The Press.
London, England, 1854-07-29 00:00:00

JULY 29, 1854.

interior of that splendid mansion. One of her
most interesting visits was paid to Rogers :
Tuesday, May 10.—C. and I were to go to-day, with Mrs.
Cropper and Lady Hatherton, to call on the poet Rogers.
I was told that he was in very delicate health, but that he
still received friends at his house. We found the house a
perfect cabinet collection of the most rare and costly works
dart—choicest marbles, vases, pictures, gems, and statuary
met the eye everywhere. We spent the time in examining
some of these while the servant went to announce us. The
mild and venerable old man himself was the choicest pic-
ture of all. He has a splendid head, a benign face, and re-
veryde me of an engraving I once saw of Titian. He seemed
glad to see us, spoke to me of the gathering at
fitatford•house, and asked me what I thought of the place.
When I expressed my admiration, he said, " Ah, I have
often said it is a fairy palace, and that the duchess is the
good fairy." Again, he said, " 1 have seen all the palaces
of Europe, but there is none that I prefer to this." Quite
a large circle of friends now came in and were presented.
He did not rise to receive them, but sat back in his easy •
chair and conversed quietly with us all, sparkling out now
and then in a little ripple of playfulness. In this room
were his best-beloved pictures, and it is his pleasures to
show them to his friends.
By a contrivance quite new to me, th• pictures are made
to revolve on a pivot, so that by touching a spring they
move out from the wall, and can be seen in different lights.
• • • • Rogers seems to be carefully waited on by an
attendant who has learned to interpret every motion and
anticipate every desire.
I took leave of him with a touch of sadness. Of all the
brilliant circle of poets, which has so delighted us, he is
the last—and he so feeble ! His memories, lam told,
extend back to a personal knowledge of Dr. Johnson.
How I should like to sit by him, and search into that
cabinet of recollections ! He presented me his poems,
beautifully illstrated by Turner, with his own autograph on
the Ile-leaf. He writes still a clear, firm, beautiful hand
like a lady's.
The calls sbe made on Kossuth—whose
poverty, supported with cheerfulness, and
ennobled by his manly exertions to provide
for• the wants of his family, command our
respect—and on Mr. Cobden, are also
amusingly described.
At breakfast at Sir C. Trevelyan's she met
Macaulay, and he talked to her, of course,

like an essay :
Macaulay made some suggestive remarks on cathedrals
generally. I said that 1 thought it singular that we so
seldom knew who were the architects that designed these
great buildings ; that they appeared to me the most sublime
efforts of human genius.
He said that all the cathedrals of Europe were undoubt-
edly the result of one or two minds; that they rose into
existence very nearly contemporaneously, and were built
by travelling companies of masons, under the direction of
some systematic organisation. Perhaps you knew all this
before, but I did not ; and so it struck me as a glorious
idea. And if it is not the true account of the origin of
cathedrals, it certainly ought to be ; and, as our old grand-
mother used to say, " I'm going to believe it."
Looking around the table, and seeing how everybody
seemed to be enjoying themselves, I said to Macaulay
that these breakfast parties were a novelty to me ; that we
never had them in America, but that I thought them the
most delightful form of social life.
He seized upon the iden, as he often does, and turned
it playfully inside out, and shook it on all sides, just as one
might play with the Metres of a chandelier—to see them
glitter. He expatiated on the merits of breakfast parties
as compared with all ether parties. He said dinner parties
are mere formalities. You invite a man to dinner because
you must invite him ; because you are acquainted with his
grandfather, or it is proper you should ; but you invite a
man to breakfast because you want to see him. You may
be sure if you are invited to breakfast there is something
agreeable about you. This idea struck me as very sensible ;
and we ell, generally having the fact before our eyes that
we were invited to breakfast, approved the sentiment.
" Yes," said Macanlay, " depend upon it: if a man is a
bore he never gets an invitation to breakfast."
Some just remarks are made on the freedom
of sentiment which prevails in England. A
people are truly free in proportion to that
degree of toleration which is allowed to '
opinion; and, tried by this test, we perhaps
enjoy as much freedom as is consistent with
the existence of society. After describing
some friendly bantering between Mr. Dickens
and high judicial personages at a Mansion-
house dinner. she remarks :
In this respect, I must say, I think the English are quite
remarkable. Everything here meets the very freest
handling; nothing is too sacred to be publicly shown up;
but those who are exhibited appear to have too much good
sense to recognise the force of the picture by getting
angry. Mr. Dickens has gone on namercifnlly exposing
all sorts of weak places in the English fabric, public and
private, yet nobody cries out upon him as the slanderer of
his country. He serves up Lord I)edlocks to his heart's
content . yet none of the nobility make wry faces about it ;
nobody is in a hurry to proclaim that he has recognised the
picture by getting into a passion at it. The contrast be-
tween the people of England and America, in this respect,
is rather unfavourable to us, because they are by profession
conservative, and we by profession radical.
Mrs. Stowe was favourably impressed with
the appearance of health and youthfulness
Presented even by those persons in our society

THE PRESS.

who in their several ways work hardest.
As regards the ladies, she supposes that
freedom from domestic annoyances may have
some share in producing their blooming as-
pect ; but we are inclined to attribute it to that
healthful activity which, either from habit,
constitution, or principle, seems indispensable
to English life.
The husband of this gifted lady —in his
last words by way of preface—states, almost
despairingly :
The reckless faithlessness and impudent falsehood of
oar national pro-slavery legislation the present season has
scarcely a parallel in history, black as history is with all
kinds of perfidy.
The American Emancipists have a hercu-
lean task set before them. In no country has
slavery ever existed under so hateful an as-
pect, or attended with such brutalising influ-
ences. How long it may last, or what effects
it may produce, are beyond present ken; but
it is certain that it can be abolished only by
the action of public opinion, and that such
writings as Mrs. Stowe has produced are
likely to have a powerful effect on the Ameri-
can mind. We trust her career as an author
has only commenced ; and the best wish we
can form for her is that, in her own home,
she will forget as speedily as may be her

" Raffaelles, Correggios, and stuff,"

and devote her genius to those illustrations
of the life and character of the slave popula-
tion of the States which it is so admirably cal-
culated to accomplish, and which will en title
her name to lasting and grateful remembrance.

Logic; or, the Science of Inference. By Joseph
Devey. London : Bohn.
Orr great drawback to the popularity of logic
is to be found in the fact that its practical
usefulness may be said to terminate just at
that point where its highest interest begins.
The syllogism is
onot less necessary to the
reasoner than the rule of three to the account-
ant; yet both are learned with little pleasure,
and he who is satisfied with learning no more
is not likely to trouble himself about conflict-
ing theories. The broader speculations of
metaphysics are what form the main attrac-
tion to the philosophic student ; yet it is by
eliminating these that Mr. Devey proposes to
construct a system of logic which shall be
acceptable to all. It is his design, he says, to
harmonise the purely logical doctrines of
hostile authorities, and so to rescue the be
ginner from that confusion and uncertainty
which has hitherto, in his opinion, been
the scandal of the science. Whether rival
logicians, who, if less famous, are still nearly
as good haters as their cousins of theology,
will yield to our author's intercession, or
whether logic itself can be successfully studied
after this fashion, are questions on which we
entertain considerable doubts. That the dif-
ferent views of philosophers are not, as far as
pure logic is concerned, contradictory is very
likely true. The fact is, that about the bare
logical formulae little difference of opinion is
possible ; yet the moment we get beyond
these we find ourselves close on the regions of
metaphysics. The laws of the syllogism must
be pretty well the same to every one ; but as
soon as we inquire the application of it we are
face to face with the a priori controversy. All
may admit that definition must be by genus
and differentia; yet if we pause—as who will
not ?—to investigate some of the terms which
it must inevitably bring before us, such as
" universals," " essence," " form," we are im-
mediately in the midst of the conflict between
realism and nominalism—questions which, of
however small utility in the hands of ordinary
men, deal with a subject of unrivalled and
nndecnying interest to the human species.
On the whole, therefore, we are sceptical of
the success of any logical work as a textbook
which does not proceed throughout on a dig
tinct metaphysical theory, though we cannot
but thank Mr Devey for having furnished us
with an admirable book of reference, wherein
all logical opinions may be found and the
value of their differences estimated.
We cannot be expected within our limits
to examine all tho details of a logical
treatise. It may be sufficient to say that
they are characterised in this case by
great perspicacity, and evince the requisite

713

amount of reading. The author, indeed,
scarcely lays claim to any originality. The
consistence of the Aristotelian with the
Baconic system has been already enforced by
Coleridge ; and for his remarks on concep-
tualism Mr. Devey is indebted to M. Chre-
Lien's logical method. The critique on Sir W.
Hamilton's new analytic is perhaps one of the
most useful and satisfactory parts of the book,
and well deserving the attention of all who
are interested in the science.
We must notice, in conclusion, one or two
errors, or perhaps inadvertencies, which we
have observed on a first perusal. In his ac-
count of nominal definition (p. 73) the writer
asserts that Aristotle and the scholastic phi-
losophers confounded the definitions of words
and things, claiming for the latter that uncon-
tested character (?) which can only belong to
the former. Now, whether Aristotle and his
followers erred or not in their notions of defi-
nition, such errors certainly did not arise from
any confusion of that kind, but simply front
their conception of essence, which, at p 68 of
this work, is rather unsatisfactorily discussed.
In Trendelanburgh's " Elemental Logices Aris-
totelim " the reader will find a clear account
of the meaning of the word °Lois, and its
bearing on the theory of definition The
above mistatement may be attributed, we
think, to the author's attempt at brevity on a
subject. which scarcely admits of it. At p. 137,
however, in his account of the dilemma, there
is a much more unaccountable blunder. The
fatuous dilemma of Bias is thus stated (the
word i'aac being of course a misprint for
7flac)
If a wife is beautiful, she excites jealousy (k'fic iroaTiv) ;
If she be ordinary. she disgusts Ceet;,- scriuft ;
Therefore it is best not to marry.
Where Mr. Devey found this version of the
story we cannot imagine. The true form is as
follows :
If you marry a pretty wife, she is suvii (i.e., unfaithful);
If an ugly one, ar2ivn (i.e., a bore) ;
Therefore do not marry.
If Mr. Devey is really under the impression
that the word %mil means common, in the
English sense of "mean," "vile," "low," it
bespeaks an ignorance of Greek which would
make us distrustful of the entire work. Wo
are unwilling, however, to believe that such is
the case, and we trust that in a subsequent
edition the mystery may be cleared up.
Our space does not permit us to give any
account of the latter portion of the book, which
relates to the " General Principles of Inference "
and other interesting topics. We will only
add that the work throughout is marked by
great fairness, and, notwithstanding our objec •
tions to the plan of it, is likely, we think, to be
admitted among the standard works on the
subject.

Julie; or, Love and Duty. By Emilie Flygare
Corlett. London : Bentley.

THE tale contained in this volume is very
simple, but very charming. It is the old story
of true love crossed for a time, but blessed in
the end. The incidents are contrived so as
to set forth in attractive colours the constancy
of youthful affection. The brilliant coquette
of the story, Julie, is used a little too hardly
we think. Amidst the infinite variety of human
character the butterfly nature has its place,
and though of course we are glad to see the
amiable, dutiful, home•loving Marie united at
last to the industrious, provident Klein, we
don't see why the gay baron and his brilliant
bride should not have gone on dancing to the
end of the story, instead of meeting with so
melancholy an end. Apart from the interest
of the story, the tale is very pleasing for its
pictures of manners. The excitement of a
Swedish household on a wedding morning is
graphically described
THE LADIES TOILET-ROOM.
This temple, which, in consequence of the festivity, had
been arranged for the Graces, wns in reality in every-day
phraseology a housekeeper's room. and in.this, its usual
quality, could be looked upon as a temple of distaff" and
looms. Here the busy mistress gave the submissively
listening priestesses the oracular answer to their timid
questions. Here she ;:ould learn, through the thin parti-
tion, all that went on in the kitchen, both in work and words.
This last prerogative extended to the guests even on this day ;
for notwithstanding the many voices all exclaiming at the
same time," Help me."—" Alt! love, do fasten int/deflower
for me !"—" Lend me a few hairpins."—" Pat that roan

714

IMZ"Fr.7..7,eat

here !" still they were all overpowered by a duet, which was
intoned in a shrill soprano, in the kitchen, occasioned by
a dispute as to the way of malting a marrow pudding, be-
tween the vicar's sister—generally known as the worthy
pupil of the cook Lotliarin—and an experienced madam,
who, on account of the wedding ,east, bad been engaged
from the neighbouring town. It' to this be added the incre-
dible rattling of pots, kettles, and stewpans ; the running
tg and fro dr kitchen-maids, scullery-maids, and waiting-
nbaids from the tea-room to the parlour, from the parlour
to the kitchen, from thence, with basins and towels, down
to the little dwelling in the court, where the rooms belong-
ing to the curate, Mr. Trasselin, had been turned into the
waiting-place for the gentlemen ; that is, they could survey
iu the curate's little broken glass, which hung in the middle
of one of the windows, as much or their outward man as
they could discover in it, smooth their hair, tie their neck-
cloths a little better, fasten the tiny, glittering studs in the
shirtfolds, besides many oilier little improvements. I f
one imagines to oneself all this, one has a pretty coffee.
idea of what was going on behind the scenes.
The wedding itself is comfortably managed
indoors :