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    162 T A_^-^ JiJLE j' [^o. 360^ATgggA r.

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    EDINBURGH ESSAYS. Edmlwgh Essays. By Mem...

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    The Indian Napier. The Life <Ind Opinion...

    honesty -while he commits every dirty trick recorded in the Newgate Calendar—so far as it is safe . Tories by birth are not to be hated , Tories from subserviency are . The institutions of the country make the first , he has no choice , unless he be a man of extraordinary talent and character . A high-born Whig -who has not courage or talent to be Radical or Tory is hateful . " He would educate his daughters , he said , up to a certain point , and then , if they pleased , they might become " as blue as burning brandy . " O'Connell , as be called the Duke of Wellington " a stunted corporal , " Lord HTardinge " a one-armed miscreant , " had no respect for JNaniers , and therefore called Sir Charles a ridiculous blockhead . To which Sir Charles retorted : —¦

    " You , Mr . O'Connell , call me ' a ridiculous blockhead , ' and accuse me of heaping * . filthyyituperjttion' on you . Possibly a blockhead I may be ; and as I am forced by conviction to go along with you on the subject of a poor-law for Ireland , I confess alarm , knowing the danger which , attends a blockhead when he travels-with a consummate knave : tut as to vituperation , I have not used it , nor would it be wise to do so against so perfect a master of the art . I once asked a dirty fellow , black as a chimney-sweep , if a coal-pit could be descended without soiling my clothes ? ' Lord bleas you , I goes down ten times a day and never minds my clothes , ' was his answer . D *> you , Mr . O'Connell , make the application !" In various vra . ys , Napier was an author . He writes , in 1839 : — Count Alfred de Vigny wrote a hook to prove that soldiers were helots : Colburn offered me money to edit a translation , with preface and notes . " And , in the same letter . —

    u Colburn has my romance , Harold , but I can't get an answer from him ! Davenport , who is a gool fellow , is managing for me with Colburn , who wants me to edit the life of the Duke , but I refased . I saw a letter from Alarie Watts , which says , that to his knowledge the Duke ' s despatches don't sell , and he is out of pocket a thousand pounds : this is curious . " In the Greei islands he knew Lord Byron , and gossiped about him . in his . letters : — " Lord . Byron tells me he has touched up the Duke of Wellington in Don Juan : he means to write one hundred and fifty cantos , and he gets two thousand pounds a canto ! Good trade , a poet ' s !" Again : —

    ' * Lord Byron is stall here , a very good fellow , very pleasant , always laughing and joking . An American gave a very good account of him in the newspapers , but said his head was too large in proportion , which is not true . He dined with roe the day hef ® re the paper arrived , and four or five of us tried to put on his hat , hut none could : he had : the smallest head of alL and one of the smallest I ever saw . He is very compassionate , and 3 dnd to every one in distress . " In 1839 " , when Napier was in his fifty-seventh year , he was appointed to the command of the Northern districts . The Chartist agitation was rising to its climax . Sir Charles was sent for by the ministers : — " Saw Lord John , a mild person in manner . Pcor man , he is in affliction which makes it hard to judge , but lie seems unaffected and thoughtful . He spoke with . good sense , and without violence against the Chartists , which pleased me . "

    The Whigs are charged as the authors of the troubles in the north . Sir Charles sympathized strenuously with , the agitators , but was resolved to make use of his military power , if compelled , with rapidity and decision Moreover , he hated the demagogues , who turned these evil days to the interestof sordid passions . All this part of the narrative is deeply interesting ; it is the light that was wanted for the history of that memorable year of hope , of error , of disappointment . It is necessary , however , to check the statements of this energetic and almost wild historian , who calculated so fiercely the effect , upon an undisciplined mass , of his rockets , with their * ' wriggling tails of fire , " but who yet assented , to the popular claims : — " The people should have universal suffrage—it is their right . The ballot—it is their security and their will , and therefore their right also ; and the new poor law should be reformed . " Everywhere , he records , if fighting seemed necessary , the civilians clamoured for slaughter ; the soldiers hung back , " averse to fire on unarmed people . " It is easy to fancy the highly-fed civilians calling out for a fusillade tQ protect life and property . The following is an entry dated Manchester , March . 2 nd . 1839 : —

    " The streets of this town are horrible . The poor starving people go about by twenties and forties , begging , but without the least insolence ; and yet some rich villains , and some foolish women , choose to say they try to extort charity . It is a lie , an infernal life , neither more nor leas;—nothing can exceed the good behaviour of these poor people , except it bo their cruel sufferings . " Even more characteristic is this : — " Chartism cannot be stopped , God forbid that it should : what wo want is to stop the letting . Jooso a large body of armed cut-throata upon the public . " It would have been a strange incident had the Chartists of the North discovered , in 1839 , that the general in command of the " Government bloodhounds' was writing , " Chartism cannot he stopped : God forbid that it should . "

    \ Vo might linger long over this uncommon book , but we have said enough to indicate the quality of its contents . The biographer writes often in bud taste , and aometim . es at random ; but the biography itself , interspersed with passages of private correspondence , is one that must excite universal attention .

    162 T A_^-^ Jijle J' [^O. 360^Atggga R.

    162 T A _^ - ^ JiJLE j' [^ o . 360 ^ ATgggA .

    Edinburgh Essays. Edmlwgh Essays. By Mem...

    EDINBURGH ESSAYS . Edmlwgh Essays . By Members of the University . 1856 . „ . Adam and Charles Black . The success of the Oxford and Cambridge Essays has suggested the present publication , which will probably meet with equal encouragement . It opens mthan article on " Plato , " by Professor Blaclie ; but us we dissent from the Smcnt . nT ? P reaaed ' both in ^ s gonoral estimate and the particular arguments and m to express , our dissent would lead , us into a lonff article " wXskZon ^ ^ 8 Cripti ° ° S " Earl * » 3 lish Life in the Drama ? ' by Mr ! John Skolton , a pictureafiuc bit of historical dissertation which every one Will read with interest ana profit . Dr . Gairdner examines » CnSthy '' ia * searching yet temperate article ; and Ux . Audrey Wilaon gives u * what

    we may describe as an Emersonian essay on " Infanta Perduti , " or tlio ~ happy unhappy children of genius uniformly misjudged and maltreated b the world . There is a touch of Charles Lamb ' s humour mino-lin" - with th following : — * ° ne These and similar considerations point towards the conclusion that men of > en " appear in the world in order painfully to give their lives for -the world ' s great e ^ and that it is very difficult to distinguish between the misfortune which is unne sary waste , and that which is necessary to their highest effort- This conclusion ha " no charm of novelty about it , for it is as old as human thought , and even sarae express it in their own rude , frank way . Foe , the distinguished Buddhist who n * Kala on the Indus , gave his body to preserve a famishing tiger , only acted on th £ doctrine that men of genius must give themselves to preser-ve the perishing Tim Spirit . When the Arab merchant , Shayk Mohammed of Tunis , weut anTona the Forians of Central Africa , these intelligent clouded-black critics , observing his Semit reddish-brown complexion , and considering the subject in the light of s uch moraland

    physical truth as abounds amongst them , came to the conclusion that he was not ripe man ; that he had been born into the world before his time ; that men so born are good to eat' —and that their Sultan had sent this one to be devoured . A . rude way that was , but at least unaffected , of stating the doctrine ; and I must say that in all the lately published philosophical treatises , Ihave foundno such proof of t > en trating genius as is afforded by the above j udginent , which 1 proves , moreover if the work of a poet he to speak what other men do , that these negroes were poets as well as philosophers . But in order to see the profundity of the remark , we must remembeE that the phrase " made to be eaten" can be very variously translated . With the majority of the Forians eating meant eating—slicing , broiling , masticating ; but one man among them seems to have had more enlarged views , for he proposed that thev should wound the Arab in order to see how long it might take to empty his veins He apprehended that an unripe man was sent by the Sultan in order that the ripe * men might raalie food of him , not for their stomachs only , but also for their soulsthat instruction well lea mi l

    , as as psure , ght awfully be got out of men born into the world before their tune . In this way the Forian doctrine may be made to suit a great number of cases , for , in the great human tribe , the man bora before his time 13 devoured in very various ways . In rude states of society they eat him literally and with relish , bat as men advance , they get a distaste for this article of diet , and ' take their gratification out of him in other ways . In less rude states they sacrifice Mm to their gods , believing that though they themselves cannot , these will relish the delicate unripe morsel . In still more advanced states they sacrifice him , not to the Powers of Nature , but to the Moral Power . They regard him * as impious . They immolate him . for the benefit of morality—pounding him . in mortars , giving him hemlock to drink , sawing him asunder , crucifying him , burning him , throwing Mm to wild beasts—thus obtaining , besides the satisfaction of the moral principle , spectacles of great interest , and greatly gratifying to certain human sensibilities . Civilization teaches the intr ( H duction of the more cruel element of mercy ; the most interesting of all sights being to see the nian " die of himself . "

    In his eloquent protest against a misjudging world ' s treatment of genius , Mr . Wilson _ overlooks one important fact , namely , that the world only neglects genius because it misjudges it , because it cannot recognize the genius . . _ Let ; the world once believe that a man of genius is living , and how blind js its worship ! Whether the genius be in its manifestations intelligible or unintelligible , whether it be Goetlie or Kant , Dickens or Curlyle , thereis no lack of willing adoration . Mr . Wilson enters a warm protest against the judgment usually passed on Edgar Poe , whom he admits to have been a madman , adding .-witUgi-yax cogency : —

    Mr . \ Villi 9 tells us that that mother-in-law loved him to the last , covered his failings , got his stories sold , wept and pleaded for him . All which means , let us consider , that she who gave him her daughter and had most reason to complain of all his failings ; who tended him in sickness , knowing any transient shades of auger , who was often beside him when reason had fled , imagination was degraded , from his white lips all the evil that was in him foamed forth , and in his delirium he tittered wild words to the hideous throng of wild shapes which were passing acros 3 hia brain , — that she could not be alienated from him , but still loved him , with that womanly love before which man's harsher judgment must be mute , as before tlie infinite pity to which even the best must look for pardon , —loved him so , that hers was the only hand " to wash his scarred face , ' hers the only voice to bid him " rest in peace , the noblest of his race . " Mr . Jain . cs Sime lias a valuable paper on the " Progress of Britain in the Mechanical Arts / ' full of interesting details 5 we can only laid space for the following" sketch of the history of railways : —

    Liverpool supplies the country to the cast and north with the productions of other lands , and also exports the woollens of Leeds , and the cottons of Manchester . Easy communication between these towns was , therefore , of the utmost importance to the manufacturing interests of the nation . Canals were thought of ; but the science of the day was frightened at the difliculties to be encountered in their construction , and declared the thing impossible . Valleys had to be crossed ; mountains to be levelled or bored ; and rivers spanned , How was it possible to enrry a river across a river , through a mountain , or from side to side of a deep valley ? The feat him been accomplished ; the dilliculties that lay in the way have been overcome , and wo are now unable to estimate their greatness . Brhullcy undertook the work . He was laughed at as a fool , written down as a man of no education , and charged with sqvmndering hia employer ' s money on impossible projects ; but lio porse-vered . He had faith in his own abilities , and could inspire other * with confidence . Some time elapsed ; and this soll ' -taught genius from being the laughiug-stock had become the idol of England ; Ilia cuttings , bridges , tunnellinga , and contrivances wore the wonder of newspapers , and the common talk of family circles . In iifty years canals had done their utmost

    as a means of inland carriages , and tho industry of the nation was again checked : imports could not be conveyed to the interior , nor exports forwarded to the coast to meet tho demands of consumers . Manufacturing firms in Manchester had to take their turn in getting goods from Liverpool ; and not unfrcquently the compliant was heard that cotton was convoyed across the Atlantic in loss time than between these towns . Travelling was unavoidably alow ; accidents or frost rendered the transport of goods at times impossible ; and factories were put on h ulf work , because the canals could not furiiiah tho necessary supplies of cotton . Tram roads , aa the railways wore then called , seemed to offer a remedy . They wero extensively used in the mining districts , where cast iron rails had taken the placo of the " oaken fnime , " about 17 C 0 ; and locomotives hud been invented in 1781 by Murdoch , tho ingenious assistant and Afterwards ( lie partner of Uouiton and Watt . So usofal had these rnilroiula been found that the proposal to hvy a tax on iron in 180 G wa * opposed , because it w ould incronso tho expense of constructiug them about 700 / . a mile . At lirat they had been laid down for . short distanced only ; but , in course of timo , tho proprietors of mined considerably removed from rivers wero emboldened to increase their length to sevon , ten , and even twenty miles , by tho facilities they offered for tho convoyiuico of could

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 14, 1857, page 18, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_14021857/page/18/