The Press. — London, England, 1857-06-27 00:00:00

634 Mr. Heraud's pen has in this volume described unconsciously the misapplied ingenuity and mental toil of the transcendental bards:— For not of nature cared they to enquire— Idle, though curious—and conceived strange laws, She knew not of. her goings on to rule ; Deciding ignorant, and as of time Eternity discoursing, or as it Describing time : or, daring there to soar Where no experience ventures ; region high Of pure abstraction, beyond earth, or I:3aven.. World of void forms. Thus, of such phantasies These sculptures were. Their system is wrong, and even if their views of poetry were right, more sweetness of melody, and more condescension to the formed taste of a people with the heritage of English litera tire, would I.e required before the school to which Mr. Heraud belongs could find accept ance with the crowd of readers, or win the approbation of the fastidious few. A Visit to Salt Lake ; being a Journey across the Plains and a Residence in the Mormon Settle ments at Utah. By William Chandless. London : Smith, Eder, and Co. THIS is the journal of a journey from Missouri, by the valley of the Platte, to the Salt Lake, and of a short residence among the Mormons. The book is not wanting in the usual amount of adventure, but its main interest lies in the description of the Mormon town, and of its gentlemen and ladies, "in their " habit as they live." The territory of Utah lies between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada, extending from lat. 37 deg. to 43 deg. north. The country is by no means fully explored, but the whole tart is cut up by long mountain ranges running orth and south, inclosing fine fertile valleys at event uninhabited. In these valleys, receiving the \usage of the ranges, are numerous lakes, the If of which is the great Salt Lake, and in the / of which lies the famous city or the Mormons, e banks of the Jordan. The soil of the valley d in parts, "but it is hard," says Mr. C hand 'to find a farm site one-third of which is not less." The climate is bad—too hot in summer, cold in winter ; rain is scarce, and grass are numerous; the consequence is, that lrought and the plague of grasshoppers the s of Utah once in every few years are the brink of starvation, for no grass is attle, nor corn for the inhabitants. Here \f the city as it stands : es immediately at the foot, and on the western sides, of a jutting ridge of the terminate in Ensign Peak ; a buttress of lure, and a warder overlooking the whole vets rest on the " bench," here little more rising in successive terraces to a height feet; below them the city stretches on plain, and forms around the peak the three-fourths of a square. The whole \bout four square miles !aid out in tf ten acres : that is with a side of a treets intersecting at right angles. . the city is nothing ; few houses are many of one only: style there is I there are no " follies." Brigham 's pretentious, and looks well and its walls are newly painted venetiana refreshed continually : st detached—a sort of harem— in Gothic style. I felt a pity veen the gables. The social ed for any kind of public 0., and the tabernacle and onventicles. is a snug despotism—a nominally chosen by selected by Brigham judges appointed by tates. On the other ecial government of apostles by the other, but as with the courts at Capperfield, so it lies, but it is all a 'vernor, his two lye houses—one Lake City—and a church. The om to elect as they " vote se who were Imore. Evi 'e ballot-box, ty—particu , the liberty re are no •r always the worst tiler and he very r liti the THE PRESS. bishops, and then to Brigham is about the extent of law believers venture upon. It is refreshing to find that these saints experience a weakness common to us interior mortals—they are tickled by titles, and speak with becoming awe of "his Excellency the Governor;" but irreverent jokers have been known to speak of him as " the old boss." But, of course, the peculiar "institution" we always asso ciate with Mormonism is the one to attract most interest. Mr. Chandless rather approves of it than otherwise. To live in Salt Lake Valley, say the Mormons, is to obtain the lot of Joseph ; it is the fruitful vine the archers shot at, but could not reach—in their words, it is " Paradise." Married life, our author tells us, may be distinguished into three sorts,—" the harem life, where numbers of wives (as those of Brigham) live together and apart from their husbands ; the belle amie life, where they occupy separate houses scattered over the place; and lastly, the domestic sort, where ail live under one roof, but to some extent with their separate apartments." The wretchedness of the wives, he assures us, is greatly exaggerated, and as for immorality, there is not a more modest and moral city in existence. To be sure, the degrees within which marriage is forbidden are narrow, for a man marries a mother and daughter, and can indulge his taste for two sisters at the same time, while the tone of conversation ge nerally is loose ; but such things are trifles. Under such a system marriage, of course, loses all its sanctity, and much of its romance, but Mormons at a" the dansante" occasionally do a little flirting to keep their hands in : - - The one special point of romance here (and you must look close for it), is the relation in which married men and girls stand to each other : elsewhere, the attentions of the former to the latter pass for nothing; here a girl knows that her partner may at any moment be her lover ani her suitor, though his wife is dancing in the vie it•vis; and many a flirtation is buoyed up by the circumstance. Men, too, of the brighter sort, love to use their position, and carry on canvas that would capsise a monogamist craft. Second and third wives take little heed of the flirting or the wooing; but you may now and then see a woman glancing too eagerly round, and from her half concealed jealously and hatred, and fear predominating overthe other two, you may guess, what you will to told, that the watcher is an only wife: other women, if they see her, will come and tell her she is no Mormon to look so after her hus band, and laugh at her foolish expectation of keeping an entire husband to herself. That girl now evidently knows the wife is watching her, and coquets all the more eagerly with the husband perhaps she may refuse him after all, perhaps not wish to do so, perhaps find herself unable if she wishes ; but they are not the only couple followed by eyes struggling to see, and yet not to believe. How horrible to our notions is all this ! What must our clergy be about to permit some of the youngest and most promising girls of their villages to br decoyed into such a " whited sepulchre" as this Salt Lake City? We must close our extracts with a sketch of Brigham Young : He is a portly man of middle height, apparently about fifty four ; his face bespeaks strong common sense, and when in the prayer he was spoken of as the " prophet and revelator," I tried—but in vain—to discover any sign of contempt in his countenance. After the main discourse he spoke for a few minutes; he complained that men would come to his house without any sufficient object, and that women would come and ask for Sister Young (which?), and then try to see over the house, and the thing had be• come a nuisance : he bad lost shirts; his wives had lost articles of dress. There were capacious offices for the transaction of business, to which strangers could come; friends he should always be happy to see at his own house, but he wished to give warning to all present that he had just received from London a new pair of boots with par ticularly strong toes, and that he should not scruple to use them on intruders. He then—l forget how—turned aside to the subject of inspiration, and how, because the Ameri can pecple would not believe in visions and spirits, " God had sent on them a strong delusion that they should be lieve a lie ;" and those who rejected Joseph were now deluged with evil spirits ; with this he concluded. The last remark I did not at the time understand, but on inquiry found the allusion was to table•turning; which Mormons refer to the agency of evil spirits, permitted, and even sent forth, to deceive the " sectarian world." The previous remarks of Brigham Young are a charac. teristic specimen : he never flatters the people, nor apes the supposed mien and language of a prophet. Neither would succeed : the Mormons are not fond of " soft sander," and would suspect affectation. He rather affects coarse and common language, merely now and then adding with conscious superiority, " I feel to speak of these things is beneath my position and my office, but the people are such dolts and fools lam obliged to do so." He is in shrewdness and energy well fitted to be the head, though by no means the most intellectual or most eloquent in the " Church." The Mormons appear to show symptoms of breaking up their family party, the last accounts from the Salt Lake representing matters as being most unsettled. Brigham Young was at Great Salt Lake City, organising a secret ex- pedition to somewhere in the North, for some pur pose unknown to the Gentile world. This fact is corroborated by a despatch from St. Louis. His negotiations with the Chief Pah-litah for his co. operation in the plans of the expedition, fully SATURDAY, explain the statement that he had been treating with the Indians for safe conduct out of the country. Women, it is said, are becoming scarce in the terri tory, and the Mormons resort to mere children to replenish the harems. A new doctrine, too, had been practically introduced into the Mormon creed, and was expected soon to be promulgated—viz.,that of furnishing proxies to supply the place of husbands to wives of missionaries absent on foreign service, so that " the duty of raising up a kingdom to the Lord" may not fail of performance during their absence. The correspondents of the American papers relate that the Federal Court was terminated with the bowie knife and the revolver, the Federal judge having pistols placed at his head and dirks at his throat while sitting on the bench; and of what they call in Kentucky a " free fight " within the bar, while these exciting amusements were going on, upon the bench. PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED-JUNE 25. BOOKS. Industrial and Social Position of Women in the Middle and Lower Ranks. Chapman and Hall. The 2hoice of a Profession. H. Byerley Thomson, B.A. Ditto. The Questions of the Day. By the Creature of an Hour. I,ongruans. Miching Mallecho and other Poems. Paul Richardson. Mozley_ Life's Problems; Essays, Moral, Social, and Psychological. Bell and I/slily. La Question Napolitaine Decant L'Europe. Chapman. A Summer Everting Reverie. Bulman. Our College. Leaves from an Undergraduate's Scribbling. Book. Earle. General Board of Health. Papers relating to the History and Practice of Vaccination. Spottiswoode. Tom Burke of Ours. Charles Lever. Vol. T. Chapman and Hall. Practical Observations on Diseases of the Lungs and Heart. Archibald Billing, M.D., F.R S. Highley. The Solar System as it Is, and not as it is Represented. R. J. Morrison. Stephenson. North America ; its Agriculture and Climate. Robt. Russell of Kilwhiss. Black. Cuthbert St. Elme, 3f.P. ; or, Passages in the Life of a Poli tician. Three Vols. Hurst and Blacken. Guy Livingstone; or, Thorough. J. W. Parker. The Athelings ; or, the Three Gifts. Margaret Oliphant. Three Vola. Blackwood and Sons. PERIODICALS. Putnam's 3forilhly. Sampson Low—The Monthly Bericto. Hall and Virtue—Journal of the Statistical Society. J. W. Parker. pus tr. HER MAJESTY'S THEATRE. ALLUSION has been made in the columns of THE. PRESS, from time to time, to a Spanish tenor, named Belart. His first appearance in this country was on Tuesday night as Elvino in Bellini's ever-melodious Sonnambula. Never was a singer's debut heralded with less preparation by the Haymarket director ship, and it was scarcely possible to have produced the opera with less care and efficiency; and yet the success of the newcomer was positive, even in the absence of the ordinary claque. The critics of the diurnal papers seem to have been taken by surprise. His voice, states the Times, is not very powerful, but is of pleasing quality, and his style is unexception able. He is a tenor of more than average excel lence, writes the Chronicle ; his voice is sonorous, clear, and sympathetic ; his execution is marked by artistic power, and as an actor he is graceful and intelligent. The Herald praises him as the expo nent of tenderness and passion. He has, declares the Post. a very agreeable light tenor voice, and sings with feeling and judgment, joining the falsetto to the chest voice with all the skill of a well trained artist. He is an admirable artist, according to the Daily News, and Elvin() has been seldom better acted or more beautifully sung. The Advertiser asserts that Belart has come upon the public without preliminary puffing, and his success will, therefore, be the more lasting. Our contemporaries have underrated the new tenor. He is a much more valuable acquisition than has been conceived, and it is but right to add that his full powers were not at all developed last Tuesday. He was in the agonies of stage-fright more or less throughout the opera. Nothing but his genuine ability and fine voice carried him through. To describe him as a light tenor, although he can execute roulades of the most wonderful description, as we heard him do at Madrid in Spanish airs, is not accurate. He has mure the attributes of the tenure robust°. His fa'setto is very remarkable, and it is so skilfully allied to his chest voice that the connecting link almost escaped the ear. He has immense power, but his style is in many respects open to much improvement. He is, in fact, by far too impulsive and emotional. Possess-