The Press. — London, England, 1855-04-14 00:00:00

APRIL 14, 1855. " superb disdain," and at another of " regal composure." She has "a complete and superb " character." In all this description there is no little trickery, but we notice it only to mark the inconsistency of the part which Margaret has subsequently to play—in telling a direct lie to a policeman to shield her bro ther, and with all her refined tastes being left at last mistress of the mansion above described. What becomes of Volumnia and Miss Fanny the history sayeth not. For the sake of surprise at the end—the least com mendable source of interest in fiction—pro bability is sacrificed, and essential truth of character, which a novelist should hold sacred, entirely disregarded. The exaggeration of character observable in the book is often violent, but this might be pardoned; what cannot be overlooked is the false position in which, as the story is developed, the per sonages are placed. Many descriptive passages, and particularly those relating to the strike, are penned with great power. The attack on Thornton's mill reminds us of a similar passage in " Shirley," but in modern fiction we recollect no more thrilling effect than that produced when Mar garet throws herself between Thornton and the infuriated multitude, clamoring for his blood. The part of the story, too, relating to the operative Higgins, is written with unques tionable power, though the impression it excites is too horrible for calm perusal. His young daughter wastes away in his wretched hovel from consumption. She says : I began to work in a carding•room, and the fluff got into my lungs and poisoned me. The father is an Atheist and a drunkard, but the poor girl has some Bible notions. She tells Margaret:— I believe, perhaps, more than yo' do o' what's to come. I read the book of Revelations until I know it by heart, and I never doubt, when I'm waking and in my senses, of all tl.e glory I'm to come to. When she dies, Mary, the remaining daugh ter of Higgins, with Margaret Hale, try to restrain the father's violence. The death-bed scene is shocking enough:— " Oh, father, father !" said Mary, throwing herself upon his arm,—" not to•night ! Any night but tonight. Oh, help me! he's going out to drink again! Father, I'll not leave yo'. Yo' may strike, but I'll not leave yo'. She told me last of all to keep yo' fro' drink I" But Margaret stood in the doorway, silent, yet com• nnanding. He looked up at her defyingly. " It's my own house. Stand out o' the way, wench, or TII make yo' !" He had shaken off Mary with violence • 'he looked ready to strike Margaret. But she never move d a feature—never took her deep, serious eyes off him. He stared back on her with gloomy fierceness. If she had stirred hand or foot, he would have thrust her aside with even more violence than he had used to his own daughter, whose face was bleeding from her fall against a chair. The reader may with advantage turn from this horrible passage to the chapter in Scott's " Antiquary" where Mucklebackit mourns over the dead body of his son, and he will at once recognise the difference between coarse, 'clumny imitation of reality and the affecting truthful touches of a great artist. Another operative, John Boucher, who has lean persuaded to join the Uuion against his will, reveals the men's intentions to the masters, but afterwards is refused work. Higgins tells how he was served by a master of Mr. Thornton's stamp : But I'll say this for Hamper, and thank him for it at my dying day, he drove Boucher away, and would na listen to him—ne'er a word—though folk standing by, says the traitor cried like a babby I " It is you," exclaims Margaret, " who have " made him what he is." Higgins asks— " What is he?" There is a heavy tramp in the road, and all are drawn to the house door : Six men walked in the middle of the road, three of them being policemen. They carried a door, taken off its hinges, upon their shoulders, on which lay some dead human creature ; and from each side of the door there were con stant droppings. All the street turned out to see, and, see• ing, to accompany the procession, each one questioning the bearers, who answered almost reluctantly at last, so often had they told the tale They put the door down carefully upon the stones, and all might see the poor drowned wretch—his glassy eyes, one half open, staring right upwards to the sky. Owing to the position in which he had been found lying, his face was swollen and dis coloured; besides his skin was stained by the water in the brook, which had been used for dying purposes. The fore part of his head was bald ; but the hair grew thin and long be hind, and every separate lock was a conduit for water. THE PRESS. Through all these disfigurements, Margaret recognised John Boucher. These passages are enough to exhibit the pictures drawn of manufacturing life in these pages. The writer appears to think that such things are inevitable, and that the fierce strife between operatives and masters is the natural working of society. It is true that towards the close of the story Mr. Tharnton is repre sented as a little humanised, but every one will see that these softening effects are ob tained only at the expense of consistency. The general management of the story is un skilful and gloomy. In the second volume one death-bed follows close upon another, and, in the style of the vulgarest school of fiction, virtue is at last rewarded in the person of Margaret with a splendid legacy. It is, per haps, more natural than romantic that she should, after taking a quiet farewell of the kind old face of her benefactor, return to her relatives in time for dinner, thank God for having spared her dear friend a long illness (always detestable cant), and acknowledge that joy and gladness might yet gather round her. The book is remarkable for strong por traiture and dramatic effects, but it is less natural, and by so much less pleasing, than some previous fictions of the author Learning and Labour. By Frederick D. Maurice, M.A. Cambridge : Macmillan. [ Second Notice.] THE lectures of Mr. Maurice—though we cheerfully award them the praise of great literary merit—are chiefly noticeable for their relation to that scheme of education for work ing men which they were designed to promote. He does not, however, inform us how many of the 140 students of the Working Men's Col lege in Red Lion-square are really working men ; how many have families ; and how far they can, on the whole, be said to represent that adult labouring population which he argues is in a condition to profit by such col• leges. It is true that we ought not to judge such institutions by their direct effects. Others may benefit by them than the immediate re cipients of their instruction. In society, " a " little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." There is gravitation in character. Raise the mind of one workman in a manufactory and you do something to raise the mind of all. But even allowing for this indirect influence, we fear that very little effect can be produced on the labouring mind by working men's colleges, or any similar institutions. We are at direct issue with Mr. Maurice on the one main point of his theory. We do not believe that labour ing men will or can pursue intellectual im provement for the sake of improvement—that they will engage in mathematics to open their mind—go through the Latin grammar that they may at some distant time—how distant ! have the pleasure of poring over Virgil and Horace—or that they will learn the names of bones and muscles (a most laborious business), that they may gain some knowledge of anatomy. ißut working men, it may be urged, will pursue such studies as have reference to their trade, and may operate to improve their physical condition. The number of persons who can be animated by such motives must be very li mited. When men's habits in any kind of handicraft are fixed they are fixed for life. Now and then a carpenter, or mason, or brick layer, may really profit by instruction in drawing or in mechanics, but the cases must be rare. The real college of the working man is, and must be, the workshop in which he has served his apprenticeship. Mr. Maurice prac tically overlooks the fact, that owing to the extent to which the division of labour is carried amongst us, and to the perfection which every branch of industry, mental and mechanical, has attained, a special education has already been provided for every art and trade. In one respect Mr. Maurice is unjust to me chanics' institutes. He supposes that they do not provide courses of study. In most, or all, of those in large towns there are classes of instruction open, and some of them excellently conducted. If mechanics' institutes have in any degree failed, it certainly is not, as Mr. Maurice 859 supposes, from the want of offering their members the means of real and solid improve ment. We doubt if it will be possible for him with his college, and his terms, and his matri culated students, and his fellows, to do inure than has been done, and is still to some extent doing, by the plain mechanics' institutes. If the progress of mechanical discovery is in one respect favorable to working men, and does afford superior ability a greater chance of distinguishing itself, it is in other respects ad verse, we will not say to intellectual culture, but to that kind of " learning" upon which Mr. Maurice lays so much stress. In each depart ment of industry the energies of the labourers are fully tasked. All may be the better for this regularity and full measure of toil—each worker in his place may help to roll onward the great and complicated machine of civilisa tion, but obviously there is less opportunity for each to aim at some higher post than that which he happens to till. In contradiction to the doctrine laid down by Mr. Maurice, we venture to say that the scholar and the worker were never separated by a greater interval than now, and that the grooves in which classes move were never channelled deeper. If there be any truth in these views, it would seem that, as regards the elevation of the bulk of our labouring people, not much is to be hoped from the regular courses of study advocated by Mr. Maurice. We are rather in clined to believe, that if ever the mass of our toiling people are to feel the elevating in fluences of intellectual culture, it must be through offering them such relaxation from their toil as they will gladly embrace. A tired body and fresh mind cannot coexist together. Why does Mr. Maurice overlook so plain a truth? The workman after his day's labour needs repose for his franand refreshment for his mind. He is in no condition to enter on new studies ; but he may prcfitably listen to a lecture on some subject in which he feels interested, or engage in discourse, or exercise himself in some pursuit which has peculiar at traction for him. It is rightly stated in these lectures, that— Of all experiments in English education, beyond com parison the most successful has been that for diffusing a knowledge of music and a love of music among our people. The mechanic's institutes have attracted a few men here and there, and those generally nut mechanics ; the classes of Mr. Hullah have brought thousands together of both sexes in London and in every part of England. Every order down to the lowest has felt the impulse. I am credibly informed that, instead of merely hearing lectures about singing, numbers have actually learned to sing. Does not this tend to show the direction which our efforts for elevating the working class should take? There has been a foolish cry lately that our mechanics' institutes are degenerating because the members prefer music to algebra and hydrostatics. We are not at all sure that music is not the better kind of instruction for them ; this much is certain, that the music-hall is better than the gin-shop. To engage their minds at all we must consult their tastes, and we should like to see the experiment fairly tried of institu tions which from the attractions they held out would have the effect, at least, of getting the real working class to frequent them. In oppo sition to Mr. Maurice we think it likely that mechanics' institutions have failed, not through being too superficial, but through being too profound. Offer the working man, in institu tions expressly designed for him, something which shall really please him, something which shall afford him grateful relaxation after his day's work, and the probability is that he will gladly accept it. We think there is room for effort, not to change his state, but to render it more agreeable to him ; not to raise him above his calling, but to make him contented with it. On the influence of music there are in one of these lectures some exquisite passages, which we gladly quote, both as showing the use which may he made of music as an element in adult education, and as a specimen of Mr. Maurice's eloquence : - - To understand this question rightly you must put your self in the place, not exactly in the place of some utterly dull and incapable listener like myself, but of some simple clown, all whose work has been of the roughest kind, but who has had a father and mother, perhaps a wife and children, and who possesses the strange power, which it has never occurred to him to think about, of recoLleeting .