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IMft 1MH.T TTffi i,BAP«BJ. m
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THE DECAY OF STATIONS. The.Moral and Int...
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LIFE IN BRAZIL. Life in Brazil; or, The ...
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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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Pine-Gokes Fbgm Italy. Pinocchi. London¦...
An * « veir-a & ate sang she skipped with glee , Joying in Inskish healthand liberty . « ' O ! quanto & fcella la campagna ! For here the milk is good , the air is pure , And primroses through years of Spring endure ; Here trails the vine , here hangs the sweet-grained fig , Here ; powdery Bucklers with red gourds wax big , Here phimey pinks I gather of the best , Here dart green lizards , here bees lave no rest . " 0 ! quanto e "bella la campagna ! " Lift me witEin the arch and hold me there , For I ean gaze without a thought or care . How plunge the swallows in the nayr-tled rock ! How snow the myrtleB where the s-wallowa flock ! How float the lily-ships upon the deep ! Xike white moths on a blue sword-blade they creep . " O ! quanto e bella la campagna !" The sun , so fair ; so liquid bright he ' s sped , Seemed to drop gold-dust slowly on my head . The waves so calm , so azure-rich their dye , Seem but a darker fragment of the sky ; Madonna mia ! we will loudly sing , Till'from our pergola afar doth ring , " G ! quanto e bella la campagna t " Not such the gaiety , though such the song , Of a poor child that dragged ite limbs along , Wasted and ragged on the foul curb-stones , Where busy Naples echoes with the groans Of tottering jades ; where narrow streets are rife With sulphur-dust and dirt , and wheeling strife , — " Ahi me ! quanto e bella la campagna I " Here , every brea-th . I draw is thick and hot , Here the sun blisters me with painful spot ; T swoon with sickly vapours , and am lost Between the frequent wheels , or roughly tost In the -wild crowd ;—there , all is quickening bloom , Sunshine , and cool , and olives' grateful gloom . u ' Ahi me ! quanto e bella la campagna !" God pity me , that I must linger here , — I cannot- eat , — yet starving am , I fear I Oh that some fair sea ^ sprite who loved me well Would waft me o ' er to Capri in a shell ! . But what to me the flowers or leaflets sheen ?—I must be dead to rest me in the green ! " Ahi me ! quanto e bella la campagna . ! " Yet not the less our child sang loud and free , — What glossy eggplums nestle on the tree ! ' What golden javelins the reapers hold ! What silken roses deepen fold , on fold , What starry blossoms by each path are spread , Purple and lilac , ivory-white , blood-red . " 0 ! quanto e bella la campagna ! " And Nature kissed her lightly on the mouth ; For all are not so grateful ;—their ' s the drouth And peevish murmur—nor can they esteem Deep draughts of sunshine , summer ' s vivid dream . ! But let us swell the child'eutoned . lay , And chant the memories of dull towns away , — "OJ quanto e bella la campagna !" The author already possesses elegance : let him seek for strength
Imft 1mh.T Ttffi I,Bap«Bj. M
IMft 1 MH . T TTffi i , BAP « BJ . m
The Decay Of Stations. The.Moral And Int...
THE DECAY OF STATIONS . The . Moral and Intellectual Diversity of Races , with ^ Particular Reference to their Re spective Influence in the Civil and Political History of Mankind . From the French of Count de Gobineau . With an Analytical Introduction , by H . Hotz . Trubner . The subject of the Count de Gobineau ' s work is one which can only be discussed within vague limits , and upon uncertain data . Investigations of such a nature can have little more than a negative result . In this instance , the French writer and his American editor are successful in discrediting a number of old theories ; but when they propose a new axiom , it is a paradox . The main . object of a somewhat desultory argument is to discover by what process , and under what law , nations and empires inevitably decay . The Count de Gobineau affirms
that it is by the exhaustion of the * ' ethnic " principle , —by tfie corruption or obliteration of the original nationality . It was the doctrine of certain ancient philosophers that states and civilisations perished through luxury , effeminacy , mis ^ o-vernment , immorality , and fanaticism . The Count de Gobineau argues in opposition to this theory—that the Aztec empire , which was the type of organised fanaticism , fell , not because it was fanatical , but before the arms of Cortez ; that Greek , Roman , and Persian luxury did not surpass the luxury of England , France , and Russia j that Pisa , Genoa , and Venice were not ruined by enervation ; that immorality could not have destroyed Rome since Rome never was moral ; that no antique monarchy wns more virtuous in its flourishin g acre than at its
tall ; anu that Paris , in the height of its glory , is a dissolute city . This reasoning is very incomplete and inconclusive . First , nothing can be assumed Irom the actual prosperity of France or England , because England or Franco may be ruined within a hundred years . When an European array subjugated Mexico , it is by no means probable tliat the empire was at its highest point ot opulence or' power , and one step further , in logical sequence , deprives the Count de Gobineau ' s reasoning of all its height . He says the Mexicans were conquered by Cortez . But why wore they conquered by Cortez ? It was not in every ago of Grecian history that Cheronqea would have been a defeat , or in every ago of Roman history tluit the Goths could lmvo entered t & e Capitol , When the Italian republics deolined , it was through the extinction of the military spirit , through jealousy eclipaine patriotism , through a sordid devotion to riches , and a still more sordid dovotion to peace . From this paradox , the Count de Gobineau advances to another—that good government
is not essential ' to the prosperoiis existence of a community . His preliminary argument is one of astounding simplicity . The government of the Thirty Tyrants , he says , was bad . Athens shook off that bad government and flourished ; therefore bad government is not a destructive influence . But what if Athens had submitted to the Thirty Tyrants ?—if France had yielded passively to the domination of England ? Spain , the wr iter proceeds , endured centuries of oppression , yet-resisted the arms of Bonaparte , which is a mere fallacy , since it did not resist * Bonaparte , who was expelled by Englisl armies ; and since , under ignominiously weak and corrupt governors , Spain has fallen to the lowest condition , of degeneracy and decay . Fro * n controversy the Count de Gobineau proceeds to theory . A nation flows in its
is degenerate , he says , when the blood of its founders no longer veins , out has been gradually deteriorated by successive foreign admixtures . It being impossible to ascertain who were the " founders , " of the Hindu , the Chinese , the Greek , ot Roman races , and it being equally impossible to deay that the English , French , and Italian races are mixed , we do not see hqw ^ far the argument is to be carried . National purity , in this sense , would be best preserved by isolation , the effects of which are illustrated by the condition of China and Japan . The Chinese have made no progress for five hundred years , and have retrograded in political and military power . The Japanese are protected , not by their own forces , but by the jealousy of European , nations . The Hindus , who have transmitted their blood for twenty centuries through undeviating channels , have been repeatedly conquered , and seem to have lost the initiative faculty . Purity of race is to be found in the Guinea negro , the black tribes of the Indian islands , the aborigines of Australia , the North American Indians ; it is not found in Malays , before whose natural strength the cuilv-haired nation has invariably succumbed .
" We concur with the Count de Gobineau in the belief that the accidents of soil and climate have exercised only a limited influence on the character © £ nations and the destiny of empires . Of course maritime populations naturally produce a race of navigators ; the inhabitants of arable valleys adopt agr icuk ture by instinct ; the tribes that roam over the Tartar pastures prize their flocks and herds above all other possessions ; mountainous territories have nursed liberty ; exposed plains have been easily conquered ; but the extremes of prosperity and poverty have existed in the valley of the Nile ; Jtaly has been at times free , at times enslaved ; there was nothing in the position of Rome to ensure its political eminence , nothing in the Tiber to indicate ; it as tie
centre of a vast range of commercial , enterprise . Prom these examples , the Count de Gobineau derives a legitimate conclusion ; but they were too obvious to escape so ( enthusiastic an inquirer . Unfortunatel y ^ however , hiaf enthusiasm is in a tenfold ratio to his judgment . What will it be supposed does Tie adduce in cOrroboration of his opinion that it is futile to bestowupon any nation institutions not suggested by _ its own genius ? Nothing more than the miserable parody of constitutionalism in the Sandwich Islands —the Republic of Dominica , the Empire of Hayti , as if the imperial Mumbo-Jumbo of Hayti , or a black imposture in the purple and ermine of George , the Third , furnished political and historical illustrations . ;
In "his consideration of uncultivated tribes , the Count de Gobineau , assume ing" tie intellectual imparity of races , and the permanence of that- imparity ,, doe s not appear to have extended bis researches "very far . It is scarcelyaccurate to place the Samoyedes , the Fidas , and the Pelagian negroes , on one level , and the "Mongul Tartars , the Quichuas , and the Azuaras of Peru pn » another . The points of dissimilitude and of positive imparity are Tiumero ^ iSi and distinct . The Kaffirs of southern , and the Dahomans of western AMca present strong contrasts of tendencies and manners ; there is no barbaric Kaffir kingdom , centralised , decorated with a grotesque royalty , and systematised , like that of Dahomey . Nor would it be safe to suggest a circumstantial analogy Tietween the Chinese , the populations of ancient Italy , the early Romans , and the German tribes , or an intellectual lineage connecting , the . Hindus with the Egyptians and the natives of the Assyrian Empire . The dis < - crepancies between the Assyrian and Egyptian forms of thought are
sufficiently evident to disjoint any parallel that might be sought between * those two races , and the dim ancestry of tie Hindus . We doubt whether the Hindus did not arrive at a stage of material civilisation—creating a " comfortable" system of domestic life—as perfect as that of China . Certainly , they invented appliances of social luxury far superior to the angular mechanics of the Chinese . It is true that national unity has been preserved in a high degree in China , where , from the architecture of a palace , to the lacquering of a tea-eaddy , or the decoration of a coffin , one form is incessantly repeated . It is to the same extent true that in China concrete ignorance does not prevail in any class ; but if scholastic rudiments are the testimonies of civilisation , Germany stands far in advance of England ; and if mechanical superior ity be the standard , the Malay , as Count de Gobineau remarks , who weaves a brillant dress , constructs a light canoe , paints it gaily , and launches it in quest of plunder , is as a human being higher than the mild , pacific and innocent South Sea Islander . The volume is interesting and suggestive , but too shallow and pwadoxical to be accepted as a contribution to historical philosophy .
Life In Brazil. Life In Brazil; Or, The ...
LIFE IN BRAZIL . Life in Brazil ; or , The Land of the Cocoa and the Falm . Hy T . Ewbank . J ' J Sampson Low . Excepting a few chapters , this book might bo entitled "A Manual of Church Ceremonies in Brazil . " Where it is not a Penance , it is a Carnival . Nor is Mr . Ewbank at fault when he promises to describe " Life in Brazil , and -describes , for the moat part , sacred interiors , altars , vestments , processions , rites , fusts , feasts , and the zodiac of Oatholic anniversaries , lo be a Brazilian is to be immersed in ecclesiastical affairs , to find saints , crosses , a . nd cavvings , not only in the market places , but in rural seclusions , and the passes of the mountains j to see in every street , and at all hours of the day , the flutter of priestly robes , and hear , in tlio light and in the darkness , Latin ohaunts and the roll of organ music . Mr . Ewbank , consequently , professing to depict the manners of Brar . il , could not fail to bring into the foreground a crowd of ecclesiastical , bright masses of church-plate , flower-wreathed chapels , and youthful nuns , with all the anecdotes that appertain , customarily , to those Christian vestals . But , though these matters fill a large
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), March 8, 1856, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_08031856/page/19/
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