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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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fortune hi the cause of phonetics , lias put forth , for consideration , a scheme of a new universal alphabet , called the Lalinic Alphabet , the peculiarity of Avhich is that it consists entirely of ordinary Roman letters . The projector says : — " This alphabet is not intended to supersede any other for the orthography of any particular language . It is only meant to be a temporary scientific instrument ( pending the invention of a better and " more convenient ouc ) for the use of plionolojjists , etymologists , travellers , writers of pronouncing diction . iri . es and vocabularies , and all tliose who have occasion to write the sounds of words without i-eference to their usual oitliogniphy . " The deficiencies of the ordinary Roman alphabet for the projector ' s purpose are made up by using some letters inverted , and by calling in the aid of small capitals .
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After some delay , occasioned by necessary preliminaries , the founders of the Guild of Literature and Art announce that the institution is ready to begin operations . There are to be two classes of members—Professional members , consisting of persons following Literature or Art as a profession ( journalists , -we understand , included ) , and honorary members elected by the Council . Professional members , pronounced eligible by the Council , are admitted to the advantages of the institution on payment of an entrance fee of two guineas . The objects of the Guild are three : —Life and annuity assurance ; provision for professional members during sickness ; and the foundation and endowment of an institution to be called " : The
Guild Institution . " ( 1 . ) Life and Annuity Assurance . The Guild does not itself assure , but undertakes to obtain , for its members from the National Provident Institution assurances on lives , assurances securing deferred annuities , and assurances for endowment at all ages , at certain rates , specified in a published table . According to this table , a man of SO years of age may secure an annuity to himself of 10 . / . a year , to commence at 60 , for the moderate , yet fairly calculated premium of II . 13 s . 7 d . : or of 10 O £ . a year for little more than 16 / . of annual premium . The annual premium at the same age for securing 1000 Z . at death , will be about 251 . ( 2 . ) Provision in Sickness . —For this there is to be a separate fund , to which -members are to subscribe . ( 3 . ) The Guild Institution . —This is a prospective object , to be thus provided for : —Every six months the
Guild's funds—derivable from invested capital , donations , subscriptions , members' fees , bequests , per centages on life policies , to be allowed to the Guild by the National Provident Society , &c . —are to be divided into two parts . One of these parts is to be employed as a fund out of which to advance temporary loans to members to assist them in paying their premiums , &c . ; the other is to go on accumulating till enough has been obtained to found a limited number of annuities , and erect a limited number of free residences for annuitants , on land to be presented to the Guild by Sir Bulweu Lytton . Sir Buuvek Lytton is President of the Guild , Mr . Charles Dickens is Vice-president ; Mr . Charles Knight is Treasurer : and Professor Db Morgan is Honorary Consulting Actuary . The Council presents a list of names well known in literature and art .
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REVIVAL OF THE TRESS IN FRANCE . The most complete expression of personal government that the world has ever ecen , as a Russian pamphleteer calls the Napoleonic dynasty now flourishing in France , is destined , it seems , like other institutions , to submit to the conditions of its being in the nineteenth century , and in the country of Voltaiur . Ueforo the nineteenth century , indeed , wo have heard of despotism * tempered by epigrams , ' and , what is more , / tilted by epigrams . Gut of tho decomposition of political life and liberty grows tho rank corruption of social license ; or , as it has boon more euphemistically expressed , " Liberty driven from the -institutions takes refuge in the manners and morals of the people . " In a city like Paris , whore wit literally floods the streets , an irresponsible Government must choose between submersion by sudden overflow , and tho slower process of detrition- As to governing in silence , you might us well talk of governing in solitude . After December , ' 51 , tho French press was to all intents and purposes , aa an organ of opinion , extinct : what was tho consequence ? A war of allusions , of quotations , of on dits , of rumours , of poisoned arrows and daggers in tho dark , a thousand
times more fatal than the frco voioo of an unfettered press , with tho public conscience lor a censorship . From thno to time it was reported that all the journals were to bo suppressed with tho exception of the official Maniteur ; and bo lately as tho spring of tho present year it was asserted that tho French Government had discussed tho feasibility of buying up tho leading journals , and , in fact , suppressing' jjthein—by indemnity . We may boliovo that , to tho common senao of tho more rational ministers , tho question of indemnity was found to bo not the only , nor perhaps tho greatest obataalo to such am enterprise . And ho \ vu have found tho Siech ; the Prossc , and the DibcUs , increasing in strength and in boldness month by month and day by day . No doubt tho necessity of evoking a patriotic and notional spirit m luvourot tho war has persuaded tUo Imperial Government to permit moro force una loryour of expression to tho public organs ; thy Russian question , which has i > oun so Uoxtorously employed to strong then the position and tho policy of tho lunporor , ima , in somo degree also imparted new vigour and confidence to the proBs . sm . do 1 orsigny , iu tho summary of hie udininibtrutioii , addroasod to tho fciuporor on resigning oluco , reckoned it among his titles to approbation , Hint
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RECENT PUBLICATIONS OH" RUSSIA AND TURKEY . The History of Russia . " From the earliest Period to tkepresent '¦ Time . By Walter K . Kelly . InTwoVoIs . Vol . 1 . London : Henry G . Bohn . 1854 . Russia and Turkey . By J . B . M'Cullocli , Esq . Reprinted , with corrections , from the GeograpTdcal Dictionai'y . . •' ¦ . London : Longmans . 1854 . Turkey Past and Present . By J . R . Morell . London : Routledge and Co . 1854 . Russia and the War . By Captain Jesse , ( late Unattached . ) London : Longmans . 1854 . The Serf amd the Cossack . By Francis Marx . London : Triibner and Co . 1854 . The Cit y of the Sultan . By Miss Pardoe . London : Routle < lge and Co . 1854 . Stiix they come ; histories , travels , compilations , romances , pamphlets , statistical , biographical , polemical , descriptive , still they pour hot from the rfress , and thick as shells from the allied fleet on the devoted head of the Uritish reading public , impatient enough just mow of any reading but the
" Latest Intelligence from ' the Seat of War . " Some of these recent publications contain , it must be confessed , anything rather than the ' latest intelligence' even of the topics they profess to treat with equal novelty and research . It is scarcely to be wondered at that where there is only one sort of reading public left , and only one subject left to write about , the sudden rush of pena in one direction should cause a little tripping-up of one another . We cannot be so bold as to say that in our present list of books on Turkey and Russia , there is much original matter to be found . One is a compilation—another , a reprint—a third , a rechauffe—a , fourth , a string of extracts , with a claptrap title and a few mottoes , and so on . Perhaps to any one so fortunate and so distinguished as to Lave read nothing on Russia , Turkey , aud the war , any one of these works would be amusing and instructive : to tho general public , fatigued , if not sated , with exposures of the Russian system and denunciations of the Czar , the latest publication will appear
little better than a new version of the last . Tho scenery may be repainted hero and there , the dresses and appointments freshened up , but the figures are the same , tho properties the same , the * business' the same . Such are a few of the penalties of a dragging and semi-diplomatic war ! Let us not , however , bo understood to deprecate ^ e xcept in behalf of general literature , and of a languid and exhausted public ) tho vigorous skirmishing kept up by tho light division of tho literary army . If a disgraceful peace were to be patched up at Vienna to-morrow , Europe would at least have obtained two results from tho Eastern Question : 1 . The prestige of Russian armies has been destroyed by Turkish valour . 2 . The Russian system has been thoroughly unmasked by the Western press . In this senso no less than in that of combined armies , thero has been that true alliance , invoked by the excellent Louis Jourdnii , of France and EngUxnd which wo trust may be perpetual .
In our presont butch of publications wo have included one which demands a moro careful and extended notice : we mention it now simply by way of announcement , as tho first of two volumes , which , when complotcd , will form , - \ vo believe , the most careful , exhaustive , and complete history ^ of Russia yet published in our language . This addition to Mr . Bohn ' s rich and well-solcctod Standard Library hus not only tho merit o ( Apropos , it has the greater and raror merit of being executed with singular fidelity , und workmanlike finish ami sagacity . It has all the air of a work written to survive tho occasion —in short , a standard work . As wo propose to return to this History of Russia on itn completion , wo shall only now record our sense of the patient accuracy , and tho laborious discrimination with which Mr . Walter Kelly has performed ft task often , wo arc sure , forbidding , always full of dilHoulty . Whoever hm attempted to penetrate the desolate recesses oI" tho early Kustumi annuls , will bo able ( o appreciate in some fuint degree lh « work of selection , of condensation , of order and arrangement
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he had loosened the restraints upon public opinion , and that the warnings' to tlie journals had steadily decreased during his occupation of the Ministry of the Interior . This , indeed , might indicate not that the ministerial rigours had re laxed , but tliat few journals survived to be ' warned , ' and that those few survivors were not worth a ' warning . ' But M . de Persigny went out of his way to inflict a co mpliment which had almost the point of a sarcasm on the contemporary journalism . He remarked , that never had " public "writers written with more real dignity . " This compliment , or sneer , however it was intended , was no more than the truth . The Siecle , now we believe enjoying the largest circulation in France , has distinguished itself equally for its vigorous
summaries of news , and for its general articles on moral , social , and religious , as well as political questions ; in which , with a delicacy and discretion doubly necessitated by the rocks and shallows of a jealous legislation , it has done good service to the great cause of human rights and to freedom of conscience . La Presse , too , under the emphatic direction of Emile de Girardin , has contended manfully for great principles ; and even in these days has reached a circulation of 35 , 000 daily . The Journal des Debate , always cautious and conservative to excess in its political direction—always a model of the highest journalism in refined dignity and moderation of style , has from time to time , in its literary columns , struck deep and deadly blows , with wit bright and keen as Damascus steel , into the heart of ultramontane sacerdotalism and mediaeval arrogance .
Altogether the independent journals of France have done wonders to revive public spirit under heavy discouragement . The Charivari , with aa inexhaustible quiver of Voltairian arrows , and with a dexterous application of Russian targets , lias harassed the flanks of all the representatives of coTruption , hypocrisy , intolerance , of all the Tartufies , despots , and doctrinaires . So uncontrollable is -what Mr . Disraeli would call the ' genius of the epoch / or what others might call the impulse of the Revolution : —of what we maybe permitted to call simply the force of free inquiry . We have been led into these remarks by a fragment of tlie Paris correspondence in the Independence Beige , noticing the third number of anew satirical journal in Paris , ominously , and not very agreeably , entitled Satan . The name
Jo 6 is like a defiance to the priestly party , whom it is supposed the Government itself desires to check . We have heard it said in France , Le Diable s ' en ia .- and his re-appearance in this Mephistophelic shape would indicate the fact of his disappearance as an * Article of Faith . " Satan is edited by names ¦ w ell known in the ' epigrammatic world ; ' such as Henry Murger , Roger de Beauvoir , Charles Monselet , Meiy . Two other journals of tlie same family are announced . LaChauveSouris , an evening flying-sheet ; and La Fronde , a daily satirical journal . " The Government ^ it appears , " writes the correspondent of the Independance Beige , " displays the greatest tolerance for these literary journals , as an indispensable relief just now when politics have some disposition to revive , " For the moral of this news , we refer our readers back to the remarks by which we have prefaced it .
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August 5 , 1854 . ] THE LEADER . 737
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M . Villemain is engaged on the second volume of his Souvenirs Contemporains , to appear at the commencement of the winter season . M . Tiiiers , at present enjoying a medical banishment to the baths of the Pyrenees , for an affection of the throat , is devoting the leisure hours of his interesting exile to a work on Italy and oil Art in the Sixteenth Century . The ex-Minister is said to be growing stout on his forced relaxation from the fatigues " of the tribune . '
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 5, 1854, page 737, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2050/page/17/
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