The Press. — London, England, 1858-11-27 00:00:00

THE PRESS, NOVEMBER 27, 1858. Cecil and Mary ; or, Phases of Life and Love. By Joseph Edward Jackson. London : J. W. Parker and Son. rATneric talc , pathetically told, though sadly overwrou ght with quaint conceits and exag nerated metaphors. The poet himself appears to have had some misgivings on this point, and in a perfectly irrelevant so liloquy expresses a doubt whether " unmetapho ric phrase" may not ho best. There can be but one opinion as to the too frequent indulgence in forced imagery which pervades every page of this poem, otherwise, in m anv respects, entitled to praise. At times, the metaphors arc not only far-fetched but positively ludicrous. For instance, when Mary is endea vourin* to obtain her mother's consent to her immediate union with Cecil, in order that she ma y accompany h im on his missionary adventure, she piteously exclaims : Love is strong, But its best ancherehain will snap like tow When duty blows, and I shall then be left An ugly niud•benk, with the rusted fluke Driven right through me. Alu, forlorn mud-turtle in truth thou wouidst be in a sorry plig ht , with the rusty fluke of the beta bower anc hor driven right through thee, nor deem we that Prometheus Vinetus would care to -schange his lot for thine ! The excessive use of this inflatel and unnatural style is, indeed, a grievous blot. A tale of woe cannot be told with too much simplicity. Our tears refuse to flow when summoned forth in big, swelling phrase. IVe le:.y overlook the absurdity of a heroine in an I.alian opera dying in a bras ara, but we do not weep over her untimely bier or sicken at the :a ht of the cold fowl and ham which the wife of our bosom has caused to be set out for us. In a poem that s2eks to express the extremest anguish that can wring the brow of mortals, turgid phraseology is a profound and inexcusable defect. We here look in ve;n for a simple senti ment or ordinary expression. Even the " College Tutor" cannot escape tl - "s all-pervading blemish. When he would warn Cecil against the extremes of cold and heat he might expect to encounter in the career of a missionary, lie strikes an attitude and thus declaims : The fierce game-hreatlaing sun of tropic lands Would eat your life out., u it would a fire's ; The icy cold of snow o'er-rinded climes Wvii.d stiffen all your heart-strings till they snapped. Yon hare not granite atrangth enough for heat or cold. He then suddenly sketches the outline of "a aselm hull," such as poor Cecil will become when his life has been burnt out and his heart-strings Willy snapped. 'Twere better, he patheti callY 'Twere better far To be a mu I barge here, and cony dirt. But not only does Mr. Jackson—though in ternal evidence would lead us to ascribe this poem t.) female inspiration, were it possible that a pot,:test could choose such a 740111 de plume—not Hy does he sin against taste, but at times be approaches the profane. Not consciously, perhaps, or intentionally, but nevertheless he painfully !hocks an ear not accustomed to the sensuous Imagery of evangelical sectarianism. After refusing the many-acred squire, Mary has a "quiet talk to herself" about the worthlessness of gold, and asks if she could possibly be so base as to betray a noble heart that trusted in her. No, she indignantly exclaims, No, not if all the squires To tbie broad country came and flung their gold, Coin after coin, before me as a bribe; -114 God smiles grandly as I speak thew word , . Ilcr prayer to the Deity is likewise most Oiertionable. Throu*hout she racks her imagi nation to say smart things, and gives free course to all sorts of fantastic fancies. But infinitely wurs2 are Cecil's pantheistic aspirations at ',awttpore. M e dit a ti ng over th e t o mb of Henry dart n, be laments that we do not " ope our eyes a little wider," for— We should then see God In everything—in sand-grain and in sun ; In fhwer, tree, insect, bird, and beast, and in tn. It is a new world, we are told, when the eye Kts God in everything : When the loud booming, of the battling seas • Are echoes of the awful voice of God ; 1 % lieu the heaven-pointing mountain is a mound Raised with one spadeful by the arm of God ; 1 , hen the quick darting lightning's blinding flash .5 th e clear glitter of His golden spear ; When the dread city-razing earthquake-shock Is the globe shuddering in His mighty grasp— ~['' The enormous sun a tiny lamp slung down From the great floor of heaven to give us light; When the tossed branches of the waving trees Are seen but to be swayed by His pure breath. And so on. By the way, this Cecil is an intolerable kill-joy. lie is, besides, a sort of pious cynic, and talks of " the loveliest mouth on earth " being "still a vent for poisoned air," and much more to the same effect, forgetful that such nice ideas betoken a nasty mind. Once, and once onl y , he is grimly humorous in writing to his betrothed about his future mother-in law, whose disinclination to himself he prettily describes as " the rusty hinge of that unyielding door " upon which he begs his darling Mary to drop " a lucid speck." . But, notwithstanding these many and serious imperfections, there is much to admire in this poem. It would be no arduous task to select many passages of considerable beauty and of still greater promise. The flow of the verse is throughout easy, not unfrequently musical, and at times almost majestic. If not a poet of the first water, Mr.(?) Jackson possesses no common brilliancy of thought and diction, though it much needs to be softened and subdued. It is in no unkindly spirit that we have pointed out his most glaring faults, but we believe hint to be capable of better things if not spoilt by injudicious flattery. He must first learn, however, to be more natural, and be content to express ordinary ideas in ordinary language; for poetry is not mere periphrasis, nor is spdsmodic and tortuous diction the fittest exponent of pathos. Two Years in Syria. By J. Lew:s Farley. London : Saunders and Otley. WIIILE the blue sky of the Levant continues undimmed by the smoke of factory chimneys, or by any vapour more commonplace than the fumes of a cool nari,rileh, the precipitous hills of Palestine unseamed by gradients, and her nar row ravines unspanned by tubular bridges—while Arab hordes stilt s%eep over the plain of Zebulon, and travellers "from .Jerusalem to Jericho" still meet with the fate recorded in the parable—while soft Orontes, unpolluted by the refuse of mines or mills, still continues to murmur beneath his laurel shades—while Abana and Pharphar still irrigate, after their ancient fashion, the garden of Damascus, and the cry of Lock ! Lock !" is still unheard upon the reaches of the Jordan— while the maidens of Nazareth still draw water from the Virgin's well, and the hermit still bur rows in the caverns of Tabor—while, in short, any halo of romance or veneration, not unen hanced by danger and difficulty, still hangs over the whole land from Dan to Beersheba,—so long, we suppose, will books of Eastern travel continue ' to be written, and so long will it be the task of critics to review them. After all, the Dead Sea and Lebanon are not quite so hackneyed as Mont Blanc and the Rhine, and even when such men as Kinglake, Warburton, and Robinson (whom Mr. Farley mentions), Mr. Stanley (whom he forgets to mention), and the author of Murray's admirable handbook, have appeared to exhaust the country, there is still something left to fill two or three chapters, if not a whole volume. In such cases we must take what we can get, and accept the merely adipose matter about the way there and the way back, the regular traveller's sights and emotions, the well-known occasions of pleasure, discomfort, or astonishment, for the sake of the few grains of novelty here and there oc curring. Mr. Farley was for two years chief accountant to the Ottoman Bank at Beyrout. At the end of that time, iu consequence of a dispute with his employers, he seems to have resigned his post. The rights and wrongs of the question may be seen in his appendix, but it need scarcely be said that we have no intention of troubling our readers with them. During his stay he seems to have made himself pretty thoroughly acquainted with the immediate vicinity of Beyrout, and in the ample descriptions of its beauty and warm recom mendations of it as a place of residence consists the speciality of his book. The accounts of his other excursions, however, do not afford any very perceptible addition to the stock of infor mation which may be gained from preceding travellers. The book is chiefly made up from letters addressed to friends at home, which Mr. Farley tells us he has not " had leisure to revise." but in which he does not think " there is anything of importance to alter"—an opinion Y _. 1171 in which we do not entirely coincide. Few tra vellers have genius and brilliancy enough to make their desultory remarks take permanent rank, and this is why the majority of diaries are so confused and uninteresting. A man who is not conscious of 9ualifications for vividly interest ing a reader in his own personal exploits and re flections, as, for instance, the author of "Eiithen" does, may nevertheless produce a very readable book by presenting his information in some sort of arrangement, instead of casting it before the reader in the order in which it happened to be acquired by himself. Some of the pleasantest books of travel we know are written on this plan, which has moreover the inestimable ad vantage of allowing a reader to skip the topics about which he feels no particular interest. Half the trouble which Mr. Farley must have taken in compiling two chapters of historical information about the " decline of Ottoman power," "re turn of civilization," and so forth,—for we do not imagine that he was unkind enough to inflict this sort of thing on his dear friends at home,—would have enabled him to treat his sub ject in a somewhat more methodical fashion. As it is, after giving us nine chapters about Beyrout, its climate, scenery, and society, he begins to remember that we don't yet know how to get there; and we then have four chapters devoted to the various routes;—useful enough, certainly, as far as a comparison of their different merits is concerned, but filled with descriptions of Mar seilles, Lyons, the Rhone, the Mediterranean, the voyage and the passengers, &c. &c., all of which we have read a hundred times before. Who " Rachel and her sister " may be, who enliven the voyage to Alexandria by music and flirtation, is possibly known to Mr. Farley's correspondents, but cannot, certainly, be discovered by the most attentive readers of his book ; nor is the " inter. lude" relative to the mysterious melancholy his friend "L." likely to interest them much more, since the sorrows of that individual remain wrapt in congenial obscurity to the end of the chapter. To a description of that not very novel process, a Turkish bath, Mr. Farley devotes a dozen pages of rather laborious smartness ; thus be expresses the fact of being hurried into the next room, by saying "you undergo a transition into " the next apartment before you could pronounce " the name of Mr. John Robinson in its most " concise and abbreviated fbrm" ; while further on, apropos of the Cydnus, he indulges in his sportive vein on the subject of Antony and Cleo patra to an extent which does not convey a very favourable impression of his taste or discrimina tion. Readers who should happen to light upon such passages, or on the very commonplace religious reflections about the Sea of Galilee, would pro bably form not so good an opinion of the book as many other parts of it lead us to think it deserves. The approach to Beyrout from the sea is first indicated by the snowy peak of Lebanon, with its middle region perhaps veiled by clouds, and looking "like an island in the sky." A 3 the traveller draws nearer, and the form of the coast displays itself, the clouds, perhaps, break, and the fiat blue distant cone becomes gradually stereographic. The patches of darker colour on its sides turn into deep valleys, which serve to conduct from the reservoir of snow above the bright threads of silver, that, emerging from masses of indistinct foliage, seem to hang on its lower slopes as they fall step by step to the plain. The lighter specks here and there, become towns and villages, while turreted monasteries occupy each coign of vantage ' above. Below, the white houses, appearing at intervals through their rich, dark plantations, catch the sunshine as it streams across, and, in the distance, the minarets of the city itself " stand up and take the morning" from amidst their belt of orange groves. The country itself retains—to judge from Mr. Parley's glow ing pictures—all its ancient fertility and luxu riance. The orange with its "flowers of silver and fruit of gold," the luscious fig, the 'spreading plane, the pine and palm, the citron, olive, and apple, unite a hospitable and fruitful sLade, and the ground is gay with hyacinths, anemones, and gilliflowers. The city,—with its turreted walls and spiry mosques, its houses gaily painted on their outside walls in red and blue, its balconies filled witb flowers, wafting to the passe r-by the mingled odours of rose, orange, anamine, its improved cleanliness and comfort, ito cola " with --~"=-~"`r~ THE PRESS, N OVEMBER 27 , 1858, 1171 ......---- The enormous sun a tiny lamp slung d own ca ll an d Mary ; or, Phases of Life and Love. From the great floor of heaven to give us light • lin which we do not entirely coincide. Few tra- By Joseph Edward Jackson. London :J. W. When the tossed branches of the wa v i ng t rees ' yellers have genius and brilliancy enough to Are seen but to be swayed by His pure breath. make their desultory remarks take permanent Parker and Son. And so on. By the way, this Cecil is an intolerable rank, and this is why the majority of diaries arc A rsTneric tale, pathetically told, though sadly kill-J t o o r ics Ile is, besides, a sort of pious cynic, so confused and uninteresting. A man who is overw rought with quaint conceits and exag- of " the loveliest mouth on earth "b • not conscious of gualifications for vividly interest- Ile poet himself appears and mug g usted metaphors. "still a vent for poisoned air," and much more to ing a reader in his own personal exploits and re- have had some misgivings on this point, and to t he same effect, forgetful that such nice ideas flections, as, for instance, the author of " Eikhen" perfectly irrelevant soliloquy expresses a may not . betoken a . nasty mind. Once , . and once onl, in a does, may nevertheless produce a very readable book by presenting his information in some sort of doubt whether "unmetaphoric phrase " he is grimly humorous in writing to his be best. There can be but . one opinion as to the betrothed about his future mother-in law, whose arrangem ent , . instead of casting it before the too frequent indulgence in forced imagery which disinclination to himself he prettily describes as rea d er in the order in which it happened to be nu . m i re d by himself. Some of the pleasantest pervades every page of this poem, otherwise, in " the rusty hinge of that unyielding door " upon woks of . travel we know are written on this w anv respects, entitled to praise. At times, the which he begs his darling Mary to drop " a lucid metaphors arc not only far-fetched but positively spe ... ck." plan, which has moreover the inestimable ad- ludicrous. For instance, when Mary is endea- But, notw i t h standing; these mans , and serious vantage of allowing a reader to skip the topics vour i n * to obtain her mother's consent to her . ~ . • ~-, imperfections, there is much to admire in this about which he feels no particular interest. Half immediate union himwith Cecil, in order that she may acco mpany on his missionary adventure, poem. It would be no arduous task to select the trouble which Mr. Farley must have taken in many passages of considerable beauty and of still compiling two chapters of historical information she piteously exclaims : Love is strong, greater promise. The flow of' the verse is about the "decline of Ottoman power," "r e - tie its best anchorehain will snap like tow throughout easy, not unfrequently musical, and turn of civilization," and so forth,—for we do When duty blows, and I shall then be left at times almost majestic. If not a poet of the not imagine that he was unkind enough to An ugly niud•bank, with the rusted fluke first water, Mr.(?) Jackson possesses no common inflict this sort of thing on his dear friends at Driven right through me. brilliancy of thought and diction, though it much home,—would have enabled him to treat his sub- .l6u, forlorn mud-turtle I in truth thou wouldst needs to be softened and subdued. It is in no jest in a somewhat more methodical fashion. A s b e i n a so rry plight, with the rusty fluke of the unkindly spirit that we have pointed out his it is, after giving us nine chapters about Beyrout, lot bower anchor driven right through thee, moat glaring faults, but we believe hint to be its climate, scenery, and society, lie begins to nor deem we that Prometheus Vinetus would capable of better things if not spoilt by injudicious remember that we don't yet know how to get car e to sachange his lot for thine ! The excessive flattery. He must first learn, however, to be there ; and we then have four chapters devoted use of this inflates and unnatural style is, indeed, more natural, and be content to express ordinary to the various routes;—useful enough, certainly, a grievous blot. A tale of woe cannot be told ideas in ordinary language; for poetry is not as far as a comparison of their different merits is with too much simplicity. Our tears refuse to mere periphrasis, nor is spasmodic and tortuous concerned, but filled with descriptions of Mar- flow when summoned forth in big, swelling phrase. diction the fittest exponent of pathos. seilles, Lyons, the Rhone, the Mediterranean, the We nary overlook the absurdity of a heroine in voyage and the passengers, &c. &c., all of which _ an I.alian opera dying in a bras era, but we do we have read a hundred times before. Who sot weep over her untimely bier or sicken at the Two Years in Syria. By J. Lets Farley. "Rachel and her sister" may be, who enliven si,:ht of the cold fowl and ham which the wife London : Saunders and Otley. the voyage to Alexandria by music and flirtation, of our bosom has caused to be set out for us. is possibly known to Mr. Farley's correspondents, WHILE the blue sky of the Levant continues but cannot, certainly, be discovered by the most In a poem that s2eks to express the extremest undimmed by the smoke of factory chimneys, attentive readers of his book ; nor is the " inter. anguish that can wring the brow of mortals, or by any vapour more commonplace than the lude" relative to the mysterious melancholy a turgid phraseology is a profound and inexcusable fumes of a cool nari,rileh, the precipitous hills of his friend " 1.." likely to interest them much defect. We here look an ve;n for a simple stunt - Palestine . unseamed by gradients, and her nar- mint or ordinary expression. Even the " Collegemore, since the sorrows of that individual remain row ravines unspanned by tubular bridges—while Tutor" cannot escape tHs all-pervading blemil. wrapt in congenial obscurity to the end of the Arab hordes stilt sa eep over the plain of Zebolon, When he would warn Cecil against the extremes chanter. and travellers "from .J erusalem to Jericho" still of cold and heat he might expct to encounter inTo a description of that not very novel process, meet with the fate recorded in the parable—whi le . the career of a missionary, lie strikes an attitude soft Orontes, unpolluted by the refuse of mines a Turkish bath, Mr. Farley devotes a dozen and thus declaims : pages of rather laborious smartness ; thus he or mills, still continues to murmur beneath his The fierce flame-breathing son of tropic lands laurel shades — w hi le Ab ana an d Fharphar still expresses the fact of being hurried into the next Would eat your life out., as it would a fire's ; room, by saying " you undergo a transition into The icy cold of snow o'er-rinded climes irrigate, after their ancient fashion, the garden of \V u'l sti ff en all your heart-strings till they snapped. Damascus, and the cry of " Lock ! Lock !" is " the next apartment before you could pronounce Yon hare not granite strength enough for heat or cold. still unheard upon the reaches of the Jordan— " the name of Mr. John Robinson in its most He then suddenly sketches the outline of "a while the maidens of Nazareth still draw water " concise and abbreviated form" ; while further useless hull," such as poor Cecil will become when from the Virgin's well, and the hermit still bur- on, apropos of the Cydnus, he indulges in his his life has been burnt out and his heart-strings rows in the caverns of Tabor—while, in short, sportive vein on the subject of Antony and Cleo- hare snapped. 'Twere better, he patheti- any halo of romance or veneration, not linen- patra to an extent which does not convey a very tally adds, hanced by danger and difficulty, still hangs over favourable impression of his taste or discrimina- 'Twere better far the whole land from Dan to Beersheba,--so long, tion. Readers who should happen to light upon To be amu I barge here, and carry dirt. we suppose, will books of Eastern travel continue such passages, or on the very conunonplace religious reflections about the Sea of Galilee, would pro- Hut not only does Mr. Jackson—though in- to be written, and so long will it be the task of temal evidence would lead us to ascribe this poem critics to review them. After all, the Dead Sea bably form not so good an opinion of the book as many other parts of it lead us to think it to female inspiration, were it possible that a and Lebanon are not quite so hackneyed as Mont Blanc and the Rhine, and even when such men deserves . poetess could choose such a nom de plume—not oil does he sin against taste, but at times be as Kinglake, Warburton, and Robinson (whom The approach to Beyrout from the sea is first appr o a c h es th e pro f ane . N ot consc i ous ly, perhaps, Mr. Farley mentions), Mr. Stanley (whom he indicated by the snowy peak of Lebanon, with or intentionally, but nevertheless he painfully forgets to mention), and the author of Murray's its middle region perhaps veiled by clouds, and 'hocks an ear no t accus t o med to the sensuous admirable handbook, have appeared to exhaust looking "like an island in the sky." As the l the country, there is still something left to fill traveller draws nearer, and the form of the coastimag ery of evangelical sectarianism. After refu e sing the many-acted squire, Mary has a two or three chapters, if not a whole volume. displays itself ; the clouds, perhaps, break, and "quiet talk to herself" about the worthlessness In such cases we must take what we can get, and the flat blue distant cone becomes gradually of gold, and asks if she couldpossibly be so base accept the merely adipose ma tter about the wa y stereo g ra p hic. The p atches of darker colour on as to betray a noble heart that trusted in her. there and the way back, the regular traveller's its sides turn into deep valleys, which serve to sights and emotions, the well-known occasions of conduct from the reservoir of snow above the No, she indi gnant ly exc l a i ms , No, not if all the squires pleasure, discomfort, or astonishment, for the sake bright threads of silver, that, emerging from In this broad coun t r y came an d fl u ng their gold, of the few grains of novelty here and there oc - masses of indistinct foliage, seem to hang on its Coin after coin, before me as a bribe; eurr;ng, lower slopes as they fall step by step to the plain. .Is.l God smiles grandly ad I speak these word , . Mr. Farley was for two years chief accountant The lighter specks here and there, become towns her prayer to the Deity is likewise most to the Ottoman Bank at Beyrout. At the end and villages, while turreted monasteries occupy übjectionable. Throughout she racks her imagi- of that time, iu consequence of a dispute with his each ' coign of vantage' above. Below, the whit e nation to say smart things, and gives free course employers, he seems to have resigned his post. houses, appearing at intervals through their rich, I to all sans of fantastic fancies. But infinitely The rights and wrongs of the question may be dark plantations , catch the sunshine as it streams y . ors2 arc Cecil's pantheistic aspirations at seen in his appendix, but it need scarcely be said across, and, in the distance, the minarets of the t'„awapore. Meditati ng o ver the tomb of Henry that we have no intention of troubling our readers city itself " stand up and take the morning" from "artyn, he lament s th a t we d o not " ope our eyes with them. During his stay he seems to have amidst their belt of orange groves. The country a little wider," for— made himself pretty thoroughly acquainted with itself retains—to judge from Mr. Parley's glow- We should then see God ln everything—in san d - gra i n an d i n son ; the immediate vicinity of Beyrout, and in the ing pictures — all its ancient fertility and luxu- ample descriptions of its beauty and warm recom- riance. The orange with its "flowers of silver la fhwer, tree , insect, bird, and beast, and min. mendations of it as a place of residence consists and fruit of gold," the luscious fig, the spreading It is a new world, we are told, when the eye the speciality of his book. The accounts of his plane, the pine and palm, the citron, olive, and Kti God in everything:— other excursions, however, do not afford any apple, unite a hospitable and fruitful shade, and When the loud booming, of the battling seas very perceptible addition to the stock of infor- the . ground is gay with hyacinths, anemones, and A v r ,e e eehoes of the awful voice of God ; mation which may be gained from preceding gilhflowers. The city,—with its turreted walls ~l a l ?s en . t he heaven- pointing mountain is a mound travellers. The book is chiefly made up from and spiry mosques, its houses gaily painted on. 1 1 - hen the one spadeful by the arm of God ; letters addressed to friends at home, which Mr. their outside walls in red and blue, its balconies ,', , a, quic.k darting lightning's blinding flash Farley tells us he has not " had leisure to revise." filled witb flowers, wafting to the passer -by the . the clear glitter of His golden spear ; When the dread city-razing earthquake-shock but in which he does not think " there is mingled odours of rose, orange, anf a raLaine, its li the globe shuddering in His mighty grasp— - anything of importance to alter "—an opinion improved cleanliness and comfort, its cafa " with ----. - _ . ..---717—=-- ...41ww-• .a........-.. . -, ....101.04611.0 . - ,17 ^ - '-'--- --.- e .. e ....-srtaimplipz,....., ------ 7: - --42 0 .:11 7 7 4111 teem ..-- - - __L____ ~. _ . _llr.? .. ; ..-1 .... —_ vi .._...._.-.11. ---11. - I