The Sun.
London, England, 1865-10-23 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 23, 1865.

The Cattle Plague,

The Journal de St. Petersburg publishes the fol-
lowing :
" Various foreign papers and even official reports have
stated that the cattle disease now prevailing in England
was introduced by cattle imported from Revel. An in-
vestigation having been ordered by his Excellency the
Minister of Finance, to examine into the condition of the
cattle of Esthonia, and to ascertain the number exported to
England in 1865, we are enabled to give positive data to
correct the erroneous assertions of the foreign newspapers.
" Since 1859, a period at which there were some isolated
cases of disease introduced by cattle from Ukrania, no ma-
lady has occurred in that province, and the sanitary state
of the cattle is excellent. During tho month of May, 1865,
the steamer Tonning exported from Revel to England 321
oxen, 331 sheep, and three horses, which wore not affected
by any disoaso whatsoever."

the streets. A large portion of the cattle were con-
stantly passing either on their way to the Blackwall
railway station, or from the river steam boats. Se-
veral steamers also discharged their cattle at Brown' s -
wharf, in the same neighbourhood, and the large
number of workpeople employed at the numerous
factories on the Isle of Dogs were put to serious in-
convenience by the roads, especially at the narrow
bridge at the entrance of the West India dock,
being blocked up by the droves of beasts. The
cattle were driven through the streets principally on
the Saturday and Sunday, and owing to their heated
state consequent on the excitement attending their
landing, and being hurried on the road, many of
them were really unfit for the market, and ought to
be slaughtered. It was stated that this state of
things could be remedied by the cattle being landed
lower down the river on the Essex marshes. At
Thames Haven there were facilities for discharging
cattle steamers, and shortly there would be similar
accommodation at Dagenham, where some docks
were being formed, while the adjacent marshes
would afford ample grazing ground for the oxen.
The London, Tilbury, and Southend Railway gave
direct communication from those places to the
Cattle Market, and the nuisance of driving the cattle
through the streets could thus be avoided. It was
hoped that the Secretary of State would cause some
alteration to be made in the present mode of land-
ing the foreign cattle and sending them to market.
Mr. Coleman, Mr. Edgcumbe, and other gentlemen,
having made some remarks upon the present system
and the great inconvenience experienced by the
public, especially on a Sunday, by the cattle being
driven though the streets, Mr. Baring inquired
whether there would be any objection to forming a
market near the wharves for the sale of the foreign
cattle. Mr. Coleman said some difficulty might be
experienced where the business of an old cattle
market was interested ; but no doubt, if such a
market was recommended, many persons would be
willing to enter into the undertaking. After some
further brief discussion, Mr. Baring said that what
had been urged on the subject should have every con-
sideration, and he would communicate with the com-
missioners of customs, and the commissioners of
police, with a view of ascertaining whether any alte-
ration in respect to the present plan of landing the
cattle and driving them through the streets to the
market could be effected.

The Poor Law Board and the East London

Union.

+--

Mr. Farnall, the Poor Law Board Commissioner, hold an
official inquiry on Thursday into the case which, in the
early part of the present month, excited much public atten-
tion—namely, that of Sarah Trusty, who alleged, before
the Lord Mayor, that she, being ill, nearly blind, and quite
destitute, had applied at the East Loudon Union for relief,
and had been told by the relieving officer that she could not
be relieved until inquiries had been made as to where she slept
last. The inquiry was held at the parochial offices in
Devonshire-square, Bishopsgate, and several of the guar-
dians were present during the proceedings.
Sarah Trusty, a ragged, forlorn-looking woman, who, it
was apparent, was wasted by disease, on being sworn by
the Commissioner, gave an account of the circumstances
under which she appeared, and some not uninteresting
particulars of poor-law life wore elicited. She said :—I am
45 years of ago, and am at present an inmate of the East
London Union at Homerton. I live in the "house."
That is, I am not warded in the infirmary, and
although I am very ill, I am not allowed to lie in
bed of a day, but when I am exhausted I have to lie on
the floor and rest my head on a form. My husband is 43
years of ago, and is a general dealer, or costermonger. I
have known this Union for many years, and I became
chargeable to it through my father, who was a freeman,
and worked for the Trinity House, being drowned ; but for
many years I never troubled the Union for anything, and
I only did so when I was, about seven years ago, left by a
former marriage with two children. I know Mr. Williams,
the relieving-officer of this Union, that is, I know his voice,
having applied to him six or seven times ; but I do not
know his face, as my eight will not enable mo to see him.
I applied to him for relief, and he refused me, on the 2d of
October, on coming from the hop country ; but I had ap-
plied to him before going into the hop country for a few
shillings and shoes for my children, and ho refused me. I
asked him at other times to go before the guardians, but he
refused to allow me—telling me to apply in Spitalfields for
relief ; that is,to the Whitechapel Union ; but I did not apply
there, as I was not renting a room in the parish ; we were
merely lodging in ono place one night, and in another place
the next. I was not then receiving relief. It cost us 100,
a night for our lodging, 7d. for a double bed for my husband
and me, and aid. for a single bed for the two children,
who aro aged 11 and 7 years. We sometimes had Is. a day
to live on besides paying for our lodging, and sometimes
is. 6d., and this money my husband earned by dealing ;
but he could not earn much, as he did not have much
money with which to gc to market. I went with my hus-
band and children hop-picking. We walked all the way
into the country to near Maidstone ; but we had a "lift "
in a cart part of the way back, and we stopped at Eltham,
about eight miles from London-bridge, on Sunday night,
Oct. 1. Ido not know how much my husband earned in
the country ; but I know that ho had only Is. 6d. in his
pocket when we got to London, for all the money was
spent in buying us food. We wero in the country 16 days,
but he did not make all full days, and I was not able to
work. We left Eltham, where we slept in a barn, at day-
break on Monday morning, and had some bread, which
we had brought with us for our breakfasts before start-
ing, and that was all we had to eat. On getting into Lon-
don I missed my husband near the bridge, and I came
direct to these offices. My reason in coming here was be-
cause I belong to Bishopsgate. I got here at half-past 11,
and went into Mr. Williams's office. I did not speak to
Mr. Williams, but it was he who first spoke to me. Ho
said, " What do you want ?" I told him I wanted an order
for the "house." Then ho asked me where I slept last
night, and I told him at Eltham, and that I was houseless
and without food. He said that he must make inquiries
about mo at Eltham before he should give me an order, or
do anything for me. I said, "Are we to be without food
until you send to Eltham and inquire about me ?" and
ho replied, ",Go about your business ; I shall do
nothing for you until I inquire about you." He fur-
ther said, ,c Will you go ?" And then turning to a man
he said, " Throw het out if she don't go." A man put his
hand upon my shoulder, and I said, "Touch me at yourperil ;
or you either, Mr. -Williams. I will save you the trouble
and go to the Lord Mayor." I went out and the door was
slammed after me. I made used of no bad language, and
I was never drunk. An officer was sent by the Lord
Mayor back with me here, and Mr. Williams told the officer
that I and my children should have food. But we never
had any food here. I had an order given mo to go into the
house at Homerton, and I and my children had to walk
there before we had any food. Homerton is a distance of
three miles from hero, and it was half-past 6 before wo got
any tea. On the following Monday my husband came to
the workhouse to see the children, and the:master detained
him and would not let him go without he took us with
him. The children were sent for from Hanwell, and we
all went the next morning ; but have since become charge-
able.

•In reply to further questions put by the Commissioner,
the woman said that she and her children had no food be-
tween daylight and the time they got to Homerton, and
that when the order was given her she asked the porter if
they were not to have food, and the reply given was, "That
will rest with the master ;" and, though cross-examined by
Mr. Williams, she still adhered to the truth of her story.

A statement made by Mr. Williams was then put in as
depositions. It has appeared before, and was, in gffect, that
on the woman coming for relief, he asked her where she
had resided, to which question, he said, she replied by
abusing him and making use of bad language, for which
he ordered her to leave the room, telling her to come when
she was quiet, and on sending her an order for admission
to the workhouse he found she had gone.
Thomas James Poster, the son of the woman by a former
marriage, an intelligent-looking lad of 11 years of age, who
has become an inmate of the Hanwell school, and had been
separated from his mother for some time, was questioned
by the Commissioner relative to the proceedings of the 2d
of October, and his replies were apparently so straightfor-
ward that the Commissioner said there was no reason to
doubt them. He corroborated his mother's statement about
walking into Kent, riding back part of the way in a cart,
sleeping at Eltham in a "place like an arch," and coming
to the relieving-officer's room. He said his mother asked
for an order for the workhouse, and Mr. Williams asked
her where she had slept the night before. When his mother
told him Mr. Williams told her she was to wait while in-
quiries were made. He did not hear his mother make use
of any bad language.
In cross-examination by Mr. Williams, the boy said that
his mother talked loudly, and Mr. Williams asked where
the husband was, which the woman had denied he had done.
Ho further said Mr. Williams told a man to turn hismother
out.

Henry Kelloway, the messenger and porter at the office,
was called to prove that the woman made use of bad lan-
guage, which he swore she did, and gave evidence in corro-
boration of Mr. Williams's statement. He said he wont to
the waiting-room with an order for the workhouse for the
woman and children a few minutes after the woman was
ordered out of the room, but she was gone.
The COMMISSIONER asked to see the order-book. This
was produced, and on turning to the counterfoil of the
order given to the woman, he read out as written on it,
"A very disreputable woman," and, turning to Mr. Wil-
liams, asked if those words wore written on the order given
to the woman.

Mr. Williams replied in the affirmative.
The woman here exclaimed, " Then that accounts for
the treatment I have in the house."

The Commissioner, addressing the relieving officer, said

he should like to impress upon officers".the:fact that star-
vation had nothing to do with character. The fact of im-
morality or want of respectability had nothing to do *ith
cases of relief, and the treatment of a person in the house
had nothing to do with character. The poor-law officers
were not magistrates that they were to punish ; but they
were to take care of the people. Mr. Williams had no right
to send a hint of an applicant's character to the master of
the workhouse. The guardians would give no such instruc-
tions, and the Poor-Law Board would not allow such a
thing to be done.

The witness Kelloway then went on to give evidence
in general denial of the woman's statement, as did another
witness, a pauper, whom the boy pointed out as the man
who was told to turn his mother out.
Mr. Williams was then examined, and he adhered to his
statement, that he had not asked the woman whero she
slept, but where she last resided.
The Commissioner—Did you on this Monday give the
woman and children any food ?—No ; because I had none
to give. We have bread, but it was all gone, or I should
have given her some.
The Commissioner—But I suppose you have it in your
discretion to purchase any ?—Yes.
The Commissioner—And if you had had bread you
would have given her some ?—I should.
The Commissioner—Then I consider you should have
purchased some for her, and not allowed this woman and
her children to tramp about from morning until night with-
out food.

Mr. Williams—But she did not make any application for
food.

The Commissioner—But you saw her at 11 o'clock, and
she told you she had walked from Eltham, which you must
know to be a long distance. She then comes back to you
at 3 o'clock, and you don't know that she has had any
food, and yet you send her a three miles journey without
offering her anything.
Other evidence was heard, and the Commissioner said
he would report the proceedings to the Poor-law Board,
from whom the guardians would probably receive a com-
munication.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

--•-

THE " SPECTATOR" ON THE WORST SERMON THEY
EVER HEARD !—The present writer has heard, in
the course of a pretty considerable experience,
many good sermons—by which we mean sermons
which assist us to feel the revealing power of
divine truth, and to remove the shadows which
time manages to throw over even the greatest and
most prophetic words many mere useless ser-
mons, which repeat the ordinary cut-and-dried
platitudes in the ordinary cut-and-dried manner,
and are mischievous only in filling the listener's
conscience with that meaningless mechanical drone
to which religious subjects are but too liable—and
not a few bad sermons, which if their nonsense were
not almost instinctively rejected by healthy minds,
would have a very strong tendency to re-impose the
veil which revelation is meant to remove, and make
the face of God more and more dim and unreal as
the cloud of their false phrases and foolish com-
ments drops over the great scenes of the divine his-
tory. But he never heard a sermon quite so bad
in this sense, so carefully adapted, if it were not
pure silliness, to obliterate the living form of Christ's
words, so certain to induce either impatient con-
' tempt in those who listened to it with any true feel-
ing for the subject, or a hollow and heartless man-
nerism of thought in those who may have been too
passive-minded for a grave act of spiritual repudia-
tion, as last Sunday, in a church not very far from
town, from the lips of some clergyman who was a
complete stranger in the place, and whose very
name even the writer did not and does not know.
We will give a brief account of it, simply in order
to realise the tyranny on which every independent
mind anxious to pray in the Church's words, and
not anxious to be fed with stones afterwards as an
indispensable condition of such prayer, is subjected.
The text was the parable of the Good Samaritan,
which if the preacher had merely read it out with
feeling, would have produced its own uniform
impression of profound beauty and simplicity.
The mere tone of the reading, however, might
have warned any intelligent ear that it was
going to be walled up in some living grave
of forced ecclesiastical symbolism. And so it was.
With not a word to point out the very purpose for
which our Lord delivered this parable, the rebuke
to the exclusiveness implied in the lawyer's question,
" Who is my neighbour ?"—the preacher began im-
mediately, in the dry sing-song of the pulpit, to
electro-plate the parable with the most forced and
incredibly unreal tissue of commentatorial double
meanings. The " certain " man who went down
from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves
was shown to be humanity going from Jerusalem
(the city of peace, equivalent of Paradise),—from
the state of innocence—to its fall ; and this was of
course clearly indicated by the use of the very un-
usual word " certain." Jericho in the valley of the
Jordan is deeply depressed below the level of the
adjoining country, and hence the going down to it,
intended to represent the downward course of the
soul of man from his innocence to his fall. (The
preacher did not explain why the decent was
gradual,—" the fall " being, as we supposed, sud-
den). Then the ' certain' man,—' Humanity '—
thus downward going—fell among thieves—evil
angels, to wit—who "stripped him, and wounded
him, and departed,. leaving him half dead. We
anticipated some little difficulty, for the preacher's
purpose, in the compulsory and apparently volun-
tary character of these injuries. Sin, we thought,
was voluntary, and that " the certain man," in spite
of that universal character which the word certain
appeared to confer upon him,—did not in any way
assent to the stripping and wounding, seemed to us
beforehand tolerably plain. Our preacher, however,
was particularly strong on this very point. 'Sin,' he
said, with some emphasis, is always voluntary ; man
fell voluntarily into sin at the fall. And so, he re-
marked, this certain man' fell voluntarily among
the thieves—the evil angels. He had apparently ar-
ranged an assignation with the brigands on his way to
Jericho in order to be robbed. This was new to us,
but so were many other features of this elogwent
interpretation. Then the evil angels " stripped him"
—that is, robbed him of his innocence'—and
" wounded him"—" mark the word ' wounded,' "
said the spiritual orator, " not only were man's vir-
tues and innocence taken from him, but his natural
powers were also wounded, enfeebled, disordered,
inflamed by the fall"—and then—this was the strik-
ing point of -the parallel—" departed, leaving him
half dead." " The evil angels," said the preacher,
" when they have once rifled man of his innocence
and destroyed the natural balance of his powers,
leave him in his helplessness, leave him to his fate,
to perish if he may." This leaving him on the part
of the evil angels was, according to the orator, a
peculiarly aggravating element in thd matter, and
we inferred that if they had stayed with him, and
done more for him in their own.peculiar line of use-
fulness, say, poured the poison of their own evil
nature more-completely into him, or wounded him
further so as to leave him quite dead, it would have
been a much less scandalous arid heartless business.
" And by chance there came down a certain priest
that way." The priest, said our teacher, also " a
certain priest,. mind, which shows he was a type,"
was the representative of the moral law of nature in
the time of the patriarchs. This moral law of na-
ture, administered by the ante-patriarchal priests,
could do nothing for fallen humanity, and so it
passed by " on the other side"—' as far as possible
from the victim.' Simple people had hitherto sup-
posed that the priest's neglectwas due, not to inability
but to reluctance to help the wounded man, and
the preacher therefore in this instance took a more
charitable, though more pointless, view of the priest
than the ordinary man. The Levite, we were told,
" who came and looked on him, and passed by on
the other side," represented the Law of Moses, the
sacred rites of which were committed to the tribe of
Levi. The Levite, though he was as helpless as the
priest, represented, we learned, a higher and purer
law, containing anticipations of the mightier agency.
The Levite was thus more dignified than the priest,
contrary to the common impression,—but as the
preacher did not explain how he was, more than the
priest, " a shadow of things to come,"—we supposed
the difference must have been in the " looked on
him,"—the specific inspection perhaps being a shade
nearer assistance than mere seeing. We offer that
contribution to the preacher for the . next time he
may deliver this sermon. But the conceits at once
most puerile and to our minds most like blasphemy
are yet to come. ' A certain Samaritan as he jour-
neyed came where he was.' Note, my brethren,
said the preacher, that unlike the priest and Levite,
the Samaritan does not come by chance; he jour-
neyed hither expressly to find the wounded man ;
for the Samaritan is our Lord. The Jews called
him a Samaritan, and said he had a devil. He
denied having a devil, but never repudiated the title
of Samaritan. His being a Samaritan indicates,
too, a difference of race. He is not of the race of
man, but of divine lineage, of a different race ; yet
not so different but what he can be a neighbour to
him who is fallen and bleeding, and needs his help.
" And when he saw him, he had compassion on him,
and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring
in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and
brought him to an inn, and took care of him." Of
course this described the method of redemption; the
oil and wine were the sacraments,—in other words,
we suppose, the same as bread and wine ; after-
wards, however, the preacher said the wino was the
styptic 'repentance,' which cleansed the wound,
and the oil the soothing grace which softened and
refreshed it : and here there was a little discrepancy
and double interpretation. For some time we had
been wondering whether the preacher would find a
mystical meaning for the beast. He did not hesitate
at all. Our Lord's " own beast," on which suffering
humanity was raised and borne to the inn,"—the
Church of course—was, " Ilis humanity !" The

Samaritan lineage being His divinity, the orator
had to descend below man altogether, to an animal
natiire, a beast of Intrclen, for. Christ's humanity.
We confess we were both stirptified and disgusted.
Then, " On the morrow, when he departed," re-
ferred to the time between the resurrection and
ascension—the departure being the ascension—the
twopence which he gave to the host—the ruler of
the Church—were the Old and New Testament—
spiritual coins stamped upon the image of the spiri-
tual King 1 But what the additional payment was
to be when " he came again" the preacher omitted
to say—new chapters in the divine revelation, we
suppose, if we are to judge by analogy, Of course
when the preacher came to " Which now of these
three was neighbour to him who fellamong thieves ?"
and the answer, " He that showed mercy on him,"
and the rejoinder, " Go and do thou likewise," he
broke down—for to tell ordinary men that they
were to do the work of the Redeemer, to bind up
the wounds of man's moral nature, to give it of
their, own strength, to bear it on their human na-
ture, and then deliver the Old and New Testament
to the Church for its instruction, is sheer nonsense.
So when the preacher got to our Lord's own appli-
cation, he was obliged perforce to drop his own non-
sense, and take up the natural meaning of the
parable. Now no doubt one does not often hear
the words of Christ beclouded, and made absolutely
inane, by such nonsense as this. But to hear them
made much less clear than they are at first sight to
the simple mind, to be choked by the dust of cut-
and-dried moralities, to be vexed by the artificial
manoeuvres of pedantic learning, to be deadened
with the drone of words that mean nothing fresh or
living, is quite as common, in sermons, as not. And
will any say it is a religious duty for all who wish to
join in social prayer to listen reverently to these
things, whatever they be, and from whomsoever
they come ? We say that such a tissue of dull,
meaningless falsehood as the divine parable of the
Good Samaritan was incased in, last Sunday, is
mischievous to all—to those who see its silliness be-
cause it is irritating—to those who do not, because
it envelopes divine realities in a cloud of unmeaning
words and phrases.

THE " SATURDAY REVIEW" ON PIETY OUT OF
PLACE.—One would think that an erotic ode is the
very last place in which to expect any talk about
heal, enly things. To combine the slightly hetero-
geneous styles of Anacreon and Dr. Watts seems a
feat which nobody would be particularly eager to
execute. Yet there is one celebrated personage so
determined to make religion popular that he does
not even shrink from working it into a sort of
hymen mai song. An epithalamium with the fag-
end of a hymn tacked on to its conclusion is really
not a bad example of this strange tendency among
the truly pious and regenerate to thrust in religion
at every turn. We do not often see it in so exag-
gerated a form, but characteristics are best observed
on a large scale. Need we say that it is Mr. Spur-
geon to whom we are indebted for this grotesque
composition ? Nobody but he would ever have
thought of mixing the style of " Verses to Chloe"
with the style of " Jerusalem, our happy home,"
and publishing the unique result in a religious jour-
nal noted, as we are told, for " sound, searching,
practical divinity." A certain morning newspaper,
long famous for its great erudition and singular
delicacy of taste, declares that " there is not only in
this poetic effusion from the most popular preacher
of the age overflowing conjugal affection, but fine
ideas and beautiful imagery." And then, with an
enthusiastic burst—" Thrice happy would every
married home be did the same feelings glow in the
bosom of every husband as those which are here so
felicitously expressed by Mr. Spurgeon in relation
to the partner of his life." This singularly terse
and neat eulogy—quite up to the mark of Sam
Weller or Mrs. Gamp—naturally fills the reader
with expectation, and sends him eager to the verses
themselves in which the most popular preacher of
the age felicitously expresses his conjugal affections
in relation to the partner of his life. We may have
some misgivings as to the exact propriety of people
felicitously expressing their conjugal affections in
relation to their wives in religious magazines. But
perhaps this is a foolish squeamishness on our part.
The Anacreontic verses are entitled " Married Love
—To my Wife," and are dated from Hull, the in-
habitants of which town were lately so fortunate
as to have an opportunity of sitting under Mr.
Spurgeon. Mr. Spurgeon first compares himself
to a stream, then distinguishes himself from a
swallow, and from a wooer, and from a water-
colour painting, and from glittering dewdrops. As
his friendly but Gampish critic remarks, the poem
really abounds with fine ideas and beautiful
imagery. Mr. Spurgeon's skill_ in the mechanism
of versification is quite surprising to those who
have only thought of him as a learned and
thoughtful divine. The lines trip on like the best
of Tom Moore's. And the rhymes are unexception-
able, particularly in the last stanza but one, where
" grows old" corresponds to " of old." We defy the
most snappish and ill-conditioned of critics to say
that old does not rhyme with old. Our only fear is
that Mr. Spurgeon's facility in the composition of
amorous poetry may endanger his popularity with
the saints of the Tabernacle. These- charming
gambols, this talk of glittering dewdrops, and " love
dyed ingrain," and the wooer's precious stone, must
surely strike the converted man, who has thrown
out the old Adam, as sadly frivolous and worldly.
It is quite as unregenerate as the writings of the
reprobate Prior ; for instance :
The pride of every grove I chose,
The violet sweet and lily fair,
The dappled pink and blushing roso
To deck my charming Chloe's hair.
But Mr. Spurgeon knows what he is about. The
main part of his poem does, it may be admitted,
exhibit a spirit of levity rather deplorable in such a
man. It has too much of the ring of a valentine
about it. Printed on a piece of laced paper, and
with one or two very slight verbal alterations, it
would do capitally for the next 14th of February.
But, as we have said, Mr. Spurgeon knows that
even a valentine, in the circles where he is read and
admired, would be thought to be redeemed from its
essential wickedness if it were seasoned by a little
pious talk. To say simply, " The rose is red, the
violet's blue, the pink is sweet and so are you,"
would be frivolous and worldly, and unseemly be-
yound expression. But to tack on to it something
from "Twinkle, twinkle, little star," and it in-
stantly becomes a felicitious effusion of holy joy
in relation to a future partner of your life. So Mr.
Spurgeon winds up his amorous song in that way.
To an ordinary person there is something uncom-
monly startling in the sudden appendix of the hymn
to the valentine. But to- anybody accustomed to
the usages of pious circles it is quite a familiar de-
vice. Show as much as you like of what they call
worldliness or self-indulgence or frivolity, but let it
be served with a sauce of godly phraseology, and
your character is quite safe. Mr. Spurgeon has
managed the mixture.admirably. He has not spoiled
the worldly portion by clumsily infusing the heavenly
into it. The union is merely mechanical, and not
chemical. Those who prefer it may take the purely
erotic part without having it spoilt by the incon-
gruous religious part. Nobody would ever suppose,
while he was in the midst of all the fine things
about sapphires blue and early dewdrops and young
wooers, that there was a pious tag to come. So our
enjoyment is not impaired. But Mr. Spurgeon is
not the only public character who tries to make re-
ligious talk a part of daily life. It seems that Mr.
Montgomery, the actor, has taken the Nottingham
theatre ; so he issued an opening address, enume-
rating the various attractions which he proposed to
offer for the entertainment of his patrons. But this
was not enough. The worldliness of a dramatic pro-
gramme stands as much in need of being varnished
by religion as the amatory ode. " Recognised as
our profession is," says Mr. Montgomery with
theatrical grandiloquence, " by the highest in the
land, we have little to fear from the clouded intel-
lects and narrow prejudices of a limited few ; but
even they shall be convinced, if they will come
among us, that there is nothing inconsistent in fol-
lowing our profession and wearing the light yoke of
that Lord of love who stilled the rolling wave of
Galilee." How amazingly gratuitous! Then, to
make bad worse, some local divine anathematised
the coupling of the programme with this reli-
gious talk as " immoral and blasphemous." One
can scarcely go this length, but still it would be
hard to imagine a piece of worse taste than to
combine in one document the rather incongruous
statements that the boxes had been newly decorated,
that every attention should be paid to the scenery
and costumes and that the actors all wore " the
light yoke," &C. H we are not mistaken, it was Mr.
Montgomery who a few weeks ago announced in his
bills of the Haymarket Theatre that " among the
actresses would be found some of the loveliest women
in England." At Nottingham people are probably
not so alive to the force of this recommendation.
The provinces are more open to religious considera-
tions. Mr. Montgomery is very wise in varying
his attractions—lovely women in one place, and
the light yoke in another. Suppose a doctor
were to advertise himself on the same principle,
asserting that the old proverb, Übi tres medici ibi
duo athei was a vile calumny, and that, if anybody
would come to him, they would see the compatibility
between selling pills and draughts and feeling pulses,
and wearing " the light yoke," &c. What can be
more objectionable than this ruthless ostentation of
piety in season and out of season, whether by
players or preachers ?
THE " ATHENEUM" ON HEINRICH ERNST.—The
long agony—for to such did the last years of Herr
Ernst's life amount—is at last over. The Times of
this day week recorded that his.career of suffering
closed at Nice on the Bth of this month. This is
one of the cases in which departure can only be wel-
comed as relief. His long-protracted bodily pain

had been long known to be past the power of medi-
cine to alleviate ; and it is to be feared that the
princely munificence with which the artist dispersed
the gains made by him during his career of public
exhibition left him to face sickness in its most de-
pressing form, under narrow circumstances. It may
be added, however, that the active kindness of those
to whom his admirable qualities had endeared him
failed him not to the last. A more amiable man
never breathed than Ernst ; nor one of a better
heart, a finer intelligence, and a more generous and
unenvying nature. A certain languor of tempera-
ment, approaching to indolence, and of late years
aggravated by illness, prevented him from doing
full justice to his powers, either as a creative
cian or a member of society ; but his friends win
recollect him not merely by his nobility of nature,
incapailift of intrigue, jealousy and suspicion, but
also by his quit.7.lr and delicate sense of humour. As
an artist he cannot be (2,
:Terrated among the violinists.
At the moment of writing
are without any bio-
graphical data to tell us under 471
Ernst, born
in 1814, at Brunn, in Moravia, acquired his mas-
tery over his instrument,—a- mastery, hov,-ever,
accompanied by a singular drawback, which wa
probably organic,—not a defect arising from in-
complete study. During his entire career Ernst
was always more or less liable to play out of tune ;
in this resembling the greatest singer of modern
times, Pasta, who could not, even by her indefa-
tigable industry and indomitable will, control her
tendency to imperfect intonation. In his best days,
Ernst's tone was rich and grandiose, with a touch in
it of that vibratory Italian quality, characterising
Paganini and the players of the Southern school, as
distinguished from the more solid—perhaps less e%-
pressive—countrymen and followers of Spohr. If We
mistake not (but the facts to fall back upon, we re'
peat, are singularly meagre), Ernst made himselfi
hearing, even in the teeth of the frenetic successwhich
attended Paganini • and this, in some degree, by
meeting the wonderful-Genoese virtuoso on his own
ground. Less perfect in his polish, less unimpeach-
able in the diamond lustre and clearness of his cone,
than De Beriot, Ernst had as much elegance as that
exquisite violinist, with greater depth of feeling.
Less audaciously inventive and extravagant than
Paganini, he was sounder in taste, and, in his music,
with no lack of fantasy, more scientific in construc-
tion. He wrote for his instrument too sparingly,
owing to the placid carelessness of his nature, Of
which mention has been made ; but his great con-
cert pieces will stand. The allegro of his unfinished
" Concerto in F Sharp Minor," of an almost insur-
mountable technical difficulty, is based on those
clear, impassioned, and noble
.phrases, and con-
ducted with a thorough science which ensure it per-
manence in the repertory of violinists of the very
highest class. Probably there is no movement of its
length which has lasted so long, and had so deser-
vedly wide a currency as his " Elegie." Of Ernst's
stringed quartetts, and his grand violin studies, we
were speaking only the,other day. The secret, how-
ever, of Ernst's success, whether as a composer or a
virtuoso, lay in his expressive power and accent.
There has been nothing to exceed these as exhibited
by him in his best days. The passion was carried
to its utmost point, but " never torn to tatters"'
the freest use of tempo rubato permitted, but always
within the limits of the most just regulation. This
is an excellence granted to few—measured abandon-
ment (if such a term may be employed) being one
of the rarest graces in art. Those who have exhi-
bited it in perfection could almost be counted off on
the ten fingers. Ernst possessed it in the highest
degree. We recall certain of his cadenzas (one espe-
cially, to Mayseder's graceful, varied air in E major),
certain readings (as those of Beethoven's Second
Razumouffsky Quartett,and of the " Cavitina" in his,
posthumous quartett in B major ; of Mendelssohn s
quartett in E minor, and the adagio of his posthura:
ous quintet* which " stand out," after their kin°,
as distinct and superior as anything to be cited in
our not too long list of first-class musical treasures.
Themis none of the exaggeration which the death
of a great man is too apt to awake in the Oa?
praise. As an example of certain of the very highest
qualities•which can be combined in a musical pee:
and interpreter, Ernst must always be• rated, if not
the first, among the first.