The Press.
London, England, 1853-09-17 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

tracted their proposition relative to normal
schools, and they contented themselves with
somewhat enlarging the powers, and increasing
the resources, of the Committee of Council.
Warned by this failure, subsequent adminis
trations have dealt with the question in a more
cautious spirit, if not with objects essentially
different- do attempt has been made to di-
minish materially the amount of clerical super-
vision over Church of England schools; and
the idea of a combined secular instruction, if
it ever found favour in Downing street, has
been distinctly repudiated. The system recog-
nised in Lord John Russell's bill is one neces-
sarily dependent upon the co-operation of
religious ministers of various creeds. These
are made auxiliaries of the civil authority in
its distribution of funds for educational pur-
poses, and a fair balance of power is maintained
between the clergyman on the one hand, and
the Committee of Council, representing the
lay element, on the other. But all such
balances of power are difficult to uphold. Like
the mutual cheeks and counter cheeks of a
constitutional government, they require care,
and a temperate spirit, on both sides, to pre-
vent them from causing a deadlock ; and, even
as it is, a largo section of Protestant Dissenters,
averse to latitudinarianism, and jealous of
state control, stand aloof from, and reject, the
assistance which is proffered impartially to all
sects. These,—the advocates of the so-called
voluntary system,—proceed on the assumption
that education and religion are not only in-
separable, but synonymous. They regard
assistance given to a Roman Catholic school
in the light of an endowment of the Boman
Catholic religion, us tending to produce uni-
versal indifference to religious truth, and thus
to bring all creeds, by an ostentatious pant&
of impartiality, into equal contempt. Resting
mainly on this ground of objection, they sup-
port it also by appeals to the success of the
pure voluntary principle—by strenuous dis-
claimers of the alleged deficiency of education
among the people—and by the often-repeated
argument that State support, in whatever pro
portion administered, tends to supplant the
more efficient exertions of individual henevo-
knee. The ability with which views like these
have been maintained must not blind us to
their lidlacy. Lord John Russell summed up
his reply to them with great force in words
which it is only just to quote:—
I never can admit that any principle Tor any scruple
shal' prevent the State fIY 01 assisting in the religious and
moral training of the people, when it is obviourly the great
duty of the State to preserve peace rein to enforce the 4 lb-
, ewmuteu of the rules of ntorality.

The voluntru•ists, moreover, however active
and well informed, are a minority, and a small
one, even among the dissenting!, community.
For Roman Catholics, Wesleyans, and a por-
tion of the Independent body, refuse to ,join
them ; and in this refusal they are of course
backed by the whole power and weight of the
Establishment. Yet their protests have not
been without use, as tending to keep alive a
just jealousy of that continental centralisation
by which the State virtually assumes the di
rection of all teaching, and drills its subjects
into a mechanical uniformity of thought.
Sonic remarks on the party favourable to
secular education only, and on the present
state of the question, we reserve for another
article.

Mole and Ilionrir Partraito. By James
Bruce. London: Hurst and Blackett.

VOLTAIRE was ready to excuse nearly every
fault in style, provided the author set the
reader thinking. As we perused Mr. Bruce's
volu►ues we were often reminded of the bril-
liant Frenchman's saying. These " portraits"
are classic and historic" in their subjects,
but not in their style. Scarcely one of them
can be accepted as a flnishe►l sketch of the
original : some of them are daubs, and several
are bald and colourless caricatures. Yet the
work is readable, and has the great merit of
freshness, arising from the strong marks of
the author's own mind being visible in nearly
every chapter. Of Mr. Bruce we know nothing
beyond what we glean from his book. He is
a Scotchman, excessively dogmatic, reasonably
skilled in the tongues, affecting seholarship,
gud disclaiming style. Within the compass

SATURDAY,

of two octavo volumes he has brought together
a variety of anecdotes illustrating the cha-
racters of about sixty celebrated persons, from
Helen of Troy down to Catharine of Russia.
The selection of his subjects is arbitrary, and
apparently depending on the state of the
author's commonplace book. Thus, in the
second volume, we are introduced in succes-
sion to " Queen Elizabeth," " Mary Queen of
Scots,* "Cervantes," " Sir Kenelm Digby,"
" John Sobieski," " Anne of Austria." Such a
mode of arrangement is disagreeable. The
author perhaps intended a work similar to the
" Curiosities of Literature ;" but between
" Mr. James Bruce" and the late Mr. Dis-
raeli there is a wide interval. Never-
theless, Dominic Bruce, from the very
whimsicality of his mixture of odd learning
and " prodigious" dogmatism, is generally an
amusing, and not rarely an instructive, com-
panion.
The first volume is filled with subjects from
antiquity ; and, as the character of Julius
Ca.sar appears to be a favourite one with the
author, we will quote a portion of it as a speci-
men of his manner:—

We have, fortunately, a complete-enough portrait of
Julius t 'astir, and we know a good that, though not nearly
so much as it would be desirable that we knew, of his
habits and mode of life. He was a tall, slender, well-made
man, with a long pale fare; his brow was high but not
broad ; lie had dark sparkling eyes, and his mouth wait
rather large. A slight putting of the under lip," says
Nlerivale, " which may be traced in some of his best busts,
must undoubtedly have detracted front the admirable COB-
tour of his coimtenance." Yet he was still reckoned hand-
some, and in his momenta of vanity he delighted to trace
his descent through his ancestor, lulus, to the love of the
goddess of beauty for the mortal Anchises; while the
name of his ancestress, Venus, was actually stamped on
some of his coins.

*Nichelet, in his history of Rome, has a fine picture of
" I should like," he says, " to have seen this white
and pale figure, faded before its tine by the debauches of
1:01m, this deli►ate epileptic man, marching under the
rains of haul, at the bed of his legions, swimming over
rivers, or riding 011 I►o►xebuck between the litters in which
his secretaries were carried." Suetoni►►s, in a shwa chap-
ter (the tifty-seventh ), has furnished the idea so beauti-
fully brought out here.
--- • •

n manhood, and in his latter years, the once "
boy" paid attention to the neatness of his attire. He
shaved carefully—there is no bust or coin of Caesar With a
beard—he was fond of gems and jewels, and loved a be-
coming magnificence in his houses.
_

()usu. though his health was generally good, was subject
to starting in his sleep, to fainting, and to the falling sick-
ness, having twice been seized with epilepsy in public.
This latter malady is generally found in connection with
feebleness of mind, or rather tends to induce mental
weakness. Merivale, in noticing the case of Casar, men-
tions that Napoleon had attacks of epilepsy. Ca.sar's in-
tellect certainly is amongst the very highest that ever shone
upon the world. The story that Mahomet, a men of the
most vigorous mind, was subject to falling sickness. is un-
known to genuine history, being a fable invented by his
Christian opponents.

Caesar's baldness, with the notion whicl► the ancients
attached to the falling of the hair from the head, sub-
jected hint to much ridicule. His soldiers, when they ac-
companied him in his Uralic triumph, with a licence ac-
conied to them on such occasions, did not fail to jeer
him on this score. He tried as tar as he could to conceal
this deftwt by bringing forward his hair ; and, as I have
elsewhere noticed, of all the honours conferred upon him
by the senate, that which most delighted his heart was the
right of continually wearing the laurel wreath round Ins
brows.

The author scarcely portrays the features of
his subjects ; he rather pieces together bits of
matter about them, which he takes from a
variety of writers. Mrs. Jameson is fre-
quently called upon to eke out his curt
description ; and her deep-toned style ex-
poses, by contrasts, the defects of Mr.
Bruce's composition. At one place he fills up
two pages and a half with a long extract from
one of Lady 13u1wcr Lytton 's novels !

In his remarks on Queen Elizabeth, Mr.
Bruce tells us - she viewed with execration
" the attempts made to convey her features to
" the canvas," and it is difficult to say what
she would have done if she caught an artist,
either with pen or pencil, presenting so miner-
able a travestie of her as we find in these
" historic portraits." Hume's magnificently-
executed picture of that extraordinary woman
will, while English literature lasts, transmit
the true character of her genius. On the
moot points in the story of "Mary Queen of
Scots ' the author makes no remarks, but he
takes us " proven " that she murderod her

SzprEmttn 17, 1853.

husband. The following passage is very chti
ntt•tetistie of OUT Scotch anecdotist :
Mary had learned tin•:sing, or the art of being dressed,
at the Cottrt of Catharine de Medici, and was herself a
woman of the greatest good taste. All the continental
fashions of dressing were well enough known amongst the
ladies of Scotland long before Brannan.• omie amongst
them; but It mar• readily he conceded that the women of
the itritlith Islands of the highest no& will never, to the
end of time, be aide to put their giumumts about them with
the elegance, grace, and ease which are cot 111 l ion anon
wt
all women iu Franco, Spain. mid Itnh•. V. jib Itrantome,
all that was Vretteh was "beyond improvement.
I do not know if the inherent meanness and poverty of
the French language. its harsh consonantal and perhaps
still mom disagreeable diphthongaounds, have ever been ae-
knowledged—perhaps they have never been perceived by
at Frenchman, for the French an• a thoroughly patriotic
people. As to the question ot• language, however, and of
c.imparative euphony, there need 1w no hesitation in de.
ela•ing the Scottish language of the sixteenth .rntnrl• to
have been a very superior language to the French Court
lit igitage of any century.
- - •

_
Our lair readers can afford to smile at this
prolohecy :—their eternal' inability "to put
" their garments about them." in Dominic
Sampson setting up for Beau Hi-unmet' has
something exquisitely droll. it is a good joke
to have the painter of "elassie " portraits as-
sure us that the Court language of the Hotel
de Ihunhouillet, of Madame do &WI gni'. and
of Staid was very inferior to the Seoteh
of the sixteenth century.
Let us bear Beaullrnee discourse classically
on the subject of

Npai AND LAW I,OIIEIIIIAW4 IN WOIITA

The. forehead--that large and ungracefully-shapeol fore.
head—it need hardly he said would have repelled Yetecis
or timid° ; it is k Itirhead that might be very becomitr..! in
a stupid professor of mathematics. No painter. lett to him-
self to dm ise n female face. would dare to bestow such a
forehead as this upon it.
The admiration of spelt foreheads in wonu'll is a depra•
vity of modern times, and is yet and ever will be confined
to a few seetarians in taste. The aftelents--erritm perhaps
on ill, other -ode. but the safe and gentle side—Rightsl for
narrow and low ti oreheads. I cannot recollect ill any an.
clew writer a pmsN.te in (muse of a large forehead iu a
woman. Home calls Lycoris " illustrious" for her slender
twehead _ . _

" Innignent fermi
.fritute 11.yettridts
1'36 torivt tuilor."

Wiakelman, who has noticed this passage in his work
on " Ancient All," tells us that the iirvi.k it linen, ahear•
the real beauty was wanting, gave ane apla'm•anee of liive-
liness to their foreheads by fastening a band below their
hair: and that the beautiful women of Ci►eassia pnalnee
the same effect by all ingenious manner of combing down
their locks. Petrimins, in his exquisite picture ailme—
nt which he has assembled so many points of high lwaa►ty
—the naturally curled hair flowing down on her sl bleu,
and the eyebrows almost joined, does not forget to describe
the forehead ss " very
The author does not translate eo•reeth•
" insignem " in the quotation fr►mt Horner.
The sense in which that word is there evi-
►lently used is "conspicuous.•' The French
diSthly/114' ill its conventional meaning is
the nearest equivalent for it as applied to
1 .yet

Our tan. readers will find in these medley
volumes lunch light matter (in lofty subjects ;
ittul, allowing for tins fattltslhat eriticista must
notice. we may say that Mr:Bruce has made ti
favourable impression on its, and given us ss
desire to meet hint again in authorship.

(7►arriot Delmer. A Story if the nay. `.! vols.
Tnis hook reminds one of•the story of Cohan
bus amt the egg. The author, fi►llmving au
►niginal (lemign, mistakes coarse imitation for
successful rivalry. Ife may rely on it that the
models he has in his eye are at rut immea•
'-arable distance above his gra»l►.

The I►oliticnl novel requires a nire eombina-
I ion of qualities for success and while nothing
is easier than to string together n number of
lauliticaal essays, with some rude outlines of
lanblie eharacters, and some stale ineidents of
past crisis, and give the name of
a novel to the jumble—nothing is more diffi-
cult than to rela•oduee an el►och ao fresh 'in
memory 115 to I►e hardly yet past, and to depict
it with all the animation of life and force of
reality, eunneeting it with exciting passages of
domestic life, and making it a medium fin•
throwing forth original views on politics and
soeiety. and of casting a radiance on recent
transactions which surprises even those en-
gaged in them by revealing secrets of thought
a►nd motives to salon which were unknown to
themselves until light from without broke in
upon the darkness of their mind.

THE PRESS.

The author ot".l'intries Delmer" is not a
novelist in any sense. His " story'. is no
story at all : it is without beginning and with.
out end. It is wholly destitute of incident
or movement. and void of even that. faint
interest whieh would lead a novel-reader
to take up the second volume on laying down
the first. Its diameters are abstntetions so
stiffly manufactured as not to have an out
ward seniblattee of humanity ; its action
is a more theme: its dialogue is such
matter as veteran politicians might talk
If they were as sharp ns the author, and,
like bun, could ponder an hour before pro-
timing a sentenee; and its descriptions of
what I'm meant for the leading features
of out-of-door life in ottr day—as Radical meet-
ings, elute •ering canvass, Epsom-race
Downs, and the Operft—are so commonplace
that. there is seareely a penny-a-liner of the
streets who won'd be eontent to own them.
even for the sake of claiming his fee. lay no
ineky accident do we ever mute upon a pas
sake indicative of imagination, humour. •
pathos, or even, to speak plainly, of that coin
mon faculty of observation possessed by 'amity-
nine hundmdths of mankind. For such a
person to attempt the produetion of " a story
"of the clay "is manifestly absurd. From first
to last the great. everlasting "condition-ol'
" England " question is uppermost in his
thoughts, and in the discussion of it he per-
plexes himself as as his refuters. lie
leaves it. for a few minutes but to eonsider
the comtition-of-Franee, or condition-of-Earope,
or eondition-ofThe-world question. The only
holy of the book is always talking of " poor
" human nature:. and the gentlemen as regn-
gularty indulge in crib-ism and persOlmje.
Had be but passed the threshold of the ',oilfi-
eld lite he pretends to depiet, he would have
known that men engaged In active affairs have
little time for that reflection which he supposes
to make up their whole existence.
When his figures meet on the Epsom Mee-
-4.olll'Se, they are supposed to enter into a
subtle disquisition on the state of parties—
the sentiments they utter bearing about as
timeh likeness to those of the personages in-
tended, as the diseordant tones of the speaking
automaton, exhibited lay an ingenious t iermati
some years ago in Piecadilly. resembled the
tones of the human voice. !set our readers
judge how much this conversation, supposed
to pass between poor Miler and lleord
John ltussell—when the littler formed his
Ministry on the downfal of Peel—is like
reality :

Charles, with his sliscontent. iwnetretiel to the Premier.
who was too notch absorbed in high red weighty consider
atlons to lw yes.% attentive to little things, or eonsideride
to little men. fie had heen aft tut-fur...l and treriose ha
pretensions. that his impulse W 1,14 10 beat them down rattli•
Isssiy. Charles revered the et ste.simin far more than he
loved the man ; and lic, in morn, %allied the defence, bed
retired the inteiii.reties• .it the wit.

"I v. isle nhu•orely, 1 ielinvis" said the Try tnirr, "
Imat Was btrgyr ; but it is filled, you see, almost b(1,0. (my

Ir iiwpore,

" I WWI' no ambition to thrnat noriellaniongat the cam-
pany.'• said Delmer, " unless you think ino worthy to pull
nu oar."
" You do not suppose that the framer of it ministry has
merely flue delightful task of choosing the fittest
capnvit to fill each place. Mr. lioliner? The eotmNtii
tional machine is worked in iutiuener•—we town} wHnnnce•
power, your inigini.or %mail say wu• ttttt st ernabine

the
" I cannot but think, my lonl," futhl (liarl•y, firmly,
"that the ntomt salutary end effertiye inflotenee is that
e‘ereittetl by a post ably filled, an nihninifunttien Nkilfally

e•tnelticted."
" Very tritc, sir, though ',harp. Hut I have not the • ode
None& that Sir ittilicit Peel bus, for example, who can
composes ministry of sll his talents, and gel his great
barker, to 0441 contentedly on sinecures."
" It is, no doubt. his grent aelvata tatty'." 11164 ('hates. dt Yl.v.
'' Whits are Wings, Mr. Delmer. and cannirt hv
changed tool W liiggisni is homed on 111,111.1 We,
Nherraa PI .114011. /41.1.11iling to the nriooviacy one day. the
middle elas!W% the next., the 111'11111e illeinther is 14
pin
y. us the }French soy, rnir. It ix it host for one
voyage, which one voysio• reelitent has *lowly performed :
nod the Im•st that the captain can do %mail be to pen off
his crew. Wheretut the. Whipo have a permanent
nient, mooted in the soil. in the tail fantiliv., the old traeli•
thins. and in a posit to noutimilate rind viols, low of all
the standing infltiences of the country. Wit thew is a
difficulty in managing and combining all this ‘trenctit
eind alhownners Skold(' made for any mue who under
takes the task—allowances to which the head of a transit ion
party, like Sir Robert PIA'S, 11.11 Illy
• • • •

Charles prot(stod.
" Wky •ot rli) out the Radical game ?" continued the

473

*mot matt. lim.lening itt hi* irony.vie gm men who
make a good thing of it, who 4.11111 a mighty iitntlition ttj
titutnK the 1.4.11`11111 Whigs. alnd denounteing *h Family
aunt. %%11‘.11 the) et4lle lAt avntlindl
41. Tils•% tIIII4Ii %kith
all the .mile. of friewil‘lop. Thee lit Ill• yen PIM gently
nrin eote•iileration. These gent An' 1,9 •-4 let oiling
fin-th the htionl at our moment to threaten and the twit t•
Mx my life. we are mien of hi I. e„wirto•
mt.r with them."

Whether vi•ur spools liv,wri.is ironical:- said t 'harlot,
rising out hamiliti. " I must say I find your
more gay than eouttiaerate, and more witty that, polite.
1 INVI. 1 ever given n'a.on to 1w s. mblressell'"
"NnY. 1 hshilor *. no auger. Pardon me if I have allowed
myself to draw a general Isirteait that has neither resem-
blance nor eonnertien with yen. lint such litotes as those
or hvit week try temper, and diabolize a titan. Nii gam
11.141 VOrt to 11444.111 r a Meplieoitheles. tie•it week
premietNlitp would do it falter than t teethe and Itynin
together. WO, in sober truth. there it no pn..t
vneant ..fyonr talent,. %Vottlil on try. ailnimistra.
Mitt abroad*" I ennnot givt. our the Irish to try
powers of conciliation npon. hat there are the lonians ;
reputation might he made by teaching them the statute of
vottatittutional got velment."
" Von adjurer my ambition, 1 see, to the tlrook !Wends.
If 1 hio-e any Went, it is to deal with Englishmen. Ito•
rand our shores, l.hierty and reform run only he taught and
achieve d with the bayonet. I must decline maktug tiso
of such a selionlmaster."
" Patient's', then, and etnitillenee, is all that I can re•
commend."

The author himself could not desire flu to
select a fairer sample of his powers. The
reader has only to imagine all the elltlillensl'A
tit all timer" athseting a tone of Nlll/11111C,s. Anil
talking of "Whigs. Family Compacts. Nlephis-
toplielen, liuethr, Byron. and the tireek
kalends," with occasional variations on "Cob-
den, Roebuck, and Itaines--11liehelet and
Lamennais—Peel and this Pope—the Ulynnen
of the Tuileries " (liow original !), and other
catchwords equally he will hare an
adtultiale notion of the whole I „
Yet the book ham a kind of talent, though
essentially distinct from that which is claimed
for it, the talent of the ensayint. who, eolifineil
to him denk, dwells on political illeapi,—Na
affected by the movements of party.-40 the
exellision all lievonil them. The narrowness
of mind which such a habit of thought induees
—especially when there in no capacity for
origins% ,it estiglit. --Teets" out emitimially
in the stock notions and eourentional phrase,"
of the author. Thus, he talks of "11111 "'will-
ocrity of Castlereagh—the massacre of Peter
100--the cant of loyalty omit relit;' --of 'fury
stupidity—University jargon," ire in what
we take to be real unconsciousness that noel"
olil-tiolioned Nita in now discredited by the
1111'11 WllO clime attempted t4llllllke it aruihlhlu
for damaging their opponents.
etddlyc gh it in to " Tory %timidity that ho
i, indebted fOr one of his best passagen. The
Olen of thin paragraph on cotton Nitwit be
new to our readers, but they may not be sorry
to nee it adopted by a Radical sorilie
,

'' Misery,- says lla•nry Heine, "thy name iM cotton '''
lle meant it murely when it had reached that perteet state
.1 (jay and flowery elothitm which antigen. the riot 111111
1,111114 1114.11' 11111K1114, which vivea them fur the tint 1111 y .et'
wear the relietedalmwe Ida gaitt butterfly, but whirl, is
arnreely it rids• ere it In•rotovs a inv. final even as a rotor
ittliirils Pllll a TllM.k 1441111;g intaireol iiirlemeney 111 either
boat or 4•01/1. Tido. it from its birth. mail sorely risso•rotecal
was so etopionioly watered with human testa. The slave
has sown it, the slays has hoot! it, Om Imolai, troop, ler
Ilto• a hip of it tinter, have picked it. It is 01414 51iii.1.4•41
sin•vtilitior 4.11 the Mcrowy, ,new oar Nouilta•c. wen. eon
yetis with the broker anal with the gramer to Inoinapoliye,
and mnnlole, alienwith vile are made anal honest
1111.14 slang, tooth diatillinv tears of lOttrrolool. It then
1411111.11 the mill, of which the hartiolriyen urine, has coil-
rlllat.•4l that tostwctli tlo.- in' • eaaa.t of the material, 111111
the probable price of Ilia• paTt'a-etral throe Is a from,
lion of a flirthiniz per 'animal to Is• ..14•11)4•11,44
• co no ittereamo• air to ilotottoisit this frnero,,o, off 14 four.
thing are lilted. 0111V4. Nllll 1.111.• 111 111,116. !OHM!. I. 1N•
goterrous, therefore. 44, 111n14 to gfreit.l bum down is
!wok, and who ham *doubt in -.win an 14114•11,11111,0 11.11
Itrewite 14 !thistle of carnet., ,lane 011111 111.. 1411. 111/./11101
l'fkllbmhlfenl•l', the impossibility ri Any taw ten no alla••
of hoentilhog alther nt /4111111t11111. than tin ti0n.1itt...44
• itre their follam•loilsoilo•rs . awl alert astro the
result "*---iyeltholi disaipaltone ii they nro- rodent allot Isrip•t•
tiny] of the aliirsipatool of thaay i 41.•
11•W1 Lsll etamples all 111.1111111. 441111 antet mid 'warms...,
with elaildhassi forced to preeoelty. and pausal !might Ilia•
viers, even in aeoptirliig the strailineits, off more iithuneeal
plea, how is it to lie eicpeeferl•to produce morality. or that
fialitiabition of all morality anal well•beinif, flue rentilarniral
nod tool lions eon l lIOUit ai of 5E11411
There is point too- well polished before it
came into the author's bawls- -in the reflec-
tions on the peace humbug (vol. ii., 2111, 2921
mill we mead wish Mat pregnant passage ant
tilt: danger of that system whieh makes money