Notes and Queries, Number 206, October 8, 1853

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Various. Notes and Queries, Number 206, October 8, 1853

Notes

NOTES ON NEWSPAPERS: "THE TIMES," DAILY PRESS, ETC

"IN QUIETNESS AND CONFIDENCE SHALL BE YOUR STRENGTH."

BINDERS OF THE VOLUMES IN THE HARLEIAN LIBRARY

FRENCH VERSE

A SPANISH PLAY-BILL

SHAKSPEARE CORRESPONDENCE

Minor Notes

Queries

DESCENDANTS OF MILTON

AN ANXIOUS QUERY FROM THE HYMMALAYAS

Minor Queries

Minor Queries with Answers

Replies

SIR W. HANKFORD-GASCOIGNE'S TOMB

TRANSLATION OF THE PRAYER BOOK INTO FRENCH

PRAYING TO THE WEST

JACOB BOBART

EARLY USE OF TIN.—DERIVATION OF THE NAME OF BRITAIN

YEW-TREES IN CHURCHYARDS

STARS ARE THE FLOWERS OF HEAVEN

BOOKS BURNED BY THE COMMON HANGMAN

PHOTOGRAPHIC CORRESPONDENCE

Replies to Minor Queries

Miscellaneous

NOTES ON BOOKS, ETC

BOOKS AND ODD VOLUMES WANTED TO PURCHASE

Notices to Correspondents

WESTERN LIFE ASSURANCE AND ANNUITY SOCIETY

MURRAY'S HANDBOOKS FOR TRAVELLERS IN ITALY

Отрывок из книги

A newspaper, rightly conducted, is a potent power in promoting the well-being of universal man. It is also a highly moral power—for it quickens mind everywhere, and puts in force those principles which tend to lessen human woe, and to exalt and dignify our common humanity. The daily press, for the most part, aims to correct error—whether senatorial, theological, or legal. It pleads in earnest tones for the removal of public wrong, and watches with a keen eye the rise and fall of great interests. It teaches with commanding power, and makes its influence felt in the palace of the monarch, as well as through all classes of the community. It helps on, in the path of honorable ambition, the virtuous and the good. It never hesitates or falters, however formidable the foe. It never crouches, however injurious to itself the free and undisguised utterance of some truths may be. It is outspoken. When the nation requires them, it is bold and fearless in propounding great changes, though they may clash with the expectations of a powerful class. It heeds the reverses to which a nation is subjected, and turns them to good account. It does not abuse its power, and is never menaced. It is unshackled, and therefore has a native growth. It looks on the movements of the wide world calmly, deliberately, and intelligently. We believe the independency of the daily press can never be bribed, or its patronage won by unlawful means. Its mission is noble, and the presiding sentiment of the varied intellect employed upon it is "the greatest good to the greatest number." It never ceases in its operations. It is a perpetual thing: always the same in many of its aspects, and yet always new. It is untiring in its efforts, and unimpeded in its career. We look for it every day with an unwavering confidence, with an almost absolute certainty. Power and freshness are its principal characteristics; and with these it combines a healthy tone, a fearless courage, and an invincible determination. That it has its imperfections, we do not deny—and what agency is without them? It is not free from error, and no estate of the realm can be. The purity of the public press will be increased as Christianity advances. There is no nation in the world which can boast of a press so moral, and so just, as the daily newspaper press of Great Britain. The victories it achieves are seen and felt by all: and when compared with the newspaper press of other countries, it has superior claims to our admiration and regard.

Taking The Times as the highest type of that class of newspapers which we denominate the daily press, these remarks will more particularly apply. The history of such a paper, and its wonderful career, is not sufficiently known, and its great commercial and intellectual power not adequately estimated. The extinction of such a journal (could we suppose such a thing,) would be a public calamity. Its vast influence is felt throughout the civilised world; and we believe that influence, generally speaking, is on the side of right, and for the promotion of the common weal. It is strange that such an organ of public sentiment should have been charged with the moral turpitude of receiving bribes. That it should destroy its reputation, darken its fair fame, and undermine the very foundation of its prosperity, by a course so degrading, we find it impossible to believe. We feel assured it is far removed from everything of the kind: that its course is marked by great honesty of purpose, and its exalted aim will never allow it to stoop to anything so beneath the dignity of its character, and so repugnant to every sense of rectitude and propriety. It is no presumption to assert that, under such overt influences, it remains unmoved and immovable; and to reiterate a remark made in the former part of this article, "its independency can never be bribed, or its patronage won by unlawful means." Looking at it in its colossal strength, and with its omnipotent power (for truth is omnipotent), it may be classed, without any impropriety, among the wonders of the world.

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But the finest cloud passage in the whole range of literature is contained in Antony and Cleopatra, painting, as it does, the fallen and wasting state of the emperor (Act IV. Sc. 12.):

Those who wish to understand this sublime passage must watch a bank of Cumulus clouds at the western sky on a summer's evening. The tops of the clouds must not be more than five or ten degrees above the apparent horizon. There must also be a clear space upwards, and the sun fairly set to the last stages of twilight. It will then be comprehended as to what is meant by "black vesper's pageants," and Warton and Knight will no more mislead by their note. It is only at "black vespers" that such a pageant can be seen, when the liberated heat of the Cumulus cloud is forcing the vapour into the grand or fantastic shapes indicated to the poet's eye and mind.

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