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Leader (1850-1860), 5th May 1860, Edition 2 of 2, Page 15

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      Tooke's Dive11sions. * Rnile Fitness Of ...

      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 , but in connection with one of the dissenting communities . Luckily- for literate typography , and the advancement of learning , this design was not tarried put . He , unlike Tooke , found early his vocation - The undisturbed yet enthusiastic tenor of his life proved that . The well-known motto of the hand pouring oil upon the flame , and the explanatory legend , " AJere flammam , " 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 , than 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 . matter than

      This " new edition" contains less new we expected , until we opened it . So early as ' 1829 Mr . Taylor published an edition of " Purley . " A second issue was called for in 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 1840 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 , i . e :, 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 ^ Ii * . Taylor's pen , Js .-furnished posthumously , as in the author ' s case . It is to be regretted that the representative of-Taylor , who had- to see the work through the press , has not taken the" same means to distinguish new from old editorial comment as Taylor took to discriminate new from oltl auctorial text ; for we are entirely at a loss to determine , unless by tedious collation with tluLjbrmer 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 . Taylor- in the aggregate only amount \ o a fifteenth part of the total number of pages . ttle if

      Practicallv , therefore , we ' can regard this as li anything more than a re-issue of the edition of 1810 . 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 are glad to see that the old and respectable house of Tegg is not . bitten by the cheap literature mania so irretrlevab 1 y 'as ~ to-Tn : duce-itrto-a-for getfulness 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 and criticism of its qualities . It is far too late in the day for that . The high place of" the Diversions of Purley " is Wv recognised , even by those who most dispute the justice of its general or detailed views . In not a few particulai-s its pages are now obsoletecontrovertedor overlapped byfurtlrer research . But

      , , Tooke has himself been the efficient cause of his own obsoleteness j for to his opening up the ground , nnd enticing followers into the fields apparently barren , but shown by him to be most fertile , are wo most indebted for the amount and eagerness of philological research , of which he gave to England at once the " New Organ" of method and the " New Atlantis" of promise . The book can never die , even were it to cease altogether to be an authority or a reliable guide . Its personal allusions , and digressions into ground of direct human interest , must always embalm it in English literature . When the author tells his render that he was incarcerated in the King ' s Bench , "the misernblo victim of two prepositions nnd a conjunction ! " a foreign interest is shed over his inquiries that no mero lovo of grammar could inspire . Lord Brougham justly says , " Nor did nny one ever take this work up and lay it down till some other avocation tore , it from his hands . "

      That this ve-issuo of this unique work may increase largely the ncquaintnnco with it of the young and ingenuous among us is our hope . The experience of all ' competent to testify endorses the exclnmntiort of Dean Trench , in his excellent little book on " Tho Study of Words , "— " Wlint nn epoch in mnnyn student ' s intellectual lifo hns been his first acquaintance with tho ' Diversions of Purley ! ' "

      Mat 5,1860.J The Leader And Saturday Ana...

      Mat 5 , 1860 . J The Leader and Saturday Analyst . 427

      Tempekaxce, And Other Novels.* Why Shoul...

      TEMPEKAXCE , AND OTHER NOVELS . * WHY should nil ]( oinpeionco novels be constructed nftor tho smno model , dull , fnnnticnl , mid improbable P Wo do not deny that itlstinenoo from vicious habits and strict religious feeling

      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 4 he 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 . Bat 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 volnme , a task we are afraid that few readers will have moral courage sufficient to accomplish , without 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 snbject 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 anthor 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 by Dame Nature . 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 teefcolalism . Mrs . Barton , his first example of tlye fearful cpnsequences ever folio wing-in the footprints of excess * is scarcely a woman likely to be ledLastray 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 pi-obable 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 dangarous attainments , her absence of sufficient religions zeal and temporary abandonment to sorrow , " as the causes ot ~ her thti 9 ~ f 5 llm * g have had the effect of

      into erroiV ; none of these would levelling an originally pure and spiritual-minded woman with the ' coarsest and most self-infatuated of her species . Nature has here been evidently perverted and exaggerated in order to heighten the colouring of the picture ; and in the case of the mother , as well as in that of the son Charles , the writer 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 , the Story of a Man who helped Himself , > s much more likely-to aid in facilitating the progress of principles of self-denial than tho work above mentioned , though the present can scarcely be 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 the indulgence of nninml appetites , being rather an accessory tlmn the principal and all-engrossing feature of the book . For this very reason , and the fact that nil tho circumstances connected with his short lifo and sudden

      death nre perfectly in accordance with nature ,, the impression convoyed to the mind of the reader is likely to be beneficial . Tho hero of this volume is , of course , Harry Birkett , tho " man who helps himself , " nnd his story ia intended to convey an universal lesson on the importance of educating children in habits of selfrelianco . Tho author advocates the early instilment of tho principles of independence in the mind of youth , nnd tho accustoming them from the tenderest ngo to fall back upon their own resources . We nre / happily ' enabled ' , conscientiously to echo the writer ' s sentithat the

      ments upon this subject , having ourselves n firm conviction present system of training children , both mule nnd female , espocinllytho latter , in a state of mental and physical , imbecility , is mi act of unconscious cruelty on tho part of guardians nnd parents , and tho soui'co of much evil nnil misfortune in fuluro yenra . in the present volume nil tho examples in support of this wholesome doctrine nre chosen from tho lower order * , bnt tho doctrine itselt is cqunliv npplionblo to nny ensto or » rnnjo of Hocioty . Ami "o « nu cnndid ' ly recommend tho honds of families , nnd all those to whom

      * After M«Ny Mays; A Tnlo Of Kovial Jit ...

      * After M « ny Mays ; a Tnlo of Kovial Jit form , Ity Sekeoa SMITH . W . Twoodia . Hany ' . tiirkctt ; the Story of a Mun who Jlvtpcc ? Jlhmeif . W . Twcedio . . Leonora < tnd the Uttlc Cotnifaoi . By tho Author of " Tho Myrtle nml tho Heather . " HIehnrd Ucutley .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), May 5, 1860, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_05051860/page/15/