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honesty while he commits every dirty trick lecorded in the Newgate Calendar—so far as it is safe . Tories by birth axe not to be hated , Tories from subserviency are . The institutions of the country make the first , he has no choice , unless he be a man of-extraordinary talent and character . A high-bom Whig who has not courage or talent to be Radical or Tory is hateful . " iHe -would educate Ms daughters , he said , up to a certain point , and then , if they pleased , they might become " as blue as burning brandy . " O'Connell , as he called the Duke of Wellington " a stunted corporal , " and Lord Hardinge " a one-armed miscreant , " had no respect for Napiers , and therefore called Sir Charles a ridiculous blockhead . To which Sir Charles retorted : —
" You , Sir . O'ConneU , call me ' a ridiculous blockhead , and accuse me of heaping * filthy vituperation' on you . Possibly a blockhead I may be ; and as I am forced by . conviction to go along with you on the subject of a . poor-law for Ireland , I confess alarm , inowingthe danger which attends a blockhead when he travels with a consummate Jknave : but as to vituperation , I have not used it , nor would it be wise to "do so against so . perfect a master of the art . I once asked a dirty fellow , black as a "cTiimney-sweep , if a coal-pit could be descended -without soiling my clothes ? ' Lord bless you , I goes down ten times a day and never minds my clothes , ' was his answer . ' ¦ Do . you , Mr . O'Connell , make the application I " ' In , various ways , Napier was an author . He / writes , in 1839 : — 11 Count Alfred de'Yigny wrote a took to prove that soldiers were helots : Colburn coffered me money to-edit a translation , with preface and notes . " And , in the same letter : —
• "Colburn 'has . any . romance , Harold , but I-can't get an answer from him ! Davenport , who is a good fellow , is managing for me with Colbarn , who wants me to edit the life of the Duke , but I refused . I saw a letter from Alaric Watts , which says , that to his knowledge the Duke ' s despatches don't sell , and he is out of pocket a thousand pounds : ttois is curious . " In the Greek islands he knew Lord Byron , and gossiped about him in ' laia' letters : — " Lord- Byron tells me he has touched up the Duke of Wellington In Don Juaii : he means to write one hundred and fifty cantos , and he gets two thousand pounds a canto ! Good trade , a poet ' s !"
Again : — "( Lord , Byron is still here , a very good fellow , very pleasant , always laughing and joking . Ah American gave a very good account of him . in the newspapers , but said his head was too large in proportion , -which is not true . He dined with me the day beferethe paper arrived , and four or five of us tried to put on his hat , but none could : he had the smallest head , of all , and one of the smallest I ever saw . He is very compassionate , and kind to every one in distress . " In 1 S 39 , when Napier was in his fifty-seventh , year , he was appointed to the command of the . Northern districts . The Chartist agitation was rising to its climax . Sir Charles was sent for by the ministers : — " Saw Lord John , a mild person In manner ; Pcor man , he is in affliction which makes it hard to judge , but he seems unaffected and thoughtful . He spoke with good sense , and without violence against the Chartists , which pleased me . "
The Whigs are charged as the authors of the troubles in the north . Sir Charles sympathized strenuously with the agitators , but was resolved to make use of his military power , if compelled , with rapidity and decision . Moreover , he hated the demagogues , who turned these evil days to the interest of sordid passions . All this part of the narrative is deeply interesting ; it is the light that was wanted for the history of that memorable year of hope , of error , of disappointment . It is necessary , however , to check the statements of this energetic and almost wild historian , who calculated so fiercely the effect , upon an undisciplined niass , of his rockets , with their 4 wriggling tails of fire , " but who yet assented to tlie popular claims : — " The people should have universal suffi ^ age—it is their right . The hallot-At is their . security and their will , and therefore their right also ; and the new poor law should be reformed . " '
-Everywhere , lie records , if fighting seemed necessary , the civilians clamoured for slaughter ; the soldiers hung back , " averse to fire on unarmed people . " It is easy to fancy the highly-fed civilians calling out for a fusillade to protect life and property . The following is an entry dated Manchester , March . 2 nd , 1889 : — " The streets of this town are horrible . The poor starving people go about by twenties and forties , begging , but without the least insolence ; and yet some rich villains , and sotne foolish women , choose to say they try to extort charity . It is a lie , an infernal life , neither more nor less ;—nothing can exceed the good bohaviour of these poor people , except it be their cruel sufferings . " Even more characteristic is this : — " Chartism cannot be Btopped , God forbid that it should : what we want is to stop the lotting loose a . largo body of armed cut-throats upon the public . "
It would , have been a strange incident had the Chartists of the NTorth discovered , in 1839 , that the general in command of the " Government bloodhounds ' was writing , " Chartism cannot be stopped : God forbid that it should . " We might linger long over this uncommon book , but we have said enough to indicate the quality of its contents . The biographer writes often in bad tosto , and sometimes at random ; but the biography itself , interspersed with passages of private correspondence , is one that . must excite universal attention .
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we may describe as an Emersonian essay on " Infanti Perduti" u ""* happy unhappy children of genius uniformly misjudged and maltreat * 1 I ? the world . There is a touch of Charles Lamb ' s humour mhWino- ™; 7 i T J ? following : — ° ° Wlth the These and similar considerations point tow ards the conclusion tha t men f appear in the world in order painfully to give their lives for the world ' s « r , gen l and that it is very difficult to distinguish between the misfortune which fs gaU sary wasteland * that which is necessary to their highest effort . This concl l ' - Une ° es " no charm of novelty about it , for it is as old as human thought , and even ' ' express it in their own rude , frank way . Foe , the distinguished Buddhist wh aVage 3 Kala on the Indus , gave his body to preserve a famishing tiger , only acted " * doctrine that men of genius must give themselves to preserve the perisluW TSpirit . When the Arab merchant , Shayk Mohammed of Tunis , went amo l ~ Foiians of Central Africa , these intelligent clouded-black critics , observing his S • reddish-brown complexion , and considering the subject in the light of such morT . ! physical truth as abounds amongst them , came to the conclusion that he was n ! ripe man ; that he had been born into the world before his time ; that men so b a are good to eat—and that their Sultan had sent this one to be devoured A ° rude way tliat was , but at least tinaffectcd , of stating the doctrine ; and I mu ' stsav ' th ^
in all the lately published philosophical treatises , I have found no ' such proof of ne trating genius as is afforded by the above judgment , which proves , moreover if th " work of a poet be to speak what other , men do , that these negroes were poets as w 11 as philosophers . But in order to see the profundity of the remark , we must remember that the phrase " made to be eaten" can be very variousl y translated . With th majority-of the Forians eating meant eating—slicing , broiling , masticating- but one man among them seems to have had more enlarged views , for he proposed that thev should wound the Arab in order to see- how long it might take to empty his veins He apprehended that an unripe man was sent by the Sultan in order that the ripe men might make food of him , not for their stomachs only , but also for their soulsthat instruction , as - well as pleasure , might lawfully be got out of men born into the world before their time . In this way the Forian doctrine may be made to suit aereat number of forin the t humatribethe born
cases , , grea n , man before mV time is devoured in very various ways . In rude states of society they eat him literally and with relish , but as men advance , they get a distaste for this article of diet , and ' take their gratification oat of him in other ways . Lx less rude states they sacrifice him to their gods , believing- that though they themselves cannot , these will relish the delicate unripe morsel . In still more advanced states they sacrifice him , not to the Powers of Nature , but to the Moral Power . Tlxey regard him as impious . They immolatehim for the benefit of morality—pounding him in mortars , giving him hemlock to drink , sawing him asunder , crucifying him , burning him , throwing him to wild beasts-r-thus obtaining , besides the satisfaction of the moral principle , spectacles of great interest and greatly gratifying to certain human sensibilities . Civilization teaches the introduction of the more cruel element of mercy ; the most interesting of all sights being to see the man " die of himself . "
In his eloquent protest against a misjudging world ' s treatment of genius , Mr . " Wilson overlooks one important fact , namely , that the world only neglects genius because it misjudges it , because it cannot recognize the genius .- Let the . -world-once believe that a man of genius is living , and how blind is its worship ! Whether the genius be in its manifestations intelligible or unintelligible , - whether-it he Goethe or Kant , Dickens or Carlyle , thereis no lack of willing adox-ation . Mr . Wilson enters a warm protest against the judgment usually passed on Edgar Poe , whom he admits to have been a madman , adding with great cogency : —
Mr . Willis tells us that that mother-in-law loved him to the last , covered his failings , got his stories sold , wept and pleaded for him . All which means , let us consider , that she who gave him her daughter and had most reason to complain of all liis failiugs ; who tended him in sickness , knowing any transient shades of anger , who "was often beside him when reason had fled , imagination was degraded , from his white lips all the evil that was in him foamed forth , and in his delirium he tittered wild words to the hideous throng of wild shapes winch , were passing across liis brain , — that she could not be alienated from him , but still loved him , with that womanly love before which man's harsher judgment must be mute , as before the iniinite pity to which even the best must look for pardon , —loved him so , that hers was the only hand " to wash his scarred face , " hers the only voice to bid him . " rest in peace , the noblest of his race . " , Mr . James Sime has a valuable paper on tlie " Progress of Britain in the Mechanical Arts , " full of interesting details ; we can only find space for the following sketch of the history of railways : —
EDINBURGH ESSATS . Ed \ nb > nr <) WEs » ayx . By'Membcnrs of the University . 1856 . Adam and Charles Bluck . -. The success of the Oxford ami Cambridge Essays has suggested the present publication , vraichwill probably meet with equal encouragement . It opens ™ tZ T Plato > H Professor Black ; but us we dissent from the nSlf « f T ° * P re 38 ea > both U 1 its . general estimate and the particular arguments and as to express our dissent would lead us into a long article , ToZISnn f ^ r iY > tlOn f " ^ EnghshLifo in the Drama / ' by Mr John- Skolton , a picturesque Lit of historical dissertation which every ono will read with interest and profit . Dr . Gairdnor examines « Homoeopathy " iaa sear-ching yot temperate article ; and Mr . Ajidwnr Wilson gives us what
Liverpool supplies the country to tlio east and north with the productions of other lands , and also exports the woollens of Leeds , and the cottons of Blanch ester . Easy communication between these towns was , therefore , of the utmost importance to the manufacturing interests of the nation . Canals were thought of ; but the science of the day waa frightened at the difficulties to be encountered in their construction , and declared the thing-impossible . Valleys had to be crossed ; mountains to be levelled or bored ; and rivers spanned . How was it possible to carry a river across a river , through ii mountain , or i ' rom side to side of a deep valley ? The fcut Jias been accomplished ; tho difliculties that lay in the way have been overcome , ami we arc now unable to estimate their greatness . Brimlley undertook the work . He was laughed at as a fool , written down as a man of no education , and charged with squandering his employer'a money on impossible projects ; Init ho persevered . He had faith in bis own abilities , and could inspire others with confidence . Sometime elapsed ; and thia self-taught genius from being the laughing-stock had become the idol of England ; his cuttings , bridges , tunnellings , and contrivances were tho wonder of newspapers , and tho common tulle of family circles . In fifty years canals had done their utmost checked
as a means of inland carriage , and tho industry of tho nation was again ! imports could not be conveyed to tlie interior , nor exports forwarded to tho coast to meet tho demands of consumers . Manufacturing firms in Manchester hixl t ° tnkc their turn in getting goods from Liverpool ; and not unfrcquently tho comp laint was heard that cotton was conveyed across the Atlantic in less time than between these towns . Travelling was unavoidably alow ; accidents or frost rendered tho transport of goods at times impossible ; and factories were put on half work , because tHc <_ -iinuJ .-i could not furnish tho necessary supplied of cotton . Tram roads , as the railways were then called , seoinod to offer a remedy . They wore extensively used in the mining districts , where cast iron rails had taken tho place of the " oaken frame , " about IVOU ; and locomotives had been invented in 1784 by Murdoch , tho ingenious assistant and afterwards tho partner of lJoulton and Watt , So useful had theso railroads been found tliut tho proposal to levy n tax on iron in 1 H 0 O was opposed , bee wise it vi'ouM increase tho oxponso of conutrucung them about 700 / . a mile . At iirst they huiUicen laid down for uhort distances only ; but , in courao of time , tho propriotor . s of iui " considerably removed i ' rom rivers were emboldened to increase their longth to seven , ton , and even twenty miles , by tho fucilitioa they offered for tho conveyance of coals
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 14, 1857, page 162, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2180/page/18/
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