tures. At vonport the number is 788, being a decrease
of 69 in THE Magazines for September seem to reflect very faithfully the the year • 7 of them are children, 63 pupils from private schools, condition of the public taste. Almost all the questions which have 44 are Tool teachers, and 104 are students. The amount paid in been eagerly discussed in society during the last four months are dis_ fees • these schools was, in the first case, 2031. ; in the next, cussed over again in some one or other of the gaily bound serials 7 1 . 12s., yet they received in aid respectively 1621. and 1171. It before us. The Belgravian lament has elicited two articles, both very not, as has been said, entirely self-supporting, although the total of mise of a third. The Scotchmen are still " sullenly firing" long-range ference to these public schools, most of which are assisted by Par- What our periodical critics think of the Belgravian lament is liamentary grants, it should be stated that they pay 51. a year for one to be discovered in Fraser': Magazine and the Cornhill. But each lesson a week. The largest income is paid to the department from writer handles the subject in a manner peculiar to himself. In Fraser London and Manchester. The metropolis yields 26061., of which it is used as a peg on which to hang some reflections concerning the 4631. comes from the charity schools, and 25/. only from private manners and morals of the age in general : in the Cornhill it is made schools ; Manchester pays 10691., and it is curious to observe how an occasion for vindicating the " selfish bachelor," and for unfolding the middle class, with the characteristic eye to business peculiar to all that is really wrapped up in the phrase "Keeping up appearances." the place, avails itself of the schools to the extent of 3921., while Fraser complains that the young men and women of the present the students of the artisan class, male and female, are only about day have been educated on a system of moral licence combined with double the number, and pa y 3941. In Glasgow, Birmingham, and intellectual tension ; that sacrificing all to knowingness, our young
Coventry, there are no pup i from private schools. ladies have become familiarized with facts of which their mothers
Reviewing the financial state of the schools, we find that the only vaguely heard as of rumours from some remote and half-mythic income from fees has diminished in 34 instances and increased in 27, region ; that this general intimacy with what is wrong has made while from 14 schools there is no statement. This decline is attri- them cease to be afraid of it ; and that, consequently, things which bated to the Volunteer movement. The course of instructionpursued ought never to be mentioned in female society have now become an in the training school is divided into six groups—elementary drawing, ordinary jest, and part of the regular "chaff'' of every fashionable painting, figure drawing, modelling ornament, modelling the figure, damsel. We deceive ourselves, the writer thinks, in believing that mechanical drawing, architectural drawing. Besides practice in our civilization is powerful enough to prevent bad results. Civilize- teaching, this course is said to comprise "to the fullest extent all the tion alone does not tame the strong passions of humanity ; it merely usual academic studies," and others which have a direct reference to smooths over the surface of society, through which, however, fright-
machinery, manufacture, construction, and ornamental design. ful evidence of the volcano underneath is constantly bursting in the schools be overflowing. wife lose them also, and his children reared even in ignorance of their
The legitimate sphere of the department lies in applied art, yet existence. But a still more powerful deity remains behind, who claims the Report does not furnish even the faintest allusion to any practical the allegiance of every man of parts before domestic happiness, and results of their schools in supplying the manufacturers and decorative that is—independence. The members of liberal professions, for whose artists of this country with artt workmen and designers. We are especial benefit this article is intended, should love their profession aware that some few of the pupils of the schools have found occu- for its own sake, and not merely for what they can make by it, pation in the manufacturing districts, but we know that they have if they are to do anything great or noble. Mere domestic imp- rint yet succeeded in keeping the French designers from our potteries, piness is a low ideal of life : a delightful adjunct, if we can our glass-works, our calico-printing, our silk-weaving, and paper-stain- unite it with the pursuit of some great object, such as the ing works. In Manchester, at certain seasons, the French designer is completion of a great book, the expansion of au important rly expected; he makes his appearance regularly with his port- science, the advance of beneficial legislation, but not to be folio of neatly executed designs, ready for the engraver, suitable to substituted for any one of these objects. But when a man has others the public taste, and consequently acceptable to the manufacturer. dependent upon him, he must judge of everything in life by its money These artists belong to no schools of design, yet they carry off the value alone. Thus "in many a neglected parish the clergyman takes prizes in the face of our elaborate establishments. If it is not so, we pupils, and many, a man who might have written books worth read- presume the Report would have had a more explicit tale to tell, and mg shreds his mind into magazines and newspapers. Many a lawyer we should have been able to congratulate ourselves on having at last or doctor who might otherwise have distinguished himself has to put a school of design that could furnish our own patterns to our manu- up with a half acquaintance with his profession, and an obscure facturers. In the list of national medals awarded, 21 only out of 80 country practice, because he determined, as he thought magna- are given to elementary and applied design, and of these only one to nimouay, in early life to do a brave thing, and marry as he pleased, emical drawing, one to architectural design, and none to mould- setting appearances at defiance ;" and " many an enterprise of great rag, casting and chasing, porcelain painting, wood engraving, and litho- pith and moment has been gently smothered by a happy marnage graphy. Now, in mechanical drawing, in nickel work, and in wood and a large family of fine children. Many a vigorous career, both in engraving, the English are considered to stand among the first in the action and in speculation, has been cut short by baby fingers." It world, but the men who have obtained this position are not from the must be admitted that the clubs have found a powerful champion In ranks of the School of Design, neither does it seem they are likely this writer, though what will be thought of him by the sisters of his to come from that source. club acquaintances is a totally different affair. Women are in the If the department, with all its professors and teachers, with its habit of stigmatizing such ideas as these as "wicked pride." There and it s
allowance from the public of 14,0001. a year in salaries and 22,0001 this : that if a man cannot marry on five hundred a year neither can
he do worse. The talk we have seen tit the newspapers about the superior cheapness of illicit connexions is all rubbish. The only thing which a man saves by that kind of life is the expense of giving parties, and that is more than counterbalanced by expenses of a dif- ferent character. However, bachelors and married folks must all dine somehow ; and Blackwood and the Cornhill undertake to tell us something about this neglected art. " Meditations on,Dyspapsia" is the title of an article in the first-mentioned periodical, which we think we can hardly be wrong in attributing to the pen of Professor Ayton. The present article is only a description of the malady. Another one is to in- strut us in the cure. If we are to suffer from this horrible disorder, it is as well to do it with a smile ; and the writer of the article makes us laugh and tremble at the same moment by his humorous description of the cause and vivid picture of the effect. We have not space to quote both. But we give this little sketch of indi- gestion as a gem in its way : "The stomach has now become more seriously deranged. All kinds of food generate acid ; and in this stage the patient usually has recourse to the carbonates of soda or potash, which in their turn give a temporary relief, though without in any way arresting the disorder. By this time dyspepsia, like an insidious serpent, has fairly folded the victim within its embrace, and is squeezing him at its leisure. Everything he eats disagrees with him, and seems to undergo some wondrous transformation. That which was served up at table as haggis, seems converted, two hours afterwards, i into a ball of knotted tow—a mutton-chop be- comes a fiery crab, rending the interior with its claws—and even rice-pudding has the intolerable effrontery to become revivified as a hedge-hog. After that come nausea and vomiting. You derive no benefit from the food you swallow. From twelve-stone weight you dwindle down to ten. Your countenance becomes ghastly, your eyes hollow, and you totter prematurely on your pins. The mere notion of exercise becomes distasteful. You feel as if you had no strength for anything. You are pensive, moody, and irritable. Your mind loses its elasticity and power; and when you sit down to compose, instead of manly matter, you produce nothing but the dreariest of drivel."
The article on " Food, and How to Take it," in the Cornhill, is of a more scientific character than the above : comparing vegetable diet with meat, water with beer and wine, and calculating the exact number of ounces which a healthy man requires in a day. The writer allows that science and experience are at issue on the subject of stimulating drinks, the former being all against them, the latter as strongly in their favour; but he very sensibly observes that in this, i as in all other such matters, Nature is our best guide, and that we can hardly do wrong where she does not remonstrate. The articles we have upon America are both very short. One is in Fraser, and deals with belligerents' rights at sea; the other is in the shape of a letter from Mr. Hughes to the editor of Macmillan, and is intended as a vindication of the Northern States from the aspersions of the English press. The first-named writer recommends the con- cession of what America demanded in 1856; that is, the immunity of all private property from seizure, and thinks that England herself will be the chief sufferer by maintaining the existing system. We agree with all that Mr. Hughes says about the rights of the North, and the sycophantic fluctuations of tlteEnglish newspapers, who began to praise the South as soon as the Southerners won a battle. But we fear lie is wrong in saying that no serious person could get up "and say, in his own name, or write in his own name, that the meaning of the whole war—the point really at issue, from first to last—has not been, and is not (to put it at the lowest) whether slavery shall be confined to its present limits in North America, or allowed to extend as and where it can." We have seen various statements by high authorities to this effect, though we differ from them in lobo. We must notice with disapprobation an article in the Cornhill on "Negroes Bond and Free," which is unjust and inaccurate,—showing little knowledge of the real results of Negro labour in Jamaica and the other West India islands, and containing a flippant estimate of the Negro character.
The Irish census forms the subject of three very interesting articles, one in Fraser, one in the Dublin University, and one in the St. James's Magazine. It appears from these various articles that the decline of the Irish population commenced as early as 1831, and was occasioned by the simple fact of a population •too numerous to be supported by the soil as then cultivated. During these ten years, in which the principal English railroads were constructed, 112,000 Irish settled in England, and 400,000 in Canada and America. But during the next ten years the population did not merely show a lower rate of increase, as during the previous decade, but a posi- tive decrease, being in 1841 rather more than 8,000,000, and in 1851 only 6,500,000. Daring the last ten years it has decreased by nearly another million; but it seems generally admitted that the decline is now stayed; and it is shown in the Dublin University Magazine that an actual increase has taken place during the last ten years among the resident population; that is to say, that during that period emigration has taken place to the extent of 1,230,986, while the diminution of population is only 789,482. In Fraser we learn a good deal about the improved agriculture, enlaroed farms, and in- crease of live stock, which the Ireland of to-day exhibits : "Since 1847, notwithstanding the tendency of Free-trade to convert corn-land into pasturage, there has been an increase of six hundred thousand acres in the area actually under the plough, and of more than twelve hundred thousand acres in the lands appropriated to green cropping. The value of the live stock of Ireland has advanced in twenty years from nineteen million four hundred thousand pounds to more than thirty-five million and a half, a growth of pro- speritv very expressive of the change in the landed system of the nation, and rivalling that of our foreign commerce. The revolution in the occupancy of the soil is equally remarkable, and, we think, gratifying. The ratio of population to the square mile was two hundred and fifty-one in 1841—a weight the land was unable to bear—it is now one hundred and seventy-six ; and this, too, when the bounds of cultivation and its produce have been enlarged considerably. The farms in Ireland above thirty acres—the only class fit for real agriculture—were in 1841 but seven in the hundred, and out of an area of thirteen million acres did not fill a space of above four; they are now twenty-sis in the hundred, and cover ten millions of acres at least upon an area of fifteen millions."
The proportion of Roman Catholics to Churchmen and Protestant Dissenters seems to continue on the whole unchanged. Mr. Hall indeed asserts in the St. James's that the numbers of Romanists and Protestants are gradually approximating; for that, whereas in 1315 the former were to the latter as eight to one, they are in the present year as only three to one. But on referring to the Dublin University Magazine, we find that Mr. Hall has overlooked the concurrent decline of population. The truth seems to be, that the decrease in the disproportion between the two is simply owing to the fact that the chief sufferers by the famine and chief constituents of the exodus were the Roman Catholics. The Protestants have not increased. On the contrary, during the last five-and-twenty years, they have lost nearly a quarter of a million. So that, when the population begins to recover itself, we have no reason to suppose that the pristine difference between the two creeds will not reproduce itself.
In Blackwood and in Macmillan we have those parting shots at Mr. Buckle whereof we have already spoken. .Blackwood exposes the unsoundness of that judgment which is based upon the evidence of one century only, and that one a period of exceptional turbulence, gloom, and suffering. Macmillan defends the framers of the solemn League and Covenant, insists upon it that Scotland led the van in the great fight for civil and religious liberty which signalized the seven- teenth century, and urges that Mr. Buckle, as an apostle of progress, ought to have condoned. all minor vices in respect of this one pre- eminent merit.
The only papers upon Art with which the September Magazines pre- sent us are to be found in Blackwood and Fraser. The former, in a pleasantly-written article called "A Day at Antwerp," takes up the cudgels for Rubens against Ruskin, lamenting the decay of the "grand old style" of "idealism," and so forth, and charging there-Raphaelites with unduly realistic tendencies. A second article. in the same Magazine, entitled " The Art Student at Rome," is an eloquent plea for the establishment of an artists' college at Rome for English students. The writer describes with great force and beauty the ad- vantages of a residence at Rome, and paints with much felicity the effects upon the mind of the art atmosphere which everybody there inhales. Fraser gives us a paper upon "Modern Art in Berlin," dividing it carefully into High Art, History, Landscape, Animals, and Genre, the general conclusion being "that of a general renaissance, if such a thing be possible, there are no symptoms whatever beyond the Rhine."
Of articles which cannot be classified, we should mention "Serf- dom in Russia," in Macmillan, full of curious facts and forcible rea- soning : whereas " Good and Evil," a paper by a German Professor, which OA Editor goes out of his way to "puff," seems to us of dulness even plusquani Germanic, and as full of emptiness as a balloon is of wind. In. Fraser, "Literature and Philosophy of the Early Christian Ascetics," and an article on "Parish Registers," may be read with interest. In the Dublin, we can recommend "Military Panics" and a review of Lord Macaulay's last volume. In the Cornhill, the "Roundabout Paper" on Gorillas should be looked at. Mr. Sala, in Temple Bar, has started a rival writer upon convicts against the Cornhill gentleman, who of course arrives at an exactly opposite conclusion, maintaining that the English convict system is better than the Irish. We have also in the same Magazine an article which de- serves attention upon Volunteer rifle-shooting. In the SI. James's, an essay upon servants comes in opportunely to throw light upon the Times correspondence ; and Mr. Anthony Trollope contributes an article upon the National Gallery, which we have not classed with the Art papers, because it concerns rather the purchase than the painting of pictures. In the fiction department, we have a capital one-number story in Blackwood called " The Rector." The first instalment of a new tale in Fraser by the author of "Guy Livingstone," which has nothing remarkable about it either one way or the other; and the conclusion of a very well written story, called "The Rivals of Krishnapore," in the Dublin. in "The Seven Sons of Mammon" Mrs. Armytage has nearly reached the end of her tether. But who on earth can have crammed Mr. Sala with all the rubbish he has written about Lord Carnation. As a fancy sketch the thing is utterly feeble and frigid, and as the description of a living man it is simply false. Mr. Worsley has written some very pretty lines in Blackwood upon " Phaethon ;" and somebody else a fair comic song on "Lord Mon. boddo."
Previous page
