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Thestate has now to grapple " with pauperism . This -mil necessitate some strange measures . The communal lands for the new villages , that serfemancipation will render needfuV will have to be cut out of the estates of the former proprietors . " The noble is thus asked not only to resign his serfs , but to parcel out his landed property among them ; and the serfs have not only to buy their liberty , but to make provision for their future maintenance . " At the same time , -whenever the Russian state shall relinquish the mediaeval theory , that a peasant must belong to some ^ one , or to some society , under penalty of being sent to
Siberia , emigration from the communes will take place freely , and labour will be established on the basis of voluntary service . The drama has still a political significance in Russia . Only lately a Russian comedy , entitled " There are some Good People in the World , " -withdrawn from the stagd , because of the excitement caused by its tinsparing attacks on official corruption . But , notwithstanding , it sold freely , and tlie sale is enormous . We are not surprised . to ' hear that the theatre is a much more important institution in Russia than in England . Poetry , too , is prevalent . Kreloff , the Moore of Russia , is a
literary potentiality . His fables attack priestcraf t and official peculation . They depend much on their style for their success . Puschkin is a poet of a higher mark . —he is the Ariosto and Byron of his country and age . His " Eugene Oniag in , " indeed , is an imitationt ) f " Don Juan . " He had ^ turn an imitator himself in Lerrnontoff , ah inferior minstrel , but a better novelist . " The Herb of Our Own Times" has much originality . Boulgarine is likewise a novelist of merit . Qogol , also , Eas written a story which lias had great success . But the literature of the North in general is a i-eflexioh of that of the West . . _
Panslayism was lately a Eiu-opean danger , and it las reappeared in the Slavonic provinces of Austria . " During the present year a conspiracy with this objects has been discovered at 3 Lemberg , ; 2 n Gallicia , and the government has thought it necessary to suppress one of the chief Slavonic papers in Hungary . The slaves naturally feel that liberty and freedom of thought have a better chance at present from the Russian than from the Austrian Emperor ; and the fellow-feeling of race has full play . Should Russia and France ever join together in a European war against Austria , all these causes would assume a terrible importance . "
The one want of Russia at present is a want of Imaginative originality . Her soldiers were never kindled by the watchwords of honour and chivalry , sior her priests by dreams of spiritual freedom . Russia , thrown exclusively upon Greece and Palestine , has borrowed from the former the worthless subtleties of its theology , and from the latter its literal and dogmatic intolerance . Neither the republic of Plato , nor the grand Hebrew comtnon ' wealth which Calvin tried to realise in Geneva , have ever passed across the vision of the orthodox church . In all this our learned traveller sees the
special weakness of Russia . On the other hand , the dependence of Russia on the West , in respect to her internal progress , will be beneficial . She will , more than any other power , need to bo intersected by railways , and brought into rappdrt with " tlio great forges and arsenals of thought . " On the whole , there is reason to hope . The civilisation of Russia , though , in fact , peculiar to itself ; has more analogies with that of England than with cither Continental or Asiatic institutions . -Our rapid analysis of this volume , imperfect as it necessarily is , must yet " prove thnt it is eminently ¦ worth perusal and attention ,
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THE WANDERER . The Wanderer . By Owen Meredith , Chapman and Hall , This volume , by tine author of " Clytemnestro , " presents the spirit of poetry under unusually ¦ worldly aspects . In a series of lyrios nnd ballads we are treated wijbh a succession of moral and mental experiences on the part of a gentleman of fashion and fortune , who is enabled to travel oxtonsivol y , and who hei * e , under' tho date of the places ha has viBitod , confesses to the public his frailties and his follies , his sensuous tendencies , and his phvtoiuo agitations , in vox-Bos that are often exceedingly elegant , and sometimes very musical . Sueh is the eharaoter of tho Wanderer- —such his ourse of action—such the moral of his story . But
the character is , we are informed , an histrionic assumpt ion , and Owen Meredith but a literary part / wlnch is played in the lyrical in preference to the draniatic form . In such an assumption , and in the adoption of suchaforin , the author has probably shown much judgment . We recognise the Wanderer , therefore , as a more modern Childe ^ Harold , to . whom the gifts of fortune haye proved stimulants to certain experiences * and curious changes of the moral and sentimental states of the mind , the expression of which we find in this volume of songs , and ballads , and didactic rhapsodies . That in effecting the development of the different emotions and their conditions , Owen Meredith has shown poetic genius of the highest promise , the following poem will evidence . It is called " Indian Love-Song . " ¦ ¦ ¦ r . My body sleeps ; my heart awakes j My lips to breathe thy name are moved In slumber ' s ear : then slumber breaks , And I am drawn to thee , beloved . Thou drawest me , thou drawest nie , Thro' sleep , thro' night . I hear the rills , And hear the leopard in the bills , And down the dark I feel to thee . . " ' . ' ' ¦ ¦ ' , -II .. ¦ ¦ The vineyards and the villages "Were silent in the vales , the rocks , I followed past the myrrhy trees , And by the footsteps of the flocks . Wild -honey , dropt fromstone tostone , "Where bees have been , my path suggests . The winds are in the eagles ' nests . The moon is hid . I walk alone . . ' ; ' ¦ ¦ ; III ; . ' , ¦ Thou drawest me , thou drawest me , Across the glimmering wildernesses , And drawest me , my love , to thee , With dove ' s eyes hidden in thy tresses . The world is many : my love is one . I find no likeness for my love . The cinnamons grow in the grove ¦ : ¦¦' The Golden Tree grows all alone . ¦ ' -: ¦ ¦ ¦ .. ' iv , ' ¦ " ¦ : ¦ '¦¦ ' ¦ ¦ 0 who hath seen her wondrous hair ? Or seen my dove ' s eyes in the woods ? Or found her voice upon the air ? ' * Her steps along , the solitudes ? . Or where is beauty like to hers ? She draweth me , she draweth me . I sought her by the incense tree , And in the aloes , and in the firs . v . ' " . ' Where art thou , O my heart ' s delight , With dove ' s eyes hidden in thy locks ? My hair is wet with dews of night . My feet are torn upon the rocks . The cedarn scents , the spices , fail About me . Strange and stranger seems The path . There comes a sound of streams Above the darkness on the vale . VI . No trees drop gums ; but poison flowers From rifts and clefts all round me fall . The perfumes of thy midnight bowers , The fragrance of thy chambers , all Is drawing me , is drawing me . ¦ Thy baths prepare ; anoint thine hair : Open the window , : meet me there : 1 come to thee , to thee , to thee 1 VII . Thy lattices are dark , my own . Thy doors are still . My love , look out . Arise , my dove with tender tone . Thy camphor-clusters all about Are whitening . I ) awn breaks silently , Arid all my spirit with the dawn Expands ; and , slowly , slowly drawn , Thro' mist and darkness , moves towards thco . The Coleridgean delicacy of touch and tone in the above stanzas will be immediately recognised . The melody is very fine , and tho diction throughout natural ana expressive . There are some extraordinary lyrics in a mystical vein , which indicate powors in Owen Mcrodith to achieve success in subjects of the highest worth . Wo present the reader with a few stanzas from one of these serious effusions . Behold this half-tamed universe of things ! That cannot break , nor wholly bear , its chain . Its heart by fits grows wild : It leaps , it springs ; Then the chain galls , and kennels it again , If man wore formed with all his faculties For sorrow , < l should sorrow for him loss . Considering a life so brief , tho stress Of its short passion I might well dospiso . But all man ' s faculties are for delight j But all man ' s life Js compassed with what sooms Framed for enjoyment s but from all that sight And sonso reveal a magic murmur streams
Into man ' s heart , winch says , or seems to say , " Be happy 1 " • . and the heart of man replies , 'Leave happiness to brutes : I would be wise : Give me , not peace , but seience , glory , art . " - The spirit of . "that wide and leafless wind , That wanders o ' er the uncompanioned sea , Searching for what it never seems to find , Stirred in my hair , and moved my heart in met , To follow it , far over land and main : And everywhere over this earth's scarred face ? The footsteps of a god I seemed to trace ; But everywhere steps of a god in pain . That is a grand image . Such evidences of genial power , and purpose , make us strongly wish that , in his next venture ^ Owen Meredith will determine to look at the world front another point of view , and , diving into his heart , produce for its benefits those profound truths which a life of fashion and enjoyment Las a tendency to conceal from their possessor . As we slowly close his volume , this hope strengthens within us .
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ADAM BEDE . Adam Bede . By George Eliot . 3 vols . Edinburgh : Blaekwood and Sons , The mere reader of fashionable novels will not very much like this work ; and the admirer of the " fast" school of literature will think it " slow ;" but the reader—and his ' . name is " Legion "who can appreciate quiet humour , real wit , pregnant wisdom , and natural character , from a pen of no common order , will read this work once through with thorough relish ,: and again with increased ' admiration and respect for the talent of the writer . Air . Eliot has laid the scene of Ids
novel in one of the northern rural districts of England . We fancy we could almost point out the very locality , and so , doubtless ,-will his intelligent readers . Mi * . Eliot must have thoroughly studied the habits , inner life , and racy provincialisms of the district to have been enabled to draw such a masterly picture of rustic life , and to throw so much , thorough originality into his style and matter . We think it would be difficult to parallel ,. certainly to surpass , the character of Farmer Poyser ' s wife : her sayings and doings are treasures of rustic wit and world-knowledge .
Alone , it would serve to make the reputation of the work . The novel has not a weak point about it , nor a commonplace character . Although there is nothing extravagant , spasmodic , or of transcendental sublimity to take prisoner the judgment of the reader , yet -we can promise him a fine , treat'if the novel is read with that appreciation it undoubtedly deserves . We could quote from nearly every chapter ; but we prefer sending the reader at once to the novel , rather than to spo il his relish by a detail of either plot or characters . We think we may predict for this novel a high place in the standard literature of the country .
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Blight ; or the Novel Hater . By Rose Foot , author of " There is Crood in Everything . " 3 vols , J . F . Hope . We might as well attempt to unloose the Gordion knot as try to unravel the tangled web of this three volume story , or rather congeries of stories . There is incident enough , character enough , and cleverness enough , to furnish materials for half-a-dozen modem romances ; and yet it is impossible to feel otherwise than amazed and annoyed at the obvious blemishes that meet us in almost every chapter . If this were a first production we might be inclined to wield tho critical rod forlbearingly ; but the lady-author has taken care to toll us she has already made her bow to the public , at . tho samo time giving us
pearanco , into what has proved to her a critical liornet ' , s nest , Every now and again tho fair wmoi : lots her story stand still to scold at tho critics . Evidently a raw has boon established by iho John JJitUj which oven tho saponaceous vulnerary of tho Cntio failed completely to heal , Wo fear our own criticism will not bo deemed oxaetly anodyne in character . With ovory word of praise we niust , in all honesty , couple ono of dispraise . With ineidonts true to nature are linked incidents wild and improbauio j
with characters in harmony with tho oxpor onco or every-day life , and sketched with feeling am 1 >( JW 0 '» are associated other oharnetors only found in inoao railway . and olectrio-tuLegraph days , unions stooic " stage" villains , and only claimed as tho logHiniato " properties" of manufacturers of East-end melodrama ' s . With good and sonsiblo writing thereto connected such a nmsB of ineomprohonsiblo myeti Iciitioii , that it isdlfflgult to boliovo both could bo tho pvoluctions of the same mind . We have alroauy « u < i
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270 THE XjeAfiE ^ [ Ho . 466 ^ February 26 , 185 9
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 26, 1859, page 270, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2283/page/14/
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