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personal intrigues . I » ord Holland , at all events , went too far in his record of aspersions . But that , politically , Marie Antoinette was guilty of treason against the French people , when she hurried on the invading armies , whose leaders had threatened not to leave a stoae of Paris standing , there is no longer tie trace of a doubt . Mr . Croker's views on the subject belong altogether to a past age , and have "been set aside by documentary evidence so strongly corroborated as to be unimpeachable . * Whatever the amount of her moral innocence , the Queen , as a state character , was guilty of encouraging foreign armies to march upon the French capital , in order to override the existing laws . When the Essayist comes to describe the execution of Lotus XVI ., he fells into the old error concerning his imperturbable majesty , courage , and dignity , whereas it is now proved that he died struggling with his executioners , howling and shouting , and presenting a pitiable spectacle of abasement and fury . But what shall be said of the historical basis of Mr . Croker ' s sardonic invective , when we find him relating ajrain and again
**» false and ghastly anecdote that Mademoiselle de Sonxbreuil drank a cup of blood as the price of her lather ' s pardon ? Never w ^ as a popular story » ore thoroughly dissipated than this . It has been shown—and every tritnessof the scene has been cited—that the young girl , fainting upon the scaffold , was offered a cup of water by one of the attendants , and that a drop of Mood fell into it accidentally . For a critic , Mr .. Croker was liable ; to make singular mistakes . Indeed , the obliquity of his temper unfitted him for criticism . He ^ possessed more of the qualities of a judge . He might , indeed , Lave sat ¦ on the bench with some of the black-browed Terrors in horse-hair wigs , who shouted down all controversy , but he never wrote mildly , calmly , or persuasively f indeed , persuasioa was not his object . He was too * e « dy -with his club to depend on has tongue , and when he thought a book ^ WW . goittg tO' pieces on the wheel , he enjoyed the contemplation of his so much that he to
^ nctmi omitted notice the ambiguous glances of the jrablic . When we say this of John Wilson Croker , we do not deny his talents . Had he not been one-sided and malevolent , he might have been a << aritic . As it was , he should have been nothing-else than an antiquary . The only agreeable fragment in the volume of essays before us is an in--qairy intothe history of the guillotine . Of course , it is but a prelude to -aa incarnadined picture of the Revolution an Its earlier days , but that was to be expected , and had the writer confined himself to a denunciation -of butchery—incapable as he was of comprehending what the butchery implied—his sympathies might have been respected ; but be huddles together -a ; thousand men and represents them as bloody and diabolical dastards ; Jie would have -made , we fancy , a terrible Commissioner , had he been educated a Jacobin , and sentorders to some net * M . Guidon forbvis - de Justice His account of the guillotine , as we have said , is curious and very interesiahg ; . The popularnottoii—in this case discarded by Mr . Croker— -is to
the enect that the instrument vas invented by Dr . Gmilotiii . Now , Dr . Guillotin only suggested its use , though he afterwards claimed to have been its inventor ; M . Louis , secretary to the College Surgeons , presided over the construction of the first engine of the kind employed during the Revolution ; but the old Halifax gibbet was a decapitating apparatus upon the same principle ; and the Edinburgh Maiden was another—that maiden which the young Earl of Argyle said , in 1685 , was the sweetest &e ever kissed . Mr . Croker discovered several engravings indicating that the plan of executing criminals by means of a ponderous blade falling between grooves was ancient , and in no way originally due to the genius of Dr . Guillotin . The doctor ' s name , indeed , was attached to it through ¦ the agency of a burlesque ballad , and he seems to ^ have been proud of his ialse and accidental reputation . Mr . Croker ' s account of the guillotine would be read extensively if it were better known .
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RELIGION IN COMMON LIFE . JL Lcetfmwris Contribution to the Knovohdge and Practice of Heligion"in Common Life Being the Substance of a Course of Conversational Lessons , introductory to the Study of Moral Philosophy . By William Ellis . Smith , Elder , and Co . Oogub Mr , Ellis have compressed his lessons within a smaller compass , we should have praised his work as really useful and valuable . But can the ¦ author anticipate that the juvenile philosophers for whom , his instructive teaching is intended will wade through five hundred pages o ethics ? and if they will not , the results of Itis labours are injudiciously circumscribed . * Religion in Common Life' is not a sermon on religious conduct ; it is an explanation of the duties of life , or rather , the moral principles o elementary
wmam conduct , showing by what means the objects of living , comfort , and lunpiness are most reasonably attainable . It is an answer to many questions which ; frequently rise up in the mind of persons desirous to live virtuously ¦ and ^ religiously , and yet are perplexed what course to take . It is , in a word , 4 ha laArodwetioa to . the ' science of being and of doing good , ' By thus eaumeiating and enforcing the elementary doctrines of Political Economy , or , a » we ihould prefer to call it , of Industrial and Social Science , Mr . £ Uia has don * valuable service to the young . « Trust in Providence and keep your powtjtar dry ¦ ' should be his motto . , or more appropriately , ' Help jouroetves aad God will help you . ' The necessity of personal exertion , of ite indxutrioua habits the rules and
ming , of ac ^ uit-rag principles of judicious Action , ia me to think and do with discretion , is laid down strictly in the toewtise . No greater instance of the diseased morality in whieli some ¦ duldretfc arc : educated can be adduced than ttkat giv « n by Mr . Ellis . " I havn met with / children , " he say » j . " who ktnro told me , when asked how ¦ they boped ; to get their food ,- clothing ,, Aad shelter after they were . grown up * that they -would pray fb v them .-, " and we cannot iniugine a more &tai error thwa . tliia practical pvedesfeiaarian view of life being in-• ealoatyiiato febfr youthful mindy as it too frequently is , either intentionally or unintentionally , by imprudent and inconsiderate religious professors . * $ h * superiority of the civilized over tlia savage state is well i llustrated ^ The « ttwig «» V relates Mr . EUia to his juvanile readers , is all Btomneli . The « wiU « ed man is head and stomach . The cravings , the gratifications o "wWchi ttonstUuta tho happiness of the savage ^ are merely animal . The cravings , * ba gvafcification of which constitute the hoppinaas of the civilised
man , are animal also , and much besides . A lar ^ e narf of W ¦ „ .. « * " present enjoyment is to be satisfzed only b > ' prtyTdlnSSsaritv for ^ V ? for Me is an intellectual , moral , and relig&J bring ? * £ '" „ Sl ^ tu vf S and religious pities have acquired a very considerabk ^ mastty ov ^ his physical organization . Not only , then , is it clear to the impartial Ustandi that the civilized man enjoys a larger share of well-beingduHnJ ¦ tfe two months taken as a whole but that he actually does so ° du in " the S month , while he voluntarily restnets himself to V half : allowance of food The pains of hunger are compensated to him by pleasures altogether ^ nown to the savage—those of anticipation . In the course of ^ hese lectures Mr . Uhs attempts to show that an uninterrupted abundance of ' the necessaries and comforts of life arc attainable only by a certain line of conduct—that industry alone is not sufficient to procure abundance , but that there must be knowledge and skill as well as habits of economy He then explains the various ways in which men work for the purpose of supplying their wants , how a participation in wealth or the produce of
industry is needed by all , what are the means by which - those who possess no wealth prevail upon its possessors to grant them some of it , how the efforts of capitalists are directed to acquire as much profit as possible , and in what consist the relations between landlords and tenants . Money as a medium of exchange and measure of value , the ethics of buying and selling , the morals of credit , the duties of the well-disposed growing out of the iflconduct of others , the present state and prospects of society as respects the stock of wealth , the duties of capitalistSj and the duties of labourers , are subjects handled in an elementary form in the pages of the present volume ; whilst the whole is wound up by considering man as something more than an industrial machine , a mere human automaton .
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THE THREE CLERKS . The Three Clerks . A Novel . By Anthony Trollope , Author of ' BaTchester Towers . ' ( Bentley . )—Mr . Anthony Trollope has had three genuine successes as a novelist . The third , we think , is the most remarkable . In this new work the scene of action is-wider , the interest is more varied ^ the characters are drawn from more general classes . The three clerks , whose histories are narrated , belong to two government offices , and in a quiet family at Hampton Court they find their counterparts—three graceful girls , of whom one is proud in her passion , another capricious , another wild . Perhaps the differences of their natures are more strongly marked than Mr . Trollope intended . However , he now presents himself with a romance of modern love , and subtly and delicately has he developed it , but without hanging
before his groups a gauze of theatrical unreality , pallidly glimmering with moonshine . The spirit of the book is healthy , natural , vigorous . Mr . Trollope has studied the world , and without being wholly artist or philosopher , or poet , infuses philosophy iato his art and imagination into his philosophy , so as to render the novel what a novel should be . Neither TAe Warden nor Barcbesier Towers had prepared us for so much that is tragic and touching as we find in The ' Ihree Clet-Jcs ; contrasted with many variations o humour , satire , and social criticism . All the incidents belong to the present day ; the terrors are those of Mil bank , not of Otranto ; tlie agony of separation is that of a young wife whose husbaud is about to start for the Old Bailey in a cab , and surrender upon recognizances to take his trial
for a breach of trust . All this part of the novel is strangely true to life , and very much do > ve admire Mr . Trollope ' s treatment of these conspicuous aspects of our times . Without disclosing too much of the plot , w « j will add that the conclusion of the story is adroit and satisfactory , the ' everlasting fitness of things' being held in view , without the introduction of any repulsive catastrophe . Yet by many readers the principal charm of these volumes will be attributed to their rapid and sparkling flow of ironical portraiture—toned down , as the finest irony invariably is , by interludes of wise and wholesome seriousness . The Civil Service , we should say , will allow little rest to the circulating librarians until its clerks of all grades have glanced into the mirror set in a paper frame by Mr . Anthony Trollope . The Three Clerks is a novel of uncommon a « d peculiar merit .
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NOVELLETTES . The Exiles of Italy . By C . G . II ., Author of f The Curate of Lin wood . ( Edinburgh : Constable and Co . )—This tale , baaed on historical materials , has a political design ; it is intended to deepen the sympathies of England with the present sufierings of the Italian race , and the elaborate relation reaches its close among the orange-blossoms of last summer . " In all cases where circumstances permitted , the real names have been given of the personages introduced ; and ( with one single exception , the incident of Bassi in thel&obbers' Cave ) the account of their lives , actions , and sullcrings , and
of the deaths of those among them whose names have been added to the list of their country ' s martyrs , is simply true . '' We have traced curtain lines of biography through the volume and have found nothing to suggest that the writer has dealt extravagantly with those events which , in Italy , Lave made so many nuirtyrs and exiles ; aa . Italian spirit ' warms the style , it is true , bub it is otke attraction of the book that it offers a view of modern Italian life drawn by an Italian pencil . Tho more extensively the story is circulated tUe better will the public in England understand why the most beautiful countries of tho world ave the most unhappy , the most discontented , aad the least disposed to obey when wisdom whispers , " Peace , bo still !"
The Year Mine : a Tale of the Tyrol . By tho Author of ' Maty Powell . ' ( Arthur Hall and Co . )—The Year Nino is the ninth year of tho present ceatury . The story is that of Hofer , patriot of the Tyrol , shot by the Austrians at Mantua . The authoress writes with her usual care , producing a aeries of finished sketches of life , character , and manners among the mountains , and gathering around her central group an interest of the modern heroic kind . We mark no , literary progress in ' Mary Powell ; ' but it ia high praise to say that there ia no falling-oil ' from the original accuracy and vigour of her style , her faculty for descriptive narrative , or tho syrnpath y with human nature which has so often given her power over tho emotions of her readers .
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1218 THE 1 / EADEit . f ^ ini i ^^^ w m , . . .
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 19, 1857, page 1218, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2222/page/18/
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