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    T onckm after a flying visit , will , by the aid of Belgium , tell us , in a few davs ^ a bit of lS mind" on Napoleon LE Petit- * diatribe of three hundred pa-es , in which , as we hear , the French language has been exhausted ofits epithets of scorn and indignation ! What it is to have that " fine command of language ! " most men seem to think it equivalent ^ wealth of ideas , when really and truly your " command of language , " m nine cases Out of ten , means that the language commands you—carries you away in the torrent—stuns you with the many mingling sounds I

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    A STUDENT'S LIFE . The Poetical Remains of William Sidney Walker . Edited , with a M emoir of the Author , by the Rev . 3 . Moultrie , M . A ., Hector of Rugby . J . W . Parker and Son . Judged according to any standard you please this is but an unnecessary publication ; not particularly well done , not worth the doing , btiil , as it is here , and calls for some remark , we may point to it as containing one more illustration of perverted life and collegiate training . Sidney Walker had not the talents or strength of character to achieve brilliant success in life but he was gifted with an amount of ability which , otherwise directed , miAit have been useful and honourable : he placed his ambition m writing Greek and Latin verses , became a moth feedmg on " the classics , and wasted health , hope , life , in the dreary struggle . As a picture of a college student ' s career this Memoir is not without its mournful interest , tnougn feeblv painted . Mr . Moultrie , the reverend biographer , speaks aitectionately of his friend ' s short comings , and it is to this affectionateness , we presume , that the following passage is due . After recording Sidney

    Walker ' s scepticism , he adds : — « Meanwhile whatever may have been the state of his religious belief , it produced no external change of conduct . He continued to conform to all the stated observances of his college , and his morals remained in all respects as pure and blameless as they had ever been . Never ivas scepticism more involuntary , less attributable to moral causes than in Us case : nev er by any man would an entire and overwhelming conviction of the truth of Christianity have been more gladly and thankfully welcomed than by him . " Mr Moultrie , like most orthodox people , evidently thinks it a praiseworthy trait that Sidney Walker ' s scepticism did not alter his outward ronduct . " I ' m afraid Campbell has not much religion , ' said l ) r .

    Johnson " but lie never passes a church , without taking ott his nat . 1 / iat shows he has principles . " Believe if you can ; but if you can't , at any rate say nothing about it ; do not openly withdraw from the church—that is orthodox morality ! Notice further , in the foregoing passage , the quiet assumption that disbelief springs from immorality . Sidney Walker was a sceptic and , nevertheless , " pure and blameless ; ' with him " moral causes " bad little or nothing to do with it . But be was an exception ! SidneY Walker was one of the band of clever young men who wrote in KniqUs Quarterly , all of whom subsequently made some noise m the world but whatever Ms scholarship may have been—and as yet no to estimate him b

    adequate means of judging have been set before us— y the poetical remains here published we should say that bis mind was one of those many buds that never become flowers—a prospectus , not a book . What he might have been had his fate been different it is idle , to inquire . The world can only deal with actualities , not with promises ; and the actual achievements of Walker were feeble enough . The biographer may note bow important an element was absent from his lite—woman s influence - an element to all of us of incalculable importance for good and for evil , for joy and for sorrow , for success and for failure , but made more so to him by the helplessness of his nature : —

    " If it was in Walker ' s nature to devote himself to the steady and continuou " prosecution of any brunch of study , —to persevering and laborious exertion in any sphere of intellectual activity , —most assuredly it was not in his nature to do so under the conditions of permanent Academical preferment . Incapable sis he was of forming or of executing any distinct and judicious plans for supporting himself in any other state of life , he ' was still more incapable of confining his wishes within the limits of a college . The thought of life-long celibacy was to him as intolerable as , from his personal peculiarities and other considerations , the thing itself appeared inevitable . For female sympathy—for female attachment—for the married life in nil its fulness—his yearnings were intense and soul-consuming . From the constitution of his mind indeed it was scarcely possible that this should have been

    otherwise . Of female excellence his appreciation was most profound and reverential . The tenderness and purity of his all ' ections , —the richness of his imagination , —the delicacy and exquisiteness of his taste , —the instinctive subtlety and truth of bis moral sense-, —all combined to elevate Woman in his eyes to a rank which hIhi am fully occupy only in minds as nobly constituted as his was . Yet few men were ever less ' qualified by nature to win the love of woman . His diminutive stature , —his very perceptible defects of vision , —his awkward gait , —his uncouth address , —his eccentric manners , conveying , to those who knew him not , the impression of insanity or idiocy , his slovenly dress , —his neglected person , —presented to the female eye a tout , (' nscnthti' , to overcome the effect of which required jiii appreciation of moral and intellectual excellence rarely found , except in the highest order of female minds . And Walker's intellectual gifts were not such as to commend themselves easily to

    female perceptions . Conversation he had absolutely none . 1 he slow , diflident , inconclusive working of his mind , —the diuiculty ( arising perhaps from fastidiousness ) with which bis thoughts clothed themselves in articulate language , —the embarrassed , uncomfortable gestures by which he relieved and expressed bin hesitation , disqualified him in a lamentable degree for milking himself acceptable in female society , and still more for offering -such attentions as those by which Jtho fountlo IkmiH ; is usually won . That he was in reality endued with many of those qualities which , could he over have succeeded in winning the affections of an

    amiable woman , and have attained to the means of supporting her as his wife , would have conduced to the happiness of wedlock , may well be believed . Hut unhappily the fulfilment of either of these conditions seemed to be in bis case impracticable ; and though it was long before bin mind realized the fact , —though it may \ w doubted whether , at any poriotl of his life , he became fully scumble of his disqualifications to enact successfully the part of a lover , and to win the desired name of husband ,- -still a vague sense of ho ]> olcssness to obtain the first wish of his soul , •—u bitter coiiHciousnoHH of tho incompatibility of hia moat cherished daydreams with

    what seemed to be his allotted path in life , sufficed to paralyze his intellectual energies , and to unnerve him for resolute and practical exertion towards the attainment of any definite end . To some such cause at least it seems reasonable to attribute the utter aimlessness and waste of his early manhood . From the day on which he took his bachelor ' s degree , or at least from that on which he was elected a fellow of Trinity , he appears to have had no distinct object or occupation in life . Incapable of choosing a profession , or of engaging in any regular and systematic course of « tudy , he frittered away and exhausted his noble powers , for years together , in employments altogether unworthy of them;—in minute verbal criticism for obscure periodicals;—in occasional essays , for the most part on trifling subjects ; in burlesque imitations of and parodies upon Greek , Latin , and English authors It seemed as if he were seeking , in petty and trivial intellectual occupations , diversion and relief from the deep heart-searchings and mental disquietudes to which lie was in secret becoming daily more and more a prey /'

    And the end was insanity , helpless poverty , a miserable wasted life . Last week we spoke of the danger that lay in " peace of mind" as contradistinguished from the healthy conflict of activity—the danger lest the mind become like a stagnant pool , mantling over with fertile inferiority of life , as we see it in the " peace" of villages , of colleges , of solitude , and all our energetic faculties frittered away in petty details and superficial strivings , by some named gossip , by others business ; and here in Walker ' s career we read an illustration of it ; he wasted Ms life in writing aimless bad verses and in -verbal criticisms .

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    BOOKS ON HUNGAHY . mmqary in 1851 ; with an Experience of the Austrian Police . By Charles Loring Brace . London : Bentley , The Past and Future of ILungarg : being Facts , Figures , and Dates Illustrative of its Past Struggle and Future Prospects . By C . F . Henningsen , Esq . T . C . Newby , An American in Hungary was not the least significant fact of 1851 , The Austrians had the stupidity to arrest him , however ; the simple fact bebthe of

    came an historical event , and , it is probable that , y imprisonment Mr . Brace , converting American sympathy for Hungary into American alliance with Hungary , Austria did more in one little month to subvert her rule in Hungary , than all the armies of the Russian intervention accomplished to sustain it in a six months' campaign . Mr . Brace not only saw Hungary face to face , but he also saw and felt the Austrian police , and became acquainted with the interior and the inmates of an Austrian nrison . And thus he has been enabled to spread far and wide , wherever

    the Anglo-Saxon tongue is understood , the strong testimony of an Anglo-Saxon , not only to the facts that Hungary had liberties which , she has lost , and a constitution which has been overturned , but to what an Anglo-Saxon holds in still stronger detestation , to the hypocrisy , blood-thirstiness , and , as it were , personal baseness of the Austrian system of government . The arrest of Mr . Brace must produce the same effect upon the American mind as the arrest of Mr . Paget would have produced upon the British mind ; and , what is of far more moment to Austria , we say it to our national dishonour , the Stars and Stripes are far more likely to avenge an insult of this kindthan the Union Jack of England .

    , Having , with some difficulty , obtained a passport at Vienna , —the English and Americans bearing , with the Austrian officials , the character of interfering too much in matters which did not concern them , Mr . Brace set ont for Hungary , down the Danube , staying a short time m Pesth , going thence to Szolnok , and so up the Theiss , to the plains of central Hungary . At what point he landed is not indicated , as he was anxious not to expose his hospitable Hungarian friends to the unpleasant attentions of the Austrian police ! Does not that fact stand in the place of volumes for

    impressing the reader with the actual state ot Hungary Y -But , wnen ne naa landed , we find him scampering over the " Pusztas , " vast prairies covered with crops and cattle , and dotted with farmsteads and villages , inhabited by the frank , free , generous , hospitable Hungarian Bauer or Seasantry . In this charming journey over the Hungarian prairies , Mr . Irace contrived to sketch many a picturesque scene of life in those regions , and to gather a great deal of information on the state of opinion among the sturdy dwellers therein . Everywhere he found the Austrians detested , and Kossuth beloved , In all parts , especially among the farmers , clergymen , and peasantry , freed from forced labour by the V ™ 1848 he found that the spirit of resistance was anything but crushed , tfiac America was looked to as the land of promise , and that the people have the greatest veneration for the leaders of the war of independence , as tney

    cherish hopes of its renewal . _ ., , Over the Pusztas to Debreczin , of which he has given us a capital account , delighted everywhere with tho free manners and high bearing or the peasants , and what wo should call , perhaps , the yeomanry of -Hungary . Debreczin is tho university and tho swine-market of Hungary . The population have never boon subjected to feudal service , and aro among tho freest in all tho land . From Debreczin Mr . Brace went to Grosswardein ; but here some spy heard him , in a public room , pronounce tho name of TTjlmzy , one of tho most able and respectable of the ™ voixitionary leaders , itihazy is now at the head of a colony of exiles in Western America ; but tho police spy concluded that some conspiracy wa 8 . J " foot . Mr . Brace bad not delivered in his papers ; ho w . m warned on . in day after his arrival that ho was " suspect , although he hud lx-en vJhiD' « all over tho city , calling upon tho governor , among otlier .-i . Ho went - Htanlly to the ollico of tho Place Commandant , who took t in ) passe , sayu y there would be no diflieulliesButin a few hours afterwhile at dinner , uiiii \ i ¦ »¦¦¦»¦ !»

    . , , lj . ll . VI \ ~ > Vv * _ /** IVI . lf \ j ii \/ ^ y » . «* ** -kj - » - * **> ' ) . - » ' —— .- . — _ r— — , , . - „ a qc . ndarmc ontered , " with a warrant for his arrest , and the cxomina «» of his papers , on tho charge of his having proclamations . " i" P ° i fact , tho warrant had been issued not six hours after ho entered u ™ ° wardoin . Ho was marched off , and lodged in tho old castle , m compa ^ j with a Honved and a tailor , both implicated in revolutionary " cnmoS '] i that is , on the first a false pans was found , and on tho second a concoui weapon . Mr . Brace was afterwards examined , when tho paltriest law , were adduced against him , to prove that ho wan a plotter of revoiuiw » in tho guise of an inquiring traveller . The " court , " that is , the h ° ™ ^ diers in tho fortress , would not believe that Hungarian country itfo different from country life in other countries ; and aa for tho tfuszta , w »

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    7 j 5 O THE LEADER * [ Saturday ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 7, 1852, page 760, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1946/page/20/