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Leader (1850-1860), 22nd September 1855, Edition 2 of 2, Page 16, /^Mm . ' ..iz&ttCtJk^JK.VS&MS: ' jJ3^ e&...

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      "V^Hnib In Ebgland^E Are But I&Owly Begi...

      "V ^ HniB in Ebgland ^ e are but i & owly beginning to appreciate the unport-«^ % pi & « $£ I 4 terat « re *? & its remai & able leaders , the Americans are totted acquainted m & diXr Literature than we are ourselves . They attend ttfeve ^ y ide ^ aptiettrancei : and ferret out the names hidden behind signatures , s ^^ i ^^ 'ii ^ I & Si ^ . Vay . r ^ y- ^ iani' something of what passes here by rei ^ g : W & m & MJ & ri jourialsl in Putnam ' s Monthly there is a paper on ^^ ewiB ^ ife ^ ^ O ^" ---that is on QwiNMKBJa & iiH , Matthew Asurovp , ' and <|^» ATU > r || iABSBT- The critic scarcely mentions the name of Meredith , he atonce withdraws the mask , and speaks of Robbbt Lytton Bui , wje » , as he in this

      Ti 6 Where-spca & of S ^ rosncT Yhkdts , but simply of Dobkw . ; and latter instance ^ there is the taiwt assumption that all America is perfectly : ^^^^ Sli ^^ vS ^ bi ' ' $ i ^ - * 9 iB ! i | m 9- ' : ?* C ' 3 > o » e £ ] ca ^ - ^^ uxsbL ' mi' certainly not * he case in Engla |< £ where the ^ majority only know Sydney Yendys . What a prospect is held 1 out * p * Jtoglish authors when once an International Copyright is arranged ! To popular writers such a change would bring wealth ; to serious wrlteWwho can now scarcely secure a public large enough to pay expenses of p"r intiflg > i * would briiig a public large enough to reward as well as to p 3 / 6 tect froia' 16 ^ s . ' J ' ..,. ¦¦¦ • . ^

      -Afew-Iwe^^Ag Bjwe Announced The Somewha...

      -Afew-iwe ^^ ag bjwe announced the somewhat startling fact that a disc ^ Teryrwhfoh iad carried , the name of CiAxnaB Bbbnakd over Europe , and \^ lncft indeed : was one of ^ e most striking physidlogical discoveries of the age , namely tthat the liver is not only a gland secreting bile , but amanufac to ^^ 6 f St £ »^^ tbK discovery liad-been contested in the Academic des & $ ce £ a $# r . a : rep £ tatioii of six years , during' which it had been tested by most , experimental ] p % siolpgists . The antagonist is M ,. Lows Fighieb . whom our readers may know as the author of a popular work on the PrincihalModern Scientific Discoveries . His experiments and arguments were

      s ^ kmgelidug h to cause no littleSensation ; and foe Academy appointed a ConSmiiuonofTtriquiry ' . Meanwhile the J & nnaUs des Sciences has published the two , 2 yCefnoires which M . Figtjibb addressed to the Academy ; and ^^ j paii ^^ BfAsp haspub ^ hed his lectures , delivered at the College de Franceduring ^ 1854 ^ 55 , in a . volume called Xegow de . JPhysiologie Experimentale , which we very strongly recommend to those of our readers whose ^ S ^^^ i v ^^ V ^ fe / Vft '' ' ^ - 1 ^?^ ' 'dflfitepSio ^ i- ' ~ - ;^ yi * ii <* tt | s awafting the decision of the Qpjnmisdon of & quir £ wp . may at' once declare our conviction fftfrtM . Beb-NAB »' slcctures establish the truth of his discovery , and that his reply to M .

      ader-Figcieb is triumphant / - - ^ TC 6- ^^ ffi ^ ie a general idea of this discussion ; it may bo premised ^ a | ^ f Bl ^ i ^ s experiment s prove that however you depr ive the food of an aaiqaal of saccharine matters , the animal does nevertheless form sugar , out of theialbuininous substances ; and the organ in which this sugar is formed is ^© 'Liveri aiid the Liver only . The vessels which convey the albuminous ^ tet aiacU ^^ hfe liiver are found destitute of sugar ; the vessels , whic h convey th 6 Dltt 6 a : ytawi the I-iiver are found rich in sugar ; and the tissue of the inevitable it tne

      ^ Yer ' it ^ a ^ fpuR d filled with sugar . The' conclusipnis % etiMmmiffii Well , these ! facts have . been ' . ' . tested by many of the first experimentalists , arid declared to be corrects Itf . Ftouieb , however , denies th , eir correctness . s He denies that the blood carried by the portal veins to ^{ e ^ iv e * 'iw-aes ' titute ofWaV . ' H 6 says the sugar is presen t but ntdsiced S : M ^ es ^ nge of albuiiiinose . ; ¦; . Hq brings forward experiments to prove i $ a ' asBpriioip ^ . ' , ' ^ H 6 r « uppn ^ E »^ rAKp plainly ; denies Fiqujexi ' s ^ xpenniehts to bttve any ^ value !^ ^ because they hftKa not been , conducted under proper

      phy-, slol 6 gicftl conditions . This is > Mfy probable , seeing that Fiouieb w not a ^ iiysiofbgistii'ftu ^ - a ' chemist $ and chemists are apt to make sad blunders when they ent & M ^ ho tb ' cfre delicate domain of physiology . And that M . Fxguiebis not profound-in-his physiological knowledge may be seen in the fact that in one of , ^ is experiments , the raw mqnt w | th wbi p h he fed a dog is said to ,, be digested , and its saccharine elements tp have passed into the assumed . presence of sugar in raw meat ; 2 . the ns ? , ^ mption that raw- meat iai digested i » ( two i hours . ; i digestion is Aot he > l £ > completed in . the stomach , Mitich leas' has the food passed into , the intestines , in that . time . ¦ The question sbbn b 6 the

      6 f- 'fa ^ 'howev ^ decidedi Whether' portal system does b , r doeViibi < jpntain siigar cannot long remnin dubious . ' Meanwhile ' Moteigc ^ oxTc' iip ^ r ' ^ rptjgit , ' forward some striking observations which give great height tOvBJEjtiNABp ' s tiows , , Hte cqt out the Liver from several frogs ^ which ho ^ managed tP kdep alive for three weeks , after the operation , fie Ihdn exumJnied the blbod ^ muscles * and secretions of the iVogs , but found in tli ^ rii Wtirtite of bile or sugar . The conclusion ia plain ; for as we know the ' S fj ^ r ^^ iQ ^ o ^ pie kidneys' Oauseb urea to bo accumulated in the blood , to ^ h » oxiirpWtion of tho Xiver ought tp cause an nccumulation of bile and « ugnr in . the Wood if tho Liver were a mere ftUqrJov these substances , 4 nd 4 » ot the organ which makes them :

      r Should M , FiGUUEB turn out to be coiTOct he Will have thrown a doubt & p ^ ii ? : ' all ihe "best established facts of physiology ; he will have thereby done groat service , for doubt is tho mother of wisdom ; but ho will have created

      terrible , confusion among- the . savants ; -and we . shall . haye . our sceptical anatomists parodying the sceptical philosopher , and bequeathing their bodies ( if they have bodies ) to the hospital ( if there be a hospital > for the advance * ment of science ( if there be a sciencp ) . '

      Sir G.Q. Lewis On The Credibility Of Ear...

      SIR G . Q . LEWIS ON THE CREDIBILITY OF EARLY ROMAtf HISTORY . An Inquiry into the Credibility of the Early Roman History . By the Right Hon . Sir George Cornewill Lewis . ,, John W . Parker and Son . Wb have too long delayed our notice of this excellent book , which it is the duty of a literary journal to recommend to the notice of scholars . ^ Its importance will not be eonfined to the special investigation with which it ia concerned , and to which it gives a new , and , we believe , a decisive turn . It will , we apprehend , be regarded as a most valuable example of sound historical criticism * conducted on just principles , and . a most useful and invigorating lesson to the student in that department . Niebuhr ' s reconstruction of the history of Rome , and especially of the constitutional historvi durinsr the first four and a half centuries of the

      Republic , has been successfull y impeached in some important points hy Ihne and others , whobave exhibited his want of sound exegesis , and his arbitrary mode of dealing with passages in Livy , Dionysius , and the other authorities , from a reconstruction of which he undertook , guided by the power pf divination which he professed to have acquired , to restore the lost lineaments of the constitutional history of Rome . But these critics did not think of rigorously examining the basis of his whole theory . They showed that in some important instances he had not used his data fairly ; but they did not think of inquiring exactly what data he or any one else had to use . ^ The consequence was , that for his unauthorised speculatipns they s ubstituted speculations almost as unauthorised of their own . Ihne has given us a new theory of the proprietary relations between patricians and plebeians , which led to the agitation for agrarian laws . Mir . P . Newman has shown what , considering his ordinary habits of mind , is an almost wayward credulity in

      Schwegler begins at the right end by giving a conspectus of all the evidence for the early history , both documentary and monumental . But Sir G . C . Lewis has first brought fully and decisively home to our minds the utter want of trustworthy evidence , and the consequent inanity of all speculations , for the long period in question . His principle is the perfectly sound one , that no historical fact is to be relied on the evidence for which is not traceable to contemporary testimony . Now , if we include the Greek historians yyho wrote upon the war with Pyrrhus , the evidence for the facts of Roman history is traceable to contemporary testimony as far back as the landing of Pyrrhus in Italy , 281 b . c , though the contemporary historians for the earlier and larger portion of that period are not now extant . But at that point contemporary testimony totally fails . FabiuS Pictor and Cincius Alimentus , who first reduced the early history to ^ writing in the time of the second Punic war , had no " mater ials for that history but oral

      tradition ; a few isolated and often apocryphal documents and monuments ( of Which the most important was the Code of the Twelve Tables ) , and from the Crallic conflagration downwards an imperfect register of the . annual magistrates , ' and a few other matters , principally prodigies and their procurations , which formed objects of high importance in the eyes df the pontifical registrars , by wl * pm the state registers of Rome were kept . Livy tells us hini 6 elf ( without appajcently suspecting the bearing of the statement on tlie character of his own history ) that almost all the archives , private as well as public , perished in the Gallic conflagration . There is no trace of any prose historian at Rome before Fabijis Pictor , or pf any poetical chronicler before Naayiius , | whp wrote a poetical chronicle of the first Punic wW , with which he . was cbiitemporary . On the contrary * there is strpng evidence of ttie absenceof l iterature of any kind at Rome before that period ,

      , in the fact that Fabius and Cincius wrote in Greek , implying thereby that Latin was not a literary language . The first historian who wrote in the native language was the elder Cato . ^ Now , on . the moi 3 t liberal computation , and allowing the political memory of the Romans , tis a nation much gfliiirtied by political precedents , to have been strong , oral tradition' can hafmy be trusted for more than one of the five centuries before Fabius . The history of th 6 rest , as it has come to us tftrpvgh Livy , Dipnys ' , Cicero , and Plutarch , who followed the chroniclers from Fabiu 3 to Valerius Aritias , must bp regarded by sound criticism as legendary , and , Hke other legends , as lying beyond the province of history , and affording rip sound data for historical speculation . We must take it as it is ; enfoy its legendary beauty , appreciate it as a characteristic offspring of turiimtu ui nuuicmjuvujluu i * /«»

      tne national imagination , n » x ^ uyo , , «»» . « vu u » v it as a fund for the manufacture of endless antiquarian hypotheses and conjectural restorations , whicli are all alike incapable of proof and of confutation , and may be mxiltiplied ' without end . Throw it into the crdcibloas often as we Will ; it Will yield no historical truth , because it does not contain the stuff out of which historical truth is made . Curiosity must acquiesce , however unwillingly , in theYapt that the first four centuries of Rome , the or igin and formation of the Roman character , and tho early development of the Roman institutions , ia Involved in almost total darkness . And it is almost worthy of a Cagliostro td' pretend that by shutting yourself up for a long time in that darkness , and gazing intently Pn it , you acquire a right to pronounce , deter

      without positive proof , that real objects are discernible in it , and to - mine Wfiat those real objects are . But Niebuhr has ' dbcovered , as he thinks , that there are other materials for the early history than oral tradition , in the shape of national lays ballads arid funeral Orations . The " ballad" theory , it is well known , has formed tho nominal ground for Mr . Macaulay ' a Lays of Kopie , which are good enough " of themselves , ' and do not need a bad theory to justify their production . Sir G . C . LeWia examines .. the evidence for this theory , and it crumbles to nothing uriclor his hands . It consists of a statement of Cato that tho Romans , many centuries bofiwo his time , used to sing the praises of mustriouW men at banquets , and an allusion of Ennius to biirds who had written before him in the verse of Fauns and prophets . Tho statement of Cato , whatever his evidence may be worth for ao distant a period , certainly does

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 22, 1855, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_22091855/page/16/