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    Mabch 10, 1855.J ^ ^ THE LEADER. * 237

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    FIVE VOLUMES. A Ramble through Normandy....

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    /fifltrt fJft*4rx (Ubljt ^ll]J9,

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    ASSAULT OF SEBASTOPOL. Messrs. Chapman a...

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    Sir HeNry Bishop's Concerts, Hanovbr-squ...

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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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    The Science Of Health. The Mode Of Commu...

    grapple with the national perversity ; and , absurd as it may seem , selfreservation , the first law of nature , will have to be enforced by the policeman .

    Mabch 10, 1855.J ^ ^ The Leader. * 237

    Mabch 10 , 1855 . J ^ ^ THE LEADER . * 237

    Five Volumes. A Ramble Through Normandy....

    FIVE VOLUMES . A Ramble through Normandy . By George M . Musgrave , M . A . wJ ?? S 5 Cornwall ; its Mines , Miners , and Scenery . By the Author of Our Coal F ^ ld ^ and Our Coal Pits . " JV V 'Longman , Heroines of Charity . With a Preface . By Aubrey de Vere , Esq . ^ ^ ^^ The Pathology of Drunkenness . By Charles Wilson , M . D . ^ ^ ^^^ The Decameron of Boccaccio . A Revised Translation . By W . K . Kelly . Bonn . Stbbne . in his delightful " Sentimental Journey , " undertakes to reduce the whole circle of Travellers under the following " Heads : "—Idle Travellers , Inquisitive Travellers , Lying Travellers , Proud Travellers , Vain Travellers , Splenetic Travellers , The Travellers of Necessity , The Delinquent and Felonious Traveller , The Unfortunate and Innocent Traveller , The Simple Traveller . These ten " representative men "—now , as in Sterne s tune , true types of classes—we will venture deferentially to increase to a comfortable dozen , bv adding to the list , in consideration of the requirements of modern iast

    days , the Book-making Traveller and The Statistical Traveller , "ur " Rambler" in Normandy belongs to the first class , and our last " Rambler in Cornwall to the second . Mr . Musgrave—who appends his portrait to his Preface—appearing in public in the guise of a cleanly and whiskerless gentleman with a protuberant travelling cap , and ( as the lady novelists have it ) a " chiselled nose "—Mr . Musgrave , let us say to begin with , has made out of his Ramble in Normandy a very readable pleasant book . He ; s essentially what they call , in country circles , a droll man , taking all legitimate opportunities of being moderately funny in a harmless , gentlemanlike way . Pont Audemer , Caen , Bayeux , Falaise , Lisieux , are among the principle places that he visited . He writes about towns and villages , and his wanderinirs to and from them , always agreeably , but sometimes ( in his

    capacity of book-maker ) rather too lengthily for any but the most patient readers . It is his weakness to make acquaintance with too many strangers , to ask too many questions , to believe too implicitly now and then in random answers—but he is otherwise , as we have said , a harmless , easy , gossiping , social Traveller , with a shrewd observation of his own j and a capital knack at telling" an anecdote . Some of his Illustrations , small as they are , give a very fair idea of the Thing he desires to represent , and are generally praiseworthy for sensible selection of subject . We introduce him to our readers as an agreeable companion , and leave him with a pleasant certainty that he is the sort of man to make his way easily to their approval .

    To our statistical traveller in Cornwall we must accord a more serious and formal welcome . The valuable parts of his book are , in our opinion , the parts which are more especially devoted to the giving of information . He is as lively and agreeable , in many places , as Mr . Musgrave—though in a different way , and with a more correct and elegant manner as a writer . He has an artist-like appreciation of Nature , and a genial readiness to quote and commend what has been done by his immediate predecessor in Cornwall—the author of Rambles Beyond Railways . But , in spite of these claims on his part to the character of a popular , amusing , and amiable Traveller , his greatest merit is the merit of being a clear and careful teacher . His information about Mines and Miners in Cornwall is full of interest , and will be , in great part , quite new to his readers . The book forms the 74 th Part of Messrs . Longman ' s " Traveller ' s Library ,- " and is , in every sense of the word , a worthy addition to a cheap and excellent series of publications .

    Heroines of Charity has , probably , ere this , attained to a wide circulation amongtheRoman Catholics . . Thebook . js LiLPP . ^ stinately _ sectarianJo penetrate elsewhere . It contains memoirs of nuns aiYdlay " women , eminent for good works and fanatical sanctity . The writer has caught the defects of what we will venture to call the Roman Manner—that strangely-inflated , wordy , rhapsodical , foreign-English style which Cardinal Wiseman has made familiar to most readers already , and which they may get further acquainted with , if they please , by hearing a Catholic sermon at any " chapel" in London . Mr . Aubrey de Vere ' s Preface is written from a mildly Ultramontane point of view ; eulogising the more practically beneficial parts of the old monastic system , and , with a kind of simple fanaticism , actually suggesting that modern . England might usefully return to it , even at this time of day ! Not being controversialists , and not standing committed to the advocacy of any sect or party , we can afford to give M . de Vere credit for perfect sincerity—he must excuse us , if , as independent critics , wo can do no

    more . . The PatJiology of Drunkenness . Doctor Charles Wilson writes of intoxication and its ascertained causes and consequences learnedly , tersely , and with perfect propriety ; but the moment he approaches the widely-different subject of Temperance , ho follows the example of all writing and talking Teetotallers , unrestrainedly goes the whole hog , and in some cases seems , in a dry , quiet Scotch way , almost to take leave of his senses . His chapter on " Conviviality" is a marvel of cool assertion in defiance of fijet and experience ; except just at the beginning , where the Doctor writes in a very promising and pleasant style on the delightful bodily results of a cheerful glass . The effects of strictly temperate indulgence in fermented liquors he thus sums up : —" The diffusion of nn agreeable warmth throughout the system ; the action of the heart , invigorated ; the circulation quickened ; the voice becoming full and sonorous ; the eye sparkling ; every function

    ac-Suiring new energy ; every motion accompanied Avith a consciousness ot lasticity and vigour . " So far so good . Our own personal experience during many years' temperate enjoyment of nlo , wine , and grog , each in their duo season , testifies to the truth of the quoted passage . But the Doctor , being on the Teetotal side , cannot nfford to bo sensible on the subject of Tomporanco for more than a puge or two . Wo soon find our moderate elation qualified by such a bitter epithet as " transitory "—as if all human clations and enjoyments were not transitory . Are not , for instance , the making of Teetotal speeches and tho writing of Teetotal books " transitory " elations ? But do Teetotal gentlemen give them up on that account ? Alas , no ! To continue : —Tho Doctor gets bitterer as ho goes on , and tells us

    that " the exhiliration which has been excited at first by very limited potations soon requires deeper and deeper draughts for its pro duction . " ^ Thii is simply not the fact as to the practice of drinking by civilised mankind it general ; and we will show why , when we have given Doctor Wilson Teetotal rope enough to suspend himself comfortably for the edification of oui readers . He goes on to a bolder assertion soon after . "Even the moderate use of spirituous or fermented liquors , if long continued and grown habitual , canndt fail to have ultimately a prejudicial effect upon the health , " he says ; backing that opinion by plenty of medical theory , and by no examples or facts . As to spirituous liquor for a medicine , he will not hear of it . If we have been exposed to the weather , feel chilly and ill , take a glass of hot spirits and water , and become quite comfortable and cured after it , we must not ascribe so blessed a result to Doctor Grog ; but must believe instead that we have " probably , at the same time , used other and more certain means of the le

    promoting perspiration" ( we are not informed what meana)—or " simp effect of mere repose" may have cured us—but certainly not kind Doctor Grog . Even old age must not try and keep the lamp of life alijrht by pouring a little spirit in temperately , from time to time , as the flame flickers . Doctor Wilson quotes an " aged lady , " a propos of this rcart of the subject , who , " when urged on her death-bed to recruit her failing strength with brandy , " appears to have made this remarkably imbecile and blustering reply : __ " Let me go home sober / " We- have hardly had time to ponder on the prodigious mental fuddlement of any aged lady who can familiarly talk of going into Eternity as " going home , " before we have the Doctor ' s favourite assertion about the fatal consequences of the cheerful glass repeated in stronger terms than ever . " A chief peril , however , " he says , " in the moderate use of intoxicating drinks , in whatever way induced , or upon whatever plea adopted , lies in its being , but too frequently , merely a state of transition towards the formation of propensities of a more marked and fatal

    ft T ) 07 * 0 ptpT * Let us try this , as we said we would , and in the briefest way , by Fact . If the passage , rendered into plain English , means anything , it means that temperate drinkers are frequently found to become downright drunkards . Let us roughly divide temperate drinkers into two great classes—the rich and the poor ; and let us judge the rich by dinner-parties , and the poor by gin-shops . The majority of guests at all dinner-parties are moderate drinkers —how many of them acquire a habit of getting drunk after dinner ? Why it is notorious that drunkenness is hardly known in " society" now—though , as we have said , the vast majority of guests in all societies figure as moderate drinkers , year after year elated and satisfied with fit temgerate allowance . " But , " Doctor Wilson may say , "I don ' t mean the rich ; I mean the poor . " Very well : —Are the regular customers at gin-palaces , the thousand , thousand artisans who fetch their jug of beer for supper every night , " too frequently" drunkards ? Does the pot-boy carry beer ro und to a " too frequently" drunken set of gentlemen ' s servants , male and female ? Or take another class of drinking customers—cabmen ^ f you please . How ~

    often are you driven home at night by a drunken cabman ? Which character does the worst of cabmen oftenest appear in at the police-offices—the character of a drunkard , or of a sober-minded extortioner of money ? Finally , take year after year the drunken cases at police-courts : what proportion do they bear to the drinking poor of the police-court district—let us say those known as regular customers at the public-houses ? The plain fact is that all the immoderate drinking among the poor is ferreted out by the Teetotallers , and all the moderate drinking is quietly passed over . " Sloggins , " to borrow the admirable illustration in Household Words , is an habitual drunkard , " Job Smith" is a moderate drinker , notoriously never intoxicated . No matter ! let us talk and write at Job Smith , because he likes a pint of beer , just as if he was Sloggins , who likes a gallon ! Let us tell Job Smith he can ' t stop at the pint , because Sloggins got on to a gallon . But let us by no means . inquire . into the relatiyenumbers of Slogginses and Job Smiths , 6 r our pet teetotal theory , that drinking moderately leads " but too frequently" to drinking immoderately , may chance to be positively falsified by facts in a highly inconvenient and unanswerable

    manner ! It is refreshing , after having been obliged to devote some little time and space to the exposure of nonsense , to be able to close the present notice with a word of welcome to a genuine book . The revised English translation , by Mr . Kelly , of the immortal Decameron , ought to be in the libraries of all readers of Italian literature , in the first place , and of readers of English , in the second , who have yet to make themselves acquainted with a work of fiction , which , both in itself and in its results , is one of the most remarkable that the world has produced . Mr . Kelly has improved the style of the previous translation by most careful revision , has filled up unsightly gaps , and has provided the new generation of readers with useful antiquarian notes attached to most of the " Novels" or Tales , as we should call them now .

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    Assault Of Sebastopol. Messrs. Chapman A...

    ASSAULT OF SEBASTOPOL . Messrs . Chapman and Ham , have published two excellent topographic and panoramic sketches , by Captain Biduui . ph , representing tho advanced lines ot attack , and the Russian defences in front of bcbastopol . Captain Bimnn . vn ia one of tho active officers engaged in pushing the advanced works forward . Those sketches , and the letter-press which accompanies tlicm , are ciileuJatea to give tho reader a good idea , not only of tho lines of attack and defence , but ot the nature of tho ground ; tho steep rocky ravines and baro unslioltcred plateaus aoroas which the works itro carried . These sketches will bo of great value to those who interest themselves in tho study of tho sioge from a military point of view .

    Sir Henry Bishop's Concerts, Hanovbr-Squ...

    Sir HeNry Bishop ' s Concerts , Hanovbr-squabb Booms . —Ilio concerts of glees and vocal concerted music under " tho direction of bir Hknry Bishop , and selected from his works , have been very full y attended , aiiero will bo a third concert on Tuesday afternoon , and the last will , wo behove , 1 ) 0 given on Saturday next , tho 17 th instant .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), March 10, 1855, page 21, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_10031855/page/21/