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1096 THE LXA,Dj,B. __:J3j^jg? Saturday
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^PttiVrftftiTiV |LU*rUIUr^* ——• not
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Critics are not the legislators, but the...
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We have many examples of Italians writin...
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Few subjects would more amply reward the...
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The " Photographic Portraits of Living C...
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COLERIDGE ON SHAKSPEARE ANT) MILTON. Sev...
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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Transcript
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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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
1096 The Lxa,Dj,B. __:J3j^Jg? Saturday
1096 THE LXA , Dj , B . __ : J 3 j ^ jg ? Saturday
^Pttivrftftitiv |Lu*Ruiur^* ——• Not
JCittraturt ¦ '¦ .. - . ' - ? ¦ ¦ . -v ¦¦ ¦ ¦
Critics Are Not The Legislators, But The...
Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make law-s-they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Review .
We Have Many Examples Of Italians Writin...
We have many examples of Italians writing English with remarkable purity and elegance—some of them , Ugo Foscoi-o andRrriNi for instance , writing like the most accomplished Englishmen . How well Panizzi , Pbawdi , Gaixenga , Akbivabene have written , and how rare it is to fi . ad an Englishman who could compete -with them in Italian ! The rarity gives all the greater value to the success of the Countess Pepou—hy birth an
Englishwoman—who , as our Italian letters inform us , has just published at Florence a translation of Mrs . Somebviixe ' s Physical Geography \ a task requiring not only great mastery over Italian , "but also some scientific culture . "We have carefully read the countess ' s translation , " writes our correspondent , an Italian , " and feel the greatest admiration for the talent with which she has surmounted the difficulty of rendering into a foreign language the scientific terminology of the original .. Her style is simple , clear , and faithful ; and while her version shows thorough mastery of the language , she has not imitated that pompous exaggeration of expression , and swelling pride of phrase , to which Italians themselves are too often ready to sacrifice the simplicity of their sweet tongue . "
Few Subjects Would More Amply Reward The...
Few subjects would more amply reward the conscientious labour of a philosophic writer than a really true picture of the condition of the working classes in EuTope . The treatise "b y M . Le Px . at , which the present French Government has taken under its protection , and by that very act stamped the work with an indelible mark of suspicion in all but imperial minds , is ably analyzed and exposed in the North British JRevieto to which we refer all our readers , not simply for the object of ascertainining-M . Le Pxay ' s errors , but also to read there some curious facts . Here is a sample on the Russian artele : —— "¦'" . ¦ ¦ ' .. " ¦ ' ^ •¦ ' ' . ' - . ; . : . • ¦ ' . : . ¦ ¦ . .
A number of men , chiefly from theValley of the Oka , emigrate yearly to St . Petersburg as boatmen , porters , wheelwrights , and handy day-labourers generally . The term of their emigration is from April to November . About sixty or seventy join together in this association ; they form the artele— -placing themselves under the control of an artelchick , a cloutchnik , and two starchi . The artelchick is the business man of the troupe ; he finds the work , and regulates the price of payment , & c .: the cloutchnik 13 the treasurer ; he keeps the accounts and the cashj pays the bills , markets for the artele , and does all that the housekeeper would do in large families ; while the starchi , men of weight and experience , are the magistrates of the association , controlling the artelchick and the cloutchnik , settling disputes , calming passions , and doing the work of citizen priests . These emigrant-workmen do all the rough handy jobs in St . Petersburg . They are the porters and ironworkers :
they load and unload boats , saw and deliver firewood , shape and drive in the stakes for the foundations of buildings , and rough-dig gardens in the city and the suburbs . But their favourite employment is ironwork- —this being the best paid . They take their food in "brigades of from thirty to thirty-five ; the expenses are paid out of the common fund , and generally cost about fourteen francs a month each . Sometimes a woman is hired by the artile to do the cooking ; sometimes , and most generally , a traiteur supplies them with certain meals at so much a head . Tea , brandy , clothes , and private luxuries are paid by each , out of his own private purse ; but not much is generally spent in that way ; all else is paid by the association . Sixteen days are given to each member during the campaign for extra work , to be paid by extra wages , and at the end all the money is divided . It generally comes to about one franc sixty centimes a day , or thirtv-six francs eighty centimes a month . Fifteen
generally start together from the same village , making their own commencement . They borrow , says M . Le Play , 240 francs from a peasant in good circumstances , for which they pay no interest . But the peasant indemnifies himself by selling them a horse , -worth ninety francs , at the sum of 115 francs . Each takes -with him a certain amount of coarse meal or bread , and they go . from twenty-five to thirty miles a day . They keep the horse for a week at St . Petersburg , at the common expense , and then sell him for thirty-five francs . All this time the wife stays at homo with the father , or the eldest brother , if the father be dead . When the husband goes home again , rich , for him , he buries his money in the woods . Untold heaps of wealth lie at this moment buried , no man knows where , in the forests of the OremTmrg Steppes ; for as each man must be secret as the grave , for fear of pilferers and robbers , it often happens that the grave closes over Iris secret , and that his hard-earned gold lies to this hour monldering in the ground .
The man best fitted for such a work as the one we havo suggested is Riehl , whose admirable monographs , Lantf und Leutc and Die Biirgcrliche Qeselschqfty were recently noticed in the Westminster Review . He has the requisite breadth and acutcness , without the passion of system-making , which perverts his countrymen , and without the inaccuracy and love of paradox which destroy confidence in French writers . In the same number of the North British there is a heavy , but instructive article , on " The Sight and how to See , " from which we mny borrow this fact to astound the reader , narnely , that in the crystalline lens of the eye of a codfish ( which is composed of a series of fibrous layers , one over the other like the coats of an onion , each fibre having teeth like those of a saw , and these teeth dovetailing into each other ) there are estimated to be no less than five millions of fibres , and sixty-two thousand five hundred million of teeth ! JHdyou ever ?
There ^ is also a good article , grave and not satirical , on " Religious Novels , " the ineptitude and unchristian tendency of wliich the writer properly rebukes . Ho also justly estimates the low worth—intellectual and moral—of Perversion . If the writer of Perversion is capable of learning a lest » on , he will havo learned from the unanimity of tlie graver and more Authoritative critics , that the better part of the public regards with unfeigned disgust his coarseness and diahonosty redeemed by no remarkable ability .
It is the tone of his novel which has been most offensive . While doin his utmost to make every form of religious opinion ridiculous except his own , and while endeavouring to pander to the bitterness alread y existingagainst free thought , the effect he produces on religious minds is well ex pressed by the reviewer in the North British . •—The infidels in the book are , we think , not so bad as many of the professedl religious people . An infidel might have written a considerable part of the book anfl called it " Hypocrisy , or the causes and consequences of religious belief . " \ fe ] L of no work , written by an enemy of Christianity , that presents us with such unfavourable pictures of religious preachers and teachers .
The " Photographic Portraits Of Living C...
The " Photographic Portraits of Living Celebrities" which Messrs Maxjix and Polyba . uk are issuing , give us this month the portrait of Samuel Wabben—one of the best photographs of the series . The author of Ten Thousand a Fear is the son of the Rev . Dr . Warren , Incumbent of All Souls , Manchester , and was born in Denbighshirej May 23 , 1807 . He was originally destined for tie medical profession , but did not complete his studies . He learned enough of Medicine to write the Diary of a Late Phy sician , which was commenced in 1830 , when he was only three-and-twenty In 1839 , appeared Ten Thousand a Year ; in 1847 , IToio and Then ; and in 1851 , The lily and the Bee .
Coleridge On Shakspeare Ant) Milton. Sev...
COLERIDGE ON SHAKSPEARE ANT ) MILTON . Seven Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton . By the late S .--T . Coleridge , f A List of all the MS . Emendations in Mr . Collier ' s Folio , 1632 ; and an Introductory Preface , by J . Pajne Collier , Esq . Chapman andHall ! To a certain class of readers the announcement of seven new Lectures , or notes of Lectures , by Coleridge , on the topic on which he was strongest , narnely , poetical criticism , will be full of expectant interest ; and we do not think that expectation will be disappointed by this publication . But tie public at large has by thus time pretty well made up its mind not to expect much from Coleridge , and certainly this volume will in no wise alter that disposition ; It contains very little not previously published—often with
scarcely verbal differences , as in the following example , which might easily be multiplied by reference to the '' Literary Remains . " In the Biograjphia Literaria , Coleridge writes : — " In times of old , books were as religious oracles ; as literature advanced , they next became venerable preceptors ; they then descended to the rank of instructive friends ; and as their numbers increased , they sank still lower to that of entertaining companions ; and at present they seem degraded into culprits to hold up their lands at the bar of every selfrelected yet not less peremptory judge , who chooses to write from humour or interest , from enmity or arrogance , and to abide the decision of him that reads in malice or him that reads after dinner . " Thiswhich , by the way , is eminently untrue , as any calm consideration will detect—is thus repeated in the Lectures now published : —
In older times writers were looked up to almost as intermediate beings , between angels and men ; . afterwards they were regarded as venerable and , perhaps , inspired teachers ; subsequently they descended to the level of learned and instructive friend 3 ; but in modern days they arc deemed culprits more than benefactors : as culprits they are brought to the bar of self-erected and self-satisfied tribunals . If a person be now seen reading ; a new book , the most usual question is— " " What trash have you there ?" These Lectures have the Coleridgean tone , half-querulous , half-apologetic , and the Coleridgean impossibility of restricting what is said to the matter in hand : it is a mass of digressions on Shakspeare and Milton , sometimes good , often poor , always apologetic . Of the good let us borrow . Here , for example , is a passage well worth repeating from week to week in every critical j ournal : —
As a third permanent cause of false criticism wo may notice the vague use of terms . And here I may take the liberty of impressing upon my hearers the fitness , if not the necessity , of employing the most appropriate words nnd- expressions , even in common conversation , and in the ordinary transactions of life . If you want a substantive do not take the first that comes into your head , but that which most distinctly and peculiarly conveys your meaning : if an adjective , remember the grammatical use of that part of speech , and bo careful that it expresses some quality in the substantive that you , -wish to impress upon your hearer . Reflect for a moment on the vague and uncertain manner in which the word ' taste' has been often employed ; and how such epithets as ' sublime , ' majestic , ' ' grand , ' ' striking , ' ' picturesque , & c , have been misapplied , and how they havo been used on the most unworthy and inappropriate occasions . This again is noticeable : —
A second permanent cause of false criticism is connected with the habit of not taking tbe trouble to think : it is the custom which some people have es tablished o f judging of books by bools . —Hence to such the use and value of reviews . Why J 1113 nature given limbs , if thoy are not to be applied to motion and action ; why abilities , if they are to lie asleep , while we avail ourselves of thoeyos , ears , and understandings of others ? As men often employ servants , to spare them the nuisance of rising from their seats and walking across a room , so men employ roviews in order to save themselves the trouble of exercising their own powcw of judging : it is only mental slothfulness and sluggishness that induce so many to adojt , and tftko for granted tnc opinions of others . I may illustrate this moral imbecility by a case whicli came within my own " ^" ledge . A friend of mino had seen it stated somewhere , or had heard it said , that Shakespeare had not made Constance , in King John , speak the language of nature , when sho oxcluirus on the loss of Arthur ,
" Grief fills the room up of my absent child , Lies in his bed , walks up and down with mo ; Puts on his pretty looks , repeats his words , Romombora mo of all his gracious parts , Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form : Then have I reason to be fond of grief . " King John , Act Hi ., Scene 4 . Within three months after ho had repeated the opinion ( not thinking for him self ) , that those lines wero out of naturo , my friend died . I called upon bis mother , » affectionate , but ignorant woman , who had scarcely hoard the name of Slinkesp e 0 ' much loss road any of hia plays . Like Philip , I endeavoured to console nor , »
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 15, 1856, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_15111856/page/16/
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