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Janua ry 20,1855] THE LEADER 65
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POETS OF THE WAR. ' ~ % - . ' The Agamem...
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MISCELLANEA. The author of Blondelle wen...
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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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Varieties. Two Ob Three Children's Books...
fort and support in life ' troubles and temptations ; as a pledge of communion with the Heavenly Father , and of His constant and intimate protection , fidelity to these watchwords is the motto of the tale . In the deepest and truest sense this story of The Three Boys is a religious story ; only , the religion is the reli « io . childhood , looking out on nature with trustfuleyes , and listening to the voice of the Father in the mysterious harmonies of earth and sky . ' .. , . The illustrations are worthy of the text , exquisite in feeling and in dignity . We fervently hope Mrs . Hay will be encouraged to write more children ' s stories ; never was there finer sympathy of pen and pencil ; never were pen and pencil better employed . We say emphatically to all mothers , here are pages pure as a mother ' s love , written by a woman of genius , for her own child . Head this story to your children : it will make them happier , them to live
stronger , more patient , more affectionate : it will teach valiantly , and to die , like children , in a Father ' s arms . As we put it aside , we feel a debt of thankfulness : it has brought to life again for a moment that golden age of hope and aspiration to which , as we advance into the thickening troubles , we look back as upon a vanishing distance reflected by the last rays of a sun setting behind the hills of life . And all this is to be found in thirty-two pages of a pretty little child ' s story ! Reader , " judge for yourself ! _ . A strange contrast to The Three Boys is Mother and Son : a Tale ( J . J ± . Parker ) , proposed , it seems , to be the first of a series of tales , equally well intentioned , no doubt , and , as we think , mistaken in design and tendency . Nothing can be more correct and strict than the moral of this well-principled story , which we can imagine any healthy child rejecting as a pill
not even disguised in sugar . The subject is the development of the dispositions and the destinies of the victims of self-will and over-indulgence ; one of the many new versions which will never equal the old , of the famous story of the boy who bit off his mother ' s ear at the gallows-foot . It is interspersed with harsh doctrines , and cheerfully hints at misery hereafter as the proper reward for happiness here . We should be glad to find the succeeding volumes of the promised series a little less theological , and a little more humane . Miss Corner has arranged the favourite old story of Mother Goose as & play for miniature actors and actresses . We agree with her in thinking these charades a very harmless and even improving amusement for young people . The illustrations of the tableaux , in the play of ' Mother Goose , are by Harrison Weir , the Laildseer of the poultry-yard . There is wonderful life and character in his geese , and his human figures are drawn with spirit and elegance . We said there was wonderful life in his geese ; we should add that the dead goose ( p . 24 ) is equally remarkable for its melancholy-truth .- _ - , ~
Janua Ry 20,1855] The Leader 65
Janua ry 20 , 1855 ] THE LEADER 65
Poets Of The War. ' ~ % - . ' The Agamem...
POETS OF THE WAR . ' ~ - . ' The Agamemnoris of the present siege of Troy are not likely to perish unwept for want of poets , when a ' retired Liverpool merchant" bursts into bal > ads as the Tyrtaeus of Balaklava and Inkerman . ( Arthur Hall , Virtue , and Co . ) We needed not the touching couplet prefixed to his title-page' : " Critics forbear ,. rain not your blows on him , A touch of pity makes the whole world kin " - — - nor even the announcement that the proceeds would be applied to the Patriotic Fund , to command the honest emotion of his verses , and ^ to judge them by no other standard than that of the impulse and the intention . Mr . John William Fldteher , author of Tryphena and other Poems ( R . Theobald ) , sings the battle of Alma with a muse so facile and so spontainversefashioned into
neous , that he reads like tHe Times correspondent , , easy alternate rhymes by a turning-lathe . East and West ; a Song of the War rGebrge Bell ) , is neither verse nor prose * but it is grim and earnest m thought and expression , The Bugle in the Black Sea ( Robert Hardwick ) is less political and more lyrical ; it has the alarum of martial music and the ring of true metal in its episodes of the battle-field , and in the more domestic and tranquil piece 3 there is freshness and power , a homely pathos , and a generous simplicity more effective than the most laboured art . The Bugle is the voice of a poet , and its sounds will live . The writer gracefully acknowledges his debt to the Times correspondent , but in his case the acknowledgment was scarcely due : the spirit and the sentiment are his own . Mr . Westland Marston , so universal is the warlike infection , has ceased for the moment to be the Hamlet of sentimental passion in blank verse , to acquit his debt of enthusiastic homage to the gallant men who spurred to death in the charge of Light Cavalry at Balaklava .
The Death Ride ; a Tale of the Light Brigade ( C . Mitchell ) , has something of the sweep and the suddenness of the charge m the rhythm of the stanzas . Mr . Marston also confesses that " the masterly records of the war" in the journals— " records which are at once histories and poems , leave to formal poetry only this task—to comment as it were upon their glorious texts . " The last on our present list of war-rhymes iu , we are disposed to assert , the best and bravest that has yet appeared . Wo do not except Alexander Smith , whose sonnets , as we read them again , do not quite sustain , we confess , our first and more favourable opinion . The thought was too often obscure—the phrase too ambitious , and tho feeling too far- fetched . There
was too much cleverness and conscious cleverness , too much manipulation , too little heart . In these War Waits , by Gerald Massey ( T > . Bogue ) , " windfalls , " ho says in a caustic preface , " shook down in this wild blast of war , " we recognise the unbidden voice of a singer who sings as others merely speak , because ho cannot choose but sing , and not because he has published a successful volume of poems . Wo judged Mr . Gerald Massoy with so much severity on a former occasion , that wo arc all the more proua to bo able to praise him when we can . We did him , as we beliovo , justice then , as we do now , and we regretted his mistaken resentment at a serious impartiality which waa the truest recognition of real merit ainidat the defects of youth and immaturity . Mr . Gerald Moasoy is probably still too young to appreciate , tho advantage of honest severity , and to understand that critics do not waste severe , counsels on unripeness without promise . Our present commendation is doubled in value b y that severity whicharoused Mr . Gerald Massoy ' s inconsiderate and foolish wrath .
His War Waits are , as the writer expresses it , " rough and ready , " but they are none the less welcome for that quality : indeed , it is their flavour and bouquet . We may fairly consider Mr . Massey as a fit interpreter of the people ' s voice and will : and to be the poet of the British people is no mean prerogative . These lyrics are fierce , hearty , terribly in earnest : the Peace Society would brand them as bloodthirsty ; they do not treat war a * a political fencing match , but as a wrestle of Titans for life and death . There is true feeling here , when he speaks of England —• ¦ . ¦ And Liberty oft to . her arms doth come , To ease its poor heart of tears . The following stanza may be revolutionary , it is not un-English : They would mock at her now , -who of old lookt forth In their fear , as they heard her afar ; But loud will your wail be , O Kings of the Earth ! " When the Old Land goes down to the war . The Avalanche trembles half-launcht and half-riven , Her voice will in motion set : O ring out the tidings , ye "Winds of heaven ! There ' s life in the Old Land yet . There is grim humour in " Nicholas and the British Lion ; " " Down in Australia" is a burst of triumphant welcome . In " Liberty ' s Bridal Wreath " we mark these lines : Now side by side , in the fields of fate , And shoulder to shoulder are we ; And we know , by the grip of our hands in hate , ~\ What the strength of our love may be . " After Alma" has some fine pictures : The fiery valour at white heat , "Was flashing in their faces . .... For its they pour'd their blood like wine , From life ' s ripe gathered clusters . At Inkerman : No Sun ! but none is needed—Men can feel their way to fight , With the lust of Battle in their face—eyes filled with fiery light . " .... Like the old Sea , white-lipped with rage , they dash , in wild despair , On ranks of rock .... From morn till night , we fought our fight , and at the set of sun Stood Conquerors on Inkerman—our Soldiers' Battle won . That morn their legions stood like com in its pomp of golden grain I That night the ruddy sheaves were reapt upon the . misty plain ! For we cut them down by thunder-strokes , and piled the shocks of slain : The hill-side like a vintage ran , and reel'd Death ' s harvest-wain . We had hungry hundreds gone to sup in Paradise that night , And robes of Immortality our ragged Braves bedight 1 They fell in Boyhood ' s comely bloom , and Bravery ' s lusty pride ; But they made their bed o' the Russian dead , ere they lay down and died . We gathered round the tent-fire in the evening cold and grey , _ -And thought of those who rankt with as in Battle ' sTich array , OuFComrades or the morn who came no more from that fell fray ! The salt tears wrung out in the gloom of " green dells far away—The eyes of lurking Death that in Life ' s crimson bubbles play—The astern white faces of the dead that on the dark ground lay Like Statues of old Heroes , cut in precious human clay—Some with a smile as life had stopt to music proudly gay—The household Gods of many a heart all dark and dumb to-day ! And hard hot eyes grew ripe for ' tears , and hearts sank down to pray . The Leader said last week that the Government had aroused a spirit that would not subside at their bidding . Mark these lines : " Certain Ministers and the People : " ... ; . With faces turn'd from Battle , they went forth : We marcht with ours set stem against * the North ; - ¦ -- - They shuffled lest their feet might rouse the dead : We went with martial triumph in our tread . They trembled lest the world might come to blows : We quiver'd for the tug and mortal close . They only meant a mild hint for the Czar : We would have bled him through a sumptuous war . We believe the bitter indignation of these verses to be a message from thousands of inarticulate heroic hearts of Englishmen . Ministers may well beware of the spirit they have raised but cannot quell .
Miscellanea. The Author Of Blondelle Wen...
MISCELLANEA . The author of Blondelle went to Elba in the course of last summer in search of health . iHe employed his time on the island in visiting the spots made memo rable by the brief sojourn of Napoleon , and in picking up reminiscences of the Emperor from the oldest inhabitants , notably from Monsieur Claude Hollard , sometime gardener to Napoleon , a man whose troubled life began so far back as 1773 , and who had suffered every vicissitude of fortune , in the service of Austria , of the French Republic , of JN \& - poleon , of a Grand Duchess of Tuscany , of Napoleon again , of the I > uke of Wellington , and finally of a Russian Prince , the proprietor of the St . Martino estatein the island of Elba .
, The author of Blondelle , on his passage from Leghorn to Elba , met a senator of the Second Empire , one of the very few genuine Bonapartists still extant , who had been attached to the little army of Napoleon in too « Island Empire " forty years ago . Our author did not neglect to toko advantage of so fortunate and interesting an acquaintance . 1 ho result or cnia trip and of these acquaintances is an agreeable and lively book , * ° * ^ ™» the first part is the record of the writer ' s actual i « npros « oiisof oocsh mornmg passed on tho island , committed to writing of an evening by a Inid y . ot the author ' s family ; the second part is a narrative of Napoleon aro *' S * * Elba , from his abdication at Fontaincbleau till his return to trance . This
* " The Island Empire ; or , tho Scene , of tho FI « t Kxito of ^^ or Nap ^ Icon L , together with a Narr . it Wo of hi * RosMenco on tho Wand of Mba ^ tokonfcom loca ] information , tho papers of tho British Kos . dc . it , and other Authentic Sources . By the author of Blondelle . ( Boaworth . )
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 20, 1855, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_20011855/page/17/
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