The Press. — London, England, 1858-11-06 00:00:00

1090 THE PRESS, NOVEMBER 6, 1858 pass the eulogy upon i which he does pass. Here, for instance, is one example of Mr. Buckle's unscrupulous mode tf reasoning which we honestly believe is sufficient b discredit the fidelity of the whole volume. It i such very strong evidence of a foregone conclusion in Mr. Buckle's mind to be supported nt all risk : He even permits hi dislike to legislators to lead him into an inconsistency for he allows them to merit for their good measures, bcause these are really the produce of the public opinion; yet he does not relieve them from blame for their bad aeasures, though these are quite as much the result of the oublic opinion of the age. He gives as at illustration of a god measure the repeal of the Corn laws, but allows no merit to Minister or Parliament, as.igning all to the force of public opinion ; but the protective policy which was set aside had born in its day and generation quit as popular as the doctrine of free trade is now ; and siren he fulminates against this policy, he throws all the Wane on the Government and Minister. A " system was organized an I strictly enforced, of inter ference with marlcts, interference with manufactories, interference with machinery, interference even with shops. The Owns were guided by excisemen, the ports swarmed with tide waiters, whose sole business was to inspect nearly every process of domestic industry, peer in..° every package, and tax every article ; while, that absurdity might be carried tr its extreme height, a large part of all this was by the way of protection; that is to sat, the money was avowed)' raised, and the inconvenience suffered, not for the use of the Government, but for the benefit of the people ; in other words, the industrious classes were robbed in order that industry might thrive," ( p. 235). Nothing is said here of the popularity of protection, and that the industrious classes were the very people who clamoured for it. All is ironically laid "to the paternal care of European legislators." enable us to reward others in the manner most accept ble to a nstive." Well, what does this advice amount to? As will he observed, it refers solely to the men who had taken an active or leading part against us ; and it is suggested that the lands of the men should he " largely " confiscated. In what sense is " largely " to be here understood ? An elephant is " large,"--3 hen's egg, three inches long, is " very large !" All epithets are comparative, and must be understood from the context. There is no difficulty in thus understanding Sir James's language. The confiscation, he suggests, is to be " large," in order to allow of others being rewarded by the confiscated estates; in other words, he recom mends that enough of the land should be confiscated to enable us suitably to reward those who had proved our friends. Well, then, what was the number of our friends ? By Lord Canning's own showing (vide his proclamation) —only six ! This, then, is the standard by which Sir James's " largely "is to be understood. Instead of so acting, Lord Canning confiscated the entire soil of Oude to the British Government—he disinherited the whole five millions of the population of Oude, with the exception of six persons l—aud nevertheless asserts that Sir James Outram at one time advised him to do so ! We give his lordship full credit fur believing what he says he does, but it is at the sad discredit of his common sense. Neverthe less, even supposing (for there is no end to the hypotheses we must make fur his lordship's sake) that Sir James Outrun had actually at one time recommended confisca tion as largely as the magnifying mind of the Governor- General understood,—in fact not " largely " at all, but " entirely,"—should it not have occurred to his lordship that SirJames's subsequent retractation of that opinion was a v.Ty important matter? If a man, when brought face to face with the actual circumstances, earnestly counsels the opposite of what he had counselled before, is it not the greatest possible proof of the strength and earnestness of his latter convictions ? Every man is averse to retract a formerly-expressed opinion, and never does so without strong reasons therefore : yet Lord Canning acted on the opposite principle, and held that Sir James's first opinion, given on abstract grounds, was better worth minding than his later one, formed on the spot after personal observation of the circumstances. As we have shown above, Sir James Outrain never did concur in Lord C inning's policy of wholesale confiscation, and it says little for his lordship's sense to fancy so ; but even if it had been so, the revised opinion of Sir James was certainly the one to which alone weight should have been given. premising at present. " The Expensive Luxury of Waste " is a good paper, but the Indi an articlea the review of Messrs. anford and For ster are, en! think, both unfair and unreflecting. The Dublin University Magazine contains several, curious and pleasant articles. "Horace Walpole i n his Old Age," and " Patrick Delaney," are two clever gossiping, Gentleman's Magazine style of articles, and will be read, we think, with general amusement. We notice, however, one statement in the latter which rather staggers us. In speaking of the literary circle that used to frequent Delaney's house, near Dublin, the writer says, "Here came Addison in 1717' —several years after Addison's departure from Ireland " Crinoline and Whales" is an amusing article on ladies' dress, for which a good deal of strange Woe.. (nation on the subject has been exhumed. m Out. side a Playground " is sensible and pleasing, and " The Half.Biothers " a very good tale indeed, the subject of which is bullying in the army. The only very remarkable paper in Bentley is called " The Undiscovered Islat,d," and purports to be an account of an island that was peopled in 1627 ny the survivors of an English ship chat was wrecked. The ten souls who landed on the island have in creased to twenty five thousand. They speak a quaint variety of English, and their dress is in the tashion of James 1. They are a republic under hereditary chiefs, have little crime among them, breathe a delicious climate, and cultivate a fertile soil ; their drink is the fermented juice of the pine apple, and they are greatly given to hospitality; the women are exceedingly beautiful, and adultery is punished by a very mild form of public flagellation. They bad heard no European news from the year we have mentioned, and were ignorant of the murder of King Charles I. They had a few books, the chief of which was Shakespeare ; and public representa tions of his plays were one of their principal amuse ments. In the next plies we have a very long instalment of " What rill had° with it?'' and a scene among Mr. Cutt's fraterniy reminding us vividly of the famous escape scene in " Pelham." Another article upon Cherbourg gives us a very complete account of the fortifications, and finally lays before us the three conclusions,—that Cherbourg is only valuable to France as a defensive position ; but that either as protective or offensive it would be of little use—that is to say, thit a French fleet could not lie there in. satety while the English were masters of the Channel ' and that it possesses no peculiar capabilities for the embarkation of an invading force sufficient to coun teract the inherent difficulties of the undertaking. But the best article in the present number is on " Lord Csoning's Reply to the Ellenborough De spatch." It is logical and vigorous—driving eery conclusion well home—and thoroughly establishing the proposition with which the writer sets out, namely, that Lord Canning is " an ordinary Governor " Creneral placed in extraordinary circumstances." As good specimens of this brief hut remarkably able paper we subjoin the following : The Kew Monthly is rather prodigal of good things this month. We have a very usetul and illustrative review of Mr. Carlyle's Frederick ; an equally good one of Mr. Gladstone's Homer, in which Virgil is vindicated from some of the aspersions cast upon him by the Right Hon. Grecian ; an interesting story called "A Night with the Ghosts ;" and a very amusing paper on " Alexandre Dumas and his Pets.* "Evenings at Inns," is a carious collection of odd anecdotes—the last especially. The National Magazine opens with a new story by Mr. Brough. It is eminently humorous and original, and seems likely to be a great attraction. " Bob Black's Illusion " is another rather lively written story. And the usual amount of artistic and critical contributions make up about an average number. The Englishwoman's Journal continues to discuss the questions to which it confines itself without any abatement of talent. In the present number, too, we have a tale which is well written and interesting. The remaining papers in' the number call for no particular comment. _ _ The November number of Fraser strikes us as slightly below the average standard of that capital periodical. The two first articles, called " Our Failures," and " Concerning Tidiness," both excite expectations which they do not fulfil. " Peli cans," too, is unluckily not a very favourable subject for the lively and genial ornithologist for whose monthly contribution we always look with eagerness. Perhaps the best article in the number is that on Mr. Esrey, whose process is here explained and discussed by a competent judge and a clever writer. The following account of the taming of Cruiser may be acceptable to many of our readers.— Only in two matters has the personal action of Lord Canning stood out clearly—and neither of them can be made the subject of eulogy. The first of these is his over ruling the military plans of the Commander-in-Chief. In the beginning of the present year, Sir Colin Campbell's plans were, to clear the Doab entirely of the enemy, and fully re-establish cominunications between Calcutta and the Punjiub,—to leave Central India to be cleared by the Bombay and Madras field-forces, which, under Roberts, Bose, sit Whitelock, were advancing to the line of the Jurnna front the south and west,—and to march himself into Rohileund, the reconquest of which province could be effected with the force then at his disposal, and which re conquest was indispensable to free the important line of c numunication throu4ll the Doab from serious and cease less link attacks. All the rebels over this wide extent of c nintry, north-east of the Jumna, would thus have been either destroyed or driven into Oude, the conquest of which province Str Culin designed to reserve for another c impsign,—in the interim, spending the hot season and the rainy months in the roughly strengthening and re organizing all the surrounding regions ; so that, when the otrapadAn reopened, whatever portion of the Oude rebels should escape from the attack of his converging columns !by that time strong in cavalry), synth! find no resting „hate elsewhere, and be utterly crushed, without being able to betake themselves to (our greatest peril) a guerilla warfare. On the other hand, tile Governor- General insisted that. an attack should be made at once upon the centre of the enemy's power in Oude— maintaining that the capture of Lucknow would so discourage the rebels, that they would give up the contest and send in their submission. The Commander-in- Chief had to yield to the orders of the Clovernor-General ; and the consequence has been a widespread and harassing guerilla warfare, a campaign in the hot season, most disas trous to our soldiers—and results so unsatisfactory, that not a single revolted province has as yet been thoroughly re duced to order an 1 tranquillity. Sir Cohn Camjbell did his part of the work—be took Lucknow—and not only Lucknow, but Bareilly, and every other place of importance. But the rebels did not surrender. Lord Canning had entirely miscalculated. The object for which he had overruled the plans of the campaign proved quite illusory. And thus, in this momentous matter, his policy was a failure. And of the Proclamation : Titan is kept up with spirit. "Behind the Scenes in Paris " is very clever, and is vastly exciting. Some of the articles are in rather bad taste. Bet the magazine, as a whole, is able. The Art Journal is a remarkably rich number, full of pretty illustrations, an I interesting information given in the must attractive manner, among which "The B 'ok o the Thames " continues to glide most pleasantly un its way. The engraving of the picture of " The Jager's Wife," in the Royal collection, is so admirable and so `)eautifully clear, that we should be almost tempted to cut it out and give it a frame and a place by itself on the walls of uur favourite room. We understand that Mr. S. C. Hall, the well• known editor of the periodical io which we have just referred, contemplates giving two lectures on the authors of the age. There is probably no man now living who has had the advantage of so exten sive a personal acquaintance with the distinguished literary persons of the present century, and we cannot conceive anybody more perfectly competent to the task he proposes to undertake. Accompanied by one individual alone, a nobleman of indisputable nerve, temper, and physical strength, Mr. Rarey proceeded to the encounter. As we have heard the story told, his injunctions to his comrade were character istic enough. " Whatever happens, my lord," said he, " don't you speak, or interfere. At least, not till you see me down under his feet, and him worrying me ! " This compact made, he resolutely walked into the arena, which consisted of a loose box divided by a half-door of some four feet or more in height. Stepping quietly up to this barrier, he leaned his arm upon it, so that it was just covered by the iron bar that ran along the top, and looked fixedly at the savage he intended to tame. Cruiser — from whom muzzle, head-stall, and all such impediments had been removed, we believe, by some mechanical arrangements, for none dared go near enough to touch him —made his usual dash at the intrepid stranger, to ppunce on him as a cat would on a mouse. Rarey stood perfectly motionless, neither altering his attituiti nor the expression of his countenance in the slightest degree. Thinking he had his enemy by the arm, the horse seized and worried at the bar 83 if he would have bitten it through. Again and again retiring for an impetus to the further corner, he rushed at the mysterious stranger, actually screaming in the uncontrollable violence of his rage, Rarey sustaining these successive charges with the same sangfroid that he had shown at the commencement of the engagement. At length, after more than an hour of this wild scene, with its frantic fury on one side, and its calm scientific superiority on the other, the redoubtable Cruiser, hbwn, exhausted, drippiuig with sweat, and completely puzzled in his equine mind as to the properties of this figure, which he could no longer believe to be human, came quietly close to it, and true to his nature, warped as it was, smelt at it, and touched it with his nose ; then Rarey threw open the half door and walked boldly up to him. The last sentence speaks volumes. It was a trait not of the system perhaps, to much as of the man. But what confidence the man must hate had in his system, thus to preserve his coolness and equanimity in a position which to every one but himself would have been of mortal danger. The " salt was now on the bird's tail," and when his own peculiar method had been resorted to, and f.ruiser, converted into a quiet, docile, and not particularly showy hack, bad been ridden before astonished hundreds, the horse-tamer was univer sally recognized as such, and both the papers and the public expressed themselves satisfied with Mr. Rarey. We don't know what kind of a story " Hector Garret of Otter " ntay turn out to be, but it is not very PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED. BOOKS. Punch's Pocket Book for 1859.—Panch Office. Cudrus, King of Athens, a Tragedy ; and Miscellaneous Poems. By Richard Neal.—S4npron bow. Lott•ery. By Mrs. Jones of Panicles —Routledge. True to the Last. By the Author of " I've been Thinking. ' —Simpkin and Marshall. The C Iszuscellor's Chaplain. By the Rev. Erskine Neale, M.Pa.—Siluilkin and Marshall. The English Governess. By Rachel M'Crindell.—Simp kin and Marshall. Emma De r.essan.—Simpkiti and Marshall. Sketch of Algeria during the Kabgle W ar . By Hugh Mullenaux Walmsley.—Chapman and Hill. PERIODICALS. Routledge's Shakespeare; King Henry Vlll.—Routle d g e. Le Follet.—Simpkin and Co. Tales from Blackwood: La Petite ifacklaine.—W. Black- But Sir James °ilium, objected t) the proclionatn previously taken a different me, says his lordship, to the men who have taken an act ays Lord Canning, if he )n when sent to him, had view. He had written to effect that " the lands of ive part against us should be r, among other reasons, to wood. Davenport Minn.—Chipman and Hall. The Farmer's Alnaanack.—Ridgwa). North British Review.—Kennedy. The Gordian Knot.—Bentley. 4rl Journal.—Hall and Virtue. largely confiscated, in