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July 26, 1851.] #!) * QLtBLtltX. 707
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RECENT NOVELS. Percy Hamilton ; or. The ...
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LJIcniG's CHKMICAL I.KTTKHS. Familiar Le...
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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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Mr. Gladstone's Letters. Two Letters To ...
executed ; but he has , I fear , been reserved For a fate much harder : double irons for life , upon a remote and sea-girt rock : nay , there may even be reason to fear that he is directly subjected to physical torture . The mode of it , which was specified to me upon respectable , though not certain , authority , was the thrusting of sharp instruments under the fingernails . " Read these statements—these statements of a man of undoubted veracity and accuracy—ye men that sit at home at ease , and talk of paternal government and the violence of revolutionary firebrands j and read also the language in which Mr . Gladstone , Conservative as he is—nay , just because he is a Conservative , and would teach the
Conservative party how to gain new virtue in this age—expresses his sentiment regarding such facts . His language is so strong that that of Radical Revolutionists themselves is insipid in comparison—•' hellish , " " debased , " "degraded , " " prostitution of the judicial office , " these are the phrases he uses throughout . AH honour to this bold and just Conservative ! Let England not forget these letters of his when she comes to judge and select her statesmen .
July 26, 1851.] #!) * Qltbltltx. 707
July 26 , 1851 . ] # !) * QLtBLtltX . 707
Recent Novels. Percy Hamilton ; Or. The ...
RECENT NOVELS . Percy Hamilton ; or . The Adventures of a Westminster Boy By Lord "William Lennox . 3 vols . 8 hoberl Cattle Deloraine ; or , The Ruined Peer . By Maria Priscilla Smith . 3 vols . Bentley . The Cup and the Lip . By Laura Jewry , author of the " Forest and the Fortress / " The Hansom , " & c . 3 vols . Newby . Among British manufactures that of the threevolume novel holds a recognized place . If we look at literature with any seriousness , a feeling of scorn rises within us at the products of this branch of industry ; but in languid or lazy hours , when
the brain is inactive and criticism in abeyance , a more tolerant feeling predominates , and we look on novels as on moral muslins—manufactured for a " season , " and that season brief . For it is with novels as with muslins : no one asks , "Will they wear ?—every one asks , Are they new ? A novel three months old is like last year ' s pattern—an insult to the female mind ! With so ephemeral an existence , one must not hope for an organization higher than that of an ephemeron : all that we can ask for is , a brilliancy that shall amuse a whilegrateful if we can get that .
We mark a distinction here of primary import , ance . There are novels which a delighted public crowns as among the finest productions of literature ; there are novels lower in the scale than these , and yet so bright with wit , humour , imagination—so thoughtful and so wise—so playful and observant—that the vague hope of encountering one makes us wade through many of the " season . " Both classes are open to criticism , because both are serious . With the " season novels , " however , the case is different . You do not criticize muslin
patterns—you simply say that you like or do not like them . It is a matter of fancy— of gout . Mary Jane likes "loud "—resonant—patterns ; Eliza prefers something " quiet . " James likes a novel with " plenty of incident ; " Robert inclines to moonlight and sentiment . De gustibus ! Out of several novels we select three , not with any view of elaborate criticism , but to indicate in passing where the general weakness of novel manufacture lies , and to hint the kind of amusement the . se works are likely to aflbrd .
Lord William Lennox has less of the necessary craft than his two fair rivals on our list—is by no means equal to them in powers of novel-writing , —• but he has an immense advantage , viz ., substantial reality . You feel throughout that he is dealing with actual experience . The Westminster Boy is taken from the ranks of Westminster School , not from the circulating library . The substance of the book is autobiographical no less than its form . It is not set forth with sufficient , art to make a very vivid or enduring impression—indeed , the author ' s object seems to have been mainly the reproduction of youthful experiences , in such a shape as would
please the readers of the Sporting Review ( where it . first appeared ); and this rattling sketch of the 41 adventures" of a young man early in the present century , may serve its purpose . The audience addressed is not a sentimental audience ; and all lovers of the romantic » md passionate are here duly warned off . Hence , perhaps , the loose , slung style , overburdened with scraps of theatrical ({ notation , which in n literary work would deserve severe reproof . What we especially call attention to is the fact , that Lord William owes his success to the simple but rare process of giving actual experience , in lieu of borrowing from the lumber of threevolume commonplaces .
And here it is that Miss Smith fails . Her Castle Deloraine is evidence of considerable talent in the writer , but she is trying to extract food out of thousandfold beaten chaff . Her characters have no existence —not even a fantastic life . They belong to the old repertory of characteristics , and have no new features whereby we can for a moment believe in them . Yet the writingas mere writing—is often good ; the dialogues , although very unlifelike , have sometimes power of thought and power of expression to make them readable , in spite of their being so inartistically
dragged in as " fine talk ; " and the comments betray an independent tone of mind . The story is as unpleasant as it is improbable ; and we , as Socialists , are by no means flattered by the portrait of her Socialist hero , whom we take to be an unmitigated scoundrel . He is handsome and accomplished , as a novel hero should be ; he is the son also of a Peer " in difficulties , " as novel heroes constantly are ; he falls in love at first sight , with a penniless girl , in the approved fashion ; marries her secretly , after the example of ten thousand models ; passes a romantic honeymoon ; is roused
from his "dream ot bliss" by the announcement of impending poverty , and to save himself and his father ( more himself than his father ) from this poverty , he takes advantage of the secrecy of his marriage to throw off his young wife , and marries an heiress . The first wife drowns herself in despair ; the second , hearing of his conduct , quits him in disgust ; overwhelmed by remorse , He ( of course ) has a fever—they all do—and turns penitent during convalescence ; nay , more than penitent , he turns philanthropist , socialist ,
emigrant ! As a hero , we repudiate him—in spite of his beautiful whiskers . But we have little doubt that there are readers who will fall in love with him , and weep scalding tears over the drowned forsaken One ( with a big O ) , and over the remorseful husband . Now of what avail is criticism against tears ? If Mary Jane believes in these woes , looks upon the wicked Capfain Thornton as a dear delightful creature , and has thorough faith in the reality of this tale , what can we say ? Simply , that she likes her muslins of a more gigantic pattern than we do !
Miss Jewry , we have reserved your Cup and the Lip to the last , for it is a bonne bouche . Your novel amused us , and we think it will amuse the vast majority of readers , not because it amused us , for we know ourselves to be indifferent measures of public taste in such matters , but because it has in it certain elements which are sure of being appreciated : abundance of incident , nice perception of character , geniality and pathos . To one so
adroit in the management of interest we would whisper a bit of advice for future consideration : Your tale wants breadth and unity ; it is rather a succession of episodes than the developement of a story ; and although each of these episodes keeps interest alive , yet the general effect is frittered away by them . Aunt Katie is a delightful character , and Richard Kerr is subtly drawn—and as a necessary consequence , they usurp the interest meant to surround Dolores and Walter . This is a
fault in construction which is serious in i ( s effects Having hinted so much to the authoress , we may tell the reader that without claiming any lofty merits , the Cup and the Lip is considerably above the average ; and although not escaping from the region of the circulating library , the authoress has nevertheless observed life sufficiently to mark le old characters with a seal of her own . As a pleasant book , cleverly written , it deserves to be read even after it is three months old .
Ljicnig's Chkmical I.Kttkhs. Familiar Le...
LJIcniG ' s CHKMICAL I . KTTKHS . Familiar Letters on Chemistn / , i n ' t Is / Mationx to I'hi / siologt / , Dietetics , Agriculture , Commerce , and Political liconomy . \\ y JoatUH von l . icliig . Third edition , rovined mid much onl ' ai ^ rd . Taylor , VVallon , and Malirrly . ( Second Notice . ) At the close of our former paper we left chemistry in its first applications to medicine in the hands of Paracelsus : we had no space to quote with comment this passage , wherein Liebig has a fling at homoeopathy : ¦— - " When we represent distinctly to ourselves the utter contempt with which modern medicine looks down on the views of Parac-clstm and 1 i \ h followers , regarding their views , like the iduiiH of the alchemist **
concerning transmutation of metals , ivh ii hallucination , and compassionating them accordingly , and when we compare with these views tho present theories of the causes of diseases , and of the method of cure ; the philosopher , wiih all his pridu in the achievements of the intellect in the regions of truth , is humbled by the daily occurrence of contradictions .
which , we should hold impossible , if they did not actually exist . For even now the system of Galen and Paracelsus lules , as it did formerly , over the minds of most physicians ; and many views remain unchanged , except in the forms of expression . The archceus of the sixteenth century was transformed , in . the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries , into the vital force of the philosophers ; and it lives on to the present day in the guise of the alldetermining nervous force or influence . No one can deceive himself as to the true position of theoretical medicine who remembers that in our age , in which , the true principles of investigation appear to shed abroad their light , clear and brilliant , like the sun , a doctrine was able to develope iteelf in medical science , which to our posterity will appear incredible .
" Who can maintain that the majority of well-informed and cultivated men of our time stand on a higher level in regard to knowledge of Nature and her powers than the iatro-chemists of the sixteenth , century , when he knows that hundreds of physicians , trained in our universities , regard as true , principles which defy alike all experience and sound common , sense ; that there are men who believe that the effects of medicines are due to certain forces or qualities , which , by means of grinding and shaking can be set in motion and increased in force , and thus communicated to inert bodies ; who believe that a law of nature , to which no exception is known , is false for medicines , since they admit that their efficacy may be increased with their dilution and with the
diminution of active matter ? Truly , one is tempted to adopt the opinion that , among the sciences which have for their object a knowledge of nature and of her forces , medicine , as an inductive science , occupies the lowest place . " And first we would beg permission to express our astonishment at a man of Liebig ' s eminence writing such a betrayal as that closing sentence . Is it possible that he has reflected so little upon the hierarchy of the sciences that he is only " tempted to adopt the opinion" ( and that , too , by
what he regards as an extravagance !) that medicine occupies the lowest place as an inductive science ? or are we , thanks to Auguste Comte , so thoroughly penetrated with the principles upon which the hierarchy of the sciences is founded , that it seems like the vulgarest truism to say that the phenomena considered by medicine , being of greater complexity than those of other inductive sciences , medicine must in the very nature of things be less advanced than those sciences upon which it depends ?
Leaving that point , however ( by no means trivial , since it lets one into the secret of his philosophy ) , let us ask how Liebig can speak thus arrogantly of homoeopathy vvlien the capital result of chemical philosophy at the present day points to an issue something of this kind : all the raiied phenomena of chemistry are simply variations in the arrangement of molecules : —•
" Light , heat , tlic vital force , the elee'ric and magnetic forces , the power of gravity , manifest themselves as forces of motion ami of resistance , and as such change the d . rection and vary the strength of the cheinit al force ; they are capable of elevating this force , of diminishing or even of annihilating it . " Mere mechanical motion suHices to impart a definite direction to tin ; cohesive attraction of crystallizing substances , and to modify tho force of ailinity in chemic . il combinations . We may lower the temperature of witcr , when completely Jit rent , far below the freezing-point , without causing it to crystallize . When in this . state , the mere touch with a needle ' s
point suffices to convert the whole mufiu into ice in a moment ; . In order to form crystals , the smallest particles of bodies must be in a Btate of motion ; they must change their place or position , to be able to arrange themselves in the direction of their most powerful attraction . Many hot , . saturated ealine solutions deposit no crystals on cooling , when completely nt rest ; the smallest particle of dust , or a grain of wand , thrown into the solution Hufliees to induce crystallization . The motion once imparted propagates itself . The atom to which motion hns just , been communicated imparts tho same impulse to tho next , mid in this way the motion spreads throughout all the atoms of the muss . "
1 bat the , triturntion and dilution of medicines should develope , new forces and produce new effects seems monstrous to Liebig , who is nevertheless perfectly aware of the . fact that difference of effect is constantly produced by inconceivably trifling causes -who knows that the faintest friction causes fulminating mercury to explode- '—that the mere touch with a feather su / liecs to decompoae the aminoniacal oxide of silver or the iotiido- of nitrogen . " The men ) putting the atoms into mchtion in those instanced alters the direction of tha chemical attraction . Owing to the motion imparted the atoms arrange thomflelvcs into new groups . Their elementa aggregate anew , forming
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 26, 1851, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_26071851/page/15/
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