On this page

• Text (2)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    criticism of Words worth . . Lue preface warns us to regard it as a slight impromptu written under the disadvantage-, but therefore under the privilege-, of unpremeditated composition . tt . contains subtle and deep critical g lances , ex-pressed in a diction such as no one but himself can equal . He denies that the ' Excursion' is the great -work to which posterity must look ; and maintains that the earlier poems , which are generally short , scintillate \ vith gems of far profounder truth : I speak of that truth which strengthens into solemnity an impression very feebly acknowledged previously , or truth wliich suddenly uuveils a connexion between objects hitherto regarded as irrelate and independent . In astronomy , to gain the rank of discoverer , it is not required that you should reveal a star absolutely new ; find out ¦ with respect to an old star some new affection—as , for instance , that it has an . ascertairtable parallax—and immediately you bring- it within the verge of a human iaterest ; or with respect to some old familiar planet , that its satellites suffer periodical -eclipses , and immediately you bring it within the verge oT terrestrial uses . Gleams

    of steadier vision , that brighten into certainty appearances else doubtful , or that unfold relations else unsuspected , are not less discoveries of truth than the downright revelations of the telescope , or the absolute conquests of the diving-bell . It is astonishing how large a harvest of new truths would be reaped , simply through the accident of a man's feeling , or being made to feel , more deeply than other men . Pie sees the same objects , neither more nor fewer , but he s-ees them engraved in lines far stronger and more determinate : and the difference in the strength makes the whole difference between consciousness and" sub-consciousness . And in questions of the mere understanding , we see the same fact illustrated : the author -who wins notice the most , is not he that perplexes men by truths drawn from fountains of absolute novelty —truths as yet unsunned , and from that cause o ~ bscure ; but he that awakens inio illuminated consciousness ancient lineaments of truth long slumbering in the mind , although too faint to have extorted attention . "Wordsworth has brought many a truth into life both for the eye and for the understanding , -which previously had slumbered indistinctly for all men .

    For instance , as respects the eve , who does not acknowledge instantaneously the magical strength of truth in his saying of a cataract seen from a station two miles off , that it was ' frozen by distance ? ' In all nature , there is not an object so essentially at war -with the stiffening of frost as the headlong and desperate life of a cataract ; and yet notoriously the effect of distance is to lock up this frenzy of motion into the most petriJic column of stillness . This effect is perceived at once when pointed out ; but how few are the eyes that ever woie . Uh . axe perceived it for themselves ! Twilight , again—who before Wordsworth ever distinctly noticed its abstracting power ?—that power of removing , softening , harmonizing- ; " by which a mode of obscurity executes for the eye the same mysterious office which the mind so often , within-its own shadowy realms , executes for itself . He notices as another peculiarity in Words-worth the painting of skyscenery as none had painted it before : —

    Another great field there is amongst the pomps of nature , -which , if "Wordsworth dad not first notice , lie certainly has noticed most circumstantially . I speak of cloudscenery , or those pageants of sky-built architecture , which sometimes in summer , at noonday , and in all seasons about sunset , arrest or appal the , meditative ; ' perplexing monarchs' -with the spectacle of armies manoeuvring , or deepening the solemnity of evening by towering edifices , that mimic— "but which also in mimicking mock—the transitory grandeurs of man . It is singular that these gorgeous phenomena , not less than those of the Aurora Borealis , have been so little noticed by poets . The Aurora was naturally neglected by the southern poets of Greece and Rome , as not much seen in their latitudes . But the cloud-architecture of the daylight belongs alike to north and south . Accordingly , I remember one notice of it in llesiod , a case where the clouds exhibited

    ' The beauteous semblance of a flock at rest . ' Another there is , a thousand years later , in Lucan : amongst the portents -which that poet notices as prefiguring the dreadful convulsions destined to shake the earth at Pharsalia , I remember some fiery coruscation of arms in the heavens ; but , so far as I recollect , the appearances might have belonged equally to the workmanship of the -clouds or the Aurora . Up and down the next eight hundred years , are scattered evanescent allusions to these vapoury appearances ; in ' Hamlet' and elsewhere occur . gleams of such allusions ; but I remember no distinct sketch of such an appearance before that in the ' Antony and Cleopatra' of Shakspere , beginning ,

    ' Sometimes we see a cloud that ' s dragonish . ' Subsequently to Shakspere , these notices , as of all phenomena whatsoever that demanded a familiarity with nature in the spirit of love , became rarer and rarer . At length , as the eighteenth century was winding up its accounts , forth stepped William "Wordsworth , of whom , as a reader of all pages in nature , it may be said that , if we except Dampier , the admirable buccaneer , the gentle jlibustier , and some few professional naturalists , he first and he last looked at natural objects with the eye that neither will be dazzled from without nor cheated by preconceptions from within . Most men look at nature in the hurry of a confusion that distinguishes nothing ; their error is from without . Pope , again , find many who live in towns , make such blunders as that of supposing the moon to tip with silver the hills behind which she is rising , not by erroneous use of their eyes < for they use them not at all ) , but by inveterate preconceptions . Scarcely lias there been a poet with wlntt could be called a learned eye , or aa eye extensively learned , before Wordsworth . Much alfectutiou

    there has "been o £ that sort since his rise , and at all times mucli counterfeit enthusiasm ; but the sum of the matter ia this , that Wordsworth had hid passion for nature fixed in his blood ; it was a necessity , like that of the mulberry-leaf to the silk-worm j and through his commerce with nature did ho live and breathe . Hence at-was—viz ., from the truth of his love—that his knowledge grew \ whilst most others , being merely hypocrites in their love , lmvo turned out merely sciolists in their Icnowledgo . This chapter , therefore , of « % -scenery may bo said to havo been revivified amonpt the resources of poetry by Wordsworth—rekindled , if not absolutely kindled . Ihe sublime scene indorsed upon the draperies of the storm in the fourth "book of the * Excursion '—that scene again -witnessed upon the passage of the Hamilton Hills . in Yorkshire—the solemn ' flky prospect' from the fields of France , are . unrivalled in that order of composition ; and in one of these records Wordsworth 1 ms . given first of all the true key-note of tho sentiment belonging to these grand pageants . They are , says , tho poet , spouking in a case -where tho appearance had occurred towards night ,

    ' Meek naturo ' s evening comment on the abows And all tho fuming vanities of earth . ' Yes , that is tho secret moral whispered to tho mind . These mimicries express tho laughter which i * in heaven at earthl y pomps . Frail and vapoury are the glories of man , oven as tho visionary parodies of those gloriea are frail , even as the sconical copiea of these glories are frail , which unbare -weaves in clouds . We hunre intimated our objectioma to the more elaborate papers ia this volUmev but we mmt add in conclusion , that we shall bo only too happy to racewe numerous volumes of fresh digressions from the same desultory * rrtec ; J

    Untitled Article

    BRAZIL AND THE BRAZILIANS . Brazil and the Brazilians , portrayed in Historical and Descriptive Sketchpi tt t > D . P . Kidder and Rev . J . C . Fletcher . London : TrSer aad < T How little is really Known of the Empire of Brazil . There are ponul ' notions , it is true , afloat respecting it . The history of its conquest arvfl colonization , of its revolution and constitutionalism its monarchy and dependence , has been penned by more than one able hand ; transitory t ° vellers have -vouchsafed a volume or two containing their experiences % Bahia , Espiritu Santo , or the white city of Rio Janeiro , and wo hive vague remembrance of rivers and virgin forests , - palm-trees and ja g uars anacondas and alligators , monkevs and parrots , diamond mining and earth ' quakes , which go to make up our general impression of the Brazilian Empire . _ But , with one or two exceptions , we have no elaborate ' work on the internal condition of this colossal empire , where races ' - meet and mix in strange confusion , where the descendants-of-the Portuguese . seem destined to emulate in South America the greatness of the Aun-lo Saxons in the North , where priestcraft and superstition revel stilf in mediaeval blindness and profligacy , where even the slave finds a terrestrial paradise , and where all classes enjoy in a balmy atmosphere and soft climate the luxury of living . England has political and commercial relations with Brazil . She is our faithful ally in the suppression of the slave- trade and her readiness to assist in the destruction of this monstrous traffic has earned her parliamentary honours . But few , whilst speaking of this glox-ious country imagine they are referring to a region occupying in the ' southern hemisphere a territory of greater area than the United States . What are her boundaries ? How far do her limits extend ? Have they ever been explored ? On the map it has been easy enough to truce a line and say thus and thus far shall her confines reach . It may well be doubted if other than-an Indian foot has ever trod the vast savannahs that extend in the interior , or penetrated the pathless forests which constitute her wild boundaries to the west Who has ever descended the eastern slopes of the Andes , and , standing beneath their sublime shadows at evening , said , "We stand on Brazilian soil ?" If a traveller or expedition would set out from the capital , and proceed northward , it would be many months of painful journeys up mountains and hills , through dense forests and jungles , over vide ca / Jtjios and broad rivers , before either would reach the Sena Pacaranua which divides Brazil and Venezuela . Several illustrious names might be mentioned of those who have ventured far up the Amazon , whilst Lieutenant Paye has bad the honour of being the first scientific investigator of La Plata and some of its tributaries . "It is difficult for us , ' say the authors of the present work , "to comprehend even the dry tables of distances , Low much more inconceivable the toil and almost insurmountable obstacles to be endured and overcome in ii-vast country with a spare population , and in certnin portions no roads save the paths of cattle and the tracks of the tapir . " Yet we may arrive at some definite idea of the vast extent of this empire by forming comparisons . If , f example , a straight line were drawn from the head waters of the river Pariina , on the north , to the southern shores of the Lagon Mornii in IVio Grande do Sul , it would more than reach from Liverpool to Boston . It is farther from Pernambueo to the western boundary which separates Peru and Brazil , than by a direct route from London across the Continent to Alexandria in Egypt . The empire is thus supposed to contain within its borders 3 , 004 , 460 square miles ; and is , therefore , CS , ' 29-t square miles larger than the whole territory of the United States , and only 82 j , ( 37 O square miLes less than the entire area of Europe . The combined labours and experience of iMessrs . Kidder and Fletcher have served to produce a work of considerable interest and general accuracy . A residence of twenty years amongst the scenes whioli they ¦ attempt to describe , and a careful study of the people amongst-whom they dwelt , must have fitted them tor the task of faithfully portraying the manners and customs of the Brazilians . It has been the mistake of not a few travellers , glancing at ' life in Brazil' from a sliort visit to the country , to be struck by the preponderance of priests and ceremonies , and devote their chapters to an account of altars , vestments , processions , rites , fasts , feasts , and the zodiac of Catholic ceremonies , and this , too , to the ' exclusion of other valuable information , thereby distorting the real features of the picture . Messrs . Kidder and l'letcher do not overlook the prevalence of priestly i < lcas in almost every act of South American life , whether political or . social , —in fact , they cannot but admit that the tint of the Romish si'iu-let pervades every institution , and colours the thoughts and actions ol nearly every man ; still , they possess that discriminating power which i-nables them to separate things spiritual , and temporal though so closely allied and as it were interwoven , and to look at the general life in this colossal lvg ' mn apart from this powerful influence . They look at a Brazilian , also , under the influence of commerce , of politics , of scientific pursuits , of trade and agriculture 5 examine into the resources of the country , the workings oi the present systems which control the mercantile and manufacturing community of Brazil ; depict the spirit which animates the various politic . il parlies oi the empire , and assist the naturalist in arriving at an accurate knowledge of the iloral beauties , and zoological and mineral wealth of this colospal kingdom . . One of the greatest , social evils complained of is gambling , which , ' ^ g ' la ted against but practised in a private form , is nevertheU'HH rncouniyed by the Government m the shape of lotteries : —" There is another species ot gambling most deleterious in its effects , w Irish is countenanced mid supported by the Government . I refer to lotteries . They are not ' sham concerns , but prizes arc put up , and , if drawn , ^ m £ . Jf it is ! l church , a theatre , or some other public building to be erected , the Government grants u lottery . There are always six thousand tickets at iiOtfOOO ( uventy inilreis ) each ; tho highest prize is 20 , 00 O $ O 0 O ( or about ten thousand dollars ) , and the second prize is half that sum : there are then two thousand more tieketa , which draw prizes of ' 2 () $ 0 O 0 ( ten dollars ) and upward . Everywhere in tho city are offices for selling ; the tickets , and in the rountry tHiere are equestrian ticket-vendors , who go from house to house with tnc risking billeta . There ia no fraud in awarding tho prizes , and there irf sucu a rage for this kind-of gambling that the tickets are sold in a few dnys . J- ne

    Untitled Article

    H&& THE LEAPEB . [ No . 396 , October 2 Jt ,-1 S 57 .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 24, 1857, page 1026, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2215/page/18/