On this page
- Departments (1)
-
Text (7)
-
XttintuTt..
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
Transcript
-
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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Xttintutt..
XttintuTt ..
Untitled Article
This month the tangled threads of narrative in Bleak House are finally unwound , and readers have no more " new-numbers" to look forward to . In his Preface , Dickens emphatically declares that everything set forth in Bleak House concerning the Court of Chancery is substantially true , and within the truth . He also partly complies with the wish expressed in this Journal , that he would make some qualifying statement respecting Spontaneous Combustion ; but we regret to add , that he has not made that
statement with the fulness and impartiality demanded by the case , even although his own private conviction remain perfectly unshaken . It is unpleasant to be forced to recur to this subject , the more so because our protest must necessarily be so ludicrously disproportionate to the effect of his assertion , carried as it will be all over Europe . We should not , however , be true to our office , if we allowed the assertion to pass without rectification .
The state of the case is this : Against the very suspicious evidence of " reported cases , " we set the plain and overwhelming evidence of ascertained laws ; against the indifferent testimony of some modern medical writers , and of scientific authors a century old , in favour of the possibility of Spontaneous Combustion , we cited the authority of the highest names in modern chemistry and anatomy , —Owen , Liebig , Bischoff , Graham , Hofmann , and Regnault—we cited the fact that the subject had been investigated in Germany only two 3 ears ago by Liebig and Bischoff in
the case of the Gorhtz murder , and the conclusion then come to was , that all the reported cases were not more credible than cases of witchcraft . ( And we may now state in a parenthesis , that recently the subject was brought before the London Pathological Society , and the repudiation of it was unanimous . ) We thus showed , by the evidence of Science , in agreement with the testimony of some of its greatest names , that the phenomenon was not merely improbable , but impossible ( see Leader , Nos . 150 , 151 ) . The greatest living anatomist wrote to us expressing his approbation , and his concurrence in every word we had written ^ ~~
That the arguments and authorities adduced by us should fail in convincing Mr . Dickens we foresaw to be probable , and therefore the conclusion of our Letters on the subject was this : — " Should investigation fail to shake your belief in Spontaneous Combustion , then at any rate I call upon your candour to state in your preface that , although you believe v the phenomenon , it is a belief rejected by the highest scientific authorities of the day—authorities liable to error , assuredly , and perhaps in error on this very point , but nevertheless deliberate and positive in their rejection . " He has forgotten , or disregarded , that appeal . Instead of naming any of the opposing authorities , he names only those on bis own side : —
" There is only one other point on which I offer a word of remark . The possibility of what is called spontaneous combustion has been denied , since the death of Mr . Krook ; and my good friend , Mr . Lewes , ( quite mistaken , as he soon found , in supposing the thing to have been abandoned by all authorities , ) published some ingenious letters to me , at the time when that event was chronicled , arguing that spontaneous combustion could not possibly be . I have no need to observe that I < lo not wilfully or negligently mislead my readers , and that , before I wrote that description , I took pains to investigate the subject . There are about thirty cases on record , of which the most famous , that of the Countess Cornelia de Bandi Cesonatc , was minutely investigated and described , by Giuseppe Rianchini , a Prebendar y of Veronn , otherwise distinguished in letters , who published an account of it at Verona , in 1731 , which he afterwards re-published at Home . The appearances ,
beyond all rational doubt , observed in that c : ise , are the appearances observed in Mr . Krook ' s case . Tho next most famous instance happened at lthcimg , six years earlier ; and the historian , in that case , is Lc Cat , one of the most renowned Burgeons produced by Franco . The subject was a woman , whoso husband was ignorantly convicted of having murdered her ; but , on solemn appeal to a higher court , lie was acquitted , beoau . se it was shown , upon tho evidence , that « he had died the death to which this name of spontaneous combustion is given . I do not think it necessary to add to these notable facts , and that general reference to the authorities which will be found at pngo 32 <) , the recorded opinions and experiences of distinguished medical professors , French , English , and tScotch , in more modern days ; contenting myself with observing , that I Khali not abandon tho facts , until there shall have been a considerable spontaneous combustion of tho testimony , on which human occurrences are usually received . "
We need not again expose the questionable nature of the evidence , and its authorities ; we confine ourselves to the simple morale , of the case , and declare that while he was at liberty to cite all the authorities in his favour , he was not at liberty to disregard and pass over in silence the names of LlKUIO , IilSCHOKK , llRfiNAUI . T , GllAHAM , IIoVMANN , and OwiON ; JUld against tlmt omission we protest .
Untitled Article
The southern readers of lilackwood ' s Magazinewill be startled and interested 'this month by ai very temperately , yet very earnestly written protest against the injustice of England to Scotland ¦ i — an injustice they perhaps never heard of , never imagined . —but which the writer , nevertheless , proves to be fur more decided ' than the much talked-of injustice to Ireland . It is apropos to a review of Bukton ' h History of Scotland , and will force attention . In the sunn ; number there is a delightful scientific paper , describing the formation of corn ! reef ' s by polypes ; it indulges a little too much in the vein of idle wonderment at hucU vast structures resulting from such minute agents ( us if the Himalayas were to be
wondered at for their mountainous magnificence resulting froth the accmnul tion of minutest particles !)—but the article is unusually interesting . We may have something to say next week about the other magazines
Untitled Article
BOOKS ON OUR TABLE . The English Cyclopcedia . Part TV . . ' . .. Bradbury and Ev » Handley Cross ; or , Mr . Jorrocks's Hunt . Part VII . Bradbury and Evan ' Bleak House . „ . '' -. ' ¦ , ¦ „„ , ¦ , ' Bradbury and Evan . ' Writings ofDouglaii Jerrpld—The Chronicles of Clovernook . Punch Offin Blackwood ' s 'Magazine . "W . Blackwood and Son * The Dublin University Magazine . James M'GlaiW «' The National Miscellany . No . 6 . J-H .- ParW *' The Dodd Family Abroad . Chapman and Hall " The British Journal . John Mortimer " Lawson's Merchant ' s Magazine . T . P . a . Day " The Charm . Addey and Co Some Thoughts . Kent and Co ' Diogenes . Part VIII . -r > - John Bennett ' The Illustrated Magazine . Piper , Brothers , and Co ' Tait ' s Magazine . . « ,... . - ^ Partridge and Oakev ' The Philosophy of Atheism Examined and Compared with Christianity . By Rev . B . Godwin D "ft * Arthur , Hall , Virtue , and Co The Curse of Clifton . By Mrs . Southworth . Clarke , Beeton , and Co ' Lorenzo Benoni ; or , Passages in the life of an Italian . T . Constable and Co Bohn's Classical Library . Aristophanes Literally Translated . By W . J . Hickie . Vol . I
Bohn ' s Standard Library . Lectures Delivered at Broadmead Chapel , Bristol . By the late John Poster . 2 Vols . _ . . H . G . Bohn Curiosities of Modern Shaksperian Criticism . By J . O . HolliwelJ , Esq . J . Eussell Smith " The Lives of the Poets-Laureate . By W . S . Austin , Jun ., and John Balph . R . Bentley ' Life in the Clearings versus the Bush . By Mrs . Moodie . E . Bentley " Mental Portraits ; or , Studies of Character . By H . P . Tackerman . £ . Bentley Bentley ' s Standard Novels . The Fortunes of the Scatter good Family . By Albert Smith . Cruikshank ' s Fairy Library . Hop-O'My Thumb , and the Seven-League Boots . j ) . Bogue Progress of Russia in the West , North , and South . By P . Urquhart . Triibner and Co The Agricultural Instructor , or Young Farmer's Class Book . By Edmund Murphy .
™ , ^ ' M'Glashan The Goldfinder of Australia . . Clarke , Beeton , and Co Plan for the Future Government of India . By J . S . Buckingham . Partridge and Oakey Portrait Gallery . No . 20 . W . S . Orr and Co Home Companion . Part 4 . New Series . W . S . Orr and Co The Old House by the River . Chapman and Hall Reading for Travellers—Florian and Crescents . Chapman and Hall . Scientific Memoirs . Part 4 . Taylor and Francis . Lake Lore . By A . B . E . _______ Hodges and Smith Ireland Considered as a Field for Investment or Residence . By VV . B . Webster . . ¦ Hodges and Smith . Roscoe ' s Library ; or , Old Books and Old Times . By tho Rev . James Aspinall ., M . A . Hector of Althorpe , Lincolnshire . Whittaker and Co | In" the preface to this volume , Mr . Aspinall informs us that he intended , in the first instance , to deliver its contents orally , at some of the Institutes in his own neighbourhood . This statement of the author ' s original purpose may help to furnish an idea of the hook itself . A little modified and extended , here and there ,
Mr . AspinalFs duodecimo " would cut up well into three papers of the right sort for a reading-desk ; and it may even yet serve him in such stead , the style of binding and typography placing the book a little out of easy reach of the many . The subject is , in a measure , occasional . Liverpool has just celebrated the centenary of William Roscoe , whose rare and costly collection of hooks and manuscripts Liverpool had allowed to fall beneath the auctioneer ' s hammer . On Roscoe and on Roscoe ' s library , Mr . - Aspinall is affectionately eloquent through ten easy chapters . Generalising in an earnest conversational manner on the learning of the past , he gets through the three first chapters without much notice of Eoscoe . Then he drops at once on the catalogue of the library , and revels among all sorts of precious items till the very last chapter , which he devotes to a brief historical sketch of " the most illustrious man whom Liverpool has yet produced . "
What chiefly strikes us , throughout this little volume , addressed almost exclusively to the peoplo of Liverpool , is the author's evident strength in the confidence and affection of his readers . Such strength is naturally that of such clergymen . It is pleasant to find one dispensing liberally those agremens of his studies , which too many of his order reserve for tho private , or the privately social , intervals of doctrinal duty .
Untitled Article
POPULAE GEOLOGY . Popular Physical Geology . By J . Beoto Jukos , M . A ., F . R . S . Recvo and Co . Wje have often raised an indignant protest against worts on science professing to bo " popular , " and being really ill-digested , ill-arranged compilations , hurtful in the two-fold way of distributing bad books , and or standing in the light of other and better books ; we have also more than once noted it as a sign of the times that men of authority will be found writing for tho people , and that " popular" books are no longer necessarily superficial . Mr . 33 eete Jukes is well known as a geologist , and ho has
here given the public a work at once popular and original . By original * wo do not mean to intimate that he has propounded in it new theories or original discoveries -, but that the book is a writing out of hia own experience , not an abridgement or re-writing of other books . The result is admirable for perspicuity , for chnrm of exposition , and for solid instruction . The book is illustrated with twenty tinted lithographs , from draw ings by Mr . Jukes and by Mr . G . V . Dunoyer , who is himself a geologist , »> iu they are of rare excellence aH illustrations . Altogether it is an introduction to the study of Geology to be most emphatically recommended .
After describing tho mode of formation of the various rocks , n quooiis and igneous , in a manner not to be misapprehended by any intellect ; , Mr-Jukes explains the lamination and jointing of rocks , tho ripple or cu rrent mark , and Iuh remarks on the last named will servo a 9 a specimen of J 118 exposition : —
THK JtIPFM' 3 M ATI If . , ¦ " Another structure , often conspicuous in lino-grained sandstones , i « that ; commonly called ' ripplo murk . ' Either in < iunrricH or natural clill " n , wherever tli « "PP | mil-face of a bed in exposed , it in often found to bq not smooth or Hut , hut waved »> Kinall undulations , exactly like- those ho often won on a windy whore . Now n tf < )()< deal of misconstruction ban , I think , nriaon na to the origin of those Kiunll uiul" htioiiH or ripples in tho amid , lending Hoinoliines to a possibility of grave erroi geological reasoning . Peoplo standing on the beach and observing the gcn < l « 'M ' pling motion of tho whvch , mid a vory similar form in the Band beneath them , JlllV not porhupa unnaturally jumped to tho conoluHion that , tho ono wan tho cihiho o ' other , that tho ripplo of tho surfaco of the water had Homohow imprinted it » ' < " " on tho Hand at tho bottom . Now renlly ono in not the- causa of the other , but- •» J arc both caused by the wuno action , and each iM an much a ripplo as tho other .
Untitled Article
Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforcethem . — Edinburgh Review .
Untitled Article
858 ' THE LEADER . [ Saturday
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 3, 1853, page 858, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2002/page/18/
-