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566 The I.eader and Saturday Atiahjst. [...
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AUSTltLV-UER CHARACTER, AND DEALINGS WIT...
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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 Abode Of Love. It Was Horace, We Bei...
pleasure-grounds , hot-houses , conservatories , poultry-yards , stables , and , indeed , all the appliances of a nobleman ' s mansion . The house was large , and Mr . Pbince could accommodate a considerable number of boarders ; and it appears he rarely had vacancies I Indeed , ' the style of living at the-Abode was- highly -attractive' : the table was liberal , the minor comforts of the boarders were well cared for , and t ' lere was no restriction upon personal liberty , once the boarder had paid over or conveyed by deed all they possessed to Mr . Prince . Mr . Pbince was no ascetic . By no means . His doctrine admitted of good dinners , and regular dinners ; it did not forbid hockey ; there was a suspicion that it favoured cricket , and it certainly encouraged horseriding . The Misses Nottidge and the other boarders could all
have their park horses for paying for them , and Mr . Pj & ince himself had a partiality for driving out in a chaise and four . Altogether it seems to have been a very jolly place to stop a week at , if Mr . Pbince would only have extended his hospitality to the outside public . On this"point alone , he was monastic . He liked to keep his love to himself and the boarders . Well , really there is nothing very dreadful in all this . Have we not heard of hydropathic establishments kept by handsome young doctors , where delicate ladies live in much the same way ? The doctor keeps a fine house ; presides at a well-supplied board ; attends the ladies in their walks and rides , prescribes for them , makes love to them , and occasionally marries the most eligible one that he can persuade to have him . The only difference that we can see between Mr . Prince ' s establishment and
one of these is , that whereas the hydropathic apostle accepts a stated amount for the board , lodging , recreation , and benefit of waters which he offers to his patients , Mr . Prince eases them of the whole of their cash , and in place of medicinal water offers religious consolation . It is true that the breath of scandal has fallen both upon the Abode of Water and the Abode of Love . Envious neighbours , whose curiosity frets itself against the jealous gates of these bowers of bliss , whisper of doings which will not bear the light . No evidence , however , has been adduced to show that anything very immoral has taken place at the Agapeinone . Mr . Prince seems to have preferred elderly female lodgers—old maids in fact . His intentions towards them in a matrimonial point of
view appear to have been . highly' honourable and merciful . The conscientiousness c £ -his disciples , Messrs . Cobble , Thomas , and Price * who had visions revealing to them that it was their duty to marry three rather aged andras it is said , half-witted Misses Nottidge , is worthy of all admiration . -Did they hesitate ? Aged and hiilf-witted as thejadies were , they married them off-hand in obedience to the decrees of Heaven * Under these circumstances ; . what could old maids possessed of only half their wits do , but give up all their property to their lords—all . that they possessed worth having ? We have had a vast number of new tabernacles , dispensations ,. millenniums , ami doctrines of late years ; but undoubtedly Mr . Prince ' s is at once the most practical , and on the whole , most comfortable we have isiot with . No mortification at the Abode of
Love ; all on the principle of Enjoy yourself as much as you caneat , drink , and be merry , for the day of judgment is past ; the time for prayer and supplication is over ; self-denial and humiliation are no longer virtues , and you have nothing to fear , nothing * to do but make yourself happy . — ' ~^ V ' ir 75 luInWtTu ^ t ~ lW ^ of Mr . Prince ' s doctrine , or to question Mr . Prince's sincerity . In these days religious toleration has reached such a pitch , that you must not condemn a man as a madman , or a fanatic , even if he should select the Beadle of Exeter ' Change as the object of his worship . Let this Beadle establish himself in some Adullam in Drury Lane , or say in , his own ' Change , and preach—with sufficient eloquence—Sunday after Sunday , that he is the coming mancome , —a perfect man though a beadle , and therefore the sign of a new era , und he will find people to listen to him , and believe-him ; and more than that , he will find grave journalists , not suspected to blas
be half-witted , insisting that we rnnst not call his doctrines - phemous and ridiculous , because this is a land of religious toleration , where every man ' s faith is entitled to respect . We should hesitate then to be guilty of the intolerance of denouncing Mr . Prince either as a fanatic or a rogue . His assertion that he is the servant of the Lokdj that the Lord has opened His counsels to him ; that the Judgment-is past , that the Bible is out of date , and that all the world outsido tho gates of the Agnpemono is damned to all eternity—is not . to bo regarded either as blasphemous or absurd . Nor is tho sanity of Miss Louisa Jane Nottidge , who believed all this , and gave up all her property to Prince in tho belief that he was the holder of a Divine commission nnd the new Tabernacle of the Flesh , to be doubted or questioned . We can only congratulate Mr . Prince that his new dispensation—a dispensation so exceedingly comfortable and indulgent—has been enunciated in times when religions toleration can bo extended even to tho wildest blusphenn ' es nnd tho most flagrant impostures .
566 The I.Eader And Saturday Atiahjst. [...
566 The I . eader and Saturday Atiahjst . [ June 16 , 18 * 60 .
Austltlv-Uer Character, And Dealings Wit...
AUSTltLV-UER CHARACTER , AND DEALINGS WITH HUNGARY . fjpHE concessions of despotic Governments are nlmost alwnys tho JL result of ( Tear and prcBtmre , resumed at tho -curliest opportunity ; and nt the brief banquet of freedom tho people seem all to ait , like tlio Sicilian Damoclks , undor tho " hnir-subnonded sword . " All history , old nnd recent ,, proves this position , and thero is »\ na \\ liopo for a people if ' they stop short of wide organic changes , or unltss they me endowed with extraordinary firumCHs nnd nerHistonco of purpose—or lastly , na was formerly the case with England , unless
there is such a struggle between the higher Powers m the State , as to make an appeal to the people the best policy for the contendmg parties alternately . For want of one or more of these conditions , most of the nations of Europe present us with a scene of constitutions granted . ahd violated , and the fragments of promises given underpressure , and broken the instant that pressure was removed . Small are the thanks for any advice given to despotic Governments in times of tranquillity ; blinded with pride and power , they either will not accept the advice , or if by any chance they are led to adopt " a prudent measure it is pretty sure that the prudent measure will not be a sincere and a final one . ...
Of Austria it is difficult to write with ordinary patience , especially for an Englishman who knows anything of the history of his own country , and of its connexions with Austria . We care little about adopting a mild or friendly tone in any of our remonstrances with her , feeling sure that nothing but an exclusive regard for her own interests will tempt her to throw her sword into the scale either ot liberty or tyranny in a European contention . Even where these interests have been strictly coincident * it could rarely be said that England had reason to be thoroughly satisfied with the good faith of Austria . In the parliamentary discussions to which these relationships have given rise , the Tory peace party m the reign of Anne , and the Whig peace party in the last general war , found her conduct equally open to attack , and the two war parties equally difficult fairly to justify . We might make many filiations from Swift and Bolingbroee , in the earlier , and from
Sheridan and others in the latter periods ; we prefer avoiding evidently party men , and will content ourselves with one quotation from ' BuRKE , in his " Thoughts on French affairs / ' premising that he wished to conciliate the monarchical party in Europe , wherever it was possible . Yet he is plliged to speak thus of Austrian selfishness : — " The present policy of Austria is to recover despotism through democracy , or , at least , at any expense ; everywhere to ruin the description of men who are everywhere the objects of their settled and systematic aversion , but more especially in the Netherlands . Compare this with the Emperor ' s refusing at first all intercourse with the present powers of France , With his endeavouring to excite all Europe against them , and then his not only withdrawing-all assistance and all countenance from the fugitives who had . beeu drawn by his declarations from their houses , situations , and military their existence
commissions-r-niany ' even from the means of very , but treating them with every- species of insult and outrage . " So much for the commencement , and now for the close of that war . After many severe losses Austria tried to connect herself with the spoiler of Europe for safety : every scholar and reader of history knows the line— " Bella gerant alii tu felix Austria nube . " She tried once more to put a wedding-ring into the nose of Fortune , and in a measure she succeeded , for the pledge helped her to betray . We arc not in the habit of pitying the first Napoleon , but if the shade of Josephine did not forbid , we should almost pity him when * after his defeat in Russia , Mexxeknicu , the outlook of Austria , was watching with cat-like glance , whether the safest policy would be to support or to betray the ¦ son-in-law . Accustomed to every treachery , it was a move which even Napoleon himself could scarcely credit , -unH-ml ' ifali . an . Englishman , even though ho was the gainer by it ,
could scarcely praise . Look where we will lor the policy and conduct of Austria , we find her begging , borrowing , self-seeking , oppressing , and betraying—tho servant , and not the lender oi events : We do not , as a matter of course , sympathize out of measure with the weak , or , at least , though we sympathize- with them we .. do not forget their faults : we know with regard to Poland , for instance , what many of tho sympathizers do not , that her final fall was owing in a great measure to the discords and jealousies of her own nobility , that her elective monarchy while it lasted was n nuisance to Europe , and that she had robbed Russia by wholesale of territory , before Russia robbed her . We know of the Hungarians , Igours , Ugri , or Unglireu , according to the different etymologies brethren of the Turks , that they were the merciless ravngcr-s of France , . Itujy , and Germany , and we suppose that "time brings , its revenges . ' * But their conversion nnd final union with Germany was its
salvation from their own Mohammedan kindred . We know too , from the accounts of intelligent travellers , that their Protestantism has been rather of that querulous and jealous kind , often found in the professors of n tolerated religion , hucIi as wo observo in the presbyterinnism of Scotland , nnd the second period of Roman - Christianity , as soon as it dared to show its irritability—an irritability which alwnys pnsses by contagion to the dominant power which it distempers , but still not sufficient in this pase either to justify or nccount for tho large scale nnd wide measure of recent Popish aggression . Indeed , hftd the Protestants been ns submissive und ns socially agreeable as they may hnvo been tho reverse , no doubt the same measures would have been taken . The debt of Austria to Hungary has been immonso , from the
time when tholuttornatioii , inlG 87 , willingly aqknowlodgedJosEi'ii ; the son of Leopold I . as the hereditary'King-of Hungary , on the condition , on tho part of tho Protestants of both tho Lutheran and Calvinisfc professions , that they should be loft in posaeasion of those churches und prerogatives which had been secured to thoiu by the diet of Oilenburtf—liberties nnd privileges which , in fact , hiivo iiever been secured Piibstantinlly . We will hero introduce a piissaji , 'e from Uuknkt ' 8 " History of His Own Times , " in winch the Stutu of Hungary i * incidentally mentioned , because it is nn expn . flHJou of the gcncml stylo of Austrian conduct townrda the dependent State : — " It is certain that tho Germans played tho masters very severely
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 16, 1860, page 10, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_16061860/page/10/
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