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tineati insists that henceforth they shall have both . Her aim is to utilise the experience of the late war . She would establish responsibility , and link jt with . the system , so that the blarne thrown on it should include individuals , and bring the culprits to account . / .- "' ' ¦ , The diagrams with -winch the work is illustrated show the causes of mortality that operated on pur armies in the East , and the amount of it in the hospitals and elsewhere . But what are such illustrations to the graphic one contained in the followino- fine description ? It relates to the question of food : —
" We might call a . sickly Child ' a sickly plant , ' do our best to nourish it ; but we did hot regard a thronged city , or an army , as a forest of trees , whose vigour depends on tlieir nutrition . I have seen in Kentucky woods , where for miles there was scarcely a stunted plant , —the trees growing far enough apart , for a carriage to pass everywhere , —the soil light and dry , and producing fine turf instead of rank weeds , and the verdure of each season lying thick about the roots , so as to manure every tree abundantly and without-intermission ; so that the beeches and hollies spring to a height that we have no idea of in England , and nothing but our British oaks can compare with the Kentucky forest trees .
stability . I have also seen a forest in the Mississippi vallej ' , where the state of things was very different . Underwood and parasitical plants shrouded the whole space , so that the air was stagnant ; rank weeds impoverished the soil ; vermin pierced the bark , and corrupted the heart of many a tree : each one that fell left a slimy under its upturned root , and the poisonous water spread till it loosened the soil far and wide . Then , if a gale came from the east , after " frollieking the Kentucky giants , and doing them no haritT in the plaj-ful wrestle , it had all its own Way in the ill-fed arid ill-ventilated forest . Down went every outward tree at the first
stiff blow : and if tlie gale strengthened to a hurricane , the very heart of the forest Avas at its mercy . X have seen a wide gap through the very midst , where not a tree remained standing , but every one was snapped off at its weakest part . Thus was it with our force at the Crimea . Sapped by hardships , exhausted by want , infected with disease , when the epidemic came it laid everything low , felling thousands in theiT prime , and breaking them down at their weakest part ; ' Now we know how it happened , may we not say that it can never happen again ? We-have only to say that it never must happen again . " We leave this citation to make its due impression on the reader's mind . It will surely induce him to peruse the whole treatise .
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THE I j IFE OF JOHNSTJOGGAJ . L , A Suffolk Man-Narrated by Himself , ami Edited by the Author of JHaryaret Oatchpole . " Simpkin , Marshall , and Co It will be . sufficient for us to record the second and enlarged edition of this work . A man who has been " a gipsy , a soldier , a surgeon , a , fellowcommoner of Corpus Christi Colle ge , Cambridge and is now a clergyman—a curate of many years ' standing in the Church of England "—will be sure to find a wide circle of readers .
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SERIALS . Br-AGKwood ' s Ejdinibtjkgh Magazine , No . DXXIV — Political matter constitutes much of this number but it is of a thoroughly harmless character . For instance , we are told that by social freedom is meant " independence of the tyranny of clique , of which perhaps the strongest examples appear to befoundin America ; and Prance , though in comparison with England she may not be a free . country , has a perfect right to be . the champion of freedom as against Austria j bound hand and foot by her fatuous concordat with the See of Home . " Very well . " The Luck of Ladysmede " adds a fourth part ; and a paper on Lords Macaulay and Marlborough takes a fair estimate of the faults and merits of the historian . The number on the whole is solid , but heavv .
Fraser . —The number for this month opens with a defence of Sir John Coleridge from the charges of Mr . Buckle , made in the previous number , in relation to the trial , at Bodmin , of one Pooley , for blasphemy , written on . gates and styles . The subject is continued in the following paper on the essay concerning " Man and his Dwelling Place , " of which we ourselves gave a full . account sonie month or two since . The tale of " Sword and Gown " is continued , and also that of " Holmby House . " There is , also , a paper on Bacon ' s History of King Henry VII ., in which the" critic dwells on the remarkable
resemblance , between the mind of Bacon and that of Shakespeare . " Bacon ' s powers / ' he says , " in their diversity and in their strength , passed all ordinary human limits ; he was as much '' an actor as a thinker , and his mind was capable of the utmost variety of exertion . In this variety , in a flexibility that can follow the remote and ' winding passages of every theme ; in a deep penetrating insight into the dispositions of men ; in an exquisite sense of humour , and especially in a candid impartiality ( the result , probably , pf that flexible thought rather than of any effort at justice ) , he resembles Shakespeare ; while there is in his serious meditation a deep majestic pathos * such as is hardly to bo found in any other author . " The number is one of more than average excellence .
Titan . —The story of " Getting on" is continued from the 18 th to the 21 st chapter . The number opens with a fanciful paper on " An Unknown Land , " or , as it is interpreted , the land of exile . There are in it profound reflections on the devolution of 1848-9 , which in the writer ' s opinion destroyed the prestige of royalty , thoughitsecuredforthetime the absoluteness of despotism . Three sentences merit citation . " Freedom is of no particular country . Liberty has no nationality . Right is cosmopolitan . " " Who reads all the Novels ? " is the title of a clover paper on a subject of more . importance than it seems , lnc number is altogether one of considerable morit . most excellent
Art-Journal . — The present is a munber . Among the illustrations are hir C . h . Eastloko ' s " Sisters / ' and Michael Angolo s " Last Judgment ; " JBerghem ' s " Herdsman , " and several works of art in Rome , which really enrich the pages . The Exhibitions , also , furnish amplo reports . ENGWSW CYCLOPEDIA OF AlU'S AND bCIKNCKS . Conducted by Charles ^ Knight . —Part V ; contains some interesting articles on Beauty , Bayeux-i apestry , attd other topics comprehended undor tlio same initial . The alphabetical arrangement carries us down to th © term " Bombardier . " National Magazine . —Part XXXII . An admirable * collection of elegant essays and tales . Mr . Brough's " Miles Cassidy" becomes more and moro int . Arnfttfn . r- Thorn is also a l'OUOrt in full Ol lUr .
Horaud ' s Lecture " On Poetry and its Connexion wit " the Arts , " which will be read with great mtorost . « concludes with an extract from his poonii of !«« Pleasures of Genius , " published in the " Monthly of 1889 . Mr . Horaud would do good service It J o would suffer the whole of this excellent didactic to » o reprinted . The illustrations ave excellent . £ oni > Byron ' s 1 ' omtioal Works . — John Murray . jFartV , contains " Werner , " " The Hours of IOieness , " " Hints from Horaco , " « The Waltz , " &o . ljw engraving is Illustrative of Parislna ' s deatn , » y Westall .
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appear to sign the warrant of their own rum ; and from the moment in which a perfect statue appears in Florence , a perfect picture in "Venice , or a perfect fresco in Rome , from that hour forward probity , industry , and courage spem to be exiled from tlieir walls , and they perish in a sculpturesque paralysis or a many-coloured corruption . " Are these things related as cause and effect ? In the two nations above opposed we but see the effects upo n moral sentiment of art without nature , and of nature without art . Each suffers on account of its specific deficiency . Art , however , irrespective o f the interpretation of nature by it , is destructive of whatever is best and noblest in
Such , in the fewest words , is the spirit of Mr Ruskin , s new volume , which is embellished with two steel engravings , and other occasional illustra turns ; It is well calculated to encourage the humblest worker , and stimulate him to ° artistic effort .
humanity ; while nature , however , simply observed or imperfectly known , is , in the degree of the affection felt for it , protective and helpful to all that is noblest in humanity : Let art be also devoted to the record or ' the interpretation of nature , it likewise will be healthful and ennobling . Thus purified of the traditional and the conventional , art is no longer deteriorative , but will recover and impart vigour . These principles Mr . Ruskin has illustrated at great length . He is particularly hard on the architects who , without knowledge of other arts , protest against natural beauty , and endeavour to substitute mathematical proportions for the knowledge of life they do not possess , and the representation of life of-.. which . they are
incapable . . The history Of architecture proves , from its earliest dawn in Lombardy to its last catastrophe in France and England * that sculpture , founded on love of nature , was the talisman of its existence . " Gothic , " exclaims the lecturer , "is hot an art for knights and nobles ; it is an art for the people ; it is not an art for churches or sanctuaries .- ; it is an art for houses and homes ; it is not an art for England only , but ari art for the world ; above all , it is not an art of form or tradition only , but an -art of vital practice and perpetual renewal . And whosoever pleads for it as an ancient or a formal thing , and tries to teach it you as an ecclesiastical tradition or a geometrical science , knows nothing of its essence—less than nothing of its power . "
Here is the gist of Mr . Ruskin ' s new book . Of the two paths above described , this is the one he recommends . He speaks like Sir Oracle , and expects acquiescence . " Let no dog bark . " The moral character of the man has , however , something to do with his work . The perception of nature is never given but under certain moral conditions . He grants , therefore , to the student the choice between " two paths . " He may produce conventional ornament— " may approach the task as the Hindoo does , and as the Arab did , without nature at all—with the chance of approximating his disposition somewhat to that of the Hindyos
' J * II ^ I _ ' I 4 ^ H and Arabs ; or , as Sir Joshua Reynolds and Velasquez did , with , not the chance ^ but the certainty , of approximating his disposition according to the sincerity of his eSbrt—to the disposition of those great and good men . " The application of art to manufacture and decoration is the end and purpose of the volume . Decorative is distinguished from other art only by being fitted for a fixed place , and in that place related , either in subordination or in command , to the effect of other pieces of art . Then comes the fact of facts , that all the greatest art'is that which is so fitted and so related . There ib no existing
NATURE v . CONVENTION . — THE TWO PATHS ; being Lectures on Art , and its Application to Decoration and Manufacture , eUvered in 1858-9 , by John Ruskin , M . A . With two plates . —Sraith , Elder , and Co . The sculpture or painting of organic form is the vital law- on which all noble design depends . It lies , says Mr . Ruskin , at the root of all that he has ever tried to teach respecting architecture ox * any other art . But it is the one least attended to . In
consequence of the neglect of tins principle , so-called Gothic or Romanesque buildings are now , says our author , " rising every day around us ¦ which might be supposed by the public more or less to embody the principles of those styles , but Tyhich embody not one of them nor any shadow or" fragment of them , but merely serve to caricature the noble buildings of past ages , and to bring -their form into dishonour by leaving out ) their soul , " The deteriorative power of conventional art over nations forms the subject of Mr . Ruskin ' s ^ first lecture . The want of art-structures among the scenery of a country , as in Scotland , is a great drawback from the beauty of the landscape , In India , on the other hand , decorated works in all
materials capable of colour , whether marble or metal , are frequent ; and these materials are almost inimitable in their delicate application of divided hue and fine arrangement of fantastic line . The two races of the jungle and of the moor exhibit two separate national capacities , distinctly and accurately opposed . The Indian rejoices in 4 he art with which he is eminently and universally endowed ; the Highlander is careless and apparently Incapable of it . Similar are the differences in their moral character ; and the balance of these is in favour of Scotland . Moreover , the recox'ds of history prove that the nations which possessed a refined art wore always , subdued by those who possessed none . Singularly , too , " the period in "which any given people reached their highest power in art is precisely that in which they
highest art , says Mr . Ruskin ,. but the decorative , " The best sculpture yet produced has been the decoration of a . temple-front—the best painting the decoration of a room . Raphael ' s best doing is merely the wall-colouring of a suite of apartments in the Vatican , and his cartoons wore made for tapestries . Oorroggio ' s bestdoingis the decoration of two small church cupolas at JParma ; Michael Angelo ' s , of a coiling in the Pope ' s private chapel j Tintoret ' s , of a ceiling and side wall [ belonging to a charitable society at Venice ; while Titian am Veronese threw out their noblest thoughts , nob
even on the inside , but on the outside of the common brick and plaster walls of Venice . " Those be stirring facts for the doporator . May they inspire liim with a worthy ambition ! He must have genius—ho must have industry . Without work , genius is barren ; but without genius , sympathy , and imagination j work is of little worth . The decorative builder i& an author with special privileges . He has not " to plead for a hearing , or to fear oblivion . Do but puild large enough , and carve boldly enough , and all the world will hear you ; they cannot choose but look . "
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, 694 THE LEADER . _ Jj * gggA * v
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Leader (1850-1860), June 4, 1859, page 694, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2297/page/10/
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