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_ XgO2 THE L _ EADjSJl/ [No. 395, Octobe...
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HASSAN; THE CHILD OF THE PYRAMID. Hassan...
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THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. The History of the...
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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 Philosophy Of Nathanael Culverwel. O...
wr < Cordovan , / whether "bestowed upon an investigation into the powers of the jeiesfcial hierarchy or devoted to the arts of the Trivium or Quadriviuin . We cannot bat mark , in the purpose and style of CulverweVs great essay , i -singular superiority over a vast number of treatises written even by men jf the same stamp before the date of the Reformation . The student of Emmanuel College wrote in defence of reason in the light of an enlarged religious philosophy , so that , while he excelled inany of his contemporaries who possessed equal advantages , the academicians of the earlier Renaissance period are not to be mentioned in the same breath with him . The Discourse on the Light of Nature has a practical aim , is pure in its morality , is logical aiid rational in its expositions , is , indeed , a book from the perusal of which no student , of whatever age , can fail to derive a certain benefit .
There is too much laborious elaboration of analogies-, with perhaps a too frequent garlanding of the argument with ' fanciful though chaste illustrations ; but for point and felicity some of Culverwel's sayings are not often surpassed . Mr . Cairns indicates the following : — " Reason is the firstborn , but faith has the blessing . " "I shall always reverence a grey-headed truth ; yet prefer reason , a daughter of eternity , before antiquity , which is the offspring of time . " But we confess to our admiration of Culverwel ¦ even in his bolder moods , as when he says : " How fond is the fancy of a semi-deity I" " Paradise had so much of the lily that it had nothing of the rose . " "A crown of roses does not become the grey head . " " How does poetry insinuate and turn about the minds of men . " "Anacreou might take more delight in one of his odes than one of his cups , and Catullus
might easily find more sweetness in one of his epigrams than in the lips of a Lesbia . " These are conceits , and in such the writings of Culverwel abound , but they are fresh , and hang like fruit upon the branches of the stately argument . Infinitely move profitable are these chapters of Puritan philosophy , although decorated with curious figures of speech , than the dusty theses at Ficus of Mirandola , Gaspar Schott , De Sabonde , Durand , Aquinas , or Buridan . What was the gain to the human mind when , from folios chained to desks , the scholar of the ^ middle a «; es , wrapped in a gown , with an iron stile in his hand , heard the professor discuss how many angels could dance on a needle-point , or whether the moon could possibly be proved , beyond the reach even of a subtlety , to be anything more than , an adjective . AYell might Addison complain that , in the debates by syllogism , all the good
sense of the age was cut and minced into almost an infinitude of distinctions . In contrast with these empty but sounding * rhetoricians , Culverwel occupies a conspicuous eminence . He undertakes to deal with subjects equally remote from the common understandings of men , the theory of knowledge , and conscience , the universality of moral distinctions , the foundation of morality , the dependence of moral obligations on the Divine -wilj . Moreover , he-was evidently acquainted with the works of the paniheologists , the metaphysicians , and the body of the hermetic writers , from the author of the Ahnagist to Avicenna . To a thorough familiarity with the classics , he added , as we have noticed , an extraordinary knowledge of modern European literature , which he studied with intense enthusiasm ; in iruih , his earnest convictions occasionally give a sharpness and violence to
his method of controversy a little inconsonant with the general fine temper of the discourse . Thus , after comparing Averroes and the plagiarist Avi-< sen . na , and casting a retrospective reproof at Plotinus and Thenristius , he rebukes ' the brutish tenet' for which Cardan was so fiercely assailed by Sealiger , that intellect shines into man but round about beasts , the substance of the one accounting for its admission , and that of the other for its exclusion . No less vigorous is he in the utterance of his approval , as when , ¦ after quoting Zoroaster ' s famous apostrophe to the soul , he says , " The consideration of this made the divine Trismegistus break into that pang of
-admiration , ' Who is fit to be the father of the soul V " From an analy sis of ancient and modern theories of the soul , he proceeds to a most learned account of necromancy , geomancy , pyromancy , hydromancy , belomancy , libanoniaiiey , coscimohancy , and the other pretended sciences of prophecy , ¦ which , he says , " are all but the various expressions of the same madness , " assuming these various forms according to the tendencies of the Assyrian , the Chaldaean , the Persian , the Greek , or the Roman mind , some ' lighting their candles at the stars , ' others interrogating the dead , who seem , by their faces , to know . all things ; some calculating by the flight of javelins , others by the changing shapes of a flame . Culverwel deals as forcibly with these cabalas as with the quintessence of Sextus Empiricus and tlie Pyrrhonian theory .
Dr . Brown and Mr . Cairns have rendered a service to literature by re producing this remarkable work , with an appropriate preface , critical dis course , notes , and index . It is a book that does not deserve to lie in seven teenth-century dust .
_ Xgo2 The L _ Eadjsjl/ [No. 395, Octobe...
_ XgO 2 THE L _ EADjSJl / [ No . 395 , Octobeb 17 , I 857 .
Hassan; The Child Of The Pyramid. Hassan...
HASSAN ; THE CHILD OF THE PYRAMID . Hassan ; the Child of tfie JPyramicL . An . JEgyptian . Tale . By the Hon C . A . Murray , C- - . .... . ... J . W . Parker . Mb . MumaAY has put P-gypt upon Ihedstage . The characters , the costumes , tile scenes , are Oriental , but the Orientalism is that of the theatre—not that of the Arabian Nights Ejiterfeiirunents . Perhaps the most natural descriptions in the book are those of , landscapes . These are vivid , and redolent ol Eastern reality ; but the ljlfe and manners represented , although strictly within the limits of possibility ., belong to the gallery of high romance . This , indeed , appears to have been . the writer ' s aim . He would not study n
hero , but make one , and so he has produced Ilasean , the Child of the Pyramid , a . sort oi' Avatar of heroism , who is more than an Aladdin in the fltrangc vicissitudes of his career . The desert , the tents o-f the Bedouins , the Fellah villages , the Nile , Alexandria , Cairo , hovels , palaces , dahubiuhs , -constitute the shifting scenes of the story in which Sheikhs , Hadjis , Pachas , 3 eys , English men and women , Greeks , and . Negroes figure , iu addition to Hassan , around whom is gathered , at the outset , a dun cloud of mystery . His parentage is unknown . A horseman had deposited liiwi , in his infancy , At the foot of a pyramid , and dwelling upon this secret , ha goes forth into t , h . $ world , convinced tliat ho ifi tho son of some great man , and destined to
wed some maiden of exalted rank and more than human beauty PeriT and difficulties of every imaginable kind beset his path ; but he hlis a coo i and successful method—which he owes to Mr . Murray—of settlin ^ wYtli ' -iii n , tagomsts . Wild horses and savage athletes are toys to him ; not a soldier not a wrestler , not even the black body-guard of a noble lady whom lie has despised , can withstand his strength and agility . He clears a way through them , and , when necessary , leaps from a window far above the . Nile and takes to the water like a crocodile . Every misunderstanding is expl . uVed the damsel he loves loves him , although many rivals intervene , and at last ' after an Iliad of surprising encounters , the wine of love is poured into the
goblet of felicity . Mr . Murray manages all this with adroit facility . His object is to create a story that shall revive the bloom of old romance and compel the reader to be interested , although conscious that he is wntehinn a series of tableaux in a highly-coloured extravaganza . In this object te succeeds . Whatever the novel is not , it has the " merit of being ainusino-We set aside the fact that it violates the probabilities of modem life , and sometimes makes unsparing havoc of human nature . lithe idea of the tale is granted , all this must be allowed , for it is but the ancient allegory of virtue and courage , embodied in the person of the hero , overcoming treachery jealousy , violence , tyranny , and pride , and winning love and loveliness
represented by the heroine , as its reward . Mr . Murray , however , intersperses his narrative with sketches from memory , and introduces one or two delicious legends of the East , as thoroughly Oriental as the poetry oi' llafiz . We regret that he has marred the work by appending an imaginary diaWnie between himself and a supposititious critic . If it was necessary to protract the story "b eyond the marriage of Hassan and Ainina , the English personages might have been dismissed in a manner more pleasing , and less in . contrast with the general warm and radiant flow of the romantic narration . With some delects , however , and many exaggerations , Hassiiu , Ike Child of the Pyramid , is a book to read and rccomiiwud . It is light , "fanciful , and characteristic .
The Factory Movement. The History Of The...
THE FACTORY MOVEMENT . The History of the Factory Movement from ilia Year 1802 to the Enactment of ( he Ten Hours Bill in 1847 . By Alfred . 2 vols . Simpkin , Marshall , and Co . This History forms three distinctly marked divisions—it presents a picture of the factory system as it originally existed , a narrative of the agitation for reform , and a slight summary of the results derived from eleven years' experience of the legislation of 1847 . The writer has mastered the details of his subject , and proves himself to be peculiarly fitted , in one important respect , to describe the progress of such a movement as that to which his two well-written volumes are devoted . We mean , that he does justice to the acts and motives of public men of all shades of opinion . He is , perhaps , led by enthusiasm to overvalue some of his political favourites ; but brought , as he has probably been , into intimate association with them , he is ,
naturally enough , cordial and complimentary . With a few defects of manner and method , his work is meritorious , and will be useful as the record of a great advance in the social legislation of the country . We have no desire , in this place , to reopen the debate between the colleagues and the opponents of Hichard Oastler ; but a broad view of the entire question in its several developments—such a view as this book supplies—cannot be without its effect . It establishes , at least , two points—that factory children under the old system were liable to cruel and scandalous tyranny , and that their condition , under the new law , has been largely ameliorated . It was Miehelet who , descanting upon the unnatural innovation of infant labour , ascribed to Pitt the words Take the children , in reply to certain manufacturers who complained that industrial production was inadequate to meet the pressure of taxation . In this , as in many other instances , the French historian has distorted the circumstance he describes . Pitt recommended the institution
of schools of industry during a discussion on Whitbread ' s Labourers' ^ Vages Bill , and remarked on the advantages derived from the early earnings of a working man ' s family ; but he did not suggest that children should be employed to work the Midland cotton-mills , under the lash or billy-roller , for thirteen hours a day . How that practice arose it is impossible to say ; it seems to have been aggravated after the introduction of steam ; and its-most miserable victims were , at first , the parish apprentices . The working classes in general , until demoralized by habit , objected to ' employ their children ; a parent sometimes refused to open the door to his young daughter , because she had been to a factory ; consequently , the manufacturers resorted to the Poor-law overseers . These gentry selected a number of children who -were frequently told that , upon arriving at their
destination , they would he fed on roast-beef and plum-pudding , allowed to rule their masters' horses , have silver watches , little or nothing to < li > and plenty of money . They were sent oil' in boats and waggons , ami , upon X'eaching Manchester or other towns , were taken into large empty rooms or cellars , to which the manufacturers came in order to examine the limbs and stature of the little slaves . After this , the fate of the young workpeople depended , of course , on the characters of their masters and overseers ; too often it meant labour only limited by exhaustion , and converted into torture by continual -whippings , stinted food and sleep , disease , vice , and misery . It was allowable to oiler one idiot with twenty sane children , and as to the idiots , no one knew what became of them . Sometimes the working day was protracted to aixl . een hours ;
oven the Sunday waa invaded ; in heated rooms , and amidst dust and machinery , the children sometimes snapped their lingers at then toil , or dropped down fainting , or worked in irons . At Litton mil ] , a sjuil . li was employed to put iron ankleta on the girls who wore suspected oi running away ; long links and rings connected the iron near the foot with a chain about the waist . Above all , the overseer was armed with - a strap , a whip of many thongs , or a heavy rod ; with this he moved about tins building touching up the children who appeared to slacken at their tasks ; usually , the blow , or the lush , fell on them as they htooil at the frame 8 , but \ vh «! ii the taskmaster was particularly irritated , he took hi « young helot into a corner , or a private room , and there iullicted a pitiless and inhun » iui llugullauou . Tho lord of the mill BCMiiekiinea stood at the door at five o ' clock in the
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 17, 1857, page 18, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_17101857/page/18/
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