The Press. — London, England, 1858-10-23 00:00:00

THE PRESS, OCTOBER 23, 1858. 1042 produces a compound more stimulating than wholesome. " Literature's gin-palaces," to use a phrase of Landor's, are hardly the places in which to finish an evening spent in the society of Laplace or Herschel. This, it may be said, is at variance with Lord Brougham's assertion that the popular publications of the day are invariably harmless. Well, we do not mean to say that they do positive harm, but we are cer tainly indisposed to accept the verdict of unmixed approval which he passed upon them. Of what do these publications consist ? They contain in each number one or two stories, complete or con tinuous; a little scientific information, a few receipts, and a great variety of " answers to cor respondents." The principal papers with which we are acquainted arc the London Journal, the Family Herald, Cassell's Illustrated Family Paper, the Guide, and Reynolds's Miscellany.* Some are milder affairs than the others, and the last-named is rather a full-flavoured production ; but there is a strong likeness running through all. and the subscribers appear to belong to the same class in each. That the novels which appear in them are of a melodramatic type, and, to use Lord Brougham's expression, so "far removed from common observation " as to present no resemblance to real life at all ; that virtue is uniformly rewarded by wealth, and generally by a place in the Peerage ; and that no character ever occurs displaying the slightest original;ty of conception, or skilfulness in development,—are matters of such common notoriety that it is hardly worth while to mention them. That the facetia , and short stories are not uncommonly derived from American sources, are full of American slang, and redolent of the most offen sive qualities of Transatlantic vulgarity, and that the only portions of the papers which show any signs of accurate information or goodness of style are free plagiarisms from the Times, the Atheneum, or some similar source,t has perhaps not been so generally noticed. The replies to correspondents are amusing enough, but in our opinion they do not evince all the progress in character which Lord Brougham seems to fancy has been made by the class to which they relate. We have taken pains to classify some of the topics on which information is in most general request, and they do not appear to us very encouraging. About forty per cent. of the queries relate to the subjects of love and marriage, and the tone of mind they betray makes one fancy that the readers of the journals in question are pretty nearly co-extensive with the class who give occa sional employment to practitioners like Sergeant Buzfuz, and obtain such heavy damages from in dignant jurymen with marriageable daughters of their own. About twenty per cent. more may be set down to inquiries regarding purely per sonal matters, such :is dress, etiquette, and, above all, cosmetics. The purveyors of depilatories, materials for home-made pomatum, and leaden combs for modifying hair of too pronounced an auburn, must owe to this source a great deve lopment of their trade. About eight or ten per cent. relate to aspirations to the honour of ap pearing in the journal, which hopes arc for the most part rudely quenched, generally on ac count of mistakes in spelling or want of scansion in verses, the rejections being occasionally vindi cated by the verbatim extract of a verse from the unhappy culprit's MS. The remaining per centage may be pretty equally divided between answers on science and self-education, and desultory information on law, medicine, bio graphy, history, and geography. The correspon dents usually adopt some name from the romance in progress ; the ladies describe their hair, teeth, eyes, and stature, and the gentlemen fall in love with them from their own portraiture; but in troductions are refused, and we do not gather that the courtship ever gets any further. Some editors are, certainly, more discreet than others. Mr. Cassell receives a question as to the manu facture of certain explosive compounds, which he very properly declines to answer but Mr. Rey- • We have not included the Welcome Guest in this catalogue, because that paper seems to us to stand on au entirely different footing. Its wit and originality, and the piquancy with which it is maintained, would do honour to ft magazine of much greater pretension . The answers to correspondent s , b em id es being often extremely witty, are conceived in a healthy spirit, entire'' , different from the vapid encouragement of amatory twaddle which the other papers of its class display, We fear it is ion late for such a publication to have all the influence it might once have exercised ; but we wish it every success, and we hope that Its toile may iu time teud to modify that of its rival. , and their subscribers. + We in one case observed a long story taken verbatim from a then recent number of the Dublin University Magazine. nolds, in reply to a similar thirst for information, furnishes half a column of :small type on the subject. We earnestly pray that his pupil may be miles away from us on the fifth of next month. Lord Brougham, referring apparently to a recent article in Blackwood, denied the assertion that the stories in these publications dealt with the fortunes of a higher class than that to which their readers belong. On this point we consider that Black wood is, on the whole, in the right, and his lord ship in the wrong. These novels may possibly concern themselves with the vicissitudes of humble life, but, with few exceptions, they do so only as a preparation for the emergence of their hero or heroine into a higher sphere. The vice of tufthunting pervades this section of English so ciety as it does others ; the stories resemble " Pamela " rather than "Mary Barton:' We willingly grant that all these publications are " harmless " in a certain sense—that is, that they contain little or nothing to inflame the pas sions, or tending to the subversion of political order. But, as really good novels are among the best books that can be read, so bad ones, by giving false or disproportionate views of life and fos tering what is vulgar and commonplace in thought and sentiment, are among the worst. If a gen tleman would not wish his own sons and daughters to batten on this kind of literature, we cannot understand his viewing with complacency the fact of his poorer neighbours being exclusively nurtured on it. The fact to which we have drawn attention, that nearly three-quarters of the correspondents' inquiries relate to matters purely of personal vanity, is surely not a very hopeful symptom as to the moral advancement of the class to which they belong. It is better, no doubt, to read something (if not absolutely per nicious) than to leave the mind in utter vacancy. And we may observe every day that the people who abjure novels are generally of a most dull and uninteresting kind,—with whom it is impos sible to " get on" in any way. But novel reading we take to be, not the cause of conver sibleness, but the test of it ; not a practice by which a dull person may be made interesting, but a mark which, in most cases, is a sign of some sort of geniality and expansiveness of mind. And if this is the case,—if a fondness for fiction is the sign of a native habit of thought and feeling in which there is some sympathy and promise,—if the imagination shines through and distinguishes ever so little the vessels of finer clay, himself. The present two volumes might alnio,t be entitled "A History of Prussia to the Acces. sion of Frederick the Great." At least the biography of Friedrich Wilhelm contained i n them is quite as minut e , if we consider the tranquillity of his rein, as the bi ography or Friedrich when it as completed, can he. It is plain that the character of Friedrich Wilhelm is so fascinating to Mr. Carlyle that he finds it difficult to tear himself away from it. Nor can we regret that he has described him so minutely. Few historical characters are intrinsically more worthy of study. But it would have been a , well to inform the public that they were to expect a history of two kings and not of one only. With this not very important criticism we pro ceed to present our readers with one of the most favourable specimens we can find of Mr. Carlyle'. narrative. We must premise that the Schlubhut mentioned is a member of the Kriegs-und Domanen-Kammer, who, having been guilty of peculation, was condemned by the criminal court to imprisonment merely, in considera tion of his rank, but was hanged by the in exorable justice of Friedrich Wilhelm : One morning early (might be before Schlubhut was 1)&40, and while only sentence of imprisonment and restitution lay on him ), General Graf von Diiohof, Colonel of a Musketeer Regiment, favourite old soldier,—who did vote on the mild side in that Court-Martial on the Crown Prince lately; but I hope has been forgiven by his Maje,tr, being much esteemed by him these long years peat; this Diinhof, early one morning, calls upon the King, with a grimly lamenting air. " \Viva is wrong, Herr General ?" " Your Majesty, my best musketeer, an excellent soldier and of good incites, fell into a mistake lately,—had company getting round the poor fellow ; they, be among them, slipt into • house and stole something; trifle std without violence ; pay is but three halfpence, your Majesty, and the Devil tempts men ! Well the Criminal-Cullegiurn have condemned him to be banged. an excellent soldier and of good inches, for that one fault. Nobleman &dilute hut was to make restitution they decreed : that was their decree on Schlubhut, one of their own set ; and this poor soldier, six feet three, your Majesty, is to dance on the top of nothing for a three-halfpenny matter!" So would Donhof represent the thing,—" Fact being," says my Dryastiust, "it was a case of housebreaking with theft to the value of 0,00(1 thalero, and this musketeer the ring leader ! " Well, but was Seblubhut sentenced to banging? Do you keep two weights and two measures in that Criminal-Collegium of yours then ? Friedrich Wilhelm feels this sad contrast very much: the more as the soldier is his own chattel withal, and superlative inches: Friedrich Wilhelm flames into wrath, sends off swift messengers to bring these Judges, one and all, instantly into his presence. The Judges are still iu their dressing-gowns, shaving, breakfasting; thej make what haste they can. So soon as the first three or four are reported to be in the ante room, Friedrien Wilhelm, in extreme impatience, has them called in ; starts dis: coursing with them upon the two weights and measures. Apologies, subterfuges, do but provoke him further; it is not long till he starts up, growling terribly: " !hr Schurken" (ye scoundrels), " how could you ?" and smuts down upon the crowns of them with the Royal Cudgel itself. Fancy the hurry-scurry, the unforensic attitudes and pleadings ! Royal Cudgel rains blows, right and left; blood is drawn, crowns cracked, crowns nearly broken; and " several Judges lost a few teeth and had their noses battered " before they could get out. The secend relay meeting theta in this dilapidated state, on the staircases, dashed home again without the honour of a royal interview. Let them learn to keep one balance and one set of weights, in their Law-Court henceforth.—This is an actual scene,. of date Berlin 17:31 or thereby ; unusual in the annals ut Theinis. Of which no constitutional country can hope . to see the fellow, were the need never so pressing. 1 lush his Majesty had been a thought more equal, when he nit' so rhadamanthine ! Schlubhut be banged, Scblubluttbeing only Sehlabbut's chattel ; this musketeer, his MoleslY s own chattel, be did not hang, but set him shouldering arms again, after some preliminary dusting. - • It is certainly amusing to find an inexorable Rhadamanthus committing precisely the same injustice, and in the very same case, for which he applies the 1r5,a43,:070., A•ix7;cv so liberally to the backs of his law officers. Clearer heads than Friedrich Wilhelm's, however, have fallen into the error of supposing that there is a certain justice in favouring the poor. Friedrich Wilhelm, as we have said, is an extraordinary favourite with Mr. Carlyle. Pre vious writers have described him as merely a violent madman, and their account, as far as it goes, is probably true enough. But lie was much more than this, and in our opinion Mr. Carlyle, whose passion for strongly-marked cha racters is so unbounded and his confidence in his own insight into character so firm that a good percentage ought, we think, to be deducted from most of his portraitures, has in this case not wasted his subtlety. Friedrich Wilhelm is in deed an extraordinary study, and had qualities more remarkable and much more admirable than either his violence or his madness. A fascinating Queis meliore Into finxit prceeordia Titan, how very unfortunate must it be reckoned that such persons have had, perhaps during the most impressible period of their lives, such very un satisfactory diet presented to them ! When the Penny Magazine had gained its million of readers, it would have been comparatively easy for its promoters to establish a magazir.e of fiction of a sound and valuable quality, but the opportunity was neglected, and the taste of the hundreds of thousands of subscribers to those which at pre sent exist is, we fear, hopelessly vitiated by the trash which has so long been laid before them. As the Times has said, the popular literature of the day is a great fact, which it is no use now to carp or sneer at. We are perfectly aware of the futility of doing either, but we do not on that account think it necessary to swell the chorus of praise which Lord Brougham's address has occasioned, or to refrain from pointing out in what respects his self-congratulation appears excessive and unfounded. History of Friedrich 11. of Prussia, called Frederick the Great. By Thomas Carlyle. In Four Vols. Vols. I. and 11. London : Chap man and Ihll. (Second Notice.) Lx a previous number we discussed this work at some length, and gave our opinion of its literary merit. We shall now put b e f ore our readers what they will probably like much better, namely, some specimens of its contents. It is of little use to tell Mr. Carlyle that he ought to write his book like other people ; otherwise, we should be disposed to remark that the space assigned to prefatory matter is out of all propor tion with that which we arc info rme d i s to be assigned to Friedrich himself. It is not usual in biographies, nor does it seem reasonable to assign as much space to the father and ancestry of the person whose history is related as to the person • . _ I i