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stances where an unlooked-for event has turned the whole current of life and it would he no more difficult to produce examples of an opposite kind , where , instead of being from bad to good , the change has been from virtue and strength to vice and weakness . But pethaps it may be said that our position will only hold with regard to those of the hero-class , and is not true of that large multitude who are " Content to dwell in decencies for erer . " But even here , amongst respectable citizens , and in the commercial world , an exaggerated strength is generally attributed to habit , and what was supposed to be a rigid morality which nothing could disturb , very frequently proves a mere custom not founded on principle and which a slight blast from without suffices to throw totally out of its equilibrium . A comely matron has lived for twenty years in the laudable discharge of the duties of her position , when a fascinating young curate , irresistible in an immaculate tie , high waistcoat , long coat , cadaverous visage , and absence of shirt-collar , enters upon the scene , and within two months the ci-devant Cornelia elopes . A lad of one-and-twenty , clever , conscientious , and setting out with a fair budget of good resolutions , goes to Oxford , and before the end of his second term has forgotten all the j ? ower of vouthful associations , looks upon life as a sham , and has begun to act accordingly . The sober-minded Brown strolls down St . James s some fine afternoon , and accidentally meeting the gay Kobmson , is invited to dine and meet one or two capital fellows ; and before he goes to bed that night , Brown has acquired three or four hundred pounds and a taste for gambling , which in a few years lands him on the salubrious shores of Boulogne . But everybody can call to mind a dozen cases illustrative of what we mean , where habits apparently inveterate and immovable as a mountain , have , upon what would seem trivial temptation , " melted into aw , into . thin -air " This is the moral of the novel before us , " The Life of Pleasure , " and it is shown in a two-fold aspect—a debauchee becomes a pattern of virtue , and a man of upright morality degenerates into a mere wreck . As the latter change is less frequent in actual life , its credibility is enforced by additional elaboration in the development . A prosperous tradesman , 3 JLBremond , is a man of high commercial integrity , no less than of domestic virtue ; in the relations of trade and of the family , he is equally irreproachable . With an excellent wife and two children , a son and a daughter , his life would seem to _ be as enviable as mortal lot can be , blessed with external prosperity and peaceful happiness within . M . Bremond , with the natural ambition of raising the family naroermade his son a barrister , and at this point the story begins . This son takes advantage of his new independence to taste the pleasures of the French capital , and soon becomes involved in an intrigue , which ends in a duel with a colonel of Zouaves , and the unfortunate youth is killed . This terrible catastrophe has such an effect on his mother that she becomes insane , and dependent almost for her very existence on the incessant devotion of her daughter . The unhappy father , whose life is entirely paralyzed by this accumulation of calamities , driven away from all his old habits , which might have been thought a part of —himeelfi-betakes ^ imsdfLio ^ he-cq ^ the evenings which were once spent in the bosom of his family , are now devoted to play . On one occasion , shortly after the commencement of his distress , he heard of a young girl who , though pressed by want , would not yield to the temptations of a rich seducer ; he first of all sent her money anonymously , and afterwards hadjm interview with her , succeeded by many others , until at last the unfortunate merchant became the victim of a fatal passion for her whom he had generously saved . To this , however , Paulina did not respond , for she herself was desperately enamoured ot one Julian Martel , who was then the cashier of M . Brejnond , and _ with whom she had been slightly acquainted in earlier days . Julian Martel had come to Paris when a young man , and had very speedily thrown away a handsome patrimony in licentiousness and dissipation . Having spent his last franc , he was obliged to seek employment in some humble sphere , and he became the cashier ot M . Bremond , in which situation he showed that the profligate roue may desist from his wallowing in the mire , and turn a diligent and conscientious worker ; and upon him now almost entirely depended the thriving business which his employer had begun to neglect . Paulina , discovering that Julian Martel regarded her with indifference , and that he was in love with his master ' s daughter , determined upon a dire revenge , and yielding to the passionate solicitations of the infatuated Bre * mond , she launches him upon a career of wild extravagance , which destroys the solvency of his firm . . At length , Martel , discerning the motive which prompted the amiable Paulina , came to on agreement with her that , on condition she would never again see Bremond , he would leave his present situation and abandon the family to which he was so much indebted , without disclosing to Leonie , hia master ' s daughter , the true reason of his d eparture , and leaving her to believe it to have been prompted by a selfish desire of aggrandizement . This is the culminating point of the story : the stendy sober tradesman metamorphoeed . into the degraded slave of a courtesan , and the dissipated spendthrift become frugal and self-sacrificing . All that follows is highly wrought up , and abounds in exciting and well-told incident , but it is needless to introduce it here , and it suffices to say that eventually Julian marries Leonie ; and M . Bremond remains till his death a miserable wreck , whilst Paulina , his bad angel , finds her way to South America . ^ To many , perhaps , this may appear on exaggerated idea ana an Impossible plot ; but , after all , what is there impossible or even improbable about it P Good habits , however deeply rooted , arc still
only implanted , and any change of soil , that is , any movement of surrounding circumstances , can scarcely take place , in ever so small a degree , without harm to the growth ; and there is many a man now enjoying high reputation for temperance and rectitude , and many a woman whom her neighbours extol as a pattern of maternal or conjugal duty , either of -whom an accidental event might divert utterly and for ever from a path which they do not pursue on principle but because chance or fate has set them in it . In very tew instances are the various actions of life / made matter of sober and conscientious reasoning , or deduced from carefully weighed principles ; and when this is so , let no man hope that the conduct and habits of years are so firm as to' resist the events of a single day , if those events happen to come in a certain direction . Where either morality or immorality is rather the result of usage than reflection , it is not good to calculate upon the continuance of one or the other . Somebody has admirably observed that the chapter of accidents is the bible of the fool , but even a wise man needs all possible circumspection to avoid the maelstrom of circumstances , and few attain the fulfilment of the Horatian desire , — " Mihi res , non me rebus subjungere conor /'
THE BANKEK OF FLORENCE . * A LL that can bear in any way on the subject of Italy , whether past , present , or future , is now received with so much favour , that Mr . Adolphus Trollope needs no apology for retracing ground already gone over in former works , in order to give a more innerlife view of the state of the country and the interests and characters of individuals and classes of the latter . The biography of " Filippo Strozzi" is fertile in materials for interpretation . The biographer does not , and could not , present his hero as the exemplar of man m the abstract , but exhibits him as a class-man—for instance , as the " Banker of Florence . " The difference between the two is all the space between the Socratic man , and that which the Sophists taught the Athenian vouth to become . From his boyhood we find Filippo Strozzi preparing himself for his future career , and are introduced into the very imperfect state of soeiety in accordance with which he had been educated . _ The democratic republic in which he was born had the oddest notions of freedom ; and , instead of leaving each man free to conduct his life and business as he might , claimed the right of interfering with him inliis nearest and deaiest interests . It was dangerous to be considered too-rich , and private safety was sacrificed to misconceived public relations in a manner that led to the greatest individual injustice . SfefOzzi had occasion lor all the prudence , wonderful as it was / that he possessed , to steer clear ot _ the many shoals and quicksands that then beset the rich merchant in his voyage through life . And this is the point of view in which his history may be best studied . ' _ Mr . Trollope has described the difficulties of the position of this extraordinary man in one illustrative sentence . " The entire life , says he , " of this cautious statesman and financier may be characterized as a continuous walk upon a political tight-rope , with everpresent danger of falling on one side or the other . The biographer is called dri to nialFe ~ tlIis i ^ marlrjmtafterrecordiTigijhe-saclr-of-Rome by the Constable Bourbon , and the state into which Florence was consequently thrown . He then proceeds to celebrate the cautious wisdom which Strozzi evinced on the occasion . The richest man m Florence , he was also recognised as the " master of the situation , " and all parties applied to him for help and counsel in a great crisis ; but ultimately his history shows that there is a wisdom higher than prudence —accordingly we find him , after all his twistings and turnings , " a prisoner in that fortress for the building of which he had furnished the funds . " That so great a capitalist as Strozzi should suffer the common fate of his fellow rebels and conspirators seems to have revolted the spirit of the age in which he lived . It was , indeed , a subject of European interest ; so little was then the revolutionary doctrine of equality appreciated . Even Pope Paul III . pleaded for him to the Emperor Charles V ., on the ground of his wealth , not of his worth . We may learn from his story how much of the evil that poor humanity endures results from mammonworship . This hierophant in the temple of the sordid god died in prison , as stated by the authorities , by his own hands;—perhaps , he was murdered . He had survived torture , and amused his gaol hours with literary composition , so that he was not without fortitude or mental resources . Be that as it may , no story cao be more full of moral interest than that of his life , as told in the eloquent volume before us , for the stirring and commercial age in which we live .
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452 The Leader and Saturday Analyst . [ Ma ? 12 , I 860 .
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rFHE JS ort / t JBHtisli Quarterly lor away nigmpr ¦*• elaborate and powerfully written articles . " Bedding ' s Ileminiscences— -Thomas Campbell" will , we are pure , be read with pleasure and profit . " Quakerism , Pust and Present , " is an article that presents a subject which is somewhat dry and obsolete in an interesting aspect and form . The article which follows , on "Sir , Henry Lawrence , " contains much that is valuable on India . " Australian Ethnology " is an intelligent article upon on important branch of knowledge . " Church and State , " which is one of the best articles " in the present number , will bo generally interesting . " The Origin of Species , " " British Lighthouses , " and " The State of Europe , * Ftlijpjpo Strozzi : a History of the Last Day * of tho Old Italian liberty . By T . Adowhus Thom-oph . Chapman and Ball .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 12, 1860, page 452, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2347/page/16/
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