The Press. — London, England, 1853-09-24 00:00:00

SEPTEMBER 24, 1853. was fastened a gleaming hook about, By a chain within and a chain without; The fisherman gavt it a kick and a spin, And the water fizzed as it tumbled in From the bowels of the earth Strange and varied sounds had birth— Now the battle's bursting peal, Neigh of steed, and clang of steal; Now an old mans hollow groan Echoed from the dungeon stone; Now the weak and wailing cry Of a stripling's agony ! Odd by this was the midnight air ; Hut the abbot's blood ran colder, When he 141{W a gasping knight lie them, With a gash beneath his dotted hair, And a hmup upon his shoulder. And the loyal churchman strove in vain To mutter a Pater Nosier ; For he who writhed in mortal pain Was camped that night on Bosworth plain— The cruel Duke of (40'ster ! On the second casting of the line the abbot is horrified at seeing the come of his own brother, the Mayor of Edmondsbury, fished up. After the passage that we have just quoted, mark the sweetness of sentiment, and light, airy style, of the following passage : There was a turning of keys, and creaking of locks, As he took forth a bait from his iron box : It was a bundle of beautiful things— A peacock's tail, and a butterfly's wings, A scarlet slipper, an auburn curl, A mantle of silk, and a bracelet of purl, And a packet of letters, from whose sweet fold Such It stream of delicate adonis rolled, That the abbot fell on his face, and fainted, And dolmen his spirit was halfway stunted. Sounds seemed dropping from the skies, Stifled whispers, smothered sighs, And the breath of vernal gales, And the voice of nightingales : lint the nightingales were mute, Envious, when an unseen lute Shaped the music of its chords Into passion's thrilling words : " Smile, lady, smile !--1 will not set Upon my brow the coronet, Till thou wilt gather noses white To wear around its gems of light. Smile, lady, smile !—I will not tow Rivers and Hastitegs lwnd the knee, Till those hiowiteheilig lips of tl Will bid me rise in bliss from mine. Smile, lady, smile ..--for who would win A loveless throne through gilt and sin ? Or who would reign o'er vale and hill, If woman's heart we►e rebel still One jerk, and there a lady lay, A holy wonderons fair ; But the rose of her lip had faded away. And her cheek was as white and as cold as clay, And torn was her raven hair. " Alt, ah !" said the fisher in merry guise, " Her gallant was lestked before ;" And the abbot heaved 1441111 e piteous sighs, For 0 't 1w had blessed those deep blue eyes, The eyes M ist lvss Shore ! None but a poet of very high order could have written the " Red Fishermim." But we pass on to consider the other poems in this volume. Along with a miscellany of Praed's various 5111)111 pieces. taken from the " An nals " and the peri)ulicals, the American editor has presented " The Troubadour "—a poem in three cantos. running to about fifteen hundred lines. It belongs to the species of romantic poetry we have already described— brilliant in colours, serious in incidents, but interspersed with comic passages. We have much tl►at we could say about P►l►ed. but we will defer it, in the hope that his works will come before us in nu English edition. Too early lost for his fame, we hope that his friends will garland his memory by preserving these sweet flowers of poesy which have made the name of Prtted interesting to many of the truest lovers of lite►ature. Louis XVII. His Life—llis 810. rings—ilia Death; The Caplirity of the Royal Papally in the Temple. Jly A. de Beauchesne. London: Vizetelly and Co. OF late years we have had several neeessions to the voluminous literature of the French Revolution. First in authenticity and origin ality was the emTespondence Of Miralrean and the ('ount de la Marek ; less remarkable, but scarcely less valuable as a contribution to real history, were the " Memoirs of Mallet du Pun ;" and along with these our feeliiel:s were powerfully appealed to by Lan t artine,lvith leis THE PRESS. doubtful facts and dazzling rhetoric. The value of the two first works we have named can scarcely be overestimated by those wh o wish to ►caster the ld►ilosoplty of the Revo lu tion. Mallet d►► Pan proves that too early SS 177 n the classes which ought to have been cautious and loyal were slaves to a giddy sPirit of levity, and that the buttresses of the wona►ehv were unde►mined. _ Min►beau's eor- respondence shows clearly that the French monarchy had no men of action equal to the occasion. Estimating the morality of Mira beau at a very low value, we cannot, however, be blind to the merit of the sagacious coun sels and the vigorous designs, that are to be found in his plans for preserving the King and Queen. 'nese documents of that extra ordinary man have undoubtedly raised his re putation for statesmanship, anti prove that he had constructive powers in politics scarcely inferior to his destructive eapacities. They blend together, in a nervous, emphattie style, the opposite merits of Burke 's generalising manner, and that close attention to realities characteristic of the "Wellington Despatches." Nor has the publication of those secret papers of Mirabeaut, anti the journals of Mallet du Pau, been without important results. They have taught the publicists and the thinking classes of Europe that mere senti mental jeremiads over the horrors of the French Revolution, like this dreary anti dis heartening work before us, are of no perlllll • neut value, and serve no good purpose. Weep ing over unfortunate princes is not the best mode of grappling with the wild designs Of pillage-loving itroktairev. We do not see what purpose can be served by this lachry mose work, written in the exploded style of as martyrologist. We would as soon &Ilk of recommending it for idensant reading as of miming Kensal-green for the rendezvous to a picnic and it is too funereal and agonising to serve any useful end. With the facts of two thirds of these indult- Andy volumes our readers are already ti nti• liar. The only novel purlieu is the record of the tortures endured by the unfortunate young Bourl►on Prince at tl►e Temple. His miseries, his privations, and all the ►sluts• proeemsem Of agony and starvation, of which he gradually died, are all here minutely described. We will take some oxtraets flout the least revolting parts. The author perpetually indulges in the "U Thi " style of apostrophe peculiar to Freud' sentimentalists. His work abounds with passages like the following, in which facts are buried beneath heaps of rhetoric:— When the co 'sway happened to 1%• a good sort of mum, the keepers always obtained frmini him stone little eeshiou io favorer of the pristine's; for instance, they would tell him it With ellmtAbillatly fur 640111 to Wnik Uroll the plat• form, or they would rasa a little time with► y g t'llta•t in the aftenoson. It wits in this manner that thomill, haying leal•ned that the child had always lout no 13114.6,0 t tor !bur e ts, 41111 11111 third /lay 111 . his CWll4lll4' 111 M in 411111 . 1% • llst Itrmnlxire, 3nl year ( Tuesday, 11th N.\ov.ulber, I 791), 11,4 advantage of the oins4l nature o f the nntl icipnl 1111 'hay Named Thew• non, No. 1, Hoe Montor•gaeil 1, to Wing MG, his room four little Isits of flowers, which i.e lout himself %elected, and which were in full ls•auty. The sight of the flowers pro &teed a magical etf•ct /111 the countenanee of the clithl: surpristml at a proof of all'ection au new to him, after having experienced so minty priads o f aversion, joy noiistetiell the eyes, long dry from botc•les% grief, mill he wept : those teal•% of happiness came from illy very soul, as the rain falls from heaven! Flowers! it was so long that ill• hail liven deprived of them ! lie iii)vcrrol about them. loch' mail with delight; he clasped them in his two bawls to inhale their perfume ; he devoured thr•tu collectively with his eyes, then exa mined them separately, one niter the other, and, after hav ing forked tt long while, ended by uieking one! Ali! then he turned rain tie, a 1.%1k opt . mu Old 111'11111111111 trlelan• 141111 y : he thought of his absent neither, tomml him heart was pierced with sorrow'. Pll4ll' 1111111 ! there are 1111 !Ili we flowers for her! a n d ne ver %ill it be your ;mimic to lay one on her gra.e ! l'he next t•xtraet is affecting, tunl has genuine pathos. It reveals die pang% of me mory etulttretl by the princely slitrerer:— When the weather was hall the keeper played at card% or dominoes with the I tattphiii ; nod sal it WILt4 that, leer flay. as he was Omitting the far from elegant donsittocts which they used at their 101111 e, he reminded hint of the pit sent which the young l'i ince hail fiirtnerly received at the Tuileries, ft a peri4Nt when he sti3 m njtiyed a shadow of his former title.. LoNn•, who wits at that time a cap tain in the National tinfoil• ball witnessed the pleasure• of the lief,: son whl u, 111 the llst May, 17111. the military pupils who conipotied that little regiment of the " Royal s Welt timo child wax w) fetid m•eing matitetivrti, cutue tti yresent their colvuti with R bet of 499 made by M. ' , alloy, of a block of marble procured nab the remain* of the Itamile. It was • masterpiece of art; the box was made of a single piece ; mid the dominoes were Cut, it WAS Said, out of the jambs which adorned lielattney's chinowypieee. tin the reverse of each domino them trait • golden letter, and sU the letters together formed the fol• lowing inscription :—" Vire le Itni: Viva la Heine! et N. le lisuphin It is a feature amongst the sentimentalists of our age to gloat over the suffetings of an; gelie children ; and those readers whose sympa tides mut be moved only by the sorrows of "Little Tell" and "Iva" will find their tastes amply entered to by Be st oeho s u e . They will meet with a great variety of 1111104440101 like this last extract which we present to them : tin the thud (Wednesday, 10th June), at six o'clock in the evening, either fusser, police commissary, aeeompanied by citizens Arum& and fioddet, civic mute missanes of the Temple section, presented himself at the lower of the Temple, in tinier, enufonnably with a decree issued by the Council of Ueneral Kafrty, to proeerd to the offiriiii verification of the 41PC011/41s of the unfortunate little Cart, and the interment of his remains. They went up with the keepers to the Seeptid story air the tower. A ray of sunshine gleamed through the win dow, and fell on the Mood-stained sheet winch covered the remains of the deseendant of Louis now stretched on a wooden bedstead, without any mattress. Thu sheet being re •cd, the victim was ecru by the new column's*• ries, hearing the traces left by the professional men ; the scalpel of science had mutilated that body, already dis figunsl by suffering, but it had respected the pale, cm& visited fnee, on which an expressing on of indescribable calmness and purity had attereeded to that of pain. His lips, so far from being eontracted by death, wore the .ppesralwe mildness Una serenity ; his eyes, not closed by mortal hand. had closed of themselves; or, rather. our might haeo said that, since the fetal couch had lawn deserted by MM. an angel had breathed on that little head, which, youthful mind delicate as it was, had yet home the ennui of thorn. like the rest of his family. A few days sinee, at the Dublin Exhibition, one of the first pietures looked at by her Majesty and the ,youthful Primes was Wapper's work ptir tiltyang the unfortunate young Bourbon lean ing against his prison walls, His fate, like that of Ugolino, was a better subject for an artist than a biographer. May the day never come when the suffering,' of a British prince will present a subject for inkspilling aenti• mentalism ! History qf the Church of Christ to the neveJulio* A.l). 11004. By this Rev. Charles Mackenzie, A.M., Prebendary of St. Penh', tke. London: J. and W. Robins. Tuts is an epitome of Church history, " for the use of schools and private families." its style is mi. mated and readable, but in the compass of a small Mayo volume it is scarcely possible to do justice to the subject. The author has a leaning towards what are popularly called " high church views," but tin to is a looseness in his phraseology which makes it difficult to classify him with certainty. It is a grr at defect in the hook that it concludes at WIS. The Church of Scotland Magazine and Review. No. h. ( Septetalmv.) Edinburgh : Moody. typography of this periodical has improved, while its literature still present* great inequality of merit. 6"fractetrianism in Saitland" is the best article in the present number, but the writ► es style is to► diffuse and colloquial for a theological critic. The paper on "The Irreligion and Vice of our Great Cities" is only a feeble ►cho of what Chalmers has already uttered with such power in his "Civic Eco nomy of Large Towns." We think it mink' be a good feature in this magazine if Scotti►.h history were made a topic for illustration. PUIILICATIONI4 RECEIVED. IlifthJowls owl Is lambi. Ily W. IC. Maxwell. O. Beadeft,. The l'hrodiasily Chiligation. Ily 6. I'. r. 116rwhene. W. J Piper. Lard Arnhohmoia Npreehts ow the Cowley Cossets. J. Midges,. The liorohlne I,whoser. ClarLe. He eine, 111441 11'n. Noliose de In Nuhtettie. Par Wilhelm IJplte. liuUiawu a (Pane). The l'hilo•ophy of Alkrites. fly Her. IL Godwin. Mall, Virtu*, sad to. .11ornl Stafi.fics a jlibeprwr. Ily W. !mean. 16.eletou and Stfiretwao. The Worbl's Greatest Prierfoefor. fly A. Witilu , sr. Ilaeollte.. l 6leme. wfsel CO. (loopier, Orders, 4tr., of the Harrow Grrivemar Scheel. JAN l.yeo. J. Mimic John Morris. Conynwoolente Ranting to !/Arrow School. Thr l'irel Jra in Chola. Ily Her. W. 11. Hale. Partridge mud (►akry. Ily Alesaadri !Musa». Ily and Co. !tank litLatlatn. Part I. The Life of EtMINN , ' Ilstrkr, Ily I'. Mae, req. Ingram anal enolio. Ilotho owl Woahlonewa. Hy Alfred Ebewnyih. W. lidekl.lll. 1 . 0110 allr 6a f i turafitot el. I LIMY 4401011. lopprimill • M Signimer's Pity !limo, tr. Mews. 11l H. F. Rubino's& W. PS=. The Prowling' Oral la. H ItenorLA spas thr Ilieayengl Pritserk of Skip s tq w.ginnq upon 0 , Twiny to 4 , 1,04 ivilegird pro ow r ow . puia9 Besot Li, c. Vika& I 1 , 1