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Lady Dormer is , assuredly , not one of the few who have something to say . She pretends , indeed , in her preface , that her object is to interest the « youthful reader" in a " picture which represents the recreations of the wealthy and great five-andtwenty years ago . An object which cynical readers may regard as slightly " snobbish . " Lady Dormer , who does not seem a remarkably wise woman , may consider that the expansion of the youthful mind b lation
will be considerabl y benefited y a contemp of " the wealthy ana great" at table and in the ballroom ; and , if that is her conception of literature , we must do her the justice to say she has perfectly fulfilled it . She writes of her own class not only as if H were immeasurably above all other classes , but her eloquence has the naive accent of some flunky soul suddenly finding itself surrounded by the splendours of " the wealthy and great . " The humorist asks : —
" Without black velvet breeches—what is man ?' Put the question to Lady Dormer , and she would blandly answer " Very true !" To such readers as revel in the literature of the knife- and-fork school , Lady Selina Clifford may be commended as a gentle , unexciting , and not uninteresting story . Criticism it will not bearbut it will bear reading in languid moments . Lady
Dormer has little of the novelist ' s art , and less of the requisite material ; but she has a turn for ridicule , and some of her remarks have a dash of sarcasm < The principal story—for there are several—extends over rather more than a volume , and is the only one we had courage to read through . But , judging from Lady Selina Clifford , we venture on some such verdict as this : Lady Dormer has nothing to say—and says it .
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Txe Veiled Vestal . —The " Veiled Vestal , " we suppose it must be allowed to be a curious and successful example of skilful manipulation . The veil is cleverly executed , and looks quite gauzy and transparent at a proper distance ; but it bears about the 6 ame ~ relation to high art as a Paganini ' s performance on a single string ; it merely shows a difficulty overcome without any result . The vulgar may wonder at it , but the educated grieve . At the best , it is no more than what is popularly , but not very correctly , called a trick , which is a sort of ingenuity that exhausts your admiration the moment you detect it . —Fraser's Magazine .
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A WORD TO MY HEADERS AND TO MR . PHELPS . I owe a word to my public for not favouring them with my promised inestimable criticism on Timon of Athens . I was sincerely anxious to say my say about a play peculiarly interesting to me , not merely for having been so rarely acted ( a rare advantage ) , but that it is , if not one of the best , one of the last of William Shakspeare ' s plays ; and though , as I believe , an unfinished work , yet , in many portions , a more highly finished and
thoughtful work than any , saving , perhaps , Hamlet and King Lear . I sallied down with a friend to the Wells ( my friend piloting me ) . On presenting our ticket , we were offered seats on I know not what temporary elevation at the back of the boxes . Remonstrance only extorted the avowal that these were the only places reserved for the Press . We , therefore , pocketed our ticket and the affront , and , commuting our blessings on Mr . Phelps to the care of the most abrupt and circumstantial of boxkeepers , we shook the Islington mud off our boots as we left the house , and returned home to
meditate on managers in general and Islington managers in particular . Now , I beg you to believe , my dear readers , that Mr . Phelps has deprived you of a much greater treat than be has deprived me , to whom the play is not altogether the be-all and the end-all of human felicity , as in days , ala . sI 1 would fain Mr . Phelps or some other Wizard of the North could ivcal to in ** . One word to Mr . Phelps , for whose management of
the Wells who does not entertain a deep respect ? If he expects me to walk down in full critical fig to the very confines of northern barbarism , to bo perched " a spectacle to gods ami men" on : i high seat , from which hearing is difficult and seeing impossible , and then to go home and write cheerlull y of Inn conception of 1 irnon , he suspects » ne of u power of " Toozymoozy " of which I Jim absolutely incapable . Oh ! when ahull 1 re vital Islington i » Ljj Ciiat-Huant .
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We should do our utmost to encourage the Beautiful for the Useful encourages itself . — Goethe .
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A PLEA FOR SUNDAY REFORM . We want reform . We are calling for reform pretty loudly in various matters—in Church doctrines ; in Bishops' incomes ; in taxation ; in the franchise ; in Government offices ; in drainage ; in street architecture ; in the treatment of the poor ; in a whole host of errors and corruptions , religious , political , and social , too many for enumeration . Is it flat blasphemy to raise one more among these conflicting cries , and call honestly and boldly for a reform in our Sundays ? Is it rank infidelity and sedition to ask for a little innocent amusement and instruction for the poor—the working poor—on a great festival day of the Christian world ?
" Yes , " says Dives , with a frown and shudder— " it is blasphemous and seditious to ask for anything of the kind . We will have our Sabbath observance ; we are a moral , Protestant country ; people have no business to be thinking of amusement on the Sabbath , they ought to go to church in the morning , and then take a walk , and then come back to a cold dinner , and then go tochurch in the evening again ;
and , if they have any time on their hands after that , let them read tracts , and examine themselves , and think what miserable sinners they are , and repent of their wickedness in sackcloth and ashes . Amusements , indeed ! See if we don't stop their excursion trains and their hot loins of pork and roasted potatoes on the Sabbath ! Amusements ! I should like to know what you mean by amusements on the Sabbath Day ? What do you want next ?"
I want this : —I want less Sunday drunkenness , more Sunday consistency , and a system of Sunday observance which shall be at once religious and rational . I want the poor man ' s only holiday to be devoted , in an appreciable manner , to his improvement , his instruction , and his enjoyment . How is this done now ? You set the church doors open and tell him to go in . If he turns away , you abandon him to the gin palaces at once ; if he won ' t go to heaven in your way , he may go to the devil in his own . You don't take into any account his circumstances , his weaknesses , his natural human longings for one day ' s enjoyment , after six days' toil . You establish a code of religious exercises and restraints which suits your condition of life ; and , no matter what the
difference in your stations , that code must be his code too . If he reject it , you at once assume that he can have no religion at all , and that it is expediency and time-serving to attempt to teach him any religion on another plan than yours . Let us see what sort of " expediency" this is . In advocating Sunday reform , or any other reform , I start invariably from that one immutable and Divine principle which teaches us to do our duty to our neighbour , and to love our neighbour as ourselves . I take the case of a hard-working mechanic in the receipt of good wages ( let us call him John Styles ) , and I try to find out what is the best use to which John ' s spiritual and temporal pastors and masters can put him on the Sunday .
In the first place , the principle on which I have started teaches me to have some sympathy , and to make some allowances , for the sort of life John has led for the six week days . It lias been all hard work , poor fellow ! lor him—work which has dismissed him at night lit for nothing but to eat his supper and sleep off his weariness as well as he can , against the next day . Out of all the large store of the comforts and amenities of life there
has been no portion set aside for him . Well : he wakes on Sunday morning , and the uppermost idea in his mind—naturally , irrepressibly , the uppermost idea—is , now 1 have got a holiday ! How are we to teach him to spend it . ? First of nil by teaching him something of his religion , and by leading him to learn and practise it devoutly with his fellow creature's . Ih it necessary to do this that we should shut him up for two hours in church
, and read him three separate church services rolled into one , with a sermon at the end in which aUtrnct points of doctrine » re discussed for the theological enlightenment of his betters V Surely not Where would be the harm of separating th « Prayer-book Services ? of Imvinir the Morning Prayer the Litany , and the Communion Zn ^ ZTi d , l erent , di 8 tir 1 ct I ) eri « d « « f the Morning p—celebrated in certain churches a *
day , and for the six days after ? If it is , your object is accomplished , without over-wearying his attention . If it is not , will reiteration of church attendance , will hours on hours of church service , gain the point P We will now follow John Styles out of church at half-past eleven , or thereabouts ; he takes his walk , and then goes home to dinner . What shall we recommend him to do after that ? To go to church again ? No . If he cannot recollect his lesson of the morning , without repeating it in the
services for the poor especially . I Will sappose our friend , John Styles , to be sent to public worship under such circumstances as these—to join , for instance , only in the Morning Prayer j after that , to hear from the officiating clergy- ^ - man a few words—literally a few words—of earnest , affectionate exhortation on his religious , and moral duties towards his fellow men , and then to be dismissed , after little more than half an hour of church attendance . Is this enough to make him try to be a better man for the
afternoon , he has not been very well taught . Moreover , after his good hot dinner , he is not in a very fit state to learn in church , be he ever so willing—there would be danger of his inadvertently going to sleep . But can we give him no other chance of spending his holiday innocently and usefully , having already influenced him to begin it religiously ? Yes . We remember that God has given him tastes which ought to be cultivated ; faculties which may be elevated and refined ; we think this , his only leisure day , a good opportunity for doing the good work , for performing a religious
duty towards him—religious in the largest and highest acceptation of the term ; and we open our National Picture-galleries and our National Museums to him , after the period of the Morning-services . We give him a chance—mewed upas be is all the week in the crowded workshop and the crowded street—of looking at lovely scenes and lovely figures , which open a new world of beauty to his eyes . He can come from his wretched homeview over a back court , and see what the shores of Italy are , in the landscapes of Claude . He can behold the wonderful works of nature in the animal and
mineral kingdoms , and be the better for the sight . No ? Well , not the worse , certainly . Take the commonest utilitarian view of the subject , and you must confess that in opening picture-galleries and museums on the Sunday , we have , at any rate , opened opposition shops to the gin-shop . Is this nothing gained towards the observance of a holy day , and a festival day ?
I , for my part , believe in the humanizing power of our pictures and our Museums—believe that a man may carry away from them thoughts which are worthy of Sunday and worthy of religion—or , in other words , thoughts which are fit to be seen by his Maker . And in this conviction I should rejoice to see John Styles and his brethren enjoying their only leisure hours in the week usefully and innocently , in such a Sunday afternoon ' s occupation as I have described .
And now , when John has got home again , and the evening comes on , and the night is before him , what shall we afford him an opportunity of doing ? How does he too often pass his Sunday night now ? Walk about the Edgeware-road , or Tottenhamcourt-road , or any other of the" poor " populous neighbourhoods , and you will see sights to shock , ay , and to terrify you . It is useless to say John ought to be in church , or John ought to be at home reading his Prayer-book—that does not touch the
present existing evil . There he is , sotting ; because on Sunday evening , on his holiday , he has nothing else to do but to sot . We all know the remedy—teach him better ; but the question is , how ? Prove his duty to him out of the Bible : is he in a lit state to receive such a proof ? Preach to him while he is wallowing in the mire : will he come out because you bid hhn ? Lure him out of the mire then ; lure him on to the cleaner and higher ground , without any preaching at all , and you have home chance of keeping him clean for the future .
We have already opposed the gin-shop in the afternoon , with museums and picture-gallerieswhy not oppose it in the evening , willi musicsacred music , if you will , to mark the character of the day ? Where would be the harm of establishing Sunday evening oratorios , on a large scale and at a low price , to suit working men and their families ? Give these oratorios , when the evenings are fine , in our public gardens ; when they are not , in our public halls and our theatres . Sanctify the Sunday evening to the poor , * hd have only heard the street ballad and the street
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Sept . 27 , 1851 . J Cftg Utahtt . 92 $
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 27, 1851, page 925, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1902/page/17/
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