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      Untitled Article

      . ; ¦ . ¦ - ? .. . The function of Reviews has for some time past been so niuch more efficiently performed by- the other organs of the Press that we regret to see the valuable space of a Quarterly bestowed on articles like the one in the last Edinburgh on " New Poets . " If the writer had any new views to propound , or any deeper criticism of the new poets than that . which has been current in magazines and journals for the last three years , there would have been , ample justification of his article ; but we have stale quotations from Bacon , Aristotle , Milton , Sir Philip Sidkey , and Hooker ; ushering in very stale objections to the very obvious faults of a few poets whose merits and demerits are , we should have thought , pretty well understood by this time an every cultivated circle .

      Very different in value and in purpose is the article on " Perversion . " When it is remembered that the author of that mischievous novel is , or was , a contributor to the Edinburgh Review , the force of the ''¦ w ell-merited castigation bestowed by the Review will be appreciated and its independence honoured . The article is not only a keen , though temperate , exposure of the flashy style of the novel , it is also a high-toned moral rebuke : — - "We resume our objections to this boolc . It is botb intolerant and irreverent—two faults which-go together oftenci than is supposed . True veneration respects the consciences of other men and is tender for their troubles as for its own . Intolerance belongs to a hard temper and a prpud stomach and a wilful mind , utterly inconsistent with the spirit of reverence , - which is humble , unselfish , and forgiving . How can a man who thinks of , and treats , the creeds and the doubts of others as this writer does , expect that the sarcasm and the slander shall stop just short of his own proportion of faith and of his own allowance of dogma . If he can jeer , as he does , at things serious

      to High or Low Churchmen , will not others be found who will jest at his share of credulity , and pronounce him too , in his measure , superstitious and absurd ? If he can regard with scorn the difficulties and scruples of all honest men who do not quite attain his quantum of belief , and can represent Unitarians as " being ashamed of the name of Christians , " why should not those who are discontented with his Christianity , either from an historical or spiritual point of view , declare him . to be a secret conspirator against the truth , plausibly veiling his infidelity under the colour of a moderate rationalism ? Such vords have been spoken against far deeper theologians , against far wiser and more temperate controversialists than lie is ; and it will , and ought to be , in vain for those who are at once the sAtirists of all shapes of piety that do not happen to please them and the maligners of all religious ideas more compre ~ hensive tban their own , to apvoa . l to the moderation and good sense of their own scheme of theology to save them from opprobrium and niiaropr ^ sentation-After touching on the narrow bigotry which animates Perversion , the

      reviewer adds : — . Personal bigotry rarely affects in any degree the cause it assails , while it induces the individual to commit acts of injustice from which , in the ordinary transactions of daily life , he would shrink as from crime—inclines bim to overlook in himself tempers which he would severely chastise in his children—and , if he be one with , whose name the literature of his time is familiar , destroys the worth and character of the Writer , as it damages and diminishes the Man . : There are two scientific papers in this number , one on " Arago ' s Lives , " and the other on " Geographical Botany ; " the latter is treated with a somewhat hesivy hand , but contains matter of considerable interest . Here is a sample : —

      There is a scientific japer also in the British Quarterlyy and oa a subject of deep interest—the views of Cuvier and Db BiAinviixe on creation . Unhappily the paper is written with an arrogance which 5 s the more offensive because it is accompanied by ignorance ( or carelessness ) which forcibly recals the preface and notes to the English edition of Milne Edwabds ' s Zoology , but which surprises us in the careful pages of this Review . Bead this one sentence : — Never a disciyle either of Cuvier or of Blauwille , this present writer took up a similar ground of contradiction to the-paljeontology and classification of Cuvier from the first hour of his acquaintance with them . M . Flourens sees in Cuvier a great inductive mind . We have never seen in him anything but a very learned man , who offended grievously the first principles of the Baconian logic . "We have always seen in Cuvier a man laying down as truth what he could not prove . Cuvier and his followers have gone on doing this because they do not know what the proof required is , . according to the principles of the inductive philosophy . The reviewer ' s boast that he was never a disciple of Cuvieb , or Bimikville is altogether superfluous , his want of acquaintance with the subjects on which they disputed is quite assurance enough ; and the reckless statement which precedes this boast , namely , that Flourens furnished Cdvier with the basis of his classification on the nervous system , assures us that he knows little either of Cuviek . or Flouhens . If he will take the trouble to open theRegneAnimalhe will find that the first edition of that work bears the date of 1816 ; if he further inquires into the contributions of M . Fijouhens to the physiology of the nervous system , he will find that 1822

      was the date of his first appearance , and that neither then nor since has lie done anything towards a . zoological classification on the basis of t " he nervous System . But our complaint against this . reviewer is not so much that he makes reckless off-hand statements , but that throughout the article he attacks Cuvier without even pretending to show where Cuvier is in error , and praises De Blaixville ( a very remarkable thinker , not at all needing the reviewer's defence ) without giving the slightest evidence . The paper is a tissue of insolent assertions on . a question which the profoundest knowledge is at present disposed only to treat as an hypothesis .

      It is pleasant to turn to the other papers in this number— to the liberal and sagacious article on " Piedmont and Italy , "—to the vigorous polemics of " Theology— -the Old versus the New , " or to the charming paper on " Mendelssohn , " one of the very best musical articles we remember to have read . It is -well said ,: — The isolation of music from its sister arts and from literature is , however , chiefly shown in the extreme rarity of allusion to it in any but the most general sense . Nothing is more common in our everyday writing than illustrations drawn from the achieved reeuUa of other arts . Authors possessing no skill of their own * either in painting or music , speate familiarly of the former , yet , utterly ignore the latter . The Bachisin of Bach , though obvious enough to the musician , is not so available to our scribes as the ' Corregiosity of Correggio . ' A description of nature brings up the name of a picture or painter as if it were part of the scene , but we remember no similar casein which impressions of the Pastoral Symphony or of Haydn ' s Seasons are recalled .

      And the reason is given in this passage :- — But music is itself too subtle an essence to admit readily of verbal analysis . Ar ticulating no definite thought to the mind , the mind in its turn can give no articulate echo . The structural features of a composition may indeed be discussed , and they affo rd delightful exercise for the faculties which recognize proportion , sequence , symmetry ; but all this is professional , not popular , while that which is popular and not professional , is exactly that which cannot be translated into words . The writer has an affectionate admiration for Mendelssohn which fits him for the task of sympathetic criticism , although it occasionally leads him further than most readers will follow , as when he says : — As poetry culminated in Goethe , who has himself shown how far his all-inclusive genius represented that which had gone before , so , at a later period , Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy resumed in the great circle of his creative power those splendours of musical faculty which had preceded him . Articles on music are generally caviare to all but professional readers ; this article will , however , interest every person who is interested in music .

      This doctrine of the preservation in the earth of stores of seeds retaining for ages their powers of germination is a popular one , supported by anen of great authority , and to which Do Camlolle often reverts . Carried down by torrents , deposited in the beds of rivers or canals , drawn into the earth by animals , wlio hoard them for their winter store , dropped into fissures formed by summer droughts , buried T > y accidental disturbances of the soil , —he believes that seeds swarm in the upper strata of the earth ' s surface , forming a kind of magazine , whence they are ready to germinate in after ages when accident turns them up to the surface itself . This is a very common idea , unded chiefly upon the occasional sudden appearance of vast quantities of some plant not previously observed , when extensive cuttings or embankments have turned up the substrata of the soil . It ia a convenient resource hy which to account for a number of analogous phenomena , such as the substitution of beech to pines , or vice versa , on tho cutting down of a forest , the peculiar vegetation which will appear in t f

      he bed oa canal or piece of water when first drained off , &c . We cannot , however , but entextain considerable doubts on the subject . No one that we are aware of has ever detected any considerable depot of good seeds in the ground . Nor do we believe in tho powers of seeds to preserve their vitality so long . It is well known that some lose their power of germination after a few months , or even a much shorter period , tho generality under favourable circumstances will preserve it for one , two , three , or more years . After twenty years , as far as observation goes , the grout majority are dead , although some kinds have been known to germinate after fi i ' ty years ; and we have heard that Mr . Urown has caused a nolumbium seed to germinate which remained for a hundred and twenty years in Sir Hans Sloane ' s collection . But these cases are rare and ! exceptional . The soeda have been thoroughly dried and kept in a condition known to be essential to prolong their dormant life ; and thero is a vast difference between these extreiwe periods and the many hundreds , or even thousands , years

      during which wo are required to believe that they are preserved in the ground undur very unfavourable circumstances . Scuds , we readilj admit , arc shed every year upon the surfaces of tho earth in countless myriads , but so many are tho enemies they meet with , that scarcely one is to T > e found the following season . A largo proportion may germinate , either immediately or as soon as the season affords sufficient heat to excite them , but most of these porisli in infancy , starved by the climate or by want of appropriate nourishment , stilled by the surrounding vegctution , or devoured by animals j a still greater number—nearly all , indeed , of some species—aro destroyed in the seed state by insects , by birdn , or other animals ; some rot away from the humidity of . tho soil , and others , though apparently still sound , ha-ye lost their vitality in consequent ota slight fermentation in thcr albumen or cotyledons ; and to all those causes of ueatn s « eda enclosed in tho earth are particularly exposed . We never did believe in uie germination o * mummy wheat thousunds of yeara old , and the fallacy of tho bust nutuoaticated atones on tho subject ia now generally admitted .

      Untitled Article

      ANIMAL MAGNETISM . Animal Magnetism and Somnambulism . By the Somnambulc Adolphe Didier . T . C . Newby . M . Auolphk Didier , besides setting up in business as Somnambulo and Medical Adviser , no ~\ v ventures on extending his influence as a Teacher , and complies with the " request of friends" that he should enlighten the world on that science of which he is a professor . Uefore reviewing lus work we may briefly state our conviction on the whole subject , namely , that there is unequivocal truth in many of the asserted facts of Mesmerism , upon which facts very absurd hypotheses are raised ; but that while Mesmerism ( limited to the inducement oi anaesthesia ) is true , Clairvoyance is always either Delusion or Deceit . ~\ Vq shall not here argue these points , which have on several occasions been argued in our columns , but proceed afc once to notice M . Didier ' a wretched attempt to palm upon the public science which only imbecility could accept , and lucts which demand credulity of a very robust nature .

      On the third page we are initiated into the secret of his contempt for common souse as implied iu tho gratuitous exaggeration of his statements respecting matters within every one ' s power of observation . He says : — There were in thcy « ur 1805 more works written in Franco upon animal magnetism than upon anything else . lu the face of boolcsollors' catalogues and booksellers' counters this assertion is entirely clairvoyant ; ngaiu : — Kvcry day thousands of partisans are won over to mesmerism—men who have tlio moral courage to acknowledge at last the truth , and trample under foot their shallow and narrow-minded views of tho punt .

      T**± L Illt^Tnttir^ • ¦

      Eitwnturt

      Untitled Article

      ¦¦ ¦ : ' ¦ " ¦ ? ' ' ' ' Critics are not the legislators , bat the judges and police of literature . Tiey do not make Iaw 3—thev interpret and try to enforce fh em . —Edinburgh He-view .

      Untitled Article

      October . 18 , 1856 . ] T HE I . EADEB . 1001

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 18, 1856, page 1001, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2163/page/17/