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It will be very acceptable news to our readers to learn that the illustrations of Thackeray ' s new serial , The Newcomes , which we may expect in October , are to be furnished by the fancy , grace , and humour of Richard D oyle , who , since his withdrawal from . Punch , has been somewhat sparing of his public appearances . We hear that four numbers of the new work are finished in advance . Indeed it has always seemed a great pity that serial writers do not finish the whole before they commence publication—a plan which would not prevent periodical changes and additions .
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Is the age of quarterlies reviving ? For some time it seemed as if only the old Quarterly and Edinburgh could find a public , and even their influence was greatly diminished ; but , of late years , there has been a revival , and we have seen five new first-rate reviews establish themselves—the British Quarterly , the North British , the Westminster , ( we must call the present Westminster a revival , ) the Dublin Review and the Irish Quarterly ; to these we have now to add the first number of a new rival , The London Quarterly . It is really for the benefit of literature that such works should exist . They are vehicles for grave thoughts and important essays , which would otherwise hardly find a public ; and they prevent many books being written . The very miscellaneousness of their composition enables them , bv
appealing to many tastes , to secure publicity for articles addressing only a small class . We are led to lay greater stress on this from observing , with regret , that the valuable periodical , Scientific Memoirs , translated from the foreign journals , is forced to be relinquished , because all England cannot furnish a public large enough to pay the expenses of printing . What a disgrace to our pretended men of science ! There are thousands who call themselves men of science , who flock , like sheep , ( very like sheep , ) to British Associations and royal societies , yet they cannot , among them , find a small body of men willing to pay three shillings a quarter , for a work containing papers of the very highest importance ! Since that is the case we suggest to editors of reviews the propriety of , in some measure , supplying the place of these Scientific Memoirs . If each number contained one such article it would be all the richer .
To our new candidate , however . The London Quarterly presents no outward distinguishing feature ; it is like a good specimen of any quarterly review , with this internal difference , —viz ., being the accredited organ of the philosophic Wesleyans , it holds the position with respect to Methodism , that the British Quarterly holds with respect to Dissent , and the North British to the Free Kirk . It is well edited ; the articles are varied and able . The all-engrossing subject of Turkey is treated of , in the opening article , instructively and philosophically . This is followed by an article on Wesley and his Critics , peculiarly addressed , of course , to the supporters of the Review , but interesting to all readers . We may borrow from it an amusing passage of parallel . Speaking of the probable relationship of Wellington and Wesley , the writer adds : —
" In the character and career of the Pounder of Methodism wo find much that is characteristic also of tho late famous defender of Europe . Tor strict habits and great hardihood they were both remarkable . Each rose early , employed every waking moment to the best advantage , and retired at an unvarying hour to rest . John Wesley , it is said , had sleep at his command ; and on his long journeys of apostolic labour , when it happened that he could neither read nor write ( as frequently ho did on horseback or in a carriage ) , one thing ho could do : ho would shut his oyes , and take needful rest . in sleep . Of Wellington wo beliovo tho same thing may he said : lie , too , could sleep in tho saddlo : tho habitual vigilance of his nature enabled him to choose a moment of repose , and the admirable temper of his spirit permitted it to rest at hifl volition . Again : in tho practical stamp of
their minds , and especially in the laconic stylo of their writings , the resemblance between those men is very striking . Tho Despatches of Wellington and tho Journals of Wesley might have been dictated by tho same porson , if tho stylo and temper of the writer only be considered . Their letters , too , arc strongly marked m a very similar manner : they have brevity without obscurity , and force without Vf'heinonee , and particularly without trilling . Duty , according to tho standard which ho recognised , was the law of each : inflexibility tho temper , and common sense the active servant , of its performance . Even the features of these personages had no small resemblance to each other ; and wo seo a further coincidence in the health and length of days with which both they were honoured . Circumstances allowing , and spiritual convictions absent , wo can imagine Wesley undertaking and Niis tainmg- tho par ! , of Wellington almost without the slightest . diversity . "
W < : arc ' considerably fatigued with articles on Ireland , and hayo not read the one hero devoted to it ; but tho next one , that on Cryptof / amic Vagalotion , we advise no reader to skip . It is clear and popular in the exposition of a very curious part . of botany . We will quote what is said of a ? c » 'y familiar fungus : — "in forming our notion of a Mushroom , wo must not confine our idoiw to thoso <| N"ulent species which have such charms for the modern epicure . The eatable Mushroom is , in fact , only the fruit-bearing portion of tho plant , not the plant ' Keif ; UUy i , 1 () r 0 than a bunch of Filberts is the Nut-tree , or of fJriipos , the Vine . " tho majority of cases , tho real Fungus iu a ' Mycelium ; an nNHOinblngo of "" "u te jointed filaments which minify under the ground , push their way through lie interstices of decaying wood , or fatten upon tho decomposition of all kindw of oi ' tfuuiiwd . bollux f A'hc knowledge of this cU'ctuovtivuco oxnliuui * uwu » y i ' ticta con-,
nected with their history . Thus the fairy circles seen on our grassy pastures , once thought to be owing to the dances of— . ' Demy-puppets that By , moonshine do the green-sour ringlets make , ' ¦ have long been suspected to be occasioned , by Mushrooms , which plants were often found growing on the darkened ring . It was supposed that they commenced at a central point , and , extending themselves in every direction , exhausted the soil of ingredients necessary for their nutrition : hence they ceased to exist at the centre , and confined themselves to the periphery of the ever-enlarging area .
" But the objection was made to this ingenious hypothesis , that the Mushrooms existed in too small numbers , and too far apart , to have formed the unbroken fairyring . The discovery that the true Fungus was a subterranean Mycelium did awa y with all doubt upon the subject ; so that , substituting Mycelium for 'Mushroom , ' the above explanation becomes a correct one . The subterranean fibres interlace in such , numbers , as to form an -unbroken ring ; but it is only here and there that they send up to the surface the repi'oductive structure to which the name of ' Mushroom' is popularly applied , and which had attracted the attention of early observers . * * . # * * *
" To this group of plants belong the curious lines of red and white excrescences , which , in wet weather , grow out of old posts and rails ; all the varieties of mould which spoil the good housewife ' s preserves , and at whose door have been laid those formidable pests to society , — -the potato disease , and the dry rot . It would appear , that in the latter cases , after finding a suitable soil for germination , where some weakness indicates incipient decay , the plants become changed from effects to causes , and rapidly promote the destruction which tfcey did not always originate . " A paper on the now exploded Spirit JRappings and Table Movings follows , and is succeeded by an admirable one on Modern and Mediaval Hygiene . In ancient civilizations Hygiene was regarded as one of the important things Government had to look to : —
" Purity of persons and things is the great aim of hygiene ; purity of persons and things was an essential requisite in the religions of the East . Amongst the Greeks , great sanitary reformers received divine honours . The hundred-headed hydra ' , which Hercules slew , was a pestilential marsh ; the fable of the Augean stable , that he cleansed by flushing , indicates the nature of the work . he did . The sites of Etruscan cities , whose foundation is lost in remote antiquity , still exhibit gigantic works of sewerage and drainage . During the culminating point of Roman civilization , public baths were numerous in all the towns and cities of the Empire , and were accessible at a very low charge , —less than a farthing . In connexion with these baths , there were temples , academies , and gymnasia , or places for athletic exercises ; so fully were tho means of hygienic art supplied to the people .
With the fall of the Roman Empire , hygiene declined with the other arts and sciences , and the populous cities of Europe became in consequence the prey of frequently recurring pestilence . There was no system of sewerage , or drainage ; the streets were unpaved , and uncleansed , and so narrow , that ventilation was almost impossible . The houses were also constructed with little regard to health , and the domestic arrangements were of a very imperfect character . Population continually increased , especially wit hin the fortified cities , where life and property were safest , and where the arts , commerce , and manufactures flourished . But . tho same circumstances which protected life from violence , endangered it . The everincreasing crowds , cooped up in a narrow space , added to tho danger of epidemical outbreaks in a geometrically increasing ratio , until at last the ' visitation' camo , and swept away a fourth , a third , nay , not unfrequently a half , of tho population . "
After sketching the great visitations , the writer adds : — " But , although the great cosmic causes are now the same as then ( inasmuch as these are beyond tbo reach of man ) , and although epidemical fevers have been , therefore , more than usually prevalent , and deaths moro frequent , yet the removable causes being incalculably less intense , tho mortality is proportionately smaller . Herein is fully shown what an improved system of hygiene has done for modern society . The Cholera of 1848-49 slow 53 , 25 ) 3 men , women , and children , in tho whole of England ; if it had been as fatal as < tho Black Death , ' at least 4 , 000 , 000 would have perished ! That pestilence destroyed in the then London , with its limited population , not fewer than 3 . 00 , 000 ; in Norwich , 51 , 100 . In the whole of Europe , twenty-five millions died of it , or about one-fourth of the population . " The history is appalling . The writer then asks : —
" To what circumstances is due the immunity from ' great plagues' and ' visitations' experienced by the United Kingdom during tho last two centuries ? They are very various . In tho first place , medical science has been much extended and popularized . An intelligent layman of the nineteenth century is far better acquainted with the practice of medicine , and the malaria madiea , than was tho most learned physician of the fifteenth . This knowledge has had an imperceptible but most powerlul influence on the hcnlt . li of the people , by bringing the daily minute circumstances of life under the control of an unexpressed but all-pervading hygiene . Secondly . The contagious and infectious class of fevers are better understood , and , therefore , treated much more successfully ; while , as to one of them , tho small-pox , an efficient means of prevention has been discovered in the practice of vaccination . Thirdly . It is of essential importance that fresh vegetables should constitute u part ; of the diet ; of man : cereals alone ; , however abundant , are not
sufficient for health ; and when used unmixed wifh fresh vegetable food , thorn nriseB a condition of the system very similar to that ; of Ma-scurvy , if not identical with it , ; ii condition which strongly pre-disposcM the individual to suffer from all kinds of fevers . Ih tlic general use of tho potato , the . people of modern times possess an incalculable advantage over their ancestors in protection from epidemic diseases . Perhaps no circumstance w : ih so generally unknown to the public ( luring the months succeeding to the destruction of the potato-crop , as the relation between an imperfect supply of that fresh vegetable , and the greatly-increased mortality from typhus , noted at that time . Fourthly . The development of tho textile manufactures , especially of linen and cotton , has placed the means of personal cleanliness within the reach of classiw to which they were previously unattainable ; while tho more equal diffusion of wealth , consequent upon the rapid extension o £ trade and commerce , has led to the coiiHtruetion of better dwellings for tho peoplo . "
We may hero protest against the ' practice <> f 'bagging in theology wlioncvor ( subjects arc treated in theological reviews ; Huh article , otherwise so admirable , prc » cut » « lutUcroun * specimen of it . We do uot , l > y our I'tnSWo ,
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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 zo enforcethem . —Edinburgh Review .
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I September 10 , 1853 /) 1 \ H E LEADER . SSI
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 10, 1853, page 881, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2003/page/17/
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