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Leader (1850-1860), 3rd August 1850, Edition Town of 1, Page 448, Untitled Article

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      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 .

      Untitled Article

      CARLYLEthis week closes his Latter-day Pamphlets with a determined onslaught upon Jesuitism . " Byway of finish to t his offensive and alarming set of pamphlets / ' he says , " I have still one crowning offence and alarm to try if I can give . " But it may be doubted whether the attack will be so exasperating as some of the forerunners were . It points , indeed , to a wide-spread disease eating towards the very heart of our prosperity , the gospel of St . Ignatius , " that to please the Supreme Fountain of Truth your readiest method ia to persist in

      believing what your whole soul found to be doubtful or incredible . That poor human symbols were higher than the God Almighty ' s facts they symbolized ; that formulas with or without the facts symbolized by them were sacred and salutary , and if persisted in could save us when the facts were fled I" There truly lies the Jesuitism , principium etfons of more than half our maladies % the patient sick and dying vows he is in health , will not call in the physician , or calling him will equivocate , conceal , declare the pain is in his elbow when it

      burrows at his heart , and die protesting that he " never was better in his life . " Considering how the beliefs of men have changed , how the universe has pictured itself in such different aspects to their successive conceptions , how , in the progress of human knowledge in its perilous ascent towards a final state of absolute conviction and repose , the glimpse of to-day has brightened into the belief of to-morrow , and , darkening into the doubt of the succeeding day , has finally become obscured , and exploded as an old woman ' s tale—considering this , which is a fact no less indubitable than the earth we

      stand on , it may seem strange that men should look upon a new belief as criminal , and hate the man who endeavours to speak the truth to them . And observe , it is only the new belief that is odious . Established error is sacred ; new truth is hated . The Catholic , the Protestant , and the Jew severally believe each other ' s doctrines to be false ; but , inasmuch as they are doctrines of " established churches , " the believers are respected . The Jew Applauds his ancestors for having crucified that false prophet and reformer , whom the Christian believes to be the Son of God . We have learned

      to tolerate the Jew—nay to give him the honours of an M . P . —and in a few years may see him Prime Minister ! But let any philosopher openly avow himself no Christian , and see what electors and Government would say to him ! The Jew , whose faith is in open antagonism with Christianity , is tolerated because professing an " established" faiththe " religion of his fathers "—but the Spiritualist , whose faith is only a development of the best parts of Christianity , who reverences the memory of the crucified Teacher as much as the Jew scorns it , he is regarded with aversion , and his motives all

      impugned . The reason ? He departs from the religion of his fathers ; he trusts rather to the voice of his own soul than to the voices which spoke to him in his nursery . Is there anothejr reason ? His doctrines would ruin our church , because be might gain converts ; whereas the Jew does not desire to make proselytes , and could not if he would ; the . Tew , therefore , does not affect our incomes , dignities , and lawn sleeves ! Hence the necessity for Jesuitism : those who do not believe must declare they do believe ; keep up the formulas , and you keep up the Church !

      Untitled Article

      The Vcrnon Gallery has at last a local habitation worthy of it . On Thursday Marlhorough-houso opened its portals ( wo believe that is the correct styh >) , admitting visitors to a private view ; and on Monday the public will U , admitted . The pictures are . Keen to greater advantage in the small airy rooms of the old house than in the cellars of the National Gallery ; and the elVeet of distribution is not only to make each individual work more easily iipprecialed , but . also greatly to increase , tho ellbct

      of the whole collection , which seems much larger . Pictures to be rightly enjoyed should never be crowded .

      Untitled Article

      KAY ' S SOCIAL CONDITION OF ENGLAND . The Social Condition and Education of the People in England and Europe ; showing I fie Results of Primary Schools , and of the Division of Landed Property in Foreign Countries . By Joseph Kay , Esq ., M . A . 2 vols . Long-man and Co . It is difficult to speak -without exaggeration of the sterling excellence of this book ; we cannot name a work more comprehensive in scope , more thorough in purpose , more definite in aim , more irresistible in evidence , more admirable and valuable to all parties on the great , far-reaching , and profoundly interesting question of our social condition . As a collection of

      facts and opinions it is encyclopaediacal ; as the exposition of positive views it is masterly . Could it be printed in two shilling volumes and circulated by thousands , it would more profoundly affect the present system than a whole library of political volumes , tracts , and articles . It does not simply detail the miseries and anomalies of our social condition , it points with irresistible cogency to the only issues open to us . The sadness with which its pictures fill the mind is not allied to the hopelessness arising from the spectacle of evils irremediabl ' e ; but is consoled with the conviction that escape is possible if men will but call up their energies .

      The two volumes are severally devoted to the two fundamental questions of peasant proprietorship and universal education . Apart from the abstract Social Science , -which includes all political and Social questions in its higher synthesis , there are no topics so thoroughly radical as these two ; they concern the material and spiritual existence of mankind—food for the body , intelligence for the soul . All reforms that strike at the root must have reference to land and education . Unhappily for England , it is in these two questions that her legislation is most shamelessly corrupt—it is in these two respects that her inferiority to Continental Europe is most unequivocal !

      At this moment some " respectable ' reader utters a contemptuous " pish ! " His British pride rises at the imputation of inferiority ; his own experience suggests a flat denial , for , in contemplating society as it moves before his eye , "while sounding phrases about " progress of the species , " " march of civilization , " " enlightenment , " and so on , vibrate on his ear , his vague notions consolidate into a conviction that England is iu a highly prosperous condition , and that every effort must be made to " preserve

      society . " Truly the bright side of England is a gorgeous sight ! Not to mention the real manhood , earnestness , and potency of our men , the beauty , grace , and lovingncss of our noble -women , but to glance only at our material welfare , our machinery , our manufactures , our comfort , our splendour , and our rapid progress in all the utilities as in all the futilities of life , certainly there is reasonable matter for pride . Then our society ! We have bishops with the finest lawn sleeves and episcopal suavity of

      demeanour , every one of them capable of editing a Greek play ; an aristocracy with perfect manners , many of them taking a real interest in the welfare of the people ; a gentry not very far from what gentry should be ; a clergy much respected , often greatly beneficent , and which would bo more so if " the Church" would , suffer it . These classes compose our society . " ( Tradesmen , artizans , and labourers —the paltry millions—count of course for nothing !) This society is polished , cultivated , luxurious , yet refined , having the products of the world at easy call ,

      and comparing itself with barbarians , or with society at preceding epochs , may well believe in the " progress of the species . " Hide in the parks and contemplate the equipages : walk through tho streets , and calculate the stores of wealth and ingenuity displayed in the shops ; lounge into a palatial drawingroom , and marvel at the sumptuous elegance of its furniture ; range with your glass round tho tiers of opera boxes , and glory in the beauty and the luxury there revealed ; and our civilization will astound

      you : but do not pass from that drawing-room into one of the hovels -where the poor crowd together like brutes ; do not turn from the young duchess , coquetting with her bouquet as she applauds Mario warbling despair , to tho miserable sister shivering in the homeless streets , or to the more miserable sister whose unjoyous laugh issues from the flaring ginpalaec whither she has gone to deaden memories that haunt her ; do not , in leaving some princely hull , turn into the cottages of tho labourers lyiut * beyond the

      lodge gates ; if you should do so uneasy qualms may assail you respecting the perfection of the social state with which at present you are enamoured . But , above all , do not read Mr . Kay ' s volumes , because if you do then those qualms cannot be settled by facile sophisms respecting the necessity of pauperism , or of its beinothe dream of enthusiasts to hope to change this order of things ; for those volumes prove that this order of things can be changed , and the pauperism banished at the expence , it is true , of some magnificence in our lordly houses , and our merchant princes . It may be better for anation that a thousand persons should hav e fifty pounds per annum than that one person should have fifty thousand ; but we cannot have both . To fill up a valley you must lower the mountain . The

      division of the land into smaller estates would enable a peasant proprietary to exist , and would make a wealthy nation , but it would destroy the great landholders . Mr . Kay ' s picture of England is the less flattering because he constantly compares with it the condition of Germany and France , everywhere pointing out the causes of superiority to be , first , the admirable and long-continued education , given to all children , and second , the division of land among the peasants .

      " In Germany the same truth stares us in the face . Saxony and Bohemia lie side by side . The majority of the people of these two countries speak the same language , profess the same religion , and belong to the same race ; but the condition of the peasants of the two countries is as different as can well be imagined . " In Saxony , which I have visited and carefully inspected twice , there is very little pauperism ; the people are well and comfortably clad—ragged or badly patched clothes are seldom , I might truly say , never seen ; beggars are hardly ever met with ; the houses of the

      peasantry are remarkably large , high , roomy , convenient , substantially built , constantly whitewashed , and orderly in appearance ; the children are always clean , well-dressed , and very polite in their manners ; there is little or no difference between the appearance of the children of the poor and of the rich ; the land is perhaps better cultivated than in any other part of Europe ; and the general condition of the peasantry more prosperous than that of any other I have seen , except it be that of the peasantry of the cantons of Berne , Vaud , and Neuchatelin Switzerland , or of the Rhine Provinces of Prussia .

      " In Bohemia , on the other hand , a totally different spectacle presents itself , and one which cannot fail to strike any intelligent traveller with astonishment . Tho moment he has crossed the Saxon frontiers the traveller finds himself surrounded by crowds of beggars of the most miserable appearance , who strongly remind him of the sight which meets his eyes in Ireland ; while even those peasants , who do not beg , are very poorly dressed , wear no shoes or stockings , and often appear in rags . The cottages are very small and wretched ; the villages are generally only collections of the most miserable wooden cabins of one story in height , and crowded together as closely as possible ; and the land itself is only half cultivated , an / 1 presents about the same contrast to Saxony as Ireland does to England . t

      ( But what is the cause of this difference ? It is easily explained . In Saxony the people are admirably educated by teachers of great erudition and practical good sense , who have been for many years past engaged in awakening and directing the intelligence of the children , and in teaching them to think . In Bohemia , although there are plenty of schools , the instruction given in them is much inferior to that given in the Saxon schools , and is planned so as to make the people good subjects ; while that of Saxony is planned so as to make the Saxon peasants intelligent citizens . In Saxony the land is divided among the peasants , the entail laws having been

      repealed , so that the peasants feel strongly interested in the cultivation of their little properties , and study how to make them as productive as possible . In Bohemia the land is divided among great nobles , who leave their estates in the hands of agents , and carry off all their rents to spend them in the distant metropolis of Vienna . The peasants of Bohemia , therefore , like the peasants of Ireland , feel no interest in the soil or in its proper cultivation , as they derive no ben « lit from it , and as they are deprived of any chance of acquiring land , and of raising themselves in the social scale ; while those , who cau think at all , are exasperated by seeing the fruits of their at

      labour and of their country spent among strangers Vienna . * * * Germany and Switzerland are peculiarly instructive and interesting countries to a traveller , who visits them in order to study tho effects of different political and social institutions on the characters of nations . In each country , people of tho same race havo been exposed to the influence of institutions of the nu >* t . varying character , and in each , as I shall show hereafter , the different results , invariably and without exception , prove that the more liberal the institutions the better lout be the people ; that the social condition of the people is generally the direct anil immediate result of its

      institutions , and that it is capable of an amelioration , of winch in Kngland we can have * no conception ; that the institutions , which alone cau effect this end , are those which teach the people how to raise themselves , and which make it possible for the people to raise themselves by perseverance and temporary self-denial , and not such a- < favour ouu class mure than another , or such as keep one class for ever in the leading-strings of another . Independence , perfect independence , unshackled independence of notion , is absolutely necessary to the success and improvement of one class as much as to that of the other .

      Untitled Article

      1 < latter and flatter becomes the season drawing to its close ; even the magazines seem to partake of the general flatness , and the London rival of Blackwooff , which this week ushers into the field under the title of the Conservative Magazine , with "Protection " as a banner and Hie optimv maiiehimus as a motto , could not have chosen a worse period for the opening of its campaign .

      Untitled Article

      448 &f ) C 3 LC after . [ Saturday ,

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 3, 1850, page 448, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1849/page/16/