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.

  • 

    ¦ 378 THE Ii _j_ A _ P jB_ B. [go. 421, ...

  • 

    SWITZERLAND AND THE REFORMATION. /Switze...

  • 

    THE WE/VTJ1EH, r l§ Obaunmtiona in Afete...

• 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.

    Shelley. The Life Of Percy Bysshe Shelle...

    < lent . Campbell ' s * Hohenlinden' is a , " silly poem , " Campbell himself was " silly . " This is the way in which Mr . Hogg splashes dirt to the ri ^ ht and left . He even revives the foolish cry about ' Cockuoy' writers , which had been very deservedly forgotten for some thirty years . But , with all this supercilious manner , the University-bred censor is not able to write decent English . For the instruction of ' Cockney' readers , we will gather a few flowers from this Oxford garden : — " In the ancient world , the sacrilegious impiety of one who had disclosed the Eleusinian nivsteries , must be expiated by his death . " "An extreme freedom of opinion , or to speak more correctly , of declaration and discussion , together with a taste for chemistry , had been acquired whilst Shelley was & schoolboy , by his intercourse and intimacy with a physician , " & c . " One of Mrs . Shelley ' s admirable novels , it seems , the date points out her wonderful invention , ' The Last Man , ' had been advertised by the publisher in her name . " " This attempt , which many will condemn as strangely barbarous and utterly barbarian , was happily unsuccessful . " "He ( Godwin ) presently fell into a sound sleep , sitting very forward in his chair , . and leaning Jbnocti'd , so that at times he threatened to fall forward . " But the work is open to more serious charges than those arising out of ¦ clumsiness of style . The materials are ill put together ; the narrative is - confused , abrupt , and fragmentary . The volumes , in fact , are not so much a Life , of Shelley as a collection of personal reminiscences , some very . amusing , and others rather trivial and garrulous . The writer is too fond of telling anecdotes about himself , which nobody will care to learn ; and his perpetual efforts to be funny are very fatiguing and quite out of place . JMr . Hogg is so disagreeable a person himself that . he even contrives , on the whole , to give us a disagreeable impression of the fine-natured poet . Shelley had in him an ele ment of antagonism , which sometimes , it must be . admitted , carried him out of bounds ; and this is the very feature of his . character which Mr . Hogg brings out most strongly . Pie makes , also , some statements which require further explanation . Shelley affirms in one of his letters to Godwin that his father wished to induce him , by poverty , to . accept a commission in a regiment on foreign service , designing , during his -absence , to prosecute the Atheistical pamphlet , to obtain a process of outlawry , and thus to make the estate , on his ( the father's ) death , devolve on Percy ' s younger brother . The poet also relates that he was twice expelled £ -ooi Eton , and recalled at the instance of his father . These statements , and some others , Mr , Hogg says are purely imaginary . He does not accuse his friend of wilful untruth , but says his fancy was so vehement that he deceived himself . This is scarcely credible in such important events as those . alluded to ^ and we must confess we are not disposed to receive Mr . ^ Hogg ' s denial of the correctness of Shelley ' s statements with respect to his own . life . The biographer ' s guesses in connexion with the more paradoxical features of his friend ' s character are worthless . He is quite incapable of forming . any philosophical generalisation on such a subject ; and accordingly his rejnarks do not in any degree add to our conception of Shelley . The most valuable parts of the volumes are the letters of Shelley and of . some of his contemporaries . Those of the poet himself chiefly relate to doctrinal matters—to questions of religion , politics , and morals . They . show a mind painfully agitated and rocked by contending principles ; but they confirm , what the world is beginning to recognize , that , in religion , the tendency of Shelley ' s intellect was towards Deism—a Deism of a very refined , spiritual , and Platonical nature . Mr . Hogg says that , so far from being materialistic , he was inclined to superstition 5 but that depends upon what is meant by superstition . Some correspondence between { Shelley and Godwin in the year 1812 , before they had seen one another , is very interesting . The young poet was in Ireland at the time ; and , being shocked by the misery and moral degradation of the Irish , he had issued proposals for the creation of a number of societies which should meet and discuss existing grievances and their remedies . The older head of Godwin saw that this was likely to lead to insurrection , anarchy , and bloodshed ; and he condemned the scheme , which Shellej ' , after some letters of argument , jjave up . Mr . Hogg has collected the materials for some future architect ; but ho lias not the capacity to build the mansion . f t 1 5 ; ¦• » L ¦ > ¦ ~ ; I I ' 1 '

    ¦ 378 The Ii _J_ A _ P Jb_ B. [Go. 421, ...

    ¦ 378 THE Ii _ j _ A _ P jB _ B . [ go . 421 , Ap ril 17 , 1858 .

    Switzerland And The Reformation. /Switze...

    SWITZERLAND AND THE REFORMATION . / Switzerland the Pioneer of the . Iieforniation . By Madame lu Comtcsse Dora d'lstria . Translated from tho French by II . G . V 0 I 3 . I . und II . Fullarton and Co . Doha d'Istbia is a princess of Romaic origin , a native of Bucharest , Awenty-ninc years of age . Her education has Duen a compound of English and Oriental , of Attic and Spartan ; she reads Plato in the original , and swims like a Lacedemonian . Her husband is a prince of an ancient Muscovite family , tracing his lineage to the Vikings , but her career scenia to have been generally independent of any other influence than her own ; she has wandered from "Wallachia to Germany , to Italy , to Kussia , to Switzerland , and ia now engaged in completing the work of which the first two volumes are before us . It is a book exhibiting much talent und learning ; it abounds in erudite allusion , and there is something of Eastern richness in the language : the sketches aro animated und interesting , and from muuy sources the writer has gathered materials ^ particularly curious and valuable . But the translator ' s enthusiasm carries him too far , both in eulogizing the -countess and venturing his own interpolations , for , in the first place , ° io is ¦ extravagant , and , in the second , not a little obtrusive . It is true that Dora -d-Istria ' a-compoBitionsj-hitttorioul— and-rOontroverttial ,-have ~ been' ~ oxtensively " circulated in Europe , to bo fluttered and denounced by Protestants or Catholics ; but she is by no means so illustrious as her English admirer believes , nor is her discretion so unimpeachable as ho assorts . On the contrary , in the bitterness of her Eastern Church doginutism—imputed to her for praise in the preface—sho is singularly free in her quotations of traditional statements , and colours one page with blood as elaborately us she inlays another with ornate tessellations of eloquence . Her flowers of rhetoric aro cultivated , and of southern warmth and fragrance ; but in their < ixoes 3 their beauty disappears , and instead of writing liistory the princess

    frequently constructs prose lyrics of < j ; au < ly and fragile texture Tl , ,. "" her narrative favours this style of elaborate sentiment und supc'i-flu " ! *" coration . it is addressed , in a series of letter . - -, to a certain Naramh ° ? apostrophized us having a poor morbid heart by one who has retired t , Swiss valleys to contemplate the fortunes of the people in the inter < ° l . her own despair . Then the prospect , widens into a picture of th ^ 'l \ - ° * and mountains , and the rosy sky shadows into violet while John IIu- 3 upon the scene . Hero the key-note is si ruck , and several varieties of T ^ aid in giving emphasis to denunciations of Ultramontane atrocity Tp sketch of Huss is critical , biographical , and polemical , and Dora d'Tst ^ blackens zealously the faces of the Catholic persecutors . Her descrint " ' " of the Reformer ' s death is undoubtedly well calculated to stir ii < rain ^ passions that once raged among the descendants of the Albi genses ' and n ^ sibly with concordats multiplying and Jesuitry militant in ° » ll its glory ° > may be a useful work to popularize on the Continent a view of the Frotes tant struggles in Switzerland ; but the acrimony of the relation is t evident , and it becomes painfully manifest that the authoress assumes t separate the angels of this world from the fiends , to number the angels one side of the mountain and the devils on the other . 1 ' roni the ' martyrdom of Huss she passes into an interlude of poetical description , until a remembrance of the Inquisition drives her to Lecerf ' s magniiiceut exa « - < wit ;™< . ! concerning the three millions 01 persons put to death in cold blood by the religious orders . Again , however , the narrative floats brilliantly in autobiographical channels , bright with all that Dora d'lstria dreamed amon * turreted castles , rainbow-tinted cascades , the reflected disks of the stars ' and the thunder of the Rhine past tlie rough rocks of Schafl'hausen . These ; lead to an admirable dissertation on the chronicles of Swiss liberty , 011 the ' history of the Federal territory as influenced by its situation and physical I geography , ' and by the battles fought by archers and shepherds against mailed armies and squadrons of nobles , who lied reeling across the Tee at Morgaten . All this part of the work is nobly inspired , and forms a littinw study for the young , although the princess persists in breaking the thread to expatiate on gold-hued and carmine pebbles , on the notes of her guitar in a bower of blossoms , on a vision of the Ister that brings the name of Mullor to her memory . Thus is introduced a sketch of that great historian ' s life , interspersed with quotations , anil followed by an equally interesting notice of Zschokke , whose career was one of exuberant activity nnd romance . He was author of that remarkable and well-known phrase , " The history of past times is the knowledge of good and evil . " In a formal impeachment of the ltomanist system , as developed in nunneries and monasteries , Dora d'lstria descends to details which she is forced to leave untranslated in the original Latin ; and some readers will be startled , after glancing at the delicate and noble portrait of the authoress , to read her quotations from the register of the Council of Geneva concerning the crimes engendered by celibacy , and from the brief of Julius to the penitents of St . Clara . These were , perhaps , necessary to the completeness of her view ; but they stand out in broad contrast with the passages written in lemon-scented ink , flowing from dove quills , and traced , we might believe , upon rose-tiuted paper . The La < ly of Istria is bold in her excursions , and after reading abominable records , sweetens her imagination in the breezes of the lakes . Once , indeed , she determined to ascend a mighty mountain , nnd in June , 1855 , tho Mcinch in the Oberland chain was scaled for the first time by Dora d'lstria : — When I announced my intention to ascend au unexplored peak of the Alps , there was a geueral feeling of amazement . Same imagined it was merely a capriiv , which would be satisfied by the mere sensation it produced : others disapproved uf such an encountering of dangers , and many could not bo . convinced thai I was scriuiis . No one , in line , would buliuve such a project could bu carried out . The agitation increased , when dillerent telegraphic despatches summoned from their village ' s the guides who had the reputation of being the most resolute in their respective ilistriets . One hope remained , namely , that those guides thuinaelvos would dissuade me / rum my enterprise . Accordingly , I ' eter was exhorted tu relate to me all the dangers which I should incur amongst the glaciers . With the aid uf Ulu .-vopcs 1 was shown the precipices of the Junglraii . All the handbooks of Switzerland were \ iUuxil 011 my table , und every ono read the must terrifying passages , such n . s were ino . it likely to discourage me . The contrary , however , happened ; for my i-iiriusily was » o much oxcited by those accounts , that 1 burned with impatience to > commence the journey . could think of nothing except those deserts of snow which crowned the summit ol the mountains . . . I held a private conversation with Peter , and spoke to him with lirmno-s , in uriler to strengthen his resolutions , and my words . succeeded . " Whatever may Mappon , said he , " will you tnko on your elf thu responsibility ? " " Certainly , " 1 r « - [ iliuu , and 1 gave him my hand , urging him not to bo *> lwiken by imy ivinunsinuiLV , miu w cneounigo thu guides on their arrival , ho ns to strengthen them against ihe inlluoiici . of any third partios . Ho -promised mo to do ho , and his face brighluucMl up «<• no saw 1110 trunipiilly Mulling , lie lull me to preside ovur tho preparation . - ) An the eN | e '' J ' and to get my droas ready for ine ,- — a mini's aiiit , composed of black mid \ n ¦ luti ' i ., / woollen trouaorri , a buttoncd-up coat , extending to the knees , a round lelt Init , t , ho . so worn by tho mountaineers , and a large and thick pair of boots . Wo follow her up tho mountain : — Wo wore- in tho midst of an immense desert , ( moo to face with the nkies an wonders of nature . Wo usvuiulcil perpendicular blocks of stone , ' \ lll ; * . "j"Y 01 i all mils on our loft . The way now bocumu more and inure dillioull . W « eliiuU'i ^ fours , gliding along liko cats , and springing from ono rook to the other lll % 0 ' , "'' ¦ ,, Frequently a handful of moss or brain bleu wi \» our only support , when we Ion « cleft * . A few drops of blood often atained , like purplo ( lower * , iho verdure we p » a book so vigorous , bold , and entertaining .

    The We/Vtj1eh, R L§ Obaunmtiona In Afete...

    THE WE / VTJ 1 EH , r l § Obaunmtiona in Afeteorologi / . l \ y the ltcv . Leonard J'cnyim . " It is an old and populur topic—tho weather ; put if tl * o gonural « os ^ abroad would etuily his subject a little inoro profoundly , thoro wou ^ more interest in a conversation upon tho rain , tho fog , or tho sl "' nll ) world ia perpetually talking of atmospheric variations , aqueous I '" " COii the temperature und direction of tuo winds ; but after all a few soiuw

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), April 17, 1858, page 18, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_17041858/page/18/