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Copyright in America is not only a consummation devoutly to be wished by all English writers , as a matter of pecuniary interest , but equally as a matter of integrity , for at present their names and their works are subject to very unpleasant liberties . The American pirates , like the gypsies , smirch the faces of stolen children to make them pass as their own ; and even when a name is given , it often happens that the owner of that name would be considerably outraged by the pretended parentage . In turning over an American catalogue , we find Bulwer credited as the author of the Roue ,
and the Oxonians ; those works being anonymous , Bulweb ' s name is as good as any other to place on the title-page ! Agnes Grey is also put down to Curreb Bell , though not anonymous . But Harrison Ainsworth has most cause of complaint , for he is charged with a small catalogue of Newgate literature ; The Illustrated Life of Dick Turpin , highwayman , burglar , murderer , Sfc ; Life of Henry Thomas , the western burglar and murdererj Life and Adventures of Ninon de VEnclos , with her Letters on Love , Courtship , and Marriage j The Pictorial Newgate Calendar , &c . This is what comes of writing Jack Sheppard !
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This is magazine week . Frazer and Blackwood are agreeable and various , but not striking ; Tait and Bentley give average numbers . It may be the accident of our own mood , it may be the fault of the writers , but we have read nothing in the magazines which can call forth such brief comment as we usually find space for ; however , it is well to take the pleasantest alternative , so let the fault be laid at our door .
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In another part of our paper , the subject of the Chamberlain ' s interference with Marston ' s Monody is treated as a question of political significance , so that we only allude to it in passing as a topic of literary gossip . Report also says that all allusions to Louis Napoleon in the forthcoming Pantomines are interdicted ; we shall not be astonished soon to hear that " disrespectful allusions" to the Devil are interdicted , in deference to his Satanic Majesty . Satan has had his apologists , no less than the " saviour
of society . " Among the public lectures * of that wandering knight-errant of philosophy , Giordano Bruno , was an "Apology for the Devil , " full of fine irony , we doubt not . Every one remembers the pitying verse of Burns ; every one loves the magnificent imagery of Milton , wherein Satan shines with a dusky splendour , which makes him the real hero of Paradise Lost j but modern science might , in playful zoologic mood , make out a strong case for his necessary innocence , grounding it on his hoofs and horns , the indications of a graminivorous , peaceable , non-aggressive type !
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The death of Lady Lovelace , at the same age as that of her illustrious father , Byron , calls for a passing remark among the events which chequer the literary world . Not only by right of her own great parentage , but by right , also , of her unusual accomplishments in Science , she deserves a notice . Those who moved within her circle know how admirable a mathematician she was , and how clear and decisive her grasp of scientific generalities ; to those without that circle it is enough to say , that for a long time she was credited as the writer of perhaps the most remarkable philosophic work which has been produced for many years in science , The Vestiges , a work which , sneered at by hundreds every way incompetent to apprehend its real scope and value , it is , nevertheless , a considerable honour to be credited with—and Lady Lovklace had that honour .
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EAltTir , PLANTS , AND MAN . The Earth , Plants , and Man . 1 ' opnlar J'ictures of Nature . I 5 y . T . F . Hcliouw-Sketches from the Mineral Kingdom . By Fruncio von Kobrll . Translated and edilod by Arthur ITonlroy , E . R . S * . ( Holm's Scientific Library . ) II . <«• Holm Mit . Uohn really deserves that poor students should erect a small monument to him , for the steadiness with which ho continues to issue solid books at low- prices . The last addition to his excellent , Scientific Li brary is a very superior translation , by Arthur Ilenfroy , of two popular German works , Schouw on Earth , Plants , and Man , and Kohell , Sketches of Minerals . Professor Schouw ' s name , familiar to all botanists , will draw attention to these " pictures of Nature , " and although tho philosophic , student may wantol
complain of some very indifferent reasoning , and a general , organization in the materials , which makes tho volume nothing more than a series of detached " articles" on various topics ; nevertheless , even tho philosophic student will not be ungrateful for the multiplicit y of facts , while the general reader will bo delighted with the " pictures of Nat lire , " somewhat Bketehily pourtrayed in this work . Thorn are as many as thirty « snay . H on plants offormer epor . hu , on rain , malaria , repetitions of nature , Alpine plants , Etna , mountain rambles , tho purl ; played by forests in nature and human life , geography of bread plants , the coffee tree , tea ' -reo , sugar-cane , vine , cotton plant , popper plant , flax , tobacco , 1 , 110 eha-•' aoteristic plants of nations , the action of the human race upon nature , & <' . Very pleasant reading- and very instructive details , but labouring under the disadvantage of being nimle . HH details . Mere is a sample : —
( H . IMATli AND C II A If ACTIOIt . " Nothing is commoner than to bear persons talk of tho warm Mood of the ? South KuropcwiH , which is supposed to depend upon tho warm climate , and there niUHt produce violent outlmrHtu of passions . This i . s used to explain tho bloody
revenge of the Corsicans . But the Hindoo , who lives in a far warmer climate than the Italian , is brought forward as an instance of patience and resignation ; while the Turk , who has come to Europe from warmer regions , is noted for his phlegmatic temperament . Is the Dutchman more passionate than the Norwegian or Scotchman ? and whence came the sang-uinary vindictiveness of olden times to Scandinavia , nay even in the cold Iceland ? " It is imagined that mountaineers possess more strength , or more energetic character , and a more warlike spirit than the inhabitants of plains ; the character of the latter is supposed to be softer . Thus it is thought the Norwegian and Swede are more energetic than the Dane . Mountainous countries , perhaps , afford more numerous examples of obstinate defences behind the cliffs of narrow valleys but a man is not to be called more courageous bacause he has a good shield . The soil of Denmark , however , has not sunk since that time when it sent out those
combatants who kept the population of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean coasts in terror ; whence did they acquire their spirit , and has it now really vanished ? They were inhabitants of the plain of Northern Germany who rose against Napoleon ' s despotism ; the July revolution took place in the plains , and in the plains did the Poles , alas in vain ! fight probably the last battle for their liberty . " It is believed that the great pre-eminence of the Europeans above the inhabitants of the rest of the world is caused by Europe being so intersected by the sea , and so free from elevated plains , so that communication between the nations is much facilitated . But in the great Indian Archipelago , or in the Archipelago of the West Indies , communion is still easier . The cause of the earlier civilization in India and Egypt is sought in the great rivers Indus , Ganges , and Nile , which so greatly facilitate intercourse ; but civilization did not exist on the largest rivers of the world , the South American Amazon and Plata , until the Europeans brought it . " Let us also draw attention to the following curious passage on
THE EAELY INHABITANTS OF FORESTS . " Turning our attention , lastly , to the human race , we see that nations in the lowest stage of development are sometimes closely connected with the forests . In the colder lands , where the trees ordinarily bear no edible , or at least no wellflavoured or nourishing fruits , it is the game which chiefly furnishes the inhabitants with food and clothing ; these races then appear chiefly as hunters , such as the aborigines of North America . In the torrid zone , on the contrary , races in the same stage of culture live principally upon the fruits of the trees or the pith of the trunks , like some of the t ribes of Brazil , some of the inhabitants of the Indian
Archipelago , and several races of negroes . South America even affords an example of a race who , almost like monkeys , live upon the trees ; whose existence , in fact , is to a great extent bound to a certain species of tree . There are the Guarauni , at the moufch of the Orinoco , who Jive by and upon the Mauritia palm . While the ground is flooded , mats woven from the leaf-stalks of those palms are suspended between the trunks ; these mats are covered with clay , so that fires can be made upon them , and here the Guarauni sleep , and pass a great portion of their lives . The trunk furnishe s a fecula ; the juice , a palm-wine ; and the fruits are wellflavoured , mealy at first , and afterwards sweet . "
This fact of men living upon trees , like the chimpanzee , is worth noting by all inquirers into the development hypothesis . Apropos of development , that hypothesis is touched on indirectly in the early chapters of this work , wherein Professor Schouw discusses the origin of plants . His editor , Mr . Ilenfrey , seems alarmed , lest even the small approach to that hypothesis indicated in these chapters , should be allowed to find acceptance here . We cannot say that the reasonings of Professor Scliouw striko us forcibly :
" A little bay of the Odenseefiord was dyked in about thirty years ago . One of the landowners resident there is fortunately a meritorious botanist , M . Hofman . He has been very attentive to the overgrowing of the reclaimed land , and kept a journal of the changes which occurred upon the tract converted from sea-bottom into dry land . A scientific and friendly contest arose between my friend and myself , whether the plants which gradually came to light in this way , originated from seeds which had coine in one way or another on to the reclaimed land , or owed their existence to the so-called spontaneous origin ( equivocal generation ) , which latter opinion was maintained by M . Hofiniin . Whichever opinion bo adopted , this much is certain , that tho newly originated plants were not new species ; so that wo have here again , as it appears , an evidence that the natural forms now at , work are
incapable of producing new ones . Setting aside the question of equivocal , generation , which has no place here , what force is there in the fact thai the new appearances were not new species , i . c , species unknown in other parts of the globe ; ? Does not the development hypothesis maintain that wherever the conditions are precisely similar , the results will be similar ? and , in the above instance , as the sea-bottom became converted into dry land , ought , we not to expect that the vegetation would be analogous to thai ; of other spots of dry land where the conditions were analogous H Otherwise , what is the meaning of an Alpine ilora , for example ?
" The / . one which lies between the upper limit of the growth of trees ( tree-limit ) and the lower limit , of the everlasting snow ( snow-line ) is culled the Alpine ' / one , and the plants met with here are called Alpine plaids . This Ilora has so remark - able- a resemblance to the 1 ' olur flora that it must be . combined with it . Not only are almost all the families and the greater part of the genera the same , but even it considerable number of species are common to both—a fact tho inure remarkable , sinco there lie between the Alps and tho nearest Norwegian mountains , where tliirt Ilora occurs again , extensive plains , or at most only mountains not rising high enough for IIiohh plants to flourish upon them .
" Tho l ' olur flora , or , as we may also call if , the Alpine Ilora , is not merely mot with in the higher regions of tho Alp * 3—the highest mountains of Kuropc , —it in found everywhere in Europe and the northern part of Asia and America , where mountain musses present theinsclven high enough to furnish a suitable climate to those plants in their more elevated districts . Hence wo find this flora in tho Pyrenees , in tho Sierra Nevada , tho Carpathians , and the Caucasus ; in the Norwegian , Scotch , and Icelandic mountains ; and traces of it are seen on the highest peaks of the Apennines and the Grecian chains ; it is seen also in the Altai and other Asiatic mountains , and on the higher chains of North America . "
Overlooking this point , the professor naively goes to history for confirmation , lie consults the work of a botanist living one hundred and sixty years ago , and , from his description of the forest of Charlottenland , lirula that the same plants which grew there then grow there at , the present
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Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . Thev do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforcethem . — -Edinburgh Review .
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December 4 , 1852 . ] THE LEADER . 1163
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 4, 1852, page 1163, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1963/page/15/
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