Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1851-09-27
NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER.
NOTES ON NEW BOOKS.
1. CUBA AND THE CUBANs, by X. X. kIMBALL
2. CUBA IN 1851, by ALEXANDER JONES.

Recent events, which have shed such disastrous
lustre on the Queen of the Antilles, give to the
books above named al least an interest of acfuaife
and in these latter days, when civil changes and
political connections have occurred with such Al
iong-continued rapidity that they almost cease to
startle or move the public mind, rendered bLdse
with very excitement, it becomes necessary to
avail ourselves with all possible dispatch OF " the
word in season. or, as the Hebrew original ex-
presses it, Of the word on Wheels, if we hope to
reach the public ear, or wake the moral sense Of a.
people that have been drugged by the intoxicating
draughts OF demagogy. The worlds drama-for
all the worlds stage, says Shakespeare, and men
are only players-as acted now from year to year,
no longer opens with ever and anon some formal
and stately prologue TO noble theme, with prin-
ces to act, and monarchs TO behold the swelling
scene," but the whole stage, crowded with the
Masses" is thrown into an indiscriminate hurry
scurry, where the incidents, evolved beneath the
magic wand Of that "Deus &c machina," yclept
I" The Progress succeed each other with such
clsmorous importantly that
ssThat Of an hours age doth hiss the speaker
While beholding the transformation which the
physical world has undergone beneath the hand Of
science, men seem to have jumped to the false con-
clusion that the social, political, and moral world
must also be turned upside down, and that without
delay; and as in natural science we find few
hardy savans who would contract to take the world
to pieces and put it together in much better shape
than that which it has pleased the Deity to give TO
it, so in political and moral science we meet with
able architects Of ruin" who, like so many blind
Samsons, are ready to overthrow the pillars of
law, and lay in ruins the whole fabric of social or
der. He who would quote for respectful consid-
Grafton the lessons Of history, the maxms of expe-
rience, or the wise saws Of age, is straightway
bxy, nod and
set down by his contemporaries as one of those
hapless wights described by Rabeais as being born
in barrel, yet qui oncques ne reguarderent que
par ing frou.'
There are three circumstances in modern times
which, as we think, have tended very materially to
modify mems sentiments and opinions, as well as
the intellectual processes pursued in their forma-
ton. These are, firstly, the vas.ly-increased num-
Der Of the subjects which engage human thought
and enlist public interest; secondly the rapidity
with which political crises and social changes sue
coed each other; and, thirdly, the rapid transmits
sion and concentration of intelligence all subjects
globe, by means of the railroad, the steamer, and
the telegraph.
The immediate, and indeed inevitable, effect Of
the first, or the multiplicity of the subjects forced
on the public attention, has been to weaken our
hold upon certain old and, as hitherto regarded,
tablished principles, and in the attempt to clutch
larger "faggot of opinions" we have been COM
PEELED to relax our grasp upon those which we
once guarded so jealousy. Our ideas, moreover,
on subjects of momentous import-those grand and
primordial cognitons which lie at the basis of re-
gion, morals, and law-have lost their definiteness
and due prominence in the josing pre-occupation Of
host ofinterering claims and conflicting interests
meanwhile the careful and thoughtful discrimination
of our opinions, if not wholly discarded, is almost
precluded by its impracticabty, and therefore left
in a state of allegiance. The salient points of great
truths and fundamental principles have been thus
gradually worn off by constant contact with the
minor and often meaner interests of the hour, the
dictates Of temporizipg policy, or a huckstering
expedency until at last the face Of society has be-
gun to resemble some Egyptian plain, where fallen
obesks, the solemn sphinx, and crumbling temple
have been comminuted and well-nigh overwhelmed
by the ever-driftipg sands of the desert.
The same evil which infests society has of course
infected the schools, where the increase of studies,
combined with the "fast methods of the day, has
ended in the introduction Of wide superfciality
OF scholastic requirement that threatens speedily
to superinduce universal sciolism in the stead Of
true science. We hazard nothing in asserting that
our educational systems have lost in depth of
scholarship whatthey have gained in the widened
of study. We are not so well educated as
OUT latLers were, WOugn we may k7lOU more.
They were more learned, we are more habiLes,''
says Bayle. The knowledge which men pick mp
nowadays has been well lkened by somebody to
the gathering Of mamma by the Jews: " He that
gathers most has nothing over and he that gathers
least has no lack" Every one knows something Of
every thirg-the sure way to know nothing well,
and to engender the selfcomplacency of a preten-
tious shallowness. 1 y8
But we have said that the methods by WHICH we
arrive at our opinions have also undergone change
IN these latter days. When the events which agi-
tated the political and moral world were scattered
along the tract of ages, and occurred at wide inter-
walls, while the actors in the public scenes of life
were comparatively few lively yet sober interest
IN public affairs could be longer sustained and
ample time was allowed for their dispassionate APP
probation. Opinions could be weighed with care
full and accurate deliberation, and the judgments
which men formed under these circumstances were
not liable to the errors which must necessarily often
vitiate the conclusions at which men are compelled
to arrive per salt,tm. But when, as in our day,
great political revolutions and social cataclysms are
sprung upon the nations with accelerated rapidly,
and when whole continents are retculated by net
work OF railways and telegraphs, converting the
body polite into one vast sensorium to be agitated
by every movement in its remotest member, what
time is left for each individual mind, upon which,
as on so many focal points, all this is precipitated,
Ito sum up judcious opinions The journals which
are most popular evnce this tendency of the age
they are mere neDs-papers--Hat and idle m;rrors
IF tho mo Thew a. 20 - i 4