The Press. — London, England, 1857-01-03 00:00:00

16 *• ,-. remarkable for sweeping general assertion thou fin discriminating statement or sound judgment. The pres.imptionexhibited by 'this writer is sel dom found in conjunction with the candour and carefulness which are the first requisites of an historic pen. He would have done better had he confined him self to the more modest labour of compilation in which he certainly excels. It is a eharp line which separates history from BIOGRAPHY. We are at a loss in which deptrtment to place Dr. Doran's new work, M, inarclis Retired from Business " (7). It con tains sketches of all sovereigns, ancient and modern, who have either been deposed, or have voluntarily abdicated their sceptres. Instances of the latter are rare, and the results seldom fortunate. Diocletian, happy for a time, was at last tormented by a feeling of insecurity, and died so obscurely that it is not certain whether he perished by suicide or by the hand of an assassin. Maximilian fared as badly. Charles V. must often have regretted his power, though he made no effort to recover it. The history of Victor Amadeus, first King of Sardinia, is curious. After abdicating in favour of his son lie was so violently urged by his wife (au ex-lady-in waiting) to resume the Crown, that he made the effort, failed, was separated from his wife, and kept iu strict confinement till all danger from his ambition was over. Christina of Sweden furnishes the most memorable example of voluntary abdication. Dr. Doran gives a copious sketch of her fantastic career. She resigned her Crown at twenty-four, and lived a fussy, useless, and not innocent life after wards for forty years. The placid King of Holland, who, in our day, resigned his Crown at sixty-eight for love, lived but a short period to enjoy his felicity with the Countess d'Oultrement. He die very suddenly h tree years afterwards, possessed of a fortune, ac cording to our author, of thirteen millions sterling. These volumes by Dr. Dom'', like his previous ones, are written in a careless, sprightly vein. We can excuse inaccuracies in works so rapidly produced ; but such offences against good taste as calumnious mis representation of living personages, and as in. decent allusions, are unpardonable in even a superficial essayist. It is a pity that a writer who stows so much tact in the selection of his subjects, and such readiness iu compila tion, should not bestow a little more care on his composition. Of a widely different character is M. Brial mont's Llialtuire du Due de Wellington (8). The author is a Belgian of distinguished ability. He proposes to supply—what is undoubtedly a defect Loth in continental and English litera ture—a complete and authentic biography of Wellington. This volume brings his career down to the close of the Peninsular campaign of 1611. Two more volumes will complete the work. We can speak of the manner in which M. Brialmont has fulfilled his arduous work only in general terms. The broad principles on which he has proceeded are admirable. It is possible to speak of a great general in rela tion to his military exploits alone : if he won great battles and achieved great conquests he would be great as a soldier, irrespective of the means which he employed to gain his ends. Much more is required to form a truly great man. It is necessary that he should wage war humanely, that his ends should be just and his exploits be permanent in their conse quences, and that he should exercise his talents for the service of his country, not for motives of personal aggrandisement. M. Brialmont recognises these considerations. His view of the character of our great hero is large, complete, and generous. "It is the in " contestable merit of Wellington," says the author, " that he succeeded in all his enter " prises without the possibility of any one " being able to reproach him with falsehood, " trickery, or cruelty." In the course of his work the author takes occasion to correct some of the most glaring errors of M. Thiers. The tiography thus far appears to us highly (7) Wotan-Pet Retired from Business. By Dr. Doran. 2 vols. London : Bentley. (6) ilistoire ds Due de Wellington. Par M. Drialmont Tonle I. London: tills,: and Co. (9) Alfieri and ciobt mi their Lira and Adventures. By Edward Copping. London : Add2l and Co. THE PRESS. honourable to the talents, the candour, and the industry of the author. The narrative is clear and rapid, and the military details are illustrated by plans of battles. - - A volume by Mr. Copping contains biogra phies of the two most celebrated Italian dra matists of modern day, Alfieri and Goldoni (9). Their lives were as strongly contrasted as their styles. Alfieri lived in a tempest of passion, and died, worn out by his emotions, at the age of fifty-four. Goldoni lived gay and cheerful to the patriarchal age of eighty-six. The tragic poet was born to a noble inheri tance, and was comparatively wealthy to the last. Goldoni was always a struggling m an, and was indebted to the French Government for the pension which in his age contributed to his support. It is said that he produced more than 150 dramatic pieces, and printed his "Memoirs" in his eightieth year. The stories of these lives are told with workman like skill, but with little pretence to originality. In the ease of Alfieri, we could have wished for more discrimination and a higher moral tone. A chapter at the end of the biographies discusses with much acuteness the present state of the English drama, and exposes the wholesale plagiarism from the French stage. Of ILLUSTRATED BOOKS FOR TEE SEASON two are produced with especial elegance. Robert Pcllok's " Course of Time" (10) is beautifully printed on tinted paper, and illustrated with fifty or sixty most delicately-executed wood engravings, from designs by Birket Foster, John Tenniel, and J. It Clayton. The poem, from its subject, admits of wide variety of artistic design ; and charming rural sketches and human scenes are mingled with imaginative conceptions of the glories of Heaven and the terrors of the Eternal Dark ness. We doubt the propriety of such designs as appear at pages 19 and 3;i3. They are too horrible for contemplation, and the more so as the verse of the poet attempts to give them reality, and to confirm them by Revelation. The sale of the poem has been wonderful. It has passed through twenty editions, and has been rewarded more highly than any poem of Scott or Campbell. We cannot help thinking. nevertheless, that the gusto with which Mr. Pollok has described the misery of the lost indicates a disordered fancy, and that it is very unprofitable reading for Christian people. The other volume, an illustrated edition of the Book of Job k 11), deserves the warmest and most unreserved commendation. The text is printed from the authorised version, but is properly arranged in metrical form. The illustrations consist of fifty wood-engravings from drawings by John Gilbert. As the figures and costume are Arab, the artist has been enabled to draw from reality. His designs are remarkably distinct, forcible. and characteristic. We have met with no illus trated book to please us more. The historical introduction aad notes are a most welcome addition to this oldest and most sublime of all poems. The volume is, in all respects, truly magnificent. An original artistic effort deserves a kindly word (12). Many of our readers may remem ber seeing in the print-shops two or three years hack a French print with the title of '• line Silhouette." It represented a figure of the Emperor Nicholas, which, with certain accessories, reflected on the wall a profile of Iris Satanic Majesty. In this little book of shadows the idea has been happily and wittily expanded. A crier appears in shadow as an ass ; a drunken fellow as a queer fish ; a poor needlewoman as a skeleton; a pompous orator as a bantam ; a fashionable gentleman in long great-coat as a pump, &c. In all cases the idea is most ingeniously carried out. It is such a book as Hogarth might have pro duced. Never in modern ,day have wit and art been more happily blended in a slight production. FicrioN has not been behind other depart ments of literature in activity. Miss Mary C. Hume, 9 daughter of the late Joseph Hume, we believe, has issued a pleasing social tale— 11l (l ustr o) ated Edition. The Coarse or T Loudon ine. Poem. B Robert Pollok, A.M. A : Blackwoo . y is. (11) The Book of Job Illogratal. Loudon: I•Ziabot and Co. (U) Sketioras. By C. H. Bennett. Loudon : Bogue. SATURDAY, " The Wedding Guests" (13). It is written with ease and elegance, something in the manner of Miss Yonge's works. The most conspicuous of the wedding guests are two young ladies, Florence Forrester and Helen Montagu, whose characters and fortunes are artistically contrasted. The former is one of those gentle, amiable spirits who seem created to show with what patience the hardest trials may be borne, when duty and religion lend their aid. The death of her two children is described with pathos almost painful in its effect, though very tender and true to nature. The story is marked by poetic sentiment, by much insight into character, and by sustained interest. The moral tone is elevated, and the portraiture of cultivated society very lifelike. Considering the popularity of our great living novelists, it is wonderful that so few attempts have been made to imitate their styles. " SydneyFielding"(l4) is the first tale we have remarked which shows the influence ex ercised by Mr. Thackeray. The work is some thing better than a copy of his peculiarities, but it exhibits a view of life from his stand point. Sydney Fielding is one of Mr. Thackeray's plain, gallant, credulous, gentle men ; and Julia Krane, one of his worldly, scheming, young ladies—a Becky, but of higher position and of greater natural advan tages. The careless old baronet, her father, and the dissipated old peer, her admirer, are conceived in Mr Thackeray's manner; and so is the Paris life of Julia, in the circle of the Prin cess Ivanivieff. The story illustrates in a spirited way the good policy of the old adage— 'Tis well to be off with an old love Before you are on with a new. The author has dramatic talent ; many of his situations are highly wrought ; and he has contrived to invest Julia'e tortuous career with a kind of fascination which compels the reader to follow it, though never sympathising with her conduct. Though inclined to run in the Thackeray channel, the ability of Mr. Keene will probably in time, from its energy and dash, work out a course of its own. Of " Stories of an Archaeologist" (15) it may be said that the manner is better than the matter. The description of the meetings of a society of travelling arehreologists at Naples is written with a masterly pen, and the stories which the Fellows, for mutual edification and amusement, relate are distinguished by great attention to all those details of costume and fact which constitute the setting of historic tales. They may, indeed, rather be regarded as archeological studies thrown into a popular form than as stories in the ordinary accepta tion of the word. In " The Figure in the Tapestry," for example, there is a learned dissertation on the Ta-. , 5; of the Greeks, and the tapestries of the middle ages. The plan of the book renders such digression not only natural, but necessary. As a collec tion of incidents illustrative of recondite cus toms and manners of past times, the tales are ingenious, and show both the knowledge and resources of a highly-trained mind. In " Frirwin" (16), on the contrary, we have what strikes us as the crude effort of an imagina tion not wanting in originality, but deficient in culture. The story is raw throughout, and wants the surface which in this day is indis pensable to success in fiction. The skilful authoress of " Mary Powell " has, in " The Good Old a Times " (17)—a misleading title—produced a tale of Auvergne in the middle of the sixteenth century, when Pro testants stoutly contended for the possession of Le Puy, and when Magdeleine de St. Nec taire was drawn to the Reformed Faith. The peculiar talent of the authoress is shown in de scriptions of the domestic life of the period ; the local and chronological colouring is both judicious and effective. The people are in all externals conformable to the period, but re deemed from stiffness by the natural play of (Ls) The Wedding Guests; or, the Happiness of Life. By Mary C. Hume. Two Vole. London : R. Parker and Son. (14) Sydney Fielding. By Edwin Keene. Two Vole. London : ey B (15) Stories by an Archeologist and his Friends. Two Vole. London : Bell and Daldy. (16) Frincii. By Octavia Oliphant. Two V. Second Edition. Loudon : Hope and Co. (17) The Good Old l'inses. A Tale of Auvergne. By the Author of "Mary Powell." Loudon ; Hill and Co.