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— ==* ^T" "|tl> Qivliy AlbiJK X?v14 jc( ? • .
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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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• apple with the national perversity ; and , absurd as it may seem , self eservation , the first law of nature , will have to be enforced by the police an .
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. FIVE VOLUMES . Ramble through Normandy . By George M . Musgrave , M . A . 5 ° ^ rhwall : its Mines , Miners , and Scenery .. By the Author of " Our Coal Fields and Our Coal Pits . " - ' _ Longman . roines of Charity . With a Preface . By Aubrey de Vere , Eso , ^ ^ ^^ » P «^< W tf Drm ***** . By Charles Wilson , M . D . ^ ^^^ ^^^ e Decameron of Boccaccio . A Revised Translation . By W . K . Kelly . Bohii .
• bbne , in his delightful " SentimentalJourney , " undertakes to reduce the lole circle of Travellers under the following " Heads : " —Idle Travellers , quisitive Travellers , Lying Travellers , Proud Travellers , Vain Travellers , ( lenetic Travellers , The Travellers of Necessity , The Delinquent and jlonious Traveller , The Unfortunate and Innocent Traveller , The Simple aveller . These ten " representative men "—now , as in Sterne ' s time , true pes of classes—we will venture deferentially to increase to a comfortable zen , by adding to the list , in consideration of the requirements of modern , ys , the Book-making Traveller and The Statistical Traveller . Our last Rambler" in Normandy belongs to the first class , and our last " Kambler "
Cornwall to the second . Mr . Musgrave—who appends his portrait to 5 Preface—appearing in public in the guise of a cleanly and whiskerless ntleman with a protuberant travelling cap , and ( as the lady novelists have I a " chiselled nose "—Mr . Musgrave , let us say to begin with , has made t of his Ramble in Normandy a very readable pleasant book . He is sentially what they call , in country circles , a droll man , taking all legitiite opportunities of being moderately funny in a harmless , gentlemanlike iy . Pont Audemer , Caen , Bayeux , Falaise , Lisieux , are among the prin-) le places that he visited . He writes about towns and villages , and his indexing to and from them , always agreeably , but sometimes ( in his
capay of book-maker ) rather too lengthil y for any but the most patient iders . It is his weakness to make acquaintance with too many strangers , ask too many questions , to believe too implicitly now a nd then in random swers—but he is otherwise , as we have said , a harmless , easy , gossiping , cial Traveller , with a shrewd observation of his own , and a capital knack at ling an anecdote . Some of his Illustrations , small as they are , give a very r idea of the Thing he desires to represent , and are generally praise-> rthy for sensible selection of subject . We introduce him to our readers an agreeable companion , "and leave him with a pleasant certainty that he the sort of man to make his way easily to their approval . ~ - To our statistical traveller in Cornwall we must accord a more serious d formal welcome . The valuable parts of his book are , in our opinion , 3 parts which are more especially devoted to the giving of information . b is as lively and agreeable , in many places , as Mr . Musgrave—though in writer
lifferent way , and with a more correct and elegant manner as a . 3 has an artist-like appreciation of Nature , and a genial readiness to quote d commend what has been done by bis immediate predecessor in Cornill—the author of Rambles Beyond Railways . But , in spite of these claims bis part to the character of a popular , amusing , and amiable Traveller , ! greatest merit is the merit of being a clear and careful teacher . His m-• mation about Mines and Miners in Cornwall is full of interest , and will , in great part , quite new to his readers . The book forms the 74 th Part Messrs . Longman ' s " Traveller ' s Library ; " and is , in every sense of the rd , a worthy addition to a cheap and excellent series of publications . Heroines of Charity has , probably , ere this , attained to a wide circulation long the Roman Catholics . The book is too obstinately , sectarian to peneite elsewhere . It contains mejmoirs of nuns and lay women , eminent for od works and fanatical sanctity . The writer has caug ht the defects of lat we will venture to call the Roman Manner—that strangely-inflated ,
> rdy , rhapsodical , foreign-English style which Cardinal Wiseman has made niliar to most readers already , and which they may get further acquainted th , if they please , by hearing a Catholic ¦ sermon at any " chapel" in indon . Mr . Aubrey de Vere ' s Preface is written from a mildly Ultramtanc point of view ; eulogising the more practically beneficial parts of j old monastic system , and , with a kind of simple fanaticism , actually sugjting that modern England might usefully return to it , even at this time day 1 Not being controversialists , and not standing committed to the adcacy of any sect or party , we can afford to give M . de Vcre credit for pfect sincerity- —he must excuse us , if , as independent critics , wo can do no
The Pathology of Drunkenness . Doctor Charles Wilson writes of intoxiiion and its ascertained causes and consequences learnedly , tersely , and th perfect propriety ; but the moment he approaches the widely-different aject of Temperance , he follows the example of all writing and talking etotallers , unrestrainedly goes the whole hog , and in some cases seems , a dry , quiet Scotch way , almost to take leave of his senses . His chapter " Conviviality" is a marvel of cool assertion in defiance of fact and exponce ; except just at the beginning , where the Doctor writes in a very miising and pleasant style on the delightful bodily results of a cheerful iss . The effects of strictly temperate indulgence in fermented liquors he is sums up : —" The diffusion of an agreeable warmth throughout the tern ; the action of the heart invigorated ; the circulation quickened ; the ce becoming full and sonorous ; the eye sparkling ; every function aciring new energy ; every motion accompanied with a consciousness of iar ho uajiui iuhuo
aticity anu vigour . do gouu . uur own pumunui ring many years' temperate enjoyment of ale , wine , and grog , each in their e season , testifies to the truth of the quoted passage . But the Doctor , ing on the Teetotal side , cannot afford to be sensible on the subject of mperance for more than a page or two . Wo soon find our moderate ition qualified by such a bitter epithet as " transitory "—as if all human itions and enjoyments were not transitory . Are not , for instance , the iking of Teetotal speeches and the writing of Teetotal books " transitory " itiona ? But do Teetotal gentlemen give them up on that account ? Alas , ! To continue : —The Doctor gets bitterer as ho goes on , and tolls us
that " the exhiliration which has been excited at first by very limited potations soonrequires deeper and deeper draughts for its production . " ^ Tina is simply not the fact as to the practice of drinking by civilised mankind in general ; and we will show why , when we have given Doctor Wilson Teetotal rope enough to suspend himself comfortably for the edification of our readers . He goes on to a bolder assertion soon after . " Even the moderate use of spirituous- or fermented liquors , if long continued and grown habitual , ' cannot fail to have ultimately a prejudicial effect upon the health , " he says ; backing that opinion by plenty of medical theory , and by no examples or facts . As to spirituous liquor for a medicine , he will not hear of it . If we have been exposed to the weather , feel chilly and ill , take a glass of hot spirits and water , and become quite comfortable and cured after it , we must not ascribe so blessed a result to Doctor Grog ; but must believe instead that we have " probably , at the same time , used other and more certain means of
promoting perspiration" ( we are not informed what means)—or " the simple effect of mere repose" have cured us—but certainly not kind Doctor Grog . Even old age must not try and keep the lamp of life ali g ht by pouring a little spirit in temperately , from time to time , as the flame flickers . Doctor Wilson quotes an" aged lady , " a propos of this part of the subject , who , " when urged on her death-bed to recruit her failing strength with brandy , " appears to have made this remarkably imbecile and blustering reply : — « £ et me go home sober / " We have hardly had time to ponder on the prodigious mental fuddlement of any aged lady who can familiarly talk of going into Eternity as " going home , " before we have the Doctor ' s favourite assertion about the fatal consequences of the cheerful glass repeated in stronger terms than ever . " A chief peril , however , " he says , " in the moderate use of intoxicating drinks , in whatever way induced , or upon whatever plea adopted , lies in its being , but too frequently , merely a state of transition towards the formation of propensities of a more marked and fatal
c iiiirfic 16 X * Let us try this , as we said we would , and in the briefest way , by Fact . If the passage , rendered into plain English , means anything , it means that temperate drinkers are frequently found to become downright drunkards . Let us roughly divide temperate drinkers into two great classes —the rich and the poor ; and let us judge the rich by dinner-parties , and the poor by gin-shops . The majority of guests at all dinner-parties are moderate drinkers —how manv of them acquire a habit of ffetting drunk after dinner ? Why
it is notorious that drunkenness is hardly known in " society" now—though , as we ^ have sai d , the vast majority of guests in all societies figure as moderate drinkers , year after year elated and satisfied with fit temperate allowance . " But , " Doctor Wilson may say , "I don ' t mean the rich ; I mean the poor . " Very well : —Are the regular customers at gin-palaces , the thousand , thousand artisans who fetch their jug of beer for supper every night , "i : oo frequently" drunkards ? Does the pOt-boy carry beer round to a " too frequently" drunken set of gentlemen ' s servants , male and female ? Or take another class of drinking cu&tomers—cabmen , if you please . How
often are you driven home" at night by a drunken cabman ? Whic : i character does the worst of cabmen pftenest appear in at the police-offices—the character of a drunkard , or of a sober-minded extortioner of money ? Finally , take year after year the drunken cases at police-courts : what proportion do they bear to the drinking poor of the police-court-district—let us say those known as regular customers at the public-houses ? The plain fact is that all the immoderate drinking among the poor is ferreted out by the Teetotallers , and all the moderate drinking is quietly passed over . " Slogffins , " to borrow the admirable illustration in Household Woids , is an
habitual drunkard , " Job Smith" is a moderate drinker , notoriously never intoxicated . No matter ! let us talk and write at Job Smith , because he likes a pint of beer , just as if he was Sloggins , who likes a gallon ! Let us tell Job Smith he can ' t stop at the pint , because Sloggins got on to a gallon . - But let us by . no . means inquire intothe relative numbers of Slogginses and Job Smiths , or our pet teetotal theory , that drinking moderately leads " but too frequently" to drinking immoderately , may chance to be positively falsified by facts in a highly inconvenient and unanswerable manner ! _
It is refreshing , after having been obliged to devote some little time and space to the exposure of nonsense , to be able to close the present notice with a word of welcome to a genuine book . The revised English translation , by Mr . Kelly , of the immortal Decameron , ought to be in the libraries of all readers of Italian literature , in the first place , and of readers of English , in the second , who have yet to make themselves acquainted with a work of fiction , which , both in itself and in its results , is one of the most remarkable that the world has produced . Mr . Kelly has improved the style of the previous translation by most careful revision , has filled up unsightly gaps , and has provided the new generation of readers with useful antiquarian notes attached to most of the " Novels" * or Talcs , as wo should call them now .
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ASSAULT OF SEBASTOPOL . , Messrs . Chapman and Haia have publishod . two excellent topographic and panoramic sketches , by Captain Biddulph , representing the advanced lines ol attack , and the Russian defences in front of Sebastopol . Captain Bidmr / , rH is one of tho active officers engaged in pushing the advanced works forward . These sketches , and the letter-press which necoinpnnies them , are calculated to give the reader a good idea , not only of the lines of attack and defence , but ol tho nature of tho ground ; tho steep rocky ravines and bare unslioltcretl plateaus across which the works « re carried . Theso sketches will bo ot great value to those who interest themselves iu the study ol tho siege from a military point of viow .
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. Sxb Henry Bishop ' s Concerts , IIanovbk-squareRooms .-TIio concerts of glees and vocal concerted muflic under the direction f , " «^ 1 I 8 « o n p ' ^ selected from his works , have been very fully attended . Ihere will be a third concert on Tuesday afternoon , and tho last will , we believe , bo given on Saturday next , tho 17 th instant .
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Mabch 10 , 1855 . 1 THE tEADEB . 237
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), March 10, 1855, page 237, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2081/page/21/
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