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. . v* > ., ,. 4l .il^rilllirE.— ?VV^u-HlW*
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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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Chatjceb ' s favourite simile , " As fresh , as in the month of May , " does not apply to the Magazines this month . Their routine contributions in the departments of fiction and politics are not enlivened by any . literary papers of special interest . The Monthlies share with , the annuals in the general back K wardness of the se asdn , and show as yet scarcely any sign of spring . Probably the opening paper in Fraser entitled " A Threnode to the East Wind , " sup . plies the true explanation , Horace Walpous ' s mot about summer being strictly applicable to the earlier season this year . Spring has set in with
unusual severity , the east wind , which usually pays a flying- visit about this time , liaving come to town ap parently " for the season . " This , as the writer points out , is a natural explanation of the dire events that have happened during the last few weeks . Murders , for instance , have been friglitfully numerous , and lie traces tlie connexion between the increase of crime and the prevalence of the east wind . Being essentially a negative and destructive power , it delights to stir up the worst passions of our nature . We say advisedly "delights , " notwithstanding Mr . Ruskin ' s homily . against the pathetic fallacy , because there is a malign personality in this wind which attacks yoxi in the most direct and insulting ways , till in your exasperation you feel you must be revenged upon somebody . It thus naturally tends to foster envy , malice , and all uncharitableness , and to suppress everything noble , lovelv , and of good report .
How then can a contributor , whose better nature is chilled and withered by its blighting influence , be expected to write light , brilliant , and vivacious articles ? May will , in fact , soon be recognized as the most dreary month in the year—a truth winch the shrewd inhabitants of the North long ago discovered . Nobody ever thinks of being married in Scotland during the month of May . Fraser contains , besides this wail against the common enemy of the spring , a friendly criticism of Mr . Helps' tragedy Oulita the Serf , and a pleasant sportive paper entitled " The Unsocial Evil . " This evil is the characteristic coldness and reserve of Englishmen towards strangers , to correct which the writer proposes the establishment of a " Rational Introduction Office , " where the names of all wishing to extend their acquaintance should be registered , and after them the opinions of their friends . The following is an imaginary specimen of the results that would be thus obtained : —
" Hicks , Thomas , cadet of the Hickses of Hicks ' s Hall , junior partner in the fiim of Stiffe , Grumpy , and Hicks , Bankers . Unmarried . " Thus much Hicks himself was allowed to enter . Then come the remarks which appear under different headings , such , as " social qualities , " " tastes and habits , " &c . -Among these we perceive " City snob , " in an obviously military hand . " Not ' a . bad sort of fellow , though "with a flourish . "At any rate he don't give himself airs like some people "—evidently a cut at the writer of remark No . 1- * ' Oh , don ' t he though ; did you ever see him at an evening party ? " " Like him well enough , only he has not got an opinion of his own on any subject but banking . " " Why should he ? Steady , sensible young man , and minds his business . " Then follow miscellaneous remarks . " Taste ! none at all . "— " Don ' t know that . His rooms in Half-Moon-street show some . "—" Devilish good wine , at all events . "— " Used to -wear a Noah's-ark coat . "— " Admires Charles ICean . " — " Reads Fraser ' i Magazine regularly . "— " Smokes dreadfully " ( female band ) .
Now these , though probably nothing like so full as the particulars in most cases ¦ would be , are quite enough to give a general idea of Hicks . "Without committing myself by a declarationjiro or con , I may say he seems to me to bo a good-natured , easy-going young man , of fair average social properties , 3 iot remarkable for much brilliancy—for , mark , there is no testy observation about his being " a puppy , " - —with some affectations , but those of a harmless kind . He has a weakness for " good society , " and has already made some progress as a man of fashion ; witness the rooms in Mayfair and the Noah ' s-ark coat . As to his intellect , the admiration of Charles Kean looks ugly ; but then the regular perusal of Fraser is a healthy symptom , and encourages hope . And then , how suggestive is that pointed bit of -writing about smoking . How it whispers of certain attractions about the youthful financier , sufficient to inspire the fair sex with an interest in his well-being . In fact , from the data here before mo , by combining the little hints , the delicate miances of character to bo found in these concise criticisms , I might almost make Hicks the hero of a three-volume metaphysical novel , if under the influence of some aberration of mind I should contemplate producing such a work .
The last article of the series on " Food and Drink , " in this month ' s lilachxoood , has at tlie outset a curious discussion touching the virtues of horseflesh as an article of diet . The writer gives an outline of the experiments that have been recently made , and the statistics that have been collected , especially in Eran . cc , witli a iiQw to a practical solution of the question whctlier the horse—and if the horse , why not also the ass ?—be really good for human food . The conclusion arrived at is , that however repulsive to our ordinary notions on the subject , horseflesh is both agreeable and nutritious as an article of diet . Of the other articles in Jilachoood , the most interesting are a dialogue on . " Colleges and Celibacy , " and a paper entitled " Italy : of the Arts the Cradle and the Grave" In the former , after a good deal of pleasant gossip on things in general and college affairs in particular , the interlocutors conclude thai ; marriago is a bond on all men , hut especially on good Protestants , as a practical protest against the cardinal heresy of the 11 omish Church . The latter , on the arts in , Italy , contains a severe but sensible criticism of Mr . Hitskin's extra , vagant admiration of Uyzantinc art . The follow ing is a specimen : —
If tho reader doubt the justice of our censure , we would beseech him to turn to the third volume of Mr . lluakiu ' u Stones of Venice , wherein he will find a marvellous , though , as wo enn testify , a literally correct rendering of a Byznntinc olivo-treo aa ¦ wrouglit in mosaic , in a cupola of St . Mark . In worda it is difficult to designate such a work , , For ourselves , however , liad not Mr . Ituskin assured us , with hia usual
cm-Foundation it had none , or such only as was false and fancy-framed . In the end we admired in this great work just ttvo things—the illustrations and the eloquenceespecially the eloquence with which we shall play and sport in delight to the end of time , as children do with soap-suds , blowing them into bubbles and wondering at the rainbow colours taken from all that is lovely in earth and beauteous in heaven . But of all Mr . Ruskin ' s baseless eloquence , the rapture on " the olive-tree" is the most astounding . "We have again and again looked into the cupola of St . Mark , then at Mr . Ruskin ' s illustration , and then again have once more drunk in the eloquent wordsalways , however , ¦ with the same impression—that of magnificent absurdity . "With that literary chivalry which gives to Mr . Ruskin's warfare the spirit of
knightphasis , that the work possesses all the attributes of the olive , " knitted cordage of fibres , " with all the " powers and honour of the olive in its fruit , " we should assuredly have mistaken his careful diagram for some unknown product , lying somewhere between a kitchen-mop and a cow-cabl ) age . If the reader , however , require further confirmation of our strictures upon Byzantine art , he will find it in the inordinate praise which Mr . Ruskin lavishes upon this extraordinary work . At the cost of much labour and time , with the reward of mucli delight , and the" penalty of painful disappointment , we carefully Tead . in Venice Mr . Ruskin's three volumes , verifying or refuting his statements and opinions by an appeal * to the churches , palaces , and pictures themselves . As the closing result of our labours , we found the entire work the baseless fabric of a vision , gloving and intense with the ornate colouring of words , and beauteous with the filigree-woven tissue of poetic fancy . But the fairy structure , so beau . teous in the distance , vanished into thin air upon the near approach of scrutiny .
errantry , he challenges " the untravelled English reader to tell" him " what an olivetree is like . " He assures us that " at least one-third out of all the landscapes painted by English artists have been chosen from Italian scenery ; " that " sketches in Greece and in the Holy Land have become as common as sketches on Hampstead-heath ;" that " the olive-tree is one of the most characteristic and beautiful features of all southern scenery ; " and yet , that " the untravelled English reader' " has no more idea of an olive-tree than if olives grew in the fixed stars . " Then the reader's sympathies are appealed to : For Christ ' s sake , " "for the beloved Wisdom ' s sake , " "for the ashes of the Gethsemane agony , " the olive-tree ought not to have been so used . The reader thus highly wrought , and the writer exalted to frenzy-pitch , both at length collapse into the following conclusion : —
"I believe the reader will now see that in these mosaics , which the careless traveller is in the halit of passing by with contempt , there is a depth of feeling and of meaning greater than inmost of the best sketches from nature of jnodern times ; and without entering into any question whether these conventional representations are as good as , under the required limitations , it was possible to render them , they are , at all events , good enough completely to illustrate that mode of symbolical expression which appeals altogether to thought , and in no wise trusts to realization ; and little , as in the present state of our schools , such an assertion is likely to be believed , the fact is , that this kind of expression is the only one allowable in noble art . " "The untravelled English reader" who " has no more idea of an olive-tree than if it grew in the fixed stars , " will be saved from the trouble , and even from the desire
of travelling in search of this knowledge , by referring to the drawing which Mr . Rusldn has so considerately published as a test at once of his own superior insight and of the world ' s contrasted ignorance . Sad it is that the ignorant world should , for well-nigh eight hundred j-ears , have looked upon these olive-tree mosaics unconscious of their " depth of feeling and of meaning , " insensible to the symbolical expression which appeals altogether to thought" —an expression which assuredly ought not to have been overlooked , as -we are told emphatically in italics that it is " the only one allowable in noble art" Sad it may be in the opinion of Mr . Ruskin that " the untravelJed English reader" has been so long insensible to these inscrutable beauties ; but to out mind there is something far sadder still : that he should fall an unconscious victim to a shadowy eloquence , which he has no means of knowing to be just as worthless as ~ it is alluring .
The Dublin University jtfagaz ' uie must be cxccptcd from the general charge of dulness which -we have brought against the periodicals . It has a number of good articles , and is better than usual this month . Besides a most seasonable article on the government and general state of Trinity College , which we have dealt with elsewhere , it has a paper of considerable interest and research on Recent Historical Discoveries , " and another , marked by good sense and fine feeling , entitled " Parochialia / ' on the duties , position , and general influe nce of country clergymen . The English Woman ' s Journal proceeds on its way with intelligence and courage , the last number containing several good articles—amongst others , : i spirited defence of the position taken in the first number , that many new and especially mercantile employments , might be at once opened to women .
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No department of English literature has been studied more diligently by the Germans than that of the drama . The best account we possess of its lakir history , subsequent to the Hcstoration , is from the pen of Lkssino ; and a countryman of his , M . Boi > knstedt , has now in the press a minute ami elaborate history of the early prc-Shakspcarcan drama . The work is to ho in five volumes , the first of which , just published , is a remarkable illustration of the extent and profundity of German studies of English literature . It shows a mastery of the subject which very few Englishmen possess . The volume just issued is devoted to John Wkusteii , containing an account of the dramatist , a complete and admirable translation of the Duchess of Malji ^ with ample analyses and extracts from all his other plays . Such a work must prove interesting as "well us instructive to the English public .
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Most of our readers arc aware that a subscription has recently been opened in Paris for M . i > k Lamartine , whose affairs are in an embarrassed state . IM Edmond T-KXiKii bas just come to this country as an agent from the 1 ' rcncli committee who have the management of this subscription , for the purpose of extending this appeal for help to English literary men and the English public generally . While deeply regretting that a necessity for any such appeal should exist , we arc sure it will b « generally responded to in this country . Th « name of Lamartink is well known and justly honoured here , and ( ho . Eiitfl ^' reading public , -who have been so often delighted -with the eloquence of hin works , will not neglect the opportunity thus offered of showing their regard for the poet , orator , and . statesman , and their respectful sympathy with thcil brethren in literature on the other sido of the narrow sea .
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Critics are not thelegislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh JZe-tiexo . 1 ' ? -r ' .
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448 THE LEADER . ¦ [ No . 424 , Mat 8 , 1858 .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 8, 1858, page 448, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2241/page/16/
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