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714 * ©!)£ 3Lea$l$t+ [Saturday,
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/ jf y *+ iY+*t ** iv JLIUrilHirF *
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Critics are not the legislators, but the...
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Valerius Maximus, ^Elian, Pliny, Suidas,...
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That Carlyle would terribly offend his A...
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There are cheering signs of a peaceful r...
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Montgomery's god and man. God and Man: b...
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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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714 * ©!)£ 3lea$L$T+ [Saturday,
714 * ©!) £ 3 Lea $ l $ t + [ Saturday ,
/ Jf Y *+ Iy+*T ** Iv Jliurilhirf *
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Critics Are Not The Legislators, But The...
Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . — Edinburgh Review .
Valerius Maximus, ^Elian, Pliny, Suidas,...
Valerius Maximus , ^ Elian , Pliny , Suidas , and many other " learned Thebans" inform us that iEscHYLUS met with Death on the Sicilian plains in the guise of a tortoise , which was dropped upon his head by a wandering eagle , who mistook his bald pate for a polished stone , and who adopted that means of breaking the shell of the tortoise previous to eating the flesh of the same . We have always treasured that anecdote ; the unanimity of the ancients in recording it , and the simplicity of moderns in believing it , furnish a sort of historical
standard for the benefit of the meditative . In the first place we should like to ask Professor Owen whether eagles do eat tortoises ; and even granting an epicurianism in the king of birds , which adumbrates that of a modern alderman for turtle , we should ask the Professor whether he considers it short of a slander on the magnificent bird to attribute such an optical blunder as the mistake of a bald pate for a polished stone ? Moreover , why select a polished stone as peculiarly suited to the destruction of tortoises ? And to whom did the
eagle confide his views on the subject ? Where is the historian to whom the eagle narrated the mistake ? So powerful is the mythic element that almost any fable authoritatively narrated is received unquestioned . We may laugh at the credulity of the ancients , our own is quite as ridiculous . Upon the faith of an anonymous writer , even though he be obviously a partizan , we accept and circulate the most absurd calumnies : and these once circulated
refutation is impossible . Of what use is it to refute the current notion that Louis Blanc founded the Ateliers Nationalise ? It has been proved over and over again that they were established to thwart him , yet because they failed he still bears the credit of their failure . Of what use is it to refute the shameless calumnies which have been uttered against M azzini ; people will continue to utter them as long as there are interests to be served by lies . It was the nameof Mazzini , apropos to hisnevv work , Royalty and Republicanism in Italy , which brought up that
anecdote of ^ Eschylus , as we pictured to ourselves some future Random Recollectionist—some millenial Plutarch gathering from the annals of our day the biography of this great triumvir . We read the unwritten eloquence of pages which declared how this Catiline of the nineteenth century , exiled to England for revolutionary atrocities and other crimes too fearful to be specified , there
risked his head by opening all the letters at the Post-office , fled to Italy and roused the rabble by promises of plunder , murdered the venerable Rossi ( a relation of the coiffeur in Regent-street ) , attempted to assassinate the Pope , deluged Rome in the blood of the virtuous , and divided the spoil among his Pretorian Guard , and finally was howled again into exile by his indignant countrymen ! Cetera desunt .
That Carlyle Would Terribly Offend His A...
That Carlyle would terribly offend his American friends by a certain sarcastic passage in the Latter Day Pamphlets every one foresaw ; but really the answer to those fierce onslaughts on reigning systems which is given in the Perforations in the Latter Day Pamplets , edited by Elizur * Wrigiit , is both unusually temperate and unusually sensible . It is long since an American pamphlet has come to us having so many claims on our respect . Elizur Wright ( c J est toi qui Vas nommc /) is evidently an admirer , but , like
many other admirers , he has been rudely shaken by the Prophet ' s suvage denunciations of universal suffrage , abolition of capital punishment , and the idleness of the negroes . In respect of argument , what he says on universal suffrage completely answers Oaklylic . We quite agree in his position that the ^ reat proportion of the wisdom of a country never was nor will be consumed in managing the machinery of Government . Every
particle of wisdom aflbcts the country ; but there arc a multitude of positions , even very pr ivate ones , where it may do so more effectually than if it did so ollicially . In fact , this government of the wise is an Utopia of Plato ' s . " The guidance of a country comes from a force which is compounded of all the folly , nonsense , wit , wisdom , and actual thinking which gets itself published in act or talk . Not a particle of such governing power is lost , and a vast quantity of it will eveu govern , if need be
through President Lopez , buccaneer and blockhead though he be . The safety of universal suffrage , with its two parties eternally and everywhere watching to steal each other ' s wisdom and thunder , is quite charming . " Elizur Wright winds up with the assurance that the Americans will " take in good part the broad hint to make their calls shorter and less frequent in Cheynerow , and console themselves as well as they can !"
There Are Cheering Signs Of A Peaceful R...
There are cheering signs of a peaceful revolution to set off against the many ominous portents of the times . Universal experience shows that changes which are not the result of a widely-spread conviction are only disturbances of the social system , not regeneratives . Before the old skin is cast the new one must be formed . If men are every day becoming more and more impatient of the obstructions to progress which remnants of feudalism and defunct creeds still rear in our path , it is also becoming clear that thinking people are seeking elsewhere for the remedy , and that Socialist ideas are rapidly spreading . An example worth noticing is the last Household Words , which in two articles strikes at the old system . In the first , on the Poor Man ' Tale of a Patent , it exposes the mockery and cruelty which insists upon the poor inventor , before he can reap the reward of his toil paying wearisome visits and still less agreeable fees to the Home Secretary , the Attorney-General , the Patent-office , the Engrossing Clerk , the Lord Chancellor , the Privy Seal , the Clerk of the Patents , the Lord Chancellor ' s Purse-bearer , the Clerk of the Hanaper , the Deputy Clerk of the Hanaper , the Deputy Sealer , and the Deputy Chaff-wax ! A man patents a literary invention by a simple registration at Stationers' - hall ; but he cannot a mechanical invention under ninety-six pounds , seven and eightpence . The second paper , on partnership—en commandite , — plainly and unequivocally advocating Industrial Associations ! The wisdom , justice , and policy of a new law of partnership , such as would enable men to associate in speculations to any extent they may be able to afford , thus limiting their liabilities to the actual amount of their shares , must eventually force it on the Legislature . The paper in the Household Words is not content with pointing out the necessity of a new law of partnership , it goes right at the land question . " You think much of investment in a cottage or a piece of land ?" " Yes ; all experience abroad , and all we know of history , and all we see doing about us , show how beneficial such investments are . " " All this being the case , what do you mean to say at the next meeting of our Shop Savings Bank ? " " Why , I mean to make a speech . I mean to say that both the middle and the working classes desire to invest money in land . That the uncertainty and complexity of titles , the length and expense of conveyances , together with the cost of stamps , place such investments beyond their reach . And then I shall wind up by saying that I know , from what I was told by a lawyer yesterday , that it would be easy enough to simplify the present law . "
Montgomery's God And Man. God And Man: B...
Montgomery ' s god and man . God and Man : being Outlines of Religious and Moral Truth , according to Scripture and the Church . By the Reverend Robert Montgomery . Longman and Go . What the Reverend Robert Montgomery is among poets that also is he among theologians . The author of Satan may have turned up his shirt collars , but the sesquipedalian affluence of style remains to distinguish him . The sublimity of verbiage once attained is not easily relinquished . Sound—be it merely of tinkling brass—is very seductive : it fills the ear and stuns the mind ; surety , he must be a very great man whose eloquence is a gong , —who can thus clang upon the tympanum of the mind until we know not whether we are listening to the ravings of idiocy or the utterances of oracles ? Robert Montgomery has that greatness . Whether in prose or verse , the barren flats of commonplace are by him covered with , a diffusive magnificence of diction such as must fill American writers with despair . His last work , God and Man , has awed us by its grandeur . From the title to the imprint every page is grandiose . The headings of its separate sections are all of the highest style in that species of composition which , in theutrical phrase , makes a " good lino in the bills " : thus we are startled by such headings us " The Loneliness of Christ , " The Originality of the Redeemer ' s Character , " ** The Bible us a Miracle of Moral Adaptation , " " The Divine Heart of the Church , " " The Symbolism of the Natural World shadows forth
Mysteries in the Spiritual . " In short , when we consider the swelling grandeur of its diction , the peculiar logic of its arguments , the felicitous absence of meaning which so often leaves the eloquence unalloyed , and the mediocrity of sense which lies in the meanings when they are to be found , we cannot better describe the work than as an Epopee of Platitude . God and Man professes on the title page to be Outlines of Religious and Moral Truth ; but we are willing to allow that to pass as a mere figure of speech , and to no one would the cruelty be greater
than to Mr . Montgomery if words were rigidly inter - preted . What it is in reality the reader soon discovers , viz ., certain fragments of sermons and lectures delivered by him and united together by the binder ' s art . This the author intimates by saying " The accuracy of scientific arrangement was not required , and therefore has not been attempted . On the contrary , we say that , in Outlines of Religious and Moral Faith , accuracy of arrangement teas
requisite ; but "we waive the objection , as the author hopes in a future work " to discuss with more doctrinal fulness , and contemplate with more experimental depth , some of the high , themes and hallowed mysteries touched upon in the present work . " It would be impertinent , we fear , to enquire the meaning of that phrase , " contemplate with experimental depth ; " for , likeBayes in the Rehearsal , " he is too proud a man to creep servilely after sense . "
The book is fragmentary , and our notice must be so likewise . What the author means , except to glorify the Church , proclaim the superiority of the Judaic philosophy over the modern , and display his own powers of gong , we have not learned . His logic , as we said , is peculiar . Thus * the second section bears the imposing title of " The Claims of the Bible to become an Ultimate Standard . " Considering
that only two pages are given to this high , argument , one may require at least that the two pages be pregnant . You shall judge . The claims of the Bible are by Mr . Montgomery rested on the two facts , that these times of ours are times of convulsion , of crisis and change , and that he believes the texts of written inspiration are the intellectual thrones of the Holy Ghost setup among the darkness and difficulty of the times . And he refers to Habakkuk bidding us do
what he did , adding : — ' * Unless we are utterly mistaken , the reader will there find an analogy between the realities which encircled the ancient seer of God in his time , and the facts which encompass the believer in Christianity now . Human nature being generically one in every age , though its forms of development are theologically various , all histoTy is virtual prophecy . Hence the nationality of Israel , as unfolded in historical connection with the ancient world , is designed to instruct the nations of modern times , touching the true principles of Divine government , in reference to empires , churches , and nations . "
It would be a disgraoe to logic to answer such an argument . If the Bible has no bettor claim than that , or no better defender than the author of Satan , it is in bad plight . The next sample is worthy of all your attentionrisum teneatis t" What the crowded vastness of the universe seems to physical apprehension when God is viewed in relation with our own world , that does the multiplex form of
society often appear through imperfect faith when the Divine Being is regarded in reference to man ' individual condition . The corrective , for the one , will be found in . the principles of Theocracy , as unfolded in the Old Testament , where Providence wears a national aspect and Divine "Will is the hidden root of public history ; but the remedy for the latter exists mainly in the Christianity of the Gospel , where Christ is revealed not simply in the mystery of catholic goodness , but also under modes of discriminating tenderness towards individuals . "
How the principles of Theocracy are to be the corrective of the crowded vastness of the universe—why that vastness needs a corrective—and why Christianity is to correct the multiplex form of societyare we confess mysteries to us . But , then , if the meaning is a little shadowy , how grand the languago ! Mr . Montgomery is such a master of logic that dilemmas , which threaten to transfix ordinary men on one horn or other , are by him supremely disregarded ; and as Alexander , according to Quintus Curtius , cut the knot which others failed to untie , so the author of God and Man cuts the knot of miracles in this beautiful manner : —
" Indeed , if we except the creedless atheist , or ( he indurated mind of a mere rationalist , —it is impossible to conceive how any man , capable of being exalted by what is sublime in achievement , or thrilled by what is benevolent in design , can stand amid the miracles of our Lord , and remain unmoved by inspirations which respond ^ to their superhuman appeal . The laws of nature , according to their wonted history , move with the inflexible mo-
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 19, 1850, page 18, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_19101850/page/18/
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