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Leader (1850-1860), 24th May 1851, Edition Country of 2, Page 13, Critics are not the legislators , but th...

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      " Atjstkia" At The Exposition. "Soldreit...

      If you want to know what Austria Proper has contributed , you will find that it is principally furniture—even that is in great part due to her Italian slaves i but she seems to offer with a less doubtful title nicknacks , pipes , and linendrapery . At the Exposition , Austria appears decked in the borrowed plumes of Venice , Bohemia , Milan , and her subject states . We doubt whether she can exhibit , as a home manufacture , even the tools of her tyranny . Seeking for her arms , unless we overlooked them , we discovered nobbing worth notice . Arms indeed we did find , but we had passed the border of " Austria " on the one side into " Belgium /* and on the other into the " Zbllverein . "

      Even her living tools of the first class are not indigenous : Radetzky , if we mistake not , is the blot upon a Polish pedigree . " The contest will be short , ' * was a prophecy for the moment only : the contest is enduring . An empire thus constituted , with parts greater than the whole , cannot keep together . The greater imprisoned within the less must incessantly struggle until it bursts its prison . The Exposition of Austria is the shame of the nations tied to her chariot wheels j it is for them an humbling exposure ; but it may suggest the moral : if those

      subject Peoples were brought together in council , as they are here in the great sample-house , the crowned and official conspiracy at Vienna would no longer be able to hold them down . If Austria had exhibited her true resources , the instruments by which she holds down the subject provinces , it would have been the conscripts of those subject provinces used the one against the other . She should have shown " the machine for holding down Bohemia "—an Italian soldier ; " engine for

      reducing Hungary ' *—a combination of recruits from Germany and Italy ; " the Italian screw —formed of Hungarians and Croats . If the provinces were in council , if they understood in each other ' s interests their own , they would see , collectively , that they are lending their own power to a State lower than themselves in the scale of nations ; that to be free , in fact , they have but to revoke themselves . That lesson they must sooner or later learn ; but , whenever it comes about , that victory alone can be the end of " the contest . "

      May 24, 1851.] (&$$ &****?? 489

      May 24 , 1851 . ] (& $$ &****?? 489

      Poob, 1aw Progress In Coventry. Coventry...

      POOB , 1 AW PROGRESS IN COVENTRY . Coventry must be added to the list of places moving in the right direction , and moving well . The Directors of the Poor have taken steps towards establishing schools for the children . Industrial training is to the young what industrial employment is to the adult , and we look forward to the time when Coventry shall have both halves of 6 ound Poor Law management ; the more so , since there resides in the place the power to enforce the true doctrine with pen and tongue , in the best style . To that fact indeed must we attribute the progress of the ancient city—not yet ended .

      A Restoration Without A Revival. It Is D...

      A RESTORATION WITHOUT A REVIVAL . It is done . We read in May , 1851 , the astounding intelligence that the old Germanic Diet is again sitting in Frankfort . Restored , but assuredly not revived , this effete body has stepped over the chasm of three years , and meets again to w , ork the will of the plunderers of Poland , the usurpers of Hungary , and the oppressors of Italy . The rising and gibbering of ekeletons is not a

      resurrection of those who died . Germany cannot accept this solution of the Unitarian question . No deeds of a galvanized corpse can efface the facts of ' 48 and ' 49 , nor , in the long run , keep the German People from enjoying the fruits of their suppressed insurrections . So let the Diet sit in peace , and let " Lord Cowley , armed with full powers from England , " hover around it . In its heart is tho canker of rottenness , and the iron has entered into its aouL . Retribution is but delayed—not avorted .

      Tiukk9 A 8o0ia.Mht. Who Will Believe It ...

      TIUKK 9 A 8 O 0 IA . MHT . Who will believe it ? We have been accustomed to read , " ThierH on Socialism ; " but it would be novel to meet with the phrase , " Tillers for Socialism . " And yet we lia ^ e before us a circumstantial ac count of an alleged interview between M . Thieruand tho Presidents of the Working Men ' s Association * at Puris . M . ThicrH himself solicited the interview , at his . own house . Ho was struck by their polite behaviour and well thought out plans . M . ThierH , in fact , is said to have told the story to a numerous company of friends , and finally to have exprrHHcd himself as follows : — " I ana decidedly convinced that , these associations existing , you could never ucoompliuh tho destruction of the workmen ' s societies , nor snatch Jrom them the Republic . " The result of the interview , it in as well to fitate , wan that M . Tliiers rxpressed n desire to be present at a meeting of the Association *) , and to take part in tho discussion ; and that a upeuiul meeting was to be arranged **>* taat purpose . Wlu-ther he in sincere or not , " Thicrs for Socialism !" would creute a panic in " the party of order . "

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      Critics Are Not The Legislators , But Th...

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

      The Exposition, Which Empties Theatres, ...

      The Exposition , which empties theatres , lecture rooms , dioramas , and is to force Parliament , they say , to give up its hopeless efforts—the Exposition , which seems to prosper beyond all calculation , and to defeat all calculation in the " ruin" of other speculations , keeps Literature of course unusually dull . Macaulay himself might publish his two next volumes and only find a few famished critics to read him ; Tennyson might pour forth the wail of another sorrow as deep and as persistant as that

      which gave eternal substance to the volume In Memoriarn , not a tear would moisten the page unless it were from a reviewer ' s eye . ( Did you ever see the tear of a reviewer ?) The indifferent public gads away to the Exposition , and leaves Genitis to fling its clamorous ai ! a"i ! upon the air , without pausing even to listen to these woes . Hence our office of Literary Jackal—or Gossip provider to his Leonine Majesty the Public—becomes extremely onerous , and not at all successful !

      If one could but invent a few facts now ! Or , in default of the requisite invention , if one had the requisite credulity to believe all that is reported ! Thus Jules Janin , who has fallen in love with our fog and kindliness , announces to all France the joyous news that there will be no Waterloo banquet this June : the flag of France floating over the Crystal Palace suggests to the Duke that the banquet would be a breach of hospitality , because it would recal such " cruel souvenirs I" Janin

      believes that report ; or at least prints it , which is to give journalistic credence to it . We are sorry to think how " cruelly" France will be disappointed ; and we are amuBed at the excessive preoccupation of Frenchmen with this said battle of Waterloo . It is the ineradicable belief of every Frenchman that we in England are in a perpetual self swagger about Waterloo . We are prodigal of the word upon omnibus , shop , street , and road , because we wish to humble France at

      every corner . Waterloo - house is an insult Waterloo-bridge a defiance ! Wellington boots an outrage ! Every step you take you trample on the national pride of France , for with " insular arrogance " you walk in boots named of Wellington or of Blucher ! We are intoxicated with our success at having beaten the French ; never having drubbed them before , from the times of Cressy , Poictiers , and Agincourt , down to the Peninsular Campaign ! This one success of Waterloo—( which , after all ,

      was not a success , as France clearly gained the battle , only she quitted the field in disgust!)—we cannot forget ; we cherish it , we riot in it ; we blazon tho name everywhere to flatter our national pride and humiliate tho foreigner . And , curious enough , the foreigner is humiliated ! He turns his head away as he passes Waterloo-house ; he declines- crossing Waterloo-bridge , or crosses it in a passion ; and even his national dread of rain cannot induce him to ride in a Waterloo omnibus .

      Of all the many profound misconceptions of English society current in France , none , we venture to say , is more completely baseless than the belief in tlie English feeling about Waterloo . Though it would bo itnpossible to persuade a Frenchman that omnibus proprietors , hotelkeepers , and builders were guilty of no national swagger in using the offending word Waterloo . "

      Guouor Sand Seems Decidedly To Have Turn...

      Guouor Sand seems decidedly to have turned to tho stage . Another druina , nign < : d with her illustrious name , has appeared at tho Gait / :. Its title Molithe suggests u new upbore for her artistic power ; but the piece disappoints that expectation . Instead of an historical drama we have the ideas and quarrels of the duy under tho musks of historical personages ; and hIio has ho completely fultufled tho real position of Molikiiis und tho two U icjauts , that one wonders why aho did not take

      fictitious names for fictitious characters . One sentence in the critique on this play by Hector Berlioz will probably amuse those readers who have heard George Sand always libelled as an immoral writer—it is the complaint that all the persons in this piece are so virtuous they become tiresome : " Ils sont tous vertueux et ennuyeux hfaire fre ' mir . "

      It Has Been A Painful Reflection That Th...

      It has been a painful reflection that the various Mechanics' Institutions throughout the country should have fallen so low as they have generally fallen , not because they were superfluous , but because they were ill-managed . The main cause of failure has universally been a want of thoroughness . They have been turned into concert-rooms and lounges , instead of preserving the austerer dignity of educational institutions . From the report of the fifth annual meeting of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution , we observe with pleasure that the affairs of this body are unusually prosperous , leaving a balance of more than six hundred pounds , and giving the directors fresh courage for the future . The new arrangement of lectures is calculated to produce a more permanent influence than the old system ; it admits of equal variety in the choice of subjects , yet gives something like coherence to the whole .

      On Thursday The Great Satiric Painter Of...

      On Thursday the great satiric painter of social life—the Fielding of our times—commenced at Willis ' s Rooms the first of those Lectures on the English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century , which many months ago we announced as in preparation . We have never heard a lecture that delighted us more . It was thoughtful and picturesque , with some wonderful traces of pathos and far-reaching sentences . Dwelling upon the moral aspects of Swift ' s posi t ion and career , rather than attempting a criticism on his works , Thackeray held his audience from first to last . He gave a vivid picture of the early life and loneliness of the great satirist amidst the exasperating servilities and insults endured from Temple ' s household , as also of the turbulent political bravo coming up to London to carve for himself a pathway among lords whom he despised . In this part of the lecture it was felt that , while satirizing that condition of political corruption which made Swift a bravo and used him as such , the censor still touched upon living foibles—at the allusion to the South Sea Bubble , with its Railway parallel , weobserved some fair shoulders wince ! Nor were religious cant and formalism untouched in the admirable picture of Swift ' s sacrifice of his life to an hypocrisy . The audience was of the elite—Thomas Cahlyle , Macaulay , Milman , Milnrs , Sir Ron rut Inglis , the Duke and Duchess of Argylk , the Duchess of Sutherland , Lady Constance Leveson Gowkii , Lady Lichfield , with many others , not a few lovely women , and several men well known in Literature and Art .

      Companions Of My Solitude. Companions Of...

      COMPANIONS OF MY SOLITUDE . Companions of my Solitude . Pickering . A more thoroughly charming companion for solitude than this volume we cannot readily name . It made the whole day happy when we opened it , read every sentence , marked a great many , and finally closed it with the feeling of regret similar to that accompanying the close of some solemn yet dulcet , strain of music . Wherein specially consists the charm of this book we cannot say—probably in the mingling of Ihoughtfillness and humour , with n certain pensiveness tinging the experience of a man of tho world—probably , also , in tho style—or it may be in the rare qualification of being perfectly free from nonsense , paradox , wilfulncsH , ovcr-ocutonras , affectation , or good downright stupidity !

      Tho book is as peculiar in form as it in in spirit : —• " When in the country I live much alone : and , as I wander over downs and commons and through lanes with lofty hedges , many thoughts come into my mind . 1 . find too the samo ones cimiu again und again , and Hie Hpirituul companions . At tiincH they hiniat upon , being with mtf , and are resolutely intrusive . I think

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), May 24, 1851, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_24051851/page/13/