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. TKMPRHATS'CE, A^'P OT1IE1J NOVELS.* ho
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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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contrast as remarkable as could be conceived . Strange to say , he , too like the author on whose work he comments , was destined for the clerical profession , tut in connection with one of the dissenting communities . Luckily for literate typography , and the advancement of learning " , this design was not carried out . He , unlike Tooke found early his vocation . The undisturbed yet enthusiastic tenor ' of his life proved that . The well-known motto of the hand pourino- oil upon the flame , and the explanatory legend , "Alere lamniam , " were really verified . But as calm and unostentatious as the steady flow of the allegorical oil was the current of his successive labours ; nothing- more stirring occurring , to correspond to Tooke ' s excitements , thjm the collating of his proofs with Museum manuscripts , the founding or promoting learned societies or records of their doings ; or , at most , than the discharge of his duties as Common Councilman for Farringdon Without , the city ward in which his printing-office was situate .
This " new edition" contains less new matter than we expected , until we opened it . So early as 1829 Mr . Taylor published an edition of " Purley . " A second issue was called for m 1840 . A note to the preface of 1829 , here reprinted , informs us that there are given in this edition some addenda to the prefatory " additional notes" which Mr . Taylor prefixed when he first undertook the task of commentator . He was then possessed of Home Tooke ' s interleaved and glossed copy of his own work ; and from that manuscript he had printed-the author's new matter . That is designated here , as in the 1829 and IS 10 editions , by brackets . This is the-more desirable , as many of Tooke ' s supplementary notes were removed by some pages from the passages in his original text to which they appeared apposite—and they were associated , as explanatory context , to those passages of the text to which , in . Mr . Taylor ' s accurate but not infallible judgment , they seemed to refer . By this precaution
each reader is enabled to estimate the correctness or incorrectness of the editorial surmise which has given to each of the author ' s addenda its special place . We are left to infer , or at least assume , that the editorial addenda in this edition , ? . c , Mr . Taylor ' s new matter , occupy the same relation to his first annotations as the author ' s manuscript matter did to the original text of his work as published in his lifetime ; for it would seem that what appears here for the first time from Mir . Taylor ' s pen , is furnished posthumously , as in the author ' s case . It is to be regretted that the representative of Taylor , who had to sec the work . through-the ' press , jjns not taken the " same means to distinguish new from old editorial comment as Taylor took to discriminate new from oil auctorial text ; for we are entirel y , at-a loss to determine ,. -unless by tedious collation with the former editions , -how . much matter in this one has not before met the public eye . There cannot indeed be much new , for the " additional notes" of Mr . Tavlor in the aggregate . -only
the cheap literature mania so irretrievably as to induce it to a forgetfulness of its old distinction as the ' producer and promoter of sound and valuable literature . The slender amount of novelty in the work before us precludes our discharge of our usual office of detailed judgment arid criticism of its qualities . It is far too late in the day For that . The high place of " the Diversions of Purley " is now recognised , even by those who most dispute the justice of its general or detailed views . In not a few particulars its pages are now obsolete , contr overted , or overlapped by further research . But Tooke has himself been the efficient cause of his own obsoleteness- ; for to his opening up the ground , and enticing followers into the
fields apparently barren , but shown by him to be most fertile , are we most indeb ' ted for the amount and eagerness of philological research , of which he Q-ave to England at once the "New Organ" of method and the " New Atlantis" of promise . The -book can never die , even were it < o connc altogether to be an authority or n reliable guide . Its personal allusions , and digressions- into ground of direct , human interest , must nluins embalm it in English literature . When the uutlior tills his reader that ho was incarcerated in the King ' s Bench , "the miserable victim of two prepositions and n conjunction ! " si foreign interest is slied over hia inquiries that no mere lovo of grammar could inspire . Lord Brougham justly eays , "Nor did anv one ever take this work up and lay it down till
conio other avocation tore it from his hands . That fhis re-issuo of this unique work" may increase largely the ncqnnintnncc with it of the young nnd ingenuous among us is our hope . Tho experience of all " compel out to testify endorses the exclamation of Duiii Trench , in his excellent little hook en " The Study of Words , "— " What an epoch in many a student ' s intHlootunl lifo has been his first ncqiinintnneo with tho ' Diversions of PurleyV "
amount to a fifteenth part o ^ the total number of pages . Practically , therefore , we can regard this as . little if anything more than a re-issue of the edition of IS 10 . We can testify , as far as occasional and random search entitles us to vouch , that the ample citations are presented with an exactness and care that would have befitted the editor ' s own ' press . The equally reliable imprint of " Nichols , " indeed , prepared us for that discovery . We arc glad Jto ^ cii . tJiaiJUie ^ ld _ M ^^ iiCidiiMo liouse of Tegg is not bitten by
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are necessary as well for the health and vigour of the outward frame as the well-being of the inner life . Every man should become familiar with his conscience , and listen to its " still , small voice" as his only faithful guide and unerring monitor . Obstinately to repel this great moral power , and shut up all the avenues of our mental faculties against its purifying influence , thereby crushing it . into complete subjection to our mere carnal appetites , is to dash from our own lips the cup of life and happiness , and place in its stead a poisoned chalice . This we believe to be an universally acknowledged truth , and one to which we most heartily assent . But we do not see in what way such works as the one now under our inspection can benefit either the cause of religion or the great work of social reform . We have conscientiously read the contents of the whole volume , a task we are afraid that { e \ v readers will have moral courage sufficient to accomplish , withont being able to discover its possible utility in exercising a beneficial influence over the mind of the habitual drinker and confirmed wrong-doer , or even of preventing the
yet young and guileless-hearted from being led astray and precipitated into the depths of physical excess and moral abasement . In fact , such works as Seneca Smith's "After Many Days" rather retard than accelerate the cause which they so strenuously advocate . This is the immediate result of the merging of sound common sense and zealous argument and entreaty into the spirit of intolerance and fanaticism . The mind of the reader , on imbibing one of these farfetched stories , naturally sickens at the assumption of superiority and somewhat contracted circle of ideas therein presented . ' Moreover , there is in productions of this class an eternal repetition of the same wise saws , an incessant dunning into the brain of certain maxims and propositions , which jar upon the mental system in much the same manner as the continual knocking of a sledgehammer does upon the outward senses , and the reader soon wearies of a subject which has nothing to recommend it but its tediousness and tautology .-
"After Many Days" is by no means superior to the . general run Of temperance novels ; in some respects it may be even considered as inferior to many . The author possesses , considerable power of language , and every now and then surprises us with . a-real- 'display of genuine eloquence ; but all his characters are gloomy , sickly , and unsatisfactory , and evidently drawn after any-model but that presented byDameNature . = There is not'the - . smallest probability in any of the incidents which he "has strung together in order to illustrate his theory of the necessity of entire . abstinence and teetolalism . Mrs . Barton , his first-example-of the fearful consequences ever following in the footprints of excess , is scarcely a woman likely to be led astray by the seductive influence of wine . Intellectually far above the majority of her sex , endowed with a deep poetical
appreciation , an ardent and loving disposition , and more than usual refinement of taste , with a mind ever thirsting after knowledge , and slaking itself at every obscure fount whose living waters gave signs of fertilizing power ,- —it is not probable that one so enriched with the highest " and fairest gifts of nature would lightly . miss her footing from the exalted pedestal on which she has been placed by an all-bounteous Providence , and lose her bright supremacy ^ of soul in the gratification of mere sensual desires , It is in vain that the author pleads her passionate , temperament , her brilliant but daTrgercms ^ ttaiiiinettkv-her-nb ^ — temporary abandonment to sorrow , as the causes of her thus falling
into error ,- nono of these would have had the effect of levelling an originally pure and spiritual-minded woman with the coarsest and most self-infiituatod of her species . Nature has here been evidently perverted and exaggerated in order to heighten tho colouring of the picture ; nnd in " the case of the mother , as weil as in that of the son Charles , the write ! ' has defeated himself by overshooting his mark . This is the case with too many such works as the present , and until our temperance writers admit of a less bigoted and more enlightened view of the subject on which they expatiate , and clothe their heroes and heroines in a less artificial and purposely devised covering , we cannot see what benefit can accrue from them to society in general . .
_ __ .... ,, " Harry Birkett , tho Story of a Man wlio helped Himself , " is much more likely to aid in facilitating the progress of principles of self-denial than the work above mentioned , though the present can scarcely bo classed under the head of what we call temperance novels , the history of John Birkelt , a man who sacrificed his own interest and those of his family to tho huhilffcneo of animal appetites , being ruther sm accessory than the principal and all-engrossing feature of tho book . For this very reason , and the fuel ; that all tho circumstances connected with his short life and sudden
death are perfectly in accordance with nature , tho impression conveyed to tho mind of tho render is likely to bo beneficial . Tho hero of this volume i * . of course , Harry JJh'keit , tho " man who helps himself , " and his story 'in intended to convey an universal lesson on the import unco of' educating children in habits of selfreliance . Tho nuthor advocate * tho early instilment of tho principles of independence in tho mind of youth , and tho accustoming them from the tendcrest ngo to fall back iipon their own resources . We nro lumpily enabled coii . sdt'iilioii . sly to echo the writer ' * r >
ontilA / H Y Miould till tcinpprniioo novels bo const nielcu niter tlio *» snino model , dull" , fnnntienl . mid innjirnluibli ! ? Wo do not deny that abstinence from \ i < vi < ius hnbits and strict u-ligious foe ] ing
incuts upon this subject , having ourtii-lvos a linn conviction thai the present system of training children , botli male nnd . female , espeeiuily ihJ ' lnlfor , in n st'iito of mental and physical imbecility , is an act of unconscious cMiiclty on tho part of guardians nnd parents , and tho sourco of much evil nnd misfortune , in fulure years . In the present volumo all the examples in support of this wholesome doctrinonro chosen from tho lower orders , but tho doctrine- itself m equnllv applicable to any ensto or tfnulu of noei . Hy . And wo can candidly recommend tho hauls of iinniliua , nnd all throo to whom
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. * Aft"' Mttiiif . Doj / h ; , i ' Title if frrlti ! Jtifi . mi . Jly Skkkua Smith . Ilnn-i / Itirlott : the S / on / of n . Mini who Ihij'i'l Jliiiiscir . V >" . Twoeilio . Leonora ond tho JJttfc c ' liitlittM . lly the Author of "Tho Myrtle and % Heather . " Itlclnml Jlvntlcy . .
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Mat 5 , I 860 . J The Leader , and Saturday Analyst . 427
. Tkmprhats'ce, A^'P Ot1ie1j Novels.* Ho
. TKMPRHATS'CE , AMD OT 1 IE 1 J NOVELS . *
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 5, 1860, page 427, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2346/page/15/
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