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544 THE LEADER. [No. 376, Saturday ^__ ¦...
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artttrohttt.
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Prices are not the legislators, but the ...
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In Blackwood this month two old tales—'T...
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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Transcript
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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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
544 The Leader. [No. 376, Saturday ^__ ¦...
544 THE LEADER . [ No . 376 , Saturday ^__ ¦ ¦ ' : * ' - - - ¦ r- - ¦—— . -- , _ . — . ... __ _ . —^ . J , -
Artttrohttt.
ICttmttttt * ?
Prices Are Not The Legislators, But The ...
Prices are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not CntlC m ! ke ? aws—they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Revzew .
In Blackwood This Month Two Old Tales—'T...
In Blackwood this month two old tales—' The AtheHngs' and < Mr . Gilfil ' s Love Story '—are finished , and a new one , by Pisistratus Caxton , begun . Of course we ought to welcome Buiaver Lytton ' s return to periodical literature , and if it may be accepted in confirmation of the current report that he has a bandoned politics , we do so heartily ; but so far as the . stories are concerned it is questionable whether the exchange will be much to our advantage We shall miss the quiet power , delicate insight , and subtle truthfulness which gave the < Scenes of Clerical Life' so peculiar a charm ; and , judging from the first instalment , the loss will scarcely be supplied by the careless
sketches and conventional sentiment of < What will he do with it ? ' —the title of the new story . The affectations and puerilities of the outset remind us more of Pelham Bulweb . than of Pisistkatus Caxton . Take the elaborate headings of the chapters , done in the cumbrously jocular style of the Christmas pantomime bills—the two first for example : — In which the History opens with a description of the Social Manners , Habits , and Amusements of the English People , as exhibited in an immemorial National Festivity —Characters to be commemorated in the History , introduced and graphically portrayed , with a nasological illustration . —Original suggestions as to the idiosyncrasies engendered by trades and callings , with other matters worthy of note , conveyed in artless dialogue after the manner of Herodotus , Father of History ( Mother unknown ) . The Historian takes a view of the British Stage as represented by the Irregular Drama , the Regular having ( ere the date of the events to which this narrative is restricted ) disappeared from the Vestiges of Creation .
After such deadly lively flourishes at the beginning , it is reassuring to find Ihe story carried on in the most orthodox manner . It opens with the wellknown ' Summer evening in one of the prettiest villages of Surrey , ' the usual « sunset' is described , and the inevitable « two strangers , '—one of the enviable age ranging from five to seven-and-twenty , wliile his companion " ' might be about seventeen , '—soon make their appearance . Their conversation shows the customary Bulwer mixture of cynicism and sentiment , so popular at the circulating libraries ; and everything at present seems to promise well for a good story of the early type . The best chapter of this part is the second , describing the representation at the travelling theatre of the grand melodrama , The Remorseless Baron and ihe Bandit ' s Child .
The second article , ' New Sea-side Sketches . No . I ., ' is a sketch of the scenery and marine zoology of the ' Scilly Isles , '—fresh and breezy in style as the winds and waves , to whose music it was evidently written . There is a vigorous enjoy ment of the sea , a definitely saline flavour in the writing which refreshes you by sympathy as you read . The writer , shows in his treatment of scientific questions that thoroughly out-of-door mind which the poets of the present day are said so much to want . As a specimen of the graphic vigour of the paper take the following extract : — As I said the joyful tidings came at last . With alacrity I urged my staggering steps up the ladder , and emerged upon the deck , where the bright sunlight revealed a scene , which of itself was repayment and full discharge for any arrears of misery . We were in St . Mary ' s Sound . The islands lay around us , ten times bigger than beautiful their
imagination had pre 6 gured , and incomparably more . , On picturesque varieties I might turn a green countenance and glazed eye , but the heart within me bounded like a leopard on his prey . This was worth coming to ! Those poor devils who sit at home at ease , and supply their tanks from commercial sources , were now the objects of pitiless sarcasms for their want of enterprise . In such a mood I hastily secured comfortable lodgings , clean as a Dutchman ' s , at the Post-office ; swallowed some tea and toast , to appease the baser appetites , and hurried forth to satisfy the hunger of the soul , by a survey of the Bay , and its promises . The promontory on which stands Star Castle offered a fine breezy walk over downs resplendent with golden furzo , and suffered the eye to tako the widest sweep . How thoroughly I enjoyed that walk ! The downs were so brilliant that one could sympathize with the enthusiasm of Linnaeus on his arrival in England , and his iirat sight of furze , as he flung himself on his knees , and thanked God for having made anything so beautiful . The downs were all aflame with their golden light . Ever and anon a rabbit started across the path , or the timid deer were seen emerging from the
the clumps of golden bush . A glance at the many reefs and creeks along wavy shores raised expectation tiptoe , forcing hope into certainty of treasures abounding . Whatever drawbacks Scilly might possibly have in store , this at least was mdubitabe—the hunting would be good . Not that any shadow of a drawback darkened the horizon ; for what could the heart desire more ? Hero was a little archipelago , such as Greek heroes might have lived in—bold , rugged , picturesque—secure from nil the assaults of idle watering-place frequenters , —lovely to the eye , full of promise to the mind , and health in every breezo . Ithaca waa visibly opposite . Homer a cadences were sweetly audible . Here one might write epica finer than the Odyasoy , had one but genius packed up in one's carpet-bng ; and if the genius had been forgotten , left behind ( by some strange oversight ) , at any rate there wns the microscopo and tcalpel , with which one might follow in the tracks of the ' stout Stagyritc , " whom the world la now beginning to recognise among the greatest of its naturaliata . Homer , or Aristotle ? The modest choice luy there ; and aa Montaigne Bays— " noua allona par lh , quoater une friando gloiro a piper lo aot monde . " ( The aot mondo boing
you , beloved reader . ) Was not the more aspect of the aea a banquet ? Xonophon tolls us that when the Ten Thousand saw the aea again , they shouted . ' No wonder . After their weary eyes had wandered forlorn over weary parasangs of flut earth , and that earth an enemy ' s , wistfully yearning for the gleama of the old familiar bluo , they came upon it at last , and the heart-shaking sight was saluted by a shout still more heart-shaking . At the first flush of it there must have beon a general hush , a ' universal cutohing of tho "breath , and the next moment , like thunder leaping from hill to hill , the loosened burst of gladness ran along tho ranks , reverberating from company to company , swelling Into a mighty symphony of rejoicing . What a sight , and what a sound ! Thoro whs more than safety in that bluo expanse ; there was more than loosened fear in their Joy at once again seeing the dear familiar fuoe . Tho sea was a passion to tho Greeks ; they took naturally to tho water , like ducks , or Englishmen , who arc , If we truly con ,
aider it , fonder of water than the ducks . We are sea-dogs from our birth U " ^ our race—bred in the blood . Even the most inland and bucolic youth tak W " * taueously to the water , as an element he is born to rule . The winds carry oee 8 P 0 n " murs far into the inland valleys , and awaken the old pirate instincts of the ITor * Boys hear them , and although they never saw a ship in their lives these " enmake their hearts unquiet ; and to run away from home , ' to go to sea ' is t j ~ : * table result . Place a Londoner in a turnip field , and the chances are that he T ^" know it from a field of mangold-wurzel . Place him , unfamiliar with pieskin nOt fresh' horse , and he will not make a majestic figure . But take this same vouth ° a fling him into a boat , how readily he learns to feather an oar ! Nay , even h i is sea-sick—as unhappily even the Briton will sometimes be—he goes through -I - 6 a certain careless grace , a manly haughtiness , or at the lowest , a certain ' offici 1 serve , ' not observable in the foreigner . What can be a more abject picture th I 6 ~ Frenchman suffering from sea-sickness—rimless it be a German under the ^ hideous circumstances ? Before getting out of harbour he was radiant arro ^" * self-centred ; only half an hour has passed , and he is green , cadaverous ' dank -n strate , the manhood seemingly spunged out of him . N . B . —In this respect I am Frenchman . a
It ought to be stated that the present is the live-hundredth number of the Magazine , and Unit it appropriately closes with a hymn of triumph iu celebration of a period so interesting in Maga ' s history : Fraser opens with a genial and discriminating criticism of Raskin ' s Modern Painless , under the title of'What arc the Functions of 1 he Artist ? ' The whole paper is very interesting , but instead of describing it we - \ vilL o-ive an extract , showing the thoughtful style in which the subject is discussed , that
all who are interested in Art may be tempted to read it for themselves : A great tragedy , a Bartholomew or Piedmont massacre , is being accomplished ; let the thunder-cloud cover the heaven , and cast a gloom , as of the sepulchre , upon the ' grave-paved star . ' The association is right and legitimate . It gives fitting expression to the emotion which the situation naturally suggests . There is no exaggeration . But Mr . Ruskin requires us to accept much more than this simple and appropriate drapery . Let us examine a few of his illustrations . In the Building of Carthage the children are sailing their paper boats upon the sea which their children -were to
conquer with their commerce . Hece there is not much that is wrong . The sentiment is a " little forced and obtrusive , perhaps , but not offensively . In the foreground , of Tintoret ' s Entombment of our Lord stands a ruined cattle-shed , recalling on the day of his burial the privation of his birth ; the clouds , in the same painter ' s Baptism of Christ , are shaped like the head of a fish— " the well-known type , " says Mr . Huskin , " of the baptismal sacrament of Christ ; " in the Crucifixion the ass is feeding on the remnants of the withered palm-leaves which the multitude had strewn before Him when they cried Hosanna in the highest ! The trunks of the trees in Turner ' s Jason . are all alive with dragons'heads ; the bough of the oak in the foreground of the Harold at Hastings takes the form of an arrow-head . Such specimens of intellectual association Mr . Kuskin finds only in the greatest painters , and are , he assures us , the highest triumphs of art . We cannot agree with him . They seem to us . on the contrary , to be the worst exaggerations of that ' poetic fallacy' which in the case of the inanimate nature with life
poet he unsparingly condemns . . In either case we endow ; and it does not matter whether that life is such as we would gift it with , or such as another man whom we create , and whose eyes for the time being we use , would gift it with . An excessive self-consciousness is not more offensive to us than these elaborate mystifications of the forms of natural life , this obtrusive assertion of the facts of history . In such recondite puerilities—puerilities which we hope , and in some sort believe , arc more noticeable to the critic than they were to the painter—tliere is a smallness and pettiness of treatment we cannot admire , an absence of the courageous , candid , and healihy abandon of the great artist , who , like Shakspeare , looks nature and human nature broadly and frankly in the face . " The stars , ' said a wise heathen , " do nut grieve because men die ; " and trees unfortunately will not consent to twist their branches into demons' heads , nor clouds transform themselves into lish , however desirable for artistic purposes it might be that they should do so . Until nature chooses to mend her ways , we will continue to hold that a tree should be painted as n
tree , and not as a fish or a dragon . Towards the close the critic notices the prc-llaphuclitcs , explains the principle on which they proceeded , and , in a measure , approves their practice : — The original maxim of the school was—literal accuracy . If God condescended to finish a leaf , they could not see any good reason why they should not ; nay , Uicre appeared to them many sufficient practical reasons why they should . Iheir predecessors had imitated nature from memory or from tradition . Every lea f was treated c-onvei - tionallv . When it was carried into tho open air there was not a single tree . wot it would ' lit . This lazy and effeminate practice had taken the gunuinouess out _ oi everything . No faith could bo placed in any statement tho artist made ; and u « oauoi making tho world better when ho thus took it into his own hands , every dtep . nspjj ceeded deprived it of beauty and attractiveness . It is indeed a most ° * ™* * ^ J that a man must constantly return to nature to sweeten , refresh , and in ; S ° " selfNothing is more tame and monotonous than an imagination win ™ i —
. BCJLI . J . XUllllllg IO IIIU 1 U v «« . »< » .. «« .-..-- ~ S . w . nuoillit POIlt & Cl itself . It loses the versatile manliness which id maintained only by inc 0 ~ J" nlfl with tho actual . Hunt , Millais , and tho rest , " did not inquire wl . cthe I hoy » ai gination , but went to work at onoo . If they had Imagination « wojili no d « jjt or its way in its own good timo ; in the meanwhile , what they had to lo vs to 6 the specific character of every object which it might be needful lor thorn to >» " £ after . They found that the man who looked nearest got the bet not on ol wna thing was and meant , and so they bat down boaido it and painted i H to mi So of plants and animals , and so of man . It i * the intense ''" n L \ v « tilicinl gives the ehnrm to all their picture * of life . Other men painted face ., * vltl . «« ^ fassiona fitted to thorn like glnss manic * ; ttteymxr through the face ito ¦ es , painted that . I recollect an early sketch by Mi laia , a girl ' - face } tho >« 1 . . , ... i _ o „ ..,. > ., I ...... 1 tt , \ t Inrin'l ! O / 1 C 11 lUJHUIU ¦»"" broad tho of ' hadnot largereach «•»}» "
was about na a » palm ones n , ; b tll 0 dwelt on with visible elaborate paiufulncss , the colours wore lined a i bo » ) prolonged manipulation j but tho whole pathos of tho woman a 111 . co o ou these with wonderful vividness One felt that the painter had . hoc n the *>« and . trlvon day after day to got at It-not vrlthout uinnate since . J ^ ^ liuplmelito at louat has learned tho honourablonosH ol his vocation , tlon between ' holy lifo and golden art' bus boon made manliest . ,, In Tho Interpreter : a Talc of tho AVar , ' by the Author ^^ 3 ^ commenced in tho present number , wo may expect so . no vigoiou . ^ from the lulosconQ of war , if the promise ol tho " ' 8 ; j "" :. uu ( lthc Amongst tho remaining papers of tho number arc one ou 11 ^¦ , Public Service , ' in which the declamatory , rhetoric and labourwo"Jo fh | i Distinguished Writer' are justly exposed ; one on 1 oic- ~ a meagre b > life and writings , which docs not iu the least help u » louud oibU udft ^ Vwt er : « loivmcd and lively article on 'Peer ; * and o \ w »> y W » , "
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 6, 1857, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_06061857/page/16/
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