... day, as well as one of the most remarkable and original of men." shown the only means of saving what is left | lowing terms, in his diary: "Breakfasted at of the English Church," 1836; "A Satire on Milnes', and met rather a remarkable party Satirists, and Admonition to Detractors," consisting of Savage Landor, Carlyle (neither 1836; the "Pentameron and Pentalogia," of whom I had ever seen before), Robinson, 1837; and "Andrea of Hungary and Gio- Rogers, and Rice. . . . Savage Landor, a vanna of Naples," dramas, in 1839. All these very different sort of person from what I had were written in Italy. The following ap- expected to find him; I found in him all the peared after his return to England, and dur- air and laugh of a hearty country gentleman, ing his residence at Bath; namely, "The Hel- a gros rejoui, and whereas his writings had lenics," 1847; "Imaginary Conversation of given me rather a disrelish to the man, I King Carlo Alberto and the Duchess Belgi- shall take more readily now to his writings Oso on the affairs and prospects of Italy," from having seen the man."-May, 1838. 1848; "Poemata et Inscriptiones," a new and The Countess of Blessington styles Landor enlarged edition: "Popery, British and For-"one of the most remarkable writers of his eign," 1851; the "Last Fruit off an Old Tree," 1853; "Letters of an American" (published under the pseudonym of Pottinger), 1854; "Pericles and Aspasia ; ""Dry Sticks Fagoted," 1858; besides frequent contributions to the pages of the Examiner newspaper. In the last-named book appeared some ill-advised and most objectionable poems, libelling a lady at Bath, to whom Landor had conceived an intense dislike. We shall not here revive the scandal, although we are, unfortunately, as biographers, obliged to note the fact. Twas a pity that a man with so brilliant a reputation should have been beguiled in his old age to sully his name in such a manner; but after all that may be said, it must be admitted that the services which he has afforded to literature during a long and illustrious life, are of too genuine and undeniable a character to prevent our recognizing, and paying due homage to, the great merits of the man and of the author. In reviewing some of the incidents of Landor's literary life, it is interesting to remember his strifes and his friendships among his celebrated compeers. Southey in his note to the "Vision of Judgment" writes, "of the author of Geber and Count Julian I can only say in this place that to have obtained his approbation as a poet, and preserved his friendship as a man, will be remembered among the honors of my life when the petty enmities of this generation will be forgotten, and its ephemeral reputations shall have passed away." To this, Byron must of course respond in equally strong language, so he says in reply, "I neither envy him the friendship, nor the glory in reversion which is to accrue from it." Lord Byron's friend and biographer, Anacreon Moore, speaks of Landor in the fol Emerson, in his "English Traits," says of him: "He is strangely undervalued in England-usually ignored-and sometimes savagely attacked in the reviews. The criticism may be right or wrong, and is quickly forgotten; but year after year the scholar must go back to Landor for a multitude of elegant sentences-for wisdom, wit, and indignation that are unforgetable." "You Mr. Howitt, in his "Homes and Haunts of the Poets," speaks kindly and reverentially of the great man. His description of his face and its expression is singularly apt. have no occasion to look deep and cautiously to discover his character; it is there written broadly on his front. All is open, frank, and self-determined. One can see that the quick instincts of his nature-that electric principle by which such natures leap to their conclusions would render him excessively impatient of the slower processes of more common minds; that he must be liable to great outbursts of indignation, and capable of becoming arbitrary and overbearing; yet you soon find, on conversing with him, that no man is so ready to be convinced of the right, or so free to rectify the errors of a hasty judgment." We have quoted the above writers, not only because it is interesting to learn how a man is esteemed by his professional contemporaries, but from our desire to excite in the popular mind a wish to study the works of Landor's undoubted master intellect. To have made an attempt at analysis of the productions themselves, in the brief limits to which this notice is necessarily confined, would prove simply useless. We can do better. We point out a mine of unexplored wealth—that is, so far as the great masses of the people are concerned and advise them to make re- the very seat which you now occupy, that the searches here, to test the quality for them- best policy the government of France could selves, and if it be, indeed, the golden ore adopt would be to ally itself closely with Engwhich they obtain, they will soon learn to land; and this was long before he came to value it for its own sake. the throne. He is the first politician in Europe; in fact, nearly the only man now living who thoroughly understands European politics. I knew him intimately, used to meet him frequently, take long walks, and hold long conversations with him; and my opinion is that if his uncle, the First Napoleon had possessed the brains of this one, he would have held Europe in subjection until his dying day.” An anecdote or two descriptive of Landor's personal manner, will not be out of place here, and will serve to conclude our sketch. The writer had once the honor of visiting Mr. Landor at his house in Bath, and was surprised to find such a number of good old paintings collected together in a small private house. Mr. Landor, however, informed him that there were only about three hundred there, but that he had as many more in Italy. General Sir William Napier, who, besides The king of Bavaria," he continued, " once being a soldier and an historian of first-class sent his minister to me, to inspect them, and repute, is also a clever amateur painter, and wished me to sell him some of them. Tell a judge of pictures, alluding one day to a the king of Bavaria,' said I, 'that I have seve-painting which Mr. Landor prided himself ral good and bad paintings; the poor ones I will sell him, if he likes, the good I intend to keep for myself."" Speaking of the state of affairs on the continent, and more particularly of the French empire, Mr. Landor referred most favorably to the capacity of Louis Napoleon. "The emperor told me once," said he, " sitting upon upon possessing, told him that he did not fully believe it to be a genuine Correggio. "Then I do," said Landor with all the emphasis and tone of superior knowledge, and would not listen to objections, but characterther, for he himself had decided in its favor istically turned away, disdaining to hear furand his views were based, of course, upon accurate data. HERBERT FRY. THE LAPPS AND NORWEGIANS.-The present condition of these Lapps, their peaceful undisturbed existence, their freedom at all periods from persecution or oppression, is a grand evidence of the high moral character of the Norwegians. I am not aware of any other instance in the world's history of a people so weak, so helpless for self-defence, remaining for centuries in contact with an energetic, civilized, and altogether stronger people, and never attacked, pillaged, enslaved, or interfered with, except for the benevolent purposes of education, and moral and religious improvement. The Norwegians have recently converted them from their strange old paganism, the worship of Thor, with its conjurations, magical drums and sacrifices to the stone effigy of the hammer-bearing god; have taught them to read and write, and when they fell into the habits of drunkenness sent apostles of temperance among them. The efforts of these temperance missionaries have been highly successful, and the drunkenness so common among the Laplanders when Mr. Laing resided in Norway in 1834-6, is now very rare. Those who talk about a law of If I were a Norwegian, I should point to the encampments of these peaceful, defenceless, little people, as the noblest monuments of my country's honor,-monuments more worthy of the nation's pride than the trophies of a thousand victories on the battle-fields. From Through Norway with a Knapsack," by W. M. Williams, Pp. 137-9 From The Saturday Review. a life of Margaret, Countess of Richmond, THE MOTHERS OF GREAT MEN.* who certainly was a remarkable woman, but THIS book has a special interest as a very to whose right to appear in this collection curious triumph of bookmaking. The idea there is the objection which Mrs. Ellis honoccurred to Mrs. Ellis that it would be very estly points out, that her son can scarcely be interesting to show how great men had been called a great man. As she goes on, howinfluenced by their mothers-how much of ever, her conscience becomes more easy on their greatness was derived from the mater- this head, and we find her including among nal side-and how powerfully a mother's care the great men whose mothers are to be nohad contributed to form their character and ticed Dr. Doddridge and Dr. Watts. But develop their genius. Not only did the the main resource is to speak of the great projected work promise to throw a valuable men whose mothers exercised no influence on light on many psychological questions of the their characters, and then speculate how the highest importance, but it might be made great men would have been altered if their to embrace a very fair amount of practical mothers had exercised such an influence. exhortation, and the mothers of lesser men Cowper's mother, for instance, died when he might be prompted to take lessons from the was six. Here is a great field opened. If wise course pursued in the striking exam- she had lived longer, would Cowper have ples selected of maternal.prudence and suc- been equally mad? No human being can cess. The idea was excellent, and Mrs. Ellis answer the question; and it may, therefore, set resolutely to work it out. Unfortunate- conveniently be asked, in every variety of ly, there was a dreadful deficiency of facts. shape. "Who," says Mrs. Ellis, "is capable With few exceptions, it turned out either of dealing with the strange contradictions of that there was nothing remarkable in the lives of the mothers of great men, or they did not influence their sons, or nothing was known about them. Mrs. Ellis complains of the sad stupidity of biographers, who have generally omitted to speak at length of the mothers of their heroes, and very generally for no better reason than that they knew nothing whatever about them. But Mrs. Ellis was not to be stopped. She had got hold of a salable title for a book, and if there were no facts to match it, why tant pis pour les faits. She trusted confidently to her practised powers of bookmaking, and she is justified by the result. She has turned out more than four hundred pages of a hand-personage, and go off into an abridgment of some-looking octavo-her tone is moral, and her style labored. All that depended on herself she has done. If she happened unfortunately to be short of material, that was not her fault. our nature but woman-kind, sympathizing, hoping, trusting woman?" And as, of all women, a mother is the most sympathizing, the general influence of the female sex would have been doubled by the presence of a mother to whom the poet might have repaired in his dark hours. Evidently, if we once begin to imagine what would have been the result if a woman who died when her boy was six had lived till he was forty, the book that is to contain the disquisition is in a fair way to reach the desired length. In fact, this and one other little manœuvre help Mrs. Ellis out of her difficulties. Her other great source of materials is to select an historical the history of the times. The life of Jeanne d'Albret occupies more than a fourth of the volume. Her son was indisputably a great man, but a fifth portion of the space might have contained all the matter that had any direct bearing on the relations of the mother and the son. But she is put to some hard shifts to get through her task. She gives a minute sketch of all that was done for Alfred by the lady The only two satisfactory instances given who superintended his early training, who by Mrs. Ellis of a mother whose son was formed his character, and directed the bent really great, and who had a direct and traceof his genius. Nothing is wanting, except able influence on that greatness, are the inthat this lady should have been Alfred's stances of the mother of St. Augustine and mother, whereas she was not in any way the mother of Napoleon. Not only was St. connected with him by blood. Then comes Augustine a very remarkable man and MoThe Mothers of Great Men. By Mrs. Ellis. nica a very remarkable woman, but the son London: Bentley. 1859. owed to the mother the direction of his thoughts, the purpose of his life, and the That mothers exercise an influence over their source of his greatest enjoyment. In those sons is obvious; but there is no reason to moments when St. Augustine was conscious suppose that the qualities which make a man that he reached the highest pitch of spirit- great are more dependent on this influence ual exaltation, he was also conscious that his than any other set of qualities. If Mrs. Elmother soared as high as he did. It would hs' book proves any thing, it proves that be an abuse of language to term Monica a there is no rule whatever on the subject, and great woman in the same way that we term no lesson whatever to be learned from it. It St. Augustine a great man, for he added to does not need an octavo volume to establish the piety and sublime feeling of his mother that a man of extraordinary gifts is likely to a remarkable degree of literary power and a render those gifts more profitable to himself great range of thought. We must also judge and others if he has a very pious, wise, strict, of all greatness by the test of success; and loving, charming woman to guide him in inSt. Augustine is principally to be called great fancy and youth. But no one can say that because he, as a matter of fact, gave so much great men have, as a rule, had such good forof its peculiar color to western Christianity. tune. Greatness depends on qualities that But the basis of his thoughts and feelings, are entirely personal to the individual, which his mode of viewing the relations between defy analysis, and cannot be traced to any himself, God, and the world, had been de- distinct source. They are affected in their rived from his mother. In a similar way we development by an endless variety of circumcan trace a clear affinity between the charac- stances, and a most important circumstance ter and mental constitution of Napoleon and is the sort of mother who has the control of those of his mother. There was the same them in their earliest stage. But they are stubbornness, the same largeness of thought, quite independent of her. Jerome and Jothe same meanness in certain acts of common seph Bonaparte had the same mother as Nalife, the same resolute determination to en-poleon. What made him great was that force the burden of their own personal as- which he had besides what they had; and the cendency on all around them. There was inultimate result of all inquiries of this sort is the mother a Corsican finesse which degener- to convince us that it is hopeless to ask why ated into the enormous lying of the son-the grandest liar, probably, that the world has ever seen. Napoleon himself attributed many of his notions of government to the family system in which he had been brought up; and the plan of helping, bullying, and snubbing his brothers, according to the fancies or the exigencies of the moment, was founded on traditions that dated from his infancy. In a minor degree, and in the case of a lesser man than either of these two, the same connection is traceable between the character and career of John Wesley and the influence of his mother. The stern piety, the active, ardent affection, and the substantial, though limited, good sense of the mother, were reflected in the son. But there is nothing very remarkable in the relation which they occupied to each other, and there are probably many hundred English mothers who at this moment are exercising an influence of precisely the same kind. In fact, the whole inquiry as to the influence of mothers on sons, as conducted by Mrs. Ellis, is utterly purposeless. For what is the exact question that is to be solved? one individual differs from another. Physical science is utterly at a loss to account for this difference. There is no perceptible variation in the size or quality of the brain, or of the nervous system, that will in the least account for the superior activity of the mind or the greater firmness of the will. And the history of mankind shows that the most we can do in accounting for the mental constitution of individuals is to construct propositions that are confessedly empirical, and are extremely uncertain as summaries of facts. It is, for instance, a common remark that intellect descends through the mother, and evidently there is a sort of truth about this remark, for every one's experience will immediately bring to his memory several instances that corroborate it. But when we come to ask in what sense and how far it is true, we soon find the limit of our knowledge. Fathers are apt to have injustice done to them, because it is tacitly assumed that if the father's intellect is to be allowed to tell on his son's, it ought to be the equal of his son's, whereas much less is expected from the mother. Bacon's father, Fox's father, Queen Elizabeth's father, Sir Robert Peel's father, were none] mothers because their sons may possibly be of them men of great intellect, but they were great. According to Mrs. Ellis' theoryall of them men of sufficient intellect to have which may be true or not-the mothers of made the fortune of a mother. There are great men are generally superior persons. plenty of instances where remarkable women | Perhaps there may be in England at this have had sons none of whom have been re- moment three or four young mothers whose markable, and of remarkable men who have sons are going to be great. A large propor had mothers below the average in intellect tion could scarcely be expected to exist. By and character. Lord Byron's mother, for the hypothesis, these three or four young example, was one of the most foolish women mothers are superior women, and therefore of her day; and her son, when he had out- all that Mrs. Ellis' moral comes to is to exgrown the irritation inspired by her absurd hort these three or four superior unknown treatment of him, saw in her nothing but an young mothers to do their duty to their children. Of the contents of her volume we object of ridicule. And it is equally impos- cannot therefore think very highly. That sible to get any moral out of the subject as she has managed to make the volume someto get any definite psychological fact. There how is the important fact for us, and probais no use in exhorting women to be good bly for her. APPLICATIONS OF SILICA.-The subject of the various applications of Silica is gradually assuming large dimensions, and whether in the form of soluble glass," applied for the preservation of absorbent stones and cements, or as in the case of the manufactured siliceous stone now largely used, it must be regarded as one of the most important applications of science to practice at present before the public. Mr. F. Ransome, of Ipswich, as our readers have seen in our reports of the Sectional proceedings, read a communication on the subject at the late meeting of the British Association, and since then we have had opportunities of learning somewhat more about his several processes. We have taken some trouble to inquire how far M. Kuhlmann's process for preserving stone by the simple application of the soluble silicate or "water-glass," on the surface of buildings already erected, is successful. We hear that not only at the Houses of Parliament in this country, but that also in Paris, in those portions of the Louvre and Notre Dame which were experimented upon with the water-glass, the result has been inefficient and unsatisfactory. The hardening of the film by the action of the atmosphere, although a possible result if time and circumstances are favorable, has failed in practice, owing in part to the facility with which the water-glass or silicate is removed by the moisture. Mr. Ransome's process consists in the application of a solution of muriate of lime, which immediately enters into combination with the silica of the water-glass, and forms silicate or lime a perfectly tenacious, insoluble, and indestructible substance, which completely fills up all the interstices and pores of the stone, etc., rendering it impermeable and non-absorbent. The great desideratum, unquestionably, has been to find some means of rendering stone impermeable, without the introduction of oily or fatty matter; or, in other words, by means of some substance that cannot be decomposed or injured by exposure either to the oxygen of the air, or to any of those vapors so commonly mixed with the air in large cities or in manufac turing districts. Mr. Ransome's idea, of fixing a coat of silicate of lime, by taking advantage of the double decomposition that takes place when chloride of calcium comes in contact with silicate of soda or potash, both dissolved in water, seems to have settled the question. The discovery has not had so long a test as may be considered desir. able before pronouncing on its merits; there is reason to be satisfied so far as we have gone. The comparison of those parts of the Houses of Parliament treated in this way, or the Baptist Chapel at Bloomsbury, or other buildings submitted to the process, with any of those specimens of stone treated either by M. Kuhlmann's or other process, will show any observer how much the advantage is in favor of the more scientific, and at the same time simple, method. We have often alluded to the progress made with this material, and find that our conviction of its value is strengthened as time goes on. It will be interesting to watch the application of the preserving process to the buildings in Paris and elsewhere where the simple solution of the soluble glass has been found to fail; and we understand, that not only is this about to be done, but that M. Dumas has already lent the sanction of his great name to the soundness of the chemical question involved therein.—Athenæum. |