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Leader (1850-1860), 19th May 1855, Edition 1 of 2, Page 472, Untitled Article

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    • Xfttvatm.
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      Xfttvatm.

      Xfttvatm .

      Untitled Article

      Iir the year 1770 a wild and magnificent youth arrived in Strasburg to comp lete his education , and , amid various studies of alchemy , law , medicine , and lovemaking , to penetrate into the mystery of the art which erected the Strasburg Cathedral . This youth bore the name of Wolfgang Goethb ; and his enthusiasm for Gothic Art , which expressed itself in a little tractate , D . M , Erwvl ' ' A Sleinbach , a tractate shortly afterwards published by Harder in his book Von Deutscher Art und KunsL , is among the earliest indications of tLat potent revival of the love of Gothic Art , which not only gave interest to the Romantic School , but which has in one shape or other run through Europe modifying European criticism and European thought .

      ' "What the Germans have done to establish and propagate this enthusiasm for the Gothic is known , one would think , to all persons of culture , by hearsay if not by direct knowledge . That the revival commenced in Germany , and was mainly established in Germany , is one of the truisms we should scarcely venture to repeat did not the astonishing and amusing presumption of the French force the repetition . The French are not content that Paris shall be called ( by them ) the centre of civilisation , the brain of the " universe" C a Frenchman seldom limits himself within narrower bounds than Vunivers ) ; they are not content to call themselves the first in every department , but with perfect sincerity believe that nothing is ever done , worth doing , until they have done it . Even in so trifling a matter as the

      introduction of hippopotami to the gaze of Europe , they claim precedence in the face of the most glaring evidence . After we had our' hippopotamus drawing thousands of curious gazers to the Zoological Gardens—after Potty had been drawn , modelled , written about , and had every possible publicityafter his portrait had appeared in the French Illustration—two years of notoriety are insufficient to prevent the French from boasting , and when at last they had secured a rival for their zoological gardens , declaring that la France could now for the first time present to astonished Europe , &c , &c . No wonder then that Gothic Art was first revived by Frenchmen . In M . Michblet ' s last work , La Renaissance , we read , with a smile , that to Victor Hugo and himself this revival is due . He tells us that the architects flocked

      to them with amazing fanaticism pour nos doctrines . He mentions Goethe , indeed , in passing ,- but only thus : " J ' essayai de donner la loi vivante de cette vegetation ; Goethe l ' avait dite cristallisation . " Except this passing allusion the reader has no hint given that any one but Chateaubriand , Victor Hcgo , and Michki-et , had the slig htest claim in the matter . Michjexbt las now given up his fanaticism in favour of the Gothic . He is as severe now as he was enthusiastic then . He sees that he has been playing into the hands of the priests . He sees that compared with Greek

      Art the Gothic is in every way inferior . He is eloquent against its system of perpetual supports from without , its eternal scaffolding for eternal repairs . Take away those scaffoldings ; let the domes support themselves : they cannot ! " Elle exige qu ' on entretienne autour d ' elle un peuple de medecins ; je n'appelle pas autrement les villages de macons que je vois etablis au pied de ces Edifices , vivant , engraissant la-dessus , eux et leurs nombreux enfans . " In this style ho fulminates against his ancient enthusiasm ; as unjust in attack , as he was extravagant in applause .

      The whole book indeed fatigues with its rhapsodies and caprices . A finer subject than the Renaissance could hardly solicit the historian ' s attention . But instead of history , Michelet gives us a rhapsody . What is to be expected from a man who answers the question " Why did the epoch , named Middle Ages , live three centuries after ~ its denth ? " in this style : — " Son terrorisme , sa police , ses buchers n'auraient pas sufli . L'esprit humain eut tout brise . L'Ecole le sauva , la creation d ' un grand peuple de raisonneurs contre la JJaison . Le n 6 cmt Jut f 6 cond , crea . " When ambitious trash of that kind can be deliberately offered as History , or as anything else that is serious , there is great hope for the dull dogs ; there being no Dryasdust dulness which has not its value as a relief from such writing .

      Untitled Article

      Can one imagine the feelings of a man who , having made a great discovery , and for six years enjoying European renown , not to mention more solid advantages , in consequence of his discovery , suddenly hears that a rival has arisen , not , as in ordinary cases , to rob him of his glory by transferring it to another , —not to prove that centuries ago the discovery had been made by one whom the centuries have forgotten , whom the centuries did not understand , —not to prove the discovery a plagiarism , but to prove it a mistake ? Human nature lias not yet acquired a dose of philosophy sufficient to

      withstand such a shock na that . Let us hope , for his sake and for the sake of science , that Cjuaude Beiinard is not doomed to such a trial . The reader probably knows that the gre atest discove ry of the last few ycara in Physiology is that made by M . Bernard respecting the office of the Livor as a sugar-maker . Ho proved ~ that the animal organism has the power of making sugar over and above the quantity contained in the food ; and ho proved that the organ in which this transformation into sugar took place waa the Xiiver . But latoly the Acad&mie des Sciences has boon thrown into commotion

      by the startling arguments of M . Figuier , who maintains that M . Ber ' nabd ' s evidence is fallacious , because , although it is true that no sugar can be traced in the vessel which carries the blood to the liver , as it can in the vessels which carry the blood from the liver , yet , he says , this arises from the fact that the sugar is masked by the presence of a particular substance albuminose , which is removed in the passage through the liver . Considerable discussion has taken place , and up to this point we confess that

      M . Bernard seems to have the advantage . But a Commisssion of Inquiry has been appointed , and we shall inform our readers of the decision . Should it be against M . Bernard , we shall not only regret it for his sake ; we shall regret it because science will then nave fresh researches to make to find out the organ in which the sugar is made , and because the upsetting of M . Bernard ' s theory will throw doubt on many other theories which one hoped were settled . A regret natural enough , but of course trivial in comparison with the satisfaction which will afterwards arise at thinking we have freed ourselves from an error .

      Untitled Article

      Besides the malice natural to man , and the delight in foreboding evil , there seems to be a peculiar facility in anticipating catastrophes indulged in by those who have no malicious motive whatever . We constantly hear that such or such a manager is utterly ruined and " can ' t keep his theatre open this season ; " that such or such a periodical is " going to stop , I am told ;" that such or such a paper is to be "given up . " And on inquiry we find , first , that our informant has no knowledge whatever of the thing he speaks of ;

      and secondly , that the undertaking of which he speaks so despondingly is in a perfectly flourishing , successful condition . We were led into this remark by hearing that the Westmirister Review had " changed hands again , " which , considering that the Westminster Review has under the present management risen to an importance it never had since John Mill resigned the editorship , and has , moreover , become a profitable speculation , which it never was before , seemed to us * rather a foolish rumour ; and on inquiry we find the rumour to have no better foundation than the malice , or love of catastrophes ,

      before alluded to . This anticipation of catastrophes , this making a present reality of what is as yet in the limbo of futurity , is , though despicable in prose , often used in poetry with fine effect . Thus Keats , in his Isabella , describes the brothers as They rode to Florence with the murdered man , that is to say , the man whom they are about to murder , and whom the prescient imagination of the poet looks on as already murdered . In precisely the same spirit Euripides , in his Hecuba , makes the Shade of Polydorus say

      that his mother comes from the tent of Agamemnon , ' ¦ ' ¦ dreading my apparition : " < pavrao-fj . a dei / xaipovo- ' € / xov ; that is , she would look on it with dread , therefore he withdraws . In the Ajax of Sophocles there is another turn given to this mode of emphasising . Menelaus speaks of Ajax as his murderer . Upon which Teucer , very properly astonished , exclaims : — KTfivaiTa ; deivov y' etnas , ft kcu £ 17 $ duvcov . Thy murderer ? O marvel ! then the dead man lives ! And Menelaus then explains that a God saved him , but for Ajax he is still as one dead— "for him I have utterly vanished . "

      Linking one recollection on to another , we rccal the famous sentence which " convulsed the house , " and " brought down the roar of laughter and hisses which condemned the tragedy produced by Macready with so much pomp of expectation—a tragedy memorable to play-goers on account ol this very sentence . Macready , in what waa intended for the thrilling situation of the piece , exclaimed : " There stands my murderer ! " The audience shouted , and the author did not bend from his private box , as he mig ht have done , in imitation of Voltaire , who , when the parterre hissed his play , exclaimed : Barbares ! e'est du Sophocle !

      Untitled Article

      BADEN POWELL'S INDUCTIVE PHILOSOPHY . Essays on the Sjnrit of the Inductive Philosophy , the Unity of Worlds , and the Philosophy of Creation . By the Rev . Baden Powell , Saviliau Profossor of Geometry at the University of Oxford . Longman . This is a work to which every philosophic thinker , and every friend to the progress of science , should give a welcome . It has already been tounu " heterodox" by the sensitive prescience of orthodoxy ; nor will the position of the author , us clergyman and Oxford Professor , prevent the cry of heterodoxy being raised in many quarters ; for so completely have theological ideas mingled with and directed the speculations of scientific philosophy ,

      so dominant 1 ms the theological direction been in inquiries where theology lias properly no place whatever , that any und every attempt , from Bacon downwards , to isolate science from theology , has produced 11 wild outcry from theologians . The attempt made by the llev . Baden Powell is strictly Baconian , lie desires , in the first place , to isolate science- from theology ? both directly and indirectly , and to have science pursued solel y on inductive principles , based upon exact knowledge ; and no desires , in tho secon place , to ahow tho uniformity of creation and the laws of creation , consequently tho unity of the sciences . Ho banishes those " barren virgins , jinal causes , on tho same grounds as Bacon did so . Ho refutes tlio < i ° " trine of intuitions , and " necessary truths antecedent to experience . * f relegates mysticism to tho domain of mysticism , giving it no citizenship > philosophy . He separates theology from p hilosophy , and emp hatically < ' »»• cards tho popular method of solving scientific problems by tho liW ' Comte " with a bishop in tow , " or Bacon , obliged every now and thenii make an obeiaanco to the Church he wua undermining , will s omewuu

      Untitled Article

      Giitics are not the legislators , bat the judges and police of literature . They do not xt ^ e laws-rthey interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Revtew .

      Untitled Article

      gff S THE LEAD EB . Saturday ,

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), May 19, 1855, page 472, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2091/page/16/