The Press. — London, England, 1857-10-17 00:00:00

1018 he was the gentleman or not who invited Sir Hen. Nevill to dinner. We can imagine the learned editor of this volume gravely studying this mysterious document, and must con gratulate her upon the important light she has thrown upon a great historical obscurity. Sir Hen. Ncvill cannot dine with a certain gentle. man because he had a longer run with the hounds than he expected ! But there is another question which will suggest itself to all who refer to this volume. How is it that the editing of these documents has been given to Mrs. Green? Is that talented lady "attached," or about to be, to the Record-office ? There must be, or at least there should he, many gentlemen in the united establishment of the State Paper and Public Record Offices qualified in every way to under take the management of such a compilation. As a rule in Government service, the principle of extraneous assistance opens the door to jobbery and abuse. Its practice in such an instance as this appears unnecessary, if not unfair; for of course the labours of Mrs. Green are handsomely remunerated by the Government ; and the point is whether it could not be done cheaper and better by the men who have devoted their time and talents to the Record service, than whom a more highly educated, talented, and able class of public servants is not to be found. We do not for a moment mean to impute jobbery to the Master of the Rolls. The high character of Sir Samuel Romilly is of course superior to any charge of favouring his rela tives or friends. But in a special service like that of the Record Department, where in the compilation of State papers time is not so great an object as accuracy, we view with some little apprehension this constant employment of special services, which, after all, may prove, and very frequently does, more expensive than advantageous to the public. The Waverley. A Working Woman's Journal, Conducted by Women. Vol. IV. Nos. 41 and 42. THE "Condition of Women" is always an interesting, though in some of its aspects a not very hopeful, question; and we have watched with great attention the laudable efforts which Miss Bessie Rayner Parkes, the editress of the journal before us, has from time to timo made for the improvement or instruction of her sex, Agreeing as we should probably do with her as to the proper scope of such efforts, she will permit us to doubt whether some of the methods adopted by herself or her coadjutors are the fittest to attain it. There are, probably, two principal ends which all well-wishers to the cause of female improvement would desire to keep in view : in the first place, to give unmarried women every possible facility for undertaking remu nerative occupations; in the next place, by means of their mental culture, to draw closer the bonds of sympathy and mutual help between the two sexes. The first of these two objects is undoubtedly the most important, as is evident from the slightest reflection on the fearful evils occasioned by the want of adequate female employment. We have some doubt, however, whether in the recent dis cussions on " recruiting behind the counter" Punch and the Times have shown their usual sagacity in selecting the linend raper's assistant as the proper person to be withdrawn from the shop. The whole question is, of course, a purely speculative one, far those who minister to luxury are naturally selfish and little in fluenced by public opinion ; and even if it were not so, it is exceedingly doubtful whether women are equal to the labour which the said occupation requires. But there are, we sus pect, many other trades, such as those of the retail stationer, dressing-ease maker, &c., in which the work of selling goo is over the counter might be performed by women. Look, for instance, at the bazaars, in which no men at all are employed : if this is possible in one building, why is it not in another? We have not, of course, space to pursue this subject on the present occasion, but we venture to point it out to the conductors of the Waverley as one which might fitly engage their attention, with a view to the collection of some statistical THE PRESS, OCTOBER 17, 1857. details, showing what trades it is really pos sible for a woman to undertake, and what must be considered as definitely beyond her reach. A book which we reviewed a short time since on " The Industrial Condition of Women" would afford valuable help ; and nothing would impress the truth, whatever it may prove to be, on the public mind so well as reiterated discussion in the columns of a newspaper. So much for the one point—that of making women independent. Let us look at the other—that of making them good wives and mothers. If a working man finds discomfort at home—if his dinner is ill cooked and his children untidy, he is apt to resort to the public•house; if his wife is wrapped up in her own pursuits and ideas, and has no means of understanding or taking interest in his, she will be a dull companion; and if she is not accomplished in the household arts which help to make both ends meet, she will be a ruinous one. Order, practical information, cookery, needlework, and general economy, are thus, we conceive, the ends to be kept in sight by those who write for the improvement of the working classes. Judged by these tests, the paper before us does not come up to the mark which its con ductors are no doubt perfectly well able to reach, provided they agree with us as to the im portance of the points we have mentioned. It may be questioned, indeed, whether a journal written exclusively for women by women has not a tendency to increase the isolation which the nature and education of women is already too likely to engender. If the two sexes arc to sympathise with each other, it would seem that they ought to read the same things ; not that they should be fed on a sort of intellectual pap from which every mascu• line element is carefully excluded, and which is sugared and weakened to suit the assumed narrowness of their ideas, and the assumed in feriority of their intellect• " I don't want to " read what women write ; I want to read what " men write," was the remark of a lady (not " strongminded") to whom we submitted some numbers of a journal somewhat similar to the one before us. That such narrowness and inferiority too often exists must unfor tunately be allowed ; but it is to be lessened, not by condescending to the level of women, but by raising women to the level of men—by making her neither a mere toy nor a mere upper servant, but a helpmeet and a com panion, whose power to advise in difficulty should be commensurate with her right to console under misfortune. We are no advo cates for the cant of "woman's rights,' nor does the Waverley journal show the least trace of any such nonsense. It is well written, and its topics as far as they go are judiciously selected and treated in a good spirit and we are happy to see that its literary criticism is not of the mealy-mouthed ord3r which usually marks the organ of a class or a locality. We have written the above remarks not with any wish to accuse it of deficiencies, but rather as pointing out paths in which its influence might be useful. We have the best opinion of its ladylike tone and the amount of in formation it contains, and we wish its con ductors every success in the arduous task to which they have committed themselves. Peripatetic Papers. Edited by John M'Gilchrist. London: J. Blackwood. THIS volume professes to be composed by fifteen different individuals, " some of them in various "degrees connected with literary pursuits, but none "of them professionally." It is strange with such a number of contributors that the style should ex hibit such little varisty. There is no originality in the volume, and there is a singular want of freshness of style in many of the papers. Many of the essays are evidently composed by persons who believe im plicitly in newspapers, and there is an exagge rated estimate of their value in one of the essays. The author of it does not understand how the great freedom of our journals can be preserved by our insular position, and he does not see the difficulties of continental nations on this most ex• plosive of powers. The article on " Insurance Frauds" is one of the best in the volume. There are some droll hexameters on " Money," which are ratter clever. We extract a few You remember me cheerful and gay, but hen quantum mutatus ab illo ; Placens uxor severiter snubs me, now•a-days, for each small peccadillo, And I feel those who think that a marriage from trouble and care will exempt 'em Are fellows devoid of all sense, homilies quibus lumen ademptum. As soon as I wake in the morn comes the carnifex san• guinolentus, And hands me his little account for the hove' et oves he's sent us. Life's Problems. Essays, Moral, Social, and Psycho logical. London : Bell and Daldy. Tim little volume scarcely answers to its title. We miss the " social " element, and the book reads like a series of unpreached sermons. Its author is a man of taste and feeling, but he has not placed before himself any distinct conception of what audience he wishes to address. He follows in the wake of Mr. Helps, and his sentimental platitudes are not a few. But, undoubtedly, at times the author rises into real eloquence of tone ; and we like the religionism of his work more than what we meet with in books of similar class. In the essay on " Cardinal Points in Life's Compass" he says:— In the daily intercourse with our kind, how often does it appear to us that great capacity is denied a fitting field for display and development, and rarest faculties are ill bestowed on mean occupations ? How often a noble and a loving heart, full of all high aspirations and gentle sym pathies, seems condemned a life long to the society of un congenial minds ; destined to solicit in vain the one re sponsive note wanting to make divine music, and to enable it to give to the world its own sweet melody ; living to waste, as it would seem, among those who neither share in the gifts of such a nature, nor are capable of appre ciating their value. Yes, even on to the end, such things have been, and are, and will be ! Yet are we not permitted to hope, by all we see of a Divine rule of compensation, that some ray of heavenly light and love illumines. unseen to grosser eyes, the path of these seemingly misplaced and neglected ones, " unsphered angels woefully astray "? Do we not in effect learn at last to read this open secret of God's dispensation, which goes so far to reconcile apparent inconsistencies and dire disparities ; namely, that no rightminded, truehearted effort is ever made in vain, or left without fruit ! Here or hereafter it shall be gathered. Among those denied all apparent fruition of their gifts or their labours here, yet who still " possess their hearts in patience," shall we not find the most favoured builders of God's temple on earth? A better offering may be theirs, to lay upon the altar nut built of hands, than if they had been accompanied through life with sympathising hearts, congenial natures, and the honour and plaudits of the world ! This is a fair specimen of the author's best manner ; and as a first production the little volume is credit able to its writer's literary powers. The Poetical Works of John Edmund Betide. A New Edition. F3ur Vols. London : Long mans. Tnrs is a very neat edition of Mr. Reade's poems, and its typography is all that could he desired. Mr. Reade's literary talents have long been recognised, but there is difference of opinion as to the measure of his poetical power. Mr. Reade appears to us to be a fluent rhetorician, hesitating as to whether he should cast his writings in the mould of Goethe or Byron. His best poem is " Italy," which is re printed for the fourth time. in this edition. It is a graceful production, and it has some fine passages ; but in reading it we are too often reminded of " Childe Harold," and the Spenserian stanza ought not to have been chosen. It is not too mach to say that " Italy " would never have been written by Mr. Reade only that Byron had shown the resources of the subject. Page after page is filled with lines like the following, vividly suggestive of the " Childe." The dying gladiator is described by Mr. Reade as if Byron had never composed upon the subject:-- Fainting he reels, blood gushingly hath broke From the death-wound, slow oozing down his side : He sinks as in his country's woods the oak That cleft and thunder rent the storm defied : In that large brow ye trace the freeman's pride, Flashed from those eyes the heart that could not yield : Nero by nature stamped, by fate denied ; The hautiest scorn on that curled lip revealed His loathing of their shouts wild hate no more concealed; For he is feeling the approach of death, The chill, the fainting sickness, but his mind Is busy while thick heaves his choking breath: Alas ! no eye shall bend o'er him reclined, No pious hand shalt dig his grave, nor wind His wreath, and consecrate with tears each flower; Hurled to the dogs, his holly who shall find? The pageant, sport, and ruffian of the hour, Dragged from his lovely clime, enslaved to brutal power. And so on throughout. The imitation of Byron is further forced on us by Mr. Reade's choice of sub jects. Thus we have "Cain the Wanderer," " Hebrew Poems," &c. ; " Man in Paradise," and " Revelations of Life." These affect the philosophic tone, and they display powers of plastic rhetoric. 1 But we think that the defect of Mr. Reade is that