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    that process . Mr . Mill , in common with other reasoners , forgets the important feet , that the Act divided the IBank into two separate departments ; and thatibe banking department , although debarred from tampering with the convertibility of the note , possesses the power to make advances after the manner of other "banks . The only difference is , that with an increased command , the Bank of England is brought so close to the actual state of the currency with reference to the stiite of commerce and of the exchanges , that its own interest and safety are identified with sound policy of the country . And thus , by the simple legislation of 1844 , the first great private bank in the country is induced , by its own natural working , to be the great model for private banks , the great auxiliary with estate for regulating the currency according to the natural movements of trade at home andabroad . Our space has entirely precluded us from giving any adequate aecozmt of a book which teaches by lueid statement and complete development of reasoning ; but we have perhaps said enough to send the reader to the book itself .

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    A PERSIAN ALLEGORY . SaUmdn and Alsdl : an Mlegort / . Translated frem the Persian of Jinni . London : J . TV . Parker and Son . An anonymous gentleman , affecting the ceremonials of the Carlylian schooli has nevertheless conferred a favour upon the English public by presenting it ¦ with a readable translation of one of the anost celebrated poems in Persian literature . We could wish , indeed , that "his Preface had been less egotistical ; that it had conveyed more precise information as to the original author and his other works ; that it had given us more definite ideas touching the peculiar mysticism of the Sufis . It may doubtless be very gratifying to Ms " Master in Persian and so much beside , " to find that he has not yet glided out of sight and memory down the stream of oblivion . It' may

    equally please him to be called " such a . Huntsman as poor Dog of a Persian Scholar never hunted with before . " It may even be not distasteful to a certain fair one to know that the translator was " cheerM on—but that was rather in the Spanish Sierras—by the Presence of a Lady in the Field , silently brightening about us like Auroral Self , or chiming in with musical Encouragement that all we started and ran down must be Royal Game I But what cares the general reader for all this bombastic vanity ? Far more to the purpose would it have been to write a brief notice of Persian poetry in general , and of the mystical bards in particular . And when a reference is made to the freedoms taken with the original , owing to the structure of the-Persian couplet , the explanation is rendered almost unintelligible ly such jargon as this : —•

    Tiis ( the peculiar structure of the verse ) , together with the confined Action of Persian Orammar , - whose organic simplicity seems tome its difficulty when applied , makes the Line by Line Translation of a Poem not line by line precious tedious in proportion to its length . Especially —( what the Sonnet doea not feel)—in the Narrative ; which I found when once eased in -its Collar , and yet missing somewhat of rhythmical Amble , somehow , and not without resistance on my part , swerved into that " easy road" of Verse—easiest as unbeset with any exigencies of Rhyme . Those little Stories , too , which you thought untractable , but which have their Use as well as Humour by way of quaint Interlude Music between the little Acts , felt ill at ease in solemn Loivtli-Isaiah Prose , and had learn'd their tune , you know , "before even Hiawatha came to teach people to quarrel about it . Till , one part growing on another , the Whole grew to the present form .

    simple . There was a Shah of Greece , who " wore the ring of empire of Sikander , " and claimed as his guide , philosopher , and friend , a sage of surpassing wisdom . The Shah was childless , and longed for a son to succeed to his fame and power . But the sage warns him against that " foolish , faithless thing , " a . woman . The monarch was therefore compelled to call a child into being by the concentrated effort of his will . This wondrous child was named Salaman , and entrusted to the tender nursing-of Absal , " moon of beauty full . " The nurse dotes upon her foster son , and as he grows to manhood conceives for him a wild and fatal passion . Nor is he insensible to her charms . Forsaking his father and renouncing his own brilliant future , he wasted a whole year in pleasure , till sage and Shah " struck out / with hand

    and foot in hisredress . " Summoning his refractory son to his presence , the royal sire read him a severe lesson on the certain consequences of his conduct . Salaman heard and repented—" the sea of his soul was moved and bubbled up with jewels . " But his repentance was short-lived . The temptation recurred , and he again fell . This time , to avoid further interruptions and sermonising , the guilty lovers fled away together on a Camel ' s back till they reached the boundless ocean . ^ Here on the shores they found a shallop , " like a crescent moon , " in which they sailed fur away to an island beyond description beautiful . It was an Arnrida ' s garden , and liinaldo himself was not more fascinated than Salaman by his Absal . Under its trees in one another ' s arms

    They slept—they drank its fountains hand in hand-Sought sugar with the parrot— or in sport Paraded with the peacock- —raced the partridge—Or fell a-talking with the nightiagale . There was the rose without a thoan , and there The treasure , and no serpent to beware . What sweeter than your mistress at your sido 1 In sucb . a solitude , and none to cliide ! But even this delightful solitude a ¦ deux \ s , rudely broken in upon by that tiresome Shah , who waxes wrath at his son ' s continued infatuation . Sala ,-man again repents , but finding life a burden without the company of his mistress , he longs for death . Hand in hand they build a funeral pyre , apply the torch , and together spring into the flames . Absal is consumed , but Salanian escapes unliarmed ; " the pure gold return ed entire , but all the baser metal burn'd . " Heaven ' s dome is but a wondrous house of sorrow , And happiness therein a lying fable . When , first they mix'd the clay of man , and clothed His spirit in the robe of perfect "beauty , For forty mornings did an evil cloud Rain sorrows over him from head to foot ; Andvfhen the forty mornings pass'd to night , ; Then came one morning shower- ^—one morning shower Of joy—to forty of the rain of sorrow ! And though the better fortime came at last To seal the work , yet every wis « man knows Such consummation never can be here ! '

    For a long time Salaman remains drowned in tears , and hourly laments his lost Absal . But finally the words of -wisdom assuage his grief , and Celestial Love quickening m his soul removes all regret for the Earthly . He is then worthy of empire , and the Shah crowns him with the golden crown , and sets the golden footstool . beneath his feet . A . n . epilogue discloses the inner meaning of the mystery . The firmanissuing Shah , is the Creator-, or Active Intelligence , the last of a chain of ten , of which the first is the First Intelligence , shadowed forth in the Sage . Salaman is the Soul , Absal " the lust-adoring Body . " The ocean on which they sailed is the Sea of Animal Desh'e . " When passion tired , Salamant bethought him of his true heritage and looked up to the Intellectual Throne . The fire is Ascetic Discipline , which consumes the dross of matter , and leaves the Essential Soul clear of mortal taint . And Celestial Love is Divine Perfection , which when a man attains , he becomes " Lord of tho Empire of Humanity . " This curious allegory is relieved by frequent fables and parables ingeniously interwoven , but too long to transcribe .

    But enough and to spare concerning the translator ' s preface , which is in some degree redeemed by the Life of Jami , condensed from llosenzweig ' s Bioyruphische Notizen . From this we learn that N " oor-ood-deen Abdurrahman—called Jami from his birthplace , Jam , a small town of Khorasanflourished about the middle of the fifteenth century . While yet a tender youth , he exhibited that tendency to abstracted contemplation which so deeply colours his writings , and renders them at times almost incomprehensible . ^ With this dreamy temperament , he was naturally induced to become a Noviciate of the Sufi school . By long pei-sistance in solitude and thought he made such progress in the process of spiritual absorption , that on Eis

    return to the busy , haunts oi men he had well-nigh lost the power to converse with them . The Sufis are , in fact , a modern adaptation of the ancient Htishangis , —both deriving their tenets from the older philosophy of the Indian Vedantas . From the sarne source , though through a different channel , were drawn the inspirations of Plato . The voluptuous mysticism of the Brahmanical school breathes in every line of Persian poetry . Under a sensuous imagery are clothed the loftiest and most earnest aspirations after a pure and spiritual condition . The Canticles and the Song of Solomon are written in the same style . Speaking of the Ycdanti and Sufi thcologists , Sir William Jones says , in one of his Discourses : —

    Blending ; uncertain metaphysics with undoubted principles of religion , ( they ) have presumed to reason confidently on the very mature and cssenco of the Divine Spirit , and asserted in a very remote ago that all spirit is homogeneous ; thiit the spirit of God is in kind tho same with that of man , though ( littering from it infinitely in degree ; and that as material substance ia more illusion , there exists in thid universe only one generic spiritual substance , the sole primary cause , oflicient , substantial , and formal of all secondary causes and of all appearances whatever , bait endued in its highest degree with a sublime providential wisdom , . and proceeding by ways incomprehensible to the spirits wliich emanate from it . Fortunately for his fame , Jfimi was a poet as well as a Sufi , and a very voluminous one , to boot . His diction , however , was oftentimes more poetic tlan his His

    subject . genius was frequently perverted to the task of teach ing grammar and philology in flowery verso . Mr . Gladwin some time since translated a poem of this kind , entitled Resemblances , Linear and Verbal , intended to show the different significations of words minutely resembling one another , and only distinguishable by the diacritical points or vowels . But even to suck a subject iiB this , so distasteful to the Muse , Jami has contrived to impart something of a poetic garb . To use his own words , " decking the brides of speech from the ocean of nature , he draws the even pearls of language on this string of jewels . " However , the moat celebrated of his works is the -Hie / 3 ! Awang ; or , tlic Seven Thrones , including " Yusuf and Zuleikha , " * ' Laila sad Majnun "—translated into French by M . do Chdzy—and " -Salanx 6 n and Absal . " Tho plot of the last-named poem is as ingenious as it ia

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    THE PRINCESS'S . Mr . Kuan , on Thursday evening produced biUK . si'iCA . icK's Richard IT . with a luxury of pageant , a splendour of decoration , a wealth of scenic beauty , and a flush ofclnvalncgorgeoueneas , which , as the daily papers say , surpasses anything that even tho PnmcKss ' H lias yet effected . But they always say that , and we arc forced into speculating as to wl iat ultimate ecstasy of rainbow lii / ht ana tinting the Oxford-street manager AviLl carry us before ho retires from tho drizzled world . Tlie play in question oflera many opportunities for ehow ; and ot course Mr . Kean avails himself of them , and tlic play itself is but a secondary consideration , and nobody goes with any otlier view than to gazo upon a piece of radiant uicturcsquenesB . The caste comprises Mr . Kkan as Richard Mm Kisan m Quem liaballa , Mr . Ryder , as Uolinghrokc , and a host of well-attircid ( supernumeraries for moba and soldiers . Succcbb was certain , and . for tho next six months oi bo , Richard If . may bo expected to figure in the bills .

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    _ ifcutCH 14 , lSff 7 »] THE LEADER : 259

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    HA . NJDEE ,. - Tke Sacheo Harmonic Society , in n prospectus of tlie coming-Hun del Festival at tlxj Ohystax Pajlack , makes fipcciaL mention of the important discovery of the collection of M 8 S . formed by the secretary of Hanuej .. The MS . scores composing this collectionwere doubtless used in conducting tlie performances of his works : they are full of notes in his own handwriting , which possess th o inestimable advantage of substituting certaiaity for tradition . This collection has been purchased by tlie distinguished French exile M . Victou Scikelcukii , by whom it lias with great liberality been placed at the disposal of the Sacred Harmonic Society . M . Schcelciuch's long-expected "Life of Handel" is announced to appear in May , in time for the Festival , and as in its pages will no doubt be found all tho treasures of the MSS ., a standard work may bo anticipated . It is singular that in France , with all its musical pretensions , IIandee should only now be not absolutely unknown . On the other hand it is a Frenchman who writes the " JLife of Handel" for England .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), March 14, 1857, page 259, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2184/page/19/