English Intelligence.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 7, Issue 350, 15 February 1866, Page 1

English Intelligence.

HOME TALK. (From Home News, 27th November.) (Concluded from our last.)

The Temple, 27th November. The obituary, since I wrote, has not contained any very remarkable name, but the lovers of fiction “with a purpose ” will regret to hear that they will have „no novels of humble life from the pen w\deh wrote “Mary Barton.” Mrs Gaskejj has filed. A melancholy and touching anecdote is told of her —she had, it is said, been for a long time saving money, in to purchase a certain pretty little villa, ? >n d present it to her husband, as a birthday papers show him the kindly intention Ladv Theresa Lewis, wido, w of Sir CornewaU Lewis, has also gonf^—a most accomplished and amiable lady, whose contributions to graver literature are valuable. The death of M, Dupm tomes in among the French news. Hia, personal charactar was not very interesting j he was ambitious, not selfish and ca’atious, but he said many good and things' and his last diatribe against the shameless extravagance of the French ladies excited great wrath among them, and their rulers the milliners. Ginglini, the teupr singer, has died in Italy—he had a sweet and sympathetic voice, and that is the only good thing I ever heard about him, but he excited the interest of a certain class by his being mixed up with the impure history of a dissolute woman. Eis early death is due to his own excesses. Finally, Tom Sayers, the boxer, is dead. He obtained a popularity even among classes who hold the brutalities of the ring in abhorrence, from the splendid courage he displayed in his conflict with the giant Heenan, and that dreadful blow which he struck in the battle sent its echo into their families, and drew a strange answer of applause—there is no denying the fact, let civilisation talk as it will. His funeral was a disgrace to the metropolis—all the scoundrels and ruffians that could he gathered swarmed to the cemetery, played leap-frog over the stones, shouted and sang, and made brutal jokes over the grave, and deliberately broke some of the monuments, a matter whereof the Cemetery Company will have to give an account.

I mentioned some months ago that a memorial to the late W. Makepeace Thackeray was in preparation. Last Tuesday I was invited to join a very small group to see the inauguration, if so large a word may be applied to the quiet and simple uncovering of a bust. The work is done. A bust, by the Baron Marochetti, is .placed in the south transept, immediately behind the statue of Addison, and nearly below the mural monument of Handel. The bust rests on a basis of red serpentine, and stands on a bronze support, on which the name, and date of birth and death are inscribed. This is a fitting tribute to a great author and a good man. A bust of Lord Macaulay will shortly be placed next to that of Thackeray, and over the grave of the noble historian and essayist.

I do not know that the resumption of legal business offers many topics of interest, but there is one case to be heard about which people will be concerned. A wretched hag, named Winsor, was convicted, in the west of England, of, as a regular profession, babymurder. She got rid of the infants of girls who had become mothers without being wives, and of wives who had more children than they wished to keep. A more atrocious wretch has never died upon the scaffold. But I shall not be surprised if she escapes. The lawyers raised the point that it had been previously sought to try her, and that the jury had been discharged without giving a verdict, and therefore that she could not be legally tried a second time. So she was reprieved, and now the opinion of the full court is to be taken on the point. Of course it would be ten times better that such a fiend should for the present escape a violent death than that a. valuable rule of English law should be tampered with, bat it is hoped that the judges will consider that the first was no trial at all. Another miscreant may also escape the gallows, although not punishment —the man who, after killing three children iu Londi n. went info .the pountry .and committed mow murder, and who justified the

deed m a senes 0 ( seatimental letters, of the Eugene Aram eypo. He wm be aUe S e4 tlat a l8I « e * persons in that enhghted district are so Averse to capital punishment that they JJf prepared to perjure themselves rather give a verdict that shall send a criminal <0 the drop. But the local authorities may perhaps be able to exclude these fanatics from the box.

I Mr Gladstone afforded us all a high intellectual treat, early in the present month, when he took leave of the University of Edinburgh, of which he was rector. He delivered a long and elaborate address upon 'the place of the ancient Greeks in the history lof religion. His arguments went to show that the Greeks were as valuable depositories of true religion as the Jews, and that the former presented a more humane type, from : associating the image of deity with that of man—anthropomorphism is the learned word for the system. The exercise of Mr Gladstone’s trained and subtle intellect must always produce something that is original and delightful, but of course a very inferior mind can detect the partial fallacy of his argument in the fact that at the time when this anthropomorphism was at its highest, and the statuary, for instance, of the Greeks, presented the most divine combination of natural and supernatural grace, the Greeks themselves were avowedly indulging in every degrading vice which it needs no inspired teaching to bid men eschew. I apprehend that the subject of the economical education of the upper middle class must be interesting wherever Englishmen are, and I just mention, therefore, that we are in the midst of a conflict upon the question of tjie expenses of University living. This question has been raised by about a hundred men at Christchurch, Oxford (I need not say our “ swell” college, where the future king was), who take bread-and-butter as the nominal base of their complaint, as Hampden resisted the payment of ship-money, but who want to reform the whole system. Grave Censors, and Heads, and awful Dons have been dragged into print reply, and their ponderous artillery is ludicrous—less ludicrous is the thought that it is to such solemn prigs that we commend the education of those who will take the lead in governing our children. There is good hope, however that some reforms will be carried out, and that college expenses will be curtailed. I must say that I believe the question of expense has to be settled in most cases by the man himself. A fool may spend anything, and be crippled for the next twenty years of his life—a resolved self-denying student will pull himself through without debt. I have personal knowledge of men who have taken both these courses. Education must begin at home—as somebody says. When you have taught your son to say firmly and finally, “ No”—you may send him to college, or where you please, assured that he will be able to take care of himself.