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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 hot 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 ; 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 Kadical 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 .
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RECENT NOVELS . Percy Hamilton ; or , The Adventures of a Westminster Boy By Lord William Lennox . 3 vole . Shoberl Castle Deloraine ; or , The Ruined Peer . By Maria Priacilla 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 6 corn riseswithin 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 matterof fancy—of goiit . 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 I 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 these works are likely to afford .
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 aiTSmmense advantage , viz ., substantial reality . You feel throughout that he is dealing with actual experience . The Westminster Hoy is taken from the ranks of Westminster School not Irorn 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 oj youthful experiences , in such a shape as would please the readers of the Sporting Review ( where u « ust appeared ) ; and this rattling skeleh of the adventures " of a young man early in the present «* nf . ury may serve its purpose . The audience nmiresscd is not a sentimental audience ; and all lovers of the romantic and passionate are here duly warned oil " . Hence , perhaps , the loose slang Nfyle , « vi'rlM ir < l (? ne < l with scraps of theatrical quotation , winch m a htentry work would deserve severe i
repiool . What we especially call attention to if , " « Met that Lord William owes his success to the in "ft e i l ) locesN <> f gw ' msactucd experience , VolMm " koiTOwilljr from the ll | mber of thre (> volume 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 of 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 Captain 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 I interest alive , yet the general effect is frittered iway 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 its effects . Having hinted so much to the authoress , we may 1 ell 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 the 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 .
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JMISDIg ' b CHKMICAL LETTERS . I Familiar Letters on Chemistry , in its IMationt to Physiology , Die-I tcltcs , ^ xriculture , Comvwrct ; ' , and Political Economy ' . Uy Ju » tu » von l . icbijj . Third edition . rcvim ; d nixl much rn hir ^ rd . I Taylor , Walton , and Mubcrly . I ( Second Notice . ) At the close of our former paper we left chemistry in ita first applications to medicine in the hands of Paracelsus : we had no space to quote with coin-I ment this passage , wherein Licbig has a fling at homoeopathy : — " When we ' represent distinctly to ourselves the [ utter contempt with which modern medicine looks down on the views of 1 ' arncelsuH and his followers regurding their views , like the ideas of the alchemists concerning trniiHinut » tion of metals , us a hiillucina- I turn , and compassionating them accordingly , nnd I when wo compare with these views the- present UieoneH of the causes of diseases , and of the method ol cure ; tho philosopher , with all his pride in the S ^ ZS ??? of ^ Vntellectin *• 6 io " <> truth . iB humbled by the daily occurrence of contradiotiona
which we should hold impossible , if they did not actually exist . For even now the system of Galen and Paracelsus rules , as it did formerly , over the minds of most physicians ; and many , views remain unchanged , except in the forma 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 itself 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 when the capital result of chemical philosophy at the present day points to an issue something of this kind : all the varied phenomena of chemistry are simply variations in the arrangement of molecules : —
" Light , heat , the vital force , the electric and magnetic forces , the power of gravity , manifest themselves as forces of motion and of resistance , and a « such change the direction and vary the strength of the chemical force ; they are capable of elevating tins force , of diminishing or even , of annihilating it . " Mere mechanical motion suffices to impart a denmte direction to the cohesive attraction of crystallizing substances , and to modify the force of affinity m chemical combinations . Wo may lower the temperature of witer , when completel y at rest , far below tho freezing-point , without causing it to crystallize . When nv this stale , the mere touch with a needle ' s suffices to
point convert the whole inns * into ice in a moment In order to form crystals , the smallest particles of bodies must be in a state of motion ; they must change their place or position , to he able to arrange themselves in the direction of their most powerful attraction . Many hot , saturated saline « olutions deposit no crystals < m cooling , when completely at rest ; tho smallest particle of dust or a gram of sand , thrown into the solution suffices to induce crystallization . The motion once imparted propn ^ tes itself . The atom to which motion has just been communicated imparts the same impulse to the next , and m this Wliy the motion spread , throughout all the atoms of the mass "
lhat the tnturation and dilution of medicines should develope new forces and produce ne « r effects new ™ monstrous to Liebig , who-is nevertheless perfectly aware of the fact that difference of effect i « constantly produced by inconceivably I tnflmg causes—who knows that the faintest friction causes fulminating mercury to explode— that the mere touch with a feather su / rices to decompose tho ainmonincal oxide of silver or the iodide of nitrogen . " The mere putting the atoms into motion m these instances utters the direction of the chemical attraction . Owing lo tho motion imparted tho atoms arrange themselves into n » w groups . Their element * aurgragate » naw , ibrraitur
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July 26 , 1851 . ] # !) £ & * && *?? 707
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Leader (1850-1860), July 26, 1851, page 707, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1893/page/15/
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