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Leader (1850-1860), 31st March 1855, Edition 2 of 2, Page 17

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      Maboh 31, 1856.] The Leader. ^

      Maboh 31 , 1856 . ] THE LEADER . ^

      ^It^Retttr^* *—' ¦ *

      ICitottnt- do

      Critics Are Not The Legislators, But The...

      Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature ' ¦ ^ nofc make laws-they interpret and try to enforce them .-Edtnburgh Review .

      The Ancients Sang Of Wonders; We Realise...

      The Ancients sang of Wonders ; we realise them . Song has given place -to Science . Almost every month brings some new discovery to light , some fresh conquest over the wide domain of Ignorance . The discovery we have on the present occasion to announce will delight the scientific mind as much as it will " aggravate" the teetotal mind , for it is nothing less than the discovery of how to mate Alcohol . Observe , how to make it ; not how to distil it , not how to produce it by the decomposition of an organic substance , but how to create it by the recomposition of inorganic substances . There lies the interest of the thing . It is another step nearer the great impossibility which has so long perplexed and defied philosophers—the impossibility of making complex organic substances .

      Chemists have long known how , by acting jon organic substances , we can produce a series of substances proceeding one from the other , the composition of which becomes simpler and simpler until we arrive at some substance familiar in the inorganic world . And Physiologists have long known how the Plant , acting upon these inorganic substances by a Chemistry of its own , reconverts them into organic substances . What we have wnmade , but cannot remake , the Plant recomposes with unerring certainty—because , as Voi / taibe said of the stars , " it has nothing else to do . " Man ' s ambition was to rival the Plant in this respect , as he surpassess it in so many other respects . Hitherto his success has been but mediocre . A very few organic

      substances he can make , but those of only a low degree . One reason is that while he knows what are the elements which compose an organic substance , he is ignorant of the way in which these elements are united ; he knows the what but not the how . Another reason—and this is perhaps the reason which of all others frustrates his efforts—is , that he cannot produce the necessary conditions of the experiment . In the laboratory he can determine the conditions with precision . He performs his experiments with instruments whicn are instruments and not participators , in glass retorts which are passive , and which do not mingle their vitreous qualities with the chemical combinations effected inside them . If he places a carbonate with a gas

      in a glass vessel , he kno _ ws that the glass simply contains these substances , and isolates them from , all others , it does not interfere with their action on each otfrer . Very different » it with the Laboratory of an Organism : there the _ vessels cannot be passive ; there no action takes place which is not complicated by the whole surrounding conditions ; there no isolation is possible . . ' ~ ' ' . "" Having stated the difficulty , we have prepared the reader to appreciate every fresh approach to a solution , however small . M . Bekthelot has made euch an approach . Alcohol is decomposed into water and bicarbonate of hydrogen by concentrated sulphuric acid at a temperature of 352 degs . Fahr . No experiment is more familiar . But to recompose water and bicarbonate of hydrogen into alcohol is quite another affair . Every Tory will tell you it is easier to destroy than to rebuild—But the energetic and sanguine Keformer persists in trying to rebuild , and with patience , af ter many failures , he succeeds . M . Bebthei-ot has succeeded . This sulphuric acid , w liich at 352 degs . separates water from the hydrocarbon , comports itself in a quite different manner at ordinary temperatures . Placed in presence of the gas it slowly absorbs it , and disposes it to enter into combination . M . Bbk . tiiei . ot dissolved some bicarbonate of hydrogen in some concentrated sulphuric acid at the ordinary temperature . He then added five or six volumes of water . This liquid , after successive distillations , aided by a little carbonate of . potash , to retain the water , produced Alcohol . He repeat od the experiment with the ordinary gas used for lighting , and with the same success . Thus we see the chemist w ? miaking and remaking an organic substance ; and one of the most interesting points in the experiment is that in both cases the same agent is employed—the only difference being a difference of temperature . An analogous operation with sugar would be a prodigous conquest . Sugar is converted into glucose by taking up one equivalent of water . If we could only reconvert glucose into sugar J Glucose is obtained from starch , nay , is obtained even from wood j and who knows but what our children may sweeten their coffee with our walking-sticks 1 This same M . Bj 3 Hthe : lot has been actively engaged in creating fats , new and old . For if , as Molikue says , il y a f agot et fagot , with still greater reason may we say there are fnts and fats . The epicure knows this as well as the chemist , when ho eats the fat of mutton or the fut of venison , for example , or the fat of a sucking-pig , which Charlks Lamb , in his immortal essay , calls " the adhesive oleaginous —O call it not fat 1—but an indefinable sweelnesa growing up to it—the tender blossoming of fat . " A phrase which may be placed beside the unctuous lines of Homer , whore Patrochjs heaps on tlio fire the backs of aheep and fat goats , and the chine of a fat pig , blooming with fat— l . < v 8 ' apa va > Tov e 6 j ] K oios icai iriovos atyos ep fif o-vos criakoio ' pav ^ v TcOakviuv a \ oi < p { j .

      The rtBakvtav ttkouprj is precisely Charues Lamb ' s phrase ; and shows m both an unctuous gusto prompting enthusiastic diction . While we were turning over the pages of Homes to find that passage , the Phrase " people-devouring Ruler—817 / xo fiopos fiaaikevs" met our eye , and at once ca lled up the Czar , to whom it is so terribly applicable in these days i and as a little silent moralising went on in our minds ( which need not be inflicted on an unoffending reader ) an Italian organ-boy sang under our window " with full-throated ease" ViUa laRepublicaI evvivala Liberia!—a contrast which his own condition , so very unlike that of a patriot , made the more profoundly ironical . Here was a juxta-position—old Homer , eternal in youth , singing of barbarian wrath and barbarian joys with a clear voice , joyous yet grave ; the young Czar , representative of a system more barbarous and fearfully decrepit ; and Young Italy at the Organ , singing in melodious voice of the Republic which is so distant , and of Liberty , which it is irony to mention !

      Two American Periodicals Lie On Our Tabl...

      Two American periodicals lie on our table , neither of which gives a very exalted idea of American literature . The New York Quarterly is to rival our Quarterly and Westminster , but at present we can only perceive that from the first it has borrowed the animosity against Whigs , and the tone in which that animosity expresses itself ; while from the second it has borrowed the idea of a survey of contemporary literature , which it executes in the meagrest manner . The " constant endeavour" of this review is , to " foster a noble nationality in literature and art ; " a noble endeavour , but not likely to be furthered by such articles as the one on Macaulay . The sagacity , no less than the amenity , displayed in this paper , may be gathered from this sentence : —

      For history , indeed , he is in no respect qualified . He lacks the most important and essential point . A brilliant essayist—the most brilliant , perhaps , in the languagean able but not an extemporaneous advocate , a vivid though not strikingly original poet , he is utterly destitute of the calinnes 3 , the impartiality , and the solidity of history . He exhibits but little philosophy , and is wholly without either fairness or temper . He enters upon history with all the animosity and asperity of a writer of the present day . "• In the name of Grammar , so mercilessly treated by this writer , how could Macaux-att enter upon history but as . 1 " writer of the present day ? . "

      In the name of candour and courtesy , how has Macadlat deserved to have an American say of him , " He has prostituted" himself to politics , and perverted his talent toTaction . He is the T-jycophant of ajvile party , and the slanderer of an unhappy race . " A critic Svho is so intolerant of an historian ' s temper , and so severe on his want of impartiality , should at least show some tolerance himself , if he can show no sagacity . Perhaps this sort of writing is considered forcible . Of the writing which is considered " eloquent" we have an amusing specimen in Putnam ' s Monthly , where a very , iuvenile penis ambitious on the subject of " Sensitive Spirits , " e . g . — irit With

      Poor Jean Jacques , for instance . Here is , in effect a sensitive sp a reticulation of nerves the finest and moat susceptible possiWe—thrilling in ecstasy , or writhing in agony—full of a thousand whims , and humours , and inconsequencesvacillating between the poles of endless contradictions , presenting a very Sphinx-riddle for solution—the sublimation of his own happiness and woe . That touch of anatomy , " the finest reticulation of nerves , " is thrown into the shade by the touch of metaphysical geometry here given : . But even in manhood , there are _ moments solemn and calm , when , amid our sad satiety , we ask ourselves theseI sameJcTiild-questionings over again . Times in-which we realise with Dante that " Tutte l ' oro , che sotto la luna , E che qia- fu , di queste anime stanche Non poterebbe fame posar una . "

      And when the same eternal whence and why and whither , come with awful force over us . But still without a response . . . . Why ? . . . Because the Finite can never make out the theorem of the Infinite . The italics are the -author ' s , and make the sentence impressive . If the Finite cannot make out the aforesaid theorem , neither can the Indefinite intersect the Hypothenuse of Space ; and what then ? Amid no inconsiderable quantity of rubbish there is nevertheless some good matter in Putnam ' s Monthly ; one paper in particular deserves attention : it is called " . Nature in Motion , " is curious as an assemblage of the various migrations of plants and animals . Here is a passage worth extracting , on ,

      TUB HERRING . The herring , a small , insignificant fish , yet gives food to millions , and employment to not less than three thousand decked vessels , not to speak of all the open boats employed in the same fishery . Where their homo is , man does not know ; it is only certain that they are not met with beyond a certain degree of northern latitude , and that the genuine herring never enters tho Mediterranean , and henco remained unknown to the ancients . In April and June , all of a sudden , innumerable masses appear in tho northern seas , forming vast banks , often thirty miles long and ton miles witie . Their depth has never been satisfactorily ascertained , and their densoness may De judged by the fact , that lances and harpoons _ thrust in between them sink not and into bandsherring also move in

      move not , but remain standing upright ! Divided , * a certain order . Long before their arrival , already their coming is noticed by the flocks of sea-birds that watch them from on high , whilst sharks are scon to sport around thorn , and a thick oily or Blimy substance is spread over their coj" ™^ colouring the sea in daytime , amTshining with a mild , mysterious light lit a ^^ JJ night . The 8 ea-ape , the « monstrous chimera" of the learned , procodes them and is , hence , by fishermen called tho king of tho herrings . Then ure first seen single males , often three or four duya in advance of the great army ; next . follow the » trpngeat and largest , and aft « r them enormous ahoals , counties * like the sand on the »«* ; » ho ™ «^ the stars in Heaven . They seek places that abound in stones and marine plants , where to spawn , and like other animals they frequent the localities to which they

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), March 31, 1855, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_31031855/page/17/