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No. 423, Max 1, 1858.J THE LEAJEB, 425
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THE HISTORY OF RUSSIA . Lives of the Sov...
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EMIGRATION. Nova Scotia considered as a ...
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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 Materials Of German Poetry. Poets An...
It opens into a world of tournaments and delicious princesses , shining castles and high-born maidens an palace towers , and . the interest of the fable is real and continuous . Madame de Pontes convinces us , by her fragmentary translations , that the entire poem of four thousand seven hundred lines , " all "written with the utmost simplicity , and dealing with a period so far removed from our own in manner s ^ habits , and customs , " be read through without fatigue . The work was copied and placed among the archives of Castle Anibras , in the Tyrol , more than three centuries ago , but it was not until the year 1817 that a correct edition was published by Yon der Hagen . The later epics of enchantment and chivalry introduce a goddess of love and beauty , temples of sapphire , diamond , and topaz , and a million other wonders of fancy . Then follows the era of demonology and
witchcraft , when a reign of terror was established by the informers against hags and sorcerers . In a single German village containing two hundred souls , the executioner earned , in three months , no less a sum than one hundred and sixty thalers , or about twenty-six pounds sterling , by the burning of hags alone . Rich and poor , old and young , male and female , suffered , many from popular impulse , many from the informer ' s cupidity . A maiden of Ulm , of good family ^ endured the rack for nine hours , persisting in her declaration of innocence , and upon , being released died from the effects of the torture . In one small town of Bavaria forty-eight women were burnt alive in the year 3582 , and tins belief in commerce with the devil of course exercised its influence on the literature of the period . The
legend of Faust was but the type of a multitude . In her second volume , Madame de Pontes devotes a series of biographical chapters , with analytical criticisms , to Klopstock , Lessing , Wieland , Herder , Schubarth , V ° > tlie Schlegels , Chamisso , Korner , and the romantic German dramatists , discussing their works and narrating their personal histories in a style winch forms -very agreeable reading . To the book generally we can assign uncommon merit . It contains much that will be new to all but German readers , and it is written with an ease , freshness , and vivacity altogether charming . It is a most welcome contribution to the English library of German literature .
No. 423, Max 1, 1858.J The Leajeb, 425
No . 423 , Max 1 , 1858 . J THE LEAJEB , 425
The History Of Russia . Lives Of The Sov...
THE HISTORY OF RUSSIA . Lives of the Sovereigns of Russia . By George Fowler . "Vols . I . and II . Low and Co . Certain advantages have been enjoyed by Mr . Fowler in writing these imperial biographies . He has travelled , has long been familiar with the history of northern and eastern Europe , and has had access to some materials not hitherto exhausted by the compilers . Several years ago a volume from his pen was issued , in which he carried the narrative from a remote date through the careers of the earlier czars ; but that publication was with
drawn , and the present may be considered as virtually a new work . It presents the lives of the czars and czarinas from Kurik to Paul I ., and , when completed , will . bring down the narrative to the accession of Alexander II . The form is biographical rather than historical , Mr . Fowler preferring to group events round the main personages , frequently introducing in particular prominence such secondary figures as those of the Orion ' s , Biron , Potemkin , and Suwarrow , and also branching into irregular yet useful accounts of the Russo-Greelc Church , with its doctrines , traditions , and ceremonies , and of manners and usages among the various classes of the Russian people .
The design of the book is excellent , and the materials collected by Mr . Fowler are singularly curious ; but he Las a capital defect ; is a biographer or an historian—a want of style and method which may be detected in his diction , and in his ordering of * the relation from its rise among the shadows of Muscovite legendry to the mystery of Paul ' s murder . In the preface we find an example of the verbal awkwardness and ambiguity to be continually detected throughout the volumes . The author says : " In the volume he is now engaged upon the reign of Alexander forms a leading feature , such as the French invasion of Russia and lhe great flood of St . Petersburg . " In this there is neither sense nor syntax ; but it is not seldom that Mr . Fowler finds his explanations difficult to manage . Intellectually , his views of Russian history are above the average . Though addicted to
praise the empire and admire its emperors—which is true of most travellers in that part of Europe—he is seldom exaggerated in his estimates of character , and avoids the repetition of vulgar anecdotes . His chapters on . the early history of Russia , while disfigured by a few leanings to fable , present a very clear outline of all that is critically known , and lead broadly and directly to the l'ecorded succession of the czars , to the gradual civilization of the empire , to the reigns of the Ivans and Boris , and to the accession of Peter , surnamed the Great , who experimented upon the poisoning of children , and who built a city , as his satirists declared , that he might have a window opened in the walls of the infernal North , to gaze out upon the habitable parts of the globe . Mr . Fowler , of course , adopts the heroic view of Ins career , and is careful to render liim as
interesting as possible , although we think he misses some important elucidations to be discovered in memoirs illustrative of tlmt period , but he is generally judicious in his appeal to authorities , and steers a middle course between Voltaix ' c and the rabid Polish and German biographers . We are not aware , so far , whether he has consulted the great work of OustrialoUi almost the only-Russian history of Russia , which has never yet been translated into the English language ; but that author ' s statement of Peter's achievements , while coloured by courtly preferences , is singularly free from the extravagance customarily found in accounts of Pctvr 1 . Mr . Fowler might also with advantage have consulted the Memoirs of the Duke of St . Simon for characteristic passages relative to the czar ' s conduct when on his travels .
Upon several controverted points -we think Mr . Fowler arrives at a conclusion with suspicious facility . Thus , the question lwta long been disputed whether Catherine 11 . was an accomplice iu the murder of her husband . Mr . Fowler decides in the negative . But upon what evidence ? Simply on that of a letter attributed to Alexis Orloil" and addressed to the empress
n which the writer , in the language of terror and contrition , appeals to her for pardon on account of his atrocious act . Now , we regard this testimony as worthless , if urged in favour of Catherine , but damnatory if directed against her . Alexis Orloff was the treacherous poisoner , who won upon the emperor ' s confidence by maligning his wife , who accepted his hospitality and introduced a deadly mixture into his wine , and who afterwards strangled him with the aid of Baratinski , the governor of the state prison . Would Baratinski have assisted in the assassination of Catherine ' s husband without Catherine ' s consent ? But Catherine was undeniabl y an accomplice after the fact , although she took care to preserve the exculpatory letter of Alexis Orloff in a casket , and bequeath it to the Czar Paul , who then confessed that he had suspected his mother of being a murderess , which she probably was . Her lying language after hearing the news is also evidence against her . "My horror at this death is inexpressible—it is a blow which strikes me to the earth ! " It was a blow which raised her to tbe throne of all
the Russias , and it was a horror of which she was fully prepared to take all possible advantage . Her poisoned and strangled husband ' s body was laid out in state , after a proclamation in which the empress attributed his death to cholic and natural hemorrhage ; but the multitude was not permitted , as custom prescribed , to kiss the lips of the dead czar , and not many hours elapsed before Catherine , in another manifesto , defamed his memory by every artifice of malevolence . And what became of Alexis Orloff , who liad inflicted upon the empress this blow which struck her to the earth ? He was created a count of the empire , and we do not find that Baratinski was knouted . So far from being satisfactorily disproved ,
Catherine ' s infamy appears to us to have been clearly established . It must always be remembered that , as a woman and a ruler , she was capable of any crime . And yet it was Catherine "who elicited from Edmund Burke the homage of his " utmost possible respect and veneration" to her "high and ruling virtues , " which " formed the happiness of so large a part of the civilized world . " Mr . Fowler , also , has been led away by the enthusiasm of imperial historians in forming his estimate of Catherine ' s intellect , if not in that of her morality . Notwithstanding these doubtful passages , however , his work is one of real historical merit , which may be read with interest even by those to whom the narratives of Schnitzler and Karainsin are familiar .
Emigration. Nova Scotia Considered As A ...
EMIGRATION . Nova Scotia considered as a Field for Emigration . By P . S . Hamilton , Barrister-at Law , Halifax , Nova Scotia . London : Weale The remnant of those Scottish clans which escaped the sword and the executioner at the suppression of the rebellion of 1745 , were exiled to JSTova Scotia ., and there became the pioneers of a civilization which has now covered the land with opulent villages , large herds of cattle , orchards gardens , and all the usual accessories of rural abundance . Lying within a few weeks' sail of Great Britain , and to be reached by the most economic passage of any to our Transatlantic colonies —about one-fourth the cost of that to Australia—Nova Scotia offers a most desirable point of emigration to tbe agricultural class , and to none more decidedly than to the poor
tenantfarmer , whose condition at home is infinitely worse , more precarious and dependent , than that of the labourer he employs . In this colony , indeed , the price of good land is so low as to be rather a disadvantage , since it causes husbandry to be carried on in a slovenly , improvident style , the cultivator rarely troubling himself to renew exhausted fertility by the application of manure ; he at once , like a savage of Borneo , forms another clearing , only to repeat the same extravagant and unscientific process . The usual price is , at present , about one shilling and sixpence per acre . In Yarmouth county , where the upland soil is nearly of equal quality throughout , owing to a higher average temperature , farms under good cultivation yield very satisfactory returns . Two tons of pumpkins , fourteen thousand ears of Indian corn , three and a half bushels of
shelled beans , four bushels of shelled peas , ten bushels of shelled corn , five bushels of carrots , and three bushels of turnips , i-ealizing altogether upwards of 80 £ ., may be got from a single acre . Fruit of tlie finest quality—cherries , plums , apples , pears—abound everywhere , especially in the western counties , where they make cider of the primest quality ; and in the beautiful vale of Annapolis , which is sheltered by two parallel mountain ranges extending upwards of a hundred miles , the peach and vine ripen in the open air . But the most important inducement to the indigent emigrant is the extent and value of the Acadian fisheries . No . country on the face ot the globe can equal , in this respect , the neglected colony of Nova Scotia . Possessing a coast lino of more than a thousand miles , there is no portion
on which u highly profitable fishery might not be pursued . Cod , delicatelyflavoured shad , the alewife , haddock , turbot , salmon , & c , may be caught in indefinite quantity by nets and the rudest description of sea-angling . In the opening spring , smelts—retailed in London by twos and threes at a costly price—may be scooped up by pailfuls from all streams flowing into the liay of Fundy . Bass , a delicious fish , sometimes weighing fifty pounds each , arc easily taken by the deep-sea line ; so are halibut—equally choice eating— -of live hundred pounds ; and the tunny , so prized by the inhabitants of the Mediterranean coast , here measures from six to twelve feet in length . The shores of Chedabucto Bay arc visited by shoals of mackerel several miles in extent , forming a mass so dense us to impede the passive of tho
smaller class of trading craft . Here , then , the hundreds of unoccupied peasants gaunt with hunger , who now lounge in compulsory idleness at tho " town ' s end" of many an English , Irish , and Scotch village , —here our whole pauper population might be conveniently located , with the certainty of thoir obtaining a superabundance of nutritious , palatable food , at small labour and free of cost . A lad of a dozen years old , with half a dozen fish-hooks and a hank of water-cord , by the exertion of a single dixy could obtain sufficient animal food to fenst his wholo family for a week . Tho seniors , now in possession of what in their most sjinguine dreams of fortune they had never aspired to at home , viz : , a freehold of . soinu score acres of forest land , would do their parts , and by its clearance- and cultiva
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 1, 1858, page 425, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/ldr_01051858/page/17/
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