The Press. — London, England, 1857-07-04 00:00:00

658 " I will trouble you to place a table here," said she to a servant who was crossing the room. " Thank you ; candles on the table, if you please. Be so good as to give me a chair. Will you bring me a thick volume which lies on the school room table ?" Then Anne seated herself, and, dropping the dark fringed lids over her expressive eyes, sat composedly awaiting the servant's return. The book was brought; Mr. Curzon himself did Anne the honour of arranging the lights, which courtesy she acknowledged by a grave bow without looking to• wards him. _ _ _ Then, with as much sangfroid as " the sublime Fanny " could have shown on a similar occasion, Anne said, in a peculiarly clear, sweet voice, " I shall have the honour of reading to you Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, Dramatis Persona," No one spoke. Every eye turned on the reader. Lady Adelaide affected to yawn. She was sorry, very sorry, for her own act. She had brought down the " ugly gover• nese " to show that she would, and also to enjoy her humiliation when assailed by ridicule. But now, now she feared that admiration would take the place of that ridicule. The pky began. The voice alone of the reader held every ear captive ; but as she warmed in her subject, as her expressive countenance became animated and reflected every shade of passion she sought to delineate, her audience became fascinated ; they quite forgot her identity with the schoolroom drudge, so excluded from intercourse with her noble patrons, so carefully hidden from their guests, as though too unsightly an object to be seen. And Anne soon forgot of whom her audience consisted. Reading her triumph in every eye, she rose to a proud height in her declamation; it ceased to be such— she became identified with every character, grave or gay, which she assumed. The coldest heart thrilled in listen• ing to her—the very coldest, except that of óe proud Adelaide. The fiercest passion of envy was awakened in her bosom. She—she envious of the plain little gover ness !—the fright I —the dowdy, who had been as a worm in her path ! She, the matchless beauty, who looked down on her as the eagio might gaze from its eyrie on the nest of the lowly wren ! 4. The two last stories on our list are decide]' the most striking, however opinions may differ about their true merits. " Guy Livingston," a story of fast life in every phase pursued by a hero of high intellectual and physical organisation, is marked by genuine knowledge of human nature, unusual dramatic power, and great ease in the manage ment of stirring incidents. Sporting, flirting, gambling, and duelling are all handled in turn with the same fluency of style, elegance of language, and complete mastery of the subject, which distinguish the authors of "Jack Hinton" and " Digby Grand" above all their contemporaries. But in " Guy Livingston" a deeper note is heard at intervals than either of these writers has as yet attempted. The characters of the hero, of Ralph Mohun, and Flora Bellasys, if not deserving the naine of original, may at least claim the next best merit—that is of displaying a combination which many writers have attempted, in pro portions more truthful than most of them. Among many of the remarkable scenes in this volume we would specially mention the attack on the old manor-house in Ireland—the duel in Paris— the scene in the conservatory—and the last interview between the hero and Con stance Brandon. PERIODICAL LITERATURE. Blackwood this month contains only seven articles, but, as might be expected, all are above the average. A very good naturalist article on the Scilly 151e.4; reviews of " The Professor" and " Life of Sir Charles Napier"; a political article on the "Repre sentation of the Colonies "; an historical study of Charles V. ; and continuation of the two stories— ! e.,' Sir Bulwer Lytton's " What will he Do with it," and " Scenes of Clerical Life "—form a most agree- able and palatable mixture. From the colonial article we extract the following : And here we cannot help adverting t, what we consider as a gross oversight—to use the mildest expression --on the part of our Government, in not appealing to the loyal colonies for assistance in the prosocution of an important war. Would it not have b"en the natural, prudent, and patriotic coarse to have recruited our armies from the masses of the western population—from men of our blood and kindred, fellow•aubjects of the Queen, and inheritors of all our traditions? lift, should be said in reply that the attempt was not made because it was considered by our statesmen that men could not be spared from the colonies for such a purpose, let us entreat the attention of the public to a fact, vouched for by Mr. Justice Haliburton, which is of so scandalous a nature as almost to appear incredible to those who have not hail personal experience of the manner in which public affairs are conducted in this sensitive and punctilious country. Alluding to the circum• stance that in the late war Britain derived no direct aid from her colonies, Mr. Haliburton says:— "In your turn, you may well say, Do you (the colonists) put forward your bonfires, your illuminations and rejoicings, at our success at Sebastopol (if success it was), and your legislative grants in aid of the compassion- LMiamilimlmmomma THE PRESS, JULY 4, 1857. ate fund, as a suitable contribution to the expenses of the war?' " It is a reasonable and a rational question to ask, and here is an answer to it kn offer was made to raise two regiments in Canada, and conduct them to the Crimea, to be commanded by colonial officers, but to be, like others, under the command of the gen:ral in-chief, whoever he might be. The offer was returned from London un answered: it had been addressed to the wrong office. I will not repeat the indignant comment made on this con• teniptuous and contemptible conduct ; the offer was not repeated, and its reception is not forgotten." We state the fact as we find it recorded by Mr. Justice Haliburton, and we leave the public to draw its own con clusions. All we shall say is, that in no other country in the wide world would such conduct on the part of officials be tolerated, and it humbly appears to us that this is a case which imperatively requires strict and immediate investigaton. Parliament ought not to suffer it to pass unnoticed, for by doing so, now that the offence has been proclaimed, the insult offered to the colonies will virtually receive its sanction. Let us know the truth. Let the charge, if rashly made, be contradicted ; but if no con tradiction is possible, let us know to which department of Government the blame of this discreditable transaction is affixed. We cannot afford to pass it over. We cannot accept a blundering apology for conduct so utterly scandalous anddisgraceful. Investigation is a duty which we owe not less to ourselves than to the colonists ; unless, indeed, we are infatuated enough to set no value whatever upon an allegiance " that neither neglect nor indifference can extinguish, nor reward or ridicule seduce." In Fraser, we must notice before anything else a very fresh and graceful article on the sea. The writer is regarding it purely from the poetic point of view, and the gist of his paper is a complaint of how little has been done for it by the poets. He awards the palm to the Greeks : Has anything good been written about the sea? Not much, considering its poetic •alue. Of course when a man is a great poet he cannot altogether avoid thinking occasionally of the sea ; and accordingly, from the harps of the immortals in all ages have sounded here and there the most precious melodies in its praise. Homer never speaks of it but with "tender dread," and both he and all the other poets of old Greece, though they dealt less in the picturesque than is the fashion now-allays, understood far better than our modern bards the comparative poetic interest of the see. 'kr,-::iy(Toc, La, 7rOX4XOSCTAD;, every Homeric epithet for the sea goes to the heart, and recalls to the genuine lover of it, with an almost painful fidelity, some one of his idol's numberless delights. I forget whose is that delicious Doric hexameter : Triv ri"Xes Tr's) , yXrciimtv 0 " TC111 , W ' l , l (4.0 c E Think of all the convulsive attempts of our modern poets and poetasters to express the same or a kindred idea— think even of 13” , on's " o'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea," and " the green wave that trembles as it. glows," and say whether any of them can equal this. We cannot express it in English, for that glorious Greek definite article has here a force triumphant, and all its own ; and the colour, yxrcdxo;, not green, not blue, but that in describable one seen only on the sea and expressible only by this one Greek word, and the wonderful skill with which dactyl and spondee are hamlled so as to express the tre mulous volitant motion of breeze upon wave—these things are inimitable in our less perfect language. aien; xnl TrovivrTipor irvOrti 1107ft . p.WY on,lyrtt, grovrtwv XL/thell'TLVY 913.0 V yiXrtl-thec. No one could approach, no one has attempted to translate that. No one,did I say? yes, in the " Christian Year" we read of " the many-twinkling smile of ocean," and in a note we are quietly referred to this revii,7l9/hor y;Xescrws, as if it were fourth the same thing. And so it might be— to a boarding school miss, but not to the chained Prome- theus riveted to that pitiless rock, " ringed with the azure " air, mocked, cruelly mocked, by the multitudinous merri ment of that illimitable sea. The " Doric hexameter" here quoted is from Moschus, the opening line of a sweet little idyl, in which there are some other most picturesque touches. Oct'xriercre• Tly for instance, is wonderful in its beauty and precision. We cannot agree, however, with what the writer sass about Virgil. There is a passage at the commence ment of the seventh -Eneil, to say nothing of some of his similes, which show that he must have largely appreciated that ocean beauty which is here the subject of discussion. In his enumeration of modern poets who have written worthily of the sea, the essayist should not have omitted Keats. And ocean, too, with All its solemn noise, Math from thy sceptre passed, has always struck us as a singularly fine expression. We cannot quit the subject without reminding our readers of that exquisite description of the sea in the seventh chapter of the " Antiquary," which, though not clothed in metre, is replete with true poetry. " Notes on Canadian Meters," by Lo:11 Bury, is a velliable article, and it will be useful to compare it with the colonial article in Blackwood. Another most opportune paper is on the militia. "A Day at Beaconsfield " is a very interesting subject. We do not get quite so many reminiscences as we expected. but the paper is elegantly mitten, and seems redolent of waving woods and distant corn-fields, and the open-air desert and claret of a famous and genial race : The neighbourhood of Beaconsfield possesses no features of striking beauty, but it is not deficient in certain rural charms. It is richly cultivated, undulating, sod well timbered; and the coppice and other woods are sufficiently extensive to he imposing without monotony, and suffi ciently broken into masses to give variety and richness to the landscape. Neat farms, quiet homesteads, and malt houses, scattered in every direction, give an air of com petence and comfort to the district; and, knowing Burke's taste for agriculture, and his appreciation of country life, we can understand that the features which strike, or perhaps fail to strike, a casual observer, were to him peculiarly pleasing, and made the neighbourhood of Beaconsfield well suited to his desire at once for congenial occupation and for the indulgence of occasional retire ment. The little town presents nothing of interest ; but at the distance of about a mile, on a road leading in a northerly direction, stands a dilapidated gateway, opening upon a road now overgrown with turf, and the wheeltrack only faintly visible. This road passes through a small park studded with well•grown trees, and leads to the spot on which once stood a mansion of some pretension, and which must have been well protected on three sides by sheltering woods. Of the house nothing remains. It was totally destroyed by fire in ISI4, and not a scorched or blackened brick remains to tell of its former existence. Its site is only marked by an excavation—the space once occupied by the cellars and underground offices, and a well of the purest water. The whole is now covered with, turf, and a few sheep were quietly crqping the grass which has grown over the ruins. A range of stabling still exists, but in a dilapidated state; and a belfry over the coachhouse still marks the place as having been once a gentleman's residence. The farmhouse called " Grego ries," as in Burke's time, is in good preservation ; and the estate which once owned the care of one of the most practical of agriculturists and greatest of men, is now in the occupation of a Buckinghamshire yeoman. This domain Burke became possessed of in the year 1768. In a letter to an early friend, he writes :—" I have just made a push with all I could collect of my own, and th«+ aid of my friends, to cast a little rcot in this country. I have purchased a house, with an estate of about six hun• dred acres of land, in Buckinghamshire, twenty•four miles from London. It is a place exceedingly pleasant; and I purpose, God willing, to become a farmer iu good earnest." Near the spot where Burke's mansion stood is an exten sive wood or grove, with walks cut through it in various directions. It formed a part of the pleasure•grounds, and was evidently laid out with an eye to beauty and effect. It is now a tangled wilderness, choked with nettles and overrun with briars with which the rose still struggles in wild unregulated growth, and whets fragrant creepers climb the tallest trees, and year after year put forth and shed their flowers in unheeded profusion. Laurels that have long ceased to feel the restraining hand of man throw their sturdy branches across damp untrodden paths, and the dense and sombre foliage scarcely permits a sun beam to penetrate the gloomy wood. In this once beauti ful but now desolate and oppressive retreat, the great statesman was accustomed to walk, and rejoice in his temporary escape from the hot atmosphere of politics and the vexations of public life, tski g, doubtless, occasionally • complacent survey of his well cultivated fields through openings in the surrounding trees. Here was probably the birthplace of many of those grand thoughts and im perishable truths that make his works the property, not of one age and country only, but of all ages and all coun tries. Here he held friendly intercourse with those whom he honoured with his confidence, and here lie poured forth his soul in passionate and exhausting grief fur the loss of his only son. Here too in happier days, before the terrible convulsions of Europe had troubled his spirit and private sorrows had almost bowed it to the dust, would assetnble the celebrated characters of the day, its choicest wits and greatest spirits. Here— Under the lofty roof Ut branching elm atar•proof, Laurence, and Beauelerc, and Garrick, and Fox, and Wyndham, and Keppel, frequently met in genial com panionship. Here " Sir Joshua " would discuss with his admiring host the highest principles of his art, gaining rather than imparting instruction in his own peculiar profession. Here Johnson, with his uncouth form and awkward gait, indifferent to the beauty around him, would utter his sententious periods or make the grove echo with his sonorous laugh. Here too Lord Rockingham often discussed the interests of the State, and could compla cently survey the happiness around him. No visitor left Burke's abode without carrying with him delightful recollections of the classic grove in which he had walked with the philosophical statesman and listened to his instructive discourse. All the other papers possess special merit ; and, on the whole, the present number is a remarkably at tractive one. The Dublin, too, is very good. The recent fine weather must have inspired the "literary man " with unusual animation. The best article, on the whole, is that upon Mr. Kingsley; but there are plenty of other geod papers suited to all tastes. The reviews—besides the Kingsley one—are "The Pro fessor," Mr. Whitty's " Bohemia," and Professor Crea-y's " English Constitution." The character of the Bohemian is thus summed up : Such, reader, is the British Bohemian—a strange com pound, w►th the virtues of the savage and the vices of a Cockney. Cultivated without being refined, and lawless without being criminal. Honest, warmhearted, and hospitable; not so much unprincipled, as without princi ples; and not so much immoral, as without morals.