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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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^ eon charnel-houses Huitzilopochtli Tezcatlipuk must have seemed to the Spaniards an ill-omened dream . Years would pass away , and they would become veterans , covered with wounds and with renown , before they would ' have time to think over and to realise to themselves the full 'horror of the accursed things which they had looked upon that day . The length to which these extracts have extended prevent our drawing more froin these volumes , but the reader will have seen enough to stimulate iiis curiosity for the whole . There were several points upon which we should gladly have enlarged were greater space at disposal ; but the foregoing remarks indicate in a general way our opinion of the book , and the extracts indicate its style , so that between the two our office of " Taster" to the public has been fullilled . We must add , however , that the book is profusely illustrated with maps let into the text , and repeated from time to tirne , so as io save the reader the trouble of seeking them ; these maps , mostly newmade , greatly facilitate our comprehension of the narrative , and are valuable documents .
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THE MORALITY OF WILHELM MEISTER . WUhelm Meister's Apprenticeship . From Vie German of Goethe . Translated by R . l > illon Boylun , Esq . ( Holm ' s Standard Library . ) II . G . Bonn . Perhaps Mr . Lcwcs ' s Life of Goethe , which we now sec advertised , may throw some new light on the structure and purpose of the much-debated novel—WWielm Meister ' s Aj > prenticcsMp . In the meantime , we are tempted by the appearance of a new translation to give the opinion which our present knowledge enables us to form on one or two aspects of this many-sided mrorlc * Ask nineteen out of twenty moderately educated persons what they think
of WiUielm Aleister , and the answer will p robably be— "I think it an immoral book ; and besides , it is awfully dull : I was not able to read it . " Whatever truth there mav be in the first half of this judgment , the second half is a sufficient guarantee that the book is not likely to do any extensive injury in English society . Parents may let it lie on the drawing-room table without scruple , in the confidence that for youthful minds of the ordinary caat it will have no attractions , and that the exceptional youthful mind which is strongly arrested by it is of too powerful and peculiar a character to ho trained according to educational dogmas . But is irWiclm Meister an immoral book ? We think not : on the contrary , we think that it appears immoral to some minds because its morality has a "rander orbit than any which can be measured by the calculations of
the pulpit and of ordinary literature . Goethe , it is sometimes said , seems in this book to be alinost ' destitule of moral bias : he shows no hatred of bad arrtions , no warm sympathy with good ones ; he writes like a passionless Mejnour , to whom all human things are interesting only as objects of intellectual contemplation . But we question whether the direct exhibition of a moral bias in the writer -will make a book really moral in its influence . Try this on the first child that asks you to tell it a story . As long as you keep to an apparently impartial narrative of facts you will have earnest eves fixed in to
on you in rapt attention , but no sooner do you beg betray symptoms of an intention to moralise , or to turn the current of facts towards a personal application , than the interest of your hearer will slacken , his eyes will wander , and the moral dose will be doubly distasteful from the very sweetmeat in which you have attempted to insinuate it . One grand reason of this i * that the child is aware you are talking //; - it instead of from , yourself , so that instead of carrying it along in a stream of sympathy with your own interest in the story , you give it the impression of contriving coldly aud talking artificially . How , the moralising novelist produces the same eHeet on his mature readers ; an effect often heightened b y the perception that tor
the moralising is rather intended to make his book eligible taraiiy readinT than prompted by any profound conviction or enthusiasm . Just as far from bein" really moral is the so-called moral ( L ' nouemcnt , in which rewards and p unishments are distributed according to those notions of justice on which the novel -writer would have recommended that the world should be governed if he bad been consulted at the creation . The emotion Of satisfaction which a reader feels when the villain of the book dies of some hideous disease , or is crushed by a railway train , is no more essentially moral than the satiation which used to be felt in whipping culprits at the carbtail . So we dismiss the charge of immorality against IVilhtlm Meister « n these two counts—the absence of-moral bias in the mode ot narration , and the comfortable issues allowed to questionable actions and questionable characters
. . .... But there is anollior ground for the same accusation which involves deeper COMiderationa . It i . s said that some of the scenes ami incidents are such as the refined moral taste of these days will not admit ti > be proper subjects or art , that to depict irregular relations in nil the charms they really have ior human nature , and to uswoointe lovel y qualities with vices which society makes a brand of outlawry , implies a toleration which is at once a sign and a source of perverted moral sentiment . Wilhelm ' s relation to Mariana , and the charm which the reader is made to feel in the lawless I hilina , many _ incidents that occur during Wilholm ' s lite with the players , and the stonos ot Lothario ' s loves in ; the present , preterite , and future , aiv . shocking to tie prevalent English . It . is no answer to this objection to say—what ir » tne that the ot almost
fact—that Goethe '« pictures are truthful , career every younc man brinirs him in contact wilh far more vitiating irregularities than any presented in the experience of Willn l . n Meister ; for no one can maintain that aM fact is a fit Hubjectfoi- art . The sphere ot the artist has its UmiUomowhoro , and the first question is , Has Goethe overstepped thus limit , *>* hnt the more fuct of artistic representation is a mistake , t i lie . seeonu . Ifhis . aubjectn arc within the legitimate limits of art , ih his mode ol treat-«« tr 8 ncTi a * to make his pictures pernicious ? Burely the sphere- ot ait <* tench » wherever thcro is beauty either in form , or thought , or looting .. A «» r , pf unlight fulling on tho dreariest sandbank will often serve tl 10 piuntoi ff ^ ftne picture ; the tragedian may take for Ins . subject the most hideout ftriSouitaioy servo as tile background for some divine deed ol tenderness ftferrim , « nu so pho novelist TnVy place before us every aspect . ol ; -human life where there b some trait of love , or endurance , or helplessness to call
forth our best sympathies . Balzac , perhaps the most wonderful writer of faction the world has ever seen , has in many of his novels overstepped tins limit . He drags us by his magic force through scene after scene of unmitigated vice , till the effect of walking among this human carrion is a moral nausea . But no one can say that Goethe has sinned in this way . Everywhere he brings us into the presence of living , generous humanitymixed and erring and self-deluding , but saved from utter corruption by the salt of some noble impulse , some disinterested effort , some beam of good nature , even though grotesque or homely . And his mode of treatment seems to us precisely that which is really moral in its influence . It is
without exaggeration ; he is m no haste to alarm readers into virtue by melodramatic consequences ; he quietly follows the stream of fact and of life ; and waits patiently for the moral processes of nature as we all do for her material processes . The large tolerance of Goethe , which is markedly exhibited in Wilhelm Meister , is precisely that to which we point as the element of moral superiority . We all ; begin life by associating-our passions with our moral prepossessions , by mistaking indignation for virtue , and many go through life without awaking from this illusion . These are the * ' insupportables justes , qui du haut de leurs chaises d ' or narguent les miseres et les souffrances de l'humanite . " But a few are taught by their own falls and
their own struggles , by their experience of sympathy , and help and goodness in the " publicans and sinners" of these modern days , that the line between the virtuous and vicious , so far from being a necessary safeguard to morality , is itself an immoral fiction . Those who have been , already taught this lessen will at once recognise the true morality of Goethe ' s works . Like Wilkelm Meister , they will be able to love the good in a Philina , and to reverence the far-seeing efforts of a Lothario .
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TWENTY YEARS CONFLICT IN THE CHURCH . The Twenty Years Conflict in the Church , and Its Remedy . John Chapman . The writer of this honest and well-meaning little Tract must be a fortunate man , for he tells us that " he has himself proposed reforms in religion equal in extent to the reforms effected by Lord Bacon in science , and in no case was he ever met by a reply , or involved in any controversy . " His present object is to heal the divisions in the Church of England , and avert that disruption which he justly conceives to be imminent between the Evangelical and High Church ( and we should add the Latitudinarian ) parties . The mode ir ? which he proposes to carry out this object is certainly in the highest decree Baconian , or whatever else may designate philosophic
comprehensiveness aud simplicity . He would reconcile the two hostile parties by the effectual method of subtracting from the creed of each all the most vital and characteristic doctrines — Apostolic Succession — the Supernatural Etlicaey of the Sacraments—Justification by Faith—Original Siu—and Predestination . For these tenets he would substitute , by way of compensation , the Eight of Private Judgment , or the Authority of . Reason and Conscience —Free Will—Uesponsibility , and roan ' s power to perform good as well as evil . These changes are to be embodied in a Keformed Liturgy ( of which an outline is given ) by a Reformed Convocation equally composed of Laity and Clergy . To an arrangement so manifestly tending to obviate the inconvenience of doctrinal discrepancies , the writer thinks all parties would readily accede . In what theological Paradise has he lived ?
The writer's general view of parties is clear and sensible . In particular , he sees the service which the High Church movement rendered to the cause of truth , by destroying the belief in the perfection of the Anglican Church , lie is also quite correct in giving the same party credit for reasserting against the dominant Calvinism that doctrine of Free Will on which _ morality depends ; though unhappily they asserted at the same time doctrines concerning the nature and effects of sin , of which it was justly said that , if they were true , it would be better to be a blade of grass than a man . We may add that some remarkable attacks on Bibliolatry were made in the " Tracts lor the Times ? , the object of which was of course to exalt Church , authority at the expense of the Bible , but which tended , in effect , to assist the emancipation of reason and the development of a critical spirit . The Newnianites in truth are not a little answerable for the encouragement 0 / that love of truth , which , when they see its legitimate consequences , they will ersecuteand are beginning to persecute already .
p , We cannot encourage the author to hope that bis remedy will be accepted , or oven that the spirit of charity aud benevolence in which be tenders it will meet with a response . We would recommend him , instead of trying to reconcile the irreconcilable , to eliminate the essential , and avert the inevitable , rather to labour for the independent establishment of pure religious and moral truth , and the preservation of our moral and spiritual life , as individuals and as a nation , from that abyss of confusion into which ecclesiastical institutions and ecclesiastical creeds all over Christendom are too manifestly about to fall .
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THE CUSTOM OF DUNMOW . liallw l * : Itotnantic , Fantastical , ami Humorous . By " \ Y . Uurrisou Ainsworth . Koutltjilgo ana Co The Fiitch of Dumnow . By W . Harrison Aiuaworth . Koutledge and Co 'L ' ni' collected versification of Mr . Harrison Ainsworth ' s novels , from ltookwood down to his latest work—the line historical fiction rolorrcd to in . tnc title of the present notice—has furnished forth a book of ballads , classified as Legendary and Konmntie , Fantastical , and Humorous . Iho r ° niantit and fantastical disposition of Mr . Ainsworth seems always to liavoJed 4 "i into slums and gaol-yards for a good deal of hislegendary ™ £ " » U *** into Dryasdust remains of antiquated phraseology tor all Jj » ^^ ppened . * .. ! if .,, nnn « nn . * l . if « nr » h nnd such a thuurcould hardly liaye iittPi M - «»' " i uiawut DU |» ii «»
„ , „ , u > « u ... ... - — -- 1--, oiwi is hilarious aDouxuc Mr . Ainsworth wots that » t aenrce mote have been , a . d ^ is h nu . o , straightway . . Excepting one or two of the sonjp 1 » eio bro . ht tq , andiiotabfy the one called " f ^*^ * ^?^^^* , S refrain attributed to the Duohosao , U « G ^^ J ^ Sd a more worthless baa "—ia very tunefully introduced , we never oncouni .
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( E of a tog ^ a . ; ig » . ] q ? s lea deu . 703 — 1 ¦ ' —___— : —l : — ¦ . _ . ' ¦¦ ——_____ .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 21, 1855, page 703, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2100/page/19/
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