NOTES AND QUERIES.
"'ALL flesh is grass." Modern physiology points to the vegetative functions of man ; but we could least have expected to find the military profession treated most especially on vegetative prin- ciples. Yet it is so. Officers are cultivated by simple growth. Ken, says Lord Grey, " rise to be General Officers, not by service, but merely by living on half-pay." As you put a bulb into a pot, and apply the proper materials to it, so you put a man into com- mission, manure him with half-pay, and be rises from being a Lieutenant-Colonel to being a General Officer. You grow a white- beaded veteran, just as you grow a cauliflower.
The Prussian Minister states that his Royal Master's "convic- tion " on the subject of his self-exclusion from the conferences at Vienna) " is the point of departure for his future attitude." Pic- fzire King Frederick William, coregraphically "stuns pede in nub" on one of his own convictions ! John Reeve as " Cupid " on a sunflower is too gross a type of the design. It is more like John of Bologna's Mercury, standing gracefully on a puff of wind, with eyes sanctimoniously cast to heaven. Or still more like Titian's
i miraculous Bacchus, in the Ariadne picture ; for the convivial god actually stands upon nothing.
It appears to be inconsistent with the vital organism that any truth or principle once determined shall be stably fixed for the guidance of mankind. Truth is forgotten, principle is buried, and it is a part of our duty constantly to restore that which has al- ready been discovered and proved. Perhaps that which at first may appear to be a vexatious duty is the necessary consequence of the constant changefulness which opens the way for constant improvement and progress. Could we fix our truths, we might also fix our falsehoods, and remain fixed to the end of the chapter. No troth appears to be more self-evident than the rule that public discussion, to preserve its freedom alike from corruption and re- straint, must avoid questions of private and personal interests or motives : and yet no rule is more constantly violated. The South- Western Railway Company was divided into two parties, each up- holding a different course of action. The Times upheld one party, and imputed to the opposite that it carried its vote in " packed meetings "—" fictitious votes " being created, and others " tampered with." The Directors of the Company, who were on the side im- pugned, met the charges by a direct contradiction, invited their ac- cusers to inquire, and then proceeded to claim ajudgment in court, to defend them against libel. It is in this judgment that Mr. Justice Coleridge lays down the rule—" The public conduct of a man is a legitimate subject for discussion in the columns of a newspaper ; yet no one, as the consequence of his becoming a pub- lic man, can be called upon to submit his private character to the censure of the press." And even if the public conduct of an in- dividual be arraigned, " it is incumbent upon the accuser to go into the inquiry, however expensive and troublesome it may prove, and however he may at first be connected with it." These appear to be sound rules for the limitation of strictures on public men.
The serious illness of the Duke of Genoa, we are told, has drawn attention in Northern Italy to the system of medicine taught in the schools of Piedmont. He is affected with a pulmonary com- plaint, and one incident in his treatment was that he was fre- quently bled—nine times within a few hours. The question, is bleeding a desirable recourse in such oases ? is naturally mooted in Piedmont. It has been discussed in this country, we believe with a general disposition to discontinue the use of bleeding, par- ticularly in cases of the kind. The Duke, therefore, is likely to suffer for his country's good. The mistaken exercise of the lancet in his ease will probably challenge its usehout an import- ant part of Europe, to secure a grand reform the benefit of multitudes. It is rather remarkable that such a question should arise in Italy, a country which at former periods has taken a de- cided lead in the practice and science of medicine. But nothing is better established in the history of the world than the alterna- tion of states in taking the scientific lead. At one time it is Italy, then France, then England, and Germany ; and perhaps it may be Italy again.
The public burns with curiosity to know how it was that Lord John Russell appeared as a Minister in the early part of the Tues- day evening and was not a Minister by midnight P But the public will not be informed until we have the biography of Lord John completed—be the day far distant! The closer the curious public looks, the more unaccountable does the case appear. No sign of resignation reached the House while the noble statesman was act- ing as leader of the Commons. No breath of such a purpose es- caped to be borne upon the breezes of Pimlico on the way home from the House ; and any brother in office who accompanied the Lord President homeward can say whether, in that cheerful journey, the slightest hint of such a purpose escaped. . . . . Every man's house is his castle, and we will not penetrate, even to ask, whether Lord John's free and independent decision somehow or other preceded his arrival and opening of the question ; whether —But we tremble even to mention the queries that we will not ask, lest reply should as it were drag us, involuntarily, within the sacred threshold ; lest some " Mr. Smith " should blurt out the real state of the case, with which so universal a personage must be acquainted.
Who shall tell what motives govern a man P We cannot even tell who governs a state. We all know the story about the little boy that governed Athens by ruling his mamma, who ruled The- mistooles, the ostensible leader of the Whig party in that ancient commonwealth. But the reference to the child is sustained by very imperfect evidence. We have the story as it stands, indeed, from the right honourable gentleman himself; and we may be- lieve all that came within his own knowledge. But the assertion respecting the boy is no better than hearsay evidence ; while the statement respecting Madame Themistocles is at first hand, and we believe it. Statesmen are divided into those who, like Julius Caesar, govern everybody, the ladies included; and those, like Themistocles, who are governed by their ladies. It is difficult to trace the motives of the latter class.
But we have to note a distinction between the Athenian age and our own. Madame Themistocles had no press at command. Even in drawingrooms there were difficulties and restrictions un- known to our days of polite and pious liberty; at all events, Ma- dame had no gentleman connected with the press to catch inspira- tion in the seventh heaven of a fair political drawingroom; no organ in which to urge her views mingled with the daily news. The contrast of the two epochs is complete—as broad as that be- tween Themistodes, unjustly suspected of treachery, expelled from government, and standing in the presence of the Persian King, and Themisteoles not unjustly suspected, self-expelled, on the back benches.
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