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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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^ rj ^ suTtof * w ^ 1 Snntion of the Life Assurance principle . It may 1 h £ cted that the good is too prospective . But be ZTiH be remembere d that the calculation may U rTved at any point . The advantage to em-, Irs were Life Assurance generally adopted by { Jle industrial classes , we shall refer to in a future article . _ = . —
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CH 1 VALRT IN COTTON . aro using account of the fervour among the " Men of Af hester , " the People but the " Men , " is sent to us private ' letter , apropos of the late Kossuth demonn don Our highly intelligent correspondent informs Stta that Kossuth " had nearly driven the people mad . " " One sober and substantial merchant , " continues the Her writer , " told me , that to hear Kossuth was to almost h carried
bec ome intoxicated—adding ruefully , « e s away in spite of our better judgment . We don't want war and that is what he will lead to . ' No individual ver moved the people of Manchester to such a pitch before . It was like a national event . I wish you could jiave been here to see the steady-going , business-like men of M anchester losing nearly a whole day , and that a market day , for the sake of a man who was entirely unconnected with their material interests . "
With all due deference to our enthusiastic correspondent Kossuth is not entirely " unconnected with the material interests " of the Free-trade men of Manchester * But this " intoxication , " is a good sign . Courage , O England ; there is Chivalry in Cotton yet !
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A COPY OP SHAXSPEARE FOB , KOSSTJTH . Heahtily approving of Mr . Douglas Jerrold ' s happy suggestion , that a copy of Shakspeare , handsomely bound , and placed in a suitable casket , should be presented to Kossuth , paid for by a penny subscription set on foot for that purpose , we shall be glad to receive subscriptions at our office .
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Is it not amusing to observe how reputations live in circles , larger or smaller , and are ignored beyond ? Victor Hugo wittily said , that Popularity was the " small change " of Fame : — " La popularite ? c'e 3 t la gloire en gros sous ! " but after all , there are pockets into which no sous enter , and the widest reputations are but larger cliques ! Incredible as it may appear , even Shakspeare ' s reputation is not universal among " educated" people . What wonder , then , if we
alight occasionally upon a quidnunc who never heard of Dickens , or an Oxford Don who wants a " reference " as to Thackeray ? There is astory " going the round of the papers " to this effect . The Vice-Chancellor of Oxford , the Reverend Frederick Charles Plumptke , D . D ., on Thackeray ' s applying for permission to deliver in the University his brilliant course of Lectures on the Comic Writers , wished to know whether the great Titmarsh was a Dissenter , and whether Vanity
Fair had any connection with the Pilgrim's Progress ! He had never heard of Thackeray , nor of Vanity Fair , nor of Pendennis , though he had heard of Punch (" but is not that a ribald publication ? " ) , and , finally , desired a " reference as to character" before he could grant permission . The story is so good that we are almost reluctant to spoil its appreciation by declaring it not true - , we have , however , unquestionable authority for declaring it not true . Nevertheless , it is so true that it ought to be true !
We have known analogous instances , and strange it seems that men whose lives are supposed to be devoted to learning—men who are at the head of a great educational Institution from whence English youth are to issue into the world—should thus ignore the moving , acting influences of our Literature , should become asCHURCHiLJc says , —
" Learn'd without sense , and venerably dull " poring over the frivolities of the past , and disregarding the present . To read the Satyricon of Petronius , and revel in Burmann's notesthereon doubtless seems an employment worthy of an immortal soul , and one becoming a Doctor of Divinity . The dirt ? Latin refines it . Corruption ? Antiquity embalms it . But to read Vanity Fair or Pendennis with their piercing insight into life , with their wit , elegance , pathos , delicacy , such as no Latin book known to us can equal , to read these would be wasting time on " frivolities . "
Let it be granted so ; let exaggerated reverence place the literature of antiquity on a pedestal of any height you please , we still point to the fact that the Classics are praised , the Moderns are read . Mahtial drew the same distinction in favour of his epigrams as contrasted with " imposing" works : — " Ilia tamen laudant omnes , mirantur , adorant , Confiteor : laudunt ilia , sed ista legunt . "
and inasmuch as they are read , reread , quoted , imitated , admired , inasmuch as they form a decided influence in the Literature of our day , it is indefensible in any man assuming an educational position not to make himself acquainted with these works . If bad , their evil influence should be thwarted ; if good , their excellence should be shown to belong to the same category as that which we name classical .
But why argue the point ? Has not Oxford always munifested the same claustral indiOereuce to the moving influences of this age , from the time when Giordano Bkuno challenged her to discuss the doctrine of the earth ' s rotation , to the present day , when her most active intellects are wasting themselves on the theology and metaphysics of the Middle Ages ? Has she not justified Sydney Smith ' s sarcasm of earning the distinction of always being behind the ago ? Could Thackkray have untcdnteil b y a few centuries his appearance on our p lanet , and from that epoch have left us a squab
quarto Titmarshius De Snobilitate , he would have counted OxonionDoctors amonghis admirers ; nay , even among his laborious commentators ! for your ancient author is nothing without a commentary—which , as Goethe slyly says , no one thinks of bestowing on a modern , however much he may need it ! " Denn beiden alten lieben Todten Braucht man Erklarung , will man Noten ; Die Neuen glaubt man blank zu verstehn , Doch ohne Dollmetsch wird's auch nicht gehn . "
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In the last number of the Rambler there is a review of the " Relation between Rationalism and Communism , " by the Abbe Gerbet , to which we call attention . The abbe means to discredit the freedom of Reason by showing its necessary connection with Communism . "We have beheld , " he says , " during these last three centuries , developing itself in different degrees among all civilized nations , a principle to which the
name of Rationalism has been given . According to this principle , each man can reasonably admit a 3 truths those things alone of which he acquires the proof directly , by means of his own conceptions . In our day we have seen the beginning of the evolution of another principle , according to which each man can retain as his lawful possession those things alone the enjoyment of which he obtains througrl his own labour . This principle is the foundation of what is called Communism . "
Our readers will accept the consequences without flinching , and thank the abbe for his clear definition . But one of the amusing- contradictions of the anti-Socialist writers is their incessantly objecting to the Socialist doctrine that it is an ancient chimaera , and is , nevertheless , a " dangerous novelty . " Apropos of its antiquity , Mr . Salisbury , of Boston ( United States ) , has recently unveiled it in an unsuspected quarter . In his Translation of two unpublished Arabic Documents
relating to the Doctrines of the Ismailis , we see a Socialist on the throne of Persia . Mazdak , the Persian Communist , raised a sect towards the end of the fifth century , which Cobad protected and finally joined . But kings have sons , and Cobad was succeeded by Khosroes , surnamed the Just , who , in virtue of his surname , earned the applause of all les bien pensans by hanging a hundred thousand of the sect in one day ! We have no doubt that the " party of order " in France would exclaim , on hearing- this , heureux Perses !
We cannot quit this subject of Utopias without presenting our readers with the admirable definition given by Pkoudhon the other day in his letter to CiIRAKDIN : " The counter-revolutionists , in other terms the Utopials , are those who pretend either to keep society immovable in itH present form , or to exclude from its bosom all their antagonists , or lirr . illy to throw society into systems whiuh have no connection with its traditions . "
The first portion is an echo of the noble sentence from Arnold we have placed as the epigraph to our Public Affairs ; the last sentence is aimed at Fourierists , Owenites ,- and other fabricators of society tl priori .
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THIS l'ASSIONH OK ANIMALS . Tim l'astions of Animals . J » y Kriward V . TIioiiinroii . Chapman and Hall . Last week we pointed out the necessity of studying Life in itn simpler manifestations before beginning to stud y it in the complex organism of Man . The . same principle holds good in the study of Mind , though most psychologists would stare at mich a proposition ; as well they might , with
their notions on the independence of psychology and physiology , and their scornful denial of tho attributes of Mind to animals ! For centuries they have been accustomed to class all the mental phenomena of brutes under llu > v . igue term of instinct , foolishl y imagining that it distinction in terms implied a distinction in fact , and still more foolishly imagining that they " degraded man to the level of the brute" if they recognized mental qualities in the brute . O ye of little faith !
Animals exhibit Reason , Judgment , Memory , Imagination , Causality , Hope , Love , Hatred , Terror , Fidelity , —almost all the faculties of man , though many of them in a leaser degree ; yet insteaa ot studying these faculties in animals , instead
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few shilh Nov . 1351 . ] ffifie iLea&er * 1113
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THE TIMES " HOME . " Mr . Thornton Hunt has lately been lecturing on the topics of the week on a Sunday evening ; and , in order that this should be as widely known as possible , an advertisement was forwarded to the Times . It was duly received by the clerk , paid for , and inserted ? Not pxactly—returned underlined as follows : — T ' HQRNTON HUNT ' S LECTURE , To-morrow . " *¦ —Air . Thornton Hunt ' s Second LECTURE on the Week will be delivered To-morrow ( Sunday ) Evening , in the Great Lecture Theatre of the Western JLiterary Institution , 47 , I . fici'ster-square , at 7 o ' clock precisely . It will be a complete Summary of the Ever , ta , Achievements , Spirit and Progress of the Week . Admission — to the front Beat ? , Is . ; to the working classes , lid . The second lecture of the scries . / 2 ^ r < r <^^*^ . Thus we find that the Times excludes an advertisement , because a gentleman ia named "Thornton Hunt , " because the words " to-morrow ( Sunday ) evening , " occur in the sentence ; and because the advertisers impudently use the terrible words " Spirit and Progress . " This was carrying matters a little too far in the way of personal obstruction . But the Times did not stop here . The mcssa » c accompanying the above fac-simile was that Mr . Hunt " might put it in his own paper" ; the fact being that Mr . Hunt's lectures have no connection with " the I pcr" ;» t all . A few days afterwards the Times wrote an eloquent leader to uphold the dignity of journalism !
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MILITARY COSTUME . Ihh letter of " Justitia , " in . the Times of Thursday , on the transformation of dragoons " from Plungers into wghtB , " and the expenses and inconvenience entailed j'Pon officers by these changes , bespeak a real grievance . | t may be a jest to civilians , a matter of high indiff erence to the Horse Guards ; but the facts set forth in this Rpntleinan ' s letter deserve attention . He tells us '" t the change from " Heavy to Light " ia often any-|''" R but what the words indicate : the lightness of the jlK' > ta" is u heavy lightness , a serious vanity : — II 1 ' kdieve it would be found , if the equipments of a Hiiit !• ' i lloavv dragoon were put into the balance , in liciiv- 7 co " trud » ction the light would be found the hire i ' i th ° tw < K A B > tlie h g " cavalry arc encum-Hhuhr VU tlmt U 8 cleH 8 though expensive appendage , the "acque , from which the heavy are exempt . " dc'ir * 1 <) C 8 nOt tlve whole system of military costume not " ' ' ' ? 'J'he principle appears to us to be ; il ( ljU | < ( ' ' ude a proper magnifience in proper places and farm " '" ' lmtlt ) '" member that the bewt qualitiea of uniare the manl y—the aerviceable .
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()\ , S ° C I A L 11 E V OHM . Mr () ' (> ' tll Rroat l ) ItiBR of matter this week , especially We J M A < 1 < lre »» to KoHHUth , which arrived very Wconn ! ar ° . obli « ed to omit " The . Notes of a / Social ° »« uii « t , " alread y in type .
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Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . — Edinburgh Review .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 22, 1851, page 1113, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1910/page/13/
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