The Press. — London, England, 1854-02-04 00:00:00

FEBRUARY 4, 1854. bonds, the author thinks, seriously compete with Exchequer Bills, and he proposes to obviate this evil by making the eighty millions a permanent charge on the railways. Mr. Hill seems familiar with mo netary affairs; but we confess we do not see how the eighty millions would be a less formidable rival to Government securities if they were a permanent in stead of a changing charge on the railways. Perma nency would not diminish their value, therefore wou ld be equally eligible for in of money. The Charities of London in 1852-3. By Sampson Low, jun. London : Low and Son. THERE , are five hundred and thirty institutions of a benevolent character in London, each of which has its peculiar object, income, locality, management, and official staff. Information on these heads is given in the volume before us, carefully collected and very lucidly classified. From character and contents it is a work which Londoners will find highly useful, and of which they may well be proud. Is Symbolism Suited to the Spirit of the Age? By William White. London : Bosworth. THIS pamphlet is an argument in favour of symbol ism generally, but especially in the architecture, de. coration, and arrangement of churches and church services. Seeing to what deplorable results an over devotion to these external forms have in many in stances led, we trust that the author's views, which are ingeniously stated, will be modified by the prac ical sense of his generation. An Account of the Present Deplorable State of the Ecclesiastical Courts of Record. By William Downing Bruce, Esq. London: Adams. A PAIIPHLT T of near fifty pages, being a reprint of articles which appeared originally in Postulates and Data. Mr. Bruce has had some peculiar facilities for inspecting the ancient Record•of'ices connected with the principal dioceses, and his opinion of them is expressed in the title. The attention directed to these courts at the present moment has induced this republication, which contains some alterations and additions. 01........... Extra-National Taxation. A Letter to the Chan. cellor of the Exchequer. By John I'ace. London Baily Brothers. FOR the last seven years Mr. Pace has occasionally addressed letters to various Ministers of State on this subject. By impositorla r rittsmp . duty dts bills drawn abroad, and by equalising the duty on bills drawn in this country payable abroad, and also on inland bills of exchange, he is of opinion that live millions could be added to the annual revenue. The imposition of a stamp on foreign bills would prevent a species of fraud whihh was on a late occa sion practised to a large extent, viz., drawing bills in London purporting to be drawn abroad, and evading payment by proving that fact. Such bills are not valid, yet billbrokers have no means of knowing how they originated, except the word of the endorser. This subject demands consideration. The Parliamentary Companion for 1854. By Charles R. Dod, Esq. London : Whittaker and Co. THIS well-known publication, which is now in its twenty-second year, contains the usual information respecting the members of the two Houses of Parlia ment, their political principles, family connections, &c., and the particulars of the constituencies of the various counties, cities, and boroughs. The changes that have occurred in the Lower House since the commencement of last year prove the utility of a work of this nature : forty-four seats have been vacated from various causes, and four Irish bishops are in the House of Lords this session who had not seats there last session. Recent parliamentary re turns respecting the numbers of registered electors rendered a revision of the " local dictionary " of the constituencies desirable. This has been effected, so that much new information is included in this num• ber of Mr. Dod's Parliamentary Companion for 1854. PERIODICAL LITERATURE. WE find no very striking paper in the February number of Blackwood, and the subjects selected are somewhat heavy, an epithet which the best of maga zines rarely deserves. However, variety is good, and the lovers of light reading will aoutbless have re venge next month. The critical articles are well up to the mark. There are five of these. Recent works by Messrs. Parkyns, Baker, and Macaulay are made to furnish materials for disquisitions upon adven ture in Abyssinia, sport in Ceylon, and speech making in Parliament. Mitford's new edition of the _ _ _ making in Parliament. 2111Uuru a ..c.. ------ -- Gray and Mason correspondence, and the translation Orr's Circle of the Sciences. Part I. w. m. yrs. - - Ditto cult portion o is task, n of a German work by Vincent N +` R olte, eminis- H o usehold Medicine and Surgery. Part I. . f hamely, with great edict. Ditto. the d is p la y of p athos and feeling, est that his LUIS 4 •• us,.. - -, - _ cences of a Merchant's Life," are t he sub j ects of The Home Companion. Put I. 1 1 t he other two noticem. Kent tuld Co. If we are to find fault, we should su g g , The People's Magasine , i c e rz..• , . , ... -- .. ~.. . • . , . . . ......mairmio ..... THE PRESS Fraser has this month eleven articles, besides two continuations, viz., the third chapter of a new tale by the clever author of " Digby Grand." and the second part of " The Decline and Fall of the Corporation of London." The latter treats of " a river in dial " culties," and certainly the Thames seems to have been hardly dealt with by its masters the aldermen. The third article adds another to the many tributes that have been paid to the genius of Matthew Arnold. In " Parliamentary Reform from Within " various plans for enabling members to discharge their laborious duties more easily and quickly are dis cussed ; but perhaps the most interesting article of all is one on Russia and the smaller northern maritime powers. It is written by one who has seen what he describes, and, though it commences with an allusion not intended to be complimentary to ourselves, justice compels u to admit that we perused it with interest and pleasure. The writer's estimate of the Russian naval power is very low, the sails and cord age, which are excellent, excepted ; every other con stituent of a fleet is of the worst kind ; the timber is rotten, and the men—but the author shall speak for himself : " Their very dress and discipline would unfit a Jack Tar from performing his duty of able seaman. Stiff-padded, tight laced military coats, with jack-boots, swords, cart ridge-boxes, and shako to match, are not favourable to men engaged in hauling aft the mainsheet., in hauling down the studding-sails, in putting the helm a lee, or letting go the anchor. A chopping, a heavy, or a high sea, a seer chains- Mute, a seer dare, or grease seer, to use the nautical terms of our neighbours, a sou'-western tornado, or a surf, are not known in the Baltic, which produces only fresh-water, or at best brackish, sailors." After stating that a general system of embezzlement prevails amongst the officers, the manner in which those ill-gotten gains are expended : " Days and nights ate successively consumed in playing cards, or in shaking the dice-box, during which time immense quantities of Barclay's and Guinness's stout, at Is. Bd. the bottle, and of Jacquesson's champagne, at 10s. the bottle, are imbibed by those engaged in these unseamanlike occu pations. These practices relax discipline, destroy the moral character, and soon unfit an officer for active service. Every officer in a Russian ship has his own furniture, and it may thence be supposed what a motley collecton of arti cles is aboard. Some of the officers are given to music ; others to painting; others, again, to turning; others to scents, essences, cookery, and good cheer ; and it is no uncommon thing to find pianofortes, bass-viols, bassoons, cornopeans, ean-de•Cologne, eau Rose, eau flotot, kid gloves, scented snuffs, tobaoco, and cigars, together with casseroles, batteries de cuisine, &c., stowed away in the lieutenants', middies', or ,captains' cabins, alongside of easels, pictures, Dalian music, rings, watches, jewels, diamond-studs, aiiiil llrrtficsl seafrboxes, mingled here and there with George • Sand's, Paul de Rock's, and Eugene Sue's novels, and engravings of St. Nicholas, St. Andrew, or St. Alexander Newsky." Os the whole the present number of the Dublin University Magazine is a very good one, and con tains that variety of matter which readers of maga zines desire. There is a very curious and readable article on "The Food of the Irish," in which fun and philosophy, droll stories and dreary statistics, are mingled together with a mixture of the serious and burlesque. The writer amuses but does not satisfy us; nevertheless his productions are well suited for a popular periodical. We are disappointed with the article on "Thomas Moore." It is com posed of extracts that have gone the round of all the newspapers ; and surely in an Irish magazine of the rank of the University we ought to expect a more philosophical discussion of the poet's character, when the whole literary world has beln talking of the pain • fnl exposure of "poor Moore." The articles on the " Garrick Club Gallery" are not interesting, and read like reprints of Baker's " Biographia Drama tics." But, taken altogether, the present is an im provement on recent numbers of this well-sustained Bentley's Monthly Review, as usual, contains ava riety of literary matter of fair average quality, pre sented to the reader' in somewhat greater volume and at a cheaper price than in the generality of its compeers. The remaining specimens of our periodical literature we are compelled, by the pressure of other subjects, to postpone till next week.] PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED. Boons. The New Testament in Greek, with English Notes. Edited by the Rev. J. F. Mackmiehael, B.A. Whittaker & Co. The Ballad of Babe Christabel, with other Poems. By Gerald Massey. 1). Bogue. The Annotated Edition of the E n g lish Ports," Surrey end Others." Edited by Robert Bell. J. W. Parker.: Son. The Constitution of the United States compared with our Own. By H. S. Tremenheere . J. Murray The Works of Oliver Goldsmith. Vol. H. Edited hy Peter Cunningham, F.S.A. J. Murray. NEW PERIODICALS. Part 1. AV. S. Orr. 115 PAMPHLETS. The Law of Partnership an Obstacle to Social Progress. By Woodfonle Ffooks, Esq. W. G. penning. Christ flee only Sacrificing Priest wader the Gospel. A Sermon preached in the Church of St. Agustine, Bristol, by the Bev. T. C. I'rice, BI.A. Hatchard and St n. The Handbook tit the Eastern Question. By L. F. Simpson, 111.8.5. L. Hope and Co. E.rtra-National Taxation. A Letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, by John Pace. Parliamentary Reform considned under the Views sug gested by Evidence given before Election Committees. Piper, Stephenson, and Co. The Journal of Industrial Progress. Edited by W. K. Sullivan. Dublin : W. Kelly. Palmerston in Thrce Epochs. By Washington Wilka. AV. Freeman. Decimal Coinage. A Short and Easy Method of Changing the Present Currency into the Decimal System. T. Ridgway. A Letter to the Electors of Cambridge on Change in the Reform Bill. By the Hon. W. E. Campbell. J. Ridgway. How to do without the Customs and Excise. Smith, Elder, and Co. An Examimetion of the Late Church Rates. By W. Williams. J. Ridgway. Expose of the Royal Academy of Arts. By Thos. Skuife. Piper, Stephenson, and CO. Remarks addressed to the Rer. Dr. Vaughan in Reply to his Recent Letter to Viscount Palmerston. By Anti-Monitor. J. Ridgway. Facts from Gireedore. Compiled from Notes by Lord George Hill, M.R.S.A. Dixon, Hardy, ant Sons. National Education in Scotland. Reprinted from Black wood's Magazine. W. Blackwood and Sons? Who's to Blume The Prince, the Press, or the Ministry . By l'lain•Speech. Freeman E4e prama. DRURY-LANE THEATRE. GREAT is the faith of Mr. Gustavus Brooke's ad mirers, and not much less is their patience. Ruturn ing—as the playbill-writer of the theatre assures us— L com a round 01 provincial triumphs to his old friends in Drury Lane ou Monday night, they first welcomed him as never conqueror was welcomed, and after wards endured three acts and a half of dull, inflated rubbish, in full assurance that Mr. Brooke would recompense them at last. Nor were they distil). pointed. When the author allowed him to give scope to the play of his muscles and the deep resonance of his voice the opportunities were turned to splendid account. Brutus, for that was the drama•. of the .night, is probably the stupidest play which ever succeeded in becoming a stock piece on the English boards. But it is saved by a climax. The earlier acts and the subsidiary characters are inane to the last degree. Evil or good, in their loves or their hates, it is impossible for the most good natured audience to feel the slightest sympathy for them : and all this while the great personage,the Brutus, is kept down by his false position of assumed idiocy. At last, however, he takes his revenge. There is an imprecation scene against Sextus. There is a funeral oration scene over Lucretia's body in the forum—in writing which of course Mr. Howard Payne bad for gotten all about the Antony oration in Julius Cesar, also in the forum. To cap all, there is the judgment scene, where Brutus condemns his rebel son to death, and which, when played as Mr. Brooke plays it, never fails to bring the curtain down amid a tor nado of applause. Thus the play has been, and continues to be, successful, in the theatrical sense of the word. Critics and readers may have given it up long ago as incurably bad ; but a drama which mounts so rapidly in the later scenes, and explodes so splendidly in the end, is entitled to stand well and long as an acting play. At Drury Lane it well main tains its character ; and actor and manager—G. V. Brooke and Mr. Smith—seem likely to reap the benefit. The attendance continues to be as crowded as ever, and the playbills may honestly assert that Mr. Brooke has commenced his re-engagement in P another " blaze of triumph." OLYMPIC THEATRE. The Bengal Tiger, a farce in one act, by Mr. Charles Dance (performed at Windsor before her Majesty last Thursday week), was produced at this theatre the night following. The piece itself is one of the best of its class, the plot is cleverly con structed, the situations good, and the dialogue well and pointedly written. The most remarkable inci dent attending this revival is Mrs. Wigan's imper• sonation of a fortune-hunting old maid : her concet. tion of the character is excellent, and she sustai►.a her part throughout with an ability and attention to details which are distinctive of the true artist, and which, in these days at least, are rarely seen on the otage. The part of the ill-tempered crusty old East Indian, who has passed, to use his own wo rd "fifty-flve years of his life upon a gridiron," was played by Mr. Wigan, who rendered the most die ,:ult portion of his task, namely, that which requires display feeling, - should