The Press.
London, England, 1858-10-23 00:00:00

THE PRESS, OCTOBER 1858.

Upon which proceedings Mr. Carlyle comments
in the following highly heterodox manner :
These things were heavy t 3 bear. Truly, yes: where is
the liberty of private capital, or liberty of almost any kiwi,
on those terms ? Liberty to annihilate rubbish and chaos
under known conditions you may have; hut not the least
liberty to keep them about you, thong!' never so fond of
doing it ! What shall we say ? Niirsier and the Soap-
b Ater do both live in houses more human than they once
had. Berlin itself and sonata other things did not spring
from Free Trade. Berlin City would, to this day, have
been a place of Scrubs ("the Berlin," a mere appellative
noun to that effect) had Free Trade always been
the rale there. I am sorry his Majesty trans-
greases the limits ; and we, any friends, if we can make
our Chaos into Cosmos by tiring Parliamentary eloquence
into it and bombarding it with Blue-books, we will much
triumph over his Majesty, one day
This is somewhat reckless writing. " Niissler
does live in a more human house than before,"
forsooth! But is it nothing that Niissler, who was
before a free man, is forced to involve himself in
debt for a royal whim? Is a man with. a house
always higher in the moral scale than a man
without one ?
We have accused Mr. Carlyle of not observing
proportion in his book, of giving Friedrich
Wilhelm more space than was due to hint in a
biography of his son. In the second volume it is
evident that not Friedrich but Friedrich Wilhelm
is the hero. At the same time it is true that this
father had much more influence on his son's
character and career than is exerted upon most sons
by their fathers. Friedrich 11, has been called
by Lord Macaulay the greatest king who has in
modern times inherited a throne. No one, we
think, can dispilte his right to this distinction ;
but to what did he owe it ? To the rigid dis-
cipline to which he alone of all modern kings was
subjected. A hereditary king is the more likely
to be worthy of his seat, the less he has enjoyed
in youth the privileges of his birth. Few private
persons have their own way so seldom, enjoy life
so little, or suffer so many and so inevitable mor-
tifications in their youth, as this heir to a great
monarchy. He was often starving in the midst
of regal abundance; he was disgraced and beaten
in public. He lay in prison like a common felon,
saw the accomplice of' his breach of military
discipline conducted to execution, and for some
time had reason to expect the same fate. He who
in mature manhood was to prove himself a match
for all the potentates of the Continent combined
had not this invincible character in childhood
and youth. His first plans were thwarted, his
earliest attempts at resistance utterly defeated by
a thick-headed despot, whom others could cajole
and outwit, but not the future statesman. His
waywardness brought him into continual
disgrace, and yot it was not like the way-
wardness of genius. He constantly deserved
punishment and did not often excite admiration,
as naughty boys do, by his daring spirit.
That practical administrative talent for which in
manhood he was so eminently distinguished was
the kind of talent which his father knew how to
appreciate. Yet it was not till near his death,
not till the Prince was grown up and married,
that Friedrich Wilhelm began to perceive the
strength of his son's character. He had thought
hint as a boy, at the same time, effeminate and
vicious, most likely, on the whole, to come to the
gallows. We give the thther's description of the
son as we find it with Mr. Carlyle's comments
interspersed
Thy obstinate perverse disposition (Kopf, head) which
does not love thy Father,—for when one does everything
( everything commanded) and really loves ono's Father,
one does what the Father requires, not while he is there to
see it, but when his back is turned too—( His Majesty's
style is very abstruse, ill-spelt, intricate, and in this
instance trips itself and falls on its face here, a mere
intricate nominative without a verb I)—For the rest, thou
knowat very well that I can endure no effeminate fellow
(efeminirten Karl), who has no human inclination in him,
who puts himself to shame, cannot ride or shoot; and
withal is dirty in his person ; frizzles his hair like a fool
and does not cut it off. And all this I have a thousand
times reprimanded; but all in vain, and no improvement
in nothing (Heine Besserong in nits ist). Fur the rest
haughty, proud as a churl; speaks to n3body but smne
few, and is not popular and affable; and cats grimaces
with his face, as if he were a fool ; and does my will in
nothing unless held to it by force ; nothing out of love ;
and has pleasure in nothing but following his own whims
(own Kopf)—no use to him in anything else. This is the
answer. FRIEDRICH WILHELM.
The hero of the Seven Years' War effeminate!
This, indeed, is the instructive fact in the his-
tory of Friedrich's boyhood, that he promised
excellence which he never attained, and did not
promise the excellence to which he did after-
wards arrive. There was sonic promise in hie

:--

1043

boyhood, and still more performance in his man-
hood, but the one did not answer to the other.
Those «ho knew him in his fither's lifetime
would have expected him to turn out au enlight-
ened and tranquil Augustus, a patron of letters,
magnificent and peaceful. These were his youth-
ful aspirations, but he never realized them. He
did not succeed in making his Court like that of
Louis Quatorze. Ho succeeded only in offending
the men of genius who resorted to him. On the
other hand, it might have been predicted that
war would be his aversion. As Byron regarded
Horace, as Bolingbroke regarded the sermons of
Manton, so might Friedrich have been expected
to regard the art of war. Ile had been pestered
with it in his youth till the subject might well
have become nauseous to him. He had not
shown remarkable aptitude for it ; he had shown
extreme distaste for it. It was to him like the
"odious flute," to escape from which Benvenuto
Cellini more than once ran away from home.
Yet it was in this very art that Friedrich
attained to a mastery which the strict peda-
gogue, his father, never dreamed of, and which
all Europe, in after days, admired with trembling.
The " Inst►tutio Frederici" becomes chiefly in-
teresting to us when we regard him as the most
conspicuous instance of the success of the princi-
ple of constraint in education—" Meiners virgae
" jam grandis Achilles."
To pronounce a critical opinion on this work
would be premature in its present unfinished
state. But it can scarcely come into competition
with " The History of the French Revolution."
The character and times of Cromwell are more
interesting than those of Frederick the Great,
especially to Englishmen, but perhaps they do
not offer more scope to Mr. Carlyle's peculiar
genius. Of the style we need say nothing more ;
our readers can judge of it from the specimens
we have given. It is the style of a humorist to
whom no rules can be prescribed. To criticize
it would be entirely useless. In deliberate defi-
ance of all established usages, however, we think
this may bear the palm among Mr. Carlyle's
works, as it may perhaps, too, in the force of its
peculiar diction and in its picturesqueness of
representation. Our readers will find another
remarkable illustration of Carlyleism, which we
have not space to quote, at page 106 of the first
vol., in the portraiture of Seckendorf, " the in-
scrutable-looking and most unbeautiful old In-
triguer, whose soul for a half-century has been
standing like a hackney-coach, with head,
tongue, heart, conscience at the hest of a dis-
cerning public and its shilling." In conclusion,
we have only to thank him for his researches,
and for giving the world a great deal to think
about and a great deal of good advice.

Philadelphia; or, the Claims of Humanity. By
Thomas Foster Barham, 11.13. Cantab.
London : Chapman and Hall.
Tins volume is addressed to " those who believe
" in the supremacy of religious and moral prin-
" ciple as the rule of human conduct and the
" guide to human happiness." In other words,
it is addressed to every man possessed of common
sense and ordinary powers of reasoning. Un-
happily, however, these are the very men who
will scout and laugh to scorn the author's vi-
sionary schemes for promoting the happiness of
mankind. Starting with principles excellent as
abstract propositions, Mr. 13arham has speedily
diverged into all manner of untenable theories
and unsound deductions. His facts arc so dis-
torted, or so highly coloured, that it is sometimes
difficult to recognize them in the masquerading
costume that serves them for disguise. We ac-
quit him, indeed, of any wilful intention to per-
vert the truth, for he is evidently an enthusiast
who believes in the reality of his own dreams and
fancies. He is one of those who derive their
ideas of political economy from The Deserted
Village," and, while they sigh over the partial
evils inevitably attendant on human progress,
regret the coarse material pleasures endurable
alone in a rude state of society. Mr. Barham,
indeed, would gladly take us back to a very pri-
mitive age, and seems to look upon nudity as the
strictest bond of brotherly love. Noth 11; annoys
him so much as "the barbaric tGiCiVLS. ChYtt 2:;,
" breeches and trousers of all sorts," which he
pronounces to be " irredeemably unmanly,
cum-
" bersome, and disfiguring, let budge-doctors
" and prudes of either sex say what they will"

1044

Warming with the contemplation of the unre-
stricted freedom of the savage, he anathematizes
the " propagators of false shame among simple
" people." " Ifour own coasts and rivers," he goes
on to say, " presented everywhere groups of both
" sexes and all ages bathing freely together, it
" would, in my opinion, contribute not merely to
" the beauty of our landscapes, but to the moral
" purity of our people, as well as to their health
" and pleasure." This great moral lesson is, at
least, being taught to some extent at Marete,
Brighton, and Ramsgate, to say nothing of the
Serpentine at certain hours of the day, but as yet
without sensibly improving the purity of public
taste. Nor are we certain that our author's pre-
scription to insure domestic happiness would be
any more infallible in its way than the practice
of promiscuous bathing for the abolition of pru-
dery and the cultivation of chaste and modest
thoughts. In the first place, we are to assume
that the wealthier classes do not appreciate the
real pleasures of " the kitchen hearth, that sacred
" recess, that inviolable adyton of Hestia." How
can it be otherwise, when "it seems to be their
" point, in relation to all their personal and do-
" mestic wants, to get as much done for them,
" and do as little for themselves, as possible " ?

A typical man of this order would think it something
quite strange and unbecoming to clean his own shoes,
to make his own lied, or possibly even to brush his own
coat. He would let any one knock at his door
hilt a dozen times, rather than go himself to open it.
Oa no account would he fetch a jug of water, or a
scuttle of coals; nay, there are some who, even when that
useful article stands in the room, will still ring for a
servant to put the coals on the fire. Such a man will
rarely take tools in hand to do a useful job, or needful
repair. In his garden, he may perhaps deign occasionally
t prune a fruit tree; but like the pampered steward, he
will hold that he cannot dig, and to wheel a barrow of
dung he would be quite ashamed. If he keeps a horse
for his pleasure, you shall not awn catch him giving the
animal his c rn; and though he takes pride in his sleek
cot, he would not at all like to soil his own hands with the
currycomb. When he walks through the town, he would
n it, for the world, carry a brown paper parcel, or a basket,
ho sever conveniebt it might be to do so; and if, in tre-
v •Ihng, his bag or portmanteau, though neither large nor
he ivy, behove to be carried even fur twenty yards, he must
needs call a porter. Perhaps lie sinuses himself with a
f.irn ; but he is n.,t the man whom you will find bottling
his own plough, thrashing his own corn, or shearing h.s
own sheep, any m ire than he will allow his wife or daughter
to milk a cuts or make butter.

But "the typizal man" is not alone to blame—
the "females of the affluent classes" are even
more helpless. A " modern lady, of the fashion-
" able sort," leads the most "idle, frivolous, and
" misdirected" life that can possibly be ima-
gined :

It seems to be the law of this ladyship to devolve, as far
as possible, every natural female duty on hireling servants.
It is but of late years, that society has even come to tolerate
a lady mother's nursing her own infant. It would still be
profoundly shocaed were a female of this class to perform
ant useful working function in her husband's house,—to
make the eels, clean the rooms, or dress the victuals. Nay,
even at all to superintend these tads., is thought beneath
a lady of ronk, anti accordingly a personage milted a house•
keeper is provided to relieve her of this last shred of do.
'nestle duty which remained to her. She now sits in glort ,
the eleg Int deity of tier drawing-morn, worshipped with
sufficient state and ceremony, but as inert and useless
toward all the proper business of life as the image iu a
heathen temple. But eiuce absolute idleness the live•
long day is intoleraSle, we may inquire how the fine lady
is permitted, by the laws of gentility, to employ herself.
In nothing really useful, of course; let her be seen mend-
ing her husband's shirts, or making a pudding, if she
dart. But there has been devised for her an ingenious
succession or elegant little titseskillers. She may busy
herself awhile with ornamental worsted work, or em-
broidery; she may then amuse an hour with the last new
novel; and another, if she like, at the pianof trte, or in
painting a flower; and there is a great and unfailtt.g re-
source in an interclisnge of calls with elegant acquaintances,
whose time is as valueless as her own. Her evenings are
sacred to her toilette ; the central hours of night fly swiftly
at cards, routs, and operas; and the dull, vulgar lis.nrs of
the forenoon my he lost in slumbers, hardly dispersed by
the meridian sun,—

When sleepless lovers, just at twelve, awake.

Why is it, demands our author in the most
piteous accents, why is it that " a lady is a woman
"spoilt" ? Why can she not dress and wash
her own child, make the beds, cook the dinner,
and mend her husband's clothes? Sarah baked
cakes, Rebecca drew water from the well, Rachel
tended her father's sheep, and Eve " prepar'd
" for dinner savoury herbs." Not one of those
ladies touched the piano, or made wax-flowers,
or took lessons in potichomanie, or embroidered
King Charles' spaniels on purple cushions, or
kept aquariums, or raved
.about dear Mr.
Buckle" or the divine Mario. And yet their
husbands never neglected them for the club or