The Press.
London, England, 1856-09-06 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

Cincinnatti. He followed me there, and the laws of your
country gave me back to him. Tomorrow I was to have
gone in a c.dile and leave these children. My son a slave
for life. My daughter—"
She looked round the courtroom with an expression
which said more than words could have spoken.
"So I heard them say their prayers and sing their
hymns, and then, while they were asleep and didn't know
it, I aen: them to lie down in green pi.stures with the
Lord. They say this is a dreadful sin. It may be so.
am willing to lose my soul to have theirs saved. I have
no more to hope or fear. It's all nothing now where Igo
or what becomes of me. But at any rate they are safe.
And now, if any of you mothers in my place wouldn't
have done the same, you either don't know what slavery
is, or you don't love your children as I have loved mina.
T, is is all."

She sat down, folded her arms, Sled her eyes on the
floor, and seemed like a person entirely indifferent to the
further opinions and proceedings of the court.

Tb. death of Dred is more conspicuous for
poetic reflection than for dramatic effect. A
tine chapter opens with a notice of his burial
at night:—

He in whom they trusted was dead ! The splendid
athletic form so full of wild vitality, the powerful arm, the
trained and keen•seeing eye. all struck down at once !
The grand and solemn voice hushed, and all the splendid
poetry o. olden time, the inspiring symbols and prophetic
dreams which had so wrought upon his own soul, and
with which he had wrought upon the souls of others,
seemed to pass away with him and recede into the distance,
and become unsubstantial, like the remembered sounds of
mighty winds, or solemn visions of evening clouds, in
times long departed. On that night, when the woods had
ceased to reverberate the brutal sounds of baying dogs, and
the more brutal profanity of drunken men—when the
leaves stood still on the trees, and the forest lay piled up
in the darkness like black clouds, and the morning star
was standing like a calm angelic presence above them,
there might have been heard in the little clearing a muffled
sound of footsteps, treading heavily. and voices of those
that wept with a repressed and quiet weeping, as they bore
the dark chit.f.ain to his grave beneath the blasted tree.
Our surmise that Mrs. Stowe has been
largely assisted in the composition of these
works is founded on internal evidence alone.
We suspect that there is a.t American Junius
behind the curtain, exulting in his impene-
trable secrecy, and in the sensation he has
excited. We should like to know something
more of Mr Beecher Stowe than we do at pre-
sent. Is he a man of vigorous talent, or is he
only Mrs. Stowe's husband 9 In the hubbub
of her notoriety he has modestly kept himself
in the shade. Mrs. Stowe is, no doubt, a
very clever, intelligent writer, and possessed
of that talent, natural to feminine minds, of
quickly seizing prominences of character• and
of delineating manners. But we cannot so
easily believe that she possesses the imagina-
tive power, the muscular energy of sentiment,
the logical sense, the perception of funda-
mental truth, and the mastery of the English
tongue, which are found in parts of this re-
markable book. If the whole be hers, she is
gifted with genius rarely, indeed, accorded to
woman. The appearance of diversity of style
is so strong that we incline to the opinion
that two pens, at least, have been engaged in
the composition.
As Dred does not appear until the narrative
is far advanced, and as he has then little con-
nection with the other personages of the
story, the book is rather a collection of
sketches than a regularly-constructed tale.
It reflects various scenes of southern life, the
negro characters, as in " Uncle Tom," appear-
ing to be drawn with great fidelity. Though
always amusing, the parts of the book want
cohesion, and hence it is somewhat patchy.
We must not put it down without giving an
extract, in which the negro coachman of Nina
—Old Hundred—appears to advantage :

" Uncle John," said Nina, " 1 want you to get the car•
riage out for me right away. 1 want to take a ride over
the cross•rnn."

" Laws bless your sweet face, honey, chile, I's dreadful
sorry ; but you can't do it dis per day."
" Can't do it! why not?"
" Why, bless you, chile, it ain't possible, no wsy. Can't
have the carriage and hosses dis yer afternoon."
" But I must go over to cross•run to the post-office. I
must go this minute." _ _ _

" Law, chile, you can't do it, fur you can't walk, and it's
sartin you can't ride, because dese ver horses, nor dis yer
carriage, can't stir nut dis yer afternoon ; no way yon can
fix it. Mout go, perhaps, to-morrow, or next week."
" Oh, uncle John, I don't believe a word of it. I want
them this afternoon, and I say I most have them."

" No, you can't chile," said Old Hundred, in a tender
condescending tone, as if he was speaking to a baby. " I
tell you dat ar is impossible. Why, bless your soul, Miss
Nina, de curtains is all off de carriage!"
" Well, put them on again, then."
"Ah, Miss Nina, dat ar an't all. Pete was desperate
sick last night ; took with the thumps powerful bad. Why,
Miss Nina, he was dat sick I bad to be up with him most

857

all night." And while Old Hundred adroitly issued this
little work of fiction, the raven nodded waggishly at Nina,
as much as to say, " You hear that fellow, now I"
Nina stood quite perplexed, biting her lips, and Old
Hundred seemed to go into a profound slumber.
" I don't believe but what the horses can go to-day. I
mean to go and look."

" Laws, honey, chile, ye can't now ; de dors is all locked,
and l'se got de key in my pocket. Every one of dem
critturs would have been killed forty times over 'fore now.
I think everybody in dis yer world is arter dem dare
critturs. Miss Lo,, she's wanting 'em to go one way,
and Harry's tillers min' de critturs. Got one out die yer
arternoon, riding over to see his wife. Don't see no use
in his riding round so grand, no way. Laws, Mi a Nina,
your pa used to say to me, says he, ' Uncle John, you
knows more about dem critturs din I do; and now I tell
you what it is, uncle John, you take care of dem critturs;
don't you let nobody kill 'ern for nothing.' Now, Miss
Nina, l's always walking in the steps of the colonel's
'rections. Now, good, clar bright weather, over good
roads, 1 likes to trot the critturs out. Dat ar is reason-
able. But, den, what roads is over the cross-run, I want
to know? Dem dare roads is de most mis'ablest things
you ever did see. Mud! Hi! ought for to see de mud
down dar by the creek. Why, de bridge all tared off !
Man drowned in dat dar creek once ! Was so ! It an't
no sort of road for young ladies to go over, tell you, Miss
Nina; why don't you let Harry carry your letter over?
If he must be ridin' round de country, don't see why he
couldn't do some good wid his ridin' Why, de carriage
wouldn't get over before ten o'clock dis yer night ! Now,
mine, I tell you. Besides, it's gwine for to rain. l's been
feeling dat ar in my corns all ills yer morning ; and Jeff,
he's been acting like the bery debil hisself—de way he
always does 'fore it rains. Never knowed dat ar sign to
fail."

" The short of the matter is, uncle John, you are deter.
mined not to go," said Nina. But 1 tell you you shall
go !—there, now. Now, du you get up immediately; and
get out those horses."
OM Hundred still sat quiet, smoking ; and Nina, after
reiterating her orders till she got thoroughly angry, began
at last to ask herself the question how she was going to
carry them into execution. Old Hundred appeared to
have descended into himself in a profound reverie, and
betrayed not the smallest sign of hearing anything she
said. " 1 wish Harry would come back quick," she said to
herself, as she pensively retraced her steps through the
garden; but Tomtit had taken the commission to go for
him in his usual leisurely way, spending the greater part
of the afternoon on the road.

" Now, an't you ashamed of yourself, you mean old
nigger !" said aunt Rose, the wife of Old Hundred, who
had been listening to the conversation, " talking 'bout de
creek, and de mud, and de critturs, and for knows what all,
when we all knows it's nothing but your laziness !"
"Well," said Old Hundred, " and what would come o'
the critturs if I wasn't lszy, I want to know ? Laziness !
it's the bery best thing for the critturs, can be. Where'd
dem horses a been now, if I had been one of your highfalutin
sort, always driving round ? Where'd dey a been, and
what would dey a been, hey? Who wants to are bosses
all skin and bone ? Lord, if I had been like some o' de
coachmen, de buzzards would have had de picking of dem
critturs long ago!"
" I rally believe that you've told dem dar lies till you
begin to believe them youaelf !" said Rose. " Telling our
dear, sweet young lady, about your being up with Pete all
night, when de Lord knows yon laid here snoring fit to tar
de roof off I"

" Well, must say something! Folks must be 'spectful
to de ladies. Course I couldn't tell her I wouldn't take de
critturs out ; so I just trots out 'sense. Ah ! lots of dem
'senses I keeps! I tell you, now, 'senses is excellent things.
Why, 'senses is like die yer grease that keeps the wheels
from creaking. Lord bless you, de whole world turns
round on 'senses. Whar de world be if everybody was
such fools to tell the real reason for everything they are
gwine fur to do, or an't gwine fur to."
We have noticed the work at such unusual
length because it is something more than an
ordinary fiction. It is a political manifesto.
It shows to what extreme lengths the quarrel
between the pro and anti slavery parties is
proceeding in the States. There is even more
than energy, there is ferocity, in the denun-
ciations of the slavery advocates. The sword
is drawn, the scabbard cast away; and if this
book may be taken as any indication of the
sentiments prevailing on one side and the
other, the quarrel is rapidly becoming mortal.
It is true that in a society so naturally
robust as that of the United States, and so
accustomed to the freest style of expression,
there may bo hot discussion and great dis-
turbance without danger of a convulsion that
would rend the Union asunder. But it is si
peculiarity of this dispute that it does not
now admit of adjustment. Compromises have
been tried and tailed The warmest pat tisans
on each side are making up their minds that
separation would be better than a union
which threatens each with the subversion of
interests it holds dearest. It is impossible
that the irritation can continue to grow as it
has done of late years without soon breaking
out into open hostility. The approaching
Presidential election may probably be attended
with important results. In the preface to
this book the triumph of the free-soil party is

858

anticipated, by the return of Fremont. In
whatever way the contest is decided, it will
tend to heighten the exasperation of the two
parties, by engaging them in a struggle for
predominance, and may probably result in
raising the yet broader question of Union or
Separation.

The Lost Solar System of the Ancients
Discovered. By John Wilson. Two Vols.
London: Longmans.
IF this author, according to his own assertion,
has really discovered the " solar system of the
ancients," he has at all events kept the dis-
covery to himself : the reader is never allowed
to share it. Through the course of two bulky
volumes, filled as they are with laborious and
sometimes ingenious computations, the result
promised in his titlepage is kept as well ccn-
eealed as the meaning of the sacred Egyptian
writings in their hieroglyphics Nor can we
believe that this mystery is other than inten-
tional. if not, how comes it that he sends us
wandering into his arithmetical labyrinth
without a clue? Why does he vouchsafe no
" Preliminary Chapter," no " Introduction,"
not even a half-page of " Preface," to explain
the meaning of his multitudinous configura-
tions ? Instead of this, no sooner have we
turned the first leaf than we are plunged up to
the lips in an abyss of figures, symbols, and
algebraic formula, where we can find no bot-
tom, and whence the author never stretches
out a helping hand to lift us. And when, by
dint of hard struggling, we reach the end of
his second volume, we are suddenly dismissed
without a word, either by way of explanation
as to whither we have arrived, or of excuse for all
the labour we have been required to undergo.
Mr. Wilson's volumes are about five times as
large as the twelve books of Euclid, and at
first sight seem filled with the same kind of
matter ; but there is not a single Q. E. D.
from beginning to end.
For a long while after beginning our con-
scientious perusal of the work, we were sorely
puzzled to explain how any man happened to
write it. At length we arrived at the conclu-
sion that the book was never written at all—
at least in the ordinary or authorly sense of
the word. If Sir Charles Barry and his assis-
tants had quarried so much stone, prepared so
much cement and stucco, fabricated a certain
quantity of brass grillage, mosaic tessera3,
coloured glass, iron tubing, and lead gutters,
and thrown the whole into a heap, the congeries
would just as well deserve the title of a Palace
of the Legislature as Mr. Wilson's collection
of printed matter does that of a book. There
are the materials, but not the result. We can
only suppose that he expended enormous time
in compiling his matter, made laborious calcu-
lations touching the " solar sy stem," and
indefatigable researches upon all points of
antiquity, but when he sat down to compose
a work out of those materials, stopped short at
the titlepage, and then sent his commonplace
book to the printer just as it was, without
ever taking the trouble to number its pages
into any consecutive order.

Books constructed upon ordinary principles
can seldom be fairly represented by detached
quotations, any more than the architecture or
commodiousness of a house by the production
of a brick. Ina work, however, which is all
materials and no architecture, the critic has
nothing for it but to collect a few bricks, if he
wishes to show the character of the intended
edifice, should it ever come to he built. Now, in
the present ease, the author's "bricks" are
coincidences, which he has traced with infinite
labour and ingenuity, between the material
structures whose relics still attest the gigantic
capabilities of human faith and science—whe-
ther exhibited among the Egyptian priests,
the Indian magi, the British Druids, or the
Mexican astrologers—and the known facts and
relationships of the " solar system." These
coincidences, we must premise, the author
barely indicates. He places certain results in
rather conspicuous j nxta-position, but ventures
no further. For whatever inferences may be
drawn, or hypotheses founded, on his configu-
rations, he leaves to the reader all the labour
and responsibility. But his peculiar process
can be described only by examples. Thus :

THE PRESS.

The Egyptians built obelisks. If the motion
of a body falling to the earth, in obedience to
the law of gravitation, he represented, accord-
ing to the recognised symbolisation of modern
mathematicians, by an axis and ordinates,
respectively propyrtional to the space passed
through and the velocity attained in every
consecutive unit of time, the resulting figure
will have something like an obeliscal outline.
This is the coincidence—the brick for, not
from, the building. The reader must gather
it, if he can, from fifty pages of puzzling arith-
metical combinations. The inference which
it suggests, but which, as we have said, the
author himself does not draw, is that the
Egyptians, when building their obelisks,
meant to symbolise the proportions of time
and space as exhibited in the phenomenon of
falling bodies, and therefore, we must pre-
sume, knew all about the law of gravitation,
and had made themselves familiar with the
scientific facts and analytical processes which
the full comprehension of that law must
involve.

The Egyptians, again, built pyramids. Now,
with pyramids the author performs a number
of most wonderful feats. He slices them into
horizontal strata ; he chops them up into
" units ;" he perfects them into cubes ; he
multiplies the area of their bases by the length
of their axes, and, having divided the product
by the angle of inclination of their sides, raises
tire whole sum to the nth power. But the
singular and odd results of his configuration
can be described only in the author's own
words. Having subjected the Pyramid of
Cheops to this arithmetical manipulation, he
dis2overs that—

The cubical contents of the pyramid (pro-
vided only you add " somewhat more than
" unity to the height ") is = 113689008
units = circumference of the earth (p. 218,
v. i.)

Four times the cube of the base of Cheops
is " = 1088390015 units = to distance of the
" moon from the earth " (p. 219).
Six hundred cubes of Cheops are equal
(very tolerably) to the distance of Mercury
from the sun (p. 220).
Continuing the computation, the author
finds that fifteen thousand cubes of Cheops
are = distance of Saturn, and that ninety
thousand cubes are = distance of Belus.
This " distance of Belus " continually recurs
among the author's calculations, and is de-
tailed among a multitude of combinations in
which the bases, the areas, or the contents of
various monuments, in all parts of the world,
are worked together. What or where " Belus "
may be, we have failed to discover; but from
the measurements in the hook before us it
seems to be about six times as far from the
sun as Saturn, and we must therefore presume
it to be a planetary body, recognised in the
" solar system of the ancients," but not yet
known to the moderns, whose astronomical
researches on the outskirts of the system
have been limited to the discovery of Neptune,
and who were more than sufficiently proud of
that achievement, although, as the author would
express the fact, the distance of that planet is
not quite = I the "distance of Belus."
Other pyramids and monuments of Emit,
the Indian temples and excavations, the
Chinese pagodas, the ruins found in Mexico
and other parts of America. the round towers
of Ireland, the Druidical mounds and circles
of stones, suggest similar combinations.
Wherever Mr. Wilson can light upon a mea
surement of any sort, he begins to throw the
figures about like an Indian juggler with his
balls, and never fails to educe some astrono-
mical coincidence. Even in Otaheite the
" solar system of the ancients" is equally
symbolised. Some missionaries in 1797 de-
scribed the great " Moral " in that island, and
stated that in length at the base it was 270
feet, and in width 94 feet. This is hint suffi-
cient. We plunge at once into a labyrinth of
numerals, and bring away the following figures :
Side of base 270 by 94 feet, = 233.4 by 81-3
units. 2333 =.6 distance of moon. 24
cubes of 10 times greater side, or three cubes
of 20 times greater side, =-- distance of Venus.
14 cubes of 10 times the sum of two sides =
distance of earth. And so on
What renders the laborious elucidation of
these coincidences the more wonderful is, that

SATURDAY,

the measurements on which they are founded
possess no certainty and authenticity what-
ever. The missionaries who measured the
base of the Otaheite Morai seem to have corn.
puted its magnitude in the loosest possible
manner, by merely pacing round the enceint.
Mr. Wilson himself opens his chapter relative
to the Cheops pyramid by candidly confessing
that he " had abandoned all hope of arriving
" at any satisfactory conclusion" respecting
its magnitude. He even cites the proportions
given by different authorities from Herodotus
to Niebuhr, all of whom differ from one another
in almost every dimension through the wide
interval between 440 and 800 feet. Yet he
proceeds through many pages to calculate
proportionals and bring out coincidences
from the very measurements which he allows
to be so utterly vague and uncertain.

Another class of coincidences" are worked
out most elaborately. These relate to the
outlines of certain ornaments, sculptures, &c.,
still traceable in ancient monuments ; and
their coincidences are thus derived. Arith-
metical series of proportionals, when repre-
sented by the notation employed by modern
analysts in the relationships of an axis and its
ordinates, generate curves of various charac-
teristics, but all belonging to the various
sections of a cone. Somewhat similar curves
are found among the sculptures in question ;
and the author accordingly suggests the con-
clusion that the form was given merely to
typify the particular series of which it is the
representative in the system of " conic sec-
tions." Thus au hyperbolic curve represents
a particular set cf proportionals, if rendered
infinite Therefore, concludes Mr. Wilson,
this curve symbolises infinity, and could have
been nowhere introduced except for the pur-
pose of such symbolisation. As a few out of
many deductions drawn from this hypothesis,
he tells us that the curves of the cap of Osiris
are "symbolical of eternity," the serpents on
the sides of the cap are " typical of infinity ;"
the obeliscal beard also " typifies eternity."
The serpent has obtained its prominent posi-
tion in Egyptian monuments because in its erect
attitude and with swollen neck it " resembles
" the parabolic curve of contrary flexure."
Even the sacred bird of Egypt, the Ibis, in his
opinion may only have attained sanctity
from a like geometrical analogy, " its head
" and long beak having a resemblance to the
" parabolic curve of contrary flexure." The
" constrained appearance ' of all the Egyptian
divinities—and mortals too, for that matter—
when represented in a sit"ng posture, is
caused by no immaturity of set in the sculptor,
but solely that they may assume the " hyper.
" bolic attitude which is typical of infinity."
Buddha, also, in his Indian temples, and the
" Virginian Obee," are placed in the "con-
strained attitude " necessary for them when
" assuming the form of the hyperbolic solid,"
and consequently " representing eternity or
infinity."
With matter like this, interspersed with
facts and descriptions relating to public works
and monuments of all times and countries,
from the Tower of Babel to Battersea-bridge,
and from the ships of Sesostris to the Himalaya
steamer, has the author filled more than nine
hundred pages. His specialty, however, as
we have intimated, is for arithmetic. The
" organ of number " clearly predominates in
his phrenological development, and by its
magnitude seems to have put the other facul-
ties somewhat out of equipoise. When the
" calculating boy " was taken to see a ballet in
which Heberle danced, it was found that his
attention during the whole performance had
been absorbed in counting her steps. The
present author looks. upon the " planetary
dome," or examines the grand and mysterious
monuments of antiquity, with a similar pre-
possession. For his own sake it may be
regretted that he was born some centuries too
late. There have been times when all science,
in the belief of a large claSs of its professors,
began and ended with arithmetic. For some
generations a whole section of philosophers
devoted themselves to the study of figures,
believing that in them could be found a key
to all the mysteries of the universe. One of
these experts fancied that the number 64, if
patiently studied, would unlock all the secrets
of this world and the next, because it was not