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"Men, my brothers, men, the workers; ever
reaping something new:
That which they have done but earnest of the
things that they shall do."

brains work, souls gush and mingle, the orator becomes a prophet, and one universal echo proclaims one universal mind.

Where has this Mr. Horne been buried not Colonel Thompson, the apostle of free to have heard of this "spirit of the age," trade, and Cobden, its practical and indom-who with unpremeditated harangues steals itable champion; O'Connell, the last re-into men's hearts, as surely as the Greek presentative of clan-leadership, using his orators of old did, with their prepared and power to bond together a nation of disunited finished orations? Mr. Horne seems to be Celts; and Wakefield, the originator of totally unaware that W. J. Fox has been systematic colonization,-all are spirits of heard of out of the pulpit. This is clear the physical progress of the age. Faraday from his only alluding to him as a theolois the representative of the power which, in gist. This ignorance might be pardonable all ages, has sought to gather nature's se- as a result of a residence distant from the cret's for man's uses, and Rothschild is the metropolis; but it was the business of one representative of the great power-accumu- taking on himself the task of pointing out lators of world, the hoarded labor of man- the 'Spirits of the Age,' to visit the metropkind, ever on the increase, till at last it olis, if necessary, to fit himself, at least, for shall grow to a surplus, when men will rest his nomenclature, if his publishers failed to from their work, and say "it is good." supply the necessary materials. Many a weary day is before us, before we atttain that desirable end, but the time will

come.

Roebuck, the watch-dog of the people, the most fearless advocate in the House of Commons of public as opposed to mere party objects; Lovett, the true-souled Lovett, the champion of education for his fellow-men, the working-classes; the two Chamberses of Edinburgh, whose genius has achieved the task of popularizing knowledge at the cheapest rate, all are samples of that spirit of the age, which says the soul of man shall not die within him for want of culture.

But taken merely on the limited plan proposed by Mr. Horne, of names generally known in literature, the New Spirit of the Age' is miserably defective. Is Mr. Horne ignorant of the existence of John Stewart Mill, author of 'A System of Logic,' perhaps the highest effort of intellect modern literature has produced?

Where has he been wandering; on what Welsh mountain or in what distant valley has he been residing, that the name of W. J. Fox has never rung upon his ear, other than as a theologist ?--a name so well known to the public by his sermons on Christian Morality; by his numerous articles in the higher class of periodicals; by the finest dramatic criticisms extant. A name that stirs the blood of every public audience where he appears, and calls forth responsive shouts; a name that stills even Chartist opposition at free trade meetings. Well has he been named by Elliott, of Sheffield, the "Orator-Bard." He almost speaks in rhythm, his words are music, reason be comes poetry, hearts thrill, eyes glisten,

And even Elliott, of Sheffield, the poet of the people, the Corn-law Rhymer, a man known, we apprehend, from Pentland Firth to the Lizard, a genuine poet, and one who, albeit a Radical, found praise even from Blackwood;' whom Southey greeted from his inn at Sheffield "to shake hands with a brother poet," even Elliott, of Sheffield, is excluded from Mr. Horne's collection. Is this with purpose aforethought, or is it gross negligence? A 'Spirit of the Age' editor leaving out one of the most popular poets!

And where is Mrs. Austin, an original spirit also; an assimilating spirit, one who, thoroughly metempsychosising with the German mind, can render it into pure English, and make the English mind an abiding place for German thoughts? A true woman, with all a woman's gentleness, yet a free denizen of the great European republic of letters, not unlike the Madame Roland, of the French revolution, placed in a new sphere to teach mankind the uses of Liberty, in harmonizing clashing opinions; teaching them to speak with one tongue, and no longer to "commit crimes in the name of Liberty." And Mrs. Somerville, the lady of science, the queen of the starry heavens, one of the few minds that can compass Laplace, a mind so lofty, yet so gentle and humble, as if unconscious of her own attainments? Have not the names of these writers penetrated the asylum of the editor?

Professor Wilson, who has for many years stirred friend and foe with his untiring pen, might surely have been glanced at. And Peacock, the novelist, who, had he written nothing but 'Maid Marian,' would have carried his name down the stream of time

to distant ages, by showing how well his-there is no warmer advocate of the rights own spirit could enter into the spirit of past and real interests of the poor than Edwin ages. The blood thrills, and the heart Chadwick. But, knowing also that it is imleaps into companionship with such a spirit possible to accomplish the mental instrucof high genial humanity. tion of the physically wretched, he sought And the Times' newspaper has, more-to secure for those classes of the community over, grown to be a spirit of the age, albeit who do the work, and pay the taxes of the Mr. Horne sees it not. It has its crotchets, community, the largest possible share of and its hobbies, and its party predilections, their own earnings, abstracting as little as the influence of which on the public mind possible from them for the maintenance of is sometimes to be deplored, but may always the non-workers. For it is an unquestionbe felt. Once it was a very weathercock, able fact, that all those of the community but it has now fixed itself to point straight who do not work, must in some shape or forward at certain things, which, if not other be maintained by those who do work. things of the best kind, are yet earnestly To say that he did not strike "palaced advocated. It sees that man cannot live by paupers" off the pension list, is only saying bread alone, though it has ever urged, and that he accomplished no more than he was still urges at times, and never denies, that able. Palace or hovel pauper, would have cheap corn and bread is a most desirable been alike to his equal justice; but there's conclusion. Of O'Connell it dreams that a government that doth so hedge in and prohe is not a mere warm-blooded feudal chief-tect "palace paupers" that justice cannot tain over Celtic tribes, but a veritable anti-reach them. There was one broad principle christ. It believes that the poor law is a to look at the pauper system was encroachthing of unmixed evil, only operative to the ing on capital, and in a mercantile coundetriment of the deserving poor, and refuses try, not to advance is to recede. The food to discern that it does operate also to stop of the community was not enough for all,— what might be a fearful leak in the growth the mouths were in excess, the ship must of national independence. But in the have her crew put on shorter allowance, course of nature O'Connell cannot live for and the working crew were, in all justice as ever, and free trade sooner or later will re- well as policy, entitled to full rations, while move for the most part the causes of poverty; the invalids were put on half allowance. the really unfortunate poor will then be bet- To have put the invalids on full allowance, ter distinguished as the crowd lessens, and while the working crew were reduced, these two circumstances removed, the would have been offering a premium to the 'Times,' we may hope will forget its contro-workers to invalid themselves. To have versies, and strive more and more to make given full rations and conveniences to the itself a power amongst the people, for the workhouse inmates would have been monwelfare of the people, and not for the pur-strous injustice to the hard workers out of poses of party. In these latter days the the workhouse. genius of a Times' reporter constituted the The pseudo-benevolent haranguers, who Times' a legislator to put down a Welsh have talked so volubly of philanthropy and rebellion. charity to the workhouse poor, and out-door Nor should Edwin Chadwick be forgot-relief, have utterly mistaken the matter. ten, the vizier of the "three Kings of Som- They have been generously disposed, not erset House," whose reports on many sub- at their own expense, but at the expense of jects connected with the welfare of the great the working classes of England; for we mass of the people alone form a valuable defy them to show any mode of obtaining statistical library. He has been one of the contributions to the poor rates, except most valuable "spirits of the age." Bene- through the work of the workers. The volent, benescient, and in virtue of these whole food of England has to be produced two qualities beneficent, he has dared to do by the agency of the brains and arms of the right thing, though the unpopular thing. the workers, whether from English or forHe has braved odium, and disregarded oblo-eign soil. This total amount has to be quy and cant. To become popular is an easy thing; to do unpopular justice requires a man. Satisfied that crime is the result of poverty and mal-administration-that poverty is greatly the result of ignorance-that general education is the cure for ignorance

divided amongst the whole population in larger and smaller shares, and it must be obvious to the shallowest capacity, that if the whole of the workers ceased to work, there would be no food to divide; and it must follow, as the night the day, that the

greater the number of the supernumeraries

The secret of Dickens's success doubtwho do not work, the harder must be the less is, that he is a man with a heart in work of the workers, in order to maintain his bosom; and as most men and women— them. Therefore the charitable gentlemen who are non-workers, and cry out lustily for full rations and out-door allowances to paupers or poor non-workers, are, with very great ease to themselves, calling upon the workers to work harder than before. And when, as it frequently happens, these very charitable gentlemen are the advocates of artificial high prices for provisions, in the form of corn laws-that is to say, when they seek to diminish the total amount of food-our indignation at their injustice is only restrained by our contempt for their pauper-like ignorance.

though not all-have hearts, a sympathy is created which predisposes liking. He has also a strong perception of all the commoner class of excitements-the murderous, the malignant, and the ludicrous. A very large portion of the common people are susceptible of the former; people of all classes are susceptible of the latter. With all this, he has the eye of a Dutch and also of an Italian artist for all external effects. A street, a dwelling, a rural scene, and the human beings therein, are so painted to the life, and doubtless from the life, that no one who has ever seen them can doubt the resemblance. And all people like to behold portraits of things and persons familiar to them. Mrs. Keeley was excessively popular amongst the artisans, on account of the skilful mode in which she handled Jack Sheppard's jack-plane. But Dickens has, beyond this, a strong perception of physical beauty, and also of the beauty of generosity, not merely the hackney-coachman kind of generosity-the shilling givingbut generosity in the large sense-the love of kind, the unselfish attachment of man to man, and of man to men, and also of men to man; the protection of the poor by the rich, of the helpless by the powerful, and of the kindly gratitude thence arising. But with all this, he is not an imaginative writer, he is not a philosophical writer; he pleases the sensation, but he does not satisfy the reason; he pleases and amuses, but he does not instruct; there is a want of base, of breadth, and of truth; and therefore, though he is probably the most widelypopular writer, he is not a great writer. The great elementary truths on which man's physical well-being, and quently his mental well-being, must depend, he apparently has not mastered; and the pleasure we feel in reading his works is akin to the pleasure we feel in reading We doubt this. In Hogarth's 'Good and any other work of fiction-the pleasure of Bad Apprentices,' we have both of them put fine description and sympathy with human upon equal terms by society. The con- adventure. The impression which his trast of their fates grows out of a presumed works leave on the mind is like that with innate goodness on one side and badness which we rise from the perusal of the on the other. In the story of Good Fool of Quality'-that all social evils are Tommy and Naughty Harry,' which is a to be redressed by kindness and money version of the same thing, Good Tommy given to the poor by the rich. This, doubtcame to be lord mayor, and Naughty Harry less, is something essential; but it is only was eaten up by a wild beast. It forms one of the lessons in one of the old spelling books.

Years hence, when the biography of Edwin Chadwick shall be written-when the results of his labors, known and unknown, shall be gathered together-when trade and food shall be free, and paupers be no more -when it shall be known how many are the wise measures and changes of which he has been the secret mover, stirred by the desire of man's good, and leaving to others the ostensibility and the repute-he will serve for one more example of the truth, that a high and original mind works for the service of humanity, but not for its thanks. And a future time will recognize him as a true and genuine spirit of his age, who has left his permanent mark behind him.

Having thus briefly attempted to show what Mr. Horne ought to have done, and has failed to do, we turn to the examination of what he has done.

First on the list, as the great spirit of the age, appears Mr. Charles Dickens. A parallel is drawn between him and Hogarth upon the following ground:

"Both of them have a direct moral purpose in view-a desire to ameliorate the condition of the poorer classes, by showing what society has made of them or allowed them to become,

and to continue."

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a small part of the case. The poor require justice, not charity, i. e. almsgiving. Charity is a word of large import. The neces

sity for almsgiving implies previous misery. | society. This is the true perception of Destroy the misery by earnest care in the eternal justice, at which Dickens has not early training of men and women, the dis- yet arrived in his writings.. Dickens is a ease will be eradicated, and the symptom- Londoner, Bulwer is a cosmopolite. soothing process of charity, i. e. almsgiving, will not be needed.

In the Christmas Carol,' Scrooge the Miser is so drawn as to leave an impression In most of Dickens's works there is to that he cheats the world of its "meat, be found some old gentleman with surplus clothes, and fire," which he buries in his cash going about redressing the evils which own chests, whereas in truth he only cheats some other old or young gentleman goes himself. He is the conventional miser of about perpetrating. It is the principle of past times; and, when reformed by his the proceedings of Harlequin and Panta- dreams, he gives away half-crowns to boys loon. Thus the Brothers Cheeryble are to run quickly to buy turkeys to give away, the incarnation of the good principle, and and pays cabmen to bring them home Ralph Nickleby of the evil principle; and quickly, to say nothing of giving bowls of the good principle is made to triumph. punch to clerks. A great part of the enNickleby Junior comes to his fortune, joyments of life are summed up in eating which his wicked uncle has kept him out and drinking at the cost of munificent paof, and Miss Nickleby is respectably mar-trons of the poor; so that we might suppose ried. Most excellent people are those the feudal times were returned. The prosame mill-owning Brothers Cheeryble; but cesses whereby poor men are to be enabled we cannot help reflecting on the position to earn good wages, wherewith to buy of the mass of workmen whose labors have turkeys for themselves, does not enter into accumulated their capital. We do not ob- the account; indeed, it would quite spoil ject to the help given to the Nicklebys, but the denouément and all the generosity. Who we think justice is the most essential part went without turkey and punch in order of generosity. Justice being done in early that Bob Cratchit might get them-for, untraining, Ralph Nickleby would not have less there were turkey and punch in surbeen enabled to accomplish his evil deeds, plus, some one must go without-is a disand the almsgiving of the Brothers Cheery-agreeable reflection kept wholly out of ble would not have been needed. sight. We suspect Mr. Horne of a little

So in Oliver Twist,' Mr. Brownlow is sly satire on Dickens's propensity to rethe good fairy who thwarts the evil one, ward all good fellowship by eating and and Oliver Twist is finally made happy. drinking, in his choice of a motto to this Pickwick, too, is a benevolent old gentle-paper. Don Quixote had a peculiar way man with abundant ready cash, who treats of philanthrophizing the distresses of huthe poor prisoners in the Fleet, as the un- man nature; and so has Dickens, whose cle of Henry Moreland does in the Fool remedy for human distresses resolves itself of Quality'-pays away his surplus cash to into something like this:-George has five palliate the pressing wants of a few amongst shillings, which he gives to Richard, who a huge class who suffer under the radical gives it to Henry, who gives it to John, evils of bad legislation. A strong contrast who gives it to James, who gives it to Thoto this "good fairy" system is found in mas, who gives it to Frederick, who gives Bulwer's Paul Clifford.' The unfortu-it again to George, and by that process they nate, ill-trained child, who has grown up to be a highwayman, finds no old gentleman to give him a fortune. By indomitable energy, he escapes from the punishment awarded to his ignorant acts, to a "great country where shoes are imperfectly polished and opinions are not persecuted" (by the state), and there he makes himself a home by the force of his own powers. He becomes useful to his fellow-men and accumulates wealth, wherewith he repays the owners of the property he had taken with the strong hand in the days of his ignorance, while gaining his living by rapine, and revenging himself on the injustice of

all have five shillings each. The motto is taken from Don Quixote' as follows:

"Hunger does not preside over this day.' replied the cook, 'thanks be to Camacho the Rich.' * * * * So saying he laid hold of a kettle, and sousing it at once into one of the half jar-pots, he fished out three pullets and a couple of geese. thing to put it in, answered Sancho. Then take ladle and all,' replied the cook, 'for Camacho's riches and felicity are sufficient to supply every thing.""

all.

* * *

'I have no

Oh! Mr. Horne, you are a sly wag after

Were provisions

Were provisions as plentiful in practice

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as they are in Mr. Dickens's books, small most squalid and hideous abodes of filth, and progress would Mr. Cobden make in free misery, and vice, and might well express trade; but, as Mr. Harmony says in the themselves strongly in public after what they witnessed."-Vol. i. p. 116. play, "provisions are so dear."

With all these defects, which we hope to

с see amended in future, as well as the cari- 'Privately and unattended." Oh! Mr. cature pictures of the Americans, which- Horne, Mr. Horne, you have certainly bating local circumstances and peculiari- some idea that modern noblemen go about ties will apply equally well to the English, with barret caps and plumes, bedizened the books of Dickens are unquestionably with jewelry and masks, for all eyes to gaze humanizers of the people: and the speech- on and single out for violence and plunder. es he has made, and the public meetings he "Unattended "-i. e. we suppose no "Jenhas attended in furtherance of general ed-kins," with tall cane to guard them. Sureucation, are indications of still better things. ly there is no difficulty in believing that At present he is the "form and pressure of where Dr. Smith had penetrated uninjured, the age." He may become a spirit of the Lord Ashley might go and return without age in time. any great exertion of courage; but Mr. Lord Ashley and Dr. Southwood Smith Horne is deeply impressed with this selffollow next in the series of magazine arti- devotion in a nobleman, as an uncommon cles of which this book is composed. But act, and is determined it shall be authentifor these two names and those of Dr. Pusey cated. My Lordés" will scarcely thank and Macready, a better title for the work him for his devotion to their interests. would have been the Great Literopolis,' proves more than enough. as a parallel work with the Great Metropolis.' Why Lord Ashley should be thus introduced we cannot imagine, unless it be that Mr. Horne wishes to do honor to the Factory Commission, in which he is himself concerned.

66

He

That the people of England have abad habit of working too many hours for their physical and mental health, is unfortunately but too true; but it is equally true that this habit does not arise from any abstract vicious determination on their own part. It is also Lord Ashley stands in the anomalous po- true that in the present age they work fewsition of professing to improve the position er hours per day than they were accustomof one portion of the working classes, the ed to work in former ages; and it is morefactory workers, by limiting their hours of over true that the reason for the diminulabor, at the same time that he diminishes tion of hours is, that they obtain better wathe amount of their earnings by keeping up ges, i. e. they get a greater amount of usea high and artificial price of food. Very ful things for an hour's labor of the present pithily has this process been named Jack-day than they obtained in the "good old Cade legislation. But Mr. Horne is very times;" and there is moreover a very prevearnest in his respect for hereditary legislation. "Thank God there is a House of Lords," once said and wrote Cobbett, when in anger at being thwarted; but Mr. Horne, with good didactic deliberation, quotes Chaucer in proof of his case :

"And ye, my Lordés, with your alliaùnce, And other faithful people that there be,

alent desire amongst them to work still fewer hours, and by God's blessing we trust that this shall come to pass without any of Lord Ashley's legislation, which is akin to the charity of the French princess, who wondered "why people would starve when such nice pastry was sold so cheap."

We entreat Lord Ashley to believe that

Trust I to God shall quench all this noisaùnce, the chief, almost the sole reason, why Eng

And set this laude in high prosperitie.'

He states that Lords Normanby and Ashley actually accompanied Dr. Southwood Smith into Whitechapel and Bethnal-green to survey the miserable abodes of the poor; and fearing this is almost incredible when only stated in his text, he confirms it in

foot-note as follows:

a

These statements are strictly authentic. They went privately and unattended into the

lish workmen labor too many hours per day, is the undue pressure of population, which forces them to compete with each other to obtain an insufficient share of the national stock of food, which is a minimum quantity. And this excess of population arises from the circumstance, that they live in isllike the bees, to go to the food which might ands, from which they cannot well swarm exist elsewhere, while Lord Ashley and his colleagues have made very stringent laws to prevent food being brought to them from

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