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Leader (1850-1860), 26th April 1851, Edition Town of 1, Page 396, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      affairs that concern him—¦ while the ' Freeman ' may most properly be defined as—Every grown man who maintains himself and his immediate family upon the results of his own freely disposed means of effort . These definitions appear to include all the true conditions for a sound system of Political and Social well-being . Undeluded by any idea of the omnipotence or supremacy of Parliament ; well aware that , in the place where his lot is cast , by far the larger part of his interests lie , and th * t tneir well-ordering can only be accomplished by the acive consciousness within every freeman of the risjht and responsibility to lend a helping hand to the work ; the freeman will always give his first thoughts and efforts there . He will always find it , however , to be one incidental , but necessary , consequence of the true fulfilment of his rights and duties in the capacity last named , that he should take part in the election of Representatives to Parliament .

      " This definition exclude * every man who lives on alms , every man who will not use his powers in accordance with the duty and responsibility he owes to society , and every criminal . AH these , it is clear—and no othersought to be excluded . ** But this idea of Universal Suffrage embraces , as an essential , that of the existence of Institutions of true Local Self-Government . Universal Suffrage without these is but another name , be it disguised as it may , for either oligarchy—or for anarchy . Between these two

      the only alternative can in such case lie . No sincere friend of humanity can wish Universal Suffrage , unless that suffrage is to be an intelligent one . This it can only become by means of the full practical activity of Institutions of true Local Self-Government . Nothing : else can supply the needful practical Social and Political Education . Schools and Colleges , whether National or Secular , and however pedantically ordered or approved by Committees of Council and Inspectors , will never help to this . "

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      Untitled Article

      GODIVA IN 1851 . Coventry proposes to celebrate the year of the Exposition by a more handsome performance than ever of theceremony in remembrance of the illustrious Lady Godiva . The intention is announced in the Coventry Herald , one of the earliest and best organs of progress according to the new lights ; and we have a ehrewd guess at the quarter from which so graceful a suggestion emanates . It will be a singular union of the utilitarian and the legendary , fitly performed in the scene of active manufactures and of one of the sweetest legends in English history .

      All know the legend ; but it is peculiarly instructive to us of the present day . Godiva importuned her husband Leofric , Earl of Mercia , to free Coventry from an oppressive toll ; and he consented on condition that she should ride through Coventry naked . He meant the condition to be a disguised refusal . But Godiva consented : she would undergo that shame , —if shame could come near the limbs through which shone the light of that pure , kind hearty—to do a good to her oppressed

      fellow-creatures . Leofric was unprepared for such extremity of devotion ; but , devout man , he had sworn , and he could not draw back ; so to repair his own position as well as he might , he issued a decree that all who should not keep away during the Lady ' s ride should be put to death . Mounting her horse , clothed in nought but her fair hair , which flowed to her feet , Godiva rode her way through the city ; and loving respect for the dear Lady averted every eye more religiously than the fear of death could have done .

      Every eye save those of one poor wretch , who could not resist the hankering to see forbidden beauties—how blind still to that which was most beautiful , and was seen by every other eye that turned in reverence away ! Thus he earned his fate , and the immortal nickname of " Peeping Tom . "

      MORAL . Leofric is the impersonation of the Orthodox in Office . He is quite willing to effect reforms—on conditions . Godiva impersonates the superiority of Loving Faith over " appearances "—a virtue ever belonging to the female rather than the baser sex . Orthodoxy affecting to concede reform on conditions could not in any manner forecalculate that sublime devotion . Peeping Tom was the Sceptic who could see nothing in the whole affair but that which waa bodily and to the eye visible : he was the " Materialist" or " Utilitarian" of those

      days . We have also Leofrics in our own time : we call them" Conformists , " or" Whigs . " Nor has Godiva died out of the land : we call her , —bless her heart with lovingkindncss . and consecrate every inch of her against any eye but that of love !—bless the Loving Faith that is wiser than Knowledge , stronger than Strength !—we call her " Woman . "

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      TO AN INFANT SLEEPING . Pout not , my little Rose , but take With dimpled fingers , cool and soft , This pony , when thxm art awake . . . Mum a has worn my posies oft . This in the first I offer thec , Sweet baby ! muiiy more shall rise From trembling hand , from bended knee , Mid hopes and fears , mid doubts and Highs . JJefore that hour my eyes will close ; But grant me , Heaven ! thin one desire : In mercy may my little Howe Never bo grafted on a . brier ! Wai . tkk Sava . uk Landoh

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      SCHILLER'S JlOltHKUS . " Had 1 been the creator of tliis world . " nai ( l a very German Prince to Goethe , " and had foreseen that the Robbers would have been written , 1 would have , left the world uncreated !" Cent rionimagc , ( jlaro , quo tu nVs point entie Auk ttouKC'ilit d « celui qu « pre ' ehc ton cui £ : Tout aurait 6 U- mieiix ! Wind n ( 'banning universe we should have had

      with that Prince for our maker ! Bat the Fates , you see , willed it otherwise : they made of that Prince no more than a German Transparency ; and they permitted the Robbers to be written , to be acted , to be the scandal and delight of juvenile Europe , and to usher in one of the great poets of our times ! Remorseless Fates J Moralists gravely assure us that Schiller's play excited German youth to become robbers—especially one nobleman of fairest gifts , who disgraced his " adel , " and terminated an ancient lineage on the unromantic scaffold . Scholiasts , the pohderous blockheads , assure us that Olympiodorus drowned

      himself after leading Plato ' s Pktedtm — in his eagerness to enjoy the immortality there so glowingly painted . So you see what " bad influence " even the best of books may have—on noodles or bad minds I To the pure all things are pure . And as to this " German nobleman , " he turns out on investigation to be a German blackguard , whom debauchery and riotous extravagance had reduced to want ; " who took to the highway , " says Carlyle , " when he could take to nothing else—not allured by an ebullient enthusiasm , or any heroical and misdirected appetite for sublime actions , but driven by the more palpable stimulus of importnnate duns , an empty purse , and five craving

      senses . " What mischief the Robbers effected must be laid to the account of the age itself , with its deep disquiet , its revolutionary instincts , its volcanic vehemence against effete corrupt forme of social life . This daring play could only have been written by a boy of genius ; a man of genius would have pruned the extravagances , and thereby destroyed its effect . Less absurd , it would have been less successful , because less startling . For I must frankly confess that , with all my admiration for Schiller , directly I quit the historical for the critical point of view—directly I cease to regard it as a fiery product of a volcanic period , and view it

      purely as a work of art—it appears to me an intolerable absurdity , and mainly , perhaps , from the cause so candidly stated toy Schiller himself : " I attempted to delineate men two years before I had seen one . " Hence it is that character , motive , passion , —all that makes the substance of a dramatic work—are of that vague , false , rhetorical nature , which we see in the writings of boys ( and most men never quit their teens in this respect ) . But this which prevents the Robbers from ranking as a work of Art , in no way interfered with its vehemence as an assault upon social conventions . Therefore its success was prodigious ; Schiller soon learned to feel ashamed of his firstborn , and nothing can be more unlike it than Walleustein or William Tell .

      As the author of the Robbers , Schiller is best known all over Europe , and Mr . Anderson has earned the thanks of the public in venturing to produce it . He so rarely gives me an opportunity of praising him that I must seize this , and say thatin spite of the enormous mistakes he has madein spite of the strangely naive supposition that the public would go to see Shakspeare played by such a . company !—he deserves loud praise for the bold , and I fear unprofitable , production of Fiesco and the Robbers . It is an appeal to the cultivated classes ; it enables them to see acted works which , however celebrated , there is little chance of their seeing on the stage ; it is novelty , and of a high

      character . Now , although Mr . Anderson's management has assuredly not been distinguished by any prejudice in favour of " high art , " and his playbills liave " made the judicious grieve" by their deplorable want of taste , out-bunning liunn ! nevertheless , 1 say that the production of these two works by a foreign great poet ought to be credited to his account us important items . It shows a literary ambition ; a desire to please the cultivated . Had be shown more of it — had ho imitated Mac ready in winning public gratitude , I dare say his money losses would have been as great as they are , but his professional gain would have more than compensated it .

      J o return to the Robbers . I Haw it played many years ago iu Munich , with Laroche and Knlair—one of the old Weimar actors trained by ( iottheand Schiller . I cannot say that it moved or amused me . The defects which are u \ -axu \ u enough in reading are brought into terrible prominence by acting ; and what m melodramatic in il hiiN been ho inuih better done in hundreds of melo dramas that beyond the more curiosity to H « , a celebrate , work I really fou . ul little entertainment in it . When Anderwm announced it at Drurv Lane , while applauding hit * spirit and taste in venurin on this kind of m , velty , 1 wan dubious as

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      BOOKS ON OUR TABLE . Pen Pictures of Popular English Preachers . By the Author of the ' Life of Cbatterton , " 8 tc . Partridge and Oakey . This volume resembles Grant ' s Random Recollections of the House of Commons , laying especial emphasis on the adjective random . These sketches of popular preachers are expressed , for the greater part , ia a series of sentences made up of violent alliterations . The titlepage describes them as " Limnings of Listeners in Church and Chapel . " The frequency with which these junctions are made throughout the book imparts an air of commonness , indeed of levity , to the portraits , which is not only unusual on such themes , but which must be deemed questionable even by the subjects of them , although they are all intended to be complimented . On Ihe other hand , the personal criticisms are interesting to the public . They have the property , also , of suggesting the want of an English Gilfillan in this department .

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      An Excursion to California , over tlie Prairie , Rfaky Mountains , and Great Sierra Nevada ; with a Ntroll through t ha Dig gins and Ranches of that Country , liy William Kelly , J . r . 2 v «> ls . Chapman and Hall . Gilberfc Visitors ' Guide to JjOiidnn . Containing' the complete ^ JuitoYiiiaUon connected wit . lv the localities , customs , public * ) tiilc 1 iiiij 8 , arimeeiiierits , and resources of tin ; capital of Great iritain : an indixpensuble handbook , for travellers and fori'ifrntjrg desirous of possessing- an accurate knowledge of tlm Jiritish Metropolis previo . is to and during tlu'ir visit to the Great Inhibition of 1851 : to which is appended , Sunday in London ; or , Jixcursions to the Ficinity . James Gilbert . Tim Heir of IVast-Wayland . A Tale . By Mary HowiU . Sirnms and M'lntyre . A Key to the Colonies ; or . Advice to the Millions upon Emigration . For the use of all classes ; containing' illustralionn of tht ? right , kind of person * to emigrate , and how they should b < t . itlxmt it , with anecdotes of the clasn tliat ought to stop at liiime . J . IJrei'B . Tlic . Mesmeric , Mania of 18 ^ 1 ; with a Physiological Explanation ij the Phenomena Produced . A Lecture . 15 y J . 11 . Hennett , M . D . Siinpkiu and Marshall .

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      A Rbpuhlio in Knoi . and and in Italy . — As nil the realities of British history—the exploits of its Ilcnrjs ami itH Kdwardtt , the notion * , of its good Queen Bess , its victories and conquests of the reign of old King George —are sheltered under the name , and involved amid the accessories of monarchy , so all the Btirring realities of Italian history are connected with republican traditions . The Italy of ancient Itomun renown was a republic ; the grand Italy of the middle ages was a collection of states , which were at once called republics ; fihnont . all the great men and great facts that form the educating past of the Italian imagination rise out of a background of republican niuliners and republican associations . The tiling called monarchy , on the other hand , is recognized by Italians an having fallen on their country only as a curse , a blight , and a mildew . The decrepitude of ftaly—the arrest , of her vitality and development—¦ the loss of her intellectual prestige—her exclusion from a phice of v \ - fliKMicc iu Kurope , all date from the invasion of the monarchical element in the- persons of foreign princes witli armies from the other Hide of the Alps , and the inili tary nupprcsHinn of that element of universal popular activity , which forms the onl y true and hereditary Italian life . Hence , republicanism is quite another thing in Italy from what , it would be in Kn < iluti ( l . Nay , even Fnince i'Hclf , whose republicanism \ h little more than half a century old , cannot , invest , her preference for that form of government with hull' so ninny of those considerations which confer what we cull respectability . The republicanism of France is but a mushroom crotchet , compared with that of Ital y . In desiring a republic , Italy detiircH , us it . were , but the extrusion of a foreign HiilMtance , which linn stopped all her HpontuncoiiH procesHCM ; to be a republic u « ain , would he , she think * , but to resume her natural carter . Hence the universality of the republican anpirution umong the Italian population *) . — ihitishQnarttrlijIievicw .

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      We should do our utmost to encourage the Beautiful , or the Useful encourages itself . —Gokthe .

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      396 Q £%$ Scatter . [ Saturday ,

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  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), April 26, 1851, page 396, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1880/page/16/