A RETROSPECT.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXVIII, Issue 95, 25 April 1894, Page 4

A RETROSPECT.

The younger, generation a>oars to us to bo degenerate : they a^ frivol . ousi slangy/ and uncult- arC( i • their amusements are namby.p am by and tßatumal, their ploas»Ureß vapid, and iheu* desires ignoble. Now is this quite just, or w our yadgment warped by the insensible influence of retrospective frictiouV The boy of the present day, wo. say with truth, takes a feeble inten,sfc in Dickens, is frightened by Thackeray, and absolutely refuses to read Walter Scott. Very good: how was it with us. -, Those .whose lathers possessed the long row of demurely bound "Standard Novels" will remember that they read «Vathek,»«Tho Castle of Otranto •' "The Mysteries of Udolpho," and perhaps "Frankenstein;" they comfort themselves, moreover, that by reason of the mastery of this last, they do not confuse (as, alas ! do many prominent citizens) the Modern

Prometheus with the monster that he created. They will also remember that as a sequence of strong injunctions not to read Smollett or Fielding, they stealthily perused "Tristram Shandy," "Roderick Baudom," and " Tom Jones " ; but did they wade they wade through " Pamela " ? Did they occupy au idle hour with one of the countless volumes of Addisou's Spectator, or did they, to put it shortly, take any delight iv the literaturo "which their fathers devoured ? Who cuu honestly say that he did ? Lever and Marry at are still known to some of the younger generation ; the exuberant wit of the first and the sensational character of the second have prolonged their existence; but the courtly G. P. R. James, the eerie Bulwer Lytton, and even Dickeus and Thakeray, are practiottlly moribund ; they have been killed by " Kiug Solomon's Mines," '• Treasure Inland," tha Jules Vorue Fork ß, and books of a like interesting and brazy nature. Wo may, from rather a prigcieh standpoint, d - plore tho falling off in the appreciation of scholarly, cluspio literature, but in theso diiys of tho new jmrnulißin, with its Laded head-liniß, its Bpiteful society t^cfisip, its advertising interviews, and its over-incrousiug vulgarity, it iB good to thibk that clean, liualthy books such as these hod their own.

Ab with their loading, bo with their amusemouts. Wo may lnugh at tl c uinußy of tho masher who sucks hiß stick night after night iv tho stalls of the Frivolity 'iheutrc; but is tho virile strength of our youth menaced by the abolition of tho Oidor Cellars aud tho Coal Hole? Does tho more mature masher compare unfavourably with tho Oaptaiu Costigan of fifty years ago? t'ci ffers may Bay that tho refinement is but a veneer, and that the wickeduoss is there all the Bame. This may bo co, but iho youugßter of tho piosout day is none the lops manly bioauso ho has ceusod to rovel in coareeneuß, aud because ho prifuis ti theatre or a nusio hall to tho sordid filth of a "Sam Hall," or tho foroiißio impurity of tho "Judge und Jnrj." Tho eamo may be Buid with regard to sport. Nobady wants to re. re-introduce bear-bummr, and it is a matter for sincere roj'uoing that prize fighting, with its rowdy surroundings, has relegated iieelf to tho level to which it properly belongs ; but the desuetude ot these brutal pnßbiuu-B has not tended to mako our youth one whit the lisa mai.ly. They oau ride hard and yet remain sober; they can play game?, and excel at athletio exercises for which their grandtathom had neither opportunity, aptitude, nor deßirc; and they oau conduct " BubalteiW ware," testo Jiudyard Kipling, in a way that begets the reepeofc of other natioiiß if not of their own.