On this page

• Text (3)

  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.

  • 

    December 11, 1852.] THE LEADER. 1191 ¦¦ ...

  • 

    JERDAN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. Tho Autobiograph...

  • 

    BOOKS ON OUR TABL1L A 1'lanfor the Forma...

• Transcript

  • 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.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Australia As It Is. Australia As It Is :...

    erally preserve their health by a residence in any of the Australian colonies The climate , however , may only safely be recommended for instances as have simply disposition to disease of the lungs , but on whom the enemy has as yet made no direct attack ; for when once the disease has made a fatal breach on the lungs , the decay is much hastened by the enervating influence of excessive heat , and death soon closes the scene . " We will close our notice of this excellent work by a brief passage on

    THE PEOa AND CONS OF THE BUSH . « The wild life of a bushman presents few charms to tempt the cockney , dwelling amongst and enjoying the luxuries of civilization , to desert the quill and the ledger for * he shepherd ' s crook . True , the wealthy squatter , who , unable to procure shepherds and stockmen to tend his fast increasing flocks and herds , and which , for want of a better paying beef and mutton market , are consigned by hundreds to the melting-pot , may , for the best of breeches-pocket reasons , indite flaming epistles to his friends in Britain , describing the Australian bush as a terrestrial paradise , where only pleasure and plenty hold their court . But let this same individual be , as is the case with his shepherd , confined to the bush for a twelvemonth round , and , during that time , see scarcely a person but his chum , the hut-keeper ; let him go the same eternal round , day after day , all weathers and seasons , live on nothing but damper—flour and water baked in wood embers—mutton , tea , and tobacco sinoke , sleep at night in a hut alive with fleas , and neither wind nor water tight ; and withal , be tempted , too often successfully , to spend all his earnings at the pothouse during his sojourns in town . Such individuals would probably then paint life in the bush in colours more true , but less glowing . Bush cuisine he might thus describe : — " You may talk of the dishes of Paris renown , Or for plenty through London may range , If variety ' s pleasing , oh , leave either town , And come to the bush for a change . " On Monday we ' ve mutton , with damper and tea ; On Tuesday , tea , damper and mutton , Such dishes I ' m certain all men must agree Are fit for peer , peasant , or glutton . " On Wednesday we ' ve damper , with mutton and tea ; On Thursday tea , mutton , and damper , On Friday we ' ve mutton , tea , damper , while we With our flocks over hill and dale scamper . " Our Saturday feast may seem rather strange , ' Tis of damper with tea and fine mutton ; Now surely I ' ve shown you that plenty of change , In the bush , is the friendly board put on . " But no , rest assured that another fine treat Is ready for all men on one day , For every bushman is sure that he ' ll meet * With the whole of the dishes on Sunday . " Nevertheless , bush life has its charms , especially to the hope-blighted citizen , the hater of etiquette , and the hollow conventionalisms of civilization , and the Mr . Skimpole , whose highest ambition is to live a free , independent , lazy life . " In the bush there are no roads , no villages , no shops , schools , nor churches : no ministers of the gospel ; no law , except that of might , and very few women and children . The Sabbath is rarely observed . Individuals are born and buried like heathens , without the aid and the consolation of doctors and parsons . The rude dwellings are . akin to the huts of savages , and in fact it would be difficult to devise a more effectual mode of uncivilizing individuals than that of isolating them in the bush . To the needy Australian settler , the bush is a dernier ressort , like the workhouee to the poor in England , affording ready employment , a rough home , and a bellyful of food . It is also notorious that a bush life , even if begun in the greatest poverty , will in a few years lead the industrious , persevering , self-denying settler to honourable independence . Many of the most wealthy colonists thus commenced their colonial career , and nil who doom the isolation and privation more than counterbalanced by the enjoyment of health in a salubrious climate , and the certainty of fast-augmenting ' wealth , will experience but little hardship in the wild life of a hush-man" :

    December 11, 1852.] The Leader. 1191 ¦¦ ...

    December 11 , 1852 . ] THE LEADER . 1191 ¦¦ ¦' . . ,, . —_ __ . . — . — . , . — — =

    Jerdan's Autobiography. Tho Autobiograph...

    JERDAN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY . Tho Autobiography of William Jordan . During the last fifty years . Vol . III . J * J J Arthur Hall , Virtue , and Co . "I am not aware that I am yet overtaken by tho foiblo of garrulous old ago . " This remark gravely made in the pages of so garrulous and insipid a work will bring a smile over the face of every reader ; recalling the earnest protestations hiccupped forth by men who insist that they are Bober . It is not garrulity , however , that we complain of moat m tins unfortunate work ; tho garrulity of age might even have had its charm , had the wandering stream ' of memory borne with it any real fragments of tho past ; but Mr . Jordan as a youn <) man seems to havo lacked the art of vivid representation , and is not likely to havo acquired it in hia Hoventioth year . . . Volume the third is , like its predecessors , a winning apo ogy and unpleasant self-gloriliention ; the staple is frivolous , the anecdotes mostly pointless , and the personal recollections uninteresting . The host anecdote

    avo have mot with before , but it bears repetition : — " Unequal marriages are , it is true , seldom happy , but sometimes those which njipoar to be equal at tho outset , turn out no bettor . Huron Holland , oi Lull imnuory , lined to toll that in walking out , near London one day he saw an old Avi / . ened Italian Trump <»» <> " « h 1 ( 1 " <) Ult ) roiul wi ( h llWO or ihm ! lnouk ( ' >' > """ ° " tlui other a rather buxom woman trudging nloiitf in the same , manner vvith a Uiinl ) ourino . Ho was . struck by tho contrast ,, and entering into chat with the lai y found she was tli » KigiiorWifi ., and asked her , How she could marry that old J'lan ? < () h Si ,- ' Bl , id she , with n < Ie « p drawn riff li , and a meaning glance at tho

    UiUiHtioiHjp , ' when I married him , ho had a dromedary !'" h . E . L ., to whom the volume w dedicated , forms the greatest attraction among these " ixn-Hoiml recollections , " and considering bo ^ much o | her history was bound up with Mr . Jordan , wo take it us ™™ ) W . V ™*>* proof were not everywhere manifest , of his want oi that sin 11 before alluded to , when we find ho colourless and vaguo a portrait m the one tfivon here . Tho lirat glimpse is charming : — "My cottage overlooked tho mansion and grounds of Mr . Landon , tho father of h . jK . L ., at Old ltamipLon ; » mrrow lane only dividing our rcaidencoa . My lira

    recollection of the future poetess is that of a plump girl , grown enough to be almost mistaken for a woman , bowling a hoop round the walks , with the hoop-stick in one hand and a book in the other , reading as she ran , and as well as she could manage both exercise and instruction at the same time . The exercise was prescribed and insisted upon : the book was her own irrepressible , choice . " A slight acquaintance grew out of neighbourhood ; and I was surprised one day by an intimation from her mother that Letitia was addicted to poetical composition , and asking me to peruse a few of her efforts and say what I thought of them . I read , and was exceedingly struck by these juvenile productions—crude and inaccurate , as might be anticipated , in style , but containing ideas so original and extraordinary , that I found it impossible to believe they emanated from the apparent romp , and singular contradiction of the hoop and volume . An elder cousin , who took a part in her education , seemed to me to be the real , and Letitia only the ostensible writer ; and the application made under this disguise to conceal the diffidence of a first attempt at authorship . But the bill was a true bill , and

    my doubts were speedily dispelled . " Why is this charming , and why are the other passages so unsatisfactory ? Because in this he allows memory to recal the fact , in the other he allows his pen to maunder into " reflections . " The visible fact of L . E . L . trundling her hoop with a book in one hand , simply set down as it lives in Mr . Jerdan ' s memory , is to us very interesting ; will Mr . Jerdan be persuaded in future volumes to give us more such facts and spare the supremely superfluous " remarks" with which he fills his pages ? That one glimpse ; of the poetess is the only one we get , except from , her letters from Paris , which , are not uninteresting . She appears to have been " lionized" in Paris . Heine , St . Beuve , Mdme . Tastu , Mdme . Recamier , Chateaubriand , Odillon Barrot , Buloz , the proprietor of the

    JSevue des Deux Ifondes ( called Beulot , and named rSdacteur by mistake -r-rddacteur meaning " contributor" ) move across the scene ; and L . E . L . is delighted with them , and with French , literature , which " we know nothing of here , " and especially delighted with her own effect . " What I have enjoyed most at Paris / ' she writes , " has been my own reception . I , have met with the most flattering kindness , and have produced a very proper effect . All say that I speak French with an Somiante faciliU and avec une grace tout a fait particuliere" How naive this is ! Those wicked French will always be astonished at the way foreigners speak their language ( and with reason !) and turn the corner of any difficulty in the way of discrepant genders , hazardous idioms , and

    unmistakeable accent , by saying we speak avec une grace ! We never knew a Briton who had not astonished himself by the way he " astonished the natives . " By George , sir , they took him for a Frenchman everywhere . Miss Landon being a very charming person , was doubtless very charming to French people , even though s | ie did call M . Sainte Beuve , tres spirituelle , "to use the national expression "— an expression which would have made that critic smile . And the French wits were glad enough to forgive all sorts of natural mistakes , * for the sake of the bright nature and the fascinating manners of the young poetess . This sentence amused us greatly : —

    " I have received so much kindness and attention from Monsieur Meriraee ; he is very amusing , speaks English ( a great fault in my eyes ) like a native , and tells you all sorts of anecdotes in the most unscrupulous fashion . " We were also amused , though in a different way , by her saying she had been to the opera , and was delighted with the Teutchon of Sainte Antoine ; upon which Mr . Jerdan remarks in a note , "lam not sure of the name . " We have no doubt that Mr . Jerdan has astonished Frenchmen with his etonnante facilitS , and are surprised , therefore , that lie did not decipher the word into something more like French than Teutchon ; what does he think of tentation ? and of the opera being on the temptation of St . Antony ?

    The mention of M . Buloz in a preceding paragraph , rccals to us the witticism of the amusing Hard , on some one mentioning that Buloz was proprietor of two reviews . " Out , il est en effct , I'dme des deux revues , rtiais avec V attention 7 iabile de r ien etrejamais L ' esprit" ( it is not translateable ; we can only paraphrase it by saying " Yes , he infuses his whole soul into the two reviews , but witli the delicate attention of not adulterating it with any of his intelligence . " )

    Books On Our Tabl1l A 1'Lanfor The Forma...

    BOOKS ON OUR TABL 1 L A 1 'lanfor the Formation of a Maritime Militia , or a Sea IPencihU Force . In a Letter ( o tho . Karl of Derby . My Charles Klliot , Captain , U . N . Itidgway . Cavtmn lihLior ' tf Plan deserves seriou . s attention , lie proposes that ti convenient division of the whole const should be made , in sections ; each section having a bend quartern , placed in its centre , with outlying posts on the right and left hand . In each . section lie would provide for . the enrolling of a Sea Fenciblo Force , strictly for Ilouie Service , and divided into " Movealilc" and " lUserve . " Tho " Moveuble " body to be required to serve , cither on shorn , or ailoat within a certain number of leagues from tho part where they are enrolled ; the " Keserve" ( brined specially for service in the parts or places where they art ; enrolled . The whole to Ixi under the command of a distinguished naval ollicor . 1 ' rovision to l > o made for training " and exercise . This force , composed of 40 , 000 men , would , it is estimated , cost . about 4 ( 50 , 000 / . All tho details , as to pay , clothing , pensions , Ac ., an ; provided for . The whole plan is based on strict hut manly treatment of the men enrolled . Such is an outline of tho plan , for the filling up we refer to the pamphlet . Wo pronounce no judgment on it , but we re-assert that it well deserves the most berioiw consideration . Mtir (<»/ .- a Walt ,. J \ y Cuvror JJoll , Author of Juno Kyre . In Ono Voliinm- A Now KdUion . , SjniLli , EluW , ami Co . J'l' will ho agreeable nows to many of our rciulrrs that a ( -lump edition of Shirley in tho form of u companion to tho one prcvioiwly issued of Jane Jfyre , in now ohtainablu ; and even ulcnsunter uowk , that a new work by tho name authoress Is "in the prow . " Of Shirley and the cheap edition before us , we need only Hay that it iu compact , readable , and IuuhIhoiiu ! enough for the library Hhelvos . Critical liiot / rajvhies . By Gcorgo Ifonry FnuiciH . J . W . Parker and Son . Two separate volumes , each containing a " study" o f a remarkable man , —tho flint . Sir Mobert 1 ' evl , the tweond , Meniamin Disrcmli . They uro expanded reprints of

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 11, 1852, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_11121852/page/19/