The Press. — London, England, 1854-01-21 00:00:00

JANUARY 21, 1854. But now we turn to that other brunch of the subject, his connection with the ,Anti-Corn L im League, and here we think the auger naturally felt by Mr. Somerville has led him into acts he cannot justify. Extracts from Mr. Cobden's writings he might indeed fairly use, and at the present moment it is inter esting to know that gentleman's opinion on the Eastern question. For example : " Those writers and speakers who argue in favour of our iaterveution iu the affairs of Russia and Turkey invariably do so upon the pretence that our commerce, our colonies, or our national existence, are endangered by the encroach ments of the former empire." " The fate of Turkey and the designs of her great northern neighbour are by no means matters which affect the interests of England so vitally as some writers imagine." " We (the manufacturer) claim the right of putting this matter entirely on the footing of self-interest. We do not for a moment imagine that it is necessary to show that we (Britain) are not called upon to preserve the peace and good order of the entire world." " The stupendous size of the Russian empire has excited the wonder and alarm of timid writers, who forget," &c. " The popular mind has been greatly misled by many writers on the Russian empire." If the best interests of Russia were understood, or if its government would attain to that actual power which ignorant writers proclaim for it." " Can any one doubt that, if the Government of St. Petersburg were transferred to the shores of the Bosphorus, a splendid and substantial European city would, in less than twenty years, spring up in the place of those huts which now constitute the capital of Turkey ? that noble public buildings would arise, learned societies flourish, and the arts prosper'? . . . Can any rational mind doubt that these changes would follow from the occupation of Constantinople by Russia, every one of which, so far as the difference in the case admitted, have been realised more than a century in St. Petersburg." But though the following letter is curious as admitting us behind the scenes, and showing us with what restless activity the chief actors in the Anti-Corn Law League prepared the public mind for their great displays at Drury Lane and elsewhere, it is one which Mr. Somerville should never have published : " Waterloo, near Liverpool [time 1842, probably October]. " Dear Sir,—l got a letter from Sir John Easthope, in which In' seems to argue in favour of the League meeting all expenses on your account. [I had found that three guineas a week would not bear travelling expenses and keep a family in London..] We must do what we can for yon. In the mean time lay yourself out for as much visible work as possible ' so as to command the best terms from the Council of the League. Can't you put on some fresh disguise, and get some letters or arguments into Number Two (a nondescript) and Number Three (Whig) newspapers? Some conversations between landlord and tenant upon the corn law—a rent-day scene—or some arguments about Protection would do. The same mate rials might be used also for tracts. We should like some tracts especially written for Bucks, with local phrases, measures, weights, itc. . . . Yours truly, "R. ConeEN. " A. Somerville, Esq." Strange to say, notwithstanding the enor mous sums raised by the League, if Mr. Somerville's case is a fair specimen of the treat ment experienced by those they employed, their subordinates were badly paid. lie describes himself as " doing the work of a horse—a " literary horie, or ass, if you like—living on " thistles and insult. Besides doing all the " work stipulated for by Mr. Wilson and cram " ming Cobden privately for most of his great " appearances, which was not stipulated and " not paid for," yet he had by others means to eke out a maintenance for himself and family. It may be remembered how apt and appropriate were the facts adduced by the League orators to illustrate their theories. The following extract shows how some of them were obtained : " Waterloo, near Liverpool, Saturday. "Dear Sir,—Your letter followed me here, where I am getting some sea air. I will be at Manchester on Tuesday, and will speak to the Council of the League about an arranent. [The terms of full sensibl gem e of the value of your p novel labours in the cause.y One word of advice --do not let any animus in favour of the League or manufacturers appear in your writings— [secretiveness again)—especially the letters in the Chro• nick, which I know attract a good deal of notice. • • • " In the last Number One there is a letter from a farmer, going for total repeal, on the ground that he cannot fatten rattle to compete with foreigners unless he gets the raw 1 1 !sterial cheap. Can't you insinuate a short letter into umber One, which is read by the fanners? But yon must not let your signature identify you—[secretiveness a' 4 sin )—' Peter Robins ' and ' Reuben ' are both palpable fk perm Sign, a Westmorland or Leicester I ti Arm e , er. I shall wan t you to write a good address frogs league to the farmers of the kingdom. It must be done. I have some suggestions to make which I will send to you when I h ave b een a bl e to re f er to some fl ick I remain yours truly, " RICHARD COBDEN. A. Somerville, Esq." :, did not writ e as a " i smer." I n at first calling myself " One who has whistled the Plough "I Wile described truly. Other signatures THE PRESS. used by me were only for private identification, not to misrepresent myself as a farmer, which I was not. Mr. Bright had the same degrading opinion of the press as Mr. Cobden. He it was, if the rumours in League circles did not belie him, that so fatally operated on the Warwickshire paper as to extinguish it in a fortnight. Indeed, oue of his brothers, in giving me particulars of his career in 1846, confirmed this delicate little rumour. Subsequently, in a conversation with Mr. Bright himself, it was alluded to, when he observed that the less 1 said about it the better. He applied to me, Itt4:l-4, as Mr. Cobden did, to write letters as a farmer of a certain locality. He hinted at having operated on one or more agricultural papers circulating in Durham, North Yorkshire, and Northumberland. I adhered to my rule not to write as that which I was not; and not, by professing to be Tory and half-and-half Protectionist, to " insinuate," as Mr•. Cobden phrased it, letters into Protectionist journals. Mr. Bright said, if I wrote certain articles and gave them to him, I need not know nor care what became of them. He got them in private from my own hand. I knew no more until I saw them in north•country papers, signed " A Farmer who Sells his Corn at Newcastle." From these agricultural papers they were reprinted by the League as genuine farmers' letters, and circulated univer sally as such ! We really did not know before that Mr. Bright, whose yea ought to be yea, and nay, nay, was such an accomplished Jesuit. Hero is a picture of " the Manchester School " in a railway carriage Mr. Cobden had engaged a compartment of a carriage for himself, Mr. Bright, Dr. Bowling, one or two others, and me. Amongst other topics my literary services to the League were brought up, and the eulogy of them, and of myself [to my face), was at once extmvagant and, to me, painful. Dr. Bowling, however, took but little part in this colloquy. Presently, and more than once, the name of a distinguished public man was introduced. I then knew nothing of this gentleman but by report. From report I held him in esteem. The effect of what I heard now was to degrade him in my estimation, until I thought him very bad indeed. And this would have continued to be my opinion had not subsequent inquiries, and some personal knowledge, convinced me that he was, as he still is, one of the most amiable, morally upright, and honourable of gentlemen. Dr. Bowring, I ought to say, suddenly dropped out of the conversation, and answered not a word, when he heard this most excellent gentleman fall under the insinuations of those self-satisfied and arrogant censors. Yet, before many days had passed, I saw, and wondered as I saw, those censors shaking him by the hand, and politi cally caressing him. In all my subsequent private intercourse with the lead ing Leaguers I had to listen to some unseemly story about somebody's private life. But the oddest thing was that they in like manner hinted ill-natured things of one another. When the Cobden testimonial was being collected, in 181f)-47, I had to listen to remarks on Cobden which were neither a credit to him nor to the persona making them. The remainder of the volume is principally occupied by disputes about money. Into these we shall not enter further than to say that, according to Mr. Somerville, Mr. Cobden ob jects to arbitration in private affairs—at least, when the former offered to refer certain pe cuniary claims he had upon the League and Mr. Cobden to arbitration, the apostle of in ternational arbitration opposed the proposition by every means in his power. It is due to Mr. Somerville to add that his demand was subse quently admitted to be just, and paid. And, whatever may be our opinion of Mr. Somer ville's conduct in publishing Mr. Cobden's letters and repeatitg his conversations, it should not be forgotten that Mr. Hume, and other members of the House of Commons, have in Parliament borne testimony to his veracity and integrity. Murray's British Classics. The Works of Oliver Goldsmith. Edited by Peter Cunningham. In 4 vols. Vol. I. Loudon : Murray. STANDARD editions of our great English classics have become imperatively necessary, in conse quence of the number of inaccurate reprints of our popular writers. The readers of cheap literature care little about the accuracy of the text of the works, whose greatest triumph is to find numerous readers in spite of i nelegant typo graphy, and to provide excessive blunders upon execrable paper. Higher reasons, also, re quire a close authentication of the text of our first-rate English classics. Our noble language has been in constant perils from a host of assailants. In the last and through a great part of the present century our English was endangered by Gallicism and the various provincialisms introduced by Scotch and Irish writers, as well as orators of no common power. The influence of Hume, Gibbon, and Johnson were not favourable to the purity of our mother tongue; and when journalism, contemporaneously with the French Revolu- 65 tion, became a " Fourth Estate," the number of writers bred in a rhetorical school intro duced a vehement and exclamatory style of composition. Burke's familiarity with " Sponser's Faerie Queene " (some of whose scenes are laid in that part of Ireland where he passed his childhood) had fortunately given him a richly-various diction, which diminished the evil of the Latinism in the structure of his sentences. Then came Scott's and Miss Edgeworth's novels, the precursors of a host of popular works in which the common speech of the peasants was imitated. Along with these came the jargon resulting from continental travelling and the example at one time really "fashionable " of tesselating conversation with fragments from—Babel. Against such foreign incursions and provin cial insurrections our language would have Wien if it had not prodigious resources in reserve. First of all, and worth all the rest, was the " English Bible," with its vast wealth of purely English words. Of the literary in fluence produced by such a work it would be needless to speak. Again, there was the poet of England—Shakspeare--whoso diction testi fied to the intensely English character of his writings. Constantly studied by authors, orators, and divines, it would b e difficult tx; say for how much healthy conservatism of our national language we are indebted to his im mortal example. The publication of " Perey's Beliques," also, was a fortunate circumstance at a time when "Hume's History" and "John son's Essays" wore giving dangerous examples. " Cowper's Poems " was another counteracting cause. To an extent that is almost incon ceivable the poetry of the bard of Olney in fluences the young ; and we need hardly say that ho was attached to English idioms and words. The essayists in the Edinburgh Review, while they erred in setting the example of too rhetorical and declamatory models, preached the doctrine of " pure English," which they did not always practise. Mr. Thomas Carlyle, also, held forth upon the importance of a true Saxon style, while he modestly employed a system of grammar, neither Greek, nor Latin, nor German, nor English, but a fantastic re bellion against the peculiar laws of each. But, though the study of German literature is on the increase, we suspect that the days of Ger manised English have gone by. America and the colonies are present sources of danger to the English tongue. The Yankees, we are afraid, will never rest until they ge nerate a dialect of their own, almost as distant from English as broad Scotch itself. Wo re peat that against all these dangers the popu larity of our standard writers is the best protection; and, in that point of view, the correctness of these editions becomes a subject of almost national importance. " Goldsmith " was a good choice in coin• mencing the present series of " Murray's Standard Classics." What author is more universally read by all classes, the high and the low, and at all seasons, in the gaiety of youth, and in the pensiveness of age ? He charmed our fathers, he charms ourselves amid the dinning noise of a contentious generation, and he will continue to delight our descen dants, while pure minds and tender hearts can be moved with the pathetic and the beautiful. Apart from his genius, his language has the advantage of being an excellent model of the middle style—level without being tame, and equable without monotony. His writings are at once standard in merit, popular in their nature, classical in their fame ; and, though the same thing may be said of sonic other authors, of few can it be said in the same degree. For the present edition Mr. Peter Cunning ham is responsible. Avoiding the evil of su perfluous annotation, he has not encumbered the pages with learned trivialities, after the examples of some other literary critics. He is an editor, not a commentator, and he does not confound these functions. He does not inge niously affect doubts for the purpose of die playing his perspicacity, nor catch at remote allusions for the object of inflicting upon us some parallel passages from other au thors. Concentrating his attention upon the text, he has endeavoured to present to us the writings of Goldsmith, as the author himself actually left thorn revised. ,41 1