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AN.KDTTOK AND AN A.UT11OT.L*
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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.
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to an age in which the duty of promoting tins ™ B ^ «™^ A S little recognised , and whose labours for a long time ««>; £ *« ed both the open and secret hostility of the Government . But there s much to be done in India besides , the cultivation of , » f > J ° ; " « needless to- dwell upon the richness cf the soil and f ^ J ^ number of most useful commodities winch it J 4 uees —| S £ ' cotton , hemp , jute , all kinds of oil seeds nee , and ^ p ^ s ; 4 P » oducts for which Europe will always supply a mjirfcet . Xabous so cheap , that it scarcely becomes an clement in men s calculatio is The only difficulty has been . the conveyance of the produce . when raised to . the market , but that difficulty is now being fast got o er India offers a magnificent field for the employment of- Englis h ital and lish intelligence Of coursethe capital must be
cap Eng . , there to employ the intelligence ; but capital , timid as it y , has already found out the capabilities of India . Cheap as Indian labour is , English intelligent labour to direct it , however highly paid , is always cheap , not only from the saving it ¦ effects ¦ mtlie judicious application of means to ends , but from its prevention of that . constant cheating which the Hindoo seems to regard as a virtue rather than a vice . It will be for the Government of India to aid by judicious encouragements , or , more correctly , by the removal of present hinderaneeH the movement of capital to that country . Meanwhile , young men now anxiously seeking , nnd seeking in yam , congenial employment at home , would do well to follow Lord Ii . lgm s hint . If worth anything at all , they can acquire that one indispensable qualification , a knowledge of the language used in the district
to which they direct their steps . And whilst no one must gb to India in . the expectation ot accumulating an immense fortune iii a few years , and returning a nabob to buy a great estate , a seat in parliament , or a peer s daughter tor his wife , Vet no one be frightened by the notion that India is an excessively unhealthy country , to which he must go with the expecr tation of being supremely miserable all the while he is there , and the intention of miming 1 away just before the climate is ontne . point of making an end of him . No doubt . a campaign . against a native in the hot months is a dreadful trialunder which the stoutest
army , will often g-ive way ; and imprisonment in Calcutta the wholeyear round is a foretaste of purgatory , to use the mildest term : J ^ it in t ; he interior , to leave , out of the question those particular districts wiircn enioy a " peculiarly healthful temperature , the vicissitudes ot the climate may be got through well enough with but common care . At least a third part of the year the climate is agreeable ; the sutferings sustained in the remaining . two thirds are principally the result of imprudence . If anybody . entertains the notion thatlhe climate of India is necessarily desHMictive to health , let linn get an who be
introduction to any two or three indigo planters may over here on a visit , and'he will be instantaneousl y-undeceiYed . It the " Artist in India" has given a true presentment of Mofussil hieand , so far as we can judge , he has done so—the settlers in Bengal manage to get an amount of pleasure and enjoyment which ™ sm . V of us here at home can never hope for . Nor is India tlie far-on land it once was . In a little time the journey will become a much shorter one than that to Canada \ yas even in our own days , and an occasional visit to England will be possible to every settler m at all a prosperous position . The youth of England wants a field for its energies , India offers a rich one , Let us take care that no Governmental bungling prevents its being fairly worked . We must add a word of hearty commendation for the book which
has induced these reflections , . A better gift book and more appropriate . ornament for the drawing-room table of those who have any connection with India we can scarcely conceive , lhe llustrations sire admirably executed , and if the artist does not handle the pen quite so well as ho does tlie pencil , lie has yet managed to impart a great quantity of interesting and valuable information . lhe account of the cultivation and manufacture of indigo is remarkably clear ; and , although the author ' s observations on the land question , the condition of the people , and the prospects of the missionaries are not very novel or striking , still they will prove of great service to many who would never open volumes of more serious pretensions , but who , turning from one of his pleasant illustrations to the other , may bo induced to read the letters winch explain them .
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I S there in this great realm a more commonplace person www Dr . John Gumming ? Is there a vainer or . more presumptuous mortal P Hero wo have a book of travels by an American clergyman , which could very well have stood on its own egs , made its own bow , spoken its own speech ; but it cannot be introduced to iis , it seems , without the bombast and the balderdash of the archplatitudinarian who wearies the vrorld with discourson at second hand . on the millennium . Besides , wo thought that editing * really meant something . Hut how has Dr . Ou-mming edited this work P He has not corrected the proof-sheets , for there is a pleasant , ro »; tt f , r « p 4 , rr , nm . nnl » innl blunders . Neither has ho elucidated or
corrected anything . What , then , has ho done P Ha has contributed an introduction remarkable for stupidity , and notes remarkable for silliness ; and with glaring impertinence he hiu ? thrust before us ' those miUonarian dogmas > vhich " are his . stoolc-in-tw o . Dr . ( Summing- novor forgets the shop , , The utterances ot Daniel the Prophet , misinterpreted by one who is little oi a prophet ^ r-and the Revelation of Saint John the Divine misinterpreted by John the Un-
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divine , are the said John the Undivine ' s estate . Who would ever have heard of Dr . Cumming , if Dr . Cumming had not discovered that predictions about the millennium excited tlie hopes and alarmeji the fears of so many P As respects the . millennium " , thoseare Welcome to believe in it who choose ; but mestcertainlyr it * \ ye were miUenariaiiSj and were convinced that in half a dozen years Christ was to appear on tlie earth , and the Devil was to be chained , we should deem it our duty to act very differently from our fellow beings ; we should prepare ourselves for the . advent of the Messiah , and the dethronement of Satan , by prayer , by penitence , by solitude , by absolute abstinence from the cares and concerns of the world . But Dr , Cumming is the preacher to a fashionable audience ; he is always glad to show his self-satisfied face with lords , oil the platform ; and we
never heard that in bargaining with his publisher about his trumpery tomes , he renounced all remuneration , or gave up every claim to the copyright , for the sufficient reason that the millennium is corning . We revere every man ' s faith who gives proof of his sincerity ; and the more faithless an age—for oiir own is faithless enough—the more faith should be by the faithful revered . But what ^ proof of sincerity has Dr . Cumming given ? Not even that of studying , of knowing the subject well of which he professes to treat . As there are few more barren thinkers , few worse writers than Di \ Cumming , so there are few in ore ignorant scholars or incompetent theologians . Sundry Americans have borrowed from the Germans : lie borrows from the Americans ; and a curious aspect the whole thino- wears -when it comes before the British j > ul > Iic .
The plagiary is half a quack . We wish we could believe that Dr . Cumming ' s quackery were limited to his notorious plagiarisms . But when Dr . Camming- frightens the old women in the country with his books—so tawdry in style , so big with folly—yet looks perfectly undisturbed in the prospect of the tribulations which lie prophesies , and if not greedy of pence is certainly very greedy of praise , we ask him whether he should be quite so hard on Pio Nono , sind on papal impostors and impostures generally ? At all events , in the present instance we couid have dispensed with Dr . Cumming ' s millenarian advertising cards ¦ aud placards ; and we think that Dr . Cross could have dispensed with them too . For one reader whorit Dr . Cuinmiiig ' s name will attract , there are ten whom it will repel . Dr ; Cross is n much superior man to Dr . Cuinming . Though by settled
birth an Engli » liman , yetrlie has been . so long as a Wesleyan preacher in the United States that he seems to consider himseli an Ameri ^ n . t ie is joyous , genial , broad-hearted , ubhprs cant :, and is -not , like Dr . Camming , always bringing in the shop . On the contrary , he appears glad to escape from the shop , thought quite as likely as Dr . Cumming to be a devoted" minister of Christ . Dr . Grossjvvould be a good . writer , if he had not caug-ht the bad habit of American grandiloquence . Where al 1 is ecstasy , nothing is ecstatic ; where all is emphasis , nothing- is emphatic . More monotonous than even dullness is huge , accumulated , unpausing , rhetorical embellishment . Dr . Cross is also tainted somewhat with American vnlgarity . He has a Yankee way of looking at things which offends the more refined English taste . Dr . Cross generally entertains when narratin . " his adventures ; he is tiresome when he parades his erudition , wlifch is neither very profound nor very accurate . He fills a large part of . his volume with describing Italian scenes , Italian edifices ,
monuments , and ruins , the character mid manners of the Italians . How often all this has been done before ; but done with the poet s power , the painter ' s warmth , the scholar's indefatigable research and exhaustive minuteness . De . Cross , however , whou on Italian grouud , offers us little more than a bad guido-book , if he has not , indeed , been considerably indebted to the guide-books . 1 * rom a traveller we demand the history of i ' resh facts , or the picture otfrosh impressions . In Dr . Cross ' s wof-k we have the history of fuots which are not fresh , and tlie picture of impressions -SQino-ot wJuch are not fresh . Our older books of travels are far more . interestingand instructive than the new , for the aimplo rciitum that the traveller two or three hundred years ago deemed .-it becoming to tell tho world what ho saw , while tho modern traveller is not satisfied unless he can tell what he has wad about what he has se « n . The traveller of tho sixteenth or seventeenth century might be an exceedingly unlearned person , but ho had a . quick and healthy glance lor colour ,
for form , for life , for distinctive difl ' orqnccs , autf also for that eternally human , eternally ( Uvino nature which makes nil nations brothers . The ' modern traveller haa always his guide-book in M ?» hand , hits up eyes , no heart , no brain of Ins own , and is the guide-book ' s slave . Many Ocrmau students rumble all over the conlinonb with u stick in their rough fist , a wallet on their stout back , very little money in their pocket , and assuredly no guide book there . And who sees all tliafc is worth seeing on the Continent so well or so wisely us they ? The most moderately gifted man pierces beneath tho surface if he trusts to his own sight and insight' ; the most highly gifted man who trusts to the sight and tho insight ofuiDther is iilrniU even to touch tho surface , and ennnot therefore penotr . ite below it . Away , then , with tho guidebooks , the manuals of untuiuUio . s , nnd tho classical dictionaries , and lot usance moro have fltulwart mon , who , toy sheer heroism , can create what is most poetic in tho midst ot whut is most prosaic .
Two thirds of this volume might . be banished to the antiquan « n lumber room ; the remaining- third would bo lively and readable Some of Dr . Cross's experiences in Ital y wore ot « peculiar kind He makes mention of a place in Italy whera you »™ y . dl » ° ™ , ?« * which you select while swimming about » n tboir native olomo » t . This in England would eoarccly bo ' considered as adding to tlie to ^ ot X&toto . Who would like to , strlp «^ J ^ £ ^ hour ir two among the wayo / in order to have » ffioyt | i / al ol wkror of salmon P Dr . Cross , perhaps , meant to say that wo can solccb
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tvTa ^ ctt 10 . 1860 . 1 The Leader and Satur dmj Analyst . 237
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* The American Ifastor in J 2 nro 2 w . By tho Rov . Joanpn Onoss , P . P . Edited , with an Introduction « vud Notes , by tho Rov . John Qvmnxa , P . P ., London : lUchnrd Bontloy .
An.Kdttok And An A.Ut11ot.L*
AN . EDTTOK AND AN A . UT 11 OT . L *
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), March 10, 1860, page 237, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2337/page/17/
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