Rochester, Monroe, NY

Union & Advertiser

Fri Dec 9, 1870

 

THE LECTURE -- Rev. W. H. MILBURN, who has been well known to the lecture goers in this and other cities for many years past, delivered the second lecture of the Athen_eum course at Corinthian Hall last evening. His subject, as announced, was "More of what a Blind Man Saw in England,"  and yet the entire discourse was far less a narrative of what his eyes beheld --although he occasionally referred to what he actually witnessed -- than a description of the social characteristics of the upper-middle classes in English society, particularly as they appeared to him in his visit there in 1857. Alluding in the first place to the intense patriotic egotism of the average Englishman, and his Ignorance of American history and ideas, he gave several humorous instances of those qualities -- such as good natured encomi__as which he had heard bestowed upon Irving, Everett and Fenimore COOPER, whose "cleverness" was complacently ascribed to their intercourse with Englishmen or their study of English authors. The Britons, he said, are scattered all over the surface of the globe, but, wherever they may be, the love of mother country is deeply rooted in their hearts, and when the memory of their sea-engirdled isle comes over them, they are homesick to a man. The lecture contained several distinct narrations of events or descriptive sketches. Among them an account of a sermon of the great Spurgeon, whom he heard preach to an audience of 8,000 persons in Music-hall in London, from the text of Elijah's appeal to the people: "How long halt ye between two opinions?" The speaker considered the prayer on the occasion as savoring of irreverence, and then he went on to analyze Spurgeon's manner, matter, style, &c., reaching the conclusion, apparently, that he was not really eloquent, and that the secret of his power over the multitude lay in his splendid physique and his matchless voice, and the fact that he used, almost exclusively, pure Anglo-Saxon words of not more than two syllables. The singing by the entire audience of 8,000 gave Mr. MILBURN a chance to go into ecatacies over the English voice and to show its enormous superiority over the usual intonations of Americas. Another sub-division of the discourse embraced a laughable account of the ceremonies incident upon a lecture which he delivered in Birmingham, where the chairman (as is inflexibly the rule over there) had to be moved and seconded, each performance being accompanied with a speech, and then another speech made informing him of his nomination, and then one from the chairman in returning thanks for the honor, and then -- after the lecture itself - a motion and a seconding for votes of thanks to the lecturer and then to the chairman, each one of the four propositions requiring a speech, and speeches being necessitated from each of the persons thanked; all this in addition to the speech introducing the lecturer, in which his name, read from a card, was pronounced in four different ways -- incorrectly, of course, each time. Then Mr. MILBURN favored his auditors (here, not in Birmingham) with a gloomy description of a nice English dinner to which he was invited, and he dilated upon the roast beef and plum pudding with as much gusto as he probably displayed in cating(?) them. He mentioned repeatedly and with apparent relish the beer, which he said was drank at every meal except tea, and at all hours, but he did not allude to the habit of intoxication which statistics show to be very general throughout the middle classes of England. He bestowed just praise upon their habit of deliberate eating, and equally just condemnation upon the American custom of bolting food hurriedly, to which he properly ascribed much of the consumption and other fatal diseases of our country. This led him to a comparison of the domestic systems of the two nations. Much of the matrimonial infelicity and marital infidelity among us he laid at the doors of large hotels and boarding houses, which were so cheerless and unattractive compared with the true English homes, that have given to the world so many mighty soldiers, statesmen and law-givers.

     Mr. MILBURN is not, properly speaking, among the first class of orators or public lecturers, yet he ranks high among the second class, and will always, probably, be able to draw and to please large audiences. His lectures would be much better if it were not for his occasional lapses and inaccuracies, such as using the name of Puncheon for that of Spurgeon, and others hardly worth mentioning.

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