The Evening Telegraph

THE JULY MAGAZINES.

"OLD AND NEW."

The July number of Old and New appears with the imprint of Roberts Brothers, under whose auspices it will henceforth appear. The table of contents is as follows:—

"Old and New;" "The Quakers in New England," R. P. Hallowell: "Talk About the Tea-Table," "Commonplace," I. G. Meredith: "The Portrait," S. H. Whitman: "American Bishops and Infallibility," I. B. Torricelli: "The Woman Question," D. H. Ela; "Life and Life-Force," G. M. Kellogg; "Thorwaldsen's Lion, at Lucerne;" "John Whopper, the Newsboy," chap. i; "Alice to Gertrude," F. W. Loring;

"The Gallery of the Ponte Vecchio:"

"The Mystic's Prayer," S. R. Calthrop: "Harrisburg, and How to Find it," Julia Ward Howe; "Hope;" The Hidden Hemisphere," Walter McLeod; "The Examiner;"

"Record of Progress."

We make the following quotation from Mr. Hallowell's very interesting paper on "The Quakers in New England:—

The fanaticism of New England Quakers has been so long taken for granted, that a mere reference to these people is suggestive of violence, indecency, and rant; but that it is overestimated and exaggerated is evident from all the reliable information we have upon the subject. The custom is to judge the entire body of Quakers by the action of a few exceptional cases; and we are gravely asked to believe that Mary Dyer was hung in Boston because Lydia Wardwell appeared in the town of Newbury without her garments. The fact that this event occurred after the execution of Mary Dyer is of trifling importance to the zealous defenders of the Founders.

In the jail, at the whipping-post, and on the scaffold, these heroic people displayed a fortitude worthy the cause for which they suffered—the cause of religious liberty. Their lives were pure and spotless: no one has yet been able to stain their memory with dishonesty or immorality of any kind. Strong in the faith that they were doing God service in struggling for their rights, they would have been less than human had they not uttered their righteous indignation, and denounced their persecutors.

To us the act of Lydia Wardwell is evidence of insanity. She was a modest woman, and, strange as it appears, performed the act complained of under a sense of religious duty. She meant it for a sign unto those who had stripped women to whip them. The authorities had caused women to be driven through the streets, bared to their waists, and to be flogged as they dragged themselves along. They had ordered Ann Austin and Mary Fisher to be stripped naked and examined for witch marks. Lydia Wardwell's act was one of highly-wrought, shocking fanaticism. Was the act of the Founders mere 'comedy,' as it has been called? or was it a deed of wretched fanaticism, more to be censured than its counterpart because cruel and diabolical?

In extravagance of language the Puritans at least rivalled their victims: in fanaticism of action the difference is more apparent; for, while the intensity of feeling may have been equal, in the one case it was signalized by acts of cruelty, and in the other by lofty indifference and a sublime heroism.

During her imprisonment, Mary Dyer addressed a letter to the "General Court at Boston," of which the following is an extract:

I offer it as a fitting illustration of the temper and spirit in which the Quakers confronted their persecutors:—

"And have you no other weapons to fight with against spiritual wickedness, as you call it? Search with the light of Christ in you, and it will show you of whom you take counsel.

* * * It is not my own life I seek, but the life of the seed which I know the Lord hath blessed. And I know this, that, if you confirm your law, the Lord will overthrow both your law and you, by His righteous judgments and plagues poured justly upon you. In love, and in the spirit of meekness, I again beseech you, for I have no enmity to the persons of any; but you shall know that God will not be mocked."

In studying the history of a people or a sect, if we aim at an impartial estimate of their character and their value to posterity, we must regard them from their own point of view, test them in the light of their own generation, and judge them by the requirements of our present civilization.

The sincerity of both the Founders and the Quakers we think has never been seriously questioned. The Founders scouted the possibility of Divine revelation beyond the limits of the Bible. Their Christianity was Judaism full blown. Believing implicitly in a theocracy, they attempted to administer a civil government by statutes derived mainly from the Old Testament. The Quakers, with courageous fidelity, asserted that the soul of man is still accessible to God, and claimed religious liberty to be the natural right of all men. A conflict between these radically different ideas was inevitable. The Puritans invited the conflict. They were the aggressors. As early as 1654 they challenged the Quakers by enacting a law forbidding the importation of their books. Again in 1658, they threw down the gauntlet by prohibiting the intrusion of a Quaker upon their soil. We shall not stop to examine the value of their claim to absolute jurisdiction, and, as a consequence, to the right to enact this prohibitory law. We are examining the case from the respective standpoints of the contending parties; and it is sufficient to know that they sincerely claimed such right. It is sufficient also to know that the Quakers as sincerely denied it. They had "heard that New England had made a law to put the servants of the living God to death;" and, braving the perils of the sea, they sought out this land, where religious liberty was crucified; where the "servants of the Lord" were forbidden to serve Him. It was a divine mission that brought them here. We are told 'they had no rights or business here; and a simple prohibition ought to have been sufficient even to release their consciences from all obligation to meddle with other people's consciences.' A simple prohibition, a significant hint from the pews, may satisfy the consciences of a hireling ministry, of men who deal in the gospel as a profession, receiving as their reward the money-value of their speech; but for the servants of the living God, prohibitions, threats, and persecution had no terrors; their answer was the answer ever given by ministers ordained of Heaven:—"Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye." It is asserted, too, that they courted persecution. Yes, as their Master Jesus Christ before them, as the thousands and tens of thousands of victims to religious despotism who preceded them; as, in our own day, Owen Lovejoy, Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and that grand old Puritan, John Brown—as these soldiers in the army of the Lord courted persecution, so did the New England Quakers.

Under the law of England, as English subjects, they claimed the right to come here; and under the higher law which bade them call the world their country, and all mankind their countrymen, they claimed the right to live in old England or in New England, as they saw fit. Their business here was "to meddle with other people's consciences." They took up the gauntlet of the Puritan, and accepted his challenge. Equal to their enemy in sincerity, in integrity of purpose, in devotion to their idea, they possessed the advantage of being in the right.

They resolved to establish in Massachusetts the right of every man to worship God, not according to old John Norton's conscience, but each according to the dictates of his own conscience.

Without organization, without any especial co-operation, rejecting the use of carnal weapons, and "relying solely upon those which are spiritual and mighty through God, to the pulling down of strongholds," they attacked the Puritan Bastile. There could be but one issue to such a contest. The Quakers triumphed, and despotism was vanquished.

The following account of the drawings and sketches by the old masters in the gallery of the Ponte Vecchio in Florence is particularly interesting now that they have all been placed within the reach of American art-lovers by means of the admirable 'ambrotypes' of Braun:—

But once under the fascination of what is within the walls, and we forget everything outside. For here is the collection of original sketches, more than twenty thousand in number, the works of the great artists of all countries—the rough draughts, the first hints for the finished pictures which fill the great galleries. Here you see whence the picture grew; here you find the eager monk poring over his book, the lazy boy fast asleep in the sun, the girl stepping up with her pitcher on her head, the peasant woman watching her baby, the chubby little boys playing games, which appear on the painted canvas as saints, madonnas, and cherubs. Here you learn, too, the method of each master's work. The sketches of Fra Angelico, for instance, whether in pen and ink or pencil, are so finely and delicately finished, so clear and definite, that you feel that the picture stood so, distinct, in his mind, even before one line was made: in Fra Bartolomeo's, on the contrary, you find line covering line, one detail in place of another; and it is evident that only as he worked did the picture take its definite form.

Again, the drawings of the German masters have a carefulness of detail, a most exact rendering of each line and shade, leaving nothing for the imagination to fill out; while the Italian sketches are rather suggestions, hints from which you guess the whole, sometimes mere broken outlines, or patches of light and shade, which yet tell their story effectively if you will give them a moment's heed.

Nowhere is this contrast more strongly marked than in the portraits.

The first impression of any German portrait is of its correctness. Just as the man or woman looks out on you from the wall they must have looked out in life. The charm of the picture is just there; it gives you the people, you may make of them what you can. The artist does not attempt to interpret anything for you beyond the actual lines and shades which he sees; but he does that with so much care and reverent earnestness, that he forces you to admit the justice of his claim to your attention even of the stiff and stolid people to whom he introduces you.

But it is quite otherwise with the portrait of Leonardo da Vinci, for instance, of which there are some exquisitely finished here. Your first thought is not of the likeness, or the artist, or even of the personal appearance, as we say, but of the soul behind. You do not stop to notice the outline of feature, or the arrangement of head-dress; you go right to the person himself. This is not, so to speak, the respect for humanity with which the German artist inspires you, but a personal interest in this one individual.

There is one portrait, for instance, of a young girl, I think, though it is impossible to tell her exact age, which is irresistibly attractive. You find yourself speculating on the quiet content that looks out from under the slightly drooping eyelids, and just curves the corners of the mouth, as she sits with hands folded before her, and head slightly turned to one side, quite absorbed in her own thoughts. Of what is she thinking now? What other thoughts will come, as the years go by, to break up that pleasant dreaming and disturb that quiet self-possession? I think you will never know.

There is a quiet strength and inward force about the woman, that will carry her through all trial victoriously, at least as far as outward sign goes; and when she is grey, her forehead will be as smooth, her eye as clear, as now.

But most of the sketches are not as finished as this, over which it is clear that Leonardo lingered because he loved it. Many of the scraps of paper have half a dozen things thrown together at random, noted at the moment and thrown aside. Sometimes even a scrap of sonnet has crept into the edge, among the unappropriated hands and arms; for this collection is, in comparison with the galleries of paintings, what familiar, friendly letters are to the published essay, what the social, after-dinner talk is to the evening lecture. The members of this company are not expressing carefully formed opinions, for which they may be held responsible, and perhaps called to account; they are not on their guard against criticism and cavilling; they speak the thought, the fancy, of the moment, willing to give it up instantly if better offer. So, as we have said, they take you into their daily lives; they show you their own surroundings, their likes and dislikes; the work discloses instead of concealing the workman; and you find, as always, when you are fortunate enough to be admitted to such intimacy with real earnest life, that you are gaining from it far more than from any formal conversation. So what Hawthorne calls "that icy demon of Weariness, who haunts great picture-galleries," never is met here: that is unfailing entertainment in this rich collection, among which we must not pass unnoticed the quaint, odd, graceful designs for vases, for silver ornaments, and for fountains, or the cases with the studies of the landscape artists.

It is rather curious that the nucleus of the collection is due to the same Vasari who built the gallery, and who made a considerable collection of sketches, preparatory to writing his "Lives of the Painters." This passed into the possession of the Medici, who made large additions to it, so that it is now said to comprise about twenty thousand drawings, of which only a part have, within the last five years, been exhibited to the public.

-The July number of The Technologist has the following articles on engineering, manufacturing, and building subjects:—“Our Railroads;” “The Future;” “Improved Student's Lamp,” illustrated; “Improved Vacuum Pan,” full page illustration; “Desilverization of Lead,” Frederick Prime, Jr., illustrated; “Alizarine;” “Wooden Railways;” “Hydraulic Mortar from Dolomitic Limestones; “Nails for Out-door Work;” “The New Masonic Hall,” full page illustration; “Lightning Rods;” “Artificial Refrigeration,” full page illustration; “Foundations on Wells;” “Moving Light Buildings,” illustrated; “Cottage Design,” illustrated; “Good Sharp Sand;” “Putting Saws in Order;” “Drying of Timber;” “Publishers' Announcement; “Important;” “The Barometer;” “Boats, illustrated;” “Cost of Life Insurance Compared with its Advantages;” “Duty of Policy-Holders in Mutual Companies;” “Life Insurance the Safeguard of our Homes;” “Morality of Life Insurance;” “News Summary; “Book Notices;” “Answers to Correspondents;” “Business Notices."