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    ^ WcMfiss tkat wado not entertain that alarnt progress ; of BS ^^ iTSrineni * and Asia Mmor ^ iich Afe Duncan shares with othS ^ a ^ tm ^ lJeW * We are not of opinion that it would have beet . SJSwS ^ divide the AHied-forres , Tor the purpose of sending even one SvS » n to » ire . Nor do we think that Russia can conquer Asia Minor , -oVereirobtam results thatr will compensate for any success we may obtain in the Crimea ! bat we are quite ready to concur ia the opinion that the operations of General Mouravieff constitute a serious diversion , which , it time and opportunity serve , may be developed into a permanent and substantial e » te * pnse on its own merits ^ To say tl » at the army of Mouravieff is uumencally sufficient to overrun "the Asiatic provinces of the Porte is , we conceive , to form an incorrect estimate of the chances . of that omeer , aad to spe * k ia accents o £ exaggerated alarm . While the Allies are in the Crimea , Russia dare not be too rodigal of men and resonrees upon the plains and

    p i » the passes of Armenia . TF Mouravieff ; before winter sets n > , takes Eneroum , he wtH have accomplished more in one campaign , with diminished tesdtrrcesi than Paskiewitch , who had nothing to fear for his rear , and to whom the Black Sea was open , accomplished m 1828 . It is not sufficient to capture a town to makye a flank march within sight of its garrison . We can conceive * indeed , that had the Western Powers abandoned Turkey to her fate in 1854 , then Russian legions would have been triumphant from 3 £ axs to Mossul , and from Bayazid to Trebizond—perhaps to the Bosphorus . BmV then ,, how changed the conditions of success I Mouravieff , of course , may be a Napoleon , and he is undoubtedly . whafMr . Duncan-describes him to be , an able- and enterprising officer ; but we shall not be convinced of his ability Uh conquer Asia Minor until we see the accomplishment of the

    enterprise . . . In no way do we desire to depreciate the importance of the campaign in Armenia , began so spiritedly by the Russian general . We are perfectly aware how necessary it is to bar the road to Persia through the Armenian passes to Russia . It would have been prudent to have succoured the small onwl ill-disciplined army at Kurs earlier , and it might have been wiser to send Ckn » rP « shatto Ears when Eupatoriai was ., made secure ; but we are by no meaas sum that it would have been so . Eainatoria is a positioa of great uorpertauce , and it . may yet become the starting point of decisive results . KRosda is beaten in the Crimea , she is beaten in Armenia ; and no army tfa * she-couldy-aflfbrd ibrr the invasion of As » a- * Minor would be able to maintain a position west of Kars under such circumstances . Therefore we regatrd the movements of MouravieflFj with anxiety certainly , but without « snir ..

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    . UIE ^ ANJ > OPINIONS OF MILTON . AA A £ ce& + < & tfmJJifir , Opinions ^ and Writings of John Milton i with an Introduction Px&wadim XiadL By Thomas Kmghtley .. Chapman auad HalL Thib volome on-MHton has been a labour of love to Mr . Keightley , and , as witfrjaH such labours where there is ability as well as love , the result is vaWabfet TKfe biographical part is full without being prolix ; all the accessible : materials are wapl digested , and the evidence for questionable details c 4 » efully sifted i there ara n . o bookmaking digressions from the history of

    IVdUii ^ s lucttAAtike . ltistacy o £ ' bis period * but the reader finds as much , illustrate information-, aswia necessary . Those who are unacquainted / , with M £ Uq $ & prose works may get awvery fair idea of them from Mr . ILeightley ' s analysis ; and extracts . ; they may learn what were Milton ' s opiaioos , how- he ai ^ afidi andiinivrhat . style he wrote prose- ? and perhaps in these days , when the chief place of stody » the railway carriage , the majority of readers will be satisfied with this rapid coup de ceit . Mr . KLeightley does not seem to us to ^ bo alwajr »> felicitoo » dn his criticism of Milton's poems , but his comments , eapeeially < m the introduction to Paradise Lost , contain much that is highly suggestive . *

    Tfie principal phases and incidents of Milton ' s life are familiar to us all : the sentence of * rustication passed on him at the university ; the bright , tdyliia days at Horfcon when his early poems were produced ; the journey to Italy where he " found and visited the famous Galileo , grown old , a prisoner ; " the prosaic transition to school-keeping in London ; City and inbar «~^ i « tous marriage with Mary Powell ; hisr Latin secretaryship ; his second Knd third : ventures inmatrimony , and small satisfaction in hi » daughters ; the long-days of , blindness in which ' the Paradise Lost was poured forth'by thirty lines at a twne when a friendly pen happened to be near ; and'the quie * dosing years when he might be aeon " to sit in a coarse grey cloth coat afctb * door of his house - m * Bhn hill Fields , in warm , sunny weather , to enjqy the ftesh air , and so , as well as in his room , to receive the visits of people of distinguished parts as well as quality . " * I * es 3 familiar , because-less-generally interesting are Milton ' s religious

    opinionsr ; which ' were not fully known until 1823 , when Mr . Loinon , during his . researches . in the Old State Paper-office ,, happened to lay hid hand * , on a Latiaiaanuseripfc which proved to be the Treatise on Christian Doctrine , known , to have . been i written by-Milton . In this treatise we have a complete 3 tatemenfc « f ' 'Milton's-theological and ethical-views . That ho was an Avian , & believer in free-will and in the ufoiverstil efficacy of Christ ' s donth < had been already apparent to- the understanding reader in thfe pages of Paradise Lost' ; the Galvinista , it-was evidtent , could not claim him as their own . His famous work , too , on-the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce , had sufficiently announced his departure from the prevalent opinion on that subject . The more'unexpected points in the treatise on Christian doctrine arc the position that polygamy , is permitted by the law of Christ ; the rejection of infant baptfeftv ; and the materialistic view - of the human soul , that "man is not , acteordtog ' tO'the common' opinion , made up and' framed of two distinct and dliWtoent'natures ^ aa of eoul and body , but thafe the whole man is soul and tlx »**< il l toan : '' ' Milton was anti-Puritan in his view of the Sabbath ,

    con-Queen . There is much unreasonable prejudice against this blending of personal interest with a general , protest . If wo waited for the impulse of abstract benevolence or justice , wo fear that most reforms would be postponed to the Greek Kalends , and in all matters where popular alarms and , prejudices do not come into play , personal experience is considered the next qualification for bearing witness to an evil . The Athenians , so far from sharing this ultra-delicate notion of ours , that a man is not to appear in a cause for the very reason that he has an interest in ifc , would alloyv no man to bring a c : ise of litigation into court unless he had a personal concern , in that case : they distrusted all disinterested officiousness as much as we should distrust a man who set up shop purely for the good of the community . The personal interest may lead to exnggeration , and may be unwisely thrust into prominence , but in itself it is assuredly not a ground for silence but for speech , until we have reached that stage in which the "work of this world will be all done vicariously , everybody acting for some one else , and nobody for himself .

    earring * wit * Luther in regarding tlie Christian day of rest as a matter of expediency to be regulated by the civil government , not as a matter of divine authority . When Milton wrote his Doctrine and Disci p line of Divorce he was pleading hi * own cause as well as urging a general argument , just as , two centuries later , ! Vfrs . Norton has recently done , and is doing in her Letter to the

    Milton ' s plea for divorce , of course , drew down on him plenty of Presbyterian vituperation : his book was ** a wicked book /* his error " too gross for refutation . " Yet his style is singularly calm and dignified . He desires " not that licence and levity and anconsented breach of faith should herein bfr countenanced , but that some conscionable and tender pity migjit be had of those who have unwarily , in a thing they never practised before , made themselves the bondmen of a luckless and helpless matrimony . " We seem to see a trace of his own experience when he says , " Who knows notthat the bashful muteness of a virgin may ofttinies hide all the unliveliness and natural sloth which is reall y unfit for conversation ? " - —and when he speaks , of a " sober man" discovering that the appearance of modesty iu the woman ho has chosen hides a nature " to all the more estimable and superior purposes of matrimony -useless and almost lifeless . " There is pathos as well as . force in the following passage : —

    And yet there follows upon this a worse temptation . For if he ( the husband ) be such as hath spent bis youtn unblamably , and laid up his chiefly earthly comforts in the enjoyment of a contented marriage , nor did neglect the furtherance which was to fee obtained therein by constant prayers , when he shall find himself bound Cast to au uncomplying discord of nature , or , as it oft happens , to an image of earth and phlegm , ¦ with -whom he looked to be the copartner of a sweet and gladsome society ; and sees ¦ withal that his bondage is now inevitable : though he be almost the strongest Christian , he will be ready to despair in virtue , and mutiny against Diviue Providence . "

    A picture , alas ! too often realised since the year 1644 , when it was thus powerfully drawn . For want of a more modern pendant to Mrs . Norton ' s pica , it is worth while to take up Milton ' s , and consider what such a mind as . his had to urge on the husband ' s side of this painful subject . Before taking leave of Mr . Keightley ' a volume , let us savthnt it is tho best introduction we have seen to the study of Milton , and that we recommend it to > our readers as a fund of knowledge at once instructive and deligbtfel .

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    A BATCH OF BOOKS . Land , Labour , and Gold ; or , Two Years in Victoria . By William Howitt . { Lon « man and Co . )—In the two volumes of which this work consists Mir . Howitt has given to the public , from the results of his own experience , a view of the present social and political condition of our Australian colonies . The vices of our administrative system have reached the Antipodes ; and it is on © of Mr . Howitt ' s principal objects to expos © them . His book , in all its more serious and useful passages , speaks almost perpetually- in tone 3 of warning or complaint . Under existing circumstances , he has little to say that can encourage persons proposi ng to emigrate , and scarcely any statements to make iu -connexion with tb . © Government which are not more or loss statements of abuses . His careful , and we

    doubt not conscientious , picture of Australia has scarcely such a thing as a bright tint in any part of it . And if wo turn from what he tells us of the present , to what he suggests of the future , we can still draw- bub few inferences of the hopeful kind . For the gloom and uncertainty which a perusul of the more serious portion of his pages must cast over the reflections of all thinking men , the nature of his subject—the exposure of the doubtful and dimgerous condition of a great English colony—is , we are quite willing to admit , mainly answerable . But it strikes us , at the same tiiuii , that the tone of the writer is an unfortunate one . lie has a hard , ungenial way of stating his gloomy and startling fucts , which will repel many persons from his volumes , although ( like ourselves ) they may

    have no doubt of the author ' s accuracy and excellent intentions , lhia is the principal defect of a book which has great claims to public attention , and which , it must be added , addresses itself to the reader for amusement , as well as to tho reader for information . The lighter pnssngos of Mr . Howitt ' s work ar « nlmost uniformly interesting ; many of his anecdotes of Australian life , and little pictures of character at the diggings , and in the towns , arc so admirable , that we should foci tempted to transfer somo of thorn to our own columns , if we did not consider it fairest to the author toutroat his attractions for the general reader as his own solo property , which it would bo doing him an , injustice to appropriate even by way of loan . Accordingly , we reat satisfied with helping to draw attention to his book , and luavu to our readers the pleasant task of discovering all its beat pa » sa&ea for themselves .

    A Londoner ^ Walk to the Land's End . By Walter White . ( Chapman and Hall . )—Mr . White has little to aay that has not boon already Htiid by writers ( and walkers } about Cornwall . His book is , nevertheless , very pleasant reading , iu virtue principall y of tho unaffectedly good-humoured tone in-which it is written . M * . White i » a traveller of tho bost and truest kind : his hearty spirit , his genuine enjoyment of Nature , and his koon

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    S % jM ^ - ~ ^ ' mmm iiEAP ^ BOE ^ [ No ^ sw , sk ^ mm ^

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 4, 1855, page 750, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2101/page/18/