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    610 Tho Leader and Saturday Analyst. __J...

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    THE HEARTH AND ITS HEROISMS. IT has been...

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    The Last Of The Buoxarabtes. Some Men Ou...

    St . Helt-na . To one , who of events like these , might say with truth , " Quorum pars magna fni , " their memory must we think have struck a chord that could answer even in the hour of death . Then , too , the recollection of the long half of his later life , of his ¦ villa home at Florence , in that pleasant Tuscan land , would cross liis mind peacefully after the troubled dream of his early years . The last period of bis life had , we suspect , left a less vivid impression on his mind . We have heard that latterly the old mans powers were impaired , though not destroyed ; and so , though a daughter of the House of Savoy stood by his bedside as wife ot his only son , though messages of inquiry came daily from Baden , where a new Napoleon , was holding a new Congress of Tilsit ; yet we suspect that the second empire and the glories ot the second Emperor must Lave mingled hazily in his mind with the recollections of the past , and the prevailino- thoughtif thought there was , must have been that the

    , grave had given back the mighty dead , and that ]\ apoleg . v was returned to claim his own again . There are families like those of the Nafieks and the Wei-IESEeys , all of whose members have a greatness of their own . Ihis was not the base with the Buonapartes . None of Napoleon s brothers showed anything of original ability , and , with the death ot Napoleon-, they all died , morally . The reason , according to the " Idees Napoleoniennes , " which induced the Euperor to make Jriiig-s of his brothers was " because they alone as kings could submit to his will , and could consent , in obedience to the decrees of his pplicv , to relinquish a throne in order to become again mere Trench princes , for they alone united the apparent independence of royalty with the dependance of the family . " In other words , they ¦ were not men of sufficient vigour to stand alone Napoleon might with truth have parodied the saying of LotjisXIV ., and said , * ' La famille e ' est moi . " Jebome formed no exception to this rule ,

    and whatever merits he possessed were of a negative description . Still his death will leave a void behind . It is sixteen years since Joseph , the ex-King of Naples and of Spain , died as Count of Sur-• villiers , having spent the last year or two of his life in an out-of-theway village in our midland counties - f and now the last of the kingbrothers , the Jast link between the old empire and the new , has passed away . There is a strange fitness in the epoch of his death . He had lived to see another Marengo and a new Arcola He had survived to witness the treaties of 1815 , which put a ban upon his family , torn into shreds by a younger Napoleon ; and- the last news almost which struck his dying -ears was that of the " Te ~ Detim" chanted for the restoration of the old frontiers of France , Never could the " Nunc dimittis" have beeli

    sung more fittingly ( or the " last of the ISuonataetes . " They are going , it is said , to bury him at St . Denis , —the shrine of the old Kings of France , It would be better , so it seems to us , it the dead Prince were laid at rest beneath the dome of the " Inva-] ides , " where , according to his own wish , the great Napoleon sleeps " on the banks of the Seine , amidst the people that he loved so well . "

    610 Tho Leader And Saturday Analyst. __J...

    610 Tho Leader and Saturday Analyst . __ Jf ^ ^™ 1

    The Hearth And Its Heroisms. It Has Been...

    THE HEARTH AND ITS HEROISMS . IT has been wittily said , " No man is a hero to his own valet . " There is , indeed , something in the original meaning of the word hero , which takes it out of the home circle . It implies at least something grand or noble , something lord-like , masterful;—among the Greeks it signified a man who was something more than a man , a man who was half a god- It is still used in poems and romances for the principal personage , and to the present day retains a certain , mythologic dignity . The character of the hero in ancient literature was nothing less than a demigod . The old Greek tragic poet had no notion of selecting a purely human subject—r-his hero must be a colossal being , mysterious in its origin , mighty in act , immortal in destiny . Ho must , in a word , be Prometheus the Titan , not the Man . Tt has , indeed , been said of his poet—who , in his own way , was a Titan too—that " his men are gods , his gods mysterious abstractions , dim and vast . " All in Ins sublime drama is superhuman . But this height could not be invariably maintained . JEsoiiYLUS himself in other plays consented to tread the earth ; and Sophocles and Kukipid . es , particularly the latter , condescended to paint the indoor-life of his fellow Greeks . To him wo are indebted for the touching story of AmiETUS and Alcustis , the wife ¦ who died in her husband ' s stead . However , this could not be told by i \ Greek poet without the introduction of a mimcle , and her rescue from the tomb by the might of Hercules . Modern literature has reverned almost all these conditions ; it prefers simple humanity in its humblest forms . Siiakespkake is intensely human , but . lie was wont to veil the mortal in the monarch . Beaumont and Flexchek , in their way , wore human ; but their characters affect a certain " gentility , " aa it was known in their age—We should cull it " nobility" in this . They recognised class , andwere afraid of vulgarity ! thoughnot ofimm < irality ^ - The inlluence of I * lutakch' 8 " Liven" i » present in our elder literature ; our modern romance has little of this ferocious churnoter ;—it duals with actuul life , und respects , with Christian churity , the sufferings of the poor , disdaining not their virtues , and regurding tlieir- vices with that mercy which would rather reform than punish . The victim of society is at once lilted into the hero , and , however his martyrdom may be borne , still retains the name . Thus , we are told by a popular poet , ' , „ ,, „ ¦' ' v v * " The forma Of the heroic change from jipe to nge , The spirit in the forma remains the eame . Your heroine of old , In love ' s bohulf

    Woxud . dare imprisonment , and venture flight , Though near her piles of lances were arrayed : Your ^ odern heroine in love ' behalf .. Will often dare hostility as dread . ' " Not seldom , you will meet a maid whose heart Was" pledged to one of lowly heritage , . But of high qualities , that well atoned The churlish lot of Fortune . Enmity From haughty parents , exile from the sphere Had been her own from birth ; chill penury , And other illsas weighty , have consp ired , Against her love , and . yet she has avowed it , And cherished it as life . " Other instances , less romantic , are ( . -hissed also "in the same eag * of rushes , " namelv , the heroic of modern time , lor example : —

    " Some patient wife , who meekly bears , By her hearth ' s solitude , the coid neglect Of him , who swore to foster her ; fulfils Duty ' s behests , with uncomplaining toil ; Restrain the sigh , her bitter fate would prompt ; Loving , though unbeloved , so bearing slight , Should teach lier slighter kiuduess . " The term "hero" has especial reference to war;—an ordinary-lifi is a battle-field , requiring too oft the spirit and attitude of soldier ship ; including severe sacrifices of comfort and ease , and that con tempt of prudence anJ caution out of which the attractiveness o heroic actions is frequently derivable .

    Modern life has its trials and temptations , its struggles am dangers ,. which , not content with pursuing a man to his doorstep sit down with him at his hearfeh-stone . There is nothing so mar vellous to the reflective mind , one of our most elegant poets aftirms ' « as the wondrous patience of the poor . " They have to learn th < heroism of endurance , of that virtue the calmness of which irntatec so much the wife of Job ;—that is , if her speech to her husband 01 the occasion be correctly translated , which we more than doubt Womanhood , in these times , has shown as much heroism in sue cases in the wife as in the husband . Suffering , in our days , mdeec appears in a multitude of instances to sit easier on woman than or man . The latter is frequently restless , and avenges the wrongs o society on his uncomplaining partner . Such a pious spouse we can readily imagine as apostrophising her impatient lord in some such language as the following , which may be accepted as an lmp ^ yet version , or rather paraphrase , of the speech of the Consort of th < Man of Uz , as , perhaos , it ought to be understood : —

    " Appeal to God , ami let thy Sun of life Set in the light of his responding glory . To ~ the AfflictedVprayer He will reply C ompassionate , and miike <; he day ' s decliqe The triumph of the Patient and the l oor . " And "in the huts where poor men lie , " many such an angel of mercy , whispering such consolation , may doubtless be found ; and in nistnj a suburban dwelling , where the sorrows of respectability arc only too familiar—the vain strife of merit with ¦ ¦ fortune hourly bringing some new- disappointment , the tender kindness of a sympathizing wife has supported the almost hopeless husband in the very crisis oJ fate , and made the painful path of transition less uneasy . .. Man ' s heroism under such trials is of a more rugged texture . A defiant Jieroisin under such trials is ot ' a "tore rugged texture . A defiant

    . ^ will , aneager hope , an instinctive rather than a reasonnlg ^ mTlrran unflinching courage , with an untired energy , and a straightforward purpose . that " ignores all speculative and many practical difficulties ;—these are the characteristics that sustain the hero of private life , and leave him at length a winner at the goal of his ambition . Not the least annoyance that he has to endure is the criticism I of friends and well-wishers , who think themselves entitled to advise , yet know less of the means ' and objects of ins pursuit than himself , and are totally inexperienced in the impulses by which lie is inwardly assured . Out of this . annoyance , sternly put aside , grow self-confidence , and that resolution which is "the column of nobility inmnn ; " which laughs at all Torms of false prudence , and feels

    itself master of tho event . It disdains all meanness , and recognises a greatness in itself which will command a correspondent greatness in its destiny and companions . It refuses to be tho dupe of the world ' s littleness , and disregards inuny things deemed important by ordinary minds , regarding them as trifles to bit despised by an active intelligence that has n ta « kiuulor considerable difficulties to achieve . In Art , in Science , in business , every-reader must know that of such heroes we have many biographies;—but our drama , our romance , our poetry , 1 ms not yet taken enough account of thorn ; nevertheless the spirit of ' modem lite will require justice to be done in this respect in the fulness of time .

    It needs not , however , that success should crown a man ' s eflortx to constitute him a hero . Tlio loss of the buttle will try a man more than tho winning of it ; and if lie rises superior to del eat , then may wo be sure that he possesses the true qualifications of tho heroic character , Such examples of it arc confessedly rare ;—but souls capable of such high service are always triumphant . They nro , flivys n modorn sage / " renmrkttble- for good humour und habitual hilarity j" they are full of a noblo acorn und contempt of consequenceH , such aa we recognise in tho ancient Greek und Human character , and in the more critical periods of British history . 1 ' i ' ivate life hns many a Scipio , Soojutijs , Sir Thomas Moru , ltJiUMinonuas , Columbus , Sidney , Hampuen , who only wnut their poet to realize an epical celebrity . If considerations like these should tend to direct tho attention

    of the serious to the circle of homo us tho sphere of tho heroic , tlieir statement will not huvo been without a special utility . Why should we look abroad for what muy be found in the midst of us P It is tho common mistake that is made in the seurcli after

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), June 30, 1860, page 10, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_30061860/page/10/