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328 T H E LEADE R. pSTo. 419, April 3,18...
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ANASTASIA. Anastasia. , ¦ Longman and Co...
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THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. The Educati...
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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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Essays And Remains Of Alfred Vaughan. Es...
lie did thoroughly ? his own work on the Mystics proves that he never based an assertion upon an authority at second hand ; he had read the works he quoted ; if he appropriated a passage , it was not without examining its context ; and he aimed' at something more enduring than an exhibition of pages and chapters to astonish the illiterate . Thus all his writings bear the impress of original thought and solid learning , as well as of a refined , tasteful * sensitive mind , capable of the warmest sympathy , but well-poised , firm , and far-sighted . These two volumes , gracefully prepared for the press by Dr . "Vau <> han , will occupy a niche in our library of select criticism .
328 T H E Leade R. Psto. 419, April 3,18...
328 T H E LEADE R . pSTo . 419 , April 3 , 1858 .
Anastasia. Anastasia. , ¦ Longman And Co...
ANASTASIA . Anastasia . , ¦ Longman and Co . Som , conflicts' and ' soul agonies' have formed the subject of so many poems during the last few years that the manifestation has grown into a disease , infecting not only our poetical literature , but in some measure the -whole current of contemporary thought . A morbid melancholy , an ultra self-consciousness , an unhealthy love of spiritual excitement , is spreading over the age , and finding expression , now in an overwrought poem , and now in a hankering alter mesmerism and table-turning . The development is bad in itself , and has become tiresome by mere repetition . Yet this is the ground taken by the author of Anastasia ; and the result is a post octavo volume of 328 pages , with thirty lines in each page , in which there is no story , but , instead , a painfully elaborate analysis of certain spiritual conditions . What may be called the machinery of the poem , however , is original , and subtly conceived ; and the writing is of no common order . Alexis , the hero , has been passionately attached to Isaura , whom perhaps we must call the heroine ; but Isaura is dead before the commencement of the poem . The first divison of the work represents Alexis on the grave of
Isaura by night , lamenting , raving , and blaspheming ; flinging reproaches and defiance at Heaven , and expecting to be withered by some avenging lightning . The next division introduces Isaura in Heaven , wondering at her own happiness ; and so the poem proceeds , alternately divided between the soliloquies of Alexis on earth , and of Isaura in her state of beatification . The celestial name of Isaura is Anastasia—a word signifying Uprising , and therefore a type of the Resurrection ; and hence the title of the poem . For a time , Alexis remains in a doubting state of mind , unreconciled to his fate , moody , cynical , and self-analyzing—a combination of Hamlet and Timon . But Isaura is always stooping over him from the height and glory of her bliss , influencing his mind in a way not recognized _ by himself , and gradually bringing him to a reliance on the Christian faith : when , being
perfected for death , he expires . It is this mystical scheme which gives orig inality to the conception of tho poem ; but , even had there been no such scheme , the writing is so fine that the poem would have commanded attention in spite of the objections which may fairly be urged against its general tendency . The writer is a person of unquestionable genius—a real poet , though not a healthy one—a subtle thinker , an acute and delicate perceiver , a master of passion and emotion , one who can strike instantaneous pictures on his page out of the heat and energy of his words . His power makes itself felt at the very commencement , and at once establishes a painful fascination over the reader . It is not agreeable reading ; for the mind is rent with conflicting emotions , and is thrown into the same state of diseased excitement as that under which
the author appears to have written . But , however much you may question the poet ' s principles of art or principles of ethics—however much you may disagree with particular passages , or with the prevailing complexion of the work—you can no more deny the power than you can dispute the force of a flood which carries you away . The passionate wrestlings of the soul with a grief to which it will not submit—the feverish staggering of the mind between defiance and supplication—the after-deadening of the heart into a calm which is not the repose of resignation , but the forced indifference of cynicism—the sudden spurts of the old fire , which burst out every now and then from the dead ashes—the listless , wayward moods of the intellect , making ghastly dalliance with human hopes and griefs , desires and passions —the unnaturally sharpened condition of the brain , perpetually gnawing
into itself with endless doubts and questionings—the petulant hatred and contempt of the world—the gradual struggling into belief and reliance—and over all this tumbling chaos the glories of the beatific home of Isaura , — these things are drawn forth with the strength and subtlety of genius . But the genius is as wayward as tho moods it portrays . It is irregular—the poetry sometimes stagnating into dull reaches of prosaic discussion upon points of faith , and at other times being overwrought and burdened with imagery . The writer lacks the power of selection , of self-denial ; and thinks it necessary to say every conceivable ^ thing on every available subject . The result is obscurity , and a sense of fatigue to the reader . The metaphors are clogged and massed by their own excess : you might dig them out
like plums from a pudding . Indeed , the writing not unfrequently reminds us of Mrs . Browning ; it possesses both her power and her weakness . Like her , the author of Anastasia has poetry , passion , rapturous enthusiasm , and keen , satirical perception of human character ; like her , be wants repose and simplicity . His blank verse for the most part is weighty and organlike , but is deformed by many clumsy and limping passages , and is oometim . es utterly destroyed by the use of such small words as 4 to * and * of' at the ends of lines—a strange aberration in one who can modulate 40 finely as this : — A lime-kiln on toe hill—.,. _ „—^_ A-frffTM- ^ fc-l imfl- MIn-OA-therl onoly-hlll , —~ v ¦ .. . A lonely Mme-klln—such becomes a temple For such hypwthrai worshippers as me , & c . The division headed * Alexis in a Church' is strikingly dramatic , the whole action , And many of the characters , being admirably intimated in the -words of the one speaker , as he sits , sharply observing all about him , yet swayed and rocked by the intensity of his own emotions , We have done justice to the singular power of this book ; but wo must again express our dissent from its spirit . It is unhealthy , feverish , hectic , hysterical . When are we to see the lust of these indecent pryinga into the hidden spaoma and aecret agonies of our nature ? When will the modern poet
consent to be something else than a metaphysical anatomist , gropin <» about in his horrible dissecting shop of the living passions , laying bare the ° quiver ing nerves and fibres of the heart and soul , and dividing them with hia cruel scalpel ? We know that Anastasia is intended as a reli gious exercita ! tion ; but , while fully persuaded of the sincerity of the author , -we denv that the end is effected . Heaven itself , from the writer ' s point of view , y as much a place of unrepose and painfully keen emotion as the earth itself . and nowhere do we find the placidity which we look for in connexion with an exalted form of belief . We submit , therefore , that Anastasia is a miatake : but it is the mistake of genius .
The Education Of The People. The Educati...
THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE . The Education of the People . By James Augustus St . John . Chapman and HalL The whole of the great range of questions debated of recent years in connexion with the national education , are treated in this volume b y Mr . St . John . The work is at once historical , controversial , and didactic . It lays the subject open from various points of view , and under all its aspects ; and , with a view to popularize the argument , Mr . St . John gathers from a multiplicity of sources anecdotes and illustrations which throw a coloured light upon the discussion . His starting-point is the general object of popular education , and this question is answered in detail : " Do we merely desire to convert the people into useful instruments of industry , or , elevating our views to the level of morals , politics , and religion , to render them better in their social relations of parents , husbands , wives , children , better citizens and better Christians ' . ? " It may at once be inferred to which of these alternatives the writer inclines . Marshalling his preliminaries , Mr . St . John
next investigates the extent and forms of ignorance in this country , its colonies and dependencies ; and this part of the essay ^ contains a curious Sanoramic view of the British Empire and the populations included under le action of its laws—Fire worshippers , Pacific Islanders , Australian aborigines , perpetrators of human sacrifices—all British subjects , but not surpassing in barbarity of mind and life many who inhabit the precincts of our own capital . The social abominations that spring from ignorance occupy a large section of the picture , and , seen in this light , English civilization is scarcely a contrast to that of India , or the savage solitudes beyond the antipodal Plains of Promise . We have here , for example , a summary of the superstitions still rampant among us ; and it shows , from the history of recent years , that our towns and provinces contain believers in fairy rings , spectral coffins , the powers of witchcraft , the virtue of cauls and children ' s skulls , the water ordeal , the diabolical nature of bats and spiders , and the significance of visions during sleep . " Dryden , " says Mr . St . John , " used to eat raw pork for supper , in order to feast his imagination on
hideous dreams . " To indicate precisely the plan and scone of Mr . St . John ' s volume would be difficult without quoting his index , since a topic of this character has seldom before been so variously treated ; but an outline ma y be sketched , so as to illustrate his general purpose . From the object of Education , as we have seen , he passes to the domains of existing ignorance , including the popular superstitions of the day . The subject is then traced historically , and in its relations to political , social , and religious institutions , as developed among us from the earliest times to our own . In proceeding to discuss the educational influence of literature , Mr . St . John recommends the study of the poets , the dramatists , and the romancists , as -well as of more serious works , upon the principle that while the richer classes cultivate their tastes , it is improper and irrational to insist that servants and cottagers shall absorb themselves in their theology . He advocates the teaching of the physical sMencfis . of ereourranhv . including ethnolocrv . of elementary natural history .
and particularly the history of extinct religions . One chapter is devoted to the influence of religion on , education , and another to * the affections and domestic virtues ; ' upon the importance also of feminine culture , and ot distributing healthy literature among the people , separate portions ot ttte work are based . Mr . St . John follows with an inquiry into the policy ot a national educational date : — When any great moral good ia to bo effected , an enlightened nation will not be deterred by considerations of expense from putting forth whatever power it possesses . Yet it is fortunate when economy and morality ore found to go band in liana . * repression and punishment of crime , at present , absorb in thi 3 country more inau the revenues of a small kingdom , falling very little short of four millions sterling . A large portion of tliia enormous expenditure is to be aet down to the " ° ° ™ 7 our ignorance as a community . Our state physicians have hitherto proved tMI " ** J * unequal either to cure or prevent the disease . We pay therefore four millions sren > b as a tribute to the incapacity of our rulers ; and it begins ot length to be B ™ V ™™ that , by expending less than a moiety of that sum in disciplining and » nstrtt 0 U " ° ,. people , we may not only save the remainder , together with much tjittt is now pended in poor rates , but place the industrious classes in a condition to provide nun ;
for themselves in future . . j n ( 0 It is not therefore a mere question of economy . We must , likewise m »¦ account the pain , the sorrow , the suffering , the ohame , the infamy , which inou « among the humbler classes would be spared . This view of the patter im » pressed upon Parliament , which in the end will be convinced th « t o goncriu nu 1 the purpose of bringing education home to o \ ery child ' s door , will bo at once »»* and economical . f ^ We will allow Mr . St . John to state another view which ho puts 1 ionr » in favour of a Foundling Hospital system , as a chock upon lnlanticme . To facilitate thie , and prevent their desertion and death , there should bo att to nil these schools on establishment for tho reception of infanta , to wliomsoevib » , might belong , Aa in other countries , they might be introduced through » *» boVwW < fctmo 1 & proaoh of an inmate . Once in , the child ahould belong to the colonioh , ana b ^ ^ catod accordingly . Indeed tho only way to render Foundling Hospitals uww ^ convert them into aomlnarios of emigration ; and I feel convinced u » at , " WeWdone , the colonloa would in a ahort time conuont to bear all tho O 3 tpan » o , ii »» - ta-*| nn « f . ! , » « a 1 .. nM » n / i . liflnnn whinh mifrht tllUS be made to UJOlf llKlUHiri '" I I .
tion . The boyu ohould bo brought up to trades , and the girls property msw , ^ performing tho dutloa of domeatio oorvanta . At tho ago of fourteen , bow' ""« try forwarded to tliolr place of dcatJnatlon , and become a Mewing to their now { g And to themselves . This plan , I repeat , If property realized , would put m on < Infanticide , and Minor * flrpm our civilization one of its wowt otaipo , um «»
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 3, 1858, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_03041858/page/16/
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