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Mark the incapable reasoning of this advocate- The Constitution was not designed to be as immutable as the laws of tlie Medes and Persians ; therefore , its magistrate had the right , -without consulting the Assembly , to destroy it altogether , and with it a system of liberty that had been developed by eighteen years of constitutional government in France . "A British Officer cannot seetliat a constitution may be so framed as to admit of change , "without investing its legal protector with the privilege of overturning it . in his own favour . The same poverty of intellect drives him : into a desperate quibble on a personal question . Louis Napoleon , he says , did not-wish to become emperor ; he merely "wished that France should have an
opportunity of saymg "whether he should become emperor or not . After this , the reader will desire to be troubled no further "with the ratiocinations of this enormous article / It is not , in all paTts , presented in . the . ' article' form . Some of the ¦ chapters are beadei with synoptical lines which would be appropriate in a novel by a young lady : —
The Imprisonment . —Faith , Courage , and Endurance . —The I > ying " Parent . — Paternal Solicitude and Filial Reverence . —The Gage of Honour : its Rejection .- — Tlie Temptation : its Repulse . Turning to this chapter , we find it less affecting than we had hoped . The writer sinks his romance , because lie cannot forget his views . In the statement of tbese views he is continually at fault , in a literary sense . We have presented an , example of his reasoning ^ ; but what shall we say o-f his saetaphors , especially of " the emotions of Jb ranee" which were " re-eehoed l ) y England . " The re-echoed emotions must have confused "A British Officer ' s' * fancy . Something else , apparently , confused his brain when he touched tfeat most equivocal object of admiration—a violated oath . His rhetoric fails him here ; he might have said that an oath , not being Sis immutable as the laws of tie Medes and Persians , was at the disposal of
the President ; but this ingenions inflection of morality does not occur . The compiler cannot initiate a new defence of perjury , t > ut takes one ready made , cunningly deseribing as from the pen of " An English Clergyman . " This , we conceive , is a master-stroke . It is the one spark of genius-in * A British Officer . " A clergyman has played the casuist by apologizing for an oath-breaker ; consequently , who dares to object V We do not find the reverend authority indicated by name ; but the volume has been constructed on the principle of borrowing at random , and not acknowledging the obligation . If we Were Imperial sympathizers we should reprobate , more seriously than we are inclined to do , the libellous blundering of this unworthy book . X-ouis Napoleon could not ha . ve a more injudicious partisan - It would be easy to imagine a work , written by a competent person , which , should be a
defence , difficult to answer , o-f the Emperor's general conduct—the apology for some acts , the panegyric of others . We are quite sure that wlten a Liberal historian undertakes to describe the period from 1848 to 1857 , he ¦ will find rnany things to blame in his own party , and riot . a few to praise in X . ouis Napoleon . For the sake of justice , we should be glad to see a wellbalanced estimate of the Emperor ' s life and character , free . 'from inimical as well as from servile prejudice . It would benefit him far more than the verbose monotony of "A British Officer , " who reviles as m « an , selfish , bloodthirsty , unscrupulous , malignant , imbecile , every man and every party in France except the personal adherents of the Emperor , who are notoriously the least eminent of French public men . Who , for instance , would venture to place De Morny , Walewski , Canroberfc , Magnan , or the other marshals or ministers of the Empire in the same list with CavaignacMontalembert
, , Ouizot , B « rryer , De Tocqueville , —not to mention the great civil chiefs of the Liberal array ? The Orleanists or the Legitimists , separately , are infinitely more distinguished , as bodies of men , than the courtiers of the Empire , who , if Louis Napoleon had not surprised the Constitution in the night , must lave remained in perpetual obscurity , and , in some cases , would have been engaged in public works of a kind very different from those of the Louvre and the Rue Rivoli . It was excessively indiscreet , therefore , on the part of tke writer , to deal so violently with his subject . His punishment -will not come from its . He will be disowned and ridiculed by every sensible man who puts faith in the policy of the Empire . All we can say is , we are glad he did not become the apologist of the Liberal party . There might be a cruel
dissection , by any Legitimist critic , of a narrative of events from 1848 to 1852 , similar in style and substance to tHs volume , dedicated to the author ' s wife , who " approved his object , and sympathized with hia labours . " We must add that , supposing " A British Ofiicer" to bo actuated by no interested motives , the publication does credit to his feelings ; some of its passages might have been written by an enthusiast with teais in his eyes , they are so suffused , &o suggestive of " innocent milk in a most innocent , mouth , " so disconnected and simple . Something must be pardoned to a " re-echoing emotion . " In that spirit , therefore , convinced tliat " A British Ofiicer " means no itarm , and will do no harm , we do not treat him seriously , but act aside the volume as the , work of a misguided imagination .
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SLR EDMUND HEAD ON "SHALL" AND " WILL . " *« Mali" and " Wilt ; " or , Two Cleptem on Future Auxiliary Verbs . By Sir Edmund W . H « ad , BorL J Murray . It is a piquant fact that while even highly cultivated Englishmen are for the most part lax in their syntax , and indeed classical scholars generally have scarcely a ' bowing acquaintance ' with it , no Englishman , however lax and daring in his disregard of grammar , confounds the two auxiliaries , ** shall" and " -will , " which Scotchmen , Irishmen , and Americans scarcely ever discriminate . Even Mrs . Gamp throws her will into the right sentence , and Old Wcller would * shy' at an obtrusive " shall . " Accuracy in this delicate and difficult point is instinctive in us ; it is as national as beef . Yet all grammarians are puzzled -when they attempt to lay down precise rules to guide us in our use . Why the use is so invariably consistent among -even uneducated Englishmen , and why so invariably fluctuating among Scotchmen , no one can aay : — In ordhuwry English " -will" is never used with the first person unless a notion of volition , more or loss strong , ia conveyed by the speaker . On tho other hand , " akaU , "
¦ when applied to any person other than the speaker , or supposed speaker , expresses something beyond mere futurity—that is to say , obligation , command , destiny , or external control of some kind . But in Ireland , Scotland , and isToith America this appropriation of " shall" to the first person for expressing the simple future ianotacknowledged in common parlance , nor always observed in . written composition . For instance , Chalmers , wrote , " I am able to devote as much time and attention-to " other subjects as I -mil be under the necessity of doing next winter . " Now had the sentence run " as I will do next / winter , " the use of " will" would not necessarily have grated on an English ear , because the writer might possibly have meant " as I intend to do next winter ; " but the context—the notion of necessity—makes every shade of volition inadmissible , and therefore " will" strikes us at once as incorrect because it
must stand for the pure future . Again : — - A distinguished American diplomatist , Mr . J . Y . Mason , m his letter toM . Drouyn de L'huys on the insults offered to M . Soule , is reported to have expressed himself thus : ¦ " -I feel assured that I will not have the misfortune to find conflicting views held , by one so enlightened as your Excellency . " Mr . Brace in his book on Hungary , repeating the words of some Hungarians with reference to Kossuth , makes them say , "He ought to have known -vie would be ruined . " Again he employs " will" with'tke first person as follows : " They say I will find such portraits in all the cottages of the peasants through the village ^' After giving several illustrations of the inaccurate use of these two "words , Sir Edmund Head says : —
Nothing can be easier tlian to put cases in which the use of the two farms seems at first sight to be a matter of complete indifference . It is precisely because the shade which separates them is so slight that they are often confounded and misapplied . It seems practically much the same thing whether I say to a friend , "I shall be at home to-morrow -when you call , " or , " I will be at home to-morrow when you call . " On a little reflection , however , the difference is clear- If the fact that my friend is going to call makes me determined to be at home—if my mind is made up in consequence of what has passed between us , and I announce an intention—then , " will" ia the proper auxiliary . If , on the other hand , I merely inform my friend that he will find me . at a certain time—it may be because I cannot help it , or it may be because I choose it—then " shall" is the verb required for the simple statement of the future fact with the iirst person .
On this principle it is that the answer of an Irish servant when told to do a thing "I shall , sir "—is incorrect . " Shall , " no doubt , is right as the future , but what he means to .-profess is his intention to obey , as consequent on the order .. The best mode of testing this view is to take some act which cannot , from its nature , be voluntary If a mau say to me , " I will have the gout when you call , " I , as an Englishman , could only understand him to mean , " I will pretend , " or " I will try to have the gout . " " I shall have the gout , " might be properly said by one . who felt premonitory symptoms of the disease . An Irishman or an American would not interpret these phrases in the same way , and it is precisely this which gives the point to the old story of the Irishman in the water , who exclaimed , " I will be drowned and nobody shall save me . " Indeed this sentence illustrates perfectly the misapplication of either verb " will" with the first person implies volition where volition is impossible , and " nobody shall , " &c , forbids that which the context shows must "be desired above all things .
There are numberless cases wherein the " -will" implies volition , but there are also many cases wherein no volition at all is implied ; e . // ., "When you go there you will find , " and not you shall find ; on the other hand , ' we may say , " SJucll you derive any benefit from Brown's demise ? " or " Will you derive , &c . V but we cannot interchangeably say , " I shall derive benefit" and " I trill derive benefit from Brown's demise ; " nor can we say "If you sit in wet clothes you shall take cold , " without offending every English ear , although it is certain that the cold will be taken " on compulsion . " tl Shall" was the original auxiliary appropriated to the future in English , as it is in the Dutch and Low German dialects ; it is never superseded bv " -will" where
any loophole exists for avoiding an implied want of courtesy in its use . If , in a question , the person addressed has to answer by " shall , " or if the sentence is hypothetical or indefinite , then " shall" retains its right even with , the second and third persons . In all other ca 3 es it is not considered safe to employ the compulsory auxiliary when speaking of another . Tbe primary distinction between will and shall is the distinction between volition and compulsion ; and if we cannot in all cases recognize some shade of these two meanings , it is because the words are sometimes employed as mere auxiliaries , and sometimes in their original sense .
Ihe principle on which such auxiliaries have been selected is obvious enough . Some one of the states or conditions which usually precede an action or an event is predicated o the subject o the sentence , and the action or event itsel f is thus left . to be inferred . "When a man " has a thing to do , " it may be supposed that ho trill do it ; when lie " wills" or " intends" a thing , or "is obliged" to do it , or is actually about it , we may conclude that the act itself will probably follow . Accordingly , in thoso languages which , do not possess a future , some one of tliese preliminary conditions ia asserted by means of a vorb , which ultimately strips oil"its own special sense , ia converted into an auxiliary , and becomes as it were a mere sign of time . Aa Mr . Francis Newman says , " ¦ It is historically cleax that the words ' will , ' ' shall , ' 'have , ' 'let , ' ' going , ' ' may , ' pass into auxiliaries by tho process of losing or modi f ying apart of their signification , generally so as to become less emphatic . "
Thus it is that words signifying choice or volition are applied indifferently to agents , things , or events ; and , as the reader will have seen , one of the great sources of difficulty in the use of " shall" and " will" is the fact that these two verbs have not entirely got rid of their own special meaning . They are sometimes employed as more auxiliaries , whilst at other times their original sense thrusts itself forward , and must be considered in their application . Occasionally it is difficult to determine whether they are simple auxiliaries or not ; nor can this ambiguity aurpriae us when wo reflect that the reason why th « y pass into auxiliaries at all ia because their awn . special meaning fits them for such service . Sir Edmund Head has made this difficulty the text of a very ingenious and interestmg philological essay , which , although the preface speaks modestly of its research , exhibits very extensive reading ; and a singular felicity of interpretation . Grammarians of all nations will be interested ; and Scotchmen , Irishmen , and Americans may perhaps learn the secret of their national inaccuracy in the use of these two important little words .
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THE GUNPOWDER PLOT . A Narrntivc of the Gunpowder Plot . By David Jardino , Esq . . Murray . Many years ago Mr . Jardine contributed to a popular scries a narrative of the Gunpowxler Plot , with a report of the trials that ensued . Some persona objected to the form , others to the substance of his work , for which little
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¦ JA . CTA&Y 1-7 , 1857 . ] TEE LEADER . 1 67
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 17, 1857, page 67, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2176/page/19/
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