Current:

Leader (1850-1860), 27th September 1851, Edition Country of 2, Page 17

Page 17
Page 17
17 of 24

On this page

  • Departments (2)
    • €\\i %x\t
    • v>u\u\n.
  • Text (7)
  • 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.

      Lady Sel1na Clifford. Lady Selina Cliffo...

      Lady Dormer is , assuredly , not one of the few who have something to say . Sh « pretends , indeed , in her preface , that her object is to interest the « youthful reader " in a " picture which represents the recreations of the wealthy and great" five-andtwenty years ago . An object which cynical readers may regard as slightly ¦ ' snobbish . " Lady Dormer , who does not seem a remarkably wise woman , may consider that the expansion of the youthful mind

      will be considerably benefited by a contemplation of " the wealthy and great" at table and in the ballroom ; and , if that is her conception of literature , we must do her the justice to say she has perfectly fulfilled it . She writes of her own class not only as if it were immeasurably above all other classes , but her eloquence has the naive accent of some flunky soul suddenly finding itself surrounded by the splendours of " the wealthy and great . " The humorist asks : —

      " Without black velvet breeches— what is man ? Put the question to Lady Dormer , and she would blandly answer " Very true ! " To such readers as revel in the literature of the knife- and-fork school , Lady Selina Clifford may be commended as a gentle ,, unexciting , and not uninteresting story . Criticism it will not bearbut it will bear reading in languid moments . Lady

      Dormer has little of the novelist ' s art , and less of the requisite material ; but she has a turn for ridicule , and some of her remarks have a dash of sarcasm . The principal story —for there are several—extends over rather more than a volume , and is the only one we had courage to read through . But , judging from Lady Selina Clifford , we venture on some such verdict as this : Lady Dormer has nothing to say— -and says it .

      Sept. 27, 1851.J &!> * Q*T&1lx T. 925

      Sept . 27 , 1851 . J &!> * Q * t & 1 lX t . 925

      The Vbiled Vestai,.—The " Veiled Vestal,...

      The Vbiled Vestai ,. —The " Veiled Vestal , ' . ' we Suppose it must be allowed to be a curious and successful example of skilful manipulation . The veil is cleverly executed , and looks quite gauzy and transparent at a proper distance ; but it bears about the game relation to high art as a Paganini's performance on a single string ; it merely shows a difficulty overcome -without any result . The vulgar may wonder at it , but the educated grieve . At the best , it is no more than what is popularly , but not very correctly , called a trick , which is a sort of ingenuity that exhausts your admiration the moment you detect it . —Fraser ' s Magazine .

      €\\I %X\T

      € \\ i % x \ t

      A Word To My Readers And To Mr. Phelps. ...

      A WORD TO MY READERS AND TO MR . PHELPS . I owe a word to my public for not favouring them with my promised inestimable criticism on jfimon of Athens . I was sincerely anxious to say my say about a play peculiarly interesting to me , not merely for having been so rarely acted ( a rare advantage ) , but that it is , if not one of the best , one of the last of William JShakspeare ' s plays ; and though , as 1 believe , an unfinished work , yet , in many portions , a more higlijy finished and thoughtful work than any , saving , perhaps , Hamlet and Kino Lear . I sallied down with a friend to the Wclfs ( my friend piloting me ) . On presenting our ticket , we were offered seats on I know not

      wnat temporary elevation at the back of the boxes . Remonstrance only extorted the avowal thai these were the only places reserved for the Press . We , therefore , pocketed our ticket and the affront , and , committing our blessings on M r . Phelps to the care of the most abrupt and circnnmtantial of boxkeepers , we shook the Islington mud oil " our boots as we left the house , and returned home to meditate on managers in general and Islington managers in particular . Now , I beg you to believe , my dear readers , that Mr . Phelps has deprived you of a much greater treat than he has deprived me , to whom the play is not altogether the be-all and the end-all of human felicity , as in days , alas J I would fain Mr . Phelps or some other Wizard of the North could rreal to mo . ihu * .

      word to Mr . Phelp . s , lor whose management of the Wells who does not entertain adeep respect ? If he expects me fo walk down in full critical fig to the very confines of northern barbarism , to be perched " a spectacle to god . s and men" on a high 8 cat , Irom which hearing in difficult and teeing impossible , and then lo go home and writ * : cheerfully of hi . s conception of 'I'iruon , he suspects me of a power of " Toozymoozy " of which I am absolutely incapable . Oh ! when shall 1 revisit Islington ? Lk Cmat-Huani .

      V≫U\U\N.

      v > u \ u \ n .

      We Should Do Our Utmoat To Encourage The...

      We should do our utmoat to encourage the Beautiful for the Useful encourages itself . — Gok-thk .

      A Plea For Sunday Reform. We Want Reform...

      A PLEA FOR SUNDAY REFORM . We want reform . We are calling for reform pretty loudly in various matters—in Church doctrines ; in Bishops' incomes ; in taxation ; in the franchise ; in Government offices ; in drainage ; in street architecture ; in the treatment of the poor ; in a whole host of errors and corruptions , religious , political , and social , too many for enumeration . Is it flat blasphemy to raise one more among these conflicting cries , and call honestly and boldly for a reform in our Sundays ? Is it rank infidelity and sedition to ask for a . little innocent amusement and instruction for the poor—the working poor—on a great festival day of the Christian world ?

      " Yes , " says Dives , with a frown and shudder— " it is blasphemous and seditious to ask for anything of the kind . We will have our Sabbath observance ; we are a moral , Protestant country ; people have no business to be thinking of amusement on the Sabbath , they ought to go to church in the morning-, and then take a walk , and then come back to a cold dinner , and then gotochurch in the eveningagain ;

      and , if they have any time on their hands after that , let them r . ead tracts , and examine themselves , and think what miserable sinners they are , and repent of their wickedness in sackcloth and ashes . Amusements , indeed ! See if we don't stop their excursion trains and their hot loins of pork and roasted potatoes on the Sabbath ! Amusements ! I should like to know what you mean by amusements on the Sabbath Day ? What do you want next ?"

      I want this : —I want less Sunday drunkenness , more Sunday ^ onsistency , and a system of Sunday observance which shall be at once religious and rational . I want the poor man ' s only holiday to be devoted , in an appreciable manner , to his improvement , his instruction , and his enjoyment . How is this done now ? You set the church doors open and tell him to go in . If he turns away , you abandon him to the gin palaces at once ; if l ; e won't go to heaven in your way , he may go to the devil in his own . You don't take into any

      account his circumstances , his weaknesses , his natural human longings for one day ' s enjoyment , after six days' toil . You establish a code of religious exercises and restraints which suits your condition of life ; and , no matter what the difference in your sLations , that code must be his code too . If he reject it , you at once assume that he can have no religion at all , and ( hat it is expediency and time-serving to attempt to teach hm any religion on another plan than yours .

      Let us see what sort of " expediency" this is . In advocating Sunday reform , or any other reform , I start invariably from that one immutable and Divine principle which teaches us to do our duty to our neighbour , and to love our neighbour as ourselves . I take the case of a hard-working mechanic in the receipt of good wages ( let us call him John Styles ) , and I try to find out what is the best use to which John ' s spiritual and temporal pastors and masters can put him on the Sunday . In the first place , the principle on which I have started teaches me to have some sympathy , and to

      make some allowances , for the sort of life John has led for the six week days . It has been all hard work , poor fellow ! lor him—work which has dismissed him at night fit for nothing but to cat his supper and sleep oil" his weariness as well as he can , against the next day . Out of all the large store of the comforts and amenities of life there has been no portion set aside for him . Well : he wakes on Sunday morning , and the uppermost idea in hin mind—naturally , irrepressibly , the uppermost idea—is , now I have got a holiday ! How are we to teach him to spend it ? First of

      all by teaching him something of his religion , and by leading him to learn and practise it . devoutly with his fellow creatures . Is it necessary to do I hi . s that we should shut him up for two hours in church , and read him three separate church services rolled into one , with a m-rnion at the end , in which abstract , points of doctrine are discussed ' for the theological enlightenment of his betters ? Surely not . Where would be the harm of separating the Prayer-book Services ? of having the Morning Prayei ; , the Litany and the Communion celebrated at different and distinct periods of the morning P— celebrated in certain churchea a «

      servieea for the poor especially . I will suppose our friend , John Styles , to be aeiit to public worship under such circumstances as these—to join , for instance , only in the Morning Prayer ; after that , to hear from the officiating clergy —*¦ man a few words—literally a few Words ^ -of earnest , affectionate exhortation on his religious , and moral duties towards his fellow men , and then to be dismissed , after little more than half an hour of church attendance . Is this enough to make him try to be a better man for the day , and for the six days after ? If it is , your object is accomplished , without over-wearying his attention . If it ig not , will reiteration of chureh attendance , will hours on hours of church service , gain the point ?

      We will now follow John Styles out ofchurch at half-past eleven , or thereabouts ; he takes his walk , and then goes home to dinner . What shall we recommend him to do after that P To go to church again ? No . If he cannot recollect his lesson of the morning , without repeating- it in the afternoon , he has not been very well taught . Moreover , after his good hot dinner , he is not in a very fit state to learn in church , be he ever so willing—there would be danger of his inadvertently going to sleep . But can we give him no other chance of spending his holiday innocently and usefully , having already influenced him to

      begin it religiously ? Yes . We remember that God has jjiven him tastes which ought to be cultivated ; faculties which may be elevated and refined ; we think this , his only leisure day , a good opportunity for doing the # ood work , for performing a religious duty towards him—religious in the largest and highest acceptation of the term ; and we open our National Picture-galleries and our National Museums to him , after the period of the Morning-services . We give him a chance—mewed upas be is all the week in the crowded workshop and the crowded street—of looking at lovely scenes and lovely figures , which open a new world of beauty to his eyes . He can come from his wretched homeview over a back court , and see what the shores of Italy are , in the landscapes of Claude . He can behold the wonderful worksof nature in the animal and

      mineral kingdoms , and be the better for the sight . No ? Well , not the worse , certainly . Take the commonest utilitarian view of the subject , and you must confess that in opening picture-galleries and museums on the Sunday , we have , at any rate , opened opposition shops to the gin-shop . Is this nothing gained towards the observance of a holy day , and a festival day ? I , for my part , believe in the humanizing power

      of our pictures and our Museums—believe that a man may carry away from them thoughts which are worthy of Sunday and worthy of religion—or , in other words , thoughts which are fit to be seen by his Maker . And in this conviction I should rejoice to see John Styles and his brethren enjoying their only leisure hours in the week usefully and innocently , in such a Sunday afternoon's occupation as I have described .

      And now , when John has got home again , and the evening comes on , and the night is before him , what Khali we afford him an opportunity of doingP How does he too often pass his Sunday night now ? Walk about the Edgeware-road , or Tottenhamcourt road , or any other of the" poor " populous neighbourhoods , and you will see sights to shock , ay , «» nd to terrify you . It is useless to say John ought to be in church , or John ought to be at home reading his Prayer-book—that does not touch the present existing evil . There he is , sottine ;

      because on Sunday evening , on his holiday , he has nothing else to do but to sot . We all know the remedy—teach him better ; but the question in , how ? Trove his duty to him out of the Bible : is he in a lit state to receive such a proof ? Preach to him while he is wallowing in the mire : will he come out because you bid him ? Lure him out of the mire then ; lure him on to the cleaner and higher ground , without any preaching at all , and you have some chance of keeping him clean for the future .

      We have already opposed the gin-shop in the afternoon , with museums and picture-galleries—¦ why not oppose it in the evening , with music —• sacred music , if you will , to mnrk the character of the day ? Where would be the harm of establishing Sunday evening oratorios , on u large scale nnd at n low price , to suit working-men and their families ? Give these oratorios , when the evenings are fine , in our public gardens ; when they are not , in our public halls and our theatres . Sanctify the Sunday evening to the poor , who h * v 6 only heard the street ballad and the street

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 27, 1851, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_27091851/page/17/