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November 2, 2020

¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 502

¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.

¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 0 [June 18, 1853.

¶ 4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0 rarity, is the very first thing to betray him. However, he has a feeling of tender pity for the poor wretched man who does drink; it moves him to compassion to see a fellow-creature putting his lips to that which destroys him, kissing the poisonous glass, as it seems to him, with the kiss of death. So, in his compassion, he only takes him in his cab by way of protection. He never, by any accident, takes advantage of his helplessness ; no drunken man would be a sixpence the poorer for being entrusted to his care. There is no necessity to take his number. It is a moral charge, for which he is well repaid, by quietly slipping a few Temperance Tracts into the drunken man’s hat) or pocket, previous to lifting him into his hall passage. It is the same if he drives a Hansom. He doesn’t presume upon that position. He charges no more than if he was in front instead of behind the cab. He does not acknowledge the broad line of demarcation which these aristocrats of the whip draw between the four-wheeled cabs and those that run only upon two. So, if he is asked to drive to a spot beyond the limits of civilisation (for these great kings are in the habitual conceit of declaring the “boundary of civilisation” to be “ the last cab-stand where it is possible to get a Hansom”), he does not object to take them, but tells them to “jump in” as cheerfully as if he was going to drive them up and down St. James’s-street all day long. He refrains from giving himself all the lordly airs and whiskers that Hansom cabmen generally indulge in; and it is a great question whether, when a kind legislature really reduces the fare to sixpence a mile, he would not, in his sensitive morality, take a fare like that sooner than refuse it. To a policeman, he behaves more like a chivalrous friend than a rankorous enemy. He respects him, calls him “Sir,” touches his hat with his finger when spoken to, and would no more think of what is vulgarly called “chaffing” him than he would of feeding his spirited steed upon the same dry material. His cab is always kept clean; not a broken window to be found in it; the window-frames never creak, or refuse to act: the door does not fly open at unexpected moments; the cushions are something better than an old mattress; and you will find clean straw in it regularly every day. Cleanliness is his weakness; and, when not studying “ Mogg’s Fares,” you will always see him washing or rubbing, brushing and scrubbing away at the brass-work, or something belonging to his cab. And in his own appearance he is equally particular; and he keeps a silk umbrella to hold over a lady when it happens to be raining. In all money transactions the scales in the Bank of England are not more true than he is. Leave your pocketbook behind you, you need  not be in the least alarmed, even though you hadn’t got the numbers of the bank-notes with which its fat sides are lined. – He is so honest that if he took a threepenny bit more than his fare, he would send it the following day as “conscience money” to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or else drop it into the plate at the next charity sermon. England has every reason to be proud of such a Cabman, for he is a man who would adorn any railway-station, and be an honour to any rank in society. Horace  Mayhew.

¶ 5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 0 The following letter has appeared in the Times: –  

¶ 6 Leave a comment on paragraph 6 3 “ Perhaps you may deem the following account worthy of insertion in your valuable columns, as showing the shameful way in which cabmen endeavour to extract money from foreigners. A gentleman of my acquaintance on passing Euston-square station, observed two Frenchmen and a lady, from whom, to all appearances, a cabman was endeavouring to obtain money. Seeing that the Frenchmen, who could not speak a word of English, appeared in some trouble, mv friend accosted them in their vernacular, and was informed by them that they had paid the man fourteen shillings for bringing them from the Custom-house, and would have given him three shillings more (Which he asked) had they more English money. The cabman, on being asked whether this was true, said it was; and, of course, was severely rebuked by my friend, who made him . return the money he had received, minus 3s. 6d., his proper fare. Apologising for thus troubling you, I am, sir, your obedient servant, W. F.— Lombard-street, City, June 9.”

¶ 7 Leave a comment on paragraph 7 0 Science.

¶ 8 Leave a comment on paragraph 8 0 PHOTOGRAPHY.

¶ 9 Leave a comment on paragraph 9 0 ENGRAVING ON STEEL BY THE AGENCY OF THE SOLAR RAYS.

¶ 10 Leave a comment on paragraph 10 1 We lately noticed specimens which have been produced by Mr. Henry Fox Talbot, and widely circulated, of impressions from steel plates, which had been etched by a simple chemical operation, after the picture of an object had been impressed on its surface by a photographic process. The importance which attaches to this very interesting invention, and the fact that, at the same time, specimens from lithographic stones and steel plates have been produced on the Continent, induces us to return to the subject.

¶ 11 Leave a comment on paragraph 11 1 Joseph-Nicephore Niepce, when resident at Kew,in 1827, produced what he called “ Heliographs ” upon resinous surfaces; and many of the specimens which he exhibited at the Royal Society are described as being in the state of advanced etchings. His nephew, M. Niepce de Saint-Victor has taken up the process of his uncle, Nicephore-Niepce, and produced by it some very promising results. The process consists in spreading over the steel plate some bitumen of Judea dissolved in essential oil of lavender. This composition is spread uniformly over the surface of the plate, and a moderate degree of heat applied, until the surface becomes hard. The plate, thus prepared, is carefully preserved from the light, and from moisture. Upon this plate is applied a photographic proof, obtained in the camera upon albuminised glass, or waxed paper. It is exposed to light during a longer or shorter time, according to the nature of the picture to be reproduced, and the intensity of the sunshine. The operation is never a very long one; for, with a good proof, a quarter of an hour’s exposure to sunshine, er an hour in diffused light, suffices. A prolonged exposure must be avoided, for, in case the image becomes visible before the process of development, the picture is much injured.

¶ 12 Leave a comment on paragraph 12 0 The action is this. The solar rays render all resins which have been exposed to their influence more soluble than such as have been kept in shade; consequently the resin may be dissolved off from some parts of the plate before the solvent begins to attack the screened portion. The solvent employed by M. Niepce is three parts of rectified oil of naphtha dissolved in one part of benzole, prepared by Colas. The plate must be attentively watched during the process, and the moment the picture is well developed, it must be carefully exposed to the action of a jet of water, to remove the solvent. When the drops of, water are dried off from the plate, the heliographic operations are finished. M. Lemaitre, who has undertaken the etching processes, employs a mixture of—

¶ 13 Leave a comment on paragraph 13 0 Nitric acid .. 1 part.

¶ 14 Leave a comment on paragraph 14 0 Distilled water .. .. .. 8 parts.

¶ 15 Leave a comment on paragraph 15 0 Alcohol .. .. .. .. 2 parts.

¶ 16 Leave a comment on paragraph 16 0 This acts very promptly upon the steel; it is not, therefore, allowed to remain long upon it. After a minute or two it is thrown off, the plate well washed, and then, if necessary, the acid is again applied. Thus, the resin protecting parts of the plate, we are enabled to produce, with care, an etching to any depth. Eventually, the whole of the resin is removed, and the steel plate, employed for printing in the ordinary manner. The result thus obtained has the character of an aqua-tint engraving, wanting, however, the half-tones. At present, the impressions obtained are of a very imperfect character; and it is not easy to understand by what method it will be possible, by the heliographic process of M. Niepce, or the process of Mr. Fox Talbot, to obtain that gradation of tint which gives so great a charm to an engraving—and without which the imitation of nature is necessarily imperfect. Where the plate is left bare the acid acts freely; but where the plate is protected by the slightest film, either of resin or gelatine, the etching process is stopped, consequently the high lights and deep shadows are alone given.

¶ 17 Leave a comment on paragraph 17 0 A far more important process than either of those which are now dividing public attention was introduced by Mr. Grove, about twelve years since; but, from some cause, unaccountably neglected. In August 17th, 1841, Mr. Grove communicated to the London Electrical Society a paper “ On a Voltaic Process for Etching Daguerreotype Plates.” Being desirous of drawing attention again to the importance of this process, we give the abstract as it appears in the “ Philosophical Magazine” for September, 1841.

¶ 18 Leave a comment on paragraph 18 0 This discovery enables us to multiply, in a durable material, the fleeting and delicate traces of a Daguerreotype. The plate to be etched is made a positive electrode, in an electrolyte of dilute hydrochloric acid, and the action is continued for a few seconds. Several prints obtained from plates thus prepared were placed before the Society, and were much admired as specimens of what may be done when the art has been further carried out. The author states that these prints are not so true to nature as the original picture, because, in order to etch deep enough to receive the printing-ink, some of the fine lines will blend. This will not, practi

¶ 19 Leave a comment on paragraph 19 0 cally, be an objection to the process, because no lines are lost, except those which, if present, could not be appreciated. ■

¶ 20 Leave a comment on paragraph 20 0 One very important application of the art is to etch very delicately a  picture, and to take from this perfect etching electrotype copies. These are so true that the author actually read on one, by microscopic aid, five lines of an inscription, on a surface l-10th by 6-100th of an inch. I transmit with this paper some specimens of engravings of the etched plates, and of electrotype plates taken from them; and, in conclusion, would call attention to the remarkable instance which these offer of the effects of the imponderable upon the ponderable. Thus, instead of a plate being inscribed, as being “ drawn by Landseer and engraved by Cousins,” it would be “ drawn by Light and engraved by Electricity.”

¶ 21 Leave a comment on paragraph 21 2 About the same time, several attempts were made to engrave the Daguerreotype plates by chemical agency—the process of M. Fizeau, which was carried out to some extent by M. Claudet, being the most successful. It appears necessary, when the efforts of experimentalists are directed towards a process which, howsoever promising it may be, presents many serious difficulties, to point attention to a form of manipulation by which effects have been produced far superior to any other: such was the process of Mr. Grove, availing himself of the agency of voltaic electricity. The mode of preparing lithographic stones is similar to that already described as being employed for steel plates : the resin being removed, the stone is treated in the ordinary manner.

¶ 22 Leave a comment on paragraph 22 0 Literature.

¶ 23 Leave a comment on paragraph 23 2 Memorials and Correspondence of Charles James Fox. Edited by Lord John Russell. Two volumes. Bentley .

¶ 24 Leave a comment on paragraph 24 8 It is an important fact—which we are justified, we think, in announcing to the public, and especially to that preponderating and immense majority of educated Englishmen who are interested in the career, and proud of the fame of Charles James Fox—-that this editorial labour o^ Lord John Russell’s is not, as they might naturally conceive, a practical joke. Internal evidence, indeed, could guide the critic to no other conclusion. But some closely relevant facts, extrinsic to the composition itself, teach us* differently. Lord John Russell had a better right than most persons living, to have superintended the. publication of Charles James Fox’s memorials; To this we would accede; but not to a conclusion which his Lordship seems to have derived from that prin- ciple, the conclusion that it is better that a work of this nature should be edited badly by himself than edited well by anybody else. Fox was the leader of the party of which Lord John is leader now. It would, therefore, not be incongruous with what the Germans call “ aesthetical propriety” that Lord John should have control over the biography of the great man who transmitted to him a political trust that has been rather calamitously managed, a talent that has not been multiplied; and that the mission and the labours which feebler statesmanship was destined to inherit, historical ability, at least, and commemorative zeal should adorn and immortalize. Lord John Russell would be the right man, if he had exerted the necessary zeal; and he is,, perhaps, the only man who, being engaged on the task, would have displayed such a want of that quality; Nothing, in the abstract, could be more fit than the Whig Chief’s last selection of a literary subject, if that noble personage himself showed the faintest sense of the responsibility which is inseparably connected with his voluntary labour. Labour, indeed, we cannot continue to designate his share in the rudest, hastiest, and most defective of compilations. The manner of pitching these clumsily-arranged and ill-selected fragments of papers before the public, is an insult to the taste and good sense of the community; and it is a worse insult to the memory of Fox. To any one who wished to write a becoming history of Fox, the materials contained in this work, and other materials besides, were already accessible. That portion of them which is new was, we repeat, accessible already; and the new portion is much, much smaller than the confiding reader might imagine. Unpublished, these materials could have availed, quite as fully as they can now, towards a befitting biography; published, they but encumber the place of it with a disgraceful substitute, which may deter the workman while it supplies not his work. It is as editor of the papers of celebrated men that the feeble writer of “ Don Carlos ” and of the “ Nun of Arrouca ” makes his worst figure in literature. His “ Moore ” was bad enough; but what could have induced Lord John to undertake on such a plan, and send forth in such a form, this book about Charles Fox, it is hard to divine. The effect of the work will be, for the present, to delay and block aside, and at no future time will it be to facilitate, a worthy history of the mighty leader of the Liberals of England—of that great man who, breaking out of the trammels of a prejudiced circle and an oligarchical training, so bore himself amid popular defeats as greatly to hasten the day of the people’s crowning victory—who, long before the commonalty had the ampler franchise by which they hold a legal power and right to be represented, represented them unbidden, spoke the feelings of voiceless masses, presaged the future, made his appeal to it, and supplied in his single person, so far as one man’s genius and courage could supply them, the wants of a time not yet at its “ fulness, ” the deep and dark void of an uncompleted constitution. Such was no subject for the careless and cursory pen of an official dilettante, who mistakes the entire meaning of Machiavelli’s almost lyrical phrase of “ nobile ozio; ” and who, by a living anachronism, stands forth an example still of the generation of “ authors of quality.” Fox is not one of those historical characters about whom it is decent to write books, consisting of hasty labels on the backs of miscellaneous letters. An opponent of Fox’s policy would not have dared to edit his “ Memorials ” in the way we have described. A Tory ought not, and few Tories would, write thus about the great Whig. What, then, shall we say of the most supercilious, the most negligent, the most hurried of editors of such a work, if that editor be himself a Whig, if he be himself the leader of the Whigs, if he be no other than Lord John Russell. It may be pleaded that he had not time to do justice to the work. Then, why do injustice to it ? Why undertake it at all ? Why occupy the ground of others ? and why prevent a task from being done well, which ought to be well done if done at all? Are there no Whigs left who would have found the necessary leisure—who would have made the “ nobile ozio”—who would have applied the well-deserved attention, which we have a right to expect, from the editor of such a production? But it is “ graceful” and “ honourable ” in a statesman, we suppose, when driven from power (Lord John’s later literary achievements were accomplished while out of office), to know how to console himself by refined and liberal pursuits, and to show himself at home in a region of thought at once more tranquil and more elevated than the fierce arena of actual politics. It might just as well be said, that it is graceful and honourable to a statesman, when driven from power, to cultivate the Fine Arts. And most incontestably, so it is, if he only knows how. It would justly excite admiration, if he who had proved his capacity to be a great Prime Minister, should, in the intervals which broke his tenure of authority, paint pictures like those of Raffaelle, or even carves vases like those of Benvenuto. To exercise one’s superiority; is always honourable to a j man’s self, besides being, in general, not a little useful to his fellowcreatures. But we cannot say quite so much in favour of the practice, if we may be permitted the phrase, of exercising one’s inferiority. It would, doubtless, be very glorious to Lord John Russell, in his seasons of political adversity, to write another “ Novum Organum,” or another such biography as the “ Life of Savage.” But to produce a book like these memoirs (for all his portion of it, either as a contributor or as a superintendent) is no more “ graceful,” ho more “ honorable,” and no more creditable than it would be to paint a scene which an alehouse keeper would not take at a gift for his sign-board, or to discharge the duties of an admiral, or of a surgical operator, in the manner in

¶ 25 Leave a comment on paragraph 25 1 which Sydney Smith begs us to imagine his Lordship ready to assume, and safe to perform them. It is not the writer who gains credit, it is literature which loses credit, by productions of this “graceful” and “ honourable ” class. One among many peculiarities of the pages before us is that not only they constitute an ill-assorted compilation from the pens of separate contributors, without any plan, but that much, very much, of what is here meant to elucidate the Fox correspondence, has already appeared before the public. Lord John Russell’s share of the commentary is the smallest which ingenuity could concede, in an endeavour to assume the name and position, without discharging the duties of an editor. There are two sorts of self-sufficiency. One makes a man conceive that, if he takes pains, he can do anything that any other man could do, or has done. It is a delusion, as a thousand examples would prove. To furnish such examples, to adduce even one of them, would be a waste of time. But there is another description of self-sufficiency which is still more odious, and yet, still more laughable. It persuades, it convinces a man, not only that he can do whatever others may have done, but do it without taking pains; that what with them may have been a laborious achievement, will with him be the effect of mere volition, and that their difficulty is his facility. We have already remarked that, in all appearance, Lord John Russell considers it better that the first regular and methodical attempt to produce a work upon the life and character of Fox should be badly executed by himself, than successfully performed by another. And the only proof which his Lordship could give that this is not his opinion, would be the frank avowal of his conviction that no trouble, no care, no zeal, no opportunities of leisure, and no expenditure of pains were needful to enable him to accomplish adequately the task which he had assumed. He has done it badly. We do not know whether, by exerting himself, he could have done it well; but, as he has failed, and has not used exertion, he either thought that, by him, success could be secured without it, or he thought that failure was to be preferred to it. We, on the contrary, maintain that the very fitness of the man (arising out of his position) to superintend this, work, only added to the responsibility of undertaking it, and heightened the obligation to do it with a will—to do it with a conscience. A person might fairly be careless to whom others, better entitled, had deferred the execution of what they should rather have themselves done; but he who must refuse a task before anybody else will assume it, ought either not to prevent it from being carried into effect by those who would be earnest in it, or to bring some earnestness to it himself.

¶ 26 Leave a comment on paragraph 26 4 Lord John Russell’s share of. the comments designed to throw light on the career of the hero is even less respectable in quality than in quantity. Mr. Allen and Lord Holland come next in feebleness. The other contributions, except that correspondence itself which forms the basis and virtual subject of the work, are republications. This is literally the fact. Except the portions we have mentioned, what else, less accessible intrinsically than the “ letters,” do these volumes contain ? Nothing whatever. Not one word. Not one syllable. All the rest, we assure the reader, was accessible enough. It is no addition to the stores of public information; none to public information of that sort which is very widely diffused indeed. Shall we be believed when we state that it was all at the circulating library already ? It certainly was. For it consists of a mass of miscellaneous excerpts from four printed, published, and well-known books—one of them widely, and almost universally read. We have whole sections of the “ Grattan Memoirs,” of the “ Rockingham Memoirs,” and of the “ Courts and Cabinets of George III.,” by the Duke of Buckingham. They are introduced with rude confusion into this base jumble of literary “ cold baked meats,” to fill a vacant corner, or serve a hungry want. Judging both by the ability and by the length of the contributions to which another author, besides those already enumerated, may lay claim; he, that seventh writer, in this collection of elegant and inelegant extracts, might, from his tomb, far more justly than Lord John Russell, from Downing-street, assert himself the veritable editor of the “Memorials and Correspondence of C. J. Fox.” Our readers will hardly believe us, but Horace Walpole is that author—his “ Memoirs ” are the recondite, abstruse, and generally unknown source from which these streams are conveyed, in Lord John’s valuable aqueduct, to the acquaintance of the public. If ever there was “book-making,” we have the practice flagrantly exemplified in this wretched—we beg pardon, we mean this “ graceful ” and “ honourable”—lucubration. We presume that Lord John Russell’s theory is, that, provided his name be on the title-page, it little matters what may be contained in the book. Whatever it contains acquires at once a new and distinct value. Else, why print, not a few occasional passages from a previously-published work, to illustrate an argument, or to attest a statement, but whole chapters and sections, standing on their own original merits, and serving no other purpose in the absurd scrap-book to which they are thus bodily transcribed, than to fill or kill space, and to save the noble editor trouble. No one would interfere with the wish of a Whig statesman, in the position of Lord John Russell, to write about the greatest of Whigs, Charles Fox. But when the editor has delegated to the living and to the dead the fulfilment of a task which, he at the same time publishes as his own, we hardly know which to despise most—his literary effrontery, or his political insensibility. He is bom in the purple like John Cantacuzene, and yet cannot even gloze about Constantine.

¶ 27 Leave a comment on paragraph 27 0 Yet we will not be unjust; we acknowledge that, Whatever may be the defects of these volumes-—defects in the selection of the matter, defects in its arrangement, defects in the whole plan and in its whole execution—there is, at least, some original writing of Lord John Russell’s. It is not much in quantity; some may think that this is an advantage; and some that it is a pity there is not less still. But we will quote, as a specimen, the most striking of the contributions due to the editorial hand. Somebody asked Fox “ how it was that he contrived to catch the cut balls so well at tennis ? ” “ It is,” replied Fox, “ because I am a very painstaking man.” An asterisk here calls the reader’s attention to a foot-note. Glancing to the end of the foot-note, the reader observes that the initials of Lord John Russell, “ J. R.,” are appended. The three lines and three quarters, of which the note is composed (including the space occupied by the “ J. R.”) constitute one of the original passages which his Lordship has contributed to the laborious elucidation of the Fox papers and the high enrichment of these two large volumes. It is, then, with no small interest that the passage is perused. It runs thus:—“Cut balls are balls which pass just over the net, and do not rise high above the floor of the tennis-court. It was Lord Holland who asked Mr. Fox this question. The answer is only valuable as showing that in no art is excellence attained without labour. ‘ J. R.’ ”

¶ 28 Leave a comment on paragraph 28 1 Now, it would have been no slight loss to the world if Lord John Russell had happened not to have enjoyed the noble leisure requisite for the composition of this important though condensed essay, among the others which he has inserted in the “ Memorials.” First, we obtain from the brief lucubration in question a fact in sporting history, viz., the solution of the problem of what “ cut balls ” are at tennis. Secondly, we have another fact, a fact in gossiping history, something in the Ana department, certifying us who it was that asked the vital query of Fox; it was Lord Holland. Thirdly, we have a very profound original and startling moral reflection from the annotator himself, propounded in a rather artful manner. The reflection is that excellence is attained in no art without labour, not even in that of tennis. Lord John Russell’s sleepless anxiety to inculcate a high moral lesson of this nature seizes even the sportive illustration of the game at which Fox was adroit. At the same time his Lordship (on his guard against hero-worship), so frames his remark that the reader is saved from the otherwise inevitable mistake of regarding with too vague and too idolatrous an admiration Fox’s astounding reply to Lord Holland’s overwhelming question. “ The answer,” observes Lord John, in a cautionary manner, “is only valuable as showing, &c.; lest we should have erroneously conceived it valuable in every respect. By the by, Lord John would have used English expressive of his meaning had he said, “ is valuable only as,” instead of “ is only valuable as,” which latter signifies that it is not something else as well as valuable “ in showing ” the way “ to attain excellence in any art.”

¶ 29 Leave a comment on paragraph 29 0 We are surprised that Lord John Russell should, in this work, have laid so much stress on the necessity of taking pains with whatever one does, and of always using laborious exertions if one would attain excellence. Does he think the game of tennis more difficult, or more deserving of attention and of pains, than the art of properly and adequately editing an historical and political record of the highest interest, like these “ Memorials ” of Charles Fox ? Or does he deem it more important to play tennis “ excellently,” than to edit such a work excellently ?

¶ 30 Leave a comment on paragraph 30 1 His Lordship commences the book by informing the reader with the methodical and emphatic manner of a certain school of preachers, that he proposes “to divide his materials into six distinct periods;” whereupon he proceeds to enumerate them; and, lo ! we get seven periods out of the six. Falstaff could not have done better; and he would certainly have avoided the apologetic note which is given for this increase of the “ eras in buckram.”

¶ 31 Leave a comment on paragraph 31 1 Eager to get away from the pococurante Augustulus of the Whigs to