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Literature] THE LEA PER. 717
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LITERATURE.
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LITERARY NOTES, ETC.
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fpHE delightful stories. " Scenes of Cle...
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T*„„* LIFE AXDUIlKKTVINAMBRlOAiOR, SKETCHES
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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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Literature] The Lea Per. 717
Literature ] THE LEA PER . 717
Literature.
LITERATURE .
Literary Notes, Etc.
LITERARY NOTES , ETC .
Fphe Delightful Stories. " Scenes Of Cle...
fpHE delightful stories . " Scenes of Clerical Life , " JL and " AdamBede , " have been made the subject of what we can only designate a very impudent attempt at deception—indeed a stronger term , considering all the circumstances of the case , might not inappropriately be applied . Messrs . Blackwood have found it necessary to write to a contemporary to the effect that " those works are not written by Mr . lagging , or by any one with a name like Liggins ; and If any person is receiving charitable contributions on the ground of being the author of the said works he is doing so under false pretences . " ^ . add that the author is known to them , and subjoin a note from " George Eliot , " who says " it is the more painful to me that Mr . Lagging , or any one else should be receiving charitable donations on the ground that your treatment of me has not been sufficiently liberal , because I , for my part , can only wish that every author had equal reason to be satisfied with his publisher . If those benevolent persons who persist in attributing the authorship of the works in question to Mr . Liggins will induce Mr . Liggins to write one chapter of a story , that chapter may possibly do what my denial has failed to do . " The obituary of the week contains the name of a . gentleman well known and greatly esteemed in the literary world , Mr . Charles Oilier . From the Daily JYews we quote the following brief account of his career : — " Those who are . acquainted with the literature of forty years ago will learn with regret the death of Mr . Oilier , the original publisher of all Shelley ' s poems , with the exception of Alastor' and the posthumous works ; of the first volume of Keats ' s poems ; of several of the writings of Leigh Hunt ; of the collected edition of Lamb ' s works ; and of many other productions of celebrity . Mr . Oilier was the friend of all those celebrated men , for whom he acted as their business agent ; and has been the means of introducing to the public many remarkable writers of a later day . He was also Himself an author of unusual powers , though an extreme diffidence in some measure concealed them . But his domestic tale of ' Altham and his Wife , ' was recognised by Sir Walter Scott in an incidental allusion in the pages of the Quarterly Review ; his romance of Inesilla' received the praises of Shelley , Leigh Hunt , Dr . Croly , and others ; and his fine critical powers in all departments of art were known to many . He died on Sunday at the age of seventy-one . " We have also to notice the decease of Mr . " Warne of the firm of Routledge and Co ., who was as much distinguished for his amiable disposition as for his literary judgment . The world of art , too , has sustained a great loss in the death of David Cox , our great water-colour landscape painter ; he had . attained a great ag e-The Literary Gazette announces that a scientific fund is to be inaugurated shortly on a similar plan to the Literary Fund . It is under the consideration of the Royal Society at the present time . At Paris the proprietors of the Lihrairie Nouvellc announce that they will publish every Saturday " sixteen quarto pages of poetry , " by M . M 6 ry , descriptive of " La grando epopee militaire qui se prepare en Italic . " The prospectus dwells particularly on tlio fact that the muse of ML Mery will always bo inspired by the very latost news from the' Beat of war . The first number or " Premier Chant" of this poetical psriodical , entitled " Napoleon en Italie , " appeared on Saturday last . Sir John Bowring is preparing for tlio press an account of his late visit to the Philippine Islands , in her Majesty ' s steamer Magicionne , with special reference to tho ports of Lamboango , Iloilo , and Saul , which have lately been opened to foreign commerce .
T*„„* Life Axduilkktvinambrloaior, Sketches
opinion of them from personal inspection . He went out with a favourable impression of the people , and returned with a better . America has in him an intelligent observer , and a friendly judge . Dr . Mackay does not appear in these pages as a painter of character , a popular descriptiorust , or a captious traveller ; but as a politician who was solicitous to understand the working of American institutions . He says much of them , little of himself , and little of individuals with whom he came into contact . But he treats at large of things and customs and celebrated scenery , and the progress of society . He is full of details , however , of the voyage out , arid the effect on shipboard of the storm which met them on their passage ; and spares not , when he arrives at New York , to condemn the late Rev . Sydney Smith for describing Broadway as inferior to Bond-street . He contends for its
superiority . " Bond-street ! quotha ! " he exclaims : — "Bond-street is no more to be compared to Broadway for beauty , extent , life , bustle , and wealth , than a dingy old farthing of the reign of George III ., to a bright new sovereign of the days of Queen Victoria . There is no street in London that can be declared superior or even equal , all things considered , to Broadway . It is a street sui generis , combining in itself the characteristics of the Boulevard des Italiens at Paris , and of Cheapside or Fleet-street in London , with here and : there a dash of Whitechapel or the Minories ; and here and there a dash of Liverpool and Dublin . It is longer , more crowded , and fuller of fine buildings than the Boulevard des Italiens ; it is as bustling as Cheapside , and , more than all , it
architecture , but the general effect is not striking ' , from the total absence of plan and method , already alluded to , and which seems to be inevitable in a country where every man is a portion of the Government and of the sovereignty , and considers himself bound to consult nobody ' s taste but his own . But this peculiarity is not confined to America , or St . Paul's-churchyard would not be what it is , and the noble proportions of the cathedral would not be marred as they are by the too close proximity of the hideous warehouses that have been gradually piled up around it—monuments alike of commercial pride and bad taste . Brown stone edifices rank next in size and number to the marble palaces and a few of cast iron , with elegant Corinthiau pillars , add to the variety of architecture in the Broadway .- Conspicuous among the edifices that give its most imposcharacter to this
ing busy and beautiful street are Stewart ' s dry-goods store , the iron palace of Messrs . Haughwoot and Co ., such hotels as the St . Nicholas , the Metropolitan , the Laffarge House , the St . Denis , the Clarendon , the New York , and the Astor House . The last-mentioned was some years ago the boast and pride of New York , and the wonder of strangers : but the city has outgrown its southern limits , and stretched itself far away into the north and northwest , and new hotels like the St . Nicholas and the Metropolitan have dwarfed the Astor House in size and eclipsed it in splendour . The St . Nicholas makes up from 500 to 700 beds , and the Metropolitan nearly as many . Both of these , as well as the others mentioned , represent the magnificent scale on which the New Yorkers do business , as well as the more than Parisian publicity with which families eat and drink and pass the day . "
Dr . Mackay , of course , as a poet , was bound to describe Niagai-a . He has laboured hard to say something " smart" upon it , and , if not new , to be at least original . He has succeeded eminently , where it was difficult not entirely to fail . He dwell * much on the fascination which the vision of the mighty waterfall exercises over the spectator ' s mind . It also , he says , bewilders the senses of its too passionate admirer . Dr . Mackay had not , owing to the season of the year , the advantage or disadvantage of a guide , and was therefore left to form his own conception . '
" Thus I had Niagara all to myself . It was my own dominion ; and I ruled over it unadvised , tintroubled , and undirected . I discovered its beauties gradually as best I could , and made my way from place to place with as much of the true spirit of discovery and adventure , latent and stirred within me , as inoved the first white man who ever gazed upon its marvels . And , instead of narrating how and in what way I saw them , let me , for the benefit of anyfuture travellers who may read these lines , explain in what sequences of . grandeur and beauty they should explore the stupendous scenery of the river , the islands , and the falls , so as to reach the climax where the climax should bo naturally expected , and to go on , from good to better , and from better to best in one grand and harmonious crescendo , and thus extract from it a music of the mind sufficient to make even the sublimcst harmonies of Beethoven
appear tame and common-place . " The following remarks contain an obvious but magnificent truth : — " .. ¦ " In a distance of threerquartcrs of a mile the Niagara River gallops down an incline of fifty-one fce ^ . Such a bubbling , boiling , frothing , foaming , raging , and roaring aa occur in that magnificent panorama , it was never before my good fortune to see or hear . Were there nothing but the sight of these Rapids to repay the traveller for his pains , it would bo worth all the time and cost of tho voyage across tho Atlantic . It was like looking up a mountain of furious water to stand upon tho bridge and gaze towards the torrent . I will not call it angry , though that ia tho epithet which first suggests itaolf . Anger is something sharp am * short , but this eternal thunder is thy voice of a will-There is
ing- obedience to unaltorablo law . no caprice or rage about it ;—nothing but tho triumphant song of gravitation , that law of laws , whig i maintains tho earth in perpetual harmony with heaven . On the side of tho " City " wore several mills for flour , corn , and papor , which had borrowed an exterior thread from tho ini tf hly web of waters to holp in performing tlio operations of human industry . But these scarcely uiurrod tho o / loct of tho scene , and woro to somo extent useful in affording a contrast of tho littleness of man with tho inoHUble groatnoss of nature Tho builders of tho bridgo , taking advantage of tho havoc nuulo by thu waters m days gojio by—perhaps five hundred thousand years ago—supported it partially on a groat rock lifting its head a few feet above tho fouin > and standing at this point , I counted tho Jalots scuttorod on either side , and strotehlng down wards to tho very brink of tho fall . UoHiclbfl Gout Inland , about a mile in
has a sky above it as bright as the sky of Venice . Its aspect is thoroughly Parisian . Were it not for the old familiar names of Smith , Jones , and Brown over the doors of the stores and warehouses , and the English placards and advertisements that every where meet the eye , the stranger might fancy himself under the maximised government and iron grip of Napoleon IIL , instead of being under that of the minimised and mild government of an American republic —a government so infiriitesimally light in its weight , arid carried on by persons so little known , that strangers in this , the " Empire State , " as it is called , and even the citizens themselves , are scarcely more cognisant of the name of the Governor , than a Londoner is of the name of the High Sheriff of Flintshire or of the Lord Lieutenant of Merioneth .
" England has given names to the people in Broadway , but France and Continental Europe . seem to have given them their manners . Flagstaff ' s on the roof of every third or fourth house , banners flaunting from the windows , a constant rat-tat-too of drums as detachments of the militia regiments ( and very fine regiments they are , and very splendidly accoutred ) pass to and fro , all add to the illusion ; and it is only the well-known vernacular of the city of St . Paul's , spiced occasionally with the still more piquant vernacular of the city of St . Patrick ' s , that brings the cheated fancy back to the reality , and proves to the Englishman that he is among his own people .
..... « ' Were there anything like uniformity in the design of its long lines of buildings , Broadway would be one of the three or four most magnificent streets in the world . Even without any general designfor each man builds exactly as he pleases—the street , in iks details , surpasses any single street that England or the British Isles can show . From the Battery facing the sea , where Broadway has a very ignoble commencement , to Trinity Church , there is nothing remarkable about it ; but from Trinity Church , of brown stone , with its elegant spire , to Grace Church , built entirely of white marble , a distance in a straight line of nearly three miles , and thence on to Union-square and tho statue of
LIFE AXDUIHOItTY IN AMEUIOA \ OR , SKETCHES OF A TOL'Jt IX THE UNITKD ' BTATES AND CANADA , hi 1857-8 . By Chnrloa Muokay , LL .. E ) ., F . S . A . In « vols ., with Ten lllustratlona , —Smith , Elder , and Co . Tub departure of Dr . Mackay , tho popular poet , for tho United' States in 1857 , and the reports that wore received of his progress , and l j is reception us a lecturer on song-writers , himself one of the most eminent of his day , were $ opioa of considerable interest at tho time . His return also , was welcome both to his friends and the public . It was to bo expected that ho would take notes of what ho witnessed'on h \ a tour ; ay , and print them too . And here wo indeed have them , clioicoly printed , in two volumes , luyiahly illustrated with ten tintod engravings ) . Dr . Mackay , lmslooked on tho United States with his own eyoH , and has formed hia
Washington , Broadway offers ono grand succession of commercial pjllacos . Formerly—and perhaps when Sydney Smith wrote—the houses wore tor tho most part of brick gaily coloured , with here and there a house of brown' stone or granite But the brick is in gradual process of extirpation ; and white marble—pure , glittering , brilliant , without speck or flaw _ j 8 rapidly taking its place . Tho St . Nicholas Hotel , ono of tho most sumptuous buildings in New York , is a palace of white marble , with upwards of one hundred windows fronting Broadway . To tho right , and to tho left , and In front , are other palaces Parian than
of tho same material , pure aa —larger the largest warehouse in St . Paul ' s-churchyard , and devoted to tho name or similar purposes ; somo for tho wholesale , but tho great majority for tho retail , trade . ' Dry gooda' or linondrapora' stores compete with each other in the use of this coatly stone ; and bucIii Iuvb been , and is , tho rage for it , that in a few years honco a house of any other material than niarblo , granito , or iron will bo tho oxaoptlon to the rule in Broadway and in tho main thoroughfares leading from it to theonst andtlio west . Most of theso buildings , taken separately , arc line snociiuons of
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 11, 1859, page 9, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_11061859/page/9/
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