The Press. — London, England, 1858-08-28 00:00:00

the reigning creed—Stoicism in that nobler form which it assumed when it became associated with R om an seriousness of character—the most ele vated system of practical philosophy which the world before Christianity knew. Seneca," says Ain Merivale, " discoursed to a large and not inattentive audience, and surely the soil was not all unfruitful on which his seed was scat • t er ed, when he proclaimed that God dwells not "in temples of wood and stone, nor wants the " ministration of human hands ; that Ile has no " delight in the blood of victims ; that He is near "to all His creatures; that His Spirit resides in men's hearts ; that all men are truly His off "spring; that we are members of one body, " which is God or Nature ; that men must be " lieve in God before they can approach llim ; "that the true service of God is to be like Him; " that all men have sinned, and none performed " all the works of the law ; that God is no respecter of nations, ranks, or conditions, but " all, barbarian and Roman, bond and free, are - alike under His all-seeing Providence." How happy must the world have been when religious controversies were without bitterness; when no man was taxed for heresy, but all had freedom to worship God in their own fashion; and when the confidence thus reposed in mankind was so nobly responded to that the meaner system was spontaneously rejected and the more magnanimous chosen ! Yet, remember that this is the dark and dismal age when free dom had become a dint tradition, when magic had taken the place of religion, when all the hoods of society were loosed, when a Nero was mit only obeyed, but even worshipped as di- I Me. What more startling contrast than this? What more irresistible proof that virtue, liberty, and piety do not depend on education, or on institutions of any kind, and cannot be created In them. For our parts, though we do not profess to be able to solve the problem, though the contemplation of it rather leads us to reflect upon the mysteriousness of all national life, yet we are disposed to think that the sloth, the indifference to politics which creeps over a nation when it has been content for a long time to see all affairs transacted for it, acted upon the Romans as a more binding enchantment than any of the in fluences which Mr. Merivale has noticed. It was by removing all public business out of the hands of the noblesse and giving it to paid ad- Nenturers responsible solely to the Sovereign that the Bourbons bound their subjects in a slothful slavery. 'When Government is con ducted without publicity by a small number of officers politics become a difficult study to those not officially occupied with them, and from being difficult they soon become uninteresting. When this has taken place the despot is twice as firm on his seat as before, for those who would be cham pions of law are ignorant of law—the nature of constitutional government has been forgotten— usurpations arc not known for usurpations. This total oblivion of all the rights and practices of freemen was strikingly shown in France at the time of the Revolution. People appealed to the universal rights of man because they had for gotten the rights of Frenchmen. That the same oblivion of liberty had really taken place at Rome in the time of Nero Mr. Merivale has pointed out. " Even Lucan himself," he says, " the disciple of Cato, when he girded himself " like Brutus with a dagger to take the Cresar's life, " bad no thought of restoring the republic of " free elections and popular magistracies. We shall find, as we proceed in this history, that " Tacitus himseK a patriot of calmer judgment, " was abundantly satisfied when at a later period " he found the Senate placed ostensibly at the " head of affairs, and the Emperor affecting to be "no more than its hand and its mouthpiece. l'nder Nerva and Trajan the Roman liberals believed that they had recovered the days of " Catulus and Pompeius." It may, perhaps, be added that people in old limes worshipped success more universally and more reverently than they do now. Good for tune was by the ancients regar d e d as mor e divine than virtue. The opinion of Sulla's good luck 11 !ay have protected hint after his abdication. k Or, in fact, the gods of Greece and Rome did out differ from men in being more virtuous, but _ being more happy and more beautiful. does not mean virtuous, but hand "me. The vices of the blooming young Caesar THE PRESS, AUGUST 28, 1858. were forgotten in his beauty, his fortune, and his splendour. - Felix et puloher et acer Felix et sapiens et nobi:im et geuerosus Et bi perfriiit cantat bone. There perhaps seemed something divine even in his murder of Agrippina ; if he was an Apollo in beauty, perhaps also the destruction wrought icycivot; SZAitTell might rather awaken a feeling of submissive religious awe than of indignant horror. Stanford's Paris Guide. New Edition. A Guide to the Channel Islands. By Frank Fether Daily. A Guide to the Cathedrals of England and Wales. By Mackenzie Walcott. London: Stanford. IN spite of the migratory habits of Englishmen, and of the crowds who fill every watering-place, inland and marine, in this island,—who thread in steamers the narrow friths of Scotland, or saunter over the well-trodden paths of Snowdon or Skiddaw,—there is no country in which the tourist receives so little aid from the guide books which profess to direct him as in his native land. To the Lakes, a much more troublesome district than most parts of Switzerland, there is no good itinerary. Scotland fares little better; for Anderson's, of the llighlands, though excellent in parts, is very unequally executed, and is deficient in historic information. Wales is (to speak bull-wise) the only part of England which is satisfactorily described ; Cliffe's " Books of North and South Wales" being among the best of their class, and only requiring a little revision to make them perfect. For Devonshire and Somerset shire, indeed, we have Mr. Murray's handbooks on the regular continental plan, which leave nothing to be desired. But why, we may ask, was his own country the last spot to be illuminated by the care of this modern Greatheart of pilgrims ? The covers of his works have long formed the wished-for "bit of red" in every continental landscape ; they have irradiated up the glaciers of Norway, and cast a roseate reflection on the snows of Mont Blanc. They have even invaded Egypt, and thrown a light on the Pyramids which, till lately, they have denied to Stone henge:— lllie primus equis Oriens sittvit anhelis Ast hic sera rubens aceendit lumina vesper. But they have left the English traveller to the tender mercies of local guides,—and what these are the home tourist knows only too well. At these Little Pedlingtons the publisher in the I ligh-street dare not offend the publican in the Market-place—so the hotels are "all excellent; " he is under a similar disability with reffard to the other branches of commerce—so garbled tea and interpolated pickles arc supplied with im punity by the old-established family grocer, and the varying tariff of donkey-boys and fly-drivers is veiled in a discreet and dangerous silence. Perhaps Lord Fitz-Runymede, the neighbouring potentate, has in his armoury a Birnam walking stick which perthrmed the journey to Dun sinane, or some of the dorsal vertebrae of Richard lll.,—that fact cannot be concealed ; but the potentate does not like gaping visitors, and locks them out most of the week,—so, for all the guide book tells, you may go sixteen miles on a " wrong day," and return ungratified by a sight of these curiosities. The writers who are silent on these matters, and on the times of steamers and coaches, arc profusely eloquent on' the merits of local heroes. The inscription on the town pump (erected by a venerated churchwarden) is copied at length in small capitals, and an equally grand iloquent paragraph informs you how Madam Blaize placed in the reading-room a votive clock, after being cured by the local Jordan of gout which had resisted all the influences of the Abanas and Pharphars of Germany. Terrible is this twaddle when you only want to know the shortest road to Evesham, Tewkesbury, or Ban nockburn, and to be honestly told whether there is anything to see when you get there ! Such being the only competitors, Mr. Murray, had he come forward earlier, might have preoccupied the field against all after invaders, and have done . for all what he has done for only two of our cowl- 825 ties. But he has waited so long that others appear likely to bid for some portion of that large amount of public favour which awaits any writer who, without the shackles of local prejudice, and with a sufficient amount of antiquarian knowledge and travelling experience, comes fbrward to com pile a sensible, readable, and trustworthy guide book. Among the most promising of these are the writers whom Mr. Stanford has induced to cater for the public wants, if we may judge by the works placed at the head of this article, which for cheapness, portability, and extent, combined with conciseness of information, surpass any we have hitherto met with. They do not I apparently profess to aim at the great elaborate ness of Murray, and, as they have chosen ground as et unselected by him, no invidious compari sons need be made; but they seem to contain everything which an ordinary traveller is likely to want to know, and are in every respect a wonderful advance beyond the old class of guide books which by the absurdity of their style and the inadequacy of their matter have so often excited our alternate ridicule and despair. Mr. Stanford has not, like Mr. Murray, been deterred from publishing a Paris Guide by the existence of Galignani ; whose work, though excellent and copious, does not after all conde scend quite enough to the ignorance of the raw John Bull on his first invasion of our neighbours capital,—when lie is far too much perplexed about where he shall sleep, and how he shall dine, and what theatre he shall go to, to care very much about histories of charitable institu tions, or architectural criticisms upon public buildings. In Mr. Stanford's Guide the traveller is engagingly led by the hand, from the first mo ment when he conceives the adventurous thought of crossing the Channel, up to the time when he feels sufficiently at home in Paris to enter an omnibus for a ride into the suburbs. First of all, there are instructions for obtaining the passport, with all the requisite forms,—the trouble of com plying with which in person may be avoided by anyone who chooses to pay four or five shillings to a passport agent. Then we have tables of French money, weights and measures, hints re specting the douane, and a full description of four different routes from London to Paris, with their comparative expenses, and a note of the objects of interest occurring on the way. These are il lustrated by a map, in which the routes being distinguished by different colours, enable the ad vantages of each to be seen at a glance. On our " arrival at Paris" we have a chapter teaching us how we may be housed and fed. The latter of these subjects occupies about a dozen pages, and is so fully treated that the provident traveller may settle, before leaving London, where he will dine, what he will have for dinner, and what he will have to pay, without being very far out in his calculations. In case the unwonted luxuries of a Parisian meal should tempt to excess, the writer has, with grim satire, subjoined in the next page the names of a number of English physicians, surgeons, and chemists, who may avert the threatened dyspepsia. After this come omnibus routes, cab fares and regulations, and railways. The historical part consists of a list of French kings, with dates, and a short sketch of the suc cessive augmentations and improvements of Paris. The topographical information is arranged partly in three " itineraries," describing successively the Boulevards, the palaces, and the public mo numents ; and this is succeeded by an account of the administration, and of the religious, educa tional, and charitable establishments. Amuse ments are by no means forgotten, and, besides a tabular synopsis of the prices of admission to every part of each theatre, the compiler is obliging enough to escort us to Mabille and the Salle Valentino. The environs of Paris—more cursorily treated—close the book. There is a map of them, and also one of Paris itself, con taining the latest alterations. The other two works on our list offer a very favourable contrast to the genus of English guide-books characterized in our preceding re marks. The one of the Channel Islands is on the same plan as that just noticed, the same kind of practical information being placed in the foreground, and very fully detailed. The remainder consists of " excursions," all . of which appear to have been described from fresh personal observation ; and there is a use ful chapter on the laws affecting person and