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very shortly after tie men had eaten a large quantity of plums , and had drunk freely of sour beer . " Note the wording— " Very shortly after "—as illustrative of the mode in which this fallacy arises . The nearest phenomena to the event to be explained are seized upon as * the cause . ' The becoming sick at Hamburg , where cholera was raging , is not noticed ; this important fact , indeed , is omitted from the statement ; nor is there a word as to the medicinal treatment ^ or as to other articles of diet . Doubtless , in this particular instance the illustration was given to clench the ca ution against ripe fruit ( the sour beer not entering into the theory ) , but -which caution is itself founded on fallacious observation . This is so generally understood
now , that I need hardly to iell you , that ripe fruit , moderately taken , is one of the best prophylactics against the summer cholera , diarrhoea , and dysentery . Nor need I add , that of the large number of the poor attacked , amongst whom diarrhoea is proportionately much more prevalent than among the rich , it is only a very small minority that have the means to purchase ripe fruit in sufficient quantities for daily consumption , or even to purchase it at all . This long prevalent dogma , then r as to the bad effects of ripe fruit on the alimentary or intestinal canal , when tested by experience , is found to be nothing more than a very fallaciotis inference from a wholly erroneous observation .
This passage will interest the reader not only in its philosophical bearing , but also in its rescuing of fruit from the anathema of ignorant terror . If tbe extracts already given do not render our recommendation superfluous , we u rge every philosophical reader , especially every medical reader , to get Dr . Xaycock ' s admirable little volume .
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BARRY CORNWALL'S POEMS . Dramatic Scenes . With other Poems . Kow first priuted . By Barry Cornwall . Illustrated . Chapman and Ball . The reawakened love of the old draiaatist ^ who "belong to what is rather laxly called the Elizabethan era—a reawakening wbiobT was consequent on Charles Lamb's specimens and criticisms—created a set of writers , some forty years ago , "who all thought and tittered their thoughts in accordance with , the feelings . and phraseology , not so much of Shakspeare himself as of Shakspeare ' s contemporaries . The ^ e poets were not mere imitators ; they did not simply mock certain easily acquired peculiarities of language and forms of versification ; thev were men of genuine imagination and creative
And in my dream I heard black Memnou playing : ^^ He stood twelve cubits high , and , with a voice Like thunder when it breaks on hollow shores , Called on the sky , whichi answered . Then he awoko His marble music , and with grave sweet sounds Enchanted from her chamber the coy Dawn . He sang , too— : O such songs ! Silence , who lay Torpid upon those wastes of level sand , Stirred and grew human : from Its shuddering reeds Stole forth the crocodile , and birds of Wood Hung listening in the rich and burning air . Bafsvaelle . Did ' st dream all this ? Michael . Ay , Raffaelle ; and so gazed On ThebanMemnon , that his image sunk Fixed in tny brain . L 6 >! this is he thou Iook ' st on . Raffaklle . Sad watcher of the hours , which slowly creep Through melancholy nights and desert days ! His look oppresses me .
Michakl . Now I / would rather lie on some vast plain , And hear the wolves upbraiding the cold moon , Or oh a rock whan the blown thunder comes Booming along the wind . My < lreams are nought , Unless with gentler figures fierce ones mix ; Giants with Angels , Death with Life , Despair ¦ '• With Joy : —even the Great One comes in terror To vie , apparelled like the fiery storm . Rapfaelle . Thy fancy was begat i ' the clouds . . Michael . My soul Finds best communion with both ill and good : Some spirits there are , all earth , which only thrive In wine or laughter : But my nature seeks Darkness and Night , Power or the death of Power : A mountain riven— -a palace sacked—a town Kent by an earthquake ( such as once iiptore _ Catania from its roots , and sent it down To the centre , split in fragmcnts ) - ^ Famine ; Plague ; Earth running red with blood , or deluge-drowned : These are my dreams : — and sometimes , when my brain . Is calm , I lie awake and think of God . What follows is from " The Florentine Party" : —
Emilia . In the caves he lived , Or tops of moiihtains ; but when winds were loudest , And the broad moon "worked spells far out at sea , He watched all night and day the lonely shores , And saved from shipwreck many mariners . At length—he died ; and strangers buried him . Dionecs . Had he no friends ? Emilia . In some lone cemet ' ry , Distant from towns ( some wild -wood-girdedspot , Ruined and full of graves , all very old , Over whose scarce-seen mounds the pine-tree sheds Her solemn fruit , as giving ' dust to dust' ) He sleeps in quiet . Had he no friend ? Oh ! yes ; Pity , which hates all noise ; and Sorrow , like The palc-cyed marble that guards virgin mould ; And widowed Silence , who will weep alone ; And all sad friends of Death , were friends to fa * 7 » / Neiphila . Is there no mor « ? Emilia . No more . My tale is told . Neiphila . Then let us seek tho fresh green river-hanks , And rest awhile under yon plane-tree ' s shade . Our fair Emilia there will touch her lute ; And with a song , where love shall sweeten wisdom , Bid us take comfort . After such sad stories , . " What can he heard , save music ?—Follow me . A portion of the volume is devoted to a collection of songs and short miscellaneous poems ; but we do not think tliese are equal to some which the author lias already published . Nevertheless , they axe all genial and pleasant . . . Independently of its literary contents , the book before us is a fascinating production . Costliness and taste are visible from first to last . The pages arc profusely illustrated by Tenniel , 15 ' irket Foster , Clayton , Harvey , Corbould , Harrison Weir , &c . OF the figure subjects we . cannot express any high admiration 5 but the landscapes ( especially those by liirkct roster ) arc exquisite , and are beautifully engraved on wood by the brothers Dalziel , who contribute sonic of the designs . Then , the thick board covers glitter with golden arabesques tipon a . crimson ground , and the type is shownto the lughest advantage by the delicate , cream-coloured ivory paner on which it is printed . A . wore splendid book for splendour-loving Christmas is not likely to be produced ; and charming is it to see an author , who gavedeligM to many when the century was young , coming forward in the year 1856 to add to the literary pleasures of the festal season .
power ; but , poetry having been roused out of her long sleep by the touch of masters from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries , it was not unnatural that the nevr praefcisers of the art should learn the accents of their teachers . The poetry of / the present century has since reached another stage of development—whether for the better or worse maybe open to dispute ; but It wlLI iot be doubted by any observant critic that the temporary recurrence to an . extinct style did great good by once more arousing passion , rekindling Imagination , striking out from the dead flint and steel of conventionality the wildj nimble , and freakish fires of humour , "wit , and fancy , and strengthening our enervated tongue by a diction that was at once learned and homely , full of the spirit of scholarship , yet tasting of the soil " ' ¦¦ . ' ¦ ¦ .. ¦¦ .. : ¦ . ¦ . ¦ . ¦ ¦ ' :. '¦ - ¦ ;¦; . ¦¦ ¦ ... ¦ ¦; ; ., ¦ . ¦¦¦ ' " .: - - - - ¦ ¦¦ ; . ' ¦ ¦ . ¦ .
Among the young poets of the reawakening time to which we allude , one of the most conspicuous for similarity to his great prototypes was Mr . Procter , "who , under the assumed name of Barry Cornwall , published , in the years 1819 and 1820 , some Dramatic Scenes , full of the old elements , iind exhibiting a mind naturally akin—not forced by external circumstances into a superficial resemblance—to tbe men who "wrote for the Globe and Fortune playhouses , and more especially to the dramatic twins , Beaumont and Fletcher . Mr . Procter also wrote narrative poems , the sweetness and delicate painting of which at once gave him a place in the same category with Keats , whose gorgeous and exotic luxury he shared , though not equalling him in native energy and sustained power ; and he has since made for himself a separate reputation as one of the most varied , harmonious , and
emotional song-writers of the day . Tn the latter branch of Ins genius he is best known ; but , exquisite as are- many of his lyrics—touching the soul of sadness , mirth , or tender meditation , with the magic of a musician , added to the greater comprehensiveness of words—we venture to think that the choicest evidences of his faculty as a poet are to be found in these brief Dramatic Scenes which take us back to the time when plays were written in the hot blood and with the throbbing brain of an overmastering imagination . Therefore are we delighted to see such productions again issued to the public , with the author ' s last emendations , and to perceive that others , hitherto remaining ( with the exception of a few brief specimens ) in manuscript , are how suffered to appear in print .
It is true that we do not find in these pages the highest elements of the ideal drama ; that we arc not lifted on to the most exalted peaks of passion , or shown , the infinite varieties of character which make up the rich web and texture of humanity ; but we contend that here , in these Scenes , is an amount of delicate poetry , of fine feeling , and of beautifully modulated versification , not usually found in the play-writing of this day . Mr . Procter is a lover of art in all its shapes—one who has fed upon the divinest dreams of Greece and Italy ; and , as a consequence , an instinct of . beauty moves over every one of Ms pages . This indeed is his dominant , though not his only , characteristic , it shines forth constantly in bits of warm , soft , lulling description , which glow from out the type like pictures ; permeutes the
dialogue of liia speakers aa " a hidden brook" murmurs its undersong through the pattered colloquies of the roeds and rushes ; gives to liis mirth an airy and refining grace ; and dallies quaintly with his sadness . He has , itr fact j that strange power , possessed by the older writers , of mingling grief with wayward playfulness , suggesting tlie depth of the underlying feelings by the very lightness with which the speaker skims across , as a skater over treacherous ice ; and he owns the cognate faculty of rapid alternation between riotoussarcastic iest . and hifrhlv-wrouorht . fulL-coloured
, poetry * An instance of this latter will be found in the little drama in the present volume called " The Temptation "—an admirable piece of diablerie . JSut the choicest of the Scenes , to our apprehension , are those called " Michael Angelo , " « Raffiielle and Fornarina ^ ( both full of a poet ' s conception of axt ) and ** The Florentine Party —the last a suggestion from tfoccacio , bright with fancy and humour , and Tuscan to the heart . We append some extracts , commencing with ?* Michael Angclo" : — Michakl . Methought I lived three thousand yearn ago , ^ oino whcre »» Egypt , near a pyramid ; '
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AN ADMIRABLE BOOK ON GEOLOGY . Advanced Text Booh of Geology . Descriptive and Industrial . By David Page , F . G . S . Blackwood and Sons . lT k ia from no invidious desire to underrate other works , it is the simple expression of justice , which causes us to assign to Mr . Page ' s Advanced J- ext Book the very first place among geological works addressed to students , at least among those which have como before us . Wo have read every word ot it , > vith care and with delight , never hesitating as to its meaning , never uctectinc the omission of anything neoclful in a popular and succinct exposition oJ a rich and varied subject . Tlio ordonuancc of its material is clear , masterly , and philosophical . The exposition is oftqn eloquent , withoutevcr striving after rhetorical effect . The information is lucidly yet briefly given . And if , on occasions , we are disposed to question a somewhat precipitat expression—these occasions are raro , Incidental , and in no wise aficct t generally philosophic structure of ( ho book . We will mention oneof these . It is at page 21 , where , spoilt ing of liypothcscs , Mr . Page says , u'lhe lcgtimato progress of hu ^ fvn science lies over u pathway of observation , lac ,
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1192 THE LEADER , [ goj ^^
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 13, 1856, page 1192, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2171/page/16/
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