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472 TH E L B A D E It. [ISTo. 425, Hay 1...
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Thottgh still without character as a pol...
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An English translation of M. Auexandbe H...
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We have received the following letter fr...
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MERIVALE'S ROMAN HISTORY. A History of t...
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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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472 Th E L B A D E It. [Isto. 425, Hay 1...
472 TH E L B A D E It . [ ISTo . 425 , Hay 15 , 1858 . __ j ___________ a —^"""""^¦ " ¦ ""«¦ " ¦ ———¦ ^« ¦ —«—• __• _____•>« - «•—aa >» sa- ~>> ap- M _««»_ __ a _«^^^ ^~ - ::
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¦ . ¦¦ . ' ' . ¦ . ¦ ?—— ¦ ¦ : ¦ . :. Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not makelawa—they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edmltirgh £ ei > ietc . - ~ _
Thottgh Still Without Character As A Pol...
Thottgh still without character as a political organ , the North Britisli , Review is regaining something of its old -vigour in literature and science , the last number having several articles of interest in these departments . The scientific articles , however , are the best : and in these the substance is much better than
the style . The first paper , for example , entitled " The Philosophy of History —Niebuhr and Sir G . C . Lewis , " discusses the early history of Rome in a thoroughly scientific spirit ; but the style is so stiff , pedantic , and affected , that few general readers will peruse it to the end . The writer speaks of his paper as an " epigraph . " Referring to Niebtjhb ' s assumption that the unknown in early Roman history may be interpreted by the early history of modern nations ., he says : — "It is assented to , nay urged ,, by even the latest of his adversaries , of whose work ( which heads our epigraph ") the avowed object is antagonistic . " Take another sentence in which , as throughout the article , sensileis used for sensuous : " For idol-worship is the merely sensile veneration of that moral nature , which those who feel it not within them must set
in matter before their senses . " Here the philosophy is as bad as the construction . Further on he uses " impulsions" for impulses ; " recognizance " for recognition or perception (" recognizance of sense" ); " exigence" for extreme : " The real import of the perverse exigence is here again antagonism , the reaction of empiricism against illusory hypothesis . " Again , he delights to use old verbs in obsolete senses , as " edifying" for material building , and to fabricate new ones , such , as "to despotize , " "to synthetize" at will . These are but a few specimens of the pedantic phraseology which the writer affectsj but the construction is worse than the diction . The style is often purely execrable , many sentences being , for want of a little straightforward syntax , unintelligible . In addition to the specimens already given , taTce the following : — " It must be obvious that in any subject the explanation of the interior presupposes and depends upon a knowledge of the exterior . The
latter aspect is exhibited spontaneously and to the senses ; the other is accessible but to the intellect and by art . But as those courses of inquiry run adversely to each other , the exterior along the surface * tlieiiitroverted athwart the body—the speculations are reciprocally thought to be repugnant . The extremes of oscillation are easier noted in their contrariety , than they can be in their community of subject and impulsion . " One other specimen will suffice : —" "We now affirm confidently that the thesis could be proved by mere induction of the Teuton , as it has been of the Roman side . The task would even be much easier , as the documents are here more ample and are dissembled by no pedagogical prepossessions of classicality . " Despite the style , however , the article is well worth reading . It expounds the central characteristics of the Latin , Celtic , and Teutonic races in a manner which , though not so new or original as the writer supposes , is both philosophical and suggestive .
The second article on Professor Owen , in a brief outline of Iris life and works , pays a just tribute of admiration and respect to the first scientific thinker of the day . Among the remaining articles is a sensible one on the Scottish Universities , a subject just now of some Parliamentary interest , to wlrich we may probably return . The last number of the new British Quarterly Review contains an excellent criticism of Mr . Frotjde ' s History of Englund , in which many of his conclusions are combated with great force both of evidence and logic ; an interesting paper on "Gustave Plauche and French Fine Art . Criticism /' and a very readable one on a well-worn subject— " Horace Walpole . "
An English Translation Of M. Auexandbe H...
An English translation of M . Auexandbe Heuzen ' s remarkable pamphlet , which we noticed , as it appeared originally in French , in a recent number , has , we observe , with pleasure , been published by Messrs . Tjiobnek and Co . We have received from M . IIerzen the following note respecting the mistranslation of an important sentence in his text : — In an English translation of my pamphlet inscribed " La France ou PAngleterre ?" amongst othei misprinta on © haa stolen in which disfigures the meaning of a thourlit . In page 17 it is said : — " It is nothing to lack sympathy wath the day cf St . Bartholomew ; vhat is wanted is 83 'mpathy -with the days of Septombor . " Now , this is quite the contrary of -what I Baid in page 40 : " C'est peude no pas avoir do sympathie pour la St .-Barthelomy , il faut aussi ne pas avoir do sympathie pour les journe ' ea do Scptembte . " You will oblige me , sir , by giving publicity to these lines in your widely circulated paper . Your obedient servant , A . Ilisitznr , Editor of tho Pohr Star .
We Have Received The Following Letter Fr...
We have received the following letter from Now Zealand , in reply to a suggestion thrown oat by the leader nine months since . We cast the bread of thought upon the waters , and it returns to us after many days : A review in tho Leader for July , 1857 , page 666 , of " Memorials , Scientific and Literary , of Andrew Crosso , tho Electrician , " concludes with tho significant questions Are the facts aa he states them ? If so , what is thoir interpretation ? " * The facts could not have been otherwise than as he had stated them , inasmuch aa they aro explicitly described , as vrell aa detailed with the utmost possible candour and with every evidence of the most unquestionable truthfulness . Their interpretation m a proWom requiring certain predicates as A commencement to its true solution .
1 . Inorganic matter is acknowledged to be specific as regards both permanent reli tive weight and the number and arrangement of its atoms in a given space . 2 . Organic matter is known to be generated from a cell , and not to possess , durin » its progress from life to death , any specific permanent relation to space , either as regards weight or the number and arrangement of its atoms . Discarding the doctrine of chances and the infinite series of probabilities let us proceed thus : — No one description of inorganic matter has ever been found subsisting upon another or converting any other into its own substance , so as that it might grow in magnitude and increase in weiht to the of this is
g . Every supposition contrary a gratuitous assumption , wholly incapable of proof from any -well-grounded facts . On this subject the union of two or more inorganic bodies with each other , as in chemical combination , so as to produce a compound body resembling neither , need not be stated as an acknowledged truth . All synthetical inorganic processes , however , whether by means of an instantaneous chemical combination or by a slow and imperceptible metamo rphosis , as in the silent operations of nature , yield only substances that may again be reduced to the same quantities of their primary elements if subjected to a careful analysis . The so-called organic chemistry cannot , in thi 3 place , betaken into consideration .
Organic matter is admitted to be the product solely of organization , namely , a result which can only arise out of a pre-existing type ; generation in some form , or by some union or mode of vital process being essential to its propagation no less than to its continued origination and multiplication . Organic matter , moreover , is universally acknowledged to undergo certain phases , commencing with the primitive vital cell , and thence passing through an innumerable series of mutations , until , either from age or accident , individual vitality becomes extinct . As , however , organic bod i es , without any exception , prey upon each other and derive their subsistence from the consumption and assimilation of each other , their vitality being preserved ly such means , iv-ith the aid of air and water as adjuncts , and by light and heat , electricity and magnetism , as auxiliaries ; so , also , it follows that vitality terminates in inertia , and , therefore , that the final state of all organization is deorganization , followed by decomposition , through the agency of a series of living destroyers , from the worm , downwards , to the final undistinguishable atom .
The interpretation , then , is , that the principle attempted to have been promulgated by Andrew Crosse , the Electrician , " namely , that organic matter can be originated otherwise than as herein described—out of inorganic matter—wholly fails of being established ; the reverse principle , therefore , clearly having to be admitted as the true one , namely , that the eliminations of organic bodies tend in a uniform continuity towards centring in , and that they do finally terminate in , the mineral , the metallic , or the inorganic state . Wellington , New Zealand , Johs Wallace . February 18 , 1858 .
Merivale's Roman History. A History Of T...
MERIVALE'S ROMAN HISTORY . A History of the Romans under the Empire . By Charles Merivale , B . D . Vol VI . Longman and Co . Mr . Merivale ' s work approaches its completion . He has traversed the great Julian and arrived at the Flavian era ; he Las described the turbulent and convulsive origin of the Roman Empire , and written the biographies of the emperors , from the first Caesar to Titus , and his sixth volume , closing upon the humiliation of Judoea , perfects the picture of an epoch extending through a hundred and twenty years of Roman history . Two hundred and fifty years form the next cycle , but here the scale of narration will
necessarily be smaller , so much so , indeed , that Mr . Merivale proposes to conclude his labours in . two more volumes , for he has lost the help of Tacitus ; Suetonius will shortly fail him ; Dion has already dwindled into an epitomist , and a few pages will exhaust the genuine historical substance contained in the Herodian and Augustan annals . He has amply described , not only the line of emperors from Cajsar to Vespasian , but the statesmen and warriors , the philosophers , poets , and princes of their times . He cannot do the same ¦ with Trajan or Hadrian , with Marius or Sulla , yet he can analyze the social and political organization , the military and legislative codes that grew up during the last epoch of imperialism , from the day when the Arch of Titus
rose to commemorate the fall of Jerusalem to the collapse of the Flavian dynasty ; he can depict the manners , the morals , the ideas of mankind , vyhen heathenism was at its zenith ; he can restore to the eye the laws , institutions , and rituals of Paganism when it wore the Roman purple ; he can trace the dispersion of the classic myths and the rise of Christianity , and , although from the fact that the labour required -will be out of nil proportion to the space to be filled , a considerable interval must elapse before the two remaining volumes can make their appearance ; we hope that Mr . Merivale will not withhold longer than is absolutely necessai'y the remaining portions of that which , in its completeness , will be a truly great work .
^ The sixth volume includes the reigns of Nero , Galba , Yitellius , Vespasian , and Titus—filling a period insignificant if measured by yeai's , but unparalleled in its illustration of imperialism as carried to its climax in Rome . We have never seen so full or lucid a presentation of Nero ' s career . It formed no part of Gibbon's plan to draw the full-length effigy of that tyrant . Suetonius , garrulous as he is , supplies only a fragmentary account ; but Mr . Merivale , drawing from every source of authority , tempering traditionary statements by criticism , and working his materials into a consistent shape , has written the best biography of Nci-o in existence . This alone would confer upon tho new volume of his history a conspicuous and permanent
importance ; but there are other episodes of deep interest upon which he has thrown a strong and clear light of learning and judgment—the Claudian policy in Gaul , tho suppression of the Druid hierarchy , the subjugation of Britain , the insurrection of Boadicca and tho Iccni , as preliminaries to the operation of that great curse which gave tho Romans to Nero during fourteen infamous and miserable years . After his fall , tho stormy reign Galba , tho brief struggle of Otho , roused from voluptuousness to empore , the supremacy of the glutton Vitellius , the civil war led by Vespasian , the provincial revolts , the Flavian conspiracies , and the concentration of the Roman power against Jerusalem , fill many weighty pa «? es ; but the moral of the
narrative is nowhere developed in a form so imposing as in the record of Nero . The scene of his death is described in one of the most remarkable chapters we have read for many yoara . Mr . Merivalo has not only traced tho life of tho Domitian despot—whoso name has furnished a term of execration to
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 15, 1858, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_15051858/page/16/
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