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884. THE LEADEB. [No. 338 a Saturday,
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TWO NOTELS. ZurieVs Grandchild: a Novel ...
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SOCIAL AND PROFESSIONAL LIFE. Glances ai...
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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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The Jewish Station. History Of The Jewis...
danger the health , or in any way annoy the inhabitants , were established in tie country nor could they approach within a hundred and fifty cubits of fhe wall . Bakers' or dyers' shops , stables , & c , were not tolerated under the dwelling of another person . The bouses of course varied in extent and splendour from the humble structure of the poor to the patrician palaces of the rich . They were built either of bricks , or half-bricks , dressed or undressed stones , and sometimes of white marble , with mortar , gypsum , or asphalte for cement . , In the interior the walls were covered with a kind of whitewash painted occasionally with various colours . The wood-work was constructed of the sycamore , olive , almond , and even cedar tree , inlaid
with gold or ivory . Gratings or lattices supplied the place of glass . In the wealthier houses , however , the window-frames were carved , as well as ivere the tables , chairs , couches , lamps , and candlesticks . Fish from Spain , apples from . Crete , cheese from Bithynia , lentils , beans , and gourds , from Egypt and G-reece , plates from Babylon , wine from Italy , beer from Media , burdened the ornamented tables of the luxurious , whilst to Sidoh , Egypt , India , Laodicea , Cilicia , and Arabia ,- they were indebted for their choice [ household vessels , baskets , dresses , sandals , shawls , and veils . For these articles of commerce were given in exchange wheat , oil , honey , figs , and "balsam , the products of the hills and valleys of the country .
The domestic regulations were characteristic . It was the duty of parents , however opulent , to have their children instructed in some light and healthy occupation . The women were taught to spin , to weave , and to work curiously with the needle . They were alsp famed . for their skill in cookery . The toUet , however , was a rather formidable-undertaking , no less than eighteen articles being required to complete an elegant one . The most familiar were trousers and the skirt , kept close to the body by a girdle , over which an upper garment was worn , sometimes white , sometimes purple , but generally embroidered . The head-dress consisted of a pointed cap or kind of turban . The garments of the women were remarkable for the fineness of their texture . The veils were of two kinds , the Arabian and the Eygptian . The latter covered the breast , neck , chin , and face , leaving only the eyes free , the former depended from the head , but left the wearer
at full liberty to adapt it as she thought fit , either to conceal her features or enable her to see . G-loves were used , but only for protection . Sometimes costly slippers ^ embroidered and studded with gems , were used instead of the simple Laodicean sandal . These slippers contained delicate perfumes which emitted the most delicious odours on the pressure of the foot . The personal ornaments principally consisted of gold head-dresses , nose-rings , finger-rings , necklaces , bracelets , and ankle-rings ; The men sometimes wore bracelets made of gold , iron , or precious stones strung together . The minutest features of Jewish social life—the various domestic arrangements , the education of the children , the rites of marriage , the laws of property , the state of commerce , the condition of agriculture , the religious and charitable institutions , taxation , proselytes , baths and mineral springs , the
estimate of the virtues , the duties of wedlock , & c—have all been faithfully portrayed by I ) r . Edersheim , who enters deeply into the character of the literature of , the Jews , and shows the close connexion that existed between the manners and customs of the people and their legends and writings . Prom , the Hebraic treatment of divorce , insolvency , and slavery , we think many wholesome lessons might be taken . ¦ Without recommending the doctrine of the Hillelites , who affirm that a divorce is warranted if a wife spoils herhusband ' s dinner , we may allow that much was said by them about the rights of-women that we of the nineteenth century might avail ourselves of . In dealing with debtors , the mildness of the Hebrew law is almost unparalleled , in ancient or modern times ; whilst slavery , though it existed as an indigenous institution , was subject to many softening modifications .
884. The Leadeb. [No. 338 A Saturday,
884 . THE LEADEB . [ No . 338 a Saturday ,
Two Notels. Zurievs Grandchild: A Novel ...
TWO NOTELS . ZurieVs Grandchild : a Novel By R . V . M . Sparling . 3 vols- ( Newby . )—There are unmistakable evidences of talent in this ill-managed story . The interest is real , strong , and sustained ; some of the characters are excellent as suggestions ; the dialogue is often close and rapid , and more natural than is usual in fiction ; there is no attempt to force on the catastrophe by theatrical surprises , nor is the writing of that blush-rose tint so common in three-volume novels . But Mir . Sparling has most of his art to learn . He is incompetent to guide _ his narrative ; ho crowds the scene with supernumeraries ; h « prefaces his chapters with long utterances of mediocrity , enough to tempt critics and readers to injustice . Whatever may be our solicitude for the grand-daughter of Zuriel , we have none for Mr . Sparling's philosophy , that being helplessly splenetic , -watery , and weak . Ifthe book finds
favour , it will be as a tale of life , and had half the incidents been omitted , half the personal sketches expunged , and the whole brought within moderate limits , ZurieVs Grandchild would have had a chance of being popular . We may assume , perhaps , that ' melancholy interest' is a thing acceptable at watering-places , for none other need be looked for in the history of the lord of Stor Court and his successors . Tiiere arc tfiree elaborate death-bed Bcenes ; there is a father ' s curse ; there is a forgery ; there is a description of Dora , the heroine , offerinff to perjure herself ( and it is fair to add that this scene is one of the most dramatic and the best-toned in the novel ) ; indeed , when Lesparde and his bride take possession of the Jew ' s vast palace , with all its lendours
sp , they very much resemble the survivors of a massacre , and a sort of misorablo sensation accompanies the certainty of their happi-^ sb . This arises , partly , from the recollection that the . curse which fell on the first daughter of that house is not removed , she and her mother lying in aisnaal graves after lives of broken-hearted pain . Thus , there is a good ueal ot . quiet woe , even after the customary peal of marriage bells , that oringatlie curtain down . Still the novel has its particular merits . Though fc a «? ^ " ^ l 8 * 8 uPon costuming the aristocracy for his own purposes , V ^ iv VHa be 8 ht !»™ er his pages with attempts to imitate the empty smalltthST ^? 1010 ^ " ^ thoso supposition heroes and heroines of g rzi 2 fe" ? ^ d 85 la P er in fashionable novels . Hav ; n »^ Y + v ' ? veU By L Oal « - ( Simpkin , Marshall , and Co . )—Having read thia novel , we can form no very positive conception as to the
age or character of the author . He may be an unbloomed youth , intoxicated with Vatheh and the Epicurean , but insensible to the necessities of grammar , or he may be a foreigner , exercising himself in the English tongue : but this is not probable . The manner of the book betrays immaturity , credulity , ignorance of life and language . The hero , Claud Wilford * is the son of a ruined knight , and is led through a series of social enchant ' ments . At sea le meets a perfect Lara , in -Spain a pale , melancholy gor « geously-beautiful Diavolo , whom he accompanies to Paris . There the * Diavolo , an Englishman metamorphosed into something between Cagliostro and the Wandering Jew , dresses his young friend in hussar uniform " and p lays him as n puppet in the midst of pearl fountains , foliage of gold , lone lustre visions oi in
curving rooms , pyramius or , ana sucn gms gauze as delight the young-eyed generation at Christmas . There are also strange impostures practised , Trevanion , a British scoundrel , disguised as Monsieur Melpomene , being deceived by his arch-enemy , Lord Dungarion , first in tho shape of Count Huron—the Diavolo we have mentioned—and then in the operatic shape of Athabasca , a dark Nubian . It may be conceived , then that scenes like these , and others belonging to the Otranto class , make up an ambitious story . But everyone who writes a VatheTc is not a Beckford . The story opens on the Kentish coast , where Claud is bowing sweetly to " fair acquaintances , but * more majestically' to older friends : —
Walking arm in arm might be seen some fair creature , with the idol of her heart whose advancement towards the hymeneal tie was fast approaching , as their freedom ' in being unattended by a lacquey , gave strong proofs . ' That is the style in which the epic is composed . The author , however does not ' get away' from the Kentish coast , but makes several false starts before he really begins liis story . It is not in the human heart to recom mend dull people at the sea-side to try Claud Wilford . As a joke it mi « lit be offensive , as anything else it would be too absurd .
Social And Professional Life. Glances Ai...
SOCIAL AND PROFESSIONAL LIFE . Glances aitd Glimpses ; or , Fifty Years / Social , including Twenty Years Professional Zjfe . By Harriot K . Hunt , M . I > . Trubner . Harriot , daughter of Joab and Kezia Hunt , is a lady superior to prejudice . Tending , at an early age , to physiological studies , she first became a private practitioner , then , took a medical degree , and , lastly , has issued the record of her thoughts and researches . This is the daring act for which she will be questioned by all except those singularly infatuated persons who think that , because some social laws are absurd ,- all social laws ought to be violated . Take Miss Harriot ' s personal experience . She asks , "Why should not women be treated , surgically and otherwise , by women ? " Is that a reason for advocating the treatment of men also by female physicians ?—or is it an excuse for publishing a volume such as this , so full of ostentatious
rhapsody and sick-bed metaphors ? The worst of these high-spirited ladies is , that they take the bit in their mouths , and galloping beyond all limitation , assume that they only have a proper appreciation of the womanly nature . To them it seems demonstrable that a young girl who is not educated in all anatomical mysteries , as well as in that mystery of forgetful courage which enables Harriot Hunt to write and speak in public , is a poor thing oppressed by society , and quite as pitiable as a Greek or Mandmgo slave . In their eyes , to be the equals of men means to do that which ordinary men shrink from doing , and to break the trammels of convention means to shut your eyes and rush against the world , saying all you please . Moreover , in the case of tho daughter of Kezia , a remarkable degree of
insensibility is displayed in combination with the mawkishness of the boarding-school and that sort of luxid twaddle which , not in America only , goes for eloquence . But Harriot is not wholly a poetess , or wholly a philosopher . Terrestrial suggestions interrupt her allopathic ecstasies . She is jealous of the quacks who ' consolidate sarsaparilla into marble palaces , ' and ' expand pills into princely mansions . ' In general , however , her tone is ¦ ' vinous and calorical . ' Her hygienic thought' bursts into the wildest of the wild flowers of language , coloured , like the bottles in chemists ' windows , by the tints of the medical idea within . Keep the ' cranial apartments' of your ' cliildren in order , says Miss Hunt . If you force them to be ' constantly digesting acquisition , dyspeptic brains will be the result . ' ' Look at the weary libraries that are walking our streets . ' But , on the other hand , avoid tying down the girls to lace-thread , " or wool : —
I know a ense of a scientific lady whose mother was so shocked at her engaging in her brothers' sports and frolics , that whenever she discovered that she had been guilty of tha crime , bIio put on her a pair of pantaloons and lockei her in a dark closet . Characteristically , Harriot Hunt believes , and declares , tliat she is a special instrument in the hands of Providence . This is parenthetical , for she dashes again into narrative and affirmation—the affirmation being of this stamp : Bathing is not responsible for the harm it has done when used by persons of no judgment . ' The myriad mysteries of sin are laid bare to the medical practitioner . ' ' Utterance is the law of life—to violate that law brings on mental dyspepsia . ' ' Progression is the cholera of the pocket . ' But the most curious illustration other mental habits occurs in a notice of the birth of her sister ' s child . There is the usual superfluity of 'fullness of time , ' ^ anguish , * ' weary hours , ' ' reverent silence / ' angelic , ' vision of lov « , ' ' is there any rapture so great ? ' but the clinical lady pauses to weigh
the infant , and it is four pounds eleven ounces ! Six months pass , l'lie ' infantile beauty becomes ' magical . ' Harriot is 'in the presence of angels , ' tho bnby is ' an ever-new delight , ' a ' well-spring of pleasure , ' a ' link between the spiritual and material , ' and weighs ' only ten pounds 1 * The lady is ns diffuse on all matters . Far from being ' glimpses' merely , her chapters are broad disclosures pf absurdity , at which our ' glance' is a stare ; but it would be an , extravagance to wonder too intensely at tlio eccentricities of Harriot Kezia Hunt , for , having looked into t ; lie beginning of her book , the reader is fully forewarned . To bo just , it is necessary to add , that in "the midst of these tumid and repulsive exaggerations there arc some very sensible remarks on the treatment of children and young "iris , but then these are only plain sayings , proper to write and read , and what would become of the vestal doctor ' s ' mission' did she confine herself to utilitarian common sense ?
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 13, 1856, page 20, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_13091856/page/20/
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