The Press. — London, England, 1858-07-03 00:00:00

Most men whose judgment is not biassed by circumstances, have long since come to the con clusion that a sufficient charge for a single clergyman is, a parish of 2,000 or 3,000 souls ; or that, if a curate be added, a population of 4,000 or 5,000 will fully tax all their energies. Now, about ten years ago a Royal Commission was appointed, to inquire into this matter, and to take evidence upon it. That evidence all con firmed the above view, with the exception of one class of witnesses. Several very excellent and eminent persons were examined, who had been for some years in charge of some large parishes— such as Bloomsbury, St. James's, Piccadilly, and Marylebone. These men had inured themselves to the burden of 20,000 or 30,000 souls; they had made the best arrangements they could ; and they had grown accustomed to the work, and sensible of the importance of their position, as heads of great parishes. They shrank from the idea of being " cut down ;" and they had really persuaded themselves, and tried to persuade the Commission, that 20,000 or 30,000 people was not too large a number for one rector to have to answer for ! We were much struck with this singular proof of how the human mind can adapt itself to circumstances, and how those circum stances can lead even honest men to embrace sincerely views and notions which, a dozen years before, they would have regarded as monstrous. Out of this old and deep rut, however, of Church customs and habits, men are now everywhere endeavouring to lift themselves. And we rejoice to see, in Mr. Pittman's little work, an instance of a professional man who does not think that " whatever is, is right." Mr. Pittman has been studying the Prayer book, till he discovers, what is apparent on the face of it—but what we have all agreed, long ago, not to see—that the People have a large share in the duty of Public Worship. In truth, during the dark period which intervened between the Restoration and the French Revolution, the parish clerk was universally admitted to be the proxy for the people ; and, until lately, our congregations have been too much in the posi tion of the Romish ones, who meet together " to hear mass." What a suprising, and what a delightful change would it be, if one of our congregations were, some day, to awake up, and to determine to take its own proper share in the service ! What a new and glorious thing would that service he ! We know that we shall be told that some few congregations have already made the attempt, and have made it with success. But we cannot forget that in most instances of this kind the attempt has been marred by the mingling with it of certain questionable practices, from which controversies or enmities have sprung up; and that in scarcely any instance has the participation of the people in the service been the main feature in the change. Mr. Pittman, as far as we can see, is simple and honest in his purpose. We detect no Ro manizing tendencies in his work, and we cordially recommend it. The second book is more distinctlyprofessiond; but it is a well-meant and sensible volume, and will be of use in its own department. Memoirs and Letters of the late Thomas Seddon. By his Brother. London : Nisbet and Co. IT is but a fortnight since we noticed the Memoir of David Gibson, and here is the twin volume, and from the same publishing house. This is a circumstance which could hardly occur again in half a century. Both Gibson and Seddon were promising students; both died just when success and celebrity were opening before them, and both deserved just such a brief and simple memorial as they have received. Thomas Seddon was a member of a family once of considerable note in the City of London. Latterly, we believe, it migrated westward ; but in our youth " Seddon's in Aldersgate-street " was the name of a house universally known and honoured in the City. Thomas Seddon did not like cabinet-making ; and in his thirtieth year, after many struggles to get free, he became, once for all, an artist. That year, 1851, saw his first picture, " Penelope," suspended, like many other early efforts, in the very top row of the exhibition of the Royal THE PRESS, JULY 3, 1858. Academy. Long after, this picture received high praise at the hands of Mr. Ruskin, as one which had given him a high opinion of Mr. Seddon's genius. That autumn he made a sketching tour in Wales; but the year following we find him at Dinan in Brittany, where a part of his family resided. Here he worked hard at landscape : He would stoutly maintain that it. was far bitter to secure but two or three good studies during the usual slay which each artist was able to inako, than to confine their practice, as was usual, to mere sketching. Instead of the single day which they usually devoted to an important scene and a large canvas, in his opinion weeks would hardly suffice; and he would applaud, in spite of the decision of the majority, the heroic resolution of an amateur Nho de. Oared that he would give himself three weeks' herd work to endeavour to draw one single branch of a tree properly. Mr. Holman Bunt in 1853 made preparations for an art-expedition into the East, and in company with that distinguished artist, his friend Seddon, in the winter of the same year, sailed for Alex andria. With his visit to Egypt Seddon's proper art-career begins, and upon the quick, laborious experiences and merited success of the three years which intervened from that date to his death in 1856 the main interest of the memoir turns. It is almost entirely autobiographical: through a series of letters charming for their characteristic truth and simplicity no less than their picturesque vigour and detail we follow Seddon in all his Oriental impressions, note the dull hue and colour of the streets of Cairo, the artistic men and beasts and buildings, the strange jargon, the spirited donkeys, the handsome camels, the delirious jugglers and snake-tamers, and having disguised ourselves in a temporary turban of crimson and gold, having donned a coloured kooftan, having stuck a yataghan into our belt, and unfurled a violet umbrella, so as to pass " for an average Mussulman," we begin to come to terms with camels and Arabs, and make studies of white tombs and hedges of fine cactus, and ropemakers in blue gowns and white turbans, and think of sketching the town, with its domes and minarets, a little before sunset, "when the rosy light is on it and the mountain range, and the exceedingly blue shadows give a beautiful effect." It is impossible to read many pages of this work without being struck with Seddon's strenuous conscientiousness. Beauty and good ness and truth are with him endeared realities; and the pursuit of them does not narrow his heart or sour his temper, is not the gratification of a voluptuous instinct, but what it ought to be —a Divine duty and labour. A young man who could from an art more than all others engrossing spare time enough to form an evening drawing school for working men, was not likely in any part of the world to want occasion for the exer cise of his kindly nature. Out of many passages there is one which is remarkably indicative of his gentleness of character. " Some think," he says, and show they think, all Arabs thieves, and as they repose no confidence, they are treated as fair game. But during a year which I spent in an open tent at the Pyramids and at Jerusalem nothing ever was stolen from me, and several things I had lost were brought back, nor had I ever an unpleasant word with an Arab." In the whole range of biography we know not a more touching story than the circumstances under which the " Sunset from the Pyramids" was painted. All who remember that remarkable picture, with its delicious hush and glory, its vivid violet barred with gold, the two feathery palms black towards the sky-line, and the shadow of that funereal pyramid inverted in that won derful pool of water, must fill up their recollec tion of the picture with the figure of the artist, who had pitched his tent there in the desert to be near a poor dying fellow-countryman. " As could not," as he touchingly says, " bear to let him die alone, with none but an Arab servant, I have begun a sunset view of the Pyramids, in order to be on the spot and keep him company." With the exception of the account of Severn watching by the bed of Keats, and working hard that his friend might have every necessary com fort, we cannot recall in any human biography so loving, so disinterested a circumstance as this of Seddon watching and comforting the last hours of one who had no other claims upon him than those of country and religion. Mr. Holman Hunt was in this good company, and their life among the tombs is exceedingly pic turesque. Poor Nicholson is " a nice quiet man, so patient and uncomplaining," and the artist reads 633 to him the hymns and books he likes best, and as he received " the service of his last breath " and followed him to his grave in the English burial ground, had a foreshadowing of similar kind offices that in two years would be performed over himself: Seddon's letters are still dated from the Pyramids. Mr. Lear has made his ap pearance in a remarkable costwne—in a straw hat, with a brim as large as a cart-wheel, with a white calico cover, and in consequence the natives of the hills have conferred upon him an appellation signifying "the father of the white turban like a table." Mr. Holman Hunt, we learn, has been prevented from painting a picture of Jacob in the Wilderness in consequence of the discovery he has made that the patriarch was a middle-aged man of forty when he quitted his father's house. A scene at the palace of Abbas Pasha and a voyage up the Nile arc graphically described. And here is a marriage procession at Damietta : While taking a walk one afternoon near the lake, we went through a most lovely wood, j•tst like an English one, with long grass and flowers, and orange and pomegranate trees, covered with their crimson blossoms, among the underwood. But the oddest thing we saw was a proces-ion through the streets, conveying the property and dowry of a bride to her husband's house. First came women, canning jewels and a set a coffee things, treys, jugs, pots, sauccpa ns, etc.—no one canying more than one thing, in order to make a great show. Then, men and boys, carving two or three ottomans, cushion by cushion ; a huge box, painted bright green, large enough to hold the young couple, upon a man's back, followed by several small boxes, carpets, rugs, and mats; and the procession finished with blankets anti feather-beds. From Damietta the travellers go by sea to Jaffa, and are interested in the room said to be St. Peter's, when at the house of the tanner:— You enter a room, to the lett of which is a doorway leading into • square vaulted chamber, with a window looking over the sea. the first chamber there is a win dow oti the left, shaded by a fig-tree, throutdi the leaves of which you see the sea. The tbor oppnsite the entrance leads into a court, in which is a water-wheel, with a large trough by the side, and s fig-tree overshadowing it in front. To the right is a thick wall, with old embrasures for cannon, and to the leit a heautitul riew along the shore, with a few fist-topped houses, anti the town wall, of great •atiquity t probably Roman ), immediately beyond. The view, looking along the line of cliff's, ie the seine that Peter gazed on ; if I can spare a fortnight on my return I will paint it, as I think that it would be generally interesting. The country outside the town is a most luxuriant garden, a mass of orange and lemon trees, pomegranates covered with their erirnsm blossoms, and dark green mulberry cud fig trees, with white and grey country-house; lying hurled in the fo'isge; and near them are water-wheels, gent-rally shadowed by large sycamore trees, with a few palms rising here and there out of the bright green masses below. The walks among the Rand• ns are little lanes bordered by broad and large cactus hedges, on raised banks, tangled with long grass and flowers, with bright red poppi•s and purple thistles, and many other tall nmbeliiferous plants, as in England. Here and there were huge fig•sycamnres, with vines fantastically climbing to their topmost branches, and in other places hanging down in long wreaths swinging in the ninth, till their ends trailed upon the ground. When we looked kick from the top of any height, we saw the white town of Jaffa on a hill, crowning this glorious garden of richly-varied green, backed by the blue sea, which ended in a deep bay on the right, bedded iu the bosom of the golden sand. The pure blue sky, the light grey limestone hills, with lines of yellow running along them from the dry parched herbage, and, when the sun is high, really "purple olivet," are all hap pily touched on. The first sight and associations of Jerusalem affected him to tears. Here is a scene at " Siloas fount" : Defare daybreak the vacal performances of th• donkeys and the bleating show that a move is going to t Ike place, and socn small cloud.% of black goats and sheep issue front the little rocky village of Siloam, and spread over the mountain side, amid the shouts of the Arabs driving or leading them to pasture. In about half an hour troops of donkeys gorge galloping madly down the steep road, with mea and urging them on to Joub'a well, and soon return, now slowly climbing up tt Jerusalem with water for the inhabitants to drink. Poor donkeys! they and their drivers have a hard life; they gallop madly down hill, and creep up with their heavy water-skies till sunsej.. The spring of Siloam is intermittent, so the time when the water flows varies ; but when it does, the .'reams of the women aii.l shouts of :he men, all quarrellin ;, and trying etch to get as much as he or she Call for hoe own garden, quite dro•,vn the plashing of the little cascades of water, leaping horn terrace to terrace, and running along the little channels, and so distributing itself all over. When the headman thinks that one division has had a sufficient share, he has that chant.el stopped, and then every man, woman, and child belonging to these gardens bursts into a scream of indignant remonstrance at the injustice of giving them an little ; nn tine ever allows that they have had a fair share themselves. In the middle of the day all the flocks are driven in water, and then they remain on the mountain aides till after the sun goes down. Yon see them returning in long strings, generally with a shepherd in front anti one behind, and the sheep and black goats fol. A