On this page
-
Text (2)
-
I June 14, 1856.] TEE LEADER, 569
-
the venom of his spirit? Yes, it is he; ...
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.
-
-
Transcript
-
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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Lord Cockburn's Memorials. Memorials Of ...
I to shake its head . They had always wine and biscuits on the bench when the busi-I ness waa clearly to be protracted beyond the usual dinner hour . The modern judges I —those I mean who were made after 1800—never gave in to this ; but with those of I the preceding generation , some of whom lasted several years after 1800 , it was quite I common . Black bottles of strong port were set down beside them on the bench , with I glasses , carafes of water , tumblers , and biscuits ; and this without the slightest at-I tempt at concealment . The refreshment was generally allowed to stand untouched , I and as if despised , for a short time , « during which their Lordships seemed to be intent I nnir nn their notes . But in a little , some w . nfpr wnq nnumi ; ntn + v . +,,, ^ kt «« i
I sipped quietly , as if merely to sustain nature . Then a few drops of wine were ven-I tnred upon , but only with the water : till at last patience could endure no longer , and I a full bumper of the pure black element was tossed over ; after which the thing went I on regularly , and there was a comfortable munching and quaffing , to the great envy I of the parched throats in the gallery . The strong-headed stood it tolerably well , but I it told plainly enough upon the feeble . Not that the ermine was absolutely intoxi-I cated , but it was certainly sometimes affected . This , however , was so ordinary with I these sages , that it really made little apparent change upon them . It was not very I perceptible at a distance , and they all acquired the habit of sitting and looking judi-I cial enough , even when their bottles had reached the lowest ebb . This open-court I refection did not prevail , so far as I ever saw , at Circuits . It took a different form there . The temptation of the inn frequently produced a total stoppage of business ; daring which all concerned—judges and counsel , clerks , jurymen , and provosts—had a jolly dinner ; after which they returned again to the transportations and hangings . Chalmers , says the Memorial , was an awkward preacher , with a low .
[ rough , husky voice , a guttural articulation , a whitish eye , and a large dingy countenance . " The magic lies in the concentrated intensity which agitates every fibre of the man , " suggesting Jeffrey ' s stupendous extravagance , that " he buried his adversaries under the fragments of burning mountains . " j Pulpit and bench were then alike the tribunes of the politician . Causes bfeing few , arguments were proportionately long . Jeffrey said that , if I there were but one cause in the world , it would last for ever . First , the '' relevancy of the indictment was questioned ; then , in every case , a long | harangue to the jury was declaimed on both sides ; written verdicts were given , which produced an interminable discussion of technicalities ; the cross-examinations penetrated through and through , and round the evidence , without result ; and often the poor jurymen were kept standing for hours , while the judge delivered his charge : — That fifteen cases mav be disposed of in eicht hours , and th . it an su 1 \ rnr . a . tp . . r \ ^ r \ fi t .- % r
may do his duty well , and yet not address a jury once in fifty trials , and that prisoners' counsel may decline addressing in the great majority of cases , these facts with which we are now familiar would certainly be discredited if they were told to Braxfield in El ysium . Of the fifteen judges of the Old Circuit , Braxfield was the giant , Eskgrove the buffoon . Of Braxfield , Lord Cockburn tells few stories , because , Ee remarks , he never heard but one of his that was not indecent , and that was " when a butler gave up his place because his lordship ' s wife was always scolding him . * Lord ! ' he exclaimed , ' ve little to complain o' : ye may be thankfu' ye ' re no married to her . ' " He was accustomed to taunt the culprits whom he was sentencing to death in the fashion of Lord Kame , who had to try his friend Mathew Hav . the companion of Ids chess-frames . * for murd « r . When tho , ¦ vnrilio . t .
was delivered , he looked up , and said triumphantly , " That ' s checkmate to you , Mathew . " But . Eskgrove was the most laughter-moving savage of the whole fifteen . A very common arrangement of his logic to juries was this— " And so , gentle-men , having shown you that the pannell ' s argument is utterly impossibill , I shall now proceed for to show you that it is extremely improbabill . " Meadowbank , who spent the afternoon of his marriage-day in composing a treatise " On Pains and Penalties , " disliked a dull technical advocate , and once rebuked one by throwing himself back in his chair , and shouting , "Declaim , sir ! Why don ' t you declaim ? Speak to me as if I were a popular assembly !" There was a geniality in Lord Cockburn ' s character which gives a pleasant , tinoro in t . ) w > nm «« ir » in fliis wclpninn vnlnmA Tfc is nnt . nil ( rncQin hnw .
ever . Besides being treasure trove for table-talkers , it is valuable as a private account of the distinguished men and important events that marked the progress of Scotland at the close of the last and in the first quarter of the present century .
I June 14, 1856.] Tee Leader, 569
I June 14 , 1856 . ] TEE LEADER , 569
The Venom Of His Spirit? Yes, It Is He; ...
the venom of his spirit ? Yes , it is he ; but oh , how changed ! For six thon « nrf years he has been pursuing the walk he struck out at the b ^ nrimT ^ SL hT ^? selected function , dabbling devilishly in human nature , and g abjur £ g ffiterest * the grander physics ; and the consequence is , as he himself anticipated ; that his nature once great and magnificent , has become small , virulent , and shrunken »««»* " Subdued To what it works in , like the dyer ' s hand . " As if he had been journeying through a wilderness of scorching sand , all that was ml ui iub rcuangei since is
^ v nas long evaporated . He now a dry , cold , shrivelled-up scoffing spirit . When , at the moment of scheming out his future existence and determining to become a Devil , he anticipated the ruin of his nature , he could not help thinking with what a strange feeling he should then appear before his old co-equab Kaphael , Gabriel , and Michael . But now he stands before them disgustingly unabashed , almost ostentatious of not being any longer an Archangel . Even in the days of his glory he was different from them . They luxuriated i n contemplation ; he in the feeling of innate all-sufficient vigour . And lo , now ! They are unchanged the servants of the Lord , revering the day's gentle going . He , the scheming , enthusiastic Archangel , has been soured and civilized into the clever cold-hearted Mephistopheles . The essay on Chatterto ? i is indeed a miniature Biography , the best biography beyond all comparison we have had of the " marvellous boy that perished in his pride , " and only wanting a little expansion here and there , with more copious extracts from the Letters , to become one of the best incidi ^ uiugicvpuics in nur language iviasson the
, jrroiessor paints proud , unruly , wilful , boastful boy of genius , struggling with many saddening obstacles both of position and disposition , strangely environed in that murky and prosaic Bristol , which the Biographer so graphically sets before us , still more strangely environed in the great world of London , where he was so insignificant a figure until a ghastly halo of interest surrounded his young corpse ; and in these pages for the first time , we read not only an intelligible story of the boy's life as that of a struggling boy of genius , but also an intelligible story of his relations to others . Every person in the narrative stands out with picturesque individuality ; every spot of ground becomes a picture . Profound sympathy with the boy ' s sorrows , gentlest pity for his errors , and that clear insight into his situation which biographers have hitherto failed to gain , make Professor Masson's story touching and instructive . Taking the recorded facts , he has clothed the skeleton with flesh and blood ; tmu vriieu luuuigiug in iuiu is in
even pure . giiia . uon , ne guiaeu Dy analogy as the following passage : — Chatterton spends the morning in reading and writing , while Mrs . Walmsley , Mrs . Ballance , and the niece are slatterning- about the house ; and generally , as the forenoon advances , he goes out for his walk towards the places of London resort . Along Norton Folgate , and Bishopsgate Street , passing crowds of people and hackney-coaches , and glancing , with the eye of an antiquarian and a connoisseur in old architecture , at such buildings of antique aspects as -were and are conspicuous in that thoroughfarethe old church of St . Helen ' s , the old church of St . Ethelburga , and that much-admired remnant of the civic architecture of the fifteenth century , Crosby Hall , or Crosby Place , mentioned in Shakspeare ' s Richard III .: let the metropolitan reader distinctly figure this as the usual direction followed by Chatterton . in his walks from Mr . Walmsley ' s , in Shoreditch . Beyond that , his wanderings may be various ; frequently , of course , along the main line of Cornhill , past the Bank , as it then was ,
and the then new Mansion House , into Cheapside ; thence slowly along the purlieus of St . Paul ' s , with a peculiar lingering among the book-shops of Paternoster Row ; and further , down Ludgate Hill , and up Fleet Street , towards Temple Bar and the Strand . Visits of business were , we may bo sure , not neglected : and , in achieving his transits from one place to another , Chatterton , like the rest of us , may have been guilty of the egregious folly of attempting short cuts , and so may have bewildered himself among mazes of mean streets , proving their populousness by swarms of children , yet never to be seen by him , or by anybody else , more than once . Oh ! the weariness of these aimless walks of a young literary adventurer , without a purse or a friend , in the streets of London ! The perpetual and anxious thought within , which scarcely any street-distraction can amuse ; the listlessness with which , on coming to the parting of two ways , one suffers the least accident to determine which way one will take , both being indifferent ; the vain castle-building in sanguine moments , when thousands of pounds seem possible and near ; the utter prostration of uiit uiui wim
MASSON ON THE ENGLISH POETS . Essays Biographical and Critical : chitifly on English Poets . By David Masson , A . M ., Professor of English Literature in University College . Mucmillan and Co . Professor Masson was certainly justified in rescuing from the fugitive periodicals , to which during the last ten or twelve years he has been a distinguished contributor , these Essays on English Literature . They were all remarkable and remarked , as they severally appeared in the North Jiritish and British Quarterly Itevicics , and they will probably excite still more attention in this collected and connected form , presenting as they do not only a Beriea of biographical studios , but in some sort a philosophic history of English Poetry from Shakspeare to Alexander Smith . AVe have noticed almost every one of these as they appeared , which must forbid our recurring to
spini * ut otucx uiuiiiuuLB , wiiuii ; Aii & jjccm tut ; miivt ; iiii ££ Lfug ^ ui * yuaava new interest , as but another form of one ' s self , and when every glimpse of a damp , grassless churchyard through a railing acts as a horrible premonition of what may be the end ; the curious and habitual examination of phj'siognomies met n 3 one goes along ; the occasional inagic of a bright eye , or a lovely form , shooting a pang through the heart , and calling up , it may be , tho iinago of a peerless one , distant , denied but unforgotton , till tho soul melts in very tenderness , and all the past is around one again ; the sudden start from such a mood , the Hush , the clenched hand , the act teeth , the resolve , the manly hope , tho dream of a home quiet , and blest after all with one sweet presence ; and then , after that , the more composed gait , and the saunter towards tho spots one prefers , till tho waning tlay , or the need to work and cat , brings one back fatigued to tho lonely room ! And so from day to day a repetition of tho same proeesy . Ah , London , London ! thou perpetual home of a shifting multitude , how many a soul is there not within tlicc nt tin ' s hour , who , listening to that peculiar roar of tiiinc , which shows the concourse of myriads in thec , all co-operating for their ends , and yet feeling excluded , like an unclaimed atom , from the midst of thy bustle , might cry aloud to tlico , and say , " 1 , too , nin strong ; I am young ; I am willing ; I can do something ; leave mo not out ; attend to me ; make room for mo ; dovise the means of absorbing me , and such as me , within thy just activity ; and defer not till I and they make thee hearken with our shrieks ! " Hut London rolls on ; and mon , young and old ,
them . Two of them we did not notice , one on Milton s , Goethe ' s , and Luther ' s conception of the J > evil ( which was published in Fraacr before , tho Imder was born ) , and the miniature * Biography of Chatterton , which we regard on the whole as the « cni of the volume . A very ingenious and suggestive essay is that on the The Throe Devils , tracing tho different shapes which the conception of a supernatural being whose function is to create evil took in three pre-eminent minds at three different epochs ; and every reader will be struck Avith tho originality of Professor Masson ' s view of Mephistopheles as the being into which . 'Satan has dwindled after six thousand years . After analyzing tho Prologue in lleaoen t Professor Mnsson says : — And is this tho Satan of tho Paradise Lout f la this tho Archangel ruinod ? la thb tho being who warred uguifust tho Almighty , who lay floating many a rood , who shot upwards like a pyramid of lire , who navigated space wherever ho oIiohc , speeding on his errands from atar to atar , and who finally conceived tho gigantic scheme of assaulting tho universe where it waa weakest , and impregnating the new creation with
do demand impossible things ! If it denes us to make tho medium without conform , Home power , is at least left , to shape and rule tho spirit within ! Chatterton , we believe , camo to London with as practical and resolute a spirit as any literary adventurer before or since . Ilia excitement with his chango of position , his confidence in being able to make his way , and his activity in availing himsolf of ovcry means of doing so , seem to have been really prodigious . Hence , probably , hia first walks in London were as littlo listless as was possible in tho circumstances . Instead of idle- and aimless sauntoringH , such an tve have described , many of his London walks during the first week or two of hia stay at Shoreditch must have been direct visits from spot to spot , and from person to person , liy no means diffident or bashful , and , so far as we can see , perfectly heiut-whole as regarded all tho llriatol beuutiea ho had left , he probably wasted less tinio than many others with lesa genius would havo wasted , in useless regrets and pointless reveries . Compared with hia position at Hrintol , as tho miserable drudge of a lawyer ' s office , * "ia present life , « b it free literary rover in London , appeared to him , doubtless , all but paradisaic . To work in tho morning in his lodging in Shoreditch , -with sometimes a eaucy word for his landlady ' s , nieco , though not so saucy by half aa tho fllut would havo liked ; then to go out tv
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), June 14, 1856, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_14061856/page/17/
-