , and her name was Julia tk ltonnart ' The mysterious prisoner foil , in love witli this bright sunbeam , whom he had seen froiri his window , and what feminine heart could resist a persecuted , royal , and masked prisoner ! 1 ho father gave his consent—they were married at . an ' altar erected in the dungeon , and the devoted wife cheered the gloom of the weary lifetime . Two little
lnlantsons could not , however , be retained near the unfortunate parents , and- w . ere sent secretly to Corsica , under their maternal name of Bonpart . From them sprang the -Buonapartes , who are therefore Bourbons . In the course of a conversation at St . Helena , it was ' mentioned , to Xapuleou Ly a gentleman present , that u person hud come ; to him to tell the above- sto . r ' v , and to demonstrate from thence that Kapoleon was a lineal descendant of the Iron Mask and thus the legitimate heir of Louis XIII . The yentleman had . laughed at the whole story , which made the narrator very angry ; he maintained that ' " marriage could easily be verified , by the registers of a parish of Marseilles , which he named . The Junperor said that he had heard the same story ,- and that such was the love of the marvellous , that it would have been easy to have substantiated something of the kind ior the credulous multitude .
We have selected an example of Miss Brewster ' s feeling for scenery . The sketch is taken at Nice : — ¦¦ I must introduce you to my window , whick is very different from the Chauvain one ;—that lovely view of hill , and dale , and sea , flushed by the setting sun , is worth seeing . Look out , and to the left , quite close to us , you will see a snow-covered Alp , —just under it runs the famous Genoa road . How rosy the " snow does look with its lilao shades and touches ! To-day there was a pure snowy cloud just resting 011 the real snow , which buUt up a very- high imaginary Alp , but now it has vanished and tbe real
v- ¦ -i y Mountain , like many a fair day-dream in tho nudst of our life . * irst comes a grey , green , lilac , red , brown , and gold-coloured hill ; then a lower range , on the slopes of which are many white villas , with their picturesque rud-tileil roots ; _ on the very top of one of those hills , jutting out between us and the skv , is a saraiman fort . Then comes a low , wooded hill , sloping down till it reaches the town , a tew ot the houses of which you see between the light , graceful branches and dark sterns of those large olives , and rising above them is the Grand Chateau of Nice , wnue beyond is the Mediterranean , with a few merry , swan-like little sails upoa its blue Witters . Between our eyes and the opposite hills and villas there is « l «» -6 o g iou , or oblong basin , upon the very brink of which is this Maison Sautiron . It is one
immense vineyard and oliveyard , varied by : Umond-treQ 3 , and a few oaks with rich , brown , withered foliage , and those tall cypre&ses , which arc ? very common here , and have . a strange , weird effect : you have them in every possible way—there are hedges of them—there arc walls of them—there arc isolated sentinels standing , tall and gloomy . This rich little valley is close to the house , and is intersected with tlia-inost exquisite little paths— -under the olives , and beside the olives , and up there between the cypresses , and down there among the vines ; everywhere then . is a little patli , ami it is the pleasantest spot in the whole world—out of Scotland . That last touch is one of nature . Miss Brewster could not help it . She wr ites an intelligent account of Nismes , with its many antiquities , and altogether describes pleasantly the incidents and observations of a pleasant to
Untitled Article
MEN OF THE TIME . Men of the Time : Bioyruphienl SkctcJws of Knuiu-nt Living Characters . Also lihxjrapfiicul , Sketches of Celebrated Women oftlic Time . Kent ami Co . No doubt this is a well-intentioned volume . It might be useful were it constructed upon any intelligible plan . At present , however , it is : i 111 a . ^ of confused misinformation . We do not know how it has been got uj > , but it seems to have been the production of two or three gentlemen who have chosen to be critics as well as compilers , ami to measure and mark every person within their range of observation . Their whole design is u mistake . They have adopted a false standard by which to estimate the subjects of their ' biographical sketches , ' and their selections seem to have been made altogether at random . Matters of fact are very doubtfully treated ; far example , although we have to thank the editors for several allusions io ourselves , we have to assure them that , in every particular , ( licit- informants have led them astray . But a low errors oi' detail might be expected and pardoned in u manual pretending to be so coinprdu'iisive . The principal fault of the book is that it contains , not a series of neat and careful biographies , but a medley of personal estimates , often so coloured that the individual referred to is at once recognized as the author ol'lns own glorification . Here is an example , from the notice of a living poet : —'' Ho passed the sweetest and most impressible periods of his life in one of the loveliest of our English valleys , 11 defile opening out of the rich , vast , vule ot Gloucester , between undulating hills of wood , pasture , and orchard , whoro the great ocean of summer that fills tho plains runs and ripples , curls and I'realvs into every oxquisito spray of wealth and beauty . " Biography , utilobiogriiphy , or flattering nonsense r Of course , a considerable muiuIm ' -i" ot tho . se who arc really Men of the Timo arc altogether omitted , while crowds arc introduced merely , an we infer , because they were known to tlie compilers . That which is principally obnoxious , however , is the attempt at tho
Untitled Article
¦" Jggjg __ - ___ . ^^^ . ^ . ^^ RAl ^ . ^ ' ( X ° - 400 , November 21 , 185 7
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 21, 1857, page 1122, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2218/page/18/
-