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Leader (1850-1860), 2nd January 1858, Edition 1 of 2, Page 15

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      Untitled Article

      « ' •*• ~ „ ., ^?¦ t ^ oi ^ c ^ c . ifltnrs but the iudges and police of literature . They do not ° "tlC make laws ^ hf ? interpret and % tl enforce theun-ISdinlmrfitX **** .

      Untitled Article

      The new volume of Cambridge Essays , published a few days since , will probably be less generally popular than either of its predecessors , the papers being fewer , and , as a natural result , longer than in the previous volumes . The Essays show no falling off , however , in real value and permanent interest , each being a substantial contribution towards the elucidation of the subject discussed . If they prove less attractive thac the former Essays of the same series , it will not be from any want of interest in the subjects chosen , but simply from the solidity of the treatment . Most of the questions discussed are of immediate and practical interest , such as ' Agriculture in Britain at the present Day / ' Telegraphic Communication with India , ' and ' Questions Raised by the Mutiny . ' This is a noteworthy feature of the volume , as showing how thoroughly the Cambridge men keep abreast of the foremost topics of the time . Another marked feature of the volume is the absence of that purely insular

      point of view which is too common with English essayists . More than one of the writers in the present volume institute a lengthy comparison between our own state and that of our neighbours across the Channel , evidently the result not only of familiar knowledge , but also of personal interest in the actual social and political condition of the French people . The first and most elaborate essay in the volume , on * The Characteristics of English Criminal Law , ' by Mr . Eitzjamks Stephen , illustrates this . After giving a lucid outline of a most perplexed and intricate subject—the composition , principles , and working of our criminal law—he institutes towards the close of his essay a comparison between the statistics of criminal justice lately published in England and France . The result of this comparison is , that the punishment for criminal offences is neither so uniform nor so severe in our own country as in France . The following extract closes the contrast : —

      The English system , however , involves one great disadvantage . ' here is no uniform standard of punishment , and thus the penalties of crimes diHfcr according to the privuto judgments of all the judges and all the chairmen of quarter sessions , and ao many circumstances weigh with them thut the ditt ' erences are at times almost incredible . I have heard two different boya sentenced for almost identically tbo same offence ( stealing from the person ) , to six months' hard labour , and to six years' penal servitude . I have also hoard a . woman sentenced to fourteen years' transportation , and a man to four months' imprisonment , for passing forged notes—on the same circuit , but by different judges . A late judge of great eminence adopted a theory , not long before his death , that punishment for first offences ought to be severe . His brother judge did not share it , and the consequence was , that at half the towns on the Midland Circuit , imprisonments ran from eight to eighteen months , whilst at the others they were more often four , six , or eight . It may not bo very easy to any whether a servant who drinks his master ' s wine should go to prison for four months or for eight , but it is rather odd that the question should turn upon his being tried at Nottingham or Derby .

      It may bo interesting to notice , in conclusion , the comparative frequency of some of the graver crimes in tho two countries . There were , in Franco , 107 persons accused of political crimes . In England , there woro none . In Franco , there wore 111 persons tried for mvurtve ( which would include mnny of tho worst cases of manslaughter ) , 241 ) for assassination , 18 for parricide , 200 for infanticide , nnd 46 ( of ^ whom 21 wore women' ) for poisoning . These numbers include attempts . In all , G 14 pWsonTTwerinicKJu ^^ these , 90 porsons wore charged with one form of what we most confusedly call manslaughter—viz ., causing death unintentionally by blows or wounds ; and 820 wore tried for causing death by negligence . The negligence in 81 cases consisted of furious driving . In England , 57 persons woro accused of murder , 00 of attempts to murder . Only 11 wore capitally convicted on tho first charge , and 10 on tho second ; and 204 persons woro tried for manslaughter . In crimes of violence not attended with fatal consequences , tho proportions are very diftbront . In Franco , thoro woro * 82 cases of wounding , which disabled tho wounded person for twenty days or more ; in England , thoro woro 21 ) 0 canes of ehooting , stabbing , nnd wounding with intent to do grievous bodily . harm . In Franco , there woro 778 cusua of rnpo and assault with

      intent ; in England , 234 . la France , the persons so assaulted were , in no less than 594 cases , under fifteen years of age . In France , there were 86 trials for procuring abortion ; in England , only 5 . On the other hand , there were but 8 cases of bigamy in Prance , against 86 in England . The cases of perjury , and subornation of perjury , were 144 in each country . These last results may probably be attributed , to a g-reat extent , to the foolish lenity shown to these crimes in England . Four years ' penal servitude is the greatest punishment which can be awarded to an offence which may be made the instrument of the most atrocious murder , or to one which , though often venial , occasionally combines the grossest cruelty with the most disgraceful treachery , and has been fairly described as a rape by fraud . The third article of the volume , on ' Telegraphic Communication with India , ' written in full knowledge of the subject , discusses the rival lines of telegraph proposed , and decides in favour of the Red Sea project . But the most generally readable and attractive article is the fourth , on ' Porson , ' by Mr . H . B , . Lttabd . It abounds with pleasant gossip , illustrating the character and career of that great but neglected scholar , and is , in fact , the best biographical sketch of him yet published .

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      THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE AND ART . The Beautiful in Nature . Art , and Ldfe . By A . J . Symington . 2 vols . Longman and Co . In these volumes , there is more evidence of industry than of original thought . The author is a student , who reads for his ideas , and he has produced a discursive criticism , not a little independent in tone , yet rarely presenting any fruition of intellectual inquiry beyond that which is to be found in the works of previous writers . A set of synoptical outlines enclose a light commentary , and Mr . Symington ' s task is concluded . If we search the book for a new elucidation of the principle of beauty , in art , nature , or life , we are disappointed ; strictly , it is not a philosophical treatise , but a series of impressions taken from a large variety of originals , wrought together with taste and ingenuity , and laid open as a view of that which is , or has been , estimated beautiful by artists and nations at different periods ot historv . Thus . Mr . Svmineton has aimed at an educational purpose , and

      certainly we would gladly see his volumes in the hands ot the younger freemasons of this department of p hilosophy , since it may aid in guarding against the evils of a too transcendental and metaphysical rendering of natural , though not exactly demonstrable , laws . Perhaps that which stands in place of a theory is so stretched by the writer that the tissue parts , and exposes at times the bones of a very crude and common doctrine , as when Mr . Symington , after tracing the beautiful through philosophy , nature , and art , applies his standard to human life , and satisfies himself that he has carried the scholar round a circle ; but this , which might have been fatal to him hod he come forward as a creative thinker , is not the worst objection to his method ,

      as something between that of a commentator and that of an encyclopaedist He thinks it necessary to classify and characterize enough names to nil a biographical dictionary , and so yielding is his judgment to the temptations of l ? is generosity , that not content with having sounded a flourish over every maker of verses known to the narrowest fame , he assures us that a certain poet and comp oser , in his literary and musical confidence , would assuredly rind a willing audience among the admire rs of Wordsworth and Beethoven , if only he were to publish his works . Either this is mere personal flattery , or it is addressed to the public , and in the latter case Mr . Symington has mistaken his vocation . The world will not believe in unpublished parallels

      of the works of Wordsworth and Beethoven on the faith of a writer whose literary partialities are so nume rous as to be thoroughly impartial , not to say indiscriminate . A rigid investigation of the science of aesthetics might have reduced the number of laudatory epithets flowing through these two volumes . But Mr . Symington has written that which , appreciated in a proper li"ht , is indeed very' readable . In the first place , his subject is attractive , and he treats it with attractive ease . All the world worships beauty , as he says , and all poe ts dedicate to it their hymns . Therefore speculative minds are eager to discover the source of the delight that lives for centuries , and was the fascination of the world ere creative art or noetrv were known . Mr . Symington does not tell us what beauty is , or ancient

      help us to understand it , but he catalogues the theories ot ana modern times , nnd constructs a kaleidoscope of fanciful opinions . Ine eye is the true artist , and no one has yet explained why tho eye is gratified more by one form than by another . Winkehnan ' s definition is a mere figure of speech , and therefore vague ; Schiller ' s is a didactism ; Kant s is a maxim ; Spelling ' s is the vapoury expression of a theory ; Lord Bacon s pleases but does not satisfy ; Addison ' s is a suggestion ; Gerard s a fragment ; Jeffrey denies innute beauty altogether , and Burke ,-when he tries to define it , tempts us to throw down the treatise on the Sublime and . Beautiful , one of the most popular and the least valuable of his writings . II piu neW umo . which satisfied Coleridge , is a definition that needs to bo defined , and has never been yet . Any object , some have said * appears beautiful when an intense light is cast upon it ; but the real purpose o * a dissertation on beauty is to fix it as a principle in art , and to discover how thia principle may bo made to fructify . We all know , and even savages by their silent ga / iugs confess , that nature is beautiful , that pink sunset clouds , pine-trees naming in tho light , flowers , stars , rainbows , orchards in tue

      blossom , lakes half hid in shadow and half glancing in sun , ana jaweis , have their separate and wonderful beauties , but , if tho lovo of beauty bo Taste , can it bo converted into a philosophy and becomo the domain o « the ^ highest ^ inindsK- ^ Ceo , ^ . ^ - ^ ^ ^ ^^ - Symington writes of the beautiltl in nature , he quotes ^ fSnTcTioTSe ^^^ exquiuite fragments , but though nil this gold and jewellery is in the crucible , tho sun-drop does not fall out ; tho alchemist has suggested nothing * ¦ « . Tho trentiflo on artistic benuty is more promising nt its commencement , but we soon discover that Mr . Symington writes hi fetters , bo tar as be goes ho is on intelligent guide , but hia Bpoci « l dogma being that the punyt of Grecian art ceaeed in one eonso before the Venus ot Praxiteles was chiselled , we recognize , at once , a critic with nn absorbing prejudice . lhe <

      Untitled Article

      No . 406 , JAiarARY 2 , 1858 . ] THE LEADEB , 15

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      Lom > Macatjlay has now replied to Mr . Hepwobth Dixok on the subject of William Penn and the Pardon-brokerage at Taunton . An elaborate note to the second volume of the new edition of his History of England sets forth the argument . Only two points are relied upon to confirm < the Quaker ' s' conviction : that the names of Penn and other persons were spelt differently at different times , and that the Geokge Penne in question was not a man with whom a Secretary of State would have corresponded . Now , a pardon was

      negotiated at Taunton by ' Mr . Penne ; ' a vague letter from Sundeb lajtd is the evidence ; there was at Taunton a Mr . Pehne ; he was a notorious pardon-broker ; his transactions of this kind remain upon record . Is it necessary , then , to surmise—for it is only surmise—that Wiluam Penn , the Quaker , conducted the bargain ? The testimony is all on one side ; there is scarcely a possibility in favour of Lord Macatjlay ' s hypothesis But is it likely , Lord Macatjlay asks , that a Secretary of State would correspond with such an individual as George Penne ? What answer will satisfy the noble historian ? Secretaries of State did correspond with him ; he was thought of such importance , that one of his letters , printed in Mr . Dixon's Life , ' was entered among the minutes of the Privy Council . If Stjndekxand would not write to him , Sundebxand ' s superiors wrote . Lord Macatjlay's

      suggestion , therefore , has no force whatever . We are sorry to find that he will not be set right , and refuses to modify an inaccurate passage in a history of which the nation , as well as himself , is proud . The point has been proved against him to demonstration , and it would have done him no discredit to recast a paragraph for the sake of historical honesty .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 2, 1858, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2224/page/15/