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Leader (1850-1860), 3rd September 1853, Edition Country of 2, Page 18, 858 THE LEADER. [Satur DaY)

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      858 The Leader. [Satur Day)

      858 THE LEADER . [ Satur DaY )

      Xtitnlutt.

      Xtitnlutt .

      Critics Are Not The Legislators, But The...

      Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not makelaws—tney interpret and try to enforcethem . —Edinburgh Review .

      - - , Books On Our Table. The English Cy...

      BOOKS ON OUR TABLE . The English Cyclopaedia . Part TV . _ _ Bradbury and "BV . Sandley Cross ; or , Mr . Jorrocks's Hunt . Part VII . " . Bradbtiry and vlm Bleak Souse . m •• " ¦ ' r Bradbury and Ev !« . Writings of Douglas Jerrpld—The Chronicles ofClovernook . . . 'Punch Offi Blackwood ' s Magazine . " W . Blackwood and 8 v ? ' The Dublin University Magazine . James fit'GlasSo The National Miscellany . No . 5 . j # H p ^?** - The Dodd Family Abroad . Chapman and HaVi ' The British Journal . John Mortimer Lawson ' s Merchant ' s Magazine . T . F . a . JW The Charm . Addeyand Co Some Thoughts . Kent and Co ' Diogenes . Part VIII . John Bennetf ' The Illustrated Magazine . , Piper , Brothers , and Co Tail ' s Magazine . ' ,.., « ,.... ,, Cartridge and OaW * The Philosophy of Atheism Examined and Compared with Christianity . By Eev . B . Godwin X \ i \ Arthur , Hall , Virtue , and ci ' The Curse of Clifton . By Mrs . Southworfch . Clarke , Beeton , and Co Lorenzo Benoni ; or , Passages in the Life of an Italian . T . Constable and On " Bohn't Classical Library . AristopTianes LiterallyTranslated . By W . J . Hickie . Vol . I . Bohn't Standard Library . Lectures Delivered at Broadmead Chapel , Bristol . By the late Joha . Curiosities of Modern Shaksperian Criticism . By J . O . HolliweU , Esq . J . Russell ' Smith ' The Lives of the Poets-Laureate . By W . S . Austin , Jun ., and John Balph . R . Bentle * Life in the Clearings versus the Bush . By Mrs . Moodie . K . BentW Mental Portraits ; or , Studies of Character . By H . F . Tackerman . u , Bentler Bentley ' tStandardNovels . The Fortunes of the Scattergood Family . By Albert Smith , Cruikshank ' s Fairy Library . Sop-O'My Thumb , and the Seven-League Boots . I ) . Bocue ' Progress of Russia in the West , North , and South . By D . Urquhart . Triibner and Co ' The Agricultural Instructor , or Young Farmer ' s Class Book . By Edmund Murphy . . J . M'Glasban . The Goldjinder of Australia . . . Clarke , Beeton , and Co . Plan for the Future Government of India . By J . S . Buckingham . Partridge and Oakey Portrait Gallery . No . 20 . W . 8 . Orr and Co . ' Some Companion . Part 4 . New Series . W . S . Orr and Co . The Old Souse by the ' River . Chapman and Hall . Heading for Travellers—Florian and Crescents . Chapman and Hall . Scientific Memoirs . Part 4 . Taylor and Francis . Lake Lore . By A . B . K . „ . „ .,, „ , Hodges and Smith . Ireland Considered as a Field for Investment or Residence . By W . B . Webster . HodgeB and Smith .

      This Month The Tangled Threads Of Narrat...

      This month the tangled threads of narrative in Bleak House are finallyunjvoundV and readers have no more " new numbers" to look forward to . In his Preface , Dickens emphatically declares that everything set forth in Bleak House concerning the Court of Chancery is substantially true , and within the truth . He also partly complies with the wish expressed in this Journal , that he wbuld make some qualifying statement respecting Spontaneous Combustion ; but we regret to add , that he has not made that statement with the fulness and impartiality demanded by the case , even although his own private convictioa remain perfectly unshaken . It is unpleasant to be forced to recur to this subject , the more so because our protest must necessarily be so ludicrously disproportionate to the effect of his assertion , carried as it will be all over Europe . We should not , however , be true to our office , if we allowed the assertion to pass without rectification . ^ 0 3 S t ,

      The state of the case is this : Against the very suspicious evidence of " reported cases , " we set the plain and overwhelming evidence of ascertained laws ; against the indifferent testimony of some modern medical writers , and of scientific authors a century old , in favour of the possibility of Spontaneous Combustion , we cited the authority of the highest names in modern chemistry and anatomy , —Owen , Liebig , Bischoff , Graham , Hofmann , and Regnault—we cited the fact that the subject had been investigated in Germany only two years ago by Liebig and Bischoff in

      the case of the Gorlitz murder , and the conclusion then come to was , that all the reported cases were not more credible than cases of witchcraft . ( And we may now state in a parenthesis , that recently the subject was brought before the London Pathological Society , and the repudiation of it was unanimous . ) We thus showed , by the evidence of Science , in agreement with the testimony of some of its greatest names , that the phenomenon was not merely improbable , but impossible ( see Leader , Nos . 150 , 151 ) . The greatest living anatomist wrote to us expressing his approbation , and his concurrence in every wordyvve had written .

      That the arguments and authorities adduced by us should fail in convincing Mr . Dickens we foresaw to be probable , and therefore i ; he conclusion of our Letters on the subject was this : — "Should investigation fail to shake your belief in Spontaneous Combustion , then at any rate I call upon your candour to state in your preface that , although you believe in the phenomenon , it is a belief rejected by the highest scientific authorities of the day—authorities liable to error , assuredly , and perhaps in error on this very point , but nevertheless deliberate and positive in their rejection /' He has forgotten , or disregarded , that appeal . Instead of naming any of the opposing authorities , he names only those on his own side : —

      " There is only one other point on which I offer a word of remark . The possibility of what is called spontaneous combustion lias been denied , since the death of Mr . Krook ; and my good friend , Mr . Lewes , ( quite mistaken , as he soon found , in supposing the thing to have been abandoned by all authorities , ) published some ingenious letters to me , at the time when that event was chronicled , arguing that spontaneous combustion could not possibly be . I havo no need to observe that I do not wilfully or negligently mislead my readers , and that , before I wrote that description , I took pains to investigate the subject . There are about thirty cases on record , of which the most famous , that of the Countess Cornelia de Bandi Cesenate , was minutely investigated and described , by Giuseppe JJianchini , a Prebendary of Vcronn , otherwise distinguished in letters , who published an account of it at Verona , in 1731 , whicb he afterwards re-published at ltome . The appearances ,

      beyond all rational doubt , observed in that case , are the appearances observed in Mr . Krook's case . The next most famous instance happened at llheims , six years earlier ; and the historian , in that case , is Le Cat . one of the most renowned surgeons produced by France . The subject was a woman , whoso husband was ignorantly convicted of having murdered her ; but , on solemn appeal to a higher court , ho was acquitted , because it was shown , upon the evidence , that hIio had died the death to which this name of spontaneous combustion is given . I do not think it necessary to add to these notable facts , and that general referenco to tho authorities which will be found at page 329 , the recorded opinions und experiences of distinguished medical professors , French , English , and Scotch , in more modern days ; contenting myself with observing , that I shall not abandon tho facts , until there shall have been u considerable spontaneous combustion of tho testimony , on which human occurrences are usually received . "

      We need not again expose the questionable nature of the evidence , and its authorities ; we confine ourselves to the simple morale of the case , and declare that while lie was at liberty to cite all the authorities in his favour , he was not at liberty to disregard and pass over in silence the names of LlKBIG , HlSCHOKF , KlCGNAUI / X ' , GhAIIAM , Hoi'MANN , Jllld OWEN ; JUld Against that omission we protest .

      ' The Southern Renders Ot Blackwood's . ...

      ' The southern renders ot Blackwood ' s . Magazine- will be startled and interested this month by a very temperately , yet very , earnestly written protest against the injustice of England to Scotland — nn injustice they perhaps never heard of , never imagined—but which the writer , nevertheless , proves to bo far more decided than the much talkcd-of iujusticu to Ireland . It is apropos to n review of Burton ' s History of Scotland , and will force attention . In the sumo number there is a delightful scientific paper , describing tho formation of coral reefs by polypes ; it indulges a little too much in the vein of idle wonderment at such vast structures resulting from bucIi minute agents ( aa if the Himalayas were to be

      wondered at for their mountainous magnificence resulting from the accumul tion of minutest particles !)—but the article is unusually interesting . ¦ * We may have something to say next week about the other magazines

      Jtoscoe's Library; Or, Old Books And Old...

      Jtoscoe ' s Library ; or , Old Books and Old Times . By the Rev . James Aspinall , M . A . Hector of Althorpe , Lincolnshire . Whittaker and Co ' In the preface to this volume , Mr . Aspinall informs us that be intended , in the first instance , to deliver its contents orally , at some of the Institutes in his own nejghbourhood . This statement of the author ' s original purpose may help to furnish an idea of the book itself . A little modified and extended , here and there , Mr .-AspinaH ' s duodecimo would cut up well into three papers of the right sort for a reading-desk ; and it may even yet serve him in such stead , the style of binding and typography placing the book a little out of easy reach of the many . The subject is , in a measure , occasional . Liverpool lias just celebrated the centenary of William Roscoe , whose rare and costly collection of books and manuscripts Liverpool had allowed to fall beneath the auctioneer's hammer . On Roscoe and on Eoscoe ' s library , Mr . Aspinall is affectionately eloquent through ten easy chapters . Generalising in an earnest conversational manner on the learning of tho past , lie gets through the three first chapters without much notice of Roscoe . Then he drops at once on the catalogue of the library , and revels among all sorts of precious items till the very last chapter , which he devotes to a brief historical sketch of " the most illustrious man whom Liverpool ha 3 yet produced /' What chiefly strikes us , throughout this little volume , addressed almost exclusively to the people of Liverpool , is the author ' s evident strength in the confidenco and affection of his readers . Such strength is naturally that of such clergymen . It is pleasant to find one dispensing liberally those agremens of his studies , which too many of his order reserve for tho private , or the privately nodal , intervals of doctrinal duty .

      Popular, Geology. Popular Physical Geolo...

      POPULAR , GEOLOGY . Popular Physical Geology . By J . Keeto Jukes , M . A ., lUt . S . Kcovo and Co . We have often raised an indignant protest against worts on ecienco professing to bo " popular , " and being really ill-digested , ill-arranged compilations , hurtful iiV tlio two-fold way of distributing bad books , and or standing in the light of other and better books ; we havo also more than onco noted it as a sign of the times that men of authority will be found writing for tho people , and that " popular" books are no longer necessarily superficial . Mr . Beote Jukes is well known as a geologist , and ho Jw ' here given tho public a work at onco popular and original . By origin *" ' wo do not mean to intimate that ho has propounded in it now theories or original discoveries ; but that tho book is a writing out of hia own experience , not an abridgement or re-writing of other books . Tho result u admirable for perspicuity , for charm of exposition , and for solid instruction The book is illustrated with twenty tinted lithographs , from drawings DY Mr . Jukes and by Mr . G . V . Punoycr , who is himself a geologist , ««« they are of rare excellence as illustrations . Altogether it is fin introuuetioi to the study of Geology to bo most emphatically recommended . After describing the mode of formation of the various rocks , iX ({ nC P ! t and igneous , in a manner not to be misapprehended by any intellect , i *• Jukes explains the lamination and jointing of rocks , the ripple or ° ' i"jH mark , and his remarks on tho last named will serve as a specimen ot J » exposition : — THIC KIirjPI . iK M . AUK . ¦ " Another fitrnetnro , often conspicuous in fine-grained sandstones , in that <¦< nionly called ' ripple mark . ' Either in quarries or natural cliUs , wherever li' 10 "''JV , tmrfaee of a . bed in exposed , it is yftcn found to bo not smooth or ilui > * ' W ' ' , l Hirmll undulations , exactly liko those ho often wvn on ft windy shore . Wow «¦ f-J deal of misconstruction has , I think , arisen as to tho origin of the « o hidhII «» . ^ tions or rippleH in tho Hand , loading Koniotiines to a possibility of gi' « v 0 e 11 . geological reaHoiiing . People standing on the bench and observing tho g < ' » < pling motion of the wavoH , and a very tmmlar form in tho Hand beneath thoi «» ^ not porhnpri unnaturally jumped to tiio conclusion that tho one xvnn tho oaiwo o ^ other , tlmfc tho ripple of tho mirfneo oi" tho water hnd nomohow imprinted its ^ on the Hand at the bottom . Now really one- in not the causa of the other , I )" ' ^ are both caiiBod by the name action , mid each i « aa much h ripp le a » tho other .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 3, 1853, page 18, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_03091853/page/18/