Current:

Leader (1850-1860), 11th September 1858, Edition 1 of 2, Page 939, Untitled Article

Page 939
Page 19
19 of 32

On this page

  • Departments (1)
    • r.yv $ •IT^rittttr^i '¦
  • Text (5)
  • Transcript

    • 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.

      Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

      Untitled Article

      ? - Critics are not tlic legislators , but the jnrt £ es and police of literattu-e . They flo not make laws—they . interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh lie view .

      Untitled Article

      EVERY MAN HIS OWN TRUMPETER . Every Man his own Trumpeter . By George W . Thornbury . 3 vols . Hurst and Blackett . Me . Tjiorxbury has chosen for illustration an interesting period of-French'history , and has availed himself of the . novelist ' s privilege of crowding together events which must have occurred , if occur they did , between 1 CSO and 1704 . The contests for ascendancy between Madame de Montespan and Madame dc Mainteuon , the Camisard rebellion , and the campaigns of Marshal de Catinat in Glanders and Savoy , are all laid under contribution for

      inciwas not long at peace , for D ' Argcnson , Minister of Police , and uncle to his old adversary Lazare , had an account to settle with him . A set was made upon hini at a masquerade . He challenged D'Argenson , who promised to send a friend in the morning . The visitor was at his bedside betimes—an exempt of the . police—who , instead of an answer to his challenge , brought a lettre de cachet . Mirabel soon found himself in the Bastille , as a tenant of the celebrated M . de Cinq Mars . Here again we have scenes parallel to others in . Alexandre Dumas ' s works . Our hero had not long left off his proper

      Bellerose , the Abba ' s sister . An interview between the lovers is interrupted by De Lazare , who announces to Aurora , within hearing of'De Mirabel , that her lover is doomed as a coward and a traitor , but that he alone has the . means of saving his . honour . A ray of light now gleams upon the downcast hero-With Bellerose ' s assistance he obtains an interview with Laroche in a Parisian den of thieves . They extract from him the whole detail of the plot in , which he has been an agent , and terrify the subordinate actors , who had all been their fellow guests in the Bastille , into compliance by threats of exposure . Lastly , after sundry attempts , De Lazare himself is brought to bay . He fisrhts

      and desperately -wounds De Mirabel , but as the latter staggers up to receive the coup de grace , the dens ex mackina intervenes in the shape of a thunderbolt . De Lazare is " launched into eternity , " the hero- tears the missing paper from his pocket , and at the hour and the minute of his appointment triumphantly lays his vindication before M . de Catinat . Pardoned and appointed Colonel of the Blue Musqueteers by the Grand Monarque in person , he loses no time in marrying Aurora . The bride is given away by his Majesty , and the curtain comes down on a family reunion at the old Chateau Trompette in Gascony .

      name , and become : " No . 2 of the Chapel , " when he found that Bellerose also had become a denizen of those hideous walls . They contrived to correspond , to soften a turnkey , Gaspard , and to scheme an escape . The vie prieee of the inmates of M . de Cinq Mars is depicted in several lively chapters . We are introduced to some of the more criminal of them at one of the Governor ' s dinner-parties , at which our Orestes and Pylades meet a knavish Dutchman , Laroche , alias Vandcnberg ; a false priest , Leroux , alias Gauffard , alias Sorel ; and an Italian charlatan . The latter , by arrangement , drugs the Governor

      and the rest of the company , while our friends escape in disguise . They seek sanctuary with the old Abbe , and pardon through Madame Montespan . In the first pursuit they succeed , but in the second they meet with difficulties . Fenelon . appears on the stage with the Jesuit Tellier , but the " spretae injuria formal'' hath driven the Montespan to champagne and delirium . With la vete-ve Scarron they have better luck . She and her historical familiar , Nanon , take their cause in hand ( so they did , by the way , for one of Maquct- ' s heroes ) against the villain courtier , obtaining their pardon from the royal lover-penitent at a Versailles fete , and somehow

      get a captain ' s commission for Mirabel in the Mousquetaircs . This corps was then serving under Catinat , in Savoy , and the Gascon , soon after joining , managed to distinguish himself , notwithstanding the undying and insidious hostility of his old foe , De Lazare , and a creature of his , Laroche ( late of the Bastille ) . For his gallantry he was appointed governor of St . Daniien , a town in the Cevennes , invested by the Camisards . The siege is described with all the technicality of Yauban and the Abbe D&dier ; and the characters of the erarrisou officers—the veteran

      major especially—are very neatly etched . The defenders , after frying their saddle-flaps in church lamp oil , capitulate , in compliance with an order ( forged by Lazare and Laroche ) received from tlieir colonel , Vimenil . On their way , they meet the dead body of that officer , whom another forged letter had brought into an ambuscade . The niischiet ' , however , done , and there was nothing for it but to seek Catinat , then at Paris , and explain . Here Mirabel finds his enemies hau preceded him . He is reported to have surrendered lis post disgracefully . He attends the Marshal's lovee ; and this gives Mr . Thornbury another opening . We havo a lively scene , a la Hogavth , of the great , man ' s antechamber , where the licro is doomed to

      kick his heels in ignominy . " He encountered , " says the author , " the poet , tlie architect , the painter , the actor , the projector , the patentee , the spy—cheerful as penniless men , not , afraid of thieves , too low to fall for , and satisfied with having or an hour or two smiled the same air as the great man , at having trod his marblo floor , warmed themselves at his lire , and , safe from bailiffs for half au hour ,, smelt at , his . dinner ; . those gay butterflies lived on flowers and in the sunny air of other men's property ; to-morrow they would bo there again , equally noisy , rapacious , cringing , and full of hope . " Ho at last gains an audience , and is taxod b y Catinat with cowardice . Oil'cring to produce in Ins vindication the ordor to surrender ho had

      received from his superior officer , he discovers to his dismay that the paper is blank . The forgory had boon written in chemical ink , and all trace of its characters had disappeared . Now , charged with trickery as well as cowardice , Mirabel is threatened with ilisohargo from the army unless within a ^ ve » lfr ^ ho ^ rodtiooHlro- ^ ri gimnWottor-ror " 0 altmel Vimonil . Ho quits tho soono whenco ho had hoped to boar a laurel ohaplct to Aurora , aud socks her prosonoo almost broken-hearted . Tho demon of slander has oven thcro been beforehand with him .

      Intrigues avo going on too , on tho one hand to oonsign Aurora to h nunnery , and on-tho othor to marry hor to Do La / arc , An . Italian doctor , ho of tho Bastillo , was quartered on tho family and draining tho poor Abba ' s purso , and the housohold was a prey to tho religious monomania of old Diana do

      dents and allusions , and the result is a very readable book . The author , it is evident , has impregnated his mind with the history and characteristics of the time . He has even , we venture to guess , dipped into its ' . military literature . His sketches of Parisian and guard-room life are . lively and telling . Although chequered here and there by very inappropriate Anglicisms , they are also rich iii nervous epigram evincing much power of thought and condensation .. There is an unlucky coincidence between a few passages in Mr . Thombury ' s novel and the 2 ' rois Mousqt ' . etaires of Dumas , which we must notice only to dismiss . The hero , for instance ,. is a young .

      Gascon , like M . . d'Ar-t agnan . ' Like him , he is despatched to seek his fortunes at the capital by an anxious parent . Like him , he has a quarrel and shows his Gascon blood at every stage on his route . Like him , he has the misfortune to make a bitler enemy of a creature of the Court , with whom he has his first duel , and who is his evil genius throughout his career ; and like him , he beonics a Royal Mousquetaire , and a trusted emissary of royalty . So far , though we cannot at the moment refer to the pages of Dumas , we are reminded of the adventures of that author ' s renolvned Gascon

      cadet . But let us do Mr . Thornbury the justice to say , here the resemblance ends . A volume of this work contains more original thought and more forcible expression than could be found in a library written by the three , or ( who knows ?) three dozen gentlemen who arc by some supposed to have laboured in the great French novel atelier , although it must be pronounced inferior to the produce of the latter in finish of texture .

      Girt with the ancestral sword , mounted on his father ' s charger " Saracen , " clad in an old silverlaced orange-velvet suit , young Caesar- de Mirabel was dismissed from his home with a bag of Ion is and a blessing at one hour ' s notice on his twentieth birthday . He was ordered to do battle with i he world , and to return with honour , or never . His Gascon blood boiled over on tho road . At the first

      aubergc , and at his uncle ' s house at Souehct-sur-M . ons , ho got into and out of scrapes , but soon found himself in Paris with a whole skin , a stock of native impudence and couingo , an honest , loving heart , ami a fast ally in his cousin Vicomte de Bolleroso . Introduced to Monsieur de Grillon , of the King ' s guard , ho was soon appointed ensign in that corps . Bcforo long he had occasion to ue of service to Louis XIV . in one of that monarch ' s

      intviguos . Ho received 1 he King ' s personal thanks , and of coursebrought about , , his cars a . hornet sanest of jtialous enemies . About this time , happening to pay his respects to anothor uncle , the Abbd de Bollerose , a wealthy old ecclesiastical Maecenas , ho fell , as tho necessities of novel-writing dcinandod , in loyo with somebody . The somebody was another cousin , Aurora do Bclloroso , of whom and of whoso charaotcr wo can learn little but that sho was pretty and fascinating as her name . Tho course of Mirabel ' s love was soon interrupted , for it was decided by his rivals of tho antechamber that the

      upstart must bo bled . " A quavrol was put upon him in the boudoir of »^ i £ ^™^ ¦ Lazaro . ' -TUie latter was worsted , but Do Mirobol did not pass unsoathod . Wounded severely , ho was tended by his cousin Bollovoso until oonvuloscont . Ho was not bug out of hot wator , for , as ono good turn deserves another , ho is sent for from his yot invalid couch to visit tfollorosc , a prisoner , and under sontcnoo of death . Ho did so just m timo to be prosont at that plover genius ' s oscane . For tins ho incurred tho penalties duo to broach of discipline , but was subsequently pardoned . Ho

      Untitled Article

      AMERICAN ABORIGINAL LANGUAGES . The . Literature of American Aboriginal Languages . By-Hermann E . Lude-wig . " With Additions and Corrections by Professor William W . Turner . Edited by Nicholas Trubner . Trubner and Co . A fly-title informs us that Mr . Trubner intends to furnish us with a Bibliotheca Glottica , and the opening line of Dr . Ludewig ' s preface : ' shadows forth its plan as being an enlargement of Vater's-Liaguarion tot his Orbis Index , as revised by Professor Julg in 1847 . Since that edition appeared the science _ of ethnology has made rapid strides , and the great importance of language as one of the most interesting links in the great chain of national affinities is admitted on all hands . Exotic languages are no longer looked upon as little more than matters of curiosity , and the reciprocity , existing between mart and the soil he lives upon and the language he speaks , has become a study of deep interest both , to the ethnological student and the philologist . Mr . Trubner , the publisher of Paternoster-row , is himself no mean linguist—not merely " a speaker

      of other tongues" but one who has investigated the sources of both spoken and written language as a favourite study and pursuit . Business carried him , to New York in 1 S 55 , audit was during his sojourn in that city that he became acquainted with Dr . Ludewig , well known to bibliographers on both sides of the Atlantic as the author of the Literature of American Local History , written in English ; of the Liore des A / ia , JSusai de Catalogue Manuel , iu French ; and the BibUothekonomie , in German . Besides these , he had been a constant contributor of articles on literary history to several German and American periodicals , for ' his affections seemed very fairly divided between the land of his birth and

      that of his adoption . Similarity of pursuits ( says the editor ) led to an intimacy with Dr . Ludcwig , during winch he mentioned that ho , like myself , had been making bibliographical memoranda for years of all books which serve to illustrate the history of spoken language . As a first section of a more extended work on the Literary History of Language generally ho had prepared a bibliographical memoir of tho remains of tho aboriginal languages of America . The manuscript had been deposited by him in the library of the Ethnological Society at New York , but at my request ho at once most kindly placed it at my disposal , stipulating only that it should be printed , in Europo undov my personal superintendence .

      Undor Mr . Triibncr ' s editorial care this posthumous work of Dr . Ludowig has been printod in the volume under notice , and forms the first portion of 209 pages , only 172 of which were printed off at tho time of tho author ' 8 death jii Deccinbci ^ 1 SSff . "By "tho assistance oflitbrary frioudFinuotli hemispheres the materials of Dr . Ludowig roocivod considerable additions , indood to such an extent as to form nearly ono half of tho whole , and tho second portion of the work , containing 4 , 7 pages , oonsists entirely of additions by tho editor mid . his friend . Professor William W . Turner , of Washington . In opening a flold hitherto almost untrodden the editor niny reasonably claim the reader ' s iiidulgeaco for such defoota as mnot over nttond a flnt attempt of tailor character . In « H such cases facts havo to bo brought

      R.Yv $ •It^Rittttr^I '¦

      fit tut art .

      Untitled Article

      No , 442 , September 11 , 1858 . ] THE L EAJD jB Vy . 939

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 11, 1858, page 939, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2259/page/19/