The Press. — London, England, 1858-06-26 00:00:00

I 610 beginning to be entertained in some quarters, of missionary labour taken up for a limited period, and then to be laid aside : Nothing so wounded Judson as the temptations which he found the churches at home presenting to missionaries to make a stepping-stone of the heathen-field. It is with regret and consternation," he wrote to the Secretary of the Board, " that we have just learned that a new mis• sionary has come out for a limited term of years. I much fear that this will occasion a breach in our mission. How can we, who are devoted for life, cordially take to our hearts and councils one who is a mere hireling? I have seen the beginning, middle, and end of several limited•term missionaries. They are all good for nothing. They come out for a few years, with the view of acquiring a stock of credit on which they may vegetate the rest of their days in the congenial climate of their nativelland. As to lessening the trials of the candidate for missions, it is just what ought not to be done. Missionaries need more trials on their first setting out, instead of less. The motto of every missionary—whether preacher, printer, or schoolmaster —ought to be, ' Devoted for life.' A few days ago, brother Kincaid was asked by Burmese officer of government how long he intended to stay. Untila II Burmah worship the Eternal God,' was the prompt reply. If the limited-term system, which begins to he fashionable in some quarters, gain the ascendancy, it will be the death-blow of missions." And he added :—" Eviuse my freedom of speech, and believe me to he, with all faith fulness and respect, your ` devoted for life,' A. JUDSON." This was the tone of a conqueror—of one who would "do, or die " ;—of one who had broken down the bridge behind him ! And it was fitly rewarded : The Burman king now welcomes to his territory the servants of Jesus Christ. And so mightily does the Word of God prevail, that, in two provinces alone—Tenaaserim and Pegu, the number of hopeful converts has risen to eleven thousand, nine hundred, and sixty-six, with a norni natty Christian population of at least one hundred thousand! The two small volumes, then—" Africa's Mountain Valley," which contains the history of Regent's Town, and " Rivers in the Desert," which gives us the narrative of the Burmese Mission—are alone in their class. Each por trays a model man—the one of a plain school master, who, by the simple power of the Gospel, subdued and Christianized hundreds of poor savages ; the other of a man of genius, a man of ambition, who aimed at the conquest of an empire for Christ, and who succeeded in his object. RAILWAY NOVELS. Tracey; or, the Apparition. By Mrs. Thomson. London : Hodgson. 2. Billets and Bivouacs. London : Routledge. 3. Parthenia. By Eliza Buokminster Lee. London : Routledge. 4. Hand and Glove. By Miss Edwards. London : Brown. RAILWAY travellers are fast becoming alive to the conviction that the illuminated covers which make so many stations as gay as beds of flowers are be coming in most cases a mockery, a delusion, and a snare. The traveller who, tempted on one journey by the startling outside of some book the intense stupidity of which causes him to throw it out of the window before he has proceeded twenty miles, is attracted, on the next occasion, by the severe sim plicity of attire in which respectable publishers en velope their most cherished reprints, and neglects golden sunsets and scenes of terrific violence (in red and yellow) for the comparatively plain exterior of Miss Bronti or Miss Martineau. Nimium ne crede colori certainly applies to most of the volumes now before us. But we feel more especially bound to warn un suspecting readers against " Tracey " (I)—an " Ap parition" which will certainly never disturb the slumbers of the most nervous invalid. This Mrs. Thomson is not the Mrs. Thomson of whose "Court Secrets " we had occasion to speak highly a short time since. Her ghost had, till explained, some pretensions to odylic character. But the one before us is merely a pale rechauffee of Lord Lyttelton's, and is as mere a turnip and•white.sheet . as the most • artless village hobgoblin ever illuminated by tallow. The story itself is the most feeble, maundering, dreary production it has for a long time been our fate to meet with. It moves at a funeral pace. and the greater number of the characters contribute nothing, that we can see, to the progress of the plot ; which is of the sort that is made up by injured y • rightful heirs, wicked noblemen, and concealed wills. -at To mitigate the wild excitement produced by such ad ingredients, the most prosaic inhabitants of a country we neighbourhood converse at full length through be' many a wearisome page. In the author's own de scription of these there may perhaps be a gleam of fa* shrewdness—such as you find in some ill nature d -3:- old maid who has all her neighbours characters at - "- her scissors' ends ; but the pervading atmosphere is that of dulness, unrelieved by any curiosity about the hero or heroine, who are not quite so real as the phantasms of a bad dream. Altogether this book, THE PRESS, JUNE 26, 1858. with its " set grey life and apathetic end," is such as might have formed part of the library of Poe's " House of Usher." 2. "Billets and Bivouacs" (another brilliant wrapper) is certainly about the most flimsy affair in the guise of a novel that was ever offered to the public. It reads like the letters of some" Own Co rrespondent," with the precisei nformat i on omitted, and the facetious sod digressive portions—the shaves of the camp and practical jokes of the barrack-room —developed to an inordinate degree. There is a faint attempt at something like a love-story, and one rather exciting adventure. The other adventures," such as they are, belong to the Persian war alit the Indian mutiny. When we add that the hero's chi valrous friend—who dies early—is called " Percy," and that the low comedy ensigns are named " Squiffy " and " Scruffins," we shall have conveyed a sufficiently clear idea of both book and author. :t. This is another of the gaudy covers. " Par thenia " belongs to that epoch of bastard classicalism illustrated by the potentate whom Lord Kenyon used to call "Julian the Apostle." The final struggle of Paganism and Christianity is not a bad subject for the background of a fiction ; but the character of Mien himself is not one which we can readily asso ciate with the softer affections. The loves of Julian and Parthenia are unfortunate at the outset because she is a Pagan and her lover is a Christian ; they are equally unfortunate at the close, when the parties have exchanged situations. The story is carried on to the death of the Emperor and the seclusion of Parthenia in a convent; the latter of which events, though probable enough, is a tame conclusion, and one to which the stirring times of Christian persecu tion might have been made to lend some more tragic interest. The story is rather a vehicle for costume, conversation, and history, than for the ordinary events of a novel. It is well enough done, but the result is not violently exciting. 4. By her first novel, " My Brother's Wife," Miss Edwards acquired a sudden reputation which her two succeeding works have not increased ; if, indeed, they have not positively impaired it. She showed herself from the first possessed of an elegant style, a sensibility to natural beauty and a great power of describing it, united with an unusual cleverness in the unwinding of a more than usually absorbing plot. The same talents were apparent in her second story, " The Ladder of Life," but the interest was more languid and the characters less freshl} drawn. In " Hand and Glove" we observe the same charac teristics, but the plot shows such poverty of invention that a vigorous effort will be necessary on a fourth occasion to lift the authoress out of the " ruck " of novelists of whom " guards e passe " is the only fitting epitaph. A handsome, accomplished, and insinuating gentleman, who turns out to be a swin dler, and gives place to the constant lover of sterling worth ; and the "rough diamond," more or less of the Rochester stamp, who (as the practised reader can discern) is to reward the much-enduring heroine, strangely blind till the last chapter to his admiration, for having baited her throughout the story, by mar rying her at the end 01 it—are materials with which we have become as familiar as with the figures of a quadrille, and which a writer like Miss Edwards ought to be above employing. We must also pro test against the gross improbability shown in the description of M. Hamel, the incongruity of whose habits and character with his position as a minister of religion would certainly have caused inquiry long before the period at which the exigencies of the story make it necessary to expose him. His attack on M. Deligny, at M. Vaudon's dinner-party, is any thing but gentlemanlike, though the authoress seems to be unaware of the fact. One or two of the other characters are fairly enough done, and the smoothness and elegance of the style make the book pleasant reading enough. But Miss Edwards must really take care next time, if she wishes to extend, or even continue, her present extensive popularity. , II PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED:—.IOiit 24. nooks. The Official Illuatraled Guides to the South-Eastern Railway and its Branches. W. H. Smith and Co. Peloponnesus. Notes of Study and Travel. By W. J. Clark, M.A. J. W. Parker and Son. Frank Beresford ; or, Life in the Army. By Captain Curling. Charles J. Skeet. An Earnest Exhortation to Christian Unity. By the Chief of Sinners. Partridge and Co. The Ckrgynsan's Legal Handbook. By James Murray Dale. Seeley, Jackson, and Co. Prayer, ' with Texts of Scripture for Eve r y D a y is the Year. By a Member of Parliament. Seeley, Jackson, and Co. A History of England, during the Reign al George 111. By William Massey, M.P. Vol. If. J. W. Parker and Son. Day by Day at Luck-noto. A Journal of the Siege of Luck. now. By Mrs. Case. It. Bentley. The Poetical Works of the late Alfred Johnstone Hailing worth. With Memoir of the Author. Edited by Dr. George Sexton, F. 11.11.8. Seeend Edition. Vol. I. C. J. Skeet. The Art of Extempore Speaking. By M. Bautain. Boaw•orth and Harrison. &Pagan Bishops and Rural Deana. By Thomas Brett, LL.D. Macmillan and Co. mNlnsit. eta 0i..,"1 IAIRE'MAJESTY'S THEATRE. It It Troveslbre Wittteproduced here on Tuesday, and drew one 'Wills lirgest audiences of the season. Notwithstanding the acknowledged flimsiness of Verdi's music, it has established itself with most un mistakeable popularity in this country. Here se find many of the unfathomable mysteries of musical fascination. Hundreds, who care not to listen to masterpieces of dramatic music, such as Don Giovanni, are ready to testily on every opportunity their greater admiration of 11 Trovatore, &e. Did our limited space permit, it would not, we think, be an unprofitable task to inquire into this preference of the meretricious to the genuine in music. That the standard of musical measurement is false, we cannot for a moment admit. That taste which grows up under laws of harmony as immutable as those which govern the universe cannot err, except in individual cases. By its decision these facts are established beyond rational dispute—viz., that Mozart's music is real, sound at core, and certain to pass triumphantly through the severest ordeal that criticism can subject it to ; that Verdi's works are unreal, unsound, dressed up to attract illegitimate attention, and destitute of nearly all the requirements of good music, ; lastly, that the latter afford far greater pleasure to the British public than the former. True it is that there are not many found ready to defend or even admit this preference; but their acts show that it prevails. They learn, or perhaps feel, that their taste is not legitimate; but, like many persons who dare not repudiate virtue, they like to indulge themselves with forbidden fruit. We may return to this subject on a future occasion. Touching the performance, we may safely assert that it loses nothing by repetition. Mlle. Titleus did not appear to be in quite so good voice as usual, but her acting was admirable. Mme. Alboni and Signor Giuglini were perhaps never heard to greater advantage. The latter was encored in "Ah ! si, ben mio," and in the delicious " D'amor sell' ali roses " prison song. If this opera were equal throughout to the fourth act, it would place Verdi in a very different position as a composer from that which he now occupies. Nothing can exceed the tender richness of the music in the first scene, in which " Warner ali " occurs. This plaintive soon, followed by the mournful " Miserere d'an Alma," and Leonora's Quel suon, quelle preci solemni," with the repetitions, forms an ensemble which is quite irresistible ' • and from this point to the end of the act we find a continuation of musical and histrionic pathos almost sufficient to account for the fascination that, as has been above mentioned, this opera exercises over the public. The second scene of the act (within the prison) between Manrico and his supposed mother, was rendered by Mme. Alboni and Signor Giuglini with inexpressible truthfulness and painful tenderness. There two rich voices blend together with extraordinary unison. We are glad to hear that Mlle. Titiens has had her conga prolonged, and that we may hope for the benefit of her great talents during another fortnight. THE ROYAL ITALIAN OPERA. Il Barbiere di Siviglia was again produced on Thursday last. Want of space has prevented us from noticing it before. Always excepting the coldness which ever clouds Mme. Bosio's acting, we know not how, by the substitution of any living artistes for any of those at present composing it, we could improve the cast of this opera. Mario was in excel lent voice, and sang with his accustomed tenderness and effect. We think, however, that the well-known tendency of this accomplished tenor to vary the music of the part allotted to him was, on Thursday, pushed to its utmost limit. Appogiature are decided embellishments, when discreetly introduced ; but when every second or third bar is interlarded with them, the effect they are intended to, and would, otherwise, produce, is altogether destroyed. No defect, perhaps, grows more rapidly on a shirr pos sessing a flexible voice than this ; and good taste, paradoxical as it may seem to be to say so, which in the listener forbids this practice, seems in the singer to encourage it. Signor Ronconi, whose acting in the part of Lord Rocburg we had occasion to find fault with last week, is, it must be admitted (and we gladly do homage to his talents), a first rate Figaro. His irrepressible passion for the jocose has, in this character, full scope for indulgence. The only fault we find with him i that be imports the manners of a barber into the charegter of an English nobleman. No incickaiderable ' 'tons of the Bar biere, are omitted at , Covent Q 'en—why Ire know not.; lid, without hikiing swan e seventhnscene of the second act (or, as they have it stalls open} house, the third scene of third act), one is quite at loss to account for the repulse which Count Alma viva meets with, at the hands of Rosins, in the following scene. Just forty years have passed away since Barbiere was first introduced to a London audience, at Her Majesty's Theatre; forty-two since it was