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    Untitled Article

    The just and efficient distribution of the Literary Fund is a matter in which all connected with literature are directly interested . This Fuad is the only regular pension for assisting the necessitous—often amongst the most deserving —members of a profession , which makes a heavier constant strain on the powers of those who devote themselves to its service , and has fewer permanent posts to offer them , than perhaps any other . If at all reflecting the present state of literature the Fund ought to be in a flourishing condition , and if decently well

    managed would produce yearly an immense amount of good . Our readers need scarcely be told , however , that under the existing management it is administered in a culpably expensive , capricious , and ineffectual manner , nearly onehalf of the available fund being spent in the distribution , while the relief afforded is given to many -who have no need , and systematically denied to others ¦ w hose claims are just and urgent . For the last four years vigorous efforts have been made at successive annual meetings to correct the abuses , reform the management , and extend the benefit of the Fund . These efforts have already produced some effect . Much , however , still remains to be done , and the reformers , confident of the justice of their cause , are resolved to persevere until it is triumphant . They have largely the sympathy and support , not only of the profession they represent , but of the public generally , in their disinterested efforts to correct a notorious abuse . The facts on which they proceed speak

    for themselves , and in order that they be more widely and minutely known , these gentlemen have just published a detailed statement , entitled , The Case of the Reformers in the Literary Fund , stated by C . W . Dilke , Chables Dickens , and John Forsier . The March number of Blackwood contains the second part of Colonel Burton ' s vivid narrative of his adventures on the eastern coast of Africa . In his graphic descriptions we see distinctly places , persons , and scenes wholly unknown to the vast majority of readers and travellers even in this reading and travelling age .. Here is a sketch of an African village

    market : — The people of Tanga hold at Ambony , a neighbouring village , every fifth day , a ffolio or market with the savages of the interior . Having assumed an Arab dress—a turban of portentous circumference , and a long henna-dyed shirt—and accompanied by Said bin Salim with his excalibar , by the consumptive Jemadar , who sat down to rest every ten minutes , and an old Arab , Kbalfian bin AbdilJab , who had constituted himself our cicerone , I went to inspect the scene . Walking along the coast , we passed through a village of huts and cocos , filled with forges , which were already at work , and a school of young hopefuls stunning one another . After two miles , we crossed some muddy tidal creeks , corded over with creepers and tree-roots , a sandy inlet , and the small sweet surface-drain , Mtofu , which had water up to the waist . Another mile brought us to Behemoth River , a deep streamlet flowing under banks forty or fifty feet high , covered with calabash and jungle-trees . Women were feeing ferried over ; in ecstasies of fear , they hung down their heads , and hid their faces between their knees till the danger passed . The savages of this coast are by no means a maritime race ; they have no boats , rarely fish , and , unable to swim , are stopped by of

    a narrow stream . Having crossed the river , we traversed plantations cocos and plantains , and , ascending a steep hill , found the market warm , ' as Easterns say , upon the seaward elope . The wild people , Washenzy , Wasembara , Wadigo , and Wasegeju , armed as usual , stalked about , whilst their women , each with baby on back , ' —its round head nodding with every movement of the parental person , yet it never cries , that model-baby , —carried heavy loads of saleable stuff , or sat opposite their property , or chaffered and gesticulated upon knotty questions of bargain . These hard-used and ill-favoured beings paid toll for ingress at a place where cords were stretched across the road . The wild people exchanged their lean sheep and goats , cocos and plantains , grain and ghee , for cottons , beads , and ironware , dry fish , salt , intoxicating liquors , spices , needles and thread , hooks , and blue-stone . The groups gathered under the several trees were noisy , but peaceful ; often , however , a lively scone , worthy of Donnybrook in its palmiest days , takes place , knobstick and dagger being used by the black factions freely as fist and shillelah are in civilised lands . We returned at noon over the sands , which were strewed with sea-slugs , and in places with chrelodins lying dead in the sun ; the hoat of the ground made my barefooted companions run forward to the shade , rom time to time , like the dogs in Tibet .

    • Food and Drink' is another of those pleasant papers which exhibit the latest chemical and physiological researches , as illustrated in the facts of common life . ' Sullivan on Cumberland , ' is the title of a readable article on the ethnology , folk-lore , the habits and superstitions of the northern counties . l ? rom a lively and interesting article on the ' Curiosities of Natural History , ' wo take the following dissertation on croaking : — There are fissures at the corners of the frog ' s mouth , which admit the external protrusion of certain bladdor-liko cheek-pouches , and these are inflated from the windpipe , and with these instruments the croaking noise is produced . The male frog alone possesses these voice-sacs , and Mr . Buckland supposes that their use is for the purpose of apprising tho lady of the presence of the gentleman . There can bo no doubt of that . The frog is a dumb dog when tho tender passjon is not on him , but when he

    would ' a-wooing go , ' gallantlj' does ho blow his amorous acclaim . To Madam Frog the song is sweeter than any Sappho over sung , and she is as much charmed as tho thrush is with her gallant mute perched on tho neighbouring elm-top , piping impetuously his mellifluous notes . In tho month of April , what ia tlnor than a aymphonious frog-pond ! We have our jot pond that wo duly visit . Tho south wind has been blowing : —XHTialtuHirfelllnlf'tl ^ —The-llttle-celandlne ,-with starry eyes , goms tlio bank ; and lower down , with its roots drinking nourishment from tho pond , tho -water-marigold raisee aloft Its glowing flower , and gazes ardently at tho sun j tho beos , humming in ecstasy , are getting tho flret aip of tho season from tho osiorod margin 5 tho ribbon-liko foliage of tho wator-gmes la shooting athwart tho pond ; abovo , tho hoavonly minatrol ia * carolling clear in her aerial towor ; ' and lo ! aco tho frogs look ' ing up with largo , mild—philosophic eyes ; and hear how rapturously they proclaim their love . Qo , thou bilious , molancholious ,

    croaking biped , to the pond . My yellow friends there may take fright at thy vinegai visage ; but if thou art patient and contemplative , they will reveal themselves even to thee , and teach thee a wisdom deeper than thine own . Go to the pond and studiously consider its treasures and marginal beauties , and learn to doff thy sad attire , and to modulate thy voice to less dismal accents . Nature , sir , has placed no aacculi in thy cheek to mark thee out as meant for a croaker , but has given thee lips and tongue for the utterance of a deep and thoughtful praise . Talk of crossing seas and seeking in continental travel the healing of thy griefs and the removal of thy ennui . Cumbrous cure for artificial woes ! Nature's medicine is near thy home , and our author could teach thee in thy pensive moods to recreate thyself on the margin of his unpretending pond , when the frogs would rebuke thy gloom , and the laughing flowers would beguile thee of thy fancied ills . " Nature is never melancholy , " says Coleridge , and as ' Wilkes was no Wilkesite , ' so frogs are no croakers . Mr . Buckland brought with him from Germany a dozen specimens of the green tree-frog . „ . _ . . _ . .

    " I started at night on my homeward journey by the diligence , and I put the bottle containing the frogs into the pocket inside the diligence . My fellow-passengers were sleepy smoke-dried Germans ; very little conversation took place ; and after the first mile , every one settled himself to sleep , and soon all were snoring . I suddenly awok « with a start , and found all the sleepers had been roused at the same moment . Or their sleepy faces were depicted fear and anger . What had woke us all up so suddenly ? The morning was just breaking , and my frogs , though in the dark pocket ol the coach , had found it out , and -with one accord all twelve of them had begun theii morning song . As if at a given signal , they , one and all of them , began to croak as loud as ever they could . The noise their united concert made , seemed , in the closed compartment of the coach , quite deafening . Well might the Germans look angry . They wanted to throw the frogs , bottle and all , out of the window ; but I gave the bottle a good shaking , and made the frogs keep quiet . " all croakers This to how

    ' A good shaking , ' we believe , -would silence . seems us , - ever , a very unsatisfactory explanation of the cause why these frogs should have indulged in such a morning concert . Frogs are not especially sensitive to the light . They keep no vigils . They are not wont to herald in the dawn of day . They cop > not chanticleer , who disturbs the dull ear of the departing night with his shrill clarion . Horace indeed talks of the fenny frogs driving away sleep : ' Ransapalustres avertunt somnos . But Horace was a toper , and Sol was riding high in his fiery car ere the Falernian cups were slept off . Moreover , these German frogs must have been quick-sighted indeed , bottled up as they were and deposited in the pocket ot a dusky German diligence , could they have been aware that the rosy morn was reddening the east . The cause of the concert is evident . The smoke-dried Germans were snoring . There is a variety of snoring that approaches indefinitely near to croaking . The frogs heard the challenge , and unanimously responded . Fraser this month contains interesting articles on ' The History of Science , and some of its Lessons ; ' ' Country Houses and Country Life ; ' ' Phantasmata , ' or moral contagion considered in its evil aspects and workings .

    In the Dublin University Magazine , amongst other interesting articles , we find an elaborate one on the vexed subject of ' Pope and his Biographers , in which the disputed facts of the poet ' s life are discussed with candour , judgment , and critical sagacity .

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    We have received a letter from Mr . Charles S . Middleion , author of the Life of Shelley reviewed by us last week , complaining of some remarks we felt bound to make on certain passages in his work . It must be obvious to Mr . Middlexon , and indeed to all who give the matter a moment ' s thought , that no paper can possibly admit reviews of reviews , for the simple reason that its columns would soon be filled with such matter , and that endless controversies would thus be engendered . We cannot , therefore , admit the whole of Mr . Middlexon ' s somewhat angry expostulation , but will refer to its leading points . Alluding to the remarks we made on the want of good taste exhibited in the work with respect to the sanctities of domestic life , the biographer writes : — " I am not aware that I have in any instance related things sufficient to justify Jfiie animadversion of your reviewer , and , without any attempt to

    define what is that ' finest characteristic of the true gentleman , ' I protest against the unfairness of a wholesale affirmation without any attempt whatever to demonstrate the truth of it . " Mr . MidDleton furthermore requires specific proof of the general assertion which we have made . It is impossible that anything could demonstrate more clearly than this demand , that absence of delicate feeling on such matters which we noted last week as being an unfortunate characteristic of Mr . Middleton ' s book . If our remarks had * wanted justification before , here it is supplied to our hands . Mr . Middlexon asks us to do the very thing we blamed him for doing—asks us to enter into private affairs in order to vindicate our assertion that he ought not to have entered in ^ o private affairs ! With all respeot for our correspondent , we cannot so stultify ourselves ; nor will we consent to make our columns the arena of

    personal strife . At the conclusion of his letter , Mr . Middleton says : — " Allow me also to suggest that , when your reviewer affirms Miss Clairmonx ' s ( not Claremonx ) Christian name to be Jane , ho confounds her with MrB . Williams . Miss Clairmowt ' s Christian name was Clare—that is , if those who knew her are to bo beliovcd , and if Mrs . Shelley ' s handwriting be any authority . " We can only say with respect to this that our statement was made on authority as good aa tho late Mrs . Subllkit ' s . We believe tho fact to be that the prefix Clare was merely a familiar shortening of tho surname

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    , , , „ _ oUfrMPA ; ¦ ¦ —•• ¦ . ¦¦¦¦¦—Oulita t / us Serf : a Tragedy . •*• w - * • ««* . The author of Oulita has broken fresh ground in laying tho scone of his tragedy in Russia—a land almost unknown to tho dramatists , yet one which presents , in its picturesque union of barbarism and civilization , many opportunities for effective incidents and new elaborations of character , lne talo hero unfolded is thoroughly Russian—ft story of serfdom and ot police

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    —?—Critics are not the legislators , but the judges ana police of literature . They do not ^ akeiaw ^ -they interpret and try to enforce them .-Edinburgh Revteto . 0 .

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    No . 415 , Maech 6 , 1858 /) TEE LEADER , 233

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), March 6, 1858, page 233, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2233/page/17/