The Press. — London, England, 1858-04-10 00:00:00

OMMENI 346 and Co. obliged to break off his engagement. His misfor tunes are increased by a quarrel with his rival, whom he kills in a duel. Great part of the novel is taken up with his endeavours to elude the consequences of this act, which, though in a duel, was entirely acci dental, and with the exertions made by Katherine to procure the evidence proper for his exculpation. The matter is, however, brought to a trial, and, after the usual period of agonizing suspense, the required witness is produced, a verdict of " Not Guilty " is returned, and the day ends with a sunset of the brightest rose colour. Ine book is fairly well written, and purports to have claims on rublic in terest as being the posthumous work of a lady whom the editor assures us it would be superfluous to praise. The general tone is romantic rather than realistic, and occasionally betrays ignorance of real life—as where a judge is described as "rising" to address a jury; but good taste and good feeling are evident throughout, and the reflections, which are somewhat numerous, do not so much interrupt the progress of the story as is common in ladies' novels. We have seen many worse railway-books than " Katherine Randolph." A Personal Journal of the Siege of Luelinow. By Captain IL P. Anderson. London : Thacker EVERY original fact concerning the defence of Luck now is of value and interest. Captain Anderson commanded an important outpost during the whole siege, and for those five months, with eighteen men and another officer—twenty men in all—that post was never once wrested from them by the enemy, not withstanding that there were (9 pound) guns playing on the spot day and night ; and several desperate and well-sustained assaults were beaten back with suc cess. Captain Anderson writes like a soldier of all the hardships he endured, but the loss of his com rades, one by one, day after day, was the greatest trial of all. Writing on the spot, his notes have a reality about them which lends a peculiar interest to his vivid descriptions. The nights of the siege were oppressively dreary : We would sit for hours, expecting every moment to be attacked. Officers would come round, and say, in a solemn manner, " The brigadier requests you will be par ticularly on the alert." Here and there, by the glimmer of a miserable lamp, you observed the pale, careworn faces of half a dozen volunteers. One man loading his musket, another looking at his pistol, and a third filling his cart ridge-box. One of the party would presently shoulder his musket, and go off to stand on sentry, whilst another dived down into our mine, to see that the enemy were not getting under our house. Presently you would hear the sudden cry of a sentry calling out, " that the enemy were ad vancing." Then came the rattle of musketry, followed by the cry of " Turn out " on all sides. Now you hear the grape strike against our batteries and earthworks; the musket bullets fly over in showers; round shot come throngh our walls ; and loud above all you distinguish the sound of the enemy's clarions, and numberless bugles blowing the "advance." Now and then, midst the roar of artillery, you could hear elephants trumpeting as they were made to drag heavy guns from position to position, and the change of direction of a shot immediately after told plainly that the enemy had moved a gun. We re mimed perfectly quiet too, generally, so that they might not know how many we mustered. We let them fire away, and waited patiently to listen if they were creeping through the long grass that grew all around our intrench xnents, and strained our eyes to see in the darkness. Every now and then we fancied we saw the figure of a man, and then it seemed as suddenly to disappear. Some• times the moon, shining cu the leaves of the castor-oil tree, used to look like men's turbans, and more then once we were induced to fire at them. Every now and then you heard orders given to load the guns with " grape" over the " round shot," and our men would be seen running for hand grenades, &c., to be all ready in case of a rush at our position. In the meantime you would see little streaks of fire passing rapidly over your head, and some seemed as if they were coming right down upon you. Then you sod denly heard a loud report, and the cry that followed told you our shells were bursting amongst the enemy. Sometimes single men would creep up to our in trenohments, and either try to spike our guns or to seduce our Sikhs and sepoys Before our first reinforcement arrived, our sepoys in the inside had constant conversations with the mutineers. Our men would say," What have you got now for being so unfaithful? You had much better disperse." The muti, nears woull reply, " What can we do? If we go to our homes, the Feringees (Europeans) will hunt as to death; it is better to remain here and die." Then they would say to our men, "Leave the infidels, and come out, we'll give you good food and plenty of it." Our sepoys would say, We have eaten the Company's salt,—we cannot break faith with our masters, like you hare." This answer ex- asperated the mutineers, who would say, " You are as bad as they are ; you have become vile Christians ; but, never mind, we are off to kill all the men of your reinforcement ; and when we return we will pay you off; we will not spare a single man." The Sikhs would take advantage of the opportunity for conversation to " draw out " their friends:— Once, at an outpost, a fellow came up and tried to make our aepoys go over to the enemy; there was a sharp young sentry on duty, and he quietly kept the man in talk whilst THE PRESS, APRIL 10, 1858. he called another of his guard, and said, in a low voice, " Knock that chap over;" which was no sooner said than done,—thus putting an end to the conversation in rather an abrupt manner. The influence of such a life of " war's alarms " upon the minds of the children of the gan ison was certain to be marked. Captain Anderson relates a charac teristic trait : I heard one urchin, of four or five years, say to another "You fire round shot, and I'll return shell from my battery.' Another, getting into a rage with his playmates, said, " I hope you may be shot by the enemy." Others (playing with grape shot, instead of marbles) would be heard to say, " That's clean through his lungs ;" or" That wants more elevation." He concludes his narrative with a few brief but in teresting notes of the final relief in November by Sir Colin Campbell . 10th November. The commander•in•chief had got possession of the city. We were driven from the very gates of the Khizer Baugh, or " palace." A person was most conspicuous on this day, as we looked from our in trenchments. He was mounted on a " white horse," and was everywhere. We all felt very anxious for this man— he was in the hottest fire. We found out after it was the commander•in•chief. We left Lucknow on the night of the 22nd November, 18,57, at midnight, in silence; and as we left onr outposts, the rascals were firing on our outer walls. We got sate out, without the loss of a single man. The whole thing was most splendidly arranged by the commander-in•chief. _ • • • Private Cooney, of her Majesty's 32nd, and another man went into a battery, and spiked some guns. As they rushed up, they called out, " right and left extend," and the aepoys hearing this, fancied there was a strong hotly, and bolted off. A man, being asked what he got as plun. der, said," I)—d the happerth we got, air, but an ould cock and a hen—oh yes," he added, "we did get a sepoy or two." This little book, though its range is necessarily limited—Captain Anderson remaining in one spot during the whole siege —is yet extremely interesting, and may be accepted as another valuable contribution towards a future history of the siege and defence of Lucknow. The Poetical Works of Robert Story. London : Longmans. THESE poems, the sumptuous appearance of which, so far as printing and paper are concerned, is due, the author tells us, to the munificence of the Duke of Northumberland, are the productions of a self educated man, who is perhaps a little older than the century, and whose verses range over a period ex tending from 1816 to the present date. The impulse to poetic expression was derived, he informs us, from Dr. Watts's songs; but we do not trace the in fluence of that worthy divine in any of the pieces which compose the volume. Still less are there any vestiges of the present school of subjective lyrical poetry, such as we are accustomed to expect as a matter of course in most of the " minor minstrels " who come before us : and though our respect for imitations of any kind is but small, it is to be feared than an age which has been accustomed to draw its inspiration from Wordsworth, Shelley, an 4 Tennyson, may look with a cold and neglectful eye at one who has obviously nothing in common with these poten tates. Mr. Story, in fact, belongs to a past school. His earlier songs, on "Mary R—," the "stately and blooming " lady's-maid "at Roddam Hall " "In Memory of Anna Boer, a fine young woman from Shropshire "—" my first Gargtave song," and the like, are imitations of Burns. The more fanciful love-poems, and the political son gs , s h ow t h e in fluence of Moore. The romantic tales are in the metre of Scott, and bear to him a close resemblance. The domestic sketches remind us strongly of Rogers. The most original poems are " The Outlaw," a drama of average merit, and "The Fountain," an allegory, which is on the whole the best thing in the volume. The impression which the last generation of poets made upon Mr. Story is so strong that his later works exhibit it in nearly equal force with his earliest, and do not, in point of poetical power, show much improvement on them. The strains in which he celebrates his M'iker in 1857 are not much more sublime than those in which he sung the charms of rustic beauties in his salad days. The following example of what may be called his "second man ner" reads like a political parody of those elegant fairy fables which Moore used to indite in days when albums were fashionable. We recommend it to Lord Grey as a motto for his next essay : When Freedom made this Constitution of ours, Which you shall not find matched if the wide world you range, Two Spirits she chose to keep watch on its powers— The Spirit of Caution, the Spirit of Change. "If Caution," she said, "would too slowly proceed, Then, Change, do thy part, nor allow him to flag; And if Change urge the engine to perilous speed, Then, Caution, be ready to slip on the drag !" Thus ever those Spirits keep watch on its powers, Retard, or impel, as the need becomes known; And 'tie by them that this Constitution of ours In the line of Improvement rolls steadily on, And Britons have but to preserve it intact-- Secure that its working no cower can derange, While the Spirit of Change shall force Caution to act, And the Spirit of Caution sh a ll regu l ate Change. But Mr. Story has pretty near l y saved us the trouble of criticism. He h as t o ld us w h at he thinks of him self, and his estimate of hi s own powers is so much more just than is usually the case, that we shall partially adopt it : I blame thee not, World! that thy judgments refuse me The laureate wreath I have coveted long; I have rather to thank the kind hearts that excuse me The times I have teased them with efforts in song. The vision that lured me of Glory's effulgence Hath passed—like the bow from the cloud of the shower; I find, after years of self-cheating indulgence, That the wish to be great I mistook for the power. • •• • • Adieu to those fond aspirations, but never— While breath is within me—farewell to the Muse! It were easier to turn from its channel yon river, Than me from the course that she taught me to choose. I must still feel the changes of sk7 and of season, Be alive, like the birds, to each impulse they bring; And, heard or not heard by the children of reason, Must at times, like those wild•birds, full•heartedly sing ! • • • • Perchance with myself lies the blame of bereavement Of the long cherished dream of celebrity won: Like the birds I have lived, and no worthy achievement, They say, without care—without labour—is done. Hence in song, as in life,l too nearly resemble The light-hearted lyrists that sing in the glen, Whose note, though it may bid the young bosom tremble, Wants the bold trumpet-tone that electrifies men. Then adieu to the hope, to my bosom so pleasing, Of being remembered and talked of when gone; And adieu to the hope, more ambitious, of seizing The mind of the futare, and moulding its tone! However, there is rather too mu c h se lf-d eprec i at i on here. Mr. Story, though he may not stamp his fame on the world at large, has produced a great number of verses which are calculated to attain a tenacious local celebrity, and which will undoubtedly impress the general reader with sympathy for the author's struggles, and admiration for the sincerity of feeling which could foster poetic blossoms in the intervals of so thorny a career. PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.—APair. 9. BOOKS. Essays and Remains of the Rev. Robert Atfred Vaughan. Edited, with a Memoir, by the Rev. Robert Vaughan, D.D. Two Vols. J. W. Parker and Son The Ties of Kindred. By Owen Wyun. Routledge Billets and Bivouacs. Rontledge The Human Mind in its Relation with the Brain and Nei.- your Systens. By Daniel Noble, M.D. Churchill Memoirs of My Owls Time. By F. Guizot. Volume I. _ Bentley The Netherwoods of Otterpool. Three Vols. Bentley Common Objects of the Country. By the Rev. J. G. Wood. Routledge The Rise of the Dutch Republic. By John Lothrop Motley. Three Vole. Vols. 2 and 3. Routledge The History of the Factory Movement. Alfred. Two Vole. Simpkin and Marshall The Life and Times of Dante. R. de Vericour. Hope Tracey; or, the Apparition. Mrs. Thomson. Hodgson Wayside Pictures through France, Holland, Belgium, and Up the Rhine. Robert Bell. Routledge Sonya of Early Spring. Rowland Brown. Kent and Co. A Text-book fur Students. Rev. Thomas Stantial, M.A. Parts I. and H. Bell and lialcly Inside Canton. Dr. Yvan. Vizetelly Some Observations upon the Recent Addition of a Reading room to the British Museum. W. Hocking. E. Stanford Sermons. 11. Drummond B. Rawnaley, M.A. Hatchard The Train. Groombridge--The Ladies' Treasury. Ward and Lock—Art Treasures. Ward and Lock—Le Folkt. Simpkin and Marshall—The IVestminster Review. Chap man—The Art Journal. Virtue and Hall—The Scottish Review. Houlston--The London Review. Heylin—Col burn's New Monthly. Chapman and Hall—Davenport Dunn. Ditto—The National Review. Ditto—Titan. Groornbridge—Routkdge's Shakespeare. "Twelfth Night." Routledge—Mervyn Clitherue. Ditto—London University Magazinc. Hall and Co. Messrs. Smith and Elder send us a handsome and convenient reprint of " Wutbering Heights," and " Agnes Grey," with the biographical preface written for the former issue by toe authoress of "Jane Eyre." Of the literary merits of these works nothing need now be said. i hey may be read here in a type which does not afflict the eyes, and in a binding which does not come to pieces in the hands—more than can be said for most railway editions. MESSRS. LEGGATT AND CO. have on view at their gallery, in Change alley, several of the pictures from the French Exhibition of last year, including the " Ecce Homo," by Ary Scheffer, Dubufe's portrait of Rosa Bonbeur, and Meissonnier's picture of the "Chess-players." The last is about to be engraved by Blanchard, whose beautiful plate from the same artist's " Bar-room " was published last year. Ross Bonheur's celebrated picture of the " Horse Fair " bas just been removed, but there is a large collection of fine paintings of the French, German, and Eng lish schools, including Ansdell's " Wolf's Lair," and " Noah's Sacrifice," by Maelise. The collection.' well worth a visit. U