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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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A . ND YET ! Abdex .-Ka . deb , unconquered , surrendered his sword to L * moric Sre oa condition of being sent to Tunis or Egypt : his sword was accepted , but he was not sent to Tunis or Egypt . Honest France was very indignant at the shabby trick which Louis Philippe ' s Government played upon the chivalrous Arab , and sympathised -with Lamoiiciere under the compulsory default in his word . Louis Philippe was driven forth , Lamoriciere came into power , and held it , and yet Abd-el-Kader was not set free . Honest France established the Republic , and yet Abdel-Kader remained without his freedom . The Republic adopted the disgrace of the Monarchy .
Louis Napoleon succeeded to the Presidency by favour of his uncle ' s name—the prisoner of Ham succeeding the prisoner of St . Helena , and yet the prisoner who did not break his parole at Elba , is still a prisoner ! Europe has ceased to respect the spirit of nationality the traditions of Alfred , Tell , Joan of Arc are dead ; the countrymen of Kosciusko , Mazzini , and Kossuth do not fatigue * France with demands for the release of the patriot—the Arab of the Desert growing white within French walls .
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VANDEBDECKEN . A pilot in a fog , -without a chart , a blind man deserted by his canine guide , or a greenhorn in London—either of these unfortunate persons gives but a faint type of the Whig Prime Minister in his present predicament . He does not know where he wants to go , nor the way there He is like a camel in a swamp , or a hippopotamus in the Great Sahara . Members were complaining all Monday night that the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill made no progress ; whereupon Mr . Keogh undertook to enlighten the House on the subject , and we think successfully . He referred the delay to the fact that " ever since he brought in that bill , Lord
John Russell had failed to define or settle in his own mind what it was he meant to effect . " That is a true definition of the noble Lord ' s state of mind . He has no guiding principle of action . He is in a worse position than the captain of Mr . Carlyle ' s celebrated ship " weathering Cape Horn with a mutiny on board . " There is not only an occasional mutiny on board the Government ship , Captain Russell , but the pilot has lost his compasa , does not know one inch of the way , and has forgotten the answer to the question , " whither bound ?" Will not somebody lend him a dead reckoning ; will no kind person tell him what is his cargo ; cannot some one tell him who is his crew , or remind him of the port to which he is bound ? For if not , how is he to get there ?
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COLONIZING KAILAVATS . In another part of our journal will be found an article carefully prepared , on that great scheme of inter-coionia communication and colonization—the Halifax and Quebec Railway : we trace the idea from its first origin to its actual state . If that article should induce our readers to look into the question fully , our end will be answered ; for we are satisfied that a more effective project :, for at once benefiting the mother country and the colonies , bv a drain of emigration and an influx of settlers , was never before proposed to the British Governmeut : it is , in fact , a scheme for supplying a great link in the muchnRpded colonial federation .
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The O iiiaiN of Downing stkeet . —Downing-strect , the most i ¦ portant street in Europe , nay , in the world , ( for what equals in power Queen Victoria ' s Government ?) is christened after a most unworthy godfather . He is , indeed , bo undeserving the grave sound thus given to his name that , for the sake of retributive justice which lies in the hands of posterity , we must here , for the first time in connection with the place , help the man to « . «««« more infamy . He is the " one Mr . George Downing , of » Ludlo w'b Memoirs , " and the " 6 u George Downing
of PepvB , who confirms and completes the account ! Kiv « n of life unprincipled nature . Downing possessed ground on the spot ; and hence , when the houses were built , this unmerit . d pace of luck to Ins memory . He had been chaplain to the regiment of Colonel Okey , one of the Kegicid .-a . He had preached , and canted , according to Wood , with the unworthiest of his party ; and , according to Pepyei , he owed everything to Crom well , who had made him liis resident in Holland . Nevertheless , at the Restoration , he not only turned round to the new Government , which restored him his Dutch employment ,
but lurid and betrayed to their death bin old Colonel with two other of the Regicides : and this , too , though they had taken refuse on neutral ground , and apparently reckoned with confidence upon the sympathy of the villain who had preached and denounced on their side . 41 The Dutch , " says Popys , " were a good while before they could be persuaded to let them go , they being taken piisoners in their land : but Sir George Downing would not be answered ho ; though all the world takes notice of him for a most ungrateful villain for his pains . " —Leigh Hunt ' s Journal .
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On one occasion Victor Hvgo was talking of his works to Roykr Collard , and seemed equally hurt and surprised that the philosopher knew nothing of them . " You must pardon me , " said the caustic old gentleman in his wise way , " but at my age men cease to read—they reread : d mon age on ne lit plus , on relit . " How true , and how expressive ! After having fed upon books as
caterpillars upon leaves , we reach a certain age ( intellectual , not chronological ) , when all literature appears as the more or less dexterous arrangement of the same old materials ; so that , except in the field of science , which is illimitable , there is nothing that seems to instruct us ; and we begin to feel with Gokthb that Books do but give names to our errors , and , if sarcastic , we exclaim with Churchill : —
" Could it be worth thy wondrous waste of pains To publish to the world thy lack of brains ?" New books , therefore , lose their piquancy ; we know beforehand they will not be new . On ne lit plus , on relit . We fall back upon our favourite authors and discover new beauties' in them . After all , though acquaintances may vary life with pleasant excitement , there is nothing like old friends and old books : a little inspection suffices to convince us that the acquaintances belong to the same insignificant class of human beings as the old friends , wanting , however , all the infinite charms of association and habit . Why , then , should we become elegiac over the dulness of this season ? It is true that the oldest inhabitant cannot remember so flat a year . The booksellers spend their days lounging in the Exposition ; their clerks and shopmen in reading the works published by the firm . What of that ? Has not many a man prayed for a sudden cessation of the book-writing faculty , so that for another generation at least the world should be unburdened with new books , and have some leisure to read the
old ? It is easy to say those sarcastic things , but we have only to compare the current literature of the day with that of twenty years back to be convinced of the serious evil that would result from such a cessation . Ideas are rendered commonplace by this multiform reproduction . Literary men carry flickering torches in their hands which , like runners , they pass on to each
other—Et quasi cursores , vitai lampada tradunt , and although each torch may be insignificant , it suffices to light many others . Nay , we will go farther : we will venture a paradox ( and you are Grecian enough to know that paradox is by no means synonymous with error , but only with novelty—all truths are paradoxes in their first enunciation ) via ., that any disturbance of the trade of literature is fraught with danger to social progression . The trade of Literature ! You think it ignoble ? We think it profoundly significant . No doubt it is easy to point to the evils of such a condition ; men will " write for the market "—but not until " the market" wants them ; Literature will be followed as a trade by those who have failed in everything else , as retired valets or decayed butlers open public houses , or as severe old maids , lonely and poor , will open schools in default of other meant ) . The catalogue of evils may be long , but we say that it is deeply significant when a nation can permit knowledge to be bo widely diffused that it becomes a sort of necessity , and tradesmen supply it as they supply food , upon regular commercial principles . The Book Trade is truly an important item in our national existence , and we advise you to cease sneering at it , which is so facile , and to begin understanding its position . Important or unimportant , the Book Trade at
present in Europe is in a state of stagnation . In Germany the writers have turned journalists , or allowed * ' a very great ox to pass over their tongues " ( the expression belongs to JEschylus , and we quote it for its infelicity ) . In France the Book Trade has long been in a deplorable condition , owing greatly to thVBelgian piracy . In England the Exposition overshadows every other interest .
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Thackeray ' s second lecture w as upon Congrevs and Addison , and drew a still larger audience than the first . The only defect in the first lecture was an occasional dropping of the voice in the more serious passages ; but * on Thursday , that was completely avoided , and the manner was as admirable as the matter . Full of exquisite touches and marvellous graphic power was the earlier portion upon Congbevb , and keenly were they relished by all . Such picked writing , crowded with
epigram and meaning , is rarely met with ; and the attention was incessantly arrested by some felicity , which made us long for the time when we shall be able to taste them leisurely in the pages of a book . Very striking was the picture of English literary life in that eighteenth century , and humorous the parallels lightly suggested by the Lecturer . But the second part—that relating to Addison—was
less graphic , less true , less interesting . The excessive overrating of Addison as a writer was brought into evidence by the unfortunate specimens chosen from the Spectator , which were pale and pointless , indeed , beside the brilliant sentences of his panegyrist . Nevertheless , a man like Thackeray cannot speak of any writer without saying much that is admirable ; and the Lecture , taken as a whole , can hardly be overpraised .
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MARTINEAU ' S HISTORY OF 1800-1815 . Introduction to the History of the Peace . From 1800 to 1815 . 13 y Harriet Martineau . ^ . Knignt . The thoughtful and impartial History of the Peace , with which Miss Martineau decisively showed that a woman could successfully hold the historian's pen—has now been completed by an Introduction of some four hundred pages , which sketches rapidly , yet with the clearness and fulness sufficient for all ordinary purposes , the progress of English History from 1800 to 1815 . A contemporary has slightingly compared it with Alison ' s narrative of the same period : but it wants the matured mediocrity and terrible rhetoric of Alison ; it wants his highflown platitude , and his strategical display . To counterbalance these deficiencies , however , it has impartiality , high moral tjne , generous and wise remarks , and a certain broad view of affairs essential to the historian . The actual opening of the Nineteenth Century is somewhat at variance with chronology . The new era dates not from 1800 , but from 1793 . The French Revolution inaugurated the enthronement of National Sovereignty . Before that outburst politics was the game of Kings ; since that outburst it has become the activity of Peoples . Miss Martineau . in a few graphic sentences , has sketched .
the political organization of Europe founded on the Balance of Power . All the European states were so adjusted that the Solar System itself did not seem more harmonious , more stable . It was , in fact , the apogee of Imperial organization . Europe was represented by its courts . The nations were overlooked . But , perfect as the system seemed to diplomatic eyes , it would not work , for it omitted the most essential clement—the popular will .
Moreover—•• A new unit had been introduced into the association by those never-sleeping ushers , the centuries . KuHBiit had desired to become a European power , a member of the confederation of European Hoveieignn . She need not have done bo . She would have been very safe , for any length of time-invulnerable m her mantle of snows—unapproachable through her Lifeguards—the whole circle of storms . She might have wrought her despotic will for ever in the wide world of her own territoriesif she had kept her lace to the
, East . But it so happened Unit she turned westwards ; and that first g lance w « ntwnrfls may hereafter prove to have been the most tremendous event in human history . The transference of the acat of RuHsian empire from Moscow to the coat * of trw Baltic in a striking picture to uh ; but if it nhould be found hereafter that through Russia will have come that war of opinion in Europe , by which Oriental despotism is finally to measure its foroo
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SI . OB PHILOSOPHY WANTED . Sia Chahl . es Wood is said to be a grower of chicory , and certainly he has displayed a supcreminent knowledge of its merits . We should like to hear the opinion of some eminent hedgerand ditcher on the merits of the sloe plant .
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Critics axe not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make 1 awa—they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Review .
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May 31 , 1851 . ] JEfce & * && * ¥ « 515 r
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Leader (1850-1860), May 31, 1851, page 515, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1885/page/15/
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