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Leader (1850-1860), 11th September 1858, Edition 2 of 2, Page 19, No. M29 SEfrTEMBEBjLl ^JIj^^ Ii E A T> E...

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    • ~y. ± x 31 IT^ntttirr *'"'*
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      No. M29 Sefrtembebjll ^Jij^^ Ii E A T> E...

      No . M 29 SEfrTEMBEBjLl ^ JIj ^^ Ii E A T > E B , £ 39

      ~Y. ± X 31 It^Ntttirr *'"'*

      ICfterattirt

      ? • Critics Are Not The Legislators, But...

      ? Critics are not the legislators , but the juitgos and police of literature . They do not make -laws—the } - interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Review .

      Every Man His Own Trumpeter. Every Man M...

      EVERY MAN HIS OWN TRUMPETER . Every Man Ms own Trumpeter . By George W . Thornbury . 3 vols . Hurst and Blackett . Me . Tiiorxbury has chosen for illustration an interesting period of French history , and has availed himself of the novelist ' s privilege of crowding- together events which must have occurred , if occur they did , between 16 S 0 and 1704 . The contests for ascendancy between Madame de Moutespau and Madame de Maintenon , the Camisard rebellion , and the campaigns of Marshal de Catinat in Flanders

      nnd Savoy , ai'c all laid under contribution for incidents and allusions , and the result is a very readable book . The author , it is evident , has impregnated his mind with the history and characteristics of the time . He lias even , we venture to guess , dipped into its military literature . His sketches of Parisian and guard-room life are lively and telling . Although chequered here and there by very inappropriate Anglicisms , they are also rich in nervous epigram evincing much power of thought and condensation . There is an unlucky -coincidence between a few

      passages in Mr . Thomburj ' s novel and the Trots Mousqitntaires of Dumas , which we must notice only to dismiss . The hero , for instance , is a young Gascon , like M . d'Artagnan . Like him , he is despatched to seek his fortunes fit the capital by an anxious parent . Like him , he lias a quarrel and shows his Gascon blood at every stage on his route . Like him , he has the misfortune to make a bitter enemy of a creature of the Court , with whom he has his first duel , and who is his evil genius , throughout his career ; and like him , he beomes a Royal Mousquetaire , and a trusted emissary of royalty . So far , though we cannot at the moment refer to the pages of Dumas ^ we are reminded of the adventm'es of that author ' s renowned Gascon

      cadet . But let us do Mr . Thornbury the justice to say , here the resemblance ends . A volume of this work contains more original thought and more forcible expression than could be found in a library written by the three , or ( who knows ?) three dozen gentlemen who are by some supposed to have laboured in the great French novel atelier , although it must be pronounced inferior to the produce of the latter in finish of texture . Girt with the ancestral sword , mounted on his father ' s charger " Saracen , " clad in an old silverlaced orange-velvet suit , young Caesar dc Mirabel was dismissed from his home with n bas : of louis and

      a blessing at one hour ' s notice on his twentieth birthday . He was ordered to do battle with the world , and to return with honour , or never . His Gascon blood boiled over on the road . At the first auherge , and at his uncle ' s house at Souchct-sur-Mons , he got into and out of scrapes , but soon found himself in Paris with a whole skin , a slock of native impudence and courage , nu honest , loving heart , and a fast ; ally in his cousin Vicomte do Belleroso . Introduced to Monsieur dc Grillon , of the King's guard , ho was soon appointed onsign in that corps . Before Jong he had occasion to be of service to Louis XIV . in one of that monarch ' s Iutnguos . Ho received tlie King ' s personal thanks , ana of course brought about his ears a hornett-Anest

      of jealous enemies . About this time ,. happening to pay his respects to another uncle , the Abbe dc Bellerose , a woalthy old ecclesiastical Maecenas , he fell , as the necessities of novel-writing demanded , in love with somebody . The somebody was another cousin , Aurora de Bellerose , of whom and of whoso charaolcr wo can learn littlo but that sho was pretty and fascinating as her name . Tho course of Mirabel ' s love was soon interrupted , for it was decided by his rivals of tho antochmnbor that the " upstart must bo bled . " A quarrel was put upon him in the boudoir of

      —l ^^ aiBfe ^^ tf ^ s ^ r did not pass unscathed . Wounded sovorely , ho was tended by his ooustn Belleroso until oouvalosoonfc . He was not long out of hot water , for , as one good turn doservos another , ho is sont for from Ins yot iuvttlid couch to visit Bolloroso , a prisoner , and unclor sentenoo of death . Ho did . so just in timo to bo present at that olovor genius ' s escape . * or this he mcurrod the penalties duo to breach of discipline , but was subsequently pardoned , Ho

      was not long at peace , for D'Argenson , Minister of Police , and uncle to his old adversary Lazare , had an account , to settle with him . A set was made upon him at a masquerade . He challenged D'Argenson , who promised to send a friend in the morning . The visitor , was at his bedside betimes . —an exempt of the police—who , instead of an answer to his challenge , brought a lettre de cachet . Mirabel soon found himself in the Bastille , as a tenant of the celebrated M . de Cinq Mars , Here again we have scenes parallel to others in Alexandre Dumas ' s works . Our hero had not long left off his proper

      name , and become " No . 2 of the Chapel , " when he found that Bellerose also had become a denizen of those hideous walls . They contrived to correspond , to soften a turnkey , Gaspard , and to scheme an escape . The vie priifee of the inmates of M . de Cinq Mars is depicted in several lively chapters . We are introduced to some of the more criminal of them at one of the Governor ' s dinner-parties , at which our Orestes and Pylades meet a knavish Dutchman , Laroche , alias Vandcnberg ; a false priest , Leroux , alias Gaiiffard , alias Sorel ; and an Italian charlatan . The latter , by arrangement , drugs the Governor and the rest of the company , while our friends

      escape in disguise . They seek sanctuary with the old Abbe , and pardon through Madame Montespan . In the first pursuit they succeed , but in the second they meet with difficulties . Fenelon appears on the stage with the Jesuit Tellier , but the " spretse injuria forinac" hath driven the Montespan to champagne and delirium . With la veuve Scarron they nave better hick . She and her historical familiar , Nanon , take their cause in hand ( so they did , by the way , for one of Maquet ' s heroes ) against the villain courtier , obtaining their pardon from the royal lover-penitent at a Versailles fete , and somehow get a captain ' s commission for Mirabel in the Mousquctaircs .

      This corps was then serving under Catinat , m Savoy , and the Gascon , soon after joining , managed to distinguish himself , notwithstanding the undying and insidious hostility of his old foe , De Lazare , and a ci * eature of his , Laroche ( late of the Bastille ) . For his gallantry he was appointed governor of St . Damien , a town in the CeYennes , invested by the Camisards . The siege is described with all the

      technicality of Vauban and the Abbe Deidier ; and the characters of the garrison officers— -the veteran major especially—are very neatly etched . The defenders , after frying their saddle-flaps in church lamp oil , capitulate , in compliance with an order ( forged by Lazare and Laroche ) received from their colonel , Vimenil . On their way , they meet the dead body of that officer , whom another forged letter had brought into an ambuscade .

      The mischief was , however , done , and there was nothing for it but to seek Catinat , then at Paris , and explain . Here Mirabel finds his enemies had preceded him . He is reported to have surrendered his post disgracefully , He attends tho Marshal ' s lovec ; and this gives Mr . Thornbury another opening . We have a lively scene , a la Hogarth , of the great man ' s antechamber , where the hero is doomed to kick his heels in ignominy . "Ho encoxmtcred , " says the author , " the poet , the architect , the painter , tho actor , the projector , tho patentoe , the

      spy—cheerful as penniless men , not atraid of thieves , too low to fall far , and satisfied with having for an hour or two smiled tho same air as tho great man , at haying trod his marble floor , warmed themselves at his flro , and , safe from bailiffs for half an hour ,, smelt at his dinner ; these gay butterflies lived on flowers and in the sivnny air of othor men ' s properly ; to-morrow they would be there again , equally' noisy , rapacious , cringing , and full of hope . " He at hist gains an audience , and is taxed by Catinat with cowardice . OlVoring to produce in his vindication tho order to surrender ho had

      recoived from his superior ofllcor , ho discovers to his dismay that tho pnper is blank . Tho forgery had becu written in oheniical ink , and all trace of its characters had disappeared . Now , charged with trickery as well as cowardice , Mirabel is throatcnod with discharge from the army unless within a woe ^ he ^ prodxico ^ ho ^ orighrdHkntt ^ Vimenil . Ho quits tho scone whence he had

      hoped to bear a laurol chnplot , to Aurora , and seeks her presence almost . brokeu-heivrtod . Tho demon of slander has ovon t hero boon beforehand , with him . Intrigues are going on Jtoo , on tho one hand to consign Aurora to a nunnery , and on the othor to marry hoi > to Do Ltware . An . Italian doctor , ho of tho Bastille ; was quartered on tho family and draining tho poor Abbe ' s purso , and tho household was a prey to tho religious monomania of old Diana de

      Bellerose , the Abba ' s sister . An interview betweeii theloversis interrupted by De Lazare , who announces to Aurora , within hearing of De Mirabel , that her lover is doomed as a coward and a traitor , but that he alone lias the means' of saving his honour . A ray of light now gleams upon the downcast hero . With Bellerose ' s assistance he obtains an interview with Laroche in a Parisian den of thieves . They extract from him the whole detail of the plot in which he has been an agent , and terrify the subordinate actors , who had all << been . their fellow guests in the Bastille , into compliance by threats of exposure . Lastly , after sundry attempts , De Lazare himself is brought to bay . He fights

      and desperately wounds De Mirabel , but as the latter staggers up to receive the coup de grace , the cleus ex machina intervenes in the shape of a thunderbolt . De Lazare is " launched intoeternityi" the hero tears the missing paper from , his pocket , and at the hour and the minute of his appointment triumphantly lays his vindication before M . de Catinat . Pardoned and appointed Colonel of the Blue Musqueteers by the Grand Monarque in person , he loses no time in marrying-Aurora . The bride is given away by his Majesty , and the curtain comes ( town on a family reunion at the old Chateau Trompette in Gascony .

      American Aboriginal Languages. The Liter...

      AMERICAN ABORIGINAL LANGUAGES . The Literature of American Aboriginal Languages . By-Hermann E . Ludewig . With Additions and Corrections by Professor William W . Turner . Edited -by-Nicholas Trubner . Trubner and Co . A fly title informs us that Mr . Triibner intends tofurnish us with a Bihliotheca Glottica , and the opening line of Dr . Ludewig ' s preface shadows forth its plan as being an enlargement of Vater ' s-Lwguariim toiius Orbis Index , as revised by Professor Julg in 1847 . Since that edition appeared the science of

      ethnology has made rapid strides , and the great importance of language as one of the most interesting links in the great chain of national affinities is admitted on all hands . Exotic languages are no longer looked upon as little more than matters of curiosity , and the reciprocity , existing between man and the soil he lives upon and the language he speaks , has become a study of deep interest both to the ethnological student and the philologist . Mr . Trubner , the publisher of Paternoster-row , is himself no mean linguist—not merely " a . speaker of other tongues" but one who has investigated the

      sources of both spoken and written language as a favourite study and pursuit . Business carried him to New York in 1 S 55 , and it was during his sojourn , ill that city that he became acquainted with Div Ludewig , well known to bibliographers on both sides of the Atlantic as . the author * of the Literature of American Local History , written in English ; of the Li ore des Ana , Essai de Catalogue Manuel , in . French ; and the Bibliothekonomie , in German . Besides these , he had been a constant contributor of articles on literary history to several German and American periodicals , for ' his affections seemed very

      fairly divided between the land of his birth and that of his adoption . Similarity of pursuits ( says the editor ) led to on intimacy with Dr . Ludowig , during which ho mentioned that ho , like myself , had boon making bibliographical memoranda for years of nil books which serve to illustrate the history of spoken language . As a first section of a more extended work oa the Literary History of Language generally he had prepared a bibliographical memoir of the remains of the aboriginal languages of America . The manuscript had been deposited by him in the library of the Ethnological Society at New York ., but at my request he at once most kindly placed it at

      my disposal , stipulating only that it should be printed in Europe tinder my pei'sonal superintendence Under Mr . Trubncr ' s editorial care this posthumous work of Di . Ludowig has been printed in the volumo under notice , and forms the first portion of 209 pages , only 172 of which were printed off at JHW , tftjg > pf t , he _ authQr 4 ^ Qatlx in ^ eCpmboy ^ X 3 & O ^ By tho assistance of literary friends in both horaisphoros tho materials of Dr . Ludowig roooived considerable additions , indeed to suoh an oxtoui ; as to form nearly one half of tho whole , nnd tho second portion of tho work , containing 47 pages , , consist * entiiroly of additions by tho editor and Jus inontl , Professor William W . Tumor , of Washington . In opening a field hitherto almost untrodden " >« editor my reasonably claim tho reader ' b i »<** lge" < " > for 8 ucli defects as muat over attend a first attempt of amilar character . In all suoh ooaoa facts liavo to be brought

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 11, 1858, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_11091858/page/19/