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    called the pole . It is in that region that the retina possesses greatest sensibility , and as we recede from that point , the sensibility and perceptive power of the membrane gradually decrease . In looking , therefore , at any single object , the optic axes are naturally directed by us to the object , by which means its image is thrown direct on the most sensitive portion of the retina , and when this is done by both eyes , vision is always single . The landscape lying around this central or direct object of vision forms an image on the less sensitive parts of the retina Surrounding the polar or central point , and possesses a certain indistinctness to us , still not so much so as that we are not able to note the more prominent objects that lie near this centre of vision ; and , accordingly , it is found , that not only is the object at which we look directly , perceived as single , but all other objects lying around , which are at equal distances from us , are also represented to us as single , though our perception of them is very indistinct . Those objects , however , which are either nearer or farther from us than the direct object of our vision , appear to us double . The

    physiological reason assigned for this we shall immediately state , and , in the meantime , we may mention , that those objects which , in the above instance , appear single , owing to the globular form of the eye , cast their image on points of the two retinal which are held to be physiologically identical , while those that appear double cast their images on dissimilar points of the retinae . The centres of the retinae of each eye , lying in the optic axis , are the primary identical points , and all points in each eye equally distant to the left of these points are also held identical points . All points , also , to the right of the centres , or above or below them , are also identical or corresponding points , provided they are equally distant from the centres of the retina ? of each eye . Now these are just the points of the two retinse on which , in accordance with the laws of optics , when the eyes are properly directed to an object , its images , and the images of adjacent equidistant objects , will fall . The following experiments will explain more distinctly our meaning , and it will be acknowledged , that they go far to establish the general correctness of the above solution of the phenomenon of single and double vision .

    " Let us place ourselves some fifteen or twenty feet from a lighted candle , and direct our eyes steadily to it ; the axes of the eyes are , in this instance , brought into the line of the object , and the image of the candle will fall on the central points of the retina ? , and the candle will appear single . Let us now hold up a finger at arm ' s length before us in the line of the candle , and let us look directly at it . So soon as the eyes are directed to Lhis nearer object , two candles will immediately seem to start into existence where one was before , and we have thus double vision ; the axes of the eyes , in turning from the candle to the finger , become shifted and converged to the nearer object , and the images of the candle then necessarily fall , as the annexed figure will show , not on identical points of the two retina ? , but on opposite sides of tlie axis of each eye . "

    We cannot pretend to clear up this mystery , which still baffles science ; but we will suggest to philosophers , that they are not seeking in the right direction for an explanation . The mystery lies elsewhere . To prove that it does , we need only recal this strangely-overlooked fact : We have only one sensation of sound with two ears , only one of smell with two nostrils , just as we have only one image with two eyes ! We can hear with one ear , smell with one nostril , see with one eye ; yet with two organs , under ordinary circumstances we have only one sensation . Does not this show that the long-debated question of sight is not an

    anatomical but a psychial question ? We have no space to dwell on this , nor on the other questions mooted in Mr . Wyld's Philosophy of the Senses—a . work the nature and contents of which we have suiliciently indicated in the foregoing remarks .

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    TWO NOVELS . AqatJia ' s Jlvsland . A Novel , by the Author of" Olive , " " The Head of the Family , ' > &c . 3 vo 1 h . Chapman ond Hall The Lover's Stratagem ; or , the Two Suitors . Hy Emilic F . Carlen . 2 vols - BontIe In Aqatha ' s Husband we have an interesting story , told with consider .. able skill ; but the authoress has fallen below her former eiforts , both m the interest of her story , and in the art with which character is portrayed . The book hetrnys exhaustion . It was written because former works were successful , not because the authoress had anything to say or paint In default of new experience , now character , and new Btory , it was absolutely necessary she should bestow great skill in the construction of her old materials , to make them have the eifect of novelty , hkill she has - an eloquent ' style , an abiding power , and a certain enthusiasm which carry the reader onVanln ; and , besides these , a sharp feminine eye for details , and a vivid pencil in the rendering details visible : qualities which make her books very readable . Hut , in the present instance the skill , though great , has not been great enough to disguise the age of the materials , nor to make acceptable the very questionable metaphyBies ol the passions upon which the whole Btory is based . We rc . ad with n . credubty . What may be true is not true-seeming . The position of Nathaniel to his wife in one more possible than credible ; while her ignorance of her own nllai .-H i » absolutely preposterous Ah if any girl of nineteen left solely with a truanlian , would be unaware ol the fact that slie was rich ! . 1 hen lumin Sim . is an unexplained obscurity—wo will not nay mystery about the Major and about Anne Valery , which ordinary art should have * w ' t"f Itiinff at defectH , more for the sake of the writer , than tJ . e render- let uh , however , also hint , though briefly , at the many capital o -hcH of description and emotion which tho book contains I here are ' . U hi in the » misunderstanding" between Agatha and her Ji . iHh . uid I -hare admirable in their subtlo truth , and make one for a moment , e he unreality of the basis . Duke Dugdale and Ins frank , happy wife ¦ IV ™ , a eharming picture of married love . The squire , also , is a tyne of the old school . . , , - 1 . ¦ . ,,, v ,. i V . th this writers command over passion , and clear insight into what is characteristic in character , one may expect iiovoIh from Jier very much above Ui « average ; hut , before hIio again takes up her pen , let lie seriously put , this < m ™ tioii to herself , " What am - I going to write V Not simply tln-e ., volin . U of story ; but , in that story , 1 am go . ng to use my own personal experience and observation , to make it the vehicle for conveying them to tho world . 1 have suffered such and such emotions under tryiiiK cirouinatancc * , aud I u mo accsx aud atudiod . ct > rUw ehiUttotora uutU

    I knovr them-shall I use this material formy novel , or shall I content myself with the material other novels will give me H Emilia Carlen has acquired a name in Swedish llte ^ re 8 ec ° n ^ only to that of Frederika Bfemer ; upon what ^ ground rf a ?» t u ^~ than we can say , our admiration for Frederika ^^^^^ g and our acquaintance with Emilia Carlen being very right . Tto n ^ however , we are forced t o say , that if The Layer s Stratagem hadbeea written by an Englishwoman we should have dismissed it as a faW commonplace , vulgar story , with no fidelity or force of $ ^™*?™ r make it kteresting s but , being a Swedish novel and set ting before us the commonplaces anS trivialities of Swedish life it is not without a certam extrinsic interest Major Sterner is of the stuff all novel heros are made 3 * , SL / nX a dash of Northern sentimentality , to distinguish out

    her from the thousand and one heroines we do « o « lose our hearts to the pastor Svallenius , the post-inspector Von Spalden , a » d ™™» ° ^ minor characters , have that local colouring which renders them amusing to English readers . It is something to escape from the eternal types ; ot English and French society , into Northern nawete vulgarity , stupidity , trnd schwdrmereiI With this something let The Lovers Stratagem be credited ; this , and only . this .

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    BOOKS ON OUR TABLE . Liverpool a few Tears Since . By An Old Stager . Whittaker and Co It would appear , though Liverpool was a hundred years ago only a fishing village —never up to that time having been the scene of a single historical incident—that few towns have more history . There has been recently published a very compendious huge volume of history proper by Mr . Thomas Baines , one of the Leeds family ; and this Liverpool a few Years Since , by « An Old Stager , is only one of many publications of a similar kind constantly making their appearance , though most of them never advance from newspaper pages into a book . The fact , it seems , is , that the history of Liverpool for the last hundred years is the history ot Lancashire , which is the history of English commerce with the United States : and while the laborious statistics which Mr . Baines gathers have imperial application and interest , the sketches , such as "An Old Stager" furnishes , of the exceptional , odd state of society existing in Liverpool among the " merchant princes , who then were very great savages , while the town was dashing out of insignificance into startling wealth , thanks to the slave trade and the war ( the Liverpool privateersmen were what Baltimore privateersmen may be ) , have an immense value for the reading and inquiring people now on the banks of the Mersey , and who know little or nothing ( for newspapers have destroyed tradition ) of the past of the locality in which they have taken up their abode . " An Old Stager" does for Liverpool what Leigh Hnnt and Cunningham , supposing they combined , would do for London—given the Liverpoolians a sort of street guide , seasoned with anecdote and gossip of a gone state of society , and of dead merchant p rinces , who , however , still live , and are , consequently , subjects of local curiosity in the great mercantile houses they founded . Even to us strangers this is pleasant reading ; and we can understand it being very delightful reading in Liverpool . The writer has scholarship and wit , and precisely the sty le which could alone redeem such reminiscences from mere gossip . On the whole , it is a very happy production , which we here acknowledge as justify ing a notice , which could not under any ordinary circumstances be extended to a book appealing , in the first place , only to a locality . We

    should add , that " An Old Stager" first produced his now collected papers m the Liverpool Albion , a newspaper which ranks with the Guardian of Manchester , the Mercury of Leeds , the Journal of Birmingham , and the Journal of Liverpool , in the first class of the daily improving provincial press . The writer is the Jlev . Mr . Aspinall , some years ago the favourite pulpit orator of intellectual Liverpool , and now well known as foremost in all wise , good , and liberal movements in the midland counties .

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    44 THE LEADER . [ Sawbpat , _

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    INTRODUCTION . jjS ^ AIIM scholar , the gentleman , and the connoisseur , arc naturally inte-| # ljjjf J rested in the picture art . They claim to understand whatever ffW relates to it , and to appreciate the varied discussions and criticisms < P * of which the great art of painting is the constant subject . At first sight it would seem that interest in this topic must he confined to these classes . But literature , which has penetrated to all orders of men , has made even the fine arts to have a definite relation to the humblest , to whom some of the noblest collections of pictures and sculptures have been opened for contemplation . Thousands now flock to witness and to wonder at productions of the pencil and the chisel , hitherto confined to favoured eyes . Statesmen and friends of education have borne witness to the refining influence of art on the multitude . It is thought that refinement can scarcely take place without a thorough understanding of the objects gazed upon and venerated , find boiiic urge that the English people have not that constitutional aptness for the line arts , peculiar to certain nation * . Hut , if our people arc not " driven impetuousl y hy constitution or paHtiion" to such puriuuit » , it i » very manifest that they cun be " directed regularly , hy rcuuon ,

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    " Who , in coiilfunjiliit . in ^ on « of IlitpIiiicl ' H Uncut , piclurcs , fr « nh from Uio ihiwIci- ' h IiiiiuT , < tv « r I > ohU > W ( h 1 h thought on Uio wrotolioil liltlu worm which workH ita « l « 'Htruction V " . — .-... - Maria Kdujswoktii .

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    THlglR MUNI RMPD RENlOV / AXTIQNl , * VY IIENRY MKlt'RITT .

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    We should do our-utmost to encourage : the Beautiful , for the Useful encourages itaclf . —OoKTHlt .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 8, 1853, page 44, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1968/page/20/