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    gg T H E X E A D E U. fNo. 409, January ...

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    Critics are not the legislators, but the...

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    The new number of the Edinburgh Review h...

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    THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ART. The Politi...

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  • 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.

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    Gg T H E X E A D E U. Fno. 409, January ...

    gg T H E X E A D E U . fNo . 409 , January 23 , 1858 .

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    Critics Are Not The Legislators, But The...

    Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do hot make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Review .

    The New Number Of The Edinburgh Review H...

    The new number of the Edinburgh Review has a good article on ' Tom Brown s Schooldays . ' While doing full justice to its great and peculiar merits as a picture of life , the writer points out its serious imperfections as a manual of doctrine . These defects have been too much overlooked in the general , and for the most part just , praise bestowed on the' Boy ' s' delightful story . As , however , the book is not simply a novel of the season , but the manifesto of a school , and is largely recommended and read for the sake of the moral as well as the story , it is the more important that its short-comings should be signalized . The main faults of the book are a misrepresentation of Dr . Arnold ' s character as a teacher , and an extravagant admiration of his system . This must be the result of looking at the master and his work through the distorting medium of class sympathies , as we possess the most ample materials for forming a truthful

    and impartial estimate of both . Dr . Aj & nold is represented by * An Old Boy , if not directly , at all events by implication , as a simple , massive character , fond of athletic exercises , and full of impulsive energy and unconscious strength ; while in reality he was one of the most intensely conscious , scrupulous , delicateminded , and excitable of men . Then with regard to his system at Rugby , there is no doubt that he directly raised the tone and amended the discipline of the school , and indirectl y improved , in the direction where it most needed improvement , the public-school teaching of the country . But his noble virtues were crossed by striking defects of character , and these defects were of a kind that peculiarly unfitted him for giving boys a strong and healthy training at the most critical period of their lives . Take fox example his total want of humour , and the undue importance he habitually attached to trifles , noted in the

    following passage : — " The great standing charge which Dr . Arnold brought against public schoolboys was the want of what he delighted to call ' moral thoughtfulness ; ' phrase , which to those -who remember its employment at the universities by the solemn array of Rugby praepostors , is associated with a most ludicrous recollection of old heads set upon young shoulders , and completely puzzled by their position . Such , however , was far from being Dr . Arnold ' s estimate of this cardinal virtue . To make his boys morally thoughtful was for him the substance of the la-w and the prophets . The total want of humour which characterized him prevented him from seeing that much of what he considered ' awful wickedness , ' was mere fun , and that it was far less desirable than possible to turn boys into men before their time . It seems to have been his serious wish to bring boys to see a duty in every act of their lives , and to imitate his own habit of referring the most trifling matters to the most awful principles . There result

    is a class of persons on whom it is extremely easy to produce this . An imaginative , sensitive boy of sixteen is more open teithese than to almost any other impressions . When Dr . Arnold was himself of that age he was at college , amongst grown-up men , and he did not therefore know how boys at that time of life naturally feel upon such subjects . It is an age when sensibilities of all sorts want the bridle ar more than the spur ; for a lad is then first distinctly conscious of the degree in which his capacities will soon exceed the limits of the position in which he finds himself . Like a young horse who has no load and no rider , he begins , from mere wantonness , to rear , to kick , and to think that the stout cobs who carry middle-aged gentlemen , and the sleek horses who draw prosaic carriages so quietly along the smooth roads , do not Bhow in their daily labour half so much strength or resource as he does when he flings out his heels or rolls on the grass . If a touch of melancholy ( as ia so often the case ) mingles with this stirring of the blood , it often takes the form

    of impatience at the puerility of school life . The lad wishes to make grand speeches in Parliament , to lead the storming party up a breach , to write poems which shall throw Shakspeare into the shade , to invent machines which shall supersede railroads and steamships . When a youth of this stamp hears from such a man as Arnold the aprt of half truths which he communicated to his sixth form boys , he receives them as the very fulfilment of his dreams . He is told that the moral welfare here and hereafter of some four hundred boys depends , in a great degree , on his exertions . His roaster , the object of his idolatry , delegates to him the combined authority of the priest and the prophet . If there is evil in the house he is to hate it , to preach to it , and finally , to take a cane and thrash it in the name of the Lord—an exercise which gratifies the old Adam , while it gives a grim satisfaction to the new . All the and satisf

    objects and incidents around him acquire a sort of new signification , y at once his love for theory , and his dread of seeing his theory confuted by facts . He never ties his shoes without asserting a principle ; when he puts on his hat he ' founds himself' on an eternal truth . How can qrma virumgue be trivial ; how can football be puerile ; how can it be a vulgar incident to lick your fag for not toasting your sausages , when every motion of tho tongue , hand , or foot involves the idea of the trtikte , and asserts the identity of the Christian Church with the Christian State ? Conversely , who can be so hardy as to deny tho truth of the theory in the face of tho fact ? Sceptics and quibblers can never disconnect the civil and religious functions of life , whilst members of parliament swear on the true fnith of a Christian , and tho prsapostora of Rugby brandish their canes and cry silence . is under tho charm

    It is curious to see how even now the ' Old Boy ' . In any ono but a Rugbooan the importance which ho attaches to the merest trifles would be quite unintelligible . He finds as many morals in a boxing match as Mr . Ruskin does in the twist of a gurgoyle ' s tail , or tho ehapa of a wallflower ' s root . It assorts the great truth , that life is all a battle , that it is our great business to fight , and so forth ; in short , it is one of a hundred excuses for taking up tho cry—In the name of the prophet . Figs . Floreat pugilatus ' by all moans , but leave tl » e gloves to depend mrthliirTnTtum ^ hlim ' sT ^^ English boys the final cause of their fists . Again , of the injurious tendency of such minute and morbid morality , ho says : —

    In practice itis Impossible and undesirable not to look upon a very largo proportion of human actions as indifferent . Men hav . o only a limited amount of time and ¦ tntngth at their disposal . ' Life , ' it has boon nobly said , ' ia not long enough for •• crupleo . ' We ought to direct our view to the weightier matters of tho law , and leavo the mint and oummln to take oaro of themselves . An ingenious person may make hla acceptance or refusal of an invitation depend upon his view of the source of moral obligation , but he had much better not , for ho will either solve his problem wrongly after nil , or else he will waste upon it far more time than It is worth . Th «

    temptation to act thus is particularly strong upon boys and unmarried women . They have nothing to do which is at once important and open to doubt . That a boy at school ought to learn his lesspn , that a grown-up daughter ought to nurse her mother if she is ill , or . teach her little brothers to read , or at any rate to dress as well as she can , and play on the piano , are self-evident truths , and therefore there is no conscious effort to be good , no assertion of a cherished principle in aeting accordingly ; and thus the craving after the exercise of an important discretion has to satisfy itself on trifles . Nothing is easier than to get up mock important business by linking small results to great principles . A prropostor ' s cane , which ia a penny cane and nothing more , mav hit or miss , as it happens . Turn it into the sword of the Lord and of Gideon , and you may well argue for an hour about unsheathing it . Such practices are very unwholesome . They not only stimulate a diseased consciousness , but they are pretty sure to deaden the feelings of a hard nature , and to upset the balance of a soft one .

    A full and eloquent sketch of the life and labours of Bosstjet , and a brief but instructive account of a most curious and unknown subject—' The Hawkers' Literature of France , ' are the remaining literary articles of interest in the number . The current number of the Quarterly Review is solid and instructive , but dull and difficult to read . The elaborate description of ' Woolwich Arsenal and its Manufacturing Establishment , ' and of the ' Difficulties of Railway Engineering , ' though interesting to the scientific , will most probably be passed over by the general reader . They are , however , about the best papers in the number . * The Historic Peerage' may attract those who are fond of the noble science of heraldry , and have a passion for blue blood , but few besides will peruse faithfully to the end such a bewildering catalogue of noble names . The ' Sense of Pain in Man and Animals' is a diffuse and imperfect account of a

    most interesting subject . It is marked , too , by a weak and morbid , almost maudlin tone , that is singularly out of harmony with the character and usual spirit of the Quarterly , the time-bound champion and representative of English sports and country life . " The sports of the field , " says the sensitive writer , " come distinctl y * under the denomination of cruelty when the creatures are neither destroyed because they are themselves destructive , nor because they are required for food . " He is still more intolerant of the ' gentle craft . ' " Whatever may be argued in favour of shooting , " he indignantl y adds , " angling with a worm , or any species of live bait , is absolute atrocity . "

    The two chief literary articles of the British Quarterly ate ' John Gower and his Works , ' and * De Foe . ' The former is a good account of a poet whose writings hold an important position in English Literature , and had a decided influence in the development of the language , but which are , and will remain to all but students , unknown . The writer says little of Gower ' s language , a most important subject in the discussion of his works . The number contains a very readable scientific paper ' On Meteoric Stars and Comets . ' The London . Quarterly , in an article on ' Homer and his Translators , ' gives far higher praise to Professor Newman ' s recent attempt to render the sounding hexameters of the ' old man eloquent' into unrhymed English verse , or rather into unrhythmical English lines , than we should be disposed to endorse . Professor Newman , with a fine sense of the niceties of language , has no ear for music , at least , for the music of English verse , and is therefore unfitted for the task he has attempted . The ' Waldenses / and ' Religion in Germany , ' are interesting articles , the latter giving some personal reminiscences of the recent Conference of the Evangelical Alliance at Berlin .

    The Political Economy Of Art. The Politi...

    THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ART . The Political Economy of Art . By John Ruskin , M . A . Smith , Elder , and Co . Mr . Ruskin is not a master of Political Economy , regarded strictly as a science . He has read none of its text-books except that of Adam Smith , twenty years ago . This he explains in his preface , so that he stands clear from any charge of arrogant controversy . His views are his own , worked out apart from those of former writers . Therefore this book , incorporating the substance of two lectures delivered at Manchester , is so far empirical , in that it is the essay of an artist on a subject which he has deeply meditated without following its history , or seeking to evolve from known theories does not here auect

    and disquisitions a new set of hypotheses . Mr . Kuskm . to be original ; he states his opinions whether or not they resemble those ot men who have gone before him . The three treatises are suggestive , not canonical . Against a part of the doctrine announced tho most fearless thinkers will protest ; by the least candid , many of the points moat emphatically urged must be accepted . Mr . Ruskin , it ia true , leaps into his argument , after balancing himself upon a paradox ; but , with keen and forcible rhetoric , he has dignified the truth of the merest truism , and demonstrated , so that no reader can misunderstand it , the personal » na essential interest which every individual in the commonwealth hns in tne study of political economy . We said he opened with a paradox—thw M , that poverty is contemptible . Ho does not moan tho poverty winch toe wise and good have honoured , but ho seems to moan it , and his preamDio is , therefore , a surprise . Perhaps it fascinated tho attention of a Manchester audience , among whom Diogenes never had a reputation for virtue ; out tmv u , i « lr ; n , ' nwrh * . if w « consider what it is ho deBpiaos as poverty , onu

    whathlvonoratTsTs ^ SlBr ^ plomontary paragraphs , his praise of tho patriarchal principle . i . no iu «» propounded is ono which was never moro loudly enforced , and never mow unlikely to become popular than at tho present day . Society througnou * the world is seeking its release under an exactly opposite law . However , Mr . Ruskin doen not linger among abstract dialectics ; ho ramifies spoo < w into detail and illustration , and through those passages of practical pnuosophy wo have followed him with scarcely mingled pleasure . At tunes , nw didactics have a tone so peremptory that they would appear to ww » tho very doubts they suggest , and yet it may be domed by . P "" " economists not loss dovotod to tho welfare of art and sooioty tuan

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 23, 1858, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_23011858/page/16/