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Leader (1850-1860), 27th March 1858, Edition 2 of 2, Page 17, DE LA KIVE ON ELECTRICITY. A Treatise on...

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      Fltoude's History Of England. A History ...

      materials , have only lately been examined , with the result of superseding a ™ fst n umber of popular views imposed upon readers of all ages and classes bv ignorant or partial writers . Mr . Froude has , besides the great Lemon ftollection made use of a protracted series of manuscripts , the analysis of which was a work of infinite labour , since it -was often necessary to concentrate evidence on one point from the Roll ' s-office , the Roll ' s-house Miscellanies the State Paper-office , the British Museum , and private repositories . In the true spirit of an historical student , he has patiently scrutinized every detail necessary to the elaboration of his narrative , and this merit will secure for the book a permanent place among English histories . Of its have alread abundance of oriinal matter

      general qualities we y spoken . An g is wroug ht ipto an original form ; the writing- is clear , characteristic , full of stre ngth and dignity ; the disquisitional episodes are varied by pictures and , upon an artistic principle , Mr . Froude judiciously interweaves the various lines of p urely political , courtly , ecclesiastical , military , and social incidents . Thus is produced the story of a reign rich in events and prominently marked by the personal attributes of the sovereign . In treating Henry VIII ., Mr . Froude abandons himself to a theory , his defence of which is altogether apologetic , for assuredly his judgment upon the king rests upon testimony the most imperfect and inferences the most arbitrary and conjectural . It atroears a law of our times that successful writers should devote themselves

      to the historical vindication of certain conspicuous personages who have occupied the British throne . If Mr . Kingsley wrote history , he would , probably , blunt the points of a hundred pens in challenging antiquity and posterity to a comparison with the glory of Elizabeth . Mr . Macaulay has constituted himselfthetrust . ee of the Great Stadtholder ' s reputation . Mr . Froude has undertaken the more difficult and less grateful task of rescuing Henry VIII . from obloquy . We do not think he has succeeded . A close examination of his evidence is unsatisfactory . Shadows still lie heavily upon the king ' s name ; but we are told to assume that beneath them are many virtues . On the subject of Henry ' s marriages , Mr . Froude is ingeniously industrious , and it will no * be denied by those who follbw him candidly , that he has disposed of not a few traditional exaggerations ; but the special pleading rises endeavour is made to each of the divorces

      to the surface when an justify , each of the executions . Henry has been represented , perhaps falsely , as a monster . Mr . Froude describes him as almost a paladin . He was , he urges , a chaste and moral man ; he kept no mistresses , he was far from being ribald or dissolute . It might be straining a point to suggest that Henry ' s wives were no better , and could be no better , than , his paramours , the favourites of a moment ; but certainly this view approaches the truth more nearly than that which apotheosizes the sensual despot into a martyr . It is true that Henry has been absurdly painted as an ogre , an Ivan , ' a wild and ferocious mimic of Lower Rome ; but it was unphilosophical to encounter these prejudices with a reversal of the sentence so unmeasured and so little authorized by the testimony of competent witnesses as that whicji Mr . Froude sets forth as a new reading of English history in the sixteenth century .

      Mr . Froude may not care to be popular , and may despise * perhaps without arrogance , the writings of former or of contemporary historians , but it is legitimate to remind him that , master as he is of researches among state papers , it is quite possible that criticism , penetrating as deep and ranging as far , may base upon the same materials a far different conclusion . His determination to obliterate the stains upon Henry ' s character , interfering with the rapidity and warmth of the relation , absolutely damages the book without , we think , adding so powerfully as he believes to the light of English history . What is expended upon the king ' s defence is lost in picturesqueness , in vitality , in point , anecdote , and literary attraction . It is obvious that Henry ' s conduct , simply described , even by the most complete and impartial narration , ¦ wou ld not bear inspection ; consequently , Mr . Froude has to philosophize , to infer , to patch possibilities together , to experimentalize in subtlety ; and minute rhetoric

      it is somewhat painful to find , after all this , that Henry VIII . is not entitled to sin acquittal . Everything has been said for him that could be said , and he remains loathsome , with the hereditary vices of his race , grossness , brutality , insolence , egotism—a bad member of an infamous family . Merciless to his wives , Mr . Froude represents his acts of cruelty as sacrilices to the necessities of the kingdom . The most patient reader , if not impassioned with admiration of the Tudors , will regret that Mr . Froude has entered into so much explanation with so little effect . As a narrative of the Reformation in England , Mr . Froude ' s work is of rare and original value . It tells the story as it was never told before , concisely , clearly , authoritatively , and , although it may be objected that the sacerdotal tin" 0 and affectation of spiritualism encumber the author ' s style , every stuclent of English history will be grateful to Mr . Froude , not only on

      account of his critical explorations , but for the masterly use he has made of his entirely new materials . That he is not a dry or cold writer , and that he in influenced by classical reminiscences and a desire to colour his pages brilliantly , one passage among many of a similar nature will show . It describes the ride of Robert Askawhen the famous rising in the North was proclaimed : — "As he rode down at midnight to the bank of the H umber , the dash of the alarm-bells came pealing far over the water . From hill to hill , from church lower to church tower , the warning lights were shooting . The fishermen on the German Ocean watched them flickering in the ( lurkness from Spurnhcad to Scarborough , from Scarborough to

      Berwick-upon-Tweed . They streamed westward , over the long marshes across bpnklmg Moor ; up the Ouse and the Wharf , to the water-shed where the rivers flow into the Irish Sea . Tho mountains of Westmoreland sent on the messago to Kondal , to Coekerniouth , to Punrith , to Carlisle , and for days and nights there was one loud storm of bclla and bluze of beacons from the Trent to the ^ Gheviot 41 ills . ^^ Mr . _ 1 ^ 0 MaeMJs , jaUlUl ^ yJ . a colourk'sa writer , Some of his sentences airo pictures . When not expatiating upon HoliTfy ' s ~ cruel fortune , " which imposed upon him , in addition to hia other burdens , tho labour , to him so arduous , of llmling heirs to Btrongthcnt the succession , " he frequently lights up tho pages with a few vivid words , « nd tho plunder disappears in tho historian . Still , his mum oll'ort has been to exalt the eharacter of Henry VIII . —with whnt result , in his own opinion , ono sentence tells . It ia tho last in the fourth volume : —

      His personal faults were great , and he shared , besides them , in the errors of his age ; but far deeper blemishes would be but as scan upon the features of a sovereign , who , in trying times , sustained nobly the honour of the English name , and carried the commonwealth securely through the hardest crises in its history . Here we part with Mr . Froude for the present , anxious , as most persons will be , to know what estimate he forms of Elizabeth and her reign .

      No. 418, March 27, 1858.] The Le.Adbs. _...

      No . 418 , March 27 , 1858 . ] THE LE . ADBS . _ 305

      De La Kive On Electricity. A Treatise On...

      DE LA KIVE ON ELECTRICITY . A Treatise on Electricity in Theory and Practice . By Aug . de la Rive . Translated for the Author by Charles V . Walker . Vol . III . Longman and Co . M . de la Rive is a Genevese gentleman of fortune who has devoted himself to the study of Electricity with the patience of a true philosopher , and with the skill of a first-rate experimentalist . In the vast and intricate field chosen for his labours he has acq uired a renown second only to that of Faraday ; and he now enriches science with a work which perhaps no other living man could have written . Works of Science are of two kinds : there are Pandects , and there are Summaries . To execute the former an immense erudition aiding a complete mastery over all the details of the subject , and a certain luminously methodical power of exposition are required ; and

      these requisites are all found in the treatise by M . de la Rive , which has been very carefully translated by Mr . "Walker . The book is a perfect storehouse of material . Everything that has been done , or written , by the numerous workers and writers in Europe , seems p erfectly familiar to M . de la Rive , whose erudition is so complete that it sits easily on him . Besides this perfect acquaintance with the labours of others—an acquaintance frequently neglected by men who themselves make original investigations—by Faraday for example—M . de la Rive exhibits that intimate practical acquaintance with all processes and all details which gives to his exposition the charm of precision , and to his word the weight of authority . Then again he is an original experimenter and discoverer , and the results of his labours are here reproduced . Thus from all sides his work becomes the most valuable Treatise on Electricity which at present exists .

      We noticed the two former volumes on their appearance , and have little more to add now , except briefly to indicate the top ics which occupy this third and final volume . It opens with a chapter on the relations of Electricity to Physiology—a vast , obscure , and fascinating subject . Having sketched the general notions of Animal Electricity , he treats of the muscular current of the Frog , and the muscular current generally . He then gives what is now held to be the theory of that current , and explains the influence of Various causes over its intensity , especially the influence of muscular contraction . He then treats of the nervous current , and of the relation between the muscular and nervous currents . Electric fishes , of course , come in for their share , and they are succeeded by plants whose production of electricity is briefly touched on . . . b the

      The next chapter is one of very general interest , eing on electricity of the atmosphere . Whenever people know not how otherwise to account for an epidemic , or a state of the weather , they confidently assign electricity as the cause ; but not one in a thousand has any very definite idea of the electrical state of the atmosphere ; and M . de la Rive ' s chapter will therefore be a boon to them . To this succeeds a chapter on Terrestrial Magnetism , and the natural phenomena connected therewith . But perhaps of all the portions of this elaborate Treatise which will have the most universal interest none can equal that of Part VII ., which is _ devoted to the various Practical Applications of Electricity—the physical , chemical , and therapeutical . The man who is indifferent to the polar state of the nerves , and rests unmoved during the disputes as to the muscular current , will feel all his interest roused when he comes to the Telegraph , Electric Clock , Electric Weaving apparatus , and the mysteries of gilding .

      Thus a mere glance at the contents o f this volume , not to mention the other volumes , suffices to inform the reader that there will certainly be much thnt he would like to know , and when he is further informed that in putting this work on his shelves he becomes the possessor of a sort of Cyclopaedia of Electricity , he will be less disposed to grumble at the bulk of the work : it could not have been smaller with effect .

      Western Mexico. Mitla. A Narrative Of In...

      WESTERN MEXICO . Mitla . A Narrative of Incidents and Personal Adventures on a Journey in Mexico , Guatemala , and Salvador , in the Years 1868 to 1855 . By G . F . von Tempsky . Edited by J . S . Bell . Longman and Co . This is the narrative of a journey undertaken by a German gentleman from Mazatlan , on the Pacific , eastward over the ridge of the Sierra Madre through Zncateccas and Queretaro to Mexico , and thence southward to Ouxaca , Tehuantepec , Quezaltenango , Guatemalata , and San Salvador , terminating nt the town of La Union , on the Bay of Fonseca . The route ) taken at once suggests the novelty of the explorations . Tho Mexico of the Atlantic coast and the Mexicans of the capital have been familiarized * every render of works of travel , but of tho remoter provinces to tho north —the provinces , for example , of Sonora , Chihuahua and Durango , where tho wild Indians are still the terror of the white man , less is absolutely

      known , fow travellers having been adventurous enough to penetrate into their interior for the mere sake of diversion . M . Tempsky has chosen , to a certain extent , a clear field , and tho account of his expedition in this explored region will be so much tho more interesting , inasmuch as it gives him an opportunity to depict u now feature in Mexican life and manners . M . Tempsky had passed three years in California , partly in tho mountain and mining districts and partly at Sim Francisco ; but being weary of— -plaoer 8- ^ and ~ their ^ -gQlden , _ ttdSOciatio . l . * a , ^ bon JL 4 j !!! French brig , and set sail for Mazatlan , on tho western coast of "Mexico . This w « s tho starting-point for Durango . Bufc uncouth stories wero afioat of the crimes which the Coinnoho Indians were in tho habit of committing—of houaea and villages plundered and burnt , men scalped and murdered , women and children carried off into captivity , and travelling cavalcades massacred on the road . M . Tompsky , however , heeded not

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), March 27, 1858, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_27031858/page/17/