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March 10, I860.] The Leader and Saturday...
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AN EDITOR AND AN A.UTllOlt.* I £( tliero...
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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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English Enterprise In India.* Lord Elgin...
to an age in which tl . e duty of pvoraotin-tlas iminovement was little r ^ eognised , and whose labours for a long lime . e »^»» teied both the ojen arid secret hostility of the Government . I 3 ut theie s much to be done in India besides the cultivation of ^ f ° : n ^ - ' * needless to dwell upon the richness cf the soil , and tl ^ -intirnense number of most itseful commodities which it produces—sugai , cotton , hemp , jute , all kinds of oil seeds nee , an *«* ' «* £ * " p 10-ducts for which Europe will always supply a-market . ^^ cheap that it scarcely becomes an element in men s calculations . St difficulty U been the conveyance of the producewhen
Suy raised to the market , but that difficulty is now be . niff Tast . got over . ¦ India , otters a magnificent field for the employment-of ^ " &»|' » capital and English intelligence . Of course ,, the capital inu . t be there to employ the intelligence ; but capita 1 , timid as it is has already found out the capabilities of India . Cheap as Indian laboui is , English intelligent labour to direct it , ¦ however highly paid , is always Cheap , not only from the saving it effects in the judicious application -of mesins 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 h
encouragements , or , more correctly , by the removal of present . mderanees , the movement of capital to that country . Meanwhile , yonh ? men now anxiously seeking , and seeking in yam , congenial employment at home , would do well to follow Lord Elgin s hint . If worth anything at all , they can acquire that one indispensable qualification , a knowledge . of the language used m . the district to which they direct their steps . - And whilst no one must go to India in the expectation ot aecumulatino- an immense fortune in a few years , and returning a nabob to buy a great estate , a seat in parliament , or a peer ' s daughter tor his wife , let no one be frightened by the notion that India is an excessively unhealthy . country , to which he rimst go with the expectation of being supremely miserable all the while he is there , and the intention of running away just before the climate iH on the point ive
of makinov an end of him . No doubt n campaign ^ against ana army in the hot months is a dreadful trial , under which the stontest will often give way-J arid imprisonment in Calcutta the wholeyenrroirnd is a foretaste of purgatory , to use the mildest term . But . in . the interior , to leave out of the . question those particular districts which enjoy a peculiarly healthful temperature , the vicissitudes ot the climate mpy be got . through well enough -with but common care . At least a third part of the year the climate is agreeable ; the sufferings sustained in the remaining two thirds are principally the result of imprudence . If anybody entertains the notion that the climate of India is necessarily destructive to health , let lura get an introduction to any two or three indigo plahters ^ vho ^ may be over here on a visit , and he will be instantaneously undeceived . It the " Artist in India" has givci * a true presentment of MohissilHie— - and , so far as we caii judge , he has done so—the settlers in Bengal to get an amount of pleasure and enjoyment which many
manage of us here at home can never hope for . Nor is Inch si the Jar-ott land it once was . In a little time the journey will become a much shorter one than that to Canada was 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 held tor its energies . India offers a rich one . Let us take care that no Governmental bungling prevents its being fairly ^ yorkod . Wo must add a word of hearty commendation , for the book winch has induced these reflections . A better gift book and more appropriate ornament for the drawing-foom table of those , who have any a ¦ ¦_ _ * " ^ ¦» . •¦ nil . ii . _ .-. i .... 4 . avx * ' «/ i scarcel ceiveI he illustrations
connection with India we can y con . are admirably executed , and if the artist does not handle the pen quite so well as he does the pencil , he bus yet managed to impart a great quantity of interesting and vnhiablo information . Iho account of- the cultivation and mauufaotiire 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 ot great service to many who would novor open volumes of more serious pretensions , but who , turning from one of his pleasant Illustrations to the other , may be induced to . read the letters which explain them .
March 10, I860.] The Leader And Saturday...
March 10 , I 860 . ] The Leader and Saturday Analyst . „___ 2 ^
An Editor And An A.Utllolt.* I £( Tliero...
AN EDITOR AND AN A . UTllOlt . * I £ ( tliero in this grenfc realm a more commonplace person than Dr . John dimming P Is there a vainer or more presumptuous mortal ? Hero we have a book of truvels by an American clergyman , which could very well have stood on , its own legs , made * ts own bow , spoken its own speech ; but it ennnot bo introduced to us , it seems , without the bombast and the baldordash of the archnlutitudinarinn who wonrxoa the world with discourses at socoml ht that
hand oh the millennium . Besides , wo thoug editing really meant something . But how has Dr . Gumming edited this workP Ho bas not corrected the proof-shoots , for thoro ia a p leasant variety of typographical blunders . Neither has ho elucidated or corrected anything . What , thon , 1 ms ho done H Ho has contributed an . introduction remarkable for stupidity , and notoa romarkablo for silliness ; ' and with , glaring impertinence lie has thrust bofore us those millenariftu dogmas . which are his stock-in-trnde . Dr . ( Summing never forgets the shop . The utterances -oi JJunipL the ^» - . *• , * Vi > ¦ ' ¦ ... . i . _•_ l ! i it «•« i « « maiJiaI' twirl 4 l \ n miBinter who ui j ^ u ^ ue ^ «»» . «
JL ' rophot , preiea ay one m mwu- « « .. Kovelation of Saint John tho Divino misintorprotod by John the
Undivine / are the said John the Undivine's estate . Who would ever have heard of Dr .- Gumming , if Dr . Gumming had not discovered that predictions about the millennium excited tlie hopes and alarmed the fears of so . many ? As respects the millennium , those are . welcome to believe in it who choose ; but most certainly , if we ' were millenarians , and were convinced that in half a doz'Jii years Christ was to appear on the 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 eoncei-ns of the world . But Dr , Chinmin" - is the preacher to a fashionable audience ; he is always glad to show his self-satisfied fuce with lords on 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 . coin-in " . We revere every man ' s faith , who gives proof of his sincerityT and the morer faithless an age—for our own is faithless , enough—the more faith should be by the faithful revered . But whatproof of sincerity has Dr . Gumming 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 Dr . Camming , so there are few more ignorant scholars or incompetent theologians . Sundry Americans have borrowed from the Germans ; 7 te borrows from the Americans ; and a curious aspect the whole thing wears when it comes before the British . public .
The plagiary is half a quack .: AVe wishwe could believe that Dr . GuranmTg ' s quackery were limited to -his-notorious-plagiarisms . But when Dr . Gumining 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 . - . 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 , and on papal-impostors and impostures generally ? At all events , in the present instance we could have dispensed with Dr . Camming ' s millennrian advertising cards and placards ; and . we think that Dr . Cross could have dispensed with them too . For one reader whom Dr . Cuinining ' s name will attract , there are ten whom it will repel . ' ¦ ¦ Dr . Gross is a vnuch superior man to Div Gumniing . Though by Settled
birth an Englishman , yet lie has beeii so long as a Wesleyan preacher in the Uiiited . States that .. he seems to consider himself-ail Ameri-ian . He is joyous , genial , liroad-hearted , abhors cant , and is nob , like Dr . Gumming , always bringing iii the shop . On-the contrary , he appears glad to escape from the "shop , though quite as likely as Dr . Gumming to be a devoted minister of Christ . Dr . Cross would be a good writer , if he hsid-nut caught the bad habit of American grandiloquenee . W . liere all 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 vulgarity . He lias 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 , winch is neither very profound nor very accurate . He fills a large part of Jus volume with describing Italian scenes , Italian edifiues , monuments , and ruins , the character and 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 .. Dr . Cross , however , when on Italian ground , offers us little more than a bad guide-book , if he lms not , indeed , been considerably indebted to the guide-books- 1 < rom a . tru voller we demand the history of frosh facts , or the picture or fresh impressions . In Dr . Cross ' s work we have , the history of facts which arc not freshand tho pictut-o of iihpressions some ot which
, are not fresh . Our older books of travels are fur more interesting and instructive than the now , t \> v thu simple reason that the traveller two or three hundred years ago deemed it becoming to tell the vvorW what he saw , ' while the modern traveller is nob satisfied unless he can tell what ho has read about wlmt ho has noon . Tho traveller of the sixteenth or seventeenth century might be an exceedingly unlearned person , but ho had a quick and healthy glance lor colour , for form , for Jiib , for distinctive diUorunees , and also for that cternnllylnimun , eternally divine nature which makes all nations brothers . Tho ' rnpdern traveller has always his guide-book in his . hand , bus no eyes , no lioart , no brain of hi * , own , ami is tho guulo-book ' s slave . tho continent with stick in
Many Gorman atudonts raunblo all over a their rough fist , a wallet on their utout back , very little money in their packet , and assuredly no guide book there . And who moos all that is worth seeing on tho Continent so well or so wisely as thoyP Tho most moderately gifted man pierces beneath tho flur * fiu . ' 0-if ho trusts to his own sight and Insight ; tho most highly gifted man who trusts to tho sight and tho insight of an > llior is afraid oven to touch tho surface , and cannot therefore . penetrate In-low jfc . Away , thon , with tho guide-books , tho manuals of aintiquitie . s , Jind the classical dictionaries , and let us once more have stalwart iiron , who , by sheer horolsm , can croato what is most poctio in tho niulst . oi what
is most prosuic . Two thirds of this volume might bo banished to tho antiquarian lumber room ; the . remaining third would bo lively and readable dome ' of Dr . Cross ' s oxperioneou in Italy wore of u pooiilinr kind Ho amices mention of a place in Italy whpro you ini . yd . no on ash which you select while swimming about in thoir native clement . This in . England would scarcely bo ^ considered nB adding , lo the luxury of eating flah . Who would hko to . trip »««> JP » « W ^ ' « hour or two among tho waves m-ordor to have a mouthful <^ 8 ° » J «[ of salmon P Dr . Cross , perhaps , mount to say tluit wq can eoicoD
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'i " ' i ' " '¦ ¦ ' ' ' - - « . ¦ .. ¦«¦¦ .. i ... i i - ¦ i . - 'i ' ¦ . * The Jiiiarican Pastor in Europe . By tho Itov . Josbjph Onoss , D . P . Bdltod . -with nn IntroUugtlon and Not © 9 , by tho Itov . John Ucmmino , P . D ., London ; Richard Bontloy .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), March 10, 1860, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_10031860/page/17/
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