The Express.
London, England, 1847-10-19 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Results of AstrononTs;t:161;;;;;;;1 the Cape of Good
Hope. BT Sir JOHN F. W. HERSCHEL, Bart, &c.
The illustrious William Herschel, the father of the
author before us, may justly be said to have origi-
nated that branch of astronomy in which his son has
now made a new epoch. All sound views of the
cosmical relations of stars, and the greater part of
the knowledge which led to them, date from the
time at which the mind of the former was applied to the
results of his optical improvements. The public un-
derstand the size of the great telescope better than
that of the intellect which directed its construction ;
but it will not always, be so ; the schoolmaster is as
sure as he is slow.
Our ideas of the connexion of celestial bodies were
dra en entirely from our own system, when William
Herschel discovered that double stars were connected
with each other, and revolved round each other. The
astronomical world was reposisg in quiet, on the
supposition that that same system was completely
known, when he first showed how to find a new
planet : since which time eighty newer ones have
been added to the list. The current notion of the
universe was that of a congeries of stars without de-
sign or order, when he called attention to the probable
meaning of die distant tubule, and assigned to our
world of stars its position in the cluster, the distant
parts of which form the Milky Way.
It was the mind of William Herschel which
forced the attention of the astronomer upon the
double stars and nebulas, and since his time much has
been done to observe these bodies accurately, both as
to portion and physical appearance.
Much also has been done in that kind of specula-
tion to which we have often come to owe established
truth, and still more often the hint as to the right
way of finding it ; but among those who have de-
voted themselves to the pursuit of the branch of astro-
nomy created by the elder Herschel, the second place
has been earned by his son.
After a diligent survey of the northern regions,
published in various scientific transactions, and pre-
senting, as to all that is visible in our latitude, the
most satisfactory termination of what his father had
began—using the word termination with reference to
the resources of our own day—Sir John Herschel de-
termined that the same eye and the same instrument
should complete the survey of the heavens. All who
have ever heard two different observers speak of the
same phenomenon must know that the value of the
additional labour is much increased by this uni-
formity of execution. Everything is expressed in
words of the same meaning—the astronomer of every
Ilatitude may read of the things he cannot see as with
a dictionary, by
.comparing what he can see with
the description given of it. Sir John Herschel set
off with his family for the Cape of Good Hope in
November, 1833, and returned to England in the
spring of 1838. He mounted his observatory at
I Feldhausen, six miles from Cape Town, at the foot of
Table Mountain, and there performed for the southern
hemisphere what he had already done for the
' northern. The years which have elapsed since his
return have been employed in the drudgery which
astronomers call reduction of the observations, a pro-
cess possessing &beat as much of the interest of sel-
-1
enoe as casting up the accounts of the oommissariat
has of the romance of war. The scientific world is
all the more obliged. Many an astronomer has been
a useless star-gazer because he found peeping and
measuring more pleasant than reducing.
It isnot for our space to give scientific details ofthecon-
tee ts of such a work. Like all that comes from masters of
their craft, there is much in it which is easier to read
than the unlearned would suppose. Sir John Herschel,
as sound a scholar and elegant a writer as he is a
profound mathematician, and a practised experi-
menter and observer,pomesses a power over language,
Iland a command of it for the purposes of descnption,
which is rarely equalled in any walk of literature.
The volume before us (which, we must mention, was
' printed at the expense of the late Dake of Northumber-
land) has taken its place among the records of astronomy,
and among those of highest value,!as it were, of course.
Usually, however high the name of a man may be,
his friends leek with some apprehension upon the ap-
pearanoe of a task on which he has staked the praise
or blame of twelve years of his life. But we feel
confident that it never entered into the head of one
of our astronomers even to remember, with reference
to Sir John Herschel, what the state of the case com-
monly is. We ask them whether they did not know
that, as it is, so it mast have been ? We have heard
many ingrained, as to when it would appear, but never
one (from a person who knew anything about the
matter) what it would be, or what place it would
take. Oar contemporary, the ifthenreum, reminds us
that the venerable sister of Wm. Herschel, who was
also his fellow-labourer, has =arrived to see this key-
stone of her nephew's fame—we had almost said of
her brother's also—placed upon the arch. We trust
that Sir John himself will live to see a son of his own
ready to take his place. The name of Cassini has a
line of four descents in astronomy—why not that of
IHerschel ?

ORIGIN OP TEE PICKWICK PAPERS.—In the course
of the last dozen years, says Mr. Dickens, in the preface to
the new edition of his works, I have seen various accounts of
the origin of these " Pickwick Papers," which have at all
events possemeed--for me—the charm of perfect novelty. As
I may infer, from the occasional appearance of each histories,
that my readers have en interest in the matter, I will relate
how they came into existence. I was a young man of three-
sad-twenty, when the present publishers, attracted by some
pieces I was at that fore writing in the Morning CAroniek
newspaper (of which one eerie' had lately been collected and
published in two volumes, illustrated by my esteemed friend,
Mr. George Cruikahank), waited upon me to propose a some-
thing that should be published in shilling numbers—then
21 oon own to me, or I believe to anybody else, by a dim re-
of certain interminable novels in that form, which
mad, some 25 yeses ego, to be carried about the country
by pedlars, and ova. NOW of which I remember to have shed
aismsserable tears, boffin
I*erred my appreotieeehip to life.
Who I *posed my dim in Furnivarrinn to the managing
pelage who rapeeemetti the firm, I recognised in him the
pusesatresa etas hada I had bought, two or three years
Eg7, and when I had never seen before or since, my
et the esay/Mfass in which my firateffusion—drotpid
one amain at twilight, with fear and tremb • ,
1.1. • leek letter-bees, in a dark office, up a dark court,
Plssietrast—ss in all the glory of print ; on which
onetime -the- --bow well I recollect it !—I walked
down to waittnintese Hall, and turned into it for half an
hour, because my eyes were so dimmed with joy and pride,
that they could not bear the street, and were not fit to be
seen there. I told my visitor of the coincidence,
which we both hailed as • good omen i and so

fell to business. The idea propounded to me was
that the monthly something should be a vehicle for certain
plates to be executed by Mr. Seymour, and there was a notion,
either on the part of that admirable humorous artist, or of
my visitor (I forget which), that a " Nimrod Club," the
members of which were to go out shooting, fishing, and so
forth, and getting themselves into difficulties through their
want of dexterity, would be the best means of introducing
these. I objected, ou consideratim, that although born and
partly bred in the country, I was no great sportsman, except
in regard of ali kinds of locomotion ; that the idea was not
novel, and had been already much used ; that it would be
infinitely better for the plates to arise naturally out of the
text; and that I should like to take my own way, with a
freer range of English scenes and people, and was afraid I
should ultimately do so in any case, whatever course I
ztureatzi be to myself at starting. My views being
to, I thought of Mr. Pickwick, and wrote the first
number;. from the proof sheets of whlch Mr. Seymour
=as lam drawing of the club, and that happy
portrait of its founder, by which he is always recognised, and
which may be said to have made him a reality. I connected
Mr. Pickwick with a club, because of the original sugges-
tion, and I put in Mr. Winkle expressly for the use of Mr.
Seymour. We started with a number of twenty-four pages
instead of thirty-two, and tour illustrations in lieu of a
couple. Mr. Seymour's sudden and lamented death before
the second number was published brought about a quick de-
cision upon a point already in agitation ; the number became
one of thirty-two pages with two illustrations, and remained
so to the end. My friends told me it was a low, cheap form
of publication, by which I should ruin all my rising hopes ;
and how right my friends wild out to be, everybody now
knows. "Boo,' Mr. Dickens' signature in the Morning
Chronicle, and sppended to the monthly cover of this book,
was he adds, the nick-name of a pet brother, and adopted by
him' as a nom de plume.

"Mt
FELIX SUMMEELT'S ART-MANCFACTURE.—A Bride's
Inkstand, designed by John Bell, sculptor. The In-
fant Neptune, designed by H. J. Townsend. A Water
Jug, designed by H. Redgrave, A R.A. The Milk Jug,
designed by Felix Summerly. A Beer Jug, from a design
hy H. J. Townsend, &c., &c.
The direct application of art to manufactures—the means
bow beet to weave together into one homogeneous whole
things pure and impure, spiritual and sensual—is a question
of great interest and equal difficulty. It is easy to write an
essay upon the subject—to babble about art, and touch
liettly and gracefully upon art-manufacture; to illustrate
with reference to Rafraelle and Fienza ware, which we ob-
serve Mr. Felix Summerly profanely calls "crockery"--to
Francisca Francis, and Beato Angelica, and Holbrin, and
Cellini, and the cabinet in the gallery at Florence (which,
by-the-bye, contains the only jewellery we ever saw that was
worth more than the intrinsic value of the metal and the
stones), and the numbers numberless of the finest minds that
in the middle age' bestowed thought and skill on subject*
which new only perplex the dull brain of the
humblest artisan. It- may be easy to do this,
but it is most difficult to carry our refined
theories into the workshop, where after all they must be
tested sad applied. It is a pleasant pastime for • clever
artist to indulge his fancy in designing ! Here is a teapot,
for example. How beautiful the form. What grace and
ease and flowing smoothness in every line! But, unfor-
tunately, the public will have a handle by which it may be
easily held; a spout that will drain every drop out of it,
without risk of the lid falling into the tea-cup; and a Dutch
capacity for holding water, which does not well harmoabie
with the line of beauty.
These difficulties are obvious enough, and should teach
critics to be considerate, and not to institute comparisons be-
tween this infant English art and the master works of the
muter mind of middle-age Italy. They may, and kindly,
set forth principles to serve as guiding stars
To those that in the wide world wondering are—
and thus do good service ; but they must teat the art and its
progress by the works of the manufactures of our day. In
this spirit we would suggest for consideration to Mr. Sum-
merly whether his artists be sufficiently impressed with the
paramount importance of firm. In works of this class and
character, form is everything—all else a grace and beauty
superadded, but not euential. Of this the Wedgwood/ were
conscious, as their works prove ; whereas, in the promised
series before us, many are overlaid with ornament. This is
the care with the " Beer Jug," by Mr. Townsend ; thou4h
the subject, we admit, is happily chosen, and the details
very beautifully wrought out. Fortunately, the work has
to pass through the hands of the artisan, and he will, we
doubt not, parody Hamlet's advice to his mother, and per-
suade Mr. Townsend to . .

Throw away the greater part
And live the parer with the other half.
So strongly do we feel this objection that from the " Water
Jug," by Mr. 'Lederer., simple and beautiful as it is, we
would take away the wreath of Homers that encircles the
throat ; they have an effect somewhat similar tie high
shoulders in the human figure. The obtion, however,
may be hypercritical, for the design is so chute and delicate
that not one in a thousand will feel the forte of it. A
very slight modification would give a different character to
this jug—another form of equal beauty—and make it as use-
ful as a twopenny pitcher. The milk jug, designed by Felix
Summery y himself, is very perfect in its way, because it is
really a thing for use, and may travel up and down the &m-
-etope, may "go often to the well " without more than the
ordinary chance of being broken.
The finest work in the collection, yet published, is the
"Infant Neptune," designed and modelled by Mr. Towns-
end. There is a power and vigour about it that will bear
comparison with the works of the greatest masters. It re-
minds us, indeed, of old Michael himself.
The " Bride's Inkstand " with " Kisving Children," as a
letter-weight, by Mr. Bell, are pretty—nothing more; per-
haps with reference to destination this was the point aimed
at. Both are graceful and elegant, and though the critic
may object, the public, we suspect, will admire and purchase.
The statuette of " Purity," or " Una and the Lion," will
successfully compete with Danecker's much over-praised
" Ariadne. ' The second title, however, is we presume an
after-thought, and certainly a mistake. Una never rode
naked on a lion, nor on a lion at all ; and no poetic license
can permit such a misrepresentation. Mr. Summerly may
call this statue " Purity " if he pleases, and very chaste and
pure it is; but it is not Una. The poet's idea is set forth
beyond question or cavil in his letter to Sir Walter Raleigh,
wherein he tells us that the Knight of the Redcroas
" expres es holynes ;" and we learn from the introductory
stanza what would indeed be obvious without this distinct
assertion, that Una represents " Truth " and Christian
purity :
The guile.' griwit enchanter parts
The Redone. Knight from Truth.
Now our eculptors must not play fanciful tricks with an '
allegory of this character, or change at pleasure the symbols
by which it is illustrated and explained
A lovely ladle rode him fair beside,
(pea a forty ass. snore With. Ma: snow ;

Ant by her side a Inilk-tehitr teethe she fed.
The lamb was a symbol so common as to be familiar even
at this day ; and an aocident in early christianity attached
something of reverence to the ass, which is even now in
popular belief marked with the cross. We have directed
attention to this point, because u historical and poetical
painting is becoming somewhat more common amongst
us, it may guard the artist from mischievous errors. If we
are to represent plat ages, we must do so faithfully. We
cannot, however, take leave of the statuettes without re-
peating that it is a work of high art, and superior, in our
opinion, to the "Ariadne " of the famous German.
On the whole, a direct attempt to introduce art into our
manufactures is a step in the right direction, and we heartily
wish Mr. Summerly all the name he deserves for this, and
numberless small matters, all uadertaken in a right spirit.