The Press. — London, England, 1854-02-18 00:00:00

162 resort to the master, and on the whole likely to be beneficial. The former of these two alternatives is justly and severely stigmatised by Dr.Vaughau : Now, it appears to me that a monitorial system of this nature is either nugatory( r worse. If the monitors thus corn • missioned have the ordinary feelings of the sons of gentlemen, they will virtually repudiate such an office. They will say I was not sent here to be an usher—a master's spy, a mas ter's informer. They have too much self respect, too nice a sense of honour, to live amongst their schoolfellows on terms of unguarded equality, and then use the knowledge thus gained as a means of drawing down upon them the arm of authority and of punishment. The result will be, as it always has been wherever such a view has been taken of monitorial duty, that the monitors will not act for the purposes for which they were commissioned, but only for the maintenance of a selfish dignity which looks for its support to other mans than those recognised by the sys tem. It astonishes me that those who regard . submission to a corporal punishment as a degradation inconsistent with honour and self respect should look with toleration upon that antagonist system under which their sons might be c Iliad upon, as the reward of ability and diligence, to as sume the office of a delegated spy. Them is accordingly no option left except to grant a certain discretionary authority, restrained by a right of appeal, first from the individual monitors to the body collectively ; and next, though only in more serious matters, to the constituted magisterial authorities. Under such checks Dr. Vaughan argues justly that little or no danger need be apprehended. It is not a question whether boys should exer cise power over one another—that they will do at any rate—the question is , whether this power shall be a mere tyranny of brute force, or whether it shall be so controlled to support instead of subverting discipline. No man knew boys better than Dr. Arnold. The per sonal devotion which he inspired even among those of his pupils who were rarely brought into actual contact with him cannot well be described without suspicion of exaggeration ; and it was to Arnold that this plan of moni torial police owes its present shape and effi cacy. The reply of "Anti-Monitor" scarcely merits that name, since it does, in fact, admit the prin cipal points in dispute. The writer neither objects to monitorial authority nor advises the disuse of corporal punishment, but merely complains that the amount of the latter at Harrow is excessive, and that certain other abuses prevail. These are questions of evi dence and fact, on which we do not pretend to decide. Annotated Edition of the British Poets. Edited by Robert Bell. The Poetical Works of Henry Howard Earl of Surrey, and Thomas Sackville Lord Buckhurst. London : J. W. Parker and Son. Tins edition of the "British Poets" is very likely to meet with great success. In excel lence of typography, and in convenience of size for the pocket, it will please those who require good print and who like to ramble through the fields with their favourite authors. Nor are we disposed to give attention to the ill-natured cavillings which cynical criticism has offered upon the judiciously-compiled life of Surrey prefixed to this volume by Mr. Bell. Though it is very possible that our early poets like Surrey and Bnckhurst are not the subjects on which the special aptitude of Mr. Bell finds its most congenial exercise, his varied know ledge and versatile talents will secure such comments as will sustain the credit of the " Annotated Edition." Amongst other petty fault-finding that we have read we were amused with Mr. Bell being gravely taken to task for " his echo of the old mistake that the " ancestor of the Howards was a Sir William " Howard, a Chief Justice of the Common Pleas." Mr. Bell had the authority of Dug dale and other genealogists for the statement, and the "old mistake" is a very popular one, supported by many writers. If we were in clined to look for faults we should be rather disposed to caution Mr. Bell against too im plicitly relying on the dicta of Mr. Hallam in what relates to poetical criticism. The mind of that eminent scholar is too cold, and many of his decisions (as Mr. Macaulay has hinted) partake of the ruthless severity of a literary iconoclast. Thus his assertion that " the " taste of Surrey is more striking than his " genius " is open to some questioning. To THE PRESS. have shown such good taste as Surrey exhi bited in an age of pedantry and elaborate con ceits was in itself no small proof of the men; divinior of poetical genius. But we have not room for retrospective criticism on standard authors, and we must here confine ourselves to expressing our general approbation of the manner in which this edition is brought before the public. It deserves, and we have no doubt that it will obtain, great popular success. NEW NOVELS. Reginald Lyle. By Miss Pardoe. London : Hurst and Blackett. The Star Chamber. By W. Harrison Ainsworth. London: Routledge and Son. To enter upon the merits or the shortcomings of two such well-known writers as Miss Par doe and Mr. Ainsworth would be a work of critical supererogation. Our readers are as well aware as ourselves that Miss Pardoe ex cels as a literary mechanician, and that, though she fails in inventing character or creating pa thetic interest, she can, with the help of her animated style and practised talent, succeed in engaging the attention. Her present ven ture is in some respects rather superior to her former fictions, and is not below the average of what pass in circulating libraries for " good novels." Her pen is as fluent and vivacious as ever, but she lacks the brilliancy of Mrs. Gore, and silo can stand no comparison with the writer of "Jane Eyre." Nevertheless we may recommend our readers to place " Regi nald Lyle " upon their lists for their " lending libraries." But we cannot repeat that counsel in the case of "The Star Chamber." It re• minds us of an engraving from a well-worn plate. " Newgate-Calendar " incidents are re lated with the rhetoric of the transpontine drama ; and even the headings of the chap ters—" Poison," "Counter-Poison," "The Stone Coffin," " The Old Fleet Prison," &c. &c.—seem stereotyped for that Surrey-Theatre school of fiction now happily on the decline. We have had more than enough of such writing, and we do not wish for more specimens of it, especially when its style is as stale as the remainder biscuit after a voyage to the anti podes. An Examination of the Law of Church Rates. By Watkin Williams. London: Ridgway. A LEGAL argument to prove that "in law no parish " is, or ever was, bound to keep its church in re pair ;" that the majority of ratepayers have always possessed the right of opposing a rate, which right is now affirmed by the decision on the Braintree case. As no one is likely to dispute a decision in which, after many years of doubt, the highest legal authorities have concurred, the adducing of fresh reasons in its support appears superfluous. Mr, Wil hams contends for the abolition of the power now enjoyed by a majority of enforcing a rate on the dis sentient minority ; in other words, he argues against the existence of church rates as a compulsory tax. His language, however, is moderate ; and he rests more on technicalities than on grounds of national policy. The best part of the pamphlet is a note, in which the often forgotten distinction between tithes and rates is insisted on : " I trust it will be clearly seen that the arguments in these letters do not apply to the question of tithes; still I suspect that the fallacy of looking upon tithes as a tax (paid by the tenant farmer, or virtually by the proprietors of the soil) is very prevalent. Yet the tithes are clearly not, in any sense of the word, a tax. The tithes are abso lute property, and the proprietors of the soil can in no sense be said to pay them out of their own pockets. The proprietors of the soil in paying tithes are merely paying that which does not and never did belong to them. The landed proprietors have no better right to the tithes than the tithe proprietors have to the rest of the profits of the land. " If the Legislature were to commit so unconstitutional and illegal an act as to deprive the present tithe proprietors of that property, it is quite clear the proprietors of the soil could not make out either a moral or a legal right to the possession of the tithes. Such an act of plunder could scarcely be perpetrated except. in a revolution, and if it were to occur the tithes would probably be appropriated to the support of some other religious denomination, or else to defray the 'public expenditure in lieu pro Cantu of taxes." The Theology of Table-turning, Spirit-rapping, and Clairvoyance, in Connection with the Antichrist. By the Rev. N. S. Godfrey, S.C.L. London : Seeleys. THIS is another of those strange productions with which Mr. Godfrey has either instructed or amused, SATURDAY, and certainly astonished, the world. From it we learn that " questions have been answered by rapping' by the following articles, a carpet slipper, a heavy shoe, cups and saucers ( china), tumbler glasses, egg-cups, plates, a flat brass candlestick, a hair sieve, a piece of cheese, a tea. pot (metal), a small flour barrel, a large beef bone, a jug, a loaf of bread.' " This power of " rapping out" Mr. Godfrey attributes to Satanic agency, and, if pride of intellect be an at tribute of Lucifer, the following instance counte nances the theory : " In another case I went into a room where some expe riments were being tried. Before I went in a young lath., after vainly endeavouring to get the table to rap out the signature of a letter laid upon it, remarked, ' Oh, he's a stupid, ignorant fellow.' To the astonishment of all it im mediately rapped out, lam not a bad scholar."' Mr. Godfrey, in a letter to the Bishop of London, says he believes table-turning to be foretold in the 1 Timothy iv. 1, but the "evil spirits" there spoken of are represented as "commanding to abstain from " meats"; but the "large beef-bone" demon clearly had a predilection for animal food, and, if Mr. God frey had read further in the same chapter, he would have found an injunction to "refuse profane and old " wives' fables," and would have learnt that " bodily " exercise proliteth little," and this knowledge might have saved him the severe labour, which he says he underwent., of bounding about with one table for six consecutive hours. Mr. Godfrey concludes with a pun. Mr. Close, of Cheltenham, published a pam phlet on this subject, of which the title is " The Testers Tested"—Mr. Godfrey suggests an emen dation, "The Testers Tested by a Testy Man," to which we will add that, if instead of "The End" which finishes the volume he had substituted "Close," his punning capacity would have further exemplified the purport of his publication. Who shall Make the Law Makers ? A Question, with Answer Attempted. London : J. H. Smith. A PAMPHLET of fifty six pages. The author is an original thinker, and says clever things in a quaint manner, occasionally reminding us of Carlyle. His opinions are not those of any one party, though some of them have a Conservative tendency : " Property is on the whole a fair test, since its conserva tion is so manifold a duty of government. A man without property must wait patiently to show what are his claims upon political consideration. The penniless statesmtuilike will not be many, and their exclusion will be much their own fault. While the franchise is not too high, it will be reached by simple act of working for living. Once for all, no feasible reform can undertake to educate for leaders of the people, such as care nut ' to maintain good works for necessary uses.' We cannot afford to open a ragged school for statesmen, nor would such discipline be at all hopeful of good. There may be geniuses lying under hedges (Idr. W. J. Fox, if we remember, once referred to such) who might be caught at night, as boys cauh sparrows, asleep : such might with care be trained to grow up M.P.'s, and provided each with 3001. a year for qualification and main tenance." The author thinks some reform necessary, and hero is the principle on which he would proceed : " The places to be newly enfranchised should be just like those which are et&ned ; there is no inequality be tween north or south, east or west, urban or rural, to be redressed. We would u.ultiply, all our varying constituer.- cies, taking them just as they stand in the map, without inquiring who is the owner or employer in the neighbour hood, nor who blows the theological bellows. An expan sion of the existing element is preferable to the substitu tion of any new one; we do not hope for a Letter House of Commons than that which forced Elizabeth to surrender the monopolies." And in an appendix be makes in detail practical sug gestions for carrying out his views. The pamphlet is worth reading. Our Cruise in the Utuline. By the Captain. London: J. W. Parker and Son. ANOTHER amusing description of a pleasant journey made by three Cambridge men, by way of Dieppe and Rouen to Paris, and thence to the Rhine, return ing through Belgium. Their travelling titles were, " the Professor, the Captain, and the Doctor." Of their academical status we are not informed, but fancy the first had attained to the dignity of a degree, whilst his companions were still at that delightful period of life when, if "sorrow sits upon the brow," a horse, a gun, a boat, or the glance of a blue eye, would scare the " dusky " fiend away. The mode of travelling they adopted was only not original because two precedents for it existed. The whole distance from Paris to Cologne was accomplished in a light outrigger, along the rivers and canals of France, until the Rhine was entered, between Basle and Kehl. The exertion to reach stopping-places was only equalled by the desire to leave them ; there fore no new observations are made by the travellers ; but the work is amusing. For instance, when the boat had been hauled ashore, "when once in the court, and safely laid on her keel, the jabber began, for as many as could had accompanied