The Press. — London, England, 1855-02-17 00:00:00

THE PRESS. FEBAVARY 17, 1855. Sooner had the Papists got judges and juries that would be lieve thew, but they began a trade of swearing, and ripping tip what they pretended their Protestant neighbours had paid of Xing James whilst Duke of York," and proceeds to Charge them with gross corruption in the administration of justice. The doctor was Archbishop of Dublin. He had originally been a sisar in the University, and, having afterwards obtained a fellowship, gradually raised himself, by dint of sychuphancy and intrigue, to one of the richest sees in the richest establishment in the world. Whether he exhibited all the arrogande of a pontifical parvenu ; whether he was at once a haughty priest and a consecrated jackanapes; whether he was a sophist in his creed, an equivocator in his statements, and a cobweb-weather in his theology; whether ho had a vain head, a niggard hand, and a false and servile heart, and betrayed the men who raised him, I have not been able to determine. He appears to have been an apostate in his politics. His representation of the Catholic judges of his time is not without some epis copal characteristics, and justifies what Leslie said of him, " Though many things the archbishop says are true, yet he had hardly spoken a true word without a warp." The " Calamities of the Bar" and the " Diary of a Barrister " were no doubt well enough as filling up space in the New Monthly, but melodramatic tales in penny numbers have since that time deluged the town, and Mr. Sheil's speeches—of which a great part of his " Diary of a Barrister " consists—have since appeared in a goodly octavo for the delight of those who admire such pictures as that at page 343, vol i., of a daughter at the strange task of "chafing (sic) the burning temples of " her expiring father." It is only right, how ever, to say that in the account of the " Murder of Holy Cross," and the trial of the Keoghs, with its attendant atrocities, will be found a daguereotype of the peasant morality and society of Tipperary, and an admission, on the best authority, of the character of the class of persons with whom the Irish nobility and gentry had to deal, and whose woes have been the theme of so much of Mr. Sheil's own declamation, and are just now about to be brought before Parliament again. Magazine articles, when we are challenged to review them, have little claim to clement consideration ; and those who act as their re surrectionists ought to be careful that time has not taken away the tinsel that originally passed them as value for the money. The scene of the subjoined extract is the election for Clare, and the person is Mr. Patrick Mahon (as he described himself seven or eight years ago in the Four Courts, Dublin), but called " The O'Gorman Mahon " On the right hand of the sheriff stood Mr. O'Connell, with scarcely a single gentleman [this is true] by his aids ; for most even of the Catholic proprietors had abandoned him and joined the Ministerial candidate. But the body of the court presented the power of Mr. O'Connell in a mass of determined peasants, amongst whom black coats and sacerdotal visages were seen felicitously intermixed outside the balustrade of the gallery, on the left hand of the sheriff. Before the business began, a gentleman was observed on whom every eye was turned. He had indeed chosen a most singular position ; for, instead of sitting, like the other auditors, on one of the seats in the gallery, he leaped over it, and, suspendinghimself above the crowd, afforded what was an object of wonder to the great body of the spectators and of indignation to the high•sheritf. The attire of the individual who was thus perched in this dangerous position was sufficiently strange. He had a coat of Irish tabinet, with glossy trousers of the same national material. He wore no waistcoat: a blue shirt, lined with streaks of white, was open at the neck, in which the strength of Hercules and the symmetry of Alcinous were combined; a broad green sash, with the medal of the " Order of Liberators " at the end of it, hung conspicuously over his breast ; and a prolusion of black curls, curiously festooned about his temples, shadowed a very handsome and expressive countenance, a great part of which was occupied by whiskers of a bushy amplitude. "Who, sir, are you ?" exclaimed the high-sheriff, in a tone of impe rious melancholy. "My name is O'Gorman Mahon," was the reply, delivered with a firmness which clearly showed that the person who had conveyed this piece of intelligence thought very little of a high-sheriff and a great deal of O'Gorman Mahon. The sheriff had been offended by the teneral appearance of Mr. Mahon, who had distracted the public attention from his own contemplation, but he was particularly irritated by observing the insurgent symbol of the " Order of Liberators " dangling at his breast. " I tell that gentleman," said the sheriff, "to take off that badge." There was a moment's pause, and then the fol lowing answer was slowly and articulately pronounced:— " This gentleman (laying his hand on his breast) tells that gentleman (pointing with the other to the sheriff) that if that gentleman presumes to touch this gentleman, this gentleman will defend himself against that gentleman, or any other gentleman, while he has got the atm of a gentle man to protect him." The " strength of Hercules and the sym " metry of Alcinous " are now pretty well known by their model—and we commend the comparison as an instance of Mr. Sheil's usual correctness. The most curious paper in these vainhes is that ott the Penendeeath Meeting, the report of Mr. Sheila speech at which in some newspapers, with the " cheers," " loud cheers," " laughter," and " here the " learned gentleman was vociferously ap " plauded," excited so much ridicule at the time. Carefully preserving the anonymous, Mr. Shell wrote in this article : There were many who surmised that his motire for presenting himself at this early stage of the proceedings was, that he had sent his speech to London to be printed ; and he was heard to say, that he did not care whether the Brunswickers listened to him or not, provided his argu ments were read. • Again : Of what Mr. Sheil actually said it is impossible to give any account, and the miraculous power by which the San newspaper of that night contrived to publish his oration in three columns must be referred to some Hobanloe's interposition in favour of that journal. 1 heard but one sentence which I afterwards recognised in print as having been spoken With this exception, I do not think that the Irish demagogue uttered one word of what appeared in the shape of an elaborate essay in the news paPers. Mr. Shell's portrait of himself is too good to be lost : That gentleman sat in one of the waggons, apparently careless of the impression which he should produce; but his pale and bilious face, in which discontent and solici• tude, mingled with a spirit of sardonic virulence, are ex pressed, and his restless and unquiet eye, gave indications that he was annoyed at the opprobrious epithets which were showered upon him, and that he was anxious about the event as it should personally affect himself. There is oertainly in Mr. Sheil's face and person little to bespeak the favour of a public assembly; and if he produces oratorical effects, he must be indebted to a power of phrase and an art in delivery of which in the uproar in which lie spoke it was impossible in that meeting to form any estimate. The book, generally, gives little evidence of that ability, in the shape of " sardonic viru lence," which Mr. Sheil undoubtedly pos sessed. Some curiosity may be felt to know what a man of so much notoriety, and who turned that notoriety to such good account, would write under a mask. As a publishing speculation, therefore, the book may pay, but is regards Mr. Sheil's memory we can only endorse Byron's apothegm, "It is better to " gibbet a man's body on a heath than his soul " in an octavo." Les Contemporains. Par Eugene de Mirecourt. Paris : Roret. THOSE who are well versed in modern French literature may doubtless remember some very clever biographies entitled " Les Contempo rains Illustres. Par un Homme de Rien." Being excellently written, those biographies gained some share of reputation for their author, and they have moreover procured him the doubtful compliment of being closely imitated by M. Eugene de Mirecourt. Closely, we say, for a close imitation is that which shares the faults and the mannerisms of the original, without any of the cleverness. Nor does M. de Mirecourt seem in the least par ticular as to the truth of his biographies. They are merely gossip and tattle embodied, the most outrageous anecdotes being given as perfectly genuine. The consequence is. that Emile de Girardin and Mme. Dudevant have both remonstrated against the biographer's wilful perversion of truth. Strange that so small a scribbler should have power to make George Sand descend from her pedestal to contradict his loose assertions ! The style of these biographies is even worse than their unscrupulousness and their as sumption They are written most affectedly, in that elliptical manner which is always straining after wit, and which fancies there is some con nection between the words epigrammatical and ungrammatical. It would be useless to give the author's opinions at any length. Alfred de Musset and Emile de Girardin fall under his lash, the one for drinking eau de vie, the other for immorality, literary and political. Victor Hugo is praised to the skies, and it is recorded that he has spoken to the biographer. Jules Janin and Rachel are castigated for pri vate faults ; Dumas, as an historian, is con sidered superior to Thiers ; and, while the romances of George Sand are denounced as stimulants to vice, a high moral purpose is discovered in Paul de Kock ! But, if the authoi-has failed in critical discernment, he has been able to collect from one source or another a marvellous number of anecdotes which gthott rival those of tho Bourgeois de Paris, 166 Dr. Viron. Had M. de Mireoourt but stuck to the anecdotes, leaving out all disquisitions ou morality and absinthium, his volumes would have been more readable than they are. Then he would have been simply a frog ; now he is the frog imitating the ox—and we all know what was that animal's finale. Here is au anec dote, thoroughly French, of M. and Mme. de Girardin During the worst days of It4B Mine. tie Girardin said to several people who were visiting her, " Everything goes worse and worse. There is only one above who can save us." The visitors bowed, thinking she spoke of Pro vidence. But she was alluding to her husband, who was at work in a room overhead. According to M. de Mirecourt, sonic of the French writers have very eccentric habits. Scribe rises at five every morning, and works till noon without any interval. Balzac re tired to rest every evening at six, rose at midnight, and wrote till nine in the morning, and after breakfasting then resumed his pen till three, when a walk of two hours, and din ner at five, brought him again to his bedtime. Alfred de Musset, when asked for " copy " for the Revue des Deux Afolvies, would say, " Send " me fifty francs and a bottle of brandy, or " you will have none." The next morning the proverbe required would be finished, and the braudy-bottle also. Alexandre Dumas sits in his shirt-sleeves from morning till night, writing in a remarkably fluent manner, with out blot or erasure. As an improvisateur, Mery is only second to Dumas. It is stated that he wrote a play in four days that had a run of one hundred nights. At one of Mme. do Girardin's evening parties he proved, categorically, and without leaving space for reply, that Lamartine had caused the Revolution of February for a pair of boots. In describing George Sand's country resi dence, M. de Mirecourt gives the following anecdote of the great novelist's humour : An individual named Cador arrived at Nohaut to visit Mme. George Sand, and ordered the MO to prepare him a wonderful dish of cabbage. He loved this indigestible vegetable to distraction. Surprised at seeing cabbages continually on the table, Mme. Sand asked the reason, and laughed heartily on hearing that M. Cadur gave these orders in the kitchen. When this strange guest was about to take leave of her, after an interminable week and a pro digious consumption of cabbages, lie said to her, " I ven ture to hope, madam, that you will be kind enough to give me something that may recal to me your memory and the gracious reception with which you have favoured me." They were at that time walking in the garden. " Without doubt, Monsieur Cador," she answered, and turning to the gardener, who was some distance off, she added, "John, a cabbage for M. Cadur " With this we close our notice of "Les Con temporains." We observe that M. de Mire court prohibits the translation of his work in England. We can assure him that the prohi bition is perfectly unnecessary. Institutes of Metaphysic ; the Theory of Knowing and Being. By J. B. Ferrier, A. 8., Oxon. London : Blackw•oods. " THERE are no writers who give us so much " must with so little why as the metaphysicians," says the author of a well-known treatise on logic, and, as if to falsity this generally well merited criticism, Professor Ferrier presents the philosophical world in these " Institutes " with the preliminary propositions of a. system of metaphysics which, whatever may be its intrinsic merits, possesses, without doubt, the great and rare advantage of a perfectly logical arrangement. The " Ethica ordiue geometrico demonstrata" of Spinoza, in which the pre cision of the Greek geometers is closely imitated, appears to have been taken as a model; in both works, however, there is an appearance of logical cogency in the argu ment which vanishes, or at least diminishes considerably, on a close inspection. The " In stitutes " is divided into three sections, in cluding respectively the theories of knowing, ignorance, and being ; to every proposition (each being followed by an appropriate demon stration, except the first, which is presented as " claiming all the stringency of a geom.e -" trical axiom") are appended explana tor y cussions and criticisms of the counter-propo• sition which the supposed false reasoning of philosophers, or the " inadvertency of ordinary " thinking" (as Mr. Ferrier, with a somewhat pedantic felicity, has termed the uncorr ected conclusions of common sense) , have hitherto • I •• • • • I