The Press. — London, England, 1854-09-30 00:00:00

SEPTEMBER 30, 1854. true, and he notices how fully our warning words, " The star of England pales, something " ignominious is impending," were borne out by the publication of the Nesselrode circular. To the division in the councils of our Govern ment, and to the duplicity and weakness of our Foreign-office, the author traces all the mis chief which has happened. Lord Aberdeen held aloof from France till forced into alliance with it, and then reluctantly followed its dic tation. If M. Bauer may be taken as a fair representative of the public feeling of his country, England is regarded in Germany only as a fearful and tardy attendant on the action of France. M. Bauer's brochure has literary merit of a high order. One of his best passages is a clever but somewhat forced parallel between Lord Palmerston and M. Neckar : Neckar presented himself to France in promising to crush the monster of financial deficit, and the credulous people expected him to perform the exploit. England, in turn boasted that it possessed a hero who would satisfy the, political deficit—it is Palmerston. Both were heroes of petty expedients and great promises, destitute of courage and energv ; both excited the masses without contenting them, and were too impotent to overcome difficulties ; both were frivolous, and forced by engagements lightly con• tracted to raise the storm before which they quailed the first; both were troublesome to the Court, yet sustained by it, from respect to popular prejudice; both were dis- missed by the Court, and recalled to calm the ferment of the masses ; both equally vain, self• important, bustling, and dangerous ; both equally penetrated with an idea of their mission, believing themselves the last saviours of their country; and both equally destined to augment the discontent they knew not how to appease, and to raise the muses they knew not how to govern. Whatever truth the parallel may possess it does not hold good as respects the situations in which the two were placed. M. Bauer has an exaggerated idea of the momentary clamour raised against the Court in connection with Lord Palmerston's retirement. But there can be no doubt that his lordship's importance as a public man was finally lost when he con sented to return to office under Lord Aberdeen, and when he further allowed the Duke of Newcastle to be appointed to the post for which his partisans loudly declared he was the only person fit. Another clever paragraph is on the contrast between the action of the Porte and the great European powers : What a contrast! On one side the energy of the West exhausts itself In designs and plans which, declared to be decisive, turn out to be vain menaces, fertile only in illusions, which, praised as the last safety, tend only to total defeat. On the other, reserve, absence of precipita tion, immobility bordering on apathy, no transactions, — the maintenance of a formal demand once for all,—an un alterable air, and a fixed eye which observes the exhaus tion of its adversaries and watches the moment to strike a decisive blow. Is not this apathy, which disguises energy of action, the distinctive characteristic of the Oriental race? This tenacity and constancy which awaits the moment to act, is it not the particular gift of the Slave race? Or is it rather the attribute of intelligence and the recompense which political science receives for those initiated in it? Does it not prove the truth of the proverb that knowledge is power, and does it not confirm the dogma that spirit rules the world? In the extremity to which the ephemeral diplomacy of the powers had ex posed Europe, Turkey, whose patriotism had sanctified her cause, towards the end of October proceeded to save the civilisation of the West. In another remarkable passage he describes the position occupied by Turkey in the Euro pean system : Europe has need of Turkey in the interest of her repose and her safety. Hut she is no longer in a state to render those services which have conferred on her the eminent place she fills in the political system of Europe. In the middle ages the Holy See was the universal arbiter which mitigated the hostile passions of nations by opposing to them the ideas and interests of universal Christianity. After its fall the Porte replaced it by curbing the hateful pessions of the Western nations through the fear she caused to all, and by the peril with which she menaced the States which burned to destroy each other. The necessity of her existence to the political equilibrium has even become the fundamental dogma of our actual diplomacy. • • • But it is a great mistake to suppose that the Ottoman em• pre, without force and without life, may be capable of making continual efforts, and of sacrificing itself for the safety of all Europe. The conclusion at which this thoughtful and eloquent but somewhat paradoxical writer ar rives is, that in departing from the first Vienna note the powers last the only clue which could have guided them through the labyrinthine difficulty, and that Russia will eventually triumph by maintaining this note which the Western powers may disavow, but cannot annihilate. THE PRESS. Handbook for Travellers in Ireland. By James Fraser. Dublin : M'Glashan. TRAVELLING in Ireland has greatly increased during the last few years. Railways have, vastly facilitated excursions even through that mountainous island, and the disagreeable incidents of posting over bad roads are now entirely removed In seven days from Lon don and back a person can make without in • convenience a very pleasant tour through the best part of Ireland. The objects most wor thy of observation are the city of Dublin and the Lakes of Killarney. In the metropolis of Ireland the strong features of Irish society can easily be recognised. There is a sluttish splendour and an aspiring attempt at magnifi cence about the externals of Dublin that seem faithful representatives of the shadowy yet aspiring aims visible in the old struggles for Irish independence. There is a touching air of decay, also, in the greatest part of the city. It bears "has been" in its deserted squares, and its spacious and half-mouldering man sions. A decaying city affects the imagina tion as if it were an architectural lesson ad dressed to the mind's eye, suggesting the vanities of human grandeur. With this excellent handbook of Fraser a stranger can see Dublin easily in a day. It has one building so classical and yet so ori ginal in its beauty that any one with a love for the higher order of architecture would be repaid for a trip to Dublin. We allude to the Bank of Ireland, formerly the old Parliament-house. Its imposing lines of pillars and its beautiful portico, and the unrivalled lightness of its whole appearance, at once airy and magnifi cent, are truly admirable. The late Thomas Drummond, the Under Secretary for Ireland, scarcely ever passed its precincts without stopping for a moment or two to gaze upon it, and utter his admiration of it. Some other public buildings in Dublin are also well wor thy of a traveller's notice. The Custom-house is a superb structure, of a most palatial charac ter, and transports the travelled mind to Italy at a glance. The grand square in Trinity College is also very fine; and the view of St. Stephen's green, the largest square in Europe, with the chain of the Dublin and Wicklow mountains forming a distant background, is a prospect rarely equalled in any city. These and many other sights can on a " low-backed car" be easily seen in a day The best portion of the Wicklow beauties— the Dargle and Powerscourt domain—can also be visited in a day ; and the other lions of Wicklow, not even excepting the Vale of Ovoca, one greatly exaggerated, though the lake at Luggelaw is really very exquisite. The grand features of the Lakes of Killarney can, also, he seen in one day with perfect ease. From Ross Castle to the Upper Lake, and back again, will show a tourist the whole of that picturesque panorama, which for scenic beauty defies any competitors in Leicester square, and even deserves the puffing of its Irish proprietors, who in this particular in stance have not disappointed the expectations of an eager public. The territory of guano, "the cloakroom of the Pacific, is brought over to us every year in shipfuls. If the Lakes of Killarney could be passed through the Encumbered Estates Court, bought out and out, and then brought round by long sea to London iu Elgin-marble fashion, and by an ingenious mechanism put together again to the west of Belgravia, like the limbs of the Crystal Palace, we would not then talk, as Sir James Mackintosh once did, of "the Piccadilly " highlands towering over the champagne " lands of the Green-park." Killarney, indeed, can scarcely be well described. After the late George Robins saw it he felt dumb for the first time in his life, and at last exclaimed, "No one advertisement could ever do it jus tire! That middle lake, there, would swallow a whole fount of leaded capitals to itself." But Fanny Ellsler was more terse and graphic than the auctiooner in describing nature. There is nothing in Martial more pointed than charming Fanny's glancing wonder struck at the Falls of Niagara and exclaiming, " What a row !" We never read a good description of Killar ney, but parts of it have been beautifully written about by Griffin, in " The Collegians, 931 that best of all Irish novels. Griffin was a poet at heart, and could soar beyond prose topics; and his description of Purple Moun tain has all the idealising and quick sympathy with the grand characteristic of genius. After the Alps most of our scenery iu those islands appears monotonous and tame ; but Killarney has certainly a concentration in a small space of the sublime, the picturesque, and the beau tiful, and way be critically commended as the best illustrations of Longinus in the United Kingdom. Our Irish fellow-subjects, however, think too much of the scenery of their country. It certainly contains much of the sublime ; but squalid cabins and mean objects often spoil its picturesque " bits," and its " beautiful" portions are frequently hidden by cold, driz zling mists. It wants the clear atmosphere and more sustained sunlight that gives to English scenery many of its charms ; for the lowering sky of Ireland, while it casts a drear air of tragic grandeur over the varied land scape, becomes painfully mon , - :omits at last. "Everything in Ireland looks so black," said an English poet, some time ago, in describing his travels through it, and we have heard the same remark made by landscape-painters. What struck us most in Irish scenery, after touring through the country, was the great quantity of bold landscapes rather than the superior quality of any. We prefer Devonshire to Wicklow, and we never saw any seacoast views in Ireland comparable with several in England. North Wales, as a whole, is finer than any equal portion of Ireland ; but we cheerfully admit that Killarney, for its concen tration of beauties, deserves its fame. Some of the demesnes of the nobility in Ireland are princely residences, though not k2pt up in the style corresponding with their outward grandeur. Powerscourt in Wicklow is a noble place, and is in many respects su perior to Mount Edgcumbe in Devonshire. The demesnes of Rockingham (Lord Luton's), Loughcorton (Lord Gough's), Shane's Castle (Lord O'Neill's), Tollymore park (Lord Ro den's), are residences of remarkable beauty and grandeur. Kilkenny Castle, the place where what Sir Walter Scott called " the princely house of Ormonde " has resided for nearly five centuries, is well worth visiting for its pictures, which, amongst others, contains the original Vandyke of Charles I. Along the banks of the sweeping Shannon and the varied Blackwater are also some very beautiful seats, which would be regular " lions " if they were in the neighbourlwod of Dorking or Reigate. Many of us have admired the beau. ties of Norbury-park and the adjacent Box-hill in Surrey, but we saw half a dozen seats in the Blackwater which can be described only by an algebraic formula as " Norbury-parks raised to the nth power," and foremost amongst them Lismore Castle, the restored residence of the head of the house of Cavendish. _ _ _ We can praise this guidebook to Ireland before us as one of the best topographical works on those islands. It has reached, de servedly, its fourth edition. It has several accurate maps and plans of excursions and tours. names of hotels, and a vast variety of statistical illustrations of Irish society. It is the only book for travellers in Ireland that we can now recommend. The recent social changes in that country have made " Inglis " quite obsolete. The effect of those extraordi nary changes is most interesting to contem plate, and they have never received a treatment adequate to their importance. But thin is not the opportunity for doing so, and we must conclude by cordially praising, for accuracy and extent of knowledge, this excellent hand book for travellers in Ireland. John Howard. A Memoir. By Hepworth Dixon. London : Jackson and Watford. A NEW and revised edition of this memoir of the great philanthropist, containing, among much new matter, some interesting anv:dotes connected with Howard's varied adventures. Among the more curious of these stories is one relating to Howard'g almost last act of supervision at Cherson. Having visited and exa mined all the prisons and hospitals of the city, Howard had made discoveries and given vent to ex pressions that seriously alarmed Prince Potemkin, who determined at length to get up a favourable cue for this troublesome traveller. Expressing a wish to visit the hospitals of the town of St. Nicholas, in the vicinity of Cherson, which at that time were known