The Press. — London, England, 1858-01-02 00:00:00

THE PRESS, JANUARY 2,1858 in evidence which, though consistent with the prisoner's innocence, leave no doubt at all in the minds of those who bear of them as to his guilt, the evidence does as much, produces as great an effect, and is therefore eiperimentally proved to he as strong as if they hail been inconsistent with his innocence. " Where there is no remorse, my son, there " can bo no guilt," said " the excellent chap " lain" to Mr. George de Barnwell. This is an excellent instance of valuing a thing " by " the state of mind which it produces." No doubt if we took the case of an acknowledged good man—conscientious,just, and pure —who felt no re►norse after the commission of an offence against the law, we should be inclined to suspect that there was " no guilt," and that his alleged crime had been justifiable. But in ninety-nine oases out of every hundred the absence of remorse simply arises from a pre disposing condition of depravity. And so with the verdict of a jury. There is usually a " state of mind" among these twelve men predisposing them either to an acquittal or a conviction ; and though, no doubt, as a matter of fact, this predisposition is found in most instances to march with the truth, yet we ought never to lose sight of the possible exceptions—never to forego those securities which may render a prejudiced verdict nuga tory. But, even setting aside the question of prejudice, we have to make the same demand before we can trust to the presence of convic tion as a proof of guilt as we have to make Wore we can trust to the absence of remorse as a proof of innocence. Fiat experimentani in corpore OPTIMO. We must he certain that the person or persons to whom the evidence is addressed are not unduly credulous or igno rant, have a power of deciding between con• theta - 1g statements, and other qualifications which might perhaps meet together in a jury of Halla►ns or Humes, but one not usually found in the category of virtues which adorn the British shopkeeper. We do not mean to endorse the opinion here quoted for condem nation : That a conviction upon what is called circumstantial evidence is not justifiable unless the circumstances proved are inconsistent with the prisoner's innocence. We only express our opinion that Mr. Stephen's own argument is weak. Before quitting this essay we may observe, as a piece (It carelessness, that in relating the story of Mr. Barnard and the Duke of Marlborough (p. 37) Mr. Stephen ba , 7 omitted to tell us the most important point of all—i.e., what was the verdict. The article upon Porson is meagre and slovenly, and stands in veil unfavourable con trast with 1)e Quincy's article upon Bentley. In the present paper we have proper names introduced in one page, and an explanation of who they were in the next—as Mr. Norris (p. 1281—and gaps in the Professor's career, which ought to have been filled up. At what period of his life, for instance, did Porson get his scholarship. We find him leaving Eton with a very second rate reputation, but almost im mediately taking a good position at Cam bridge, and in his third year carrying off the Craven Scholarship. Of course, in two or three years a man like Person can work wonders. But it is so rare that a boy leaving school without that special kind of scholarship in which Por son was deficient when he left Eton ever acquires it afterwards, that some account of the process by which this great scholar made himself an exception would have been very welcome to the public. The preference of Person to Bentley as a scholar is probably, accoraing to the modern use of the term, correct. Porson would perhaps have beaten Bentley in an examination for the Craven or the Ireland. He was, we should think, a more critically exact as well as a more elegant scholar. While Bentley's " Horace," and Bentley's " Terence" have long since passed into the index expurgatoria, Person's " four plays," and Porson's preface, are unrivalled as text-hooks, and bid fair to continue unassail able. We hope we do Mr. Buxton no injustice when we say that the article on India seems to have been written rather because it was felt necessary to have an article on India, than I because he had anything very new to tell us. With Mr. Buxton's account of the Indian army, and his difficulties on the subject of caste, the reader will do well to compare the work upon 17 India lately published by Lieutenant-General Briggs (p. 1), in which he will find that the strength of our old native armies were the aborigines of India, and not Hindoos at all. With regard also to the great improvements and public works effected there by our rulers, the same authority will be found a useful check upon Mr. Buxton, whose vague flou rishes about railroads, roads, and canals, are far from borne out by that officer's practical experience. tempt. The garb of the critic sat so badly on the essayist that the critic himself grew ashamed of it. He too would be a philosopher Hence even the reviews of really new books, and of writers whom correct criticism might have refitted and elevated, grew to be merely e n expression of the writer's own opinions on the subject-matter of the work before him ; and the censorship of style, language, and method fell into desuetude. The first of these evils the University Essays have contributed their share towards removing. But the second they have not touched. They have rescued the essayist from his false position ; they have not restored the critic to his true one. We are here, of course. 'speaking only of essays and reviews composed on that scale of magnitude for which the quar terly periodicals alone can afford space. In the three or four leading magazines original articles and literary criticisms are still to be found of a high order of merit, and perhaps losing nothing by their brevity. But the field is still open—perfectly open—for a purely critical publication ; and how ready would be the welcome accorded to it may be judged from the avidity with which the summaries of literature at the end of the Westminster Review are perused. at present. It must not, however, be forgotten that an other leading object in the commencement of this series was the encouragement of special knowledge. Contributors were to write only on those topics which they had made the object of independent study previously, and which coming from them might fairly challenge con sideration. Now, the question arises how far this theory, if applicable to each writer sepa rately, is not applicable also to their joint labours—that is, to the whole volume they produce ; and whether, if it be a rule that B's essay should relate to B's special studies, it is not equally fitting that " University Essays' should have some reference, more or less direct, to the special studies of the University. There is no reason, of course, why a Cambridge man should not be an authority on many sub jects which have no special connection with aca demical pursuits ; and none why, if he be sa, he should not write an essay on it. But then why call it a Cambridge Essay ? There can be no objection to any body of young men forming themselves into a literary fraternity, and giving us the benefit of their opinions upon every topic under the sun, from the cut. of a petticoat to the :Sire of Plato. If they have a university education, so much the better. But we do object to a series of essays upon general and alien subjects being entitled University Essays ; and this not merely because of the misnomer, but also because a very excellent opportunity of public instruc tion is thereby lost. In this matter the Cambridge Essayists have been far greater transgressors than their Oxford rivals. Of the Oxford Essays from their commencement two-thirds are upon sub jects which university 'men may be reasonably presumed, ceteris paribus, to know more about than other people. Of the Cambridge Essays little more than a fourth are of this descrip tion, and of the six essays contained in the present volume only one—and that rather accidentally than essentially—i e., the biogra phy of Porson. Cambridge Essays for 1857 are faulty not merely on the special ground hero taken, but also on the general one that the selection of subjects is heavy. 'There is not a single paper of the more light and entertaining species— not a single purely literary article. Law, geology, agriculture, and electricity are the staple of the volume—varied only by the aforesaid sketch of Professor Porson, and a paper on the Indian revolt. We are bound to say, however, that Mr. Stephen's article on the Criminal Law, be it technically correct or otherwise, is uncommonly interesting, and makes the crooked ways straight, or apparently straight, on numerous important points. A passage, however, on which ice are inclined to differ from him is that which treats of the influence of circumstantial evidence : The true principle appears to me to be to estimate the value of evidence entirely by the effect which it does in fact produce upon the minds of those who hear it The value of evidence is sorely measured as exactly by the state of mina which it produces as a farceis measured by the weight which it will lift. If a set of circumstances are put NEW NOVELS. 1. Orphans. By the Author of " Margaret Maitland." One Vol. London: Hurst and Blackett. 2. The Year Nine. By the Author of " Mnry Powell." One Vol. London : Hall, Vir tue, and Co. 3. The White House by the Sea. A Love Story. By M. Bethain-Edwards. Two Vole. London: Smith and Elder. 4. Clara Leicester. By Captain G. de In Poor Beresford. Three Vols. London : Hurst and Blackett. 1. THE authoress of " Margaret INlaitland" is one of the few female novelists of the present day who have the art of describing their cha racters with impartiality. Most lady writers whose works come befure us seem unable to avoid identifying themselves with the hero or heroine, and making their wrongs and mis fortunes a sort of personal question. This mode of proceeding is apt to grow hysterical, and to affect the reader with the same sensa tions that he would experience if conversing with a living specimen of the sex accustomed to retail her grievances to all listeners suffi ciently complaisant to attend to them. In the Orphans," however, even more than in other works by the same author, there is a certain dignity and feminine reserve which impresser us with the feeling that the narratrix has learned to see herself with the eyes of others, and is just as much alive to her own faults and weaknesses as to those which she observes in the characters of her friends. The idea of the "Orphans" is original. The moral conveyed is merely that There's a Providence that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them as we will. Clara Nugent, left rich-and an orphan at eight and-twenty, having had a disappointment in love which has made her renounce all idea of marriage, conceives the idea of finny/ her house with her poor relations. They all come (upon trial), and we are presented with a cle verly-drawn portrait-gallery of very disagree able people. Miss Nugent finds them as dis agreeable as we do, and forthwith turns her house into a receptacle for orphan children, whom she promises herself to educate and pro vide for. She hears that her former lover, whom, it seems, she rejected for love of her own parents, is to be married to a dear friend, and undergoes some natural pangs as the wedding-day approaches. All, however, is set right by finding that the bridegroom is not her lover, but a relative of the same name, and the result is a renewal of her former engage ment. Of course, her philanthropic schemes fall to the ground, and their failure enforces the lesson we have above indicated. The plea sure we feel in reading this ravel does not arise from any interest felt in the plot, which is rather improbable in its main outlines and. rather hackneyed in its denouement; but the characters are described with so mush insight and keenness of observation that we read on for the sake of their analysis, without caring much what is to become of them in the end. Miss Greenfield is perhaps the most agree able, Mrs. Herbert the most delicately-finished, portrait. The authoress promises a continua tion of the story, and this we shall look for with interest, though it is not very evident that there is scope for its further develop ment. 2. The author of " Mary Powell" has achi-ved a popularity which many writers of a more ambitious stamp doubtless despise, but the causes of which they would do well to study. One of these causes is, no doubt, the neatness and tact shown in her (?) way of