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Leader (1850-1860), 22nd October 1859, Edition 1 of 2, Page 1182, Untitled Article

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      have not before read it , to which the review is a good introduction . That either Mr . Bain or the reviewer adds much to our accurate knowledge of -the mental phenomena , we cannot , assert . On some points both have contributed—as in treating of * . * belief , " another name for the state of consciousness * whatever it be , which immediately precedes action—tor increase prevalent confusion . To both , ( however , the public is indebted for putting- very . prominently forward , and showing in some cetail , that spontaneous muscular exertion- —the immediate consequence of life , of pleasure , or pain-ris the origin of all voluntary power , including the motion of our limbs , and of all the vast knowledge < rhich thereby comes into the minds Of all the generations

      of men . This is a most important principle , stated long ago by Darwin , now very clearly stated and illustrated , and worthy of being always remembered . If this spontaneous result of life , of pleasure , of pain lesufficient to provide , in conjunction with the senses all the furniture of the mind—if to it as a guide the Almighty trusts all his creatures at all times , surely the human lawgiver may trust to it , and leave his unfortunate and tortured subjects in maturity , as he must leave them in infancy , to find their way to ¦ welfare by the spontaneous or naturally ordered results of life . To discuss such an important subject is appropriate work for a quarterly journal , and is very ably done by the Edinburgh ^ as well as by the author reviewed .

      Another subject treated of in the Review , which could only find its way into the journals for the multitude through the pages of more carefully prepared and elaborate productions , is what are called the Grajitti , or writings on the walls of bouses in Pompeii , and other buried Roman cities . "Pdrsori . used to say , " to quote the reviewer , " that more of the every-day life of the Athenians was to be learned from a single newspaper such as ours than

      from all the comedies of Aristophanes . " What the newspaper would have told of the higher and more educated class , a few specimens of what Mr . Mayhew describes as " patter " literature would disclose of * he street , life of the ancients ; but highly as we should prize a Pompeian street-ballad or broadsheet , we cannot help thinking that , at least as regards the outdoor life of the population of Pompeii , these wall-scrihblings afford by no "" means a bad substitute . "

      The . merit of first calling attention to these important scribblings is due to Dr . Christopher - "Wordsworth ; but they have lately been closely examined , and one been found at Rome , of peculiar significance , by Father GaruccL Of his interesting labours in this interesting field of antiquity the Reviewer gives an interesting account . Bis few extracts aad comments bring before us the domestic life of the Romans more . distinctly than the most elaborate chapters of Gibbon , , written only for . this purpose , ' riiey fully confirm , 'if they do not darken , the hateful impressions regarding Pompeian morality , which wexe produced by the pictures , images , and other

      relics . of the city brought to light by the earlier explorations . " The article is full of information , and will be read and studied . A writer in the Review has obtainedpoasession of a diary of a visit to England in 1775 of ( the Rev . JDjcv Thomas Campbell ) an Irishman , that has been found in New South Wales , and of which , as he supposes his to be the-only copy on this side cf the equator , he gives copious extracts . New illustrations of the characteri of Samuel Johnson and his contemporaries are always welcome , and the reviewer has done a great service to the reading public by making this book known , and by the information he supplies cf the author .

      The notices of Sir Emerson Tennant's " Account of Ceylon , " Senior ' s " Travels into Turkey and Greece , " Carlyle ' s " Frederick the Great , " and Thackeray ' s " Virginians , " the " Correspondance iae"dite of Madame , du Deffaud , " of the War in Italy , and of the " Secret Organization of Trades , " are all very good articles , but did not require months of etwdy to produce them . Both Sir Etaeraon Tennant ' s and Senior ' s books have already been ?' gutted , " and the reviewed articles differ from those of minor periodicals , chiefly in their lehgtli . No penny-a-liner , however highly paid for the puff , could possibly exceed the fulsome andnauseous praise which the reviewer bestows on Sir Emerson

      Tennant'e compilation . The article pn the Italian campaign is confined to the military incidents with which the reading world has already been made familiar by the newspapers . To refresh the memory , this , recent history may bo road with advantage . Mr . Carlyle , who is said to sweat with agony as he . produces his tortuous sentences , is very properly . < fopderoned , &rhia truly , absurd attempt to make the j ^ rj&believe " fhat the . truculent andTbesottocl mon- > tW ^^ y Qt kine ^ p ^ modQKhh WUli » m , wwj an wmmt ^ a , true ,, and a heroic man . " , Bis history of ¦ mM ^ f ^ PmPiO ^ S ^ J ^ - cprrectty ^ ejjcribed , as " n . qpn- » ^ ciipuB . exfvmple of all tliatftlnatory ought not to bo . " iW »^ n ^ writton 4 he . a # ^ i . but the

      hand which fells- Mr . Carlyler as with a sledge hammer is like that of a rival historian . Baron Macaulay in a towering literary rage , is the only person we are acquainted with , capableof inflicting such a merciless chastisement as the Edinburgh Review contains on one of its old contributors . Whoever may be the writer , we are grateful to him for the slashing . Latterly Mr . Carlyle has used his great powers only to depreciate modern life , as relative . to past barbarity , and make a jumble of the English tongue . ' " Mr . Thackeray ' s " "Virginians , " , is described as " neither antiquarian nor historical , " " having no plot , " and the author as misapplying his power "to a hybrid sort of . composition between history and

      fiction . " With such writing , literature is now obviously overdone , and tin ' s article in the Edinburgh may lead the way to a very necessary curtailment . Everything relating to the manners of the French , or rather the Parisians , immediately preceding the great revolution , has an interest , and the reviewer ' s notice of Madame du Deffaud , and the extracts he gives from the Duchess de Choiseul ' s letters add to our information of that period . It has been well said by Dumas , that the singular state of domestic morals which then existed amongst the upper classes in France was due to primogeniture , which made each nobleman paritcularly anxious about the heir to his titles and estates , while he "was regardless of the paternity

      of all the chevalier ' s and abbe ' s who came after the firstborn . Such a system , could it have been continued , might have led to the extinction of society ; but society was preserved inFrange as it is preserved elsewhere , by the respect which the monogamist multitude cherished for marriage and the paternity of other offsprings than the eldest sons . The reviewer ' s notice of the " Secret Organisation of Trades , " though extremely severe on the leaders of the strike , as despots and intriguers , and on the workmen as dupes , is on the whole a calm historical account of their organisations . It gives , very appropriately , some useful information on one of the most mportarit questions of the day . No secret

      organisation can be defended ; but for one thing unnoticed by the reviewer , the workmen on strike are . worthy of honour . They feel the evils of being " always a prey to extreme poverty and to unjust degradation , and they manfully , if ignorantly and erroneously , try to help themselves and better their condition . If they fail by the means they employ they will be no worse than the whole French nation , which tried and . failed to get rid , by revolution , of thje many evils which preyed on it . They will be no worse than the Italians who have for ages been unsuccessfully struggling for freedom . They will be a great deal better than the middle and mercantile classes

      of Europe generally , who feeling , or pretending to feel , a horror of war , have not , on two occasions lately , as they might , stopped the progress of the military power . The error of the workmen is only a specimen of the common ignorance of individuals ^ of classes , and of nations , of the " great natural laws of human society , " which the reviewer recognises , but which are quite as much and continually set at defiance by the aristocracy and . the middle classes , as by the workmen . The present number of the Review is superior to most of its predecessors of the last few years , though no art can now replace it and the quarterly journals in the dominating position they formerly filled .

      • BbntLey s Quarterly Review ( No . IIL )— -We have before remarked that this review " ¦ means mischief . " This is a sort ot meaning much needed in reviews now-a-days . They are wont to compromise all i manner of offences on the peace-at-all-price system . Bentley is determined to speak out . " Honest men speak Out , " and honest reviews ought to do the same . This is the spirit which so many denounce as mischievous—the feeble souls who think that truth is not to be spoken at all times and places , and who seldom find it convenient to speak it at all . Let us encourage-Bentley , therefore , in such needful mischief-making . Does the present number carry out the pledge ? Let ua see .

      First and foremost , there is an article on ?• France and Europe : " What appears at present a peace , is but an armistice . That is the critic ' s opinion . His bias is shown in the phrases . — " the dull , but wellmeaning despotism of Austria , " and " the clever and selfish despotism of France . " Nevertheless , he is compelled to confess that the governments in Rome and Naples were atrocious ; and that for the existence of those governments Austria was responsible , though not for their crimes . Nor is Austria yet

      expelled worn Italy—she still reigns over three millions of Italians , and if the treaty of Vinaft-anea had been carried out they would rule by the hands of dependent princes over about three millions more . Clear enough it . is , . this article nnwt have been written spme few weeks ago—even within the last day or two , tho prospect has improved . Nay , day by day it improves , and we are afraid that quarterly reviewing on politicsi must always be . a day , behind thoftlr .

      " Shakspearian literature" is the subject of the next article , apropos of Mr . Staun ton ' s edition This paper is much better than the first , but it deals with the old commentators , and is , therefore of little inte rest . Nor can we say more of M . Gruizot ' s "Memoirs " which give rise to a twaddling essay . Mr , Brag&lev ' s " History of Surrey , " however , has produced an antiquarian sketch , indicating much research . The Physical Sciences , and their Connexion , also command deliberate investigation . Tennyson ' s Idylls are reviewed in a vein of candour and . approbation and the critic ' s remarks extend to the poet ' s general works and his progress ; but the whole affair is objectionably desultory . Mommsen ' s " History of Rome " occasion some sensible observations . English Field Sports , Alpine Travellers , and the Court of Lewis XV . have also a share of attention

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      Erin-go-Bragh ; or Irish Life Pictures . By W . H . Maxwell , author of" Stories of Waterloo , " " Wild Sports of the West , " " The Bivouac , " &c , &c . In 2 vols . —Rjichard Beutley . . Irish Life Pictures ! The Irish people are the richest in natural humour of any country , and photographs of Irish life as it was ten or twelve years ago , awakens in us many feelings . "Erin-go-Bragh" is what the title implies—pictures of Irish life , and such pictures ot Irish men and manners that few * writers but Maxwell could have sketched . Though not unable to write a long story , Maxwell ' s best tales are those that might be written at one sitting .

      There is always truthfulness m his jrictures , and though most of these are of a humourous kind , some are blended , ' as in the " Stories of Waterloo , " with a genuine pathos peculiar to himself . In his longer works of fiction he appears to us to get spent and tired of his subject before he can get through it , and the consequence is , he often loses the thread of his narrative . This is painfully the . case in "My Life , " and ' « Brian O'Linn , " but lie excels in little episodes of real life , where he has been an eye witness . Consequently , they do not all tell favourably

      towards his countrymen . Though many of the sketches in the volumes before us are reprinted from " ' Bentley ' s Miscellany , " contributed when that pu blication was in its palmy days , they will be quite new to many of the present readers of periodical literature . These sketches were considered by the late Doctor Maginn to be such truthful traits of his countrymen , that lie collected them in their present form , and wrote a biographical and critical sketch of the life and writings of Maxwell , which is prefixed to the work .

      The New and the Old ; or California and India in Romantic Aspects . By J . W . Puliner , M . D ., author of "Up and Down the Irrawaddi ; or the Golden Dagon . " -r-Sampson Low and Son . This volume contains a collection of sketches and stories collected by Mr . Palmer during his rambles of professional life In India and California . Mr . Palmer was one pf the first persons attracted to California by the hews of the discovery of gold in 1849 . Doctors were then at a premium ; " half the population ill , and fees enormous—two ounces ( of gold ) a visit , medicine in proportion—a dollar a grain for quininefind a dollar a drop for laudanum .

      , Prom his position the doctor had opportunities of having many little romances , illustrative of the manners and customs of a people collected from nearly every quarter of the globe , from which the writer of "Up and Down the Irrawaddi , " might have written a very ihtorosting book of travels . The volume before us is not very remarkable ; tno sketches are very slight in form , and are not such an throw much light on tlie semi-biirbarous life led oy the emigrant to California in the early time ot wie gold discoveries . From the title—which is imposing

      enough—we expected » better book . Illustrations to How to Work the Microscope . By Lionel Bealo , M . B .. F . R . S . —John Churchill . Emma are twenty-eight , plates , all of the groatost utility ; and with the excellent work which tnoy have been engraved to illustrate will supply tno student with ample moans and material tor investigation . Journal of Mental Saienoe ( No . 31 . ) Dr . BuoknUl has this month , besides the regular oflloial manor , presented his readers with two important P aPG rB . one on " Psychology , " by Dr . J . ° tevena 0 J \ JZi nan , and the other on "The Correlation of Mentfti and Physical Force , byDr , Henry Maudsley .

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      Historical Magazine ( . No . IX ) . —This American journal progresses favourably , and among its " Notes and Queries " are some that are curious , both in regard to question and answer . The feature , borrowed from English example , is doubtless a good one . Comprehensive History of England ( Blackie & Son ) . —Parts XXIII . and XXIV . carry the reader to the reign ol George III . and the year 1769 . They are profusely and elegantly illustrated .

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      1 , 182 THE I / E ADEB . [ No . 500 . Oct . 22 , 1859

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 22, 1859, page 1182, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2317/page/18/