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__ 448 __ ^^^---liJA 1 ^^^: [No. 424, Ma...
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Critics are not the legislators, but the...
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Chaucer's favourite simile, " As fresli ...
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No department of English literature has ...
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Most of our readers are aware that a sub...
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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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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__ 448 __ ^^^---Lija 1 ^^^: [No. 424, Ma...
__ __ ^^^ ---liJA ^^^ : [ No . 424 , May 8 , 1858 .
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ICitaturL
Critics Are Not The Legislators, But The...
Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police ofliteTature . They do not makelaws—they interpret and try to enforcethem . — £ dinburr / h Review .
Chaucer's Favourite Simile, " As Fresli ...
Chaucer ' s favourite simile , " As fresli as in the month of May , " does not apply to the Magazines this month . Their routine contributions in tlie departments of fiction and politics are not enlivened by any literary papers of special interest . The Monthlies share with , the annuals in the general back , wardness of the se ason , and show as yet scarcely any sign of spring . Probably the opening paper in leaser , entitled " A Threnode to tlie East Wind , " supplies the true explanation , Horace Waxpole's mot about summer being strictly applicable to the earlier season this year . Spring has set in with unusual severity , the east wind , which usually pays a flying visit about this time , having come to town ap parently " for the season . " This , as the writer points out , is a natural explanation of the dire events that have happened during the last few weeks . Murders , for instance , have been frightfully numerous , and
he traces the connexion between the increase of crime and the prevalence of the east-wind . Being essentially a negative and destructive power , it delights to stir up the worst passions of our nature . TVe say advisedly " delights , " notwithstanding Mr . Kuskin ' s homily against the pathetic fallacy , because there is a malign personality in this wind whieli attacks you in the most direct and insulting ways , till in your exasperation you feel you must be revenged ¦ upon somebody . It thus naturally tends to foster envy 3 malice , and all uncharitableness , and to suppress everything noble , lovely , and of good report . How then can a . contributor ,, whose better natwre is chilled and withered by its blighting influence , be expected to write light , brilliant , and vivacious articles ?
May will , in fact , soon be recognized as the most dreary month in the year—a truth which the shrewd inhabitants of the Xforth long ago discovered . Nobody ever thinks of being married in Scotland "' during , the . month of May . Fraser contains , besides this wail against the common enemy of the spring , a friendly criticism of Mr . Helps' tragedy Oulita the Serf , and a pleasant sportive paper entitled " The Unsocial Evil . " This eval . is the characteristic coldness and reserve of Englishmen towards strangers , to correct which the writer proposes the establishment of a " Rational Introduction Office , " where the names of all wishing to extend their acquaintance should be registered , and after them the opinions of their friends . The following is an imaginary specimea of the results that would be thus obtained : —
" Hicks , Thomas , cadet of the Hickses of Hicfcs ' s Hall , junior partner in the firm of Stifftej Grumpy , and Hicks , Bankers . Unmarried . " Thus much Hicks himself was allowed to enter . Then come the remarks -which appear under different headings , such as " social qualities , " " tastes and habits , " & c . Among these we perceive " City snob , " in an otviously military hand . "Not a bad sort of fellow , though "with a flourish . "At any rate he don't give himself airs like some people "—evidently a cut at the writer of remark No . 1 . " Oh , don ' t he though ; did you ever see him at an evening party ? " " Like him well enough , only he has not got an opinion of his own on any subject but banking . " " Why should he ? Steady , sensible young man , and minds his business . " Then follow miscellaneous remarks . " Taste ! none at all . "— " Don't know that . His rooms in Half-Moon-street show some . "— " Devilish good -wine , at all events . " —" Used to -weai a Noah ' s-ark coat . "— " Admirea Charles Kean . "—" Heads Fraser ' s Magazine regularly . "—" Smokes dreadfully " ( female hand ) .
Now these , though probably nothing like so full as the particulars in most casea would be , are quite enough to give a general idea of Hicks . "Without committing myself by a declaration pro or eon , I may say he seems to me to be a good-natured , easy-going young man , of fair average social properties , mot remarkable for much brilliancy—for , marl , there is no testy observation about his being " a puppy , "—with some affectations , but those of a harmless kind . He has a -weakness for " good society , " and has already made some progress as a man of fashion ; -witness the rooms in Mayfair and the Noah ' s-ark coat . As to his intellect , tlie admiration of Charles Kean looks ugly ; but then the regular perusal of Fraser is a healthy symptom , and encourages hope . . And then , how suggestive is that pointed bit of writing about smoking . How it whispers of certain attractions about the youthful financier , sufficient to inspire the fair sex with an interest in . his well-being . In fact , from the data here before me , by combining the little hints , the delicate nuances of character to bo found in these concise criticisms , I might almost make Hicks tlie hero of a three-volume metaphysical novel , if under the influence of some aberration of mind I should contemplate producing such a work .
The last article of the scries on " Food and Drink , " in this month ' s JBlackwood , has at the outset a curious discussion touching the virtues of horseflesh as an article of diet . The writer gives an outline of the experiments that have been recently made , and the statistics that havo been collected , especially in Erance , with a view to a practical solution of the question whether the horse—and if the horse , why not also the ass ?—be really good for human food . The conclusion arrived at is , that however repulsive to our ordinary notions on the subject , horseflesh is both agreeable and nutritious as an article of diet . Of the other articles in Black wood , the most interesting arc a dialogue on " Colleges and Celibacy , " and a paper entitled " Italy : of the'Arts the Cradle and the Grave . " In the former , after a good deul of pleasant gossip on things in general and college affairs in particular , the interlocutors conclude thai ; marriage is a bond on all men , but especially on good Protestants , as a practical protest against tlie cardinal heresy of the 11 omish Church . The latter , on the arts iu Italy , contains a severe but sensible criticism of Mr . Uuskin's extra vagant admiration of Byzantine art . The follow ing is a specimen :
If the reader doubt tho justico of our censure , > vo would beseech him to turn to the third volume of Mr . ltuskin ' a Stones of Venice , wherein he will find a marvellous though , as wo can testify , a literally correct rendering of a Byzantine olive-tree as wrought » n mosaic , in a cupola of St . Mark . In worda it ia difficult to designate auch a work . l < or ourselves , however , had not Mr . Kushin assured us , with hja usual
emphasis , that the work possesses all the attributes of the olive , " knitted cordage of fibres , " with all the " powers and honour of the olive in its fruit , " we should assuredly have mistaken his careful diagram for some unknown product , lying somewhere between a kitch « n-mop and a cow-cabbage . If the reader , however , require farther con " firmation of our strictures upon Byzantine art , he -will find it in the inordinate praise which Mr . Ruskin lavishes upon this extraordinary -work . At the cost of much labour and time , with the reward of much delight , and the penalty of painful disappointment , we carefully read in Venice Mr . Kuskin ' s three volumes , verifying or refuting his statements and opinions by an appeal to the churches , palaces , and pictures themselves . As the closing result of our labours , we found the entire work tlie baseless fabric of a vision , glowing and intense with the ornate colouring of words , and beauteous with the filigree-woven tissue of poetic fancy . But the fairy structure , so beau . teous in the distance , vanished into thin air upon the near approach of scrutiny
Foundation it had none , or such only as was false and fancy-framed . In the end we admired in this great work just two things—the illustrations and the eloquenceespecially the eloquence -with which -we shall play and sport in delight , to the end of time , as children do with soap-suds , blowing them into bubbles and wondering at the rainbow colours taken from all that is lovely in earth and beauteous in heaven . But of all Mr . Ruskin ' s baseless eloquence , the rapture on " the olive-tree" is the most astounding . "We have again and again looked into the cupola of St . Mark , then . at Mr . Ruskin ' s illustration , and then again have once more drunk ia the eloquent wordsalways , however , with tlie same impression—that of magnificent absurdity . With that literary chivalry which gives to Mr . Ruslcin's warfare the spirit of
knighterrantry , he challenges "the untravelled English reader to tell" him " wliat an olivetree is like . " He assures us that " at least one-third out of all the landscapes painted by English artists have leen chosen from Italian scenery ; " that " sketches in Greece and in the Holy Land have become as common as sketches on Hampstead-heatli ;" that " the olive-tree is one of the most characteristic and beautiful features of all southern scenery ; " and yet , that " the untravelled English reader "has no more idea of an olive-tree than if olives gTew in the fixed stars . " Then the reader ' s sympathies are appealed to : " For Christ ' s sake , " " for the beloved Wisdom ' s sake , " " for the ashes of the Gethsemane agony , " the olive-tree ought not to have been so used The reader thus highly wrought , and the writer exalted to frenzy-pitch , both at length collapse into the following conclusion :-
—" I believe the reader will now see that in these mosaics , which the careless traveller is in the habit of passing by with contempt , there is a depth of feeling and of meaning greater than in most of the best sketches from nature of modern times ; and without entering into any question whether these conventional representations are as good as , under tbe required limitations , it was possible to render them , they are , at all events , good enough completely to illustrate that mode of symbolical expression which appeals altogether to thought , and in no wise trusts to realization ; and little , as in the present state of our schools , such an assertion is likely to be believed , the fact is , that this kind of expression is the only oneallowable in nolle art " . " The untravelled English reader" who " has no more idea of an olive-tmn than if
it grew in the fixed stars , " will be saved from tlie trouble , and even from the desire of travelling in search of this knowledge , by referring to the drawing which Mr . Ruskia has so considerately published as a test at once of his own superior insight and of tlie world ' contrasted ignorance . Sad it is that the ignorant world should , for well-nigh eight hundred years , have looked upon these olive-tree mosaics unconscious of their " depth of feeling and of meaning , " insensible to the symbolical expression which appeals altogether to thought "—an expression which assuredly ought not to have been overlooked , as we are told emphatically in italics that it is " the only . oneaUoieable in noble art . " Sad it may be in the opinion of Mr . Ruskin that " tlie untravellcd English reader" has been so long-insensible to these inscrutable beauties ; but to our mind there is something far sadder still : that he should fall an unconscious victim to a shadowy eloquence , which he has no means of knowing to be just as -worthless as it is alluring . ,
The Dublin University Magazine must be cxccptcd from the general charge of dulness which we have brought against the periodicals . It lias a number of good articles , and is better than usual this month . Besides a most seasonable article on the government and general state of Trinity College , which vc have dealt with elsewhere , it has a paper of considerable interest and rcsearcli on " Itccent Historical Discoveries , " and another , marked by good sense and fine feeling , entitled 1 C Parochialia , " on the duties , position , and general influe nce of country clergymen . The English JFof / ian ' s Journal proceeds on its way with intelligence and courage , the last number containing several good articles—amongst others , a spirited defence of the position taken in , the first number , that many new and especially mercantile employments , might be at once opened to women .
No Department Of English Literature Has ...
No department of English literature has been studied more diligently by the Germans than that of the drama . The best account we possess of ' its hit or history , subsequent to the Restoration , is from the pen of Li : ssing ; and : i countryman of his , M . Bod ^ nstkivt , has now in the press n minute ami elaborate history of the early prc-Shakspearean drama . The work is to bo in five volumes , the first of which , just published , is a remarkable illustration of the extent and profundity of German studies of English lif . crai . nrr . It shows n mastery of the subject which very few Englishmen possess . The volume just issued is devoted to John Webster , containing an account of the drauiaiisl , a complete and admirable translation of the Duchess of M «(/ i \ with ample analyses and extracts from all his other plays . Such a work must prove interesting as well sis instructive to the English public .
Most Of Our Readers Are Aware That A Sub...
Most of our readers are aware that a subscription has recently been opened in Paris for M . bb 1 i \ m \ rtini 2 , whose affairs arc in an embarrassed . states . M . Edmonb Tjkxieu lias just come to this country as nn agent from the l ' rcnch committee who have tlie management of this subscription , for I lie purpose »' extending this appeal for help to English literary men and the English l > ubli generally- While deeply regretting that a necessity fur any such appeal should exist , we arc sure it will be generally responded to in this country . The name of Lamautimk is well known and justly honoured here , juul lho " lH flisl 1 reading public , who have been so often delighted with the eloquence of his works , will not neglect the opportunity thus offered of showing Micir r < "g « r « l for the poet , orator , and statesman , and their respectful sympathy with tin " brethren in literature on the other side of tbe narrow sea
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 8, 1858, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_08051858/page/16/
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