The Press. — London, England, 1854-08-12 00:00:00

AUGUST 12, 1854. Routledge'sAmeriean Handbook and Tourist's Guide. London : Routledge and Co. As affording all requisite information on routes and dis tances, together with the fares, hotel charges, and a general idea of the expenses of travelling in the United States, this handbook will be found useful; but in other respects it contrasts disadvantageously with the similar class of works commonly issued in this country. Written by an American, the author takes every opportunity to convince the world of the " politesse" and general good breeding of his country men. His descriptions of the "customs of society," and of the treatment which "distinguished strangers" are subjected to, under the head of " Social Customs at Washington," are written with amusing particu larity; and he asserts the existence of an extreme urbanity of manner among all classes of Americans, declaring railway porters to be universally polite, hotel-keepers civil and honest, and captains of steatn-boats finished gentlemen " The American hotel," we are told, "is a house for the traveller. Re leaves an American hotel satisfied that he has not been imposed upon ; he leaves the English hotel contemplating the infamous charges of ' ' and • servants,' and knowing that he has been made a partner to the landlord's degrading system of servantage. The American landlord takes leave of his guest as if lie were a friend; the English landlord feels that he has imposed upon his guest, and is seldom aeon when he departs." When, however, we look into particulars, we find that this praise of American hotels must be accepted cum grans. One has "little to recommend it except pretension ;" another is " a tolerably good house, if "the visitor be good-natured, and excuse the want of " attention on the part of servants ;" and a third has "only high charges to keep up its reputation." The hotels in St. Louis are no better than " dens of impo_ " sition ;" throughout one line of route the traveller must be content with "hog, homany, and oysters ;" and in the South it is necessary to slip a few shillings into the nigger's hand now and then "to make "everything right." Some general statistics taken from the returns of 1850, with advice to emigrants (in which the American mechanic is held up as a man who can not only produce the finest machinery in the world, but give you a lesson in political economy as well), and an indifferent map, conclude the book. 1. Nice, and its Climate. By Edwin Lee. 2. Notes on Spain. By the same Author. London : Hope and Co. L An accurate description of the town and environs of Nice is accompanied by a careful essay upon the climate and its peculiar adaptation to the various conditions of disordered health, for the guidance of invalids and medical men. Opinions of the best authorities are compared, and a common-sense conclusion deduced from them, supported by meteorological returns and several years' per sonal experience, favourable to the remedial in• fluence of the climate in pulmonary and other diseases. A few observations are added upon the common causes of consumption, and the effect of peculiar climates in " counteracting the operation of " causes most instrumental in producing tubercular " disease." 2. The " Notes on Spain " comprise much infor mation in a small space. The medical details on the healthfulness of the climates of different localities appear w be written with great care, and to be col lected, not only from personal experience, but from the best sources of information. _Minstrelsy of War. With Selection; from Miscel laneous and Dramatic Poems. By Alfred B. Richards. London :J. Blackwood. .A VOLUME of war songs, poems, and extracts from tragedies, written by a gentleman who is apt to mis take rant for strength and sickly sentiment for feeling. 'The war songs are loud-sounding and ponderous, of anything but an inspiriting nature, and never likely to become popular. Among the miscellaneous poems, however, are some tine translations from Heine, and much meritorious original verse. The extracts from the dramas of Mr. Richards exhibit his talents to most advantage. Even the descriptive passages in these dramas show considerable power, and are much superior to any other passages in the volume. Should .Mr. Richards cultivate his dramatic vein, and avoid wasting his strength upon such doggrel as " Chaunts for Colt," " God Speed thee Gallant Napier," and "The Orange-seller," it is probable that he will be more read and better appreciated. The Violets' Close; or, Annie Dale. By Eliza Rumsey. London: Hatchard. THE narrative of the life and death of a poor village girl remarkable for her piety and Christian love, and, -as a tale, intended to render certain bible truths familiar and plain to the understandings of children. THE PRESS. Sister Agnes ; or, Sketches of Convent Life. London : Seeleys. The Scarlet Mystery ; or, Rome Unmasked. Lon- don : Seeleys. Two books intended to make plain to the Protestant world the means adopted at the present time by the agents of the Church of Rome to decoy the youthful and unsuspecting into that " state of conventual " seclusion over which the veil of romance has been " successfully drawn." "Sister Agnes" is a tale of Jesuitical intrigue, and an exposure of the domestic system of conventual life. "The Scarlet Mystery" professes to be founded on fact, the author undertaking, should his several charges against the Papal system be disputed, to "establish their authenticity as particular cases." The Cabin by the Wayside. A Tale for the Young. By Lady Campbell. London : Routledge and Co. ONE of those pathetic little tales of lowly life written with the desire of instilling a feeling of loving kind ness and charity towards inferiors. The trials and sufferings of a poor Irish family are described in simple, truthful language, and with the minuteness of touch pf culler to a feminine writer of quick sensi bility and amiable feeling. Morning and other Poems, Humorous, Sentimental, and Satirical; with Several Songs, ctc. Vol. 11. By Richard Harris. London: G. Bell. TnE preface here is of questionable wit; nor can we commend the poems after Thomson, Colman, and Burns. The best verses are those which are least pretending, as " The Girl's Lament" and . " All is for the best." Light through the Clouds. By the Author of " Noon- tide Thoughts." London : Seeleys. A LITTLE book adapted to promote the growth of re ligious sentiment in the minds of children. PZILIODICAL The North British Review. Edinburgh : Kennedy THE articles on " Vinet and his Writings," " Early English History," and " Dante and his Interpreters," are among the best in this number of the North British. The closing paper upon " The Past and Present Political Morality of British Statesmen" insists on "the gradual improvement in the character" of our public men, and the far higher standard of morality in the present day compared with that of the times of Walpole and Lord North. It is to be regretted that the writer, after lamenting that the vice of virulence and acrimony is not yet completely weeded out of public life, should, in the very next paragraph, commence an attack upon the late Go vernment of Lord Derby, as savage, virulent, and malignant (though not so effective) as any slander that was ever propagated in the days of Wilkes and Junius. The review of the life and writings of Vinet is calculated to render his works better known and appreciated in this country than hitherto. He is characterised as the most " illustrious ornament of modern French Protestantism," and as one of those rare men who combined profound Christian morality with a comprehensive philosophic spirit and a most accomplished taste for French literature. The review of " Early English History " comprises a notice of Dr. Pauli's " History of Europe." Dr. Pauli has succeeded Lappenberg in his labours upon English history, and in his present volume has apparently achieved for himself a character equal, if not superior, to his predecessor. In his character of Henry 11. Dr. Pauli, as the re viewer says, "by the inductive historical process " has brought out features vastly more lifelike than the symmetrical conceptions of Hume, who de scribes the King as " without blemish in private and " public life, and possessed of every accomplishment, " both of body and mind, which makes a man either " estimable or amiable." Dr. Pauli describes him in public life " as exercising the rights of a feudal ruler " in the most despotic manner, troubling himself " little about the means by which his ends were ob " tamed "—his whole character made up of contra dictions—so long as he was in distress no man more friendly, but as soon as he felt himself secure no man was more harsh. In his private life, says Dr. Pauli, nowhere do his vices and weaknesses stand out more sharply than in his matrimonial and domes tic relations. Thus it was, concludes Dr. Pauli, in the character of Henry that understanding, talent, and good fortune on one side, and folly, vice, and misfortune on the other, alternately weighed down the balance, and forbade history to class him as one of the great rulers of mankind. The review on Dante comprises a notice of three new translations of the Divine Comedy by Cayley, O'Donnel, and Brookabank, and gives an able and lucid account of the difficulties of translation caused 783 by the artificial structure of the poem, the Italian dialect, and the principles of poetic art, as acted upon by Dante. A paper on Sir Roderick Murchison's "SiLuria," the last contribution to science by that eminent geologist, enters at some length on the dis covery of the modern gold-fields. The writer has fatten into many errors with regard to the active part which Mr. Hargreaves was commonly supposed to have taken in first practically discovering gold in Australia. The evidence given before the Legislative Council in 1853 discloses the true facts. Another great error (p. 533) is in asserting that the dis coveries iu New South Wales have been surpassed by those in " Van Diomeu's Land." The writer has evidently confused " Gipps' Land," in Victoria, with Van Diemen's Land. Some pages of this paper have been transferred without acknowledgment from an article on the gold discoveries iu the Quarterly Review of September, 1852. As the practice is dis creditable we are tempted to expose it by giving a few extracts under their respective headings : Quarterly Review, September, North British Review, August, 1852. 11454. "An officer in the Swiss "In 1830, Captain Sutter, Guard of Charles X.— . a a Dutchman, having been good old Dutchman,' accord- wounded when fighting for ing to M. Cobre, who re- his Sovereign at the barri ceived an ugly wound while cedes, set out for the West fighting against the barrica- ern World, and offered his dent of July—crossed the services to the Government Atlantic, and proffered his of Mexico services to the Mexican Go vernment. He served well, Here he received a grant of we must suppose, for very land in Upper California, of speedily he was rewarded TOO or t4OO miles in extent with a grant of land in Alta After several scuffles with California, comprising some the Indians, he finally in -700 or MOO square miles.. duced them to become his ..The Indians troubled friends, and to aid him in hint at first ; subsequently erecting his fort and in cul they became very useful tivating his fields though never very safe neigh bours, and assisted the cap tain in building his fort and tilling ins fields. He had settled ten years before he After &residence of tenyears, contracted with a Mr. Mar- he entered into a contract shall for the erection of a with a Mr. Marshall to erect saw-mill on the Americans, a saw-mill on the America s few miles from his fort : nos, at a short distance from the tail-race being too nar- his residence. The tailrace row for the water to run off having been found too nar freely, the mill-wheel was row for the free exit of the taken out, that the whole water, the mill-wheel was re body of water might rush moved, and the whole body through and widen the race, of the water sent through the to save the trouble of digging tailrace, in order to increase it out While Mr. Mar- its width. While superin shall was surveying the work, tending the work, Mr. Mar he observed some shiny, yel- shall saw a few, yellow, atti low spangles on spots where ning spots on the part of the the water had laid bare the bunk which had been washed bank. away. " Numbers of every age " Hundreds of families set and of every variety of occu- out for the land of gold. Un pation pushed for the land of provided for a journey, and promise Many were ac- physically unfit for its toils, companied by their families, many died front thirst, man and most, under the excite- from ague, while others sunk ment of the hour, overlooked under the burdens which their physical unfitness and they bore. Even after they inability to procure neces- had passed the Humboldt, saries The waters of whose waters are for 300 the Humboldt, from their miles impregnated with al head to their sink, a space of kali, they had to cross a bar nearly 300 miles, are, in the ren desert, without a blade dry season, strongly itnpreg- of grass or a spring of pure noted with alkali. Some water, to encounter the ri died from thirst, others from gouts of winter on the very ague, others fell beneath the thinks of the Sierra Nevada." burdens they attempted to carry. Beyond the sink, the diminished bands had to en counter sixty or seventy miles of desert, where not a blade of herbage grew, and not a drop of pure water could be procured ; and those who pushed safely through this ordeal had still to ascend the icy slopes of the Sierra Nevada, where the rigours of winter were added to all other difficulties." There is more of this kind of plagiarism in different parts of the article, which certainly does not re dound to the credit of the North British for either originality or honesty. PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED. Boogs. Quebec Chapel Sermons. H. Alford, B.D. Riringtnns. Five Dramas. Saunders and Otley. Man and Mcney. E. Souvestre, Howe ll. Autocracy in Poland and Russia. J. Allen. New York : Wiley. Excelsior. Vol. L Nisbet and Co. The Vision of Midsummer Morning's Dream. J. Starr. History of the Ottoman Empire. Griffin and Co. PAMPHLETS. Siege of Silistria. A Poem. W. J. Thornton. Longmans. Kossuth. Hardwick..