The Press. — London, England, 1853-09-03 00:00:00

SEPTEMBER 3, 1853. General of the Spanish army in 1t409, he absolutely declined to take the pad• : In respect to the pay attached to the rank of Captain ( ieneral, I hope the tioveniment will excuse me if 1 de dine to become a burden upon the finances of Spain during this contest tOr her independence. Yet all this time he was a poor man, uneer tain, as he wrote, how he " stood with the •• world." his pad• inadequate to his expenses, and unable to make the smallest provision for his family in England. He was at last, when fu• advanced in his plans for the deliverance of Europe, compelled to make a request to his Government for an additional allowance, to escape ruin : - - - It will be neeessary that Onventment should now either give me an additional pay under the head of table-money, or any other they please, or that they should allow me to charge some of the expenses, sin+ as charities. Sr., whieh I ant obliged to incur In the existing state of this country, or I shall be ruined. Putting these few facts together, is there in the annals of old Roman magnanimity, when Cincinnatus was found at the plough, a finer example of perfect disinterestedness? It is singular that he never uttered a threat till provoked by souse peasant outrages on his entering the soil of France. Most careful to keli his troops within the strictest bounds of discipline, inclined to leniency in his judg ments, and to make large allowances for human infirmity, he yet could wield a sword of flaming destruction. When he did menace, his accent was terrible. Writing to Beresford, who had captured some of the insurgent peasants, he directs him to send one off to the people of Bidarry and Baygorry : Von may also give the person you send to understand that if I have further reason to complain of these or any other villages, I will lit boyar& them as the French did towards the towns and villages in Spain and haingal : that is. I will Wally dealray them, and hang SIP all lime peo ple belonging to them that I shall find. We must breek ()Where. We should gladly re turn to this able and most instructive book, but each week brings with it its books and occupation ; and we dismiss it, heartily thank ing Lord De (hey for its production, and recommending it to the public as a skilful study of the greatest name yet blazoned on the awful s?roll of military glory. The Glory of England, tte. Fragments in Rhyme. By Charles Chapman. London : Hatchard. IT is a curious but disagreeable illustration of the truth that e:.tremes meet, that exaggerated piety often merges into irreverence, or something worse. When the notorious "S.S." of the last century received a pair of breeches (his own, we think he says, were much in the condition of the needy knifegrinders) from an unknown admirer, he ascribed the gift to the Lord. and referred the excellence of the tit to the matchless skill of the Shaper's hand. Mr. (!haptaan at tits the Deity with a bayonet in place of shears:— treat wittingtos Salvation's armies tot. Before the isrlytonet of awl all MI or tl.i." Seriously, the freedom of the press is alt-rd when employed to givoieirculation to such fantastic crudity. The smaller that circulation may he in the present case will he the author's best comfort in maturer years. wafred de Lisle. London : llope and Co. THIS is probably the first effort of an inexperienced writer. It has fluent language, lint no imagination, and a crowded dramatis person' without elnu•aeter. The author's idea of "life" is taken from hooks; while nothing is more sore than that snecess in fic tion can be attained only by stns}• of nature. Guthrunt, the Dane. A Tale of the Heptarehy. By Robert Story. Second Edition. London: Long man. _ _ . Mu. Sronr has some reason to be proud of "the " demand for two editions of a long poem in little " more than a year." He has the faculty of relating a tale stirring with incidents of love and war in agreeable verse ; and readers interested in his nar ration will be likely to overlook or to pardon the discrepancy between the sentiments of his person ages and the character of the age in which they play their part—a discrepancy, by the way, too often unpleasantly palpable in the author's great model, Scott. He has considerable power of description, and, as he is happiest in passages of a pathetic and homely nature, we are inclined to think that his true genius is rather of a domestic than heroic turn. In a second edition more care might advantageously have been taken in revision. ►► Ilut" is an awk ward termination of a line rhyming to " shut ;" THE PRESS. and a poet should know that a swan does not " prune" but plume its wing. The verse is suffi ciently good to deserve the removal of such blemishes. Sot even great is vets can afibrd to be careless, and much less is it tolerable among those who can only be classed among the minors. John at Home. A Novel. By Stanley Herbert. London : T. C. Newby. SEvEnti. professional authors who have worked their way into eminence tirst made their Whitt under the auspices of Mr. Newby; and we might expect that the publisher of the writings Of Miss Ellen Picker ing, Mrs. Grey, and " Ellis and Acton Bell " would be more careful about the typography of his works. There is a piquancy in the title of "John at llome," but all we are enabled to say for it is, that it is a novel m which dull people are described by one who feels a genuine sympathy with them, and illus trates the fact in three unreadable volumes. Catte it( the Rev. l'ieree Connelly. A Pamphlet. London ; Maynard. Tuts remarkable statement appears to have been published in furtherance of the views of a committee, over which his tirace the Duke of Manchester has undertaken to preside, in order to enable Mr. Con- nelly to pay the costs already incurred by Roman Catholie ecclesiastics in his wife's name, and so to place him beyond the reach of further persecution and in a condition to compel the prosecution of his appeal. The facts of his case are set forth with great distinctness, and are, as far as we can judge, very properly commended to the notice o f th e p u bli c by the committee of noblemen and gentlemen to whom Mr. Connelly refers. SEPTEMBER PERIODICALS. \\ • n.AT is our old friend Lbossy about? hi he sleet, ing or idling, or peradventure has he gone on a far Journey ? Is it possihie that the northern thane has juggled his faenitiest by some mesmeric process? Can he be ignorant of the real secret of his strength" It would seem so. For now, while the great heart 14 the empire is throbbing with indignation a t th e efforts of an Wirtilleiried Coalition to mil our honour through the mire, that they may retain molls limbed possession of their places, the stout. teal hearted part. of Edinburgh can send us nothing better than a lame and most miserable imitation of the abortive reek of Irish faction. The" grievances" of Scotland, we suppose, are now to become a stand ing topic. Bah! And our whole representative system is to be unsettled because one member repro cents :15,145 of population in England, and 51,11111 of population in Scotland. What would London, with its two millions of population, say to this reasoning? Why, it should return tiny member++ at least ; but would you, good Christopher, think that sound Con. servative doctrine? It is news to us that the eitizens of the Scottish metropolis are (snivelled to maintain their own police, when " the police of London is paid oat of the imperial recenue !" This is sheer raving, and nought else. There must be a screw loose in the direction of this otwe most able, eloquent, and stanch defender of the constitution when such stuff finds admission into its 'wages. The last article is not much better titan the first. Are we never to hear the bust of Burns' Circular, and of the millions of yards of cotton produeed at Manehester, of which we can no more realise the idea titan of the distance (tithe fixed stars? oh, good Blackwood ! a truce, we pray, to the statistics of thy most excellent and in. dnstrious Liverpool correspondent. Let him in future edit a trade circular, or cram some yawn- ( not yarn provoking orator of the Lower House. The literary contents of the number are, as usual. %twits' and ex cellent; " Foreign Estimates of England" is an amusing analysis of Max Sehlesinger's" London Wan derings." We must make room for what is justly styled the gem of the parliamentary chapter : "So that is my Loot Palmerston," whispered I►r. Keit "that if/ the God•rreserrequi of all rut mid Continental cabinets! He yowler with the shin- uhiskets, the finely. cut features, the striped neckcloth. and the brown Mothers, which he probably got as a present front Mazzini? Yonder elderly g-ntletnan, lying, rather than sittime. uptin his twitch, and chatting with his neighbour as he might do in a tasen►? Now, by Metternich! this Lord Palmerston looks so cordial that. if I had not read the German news. papeN for many years past, I never would have believed all the wickedness there is in hint. To think that yonder people 110 not Seraph. to converse with him! with a con• victed partisan of rebels, in whose company no reslw•etable citizen of %lent's Or Berlin would Ise liven to erupts a street! Nit, as NV there is nothing in a man's looks. Ib• does not look in the least like a rebel or a conspirator. And yet to Unit of all the rude notes he has written!" " That is just because he is a I., , reat diiiiiiniatiht." re marked Sir ;loliti. with much mietion. " We like Min mall the nom, because you, neross t he wfttur. mill fciir, and tlinw stones nt him. He has the Inek to Is' ns popular at hnne as he is abused abroad. When that is not the cane with a minister of foreign affairs, hitter pension lam off at once. lie II appointed fur the very purpoac of barking and snappi ng all round the house. to ke e p otrlei• trailers and thieves. And eau vent deny tluit Lon' Palmeri.. tote islfeetly leerfeenned his bull-dog miss' ? Was he not RlN'M\e on his legs? !MI he not lustily hark like a chained wateieelog. tai that all the neighbours naiad n.sieettril him? And did he e%er bite anybody? No, you cannot say that he taut. hit anybody. Only showed hia Weds. Seething mom. That i`ll.lllol. .feud that, merely by au doing, he (tightened you all, that, we well know, is what will " gi%r Nllytlllllg 111 tile world," cried Or. Kell, "to hear him make a little. speech. How does% he speak ?" " In a way I well like to hear," answered Sir John; •• out and openli—no telligibly—rind also% e all. emirteously and politely, as helitti an English gentleman. It is not in his maim. to be rude; he cannot la. M,l, exeept %hell Ite take* pen in hand to ante abroatl. 111 the It o uw• he IS uelrr periumal. uud yet no• h ot ly IN'tta•t• knows how to tutu a troubleaome yuel.tialn•r into ri,lieule, often 111 tht. it is is. he antra• with him." t )1 . " New Headings in Shakespeare" we shall anon have something to say ourselves. We agree that the most curious emendation ?1 of Mr. Collier's vanutctl folio is in the speech of Mime ()Welly on the death of Puistal. The old copies read, "After I saw hint fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew there WWI lint one way ; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and a table of green Theobahi, founding his correction on what is observed of the sick in fevers, proposed "his nose was sharp as a pen. and a' babbled of green fields." The typographiesl alteration was not great, and seemed satisfactory ; so passed into the text. But Mt'. Collier's folio Inuits, " His wise was as sharp as a pen on a table o f green f r i eze ." We doubt whether either emendation will stand rigid senttiny, but of the two we prefer Thcobahl's. The image presented by the other is Use reelaidite to have presented itself to plain Paw Quickly. Wo WWI' hook at tsaltillatlittollti, So pass teer " Lady Lee's Widowlitstd;" hut " Thu Duke's Dilemma" and "Coral Rings" are both very readable papers. er.ssositr. moist he mingled with praise in our mulct, of this 111011ill'S Dublin I'seirersity. .litiongst the ft arcßlast tit' ilk` 111311) HMI• etatitributiirs to this I,ertiait cal was the lab. learned Rita Vlitallictit ttttt alit, I 1.1 he) 01 1 11 0 1 1 0 4 of n il the Idmh Conservativi , IsatiUcHl writers of tin: last thirty :11`liN. Ile 44)1111111114i t h e Merl 1.4 thought and 14 ' style in Isis writings, HMI the 1111111%) litatiee of them in the present number of it magazine to which he brilliantly contribitteil is sun thing but pleasing. '%t' hope, beton. long, to hat Ins 1111101011Ullity Of lilting :liiSties. le the merits of this citoinent %dollar and olivine. "Geology, Popular and Artistic,' is a reada ble notice of tha worsts of 11 rising geologist, Mr. Jukes, tint Itireetiir of the t Stiney of Ire land. The other papers do not call for Mpeeigi notice. Fraser lumps together some twenty or thirty volumes of travel in its opening paper, giving a few lines nut of the most satisfactory diameter to each. This kind 441* literary t iiiii infaciiire iq neither 14 0 iiiii 11111181/10 1141 E att " Aladomuu Pia" is a ti4.at adapta tion 11' the Nlarilitis ►lO 11111' tragesly . recently 1/1"Nillei'll at It i‘lillt 1111%11V, 10111(61 of course oil the 1 . 1. W mo•hmlcholy litii expressive lines 111 Dallie. 11 halt In0►•1 11114 1.% 44 al • (11.1100111 140 11111111 meaning into so brief a 41► ace ? I I apt( 011 . 14 11101111i114 f 111.11141 of course a sostial moralising article. Poor ti•Ilow ! in his better days how heartily—ti►r, with all his tailings, ho wax a child of futi—would he have laughed over the dismal commentaries to which the close of his iolventurous lite• lilts give's rise! In art—spite of his love for it--he was misplaced ; in the army or navy 111‘ would have been a Napier or a Nelson ; it is near the truth to say he could do any thing but paint. There are a number of minor articles to which the table of contents is a sufficient guide. The Illustrated London Magazine is one of the best produced of all the cheap periodicals. Be sides established hacks of lit, rature, it has con• tributors of superior standing, and ix profusely illus trated with woodcut's, in the wild, ardent sph it Of Dickens' and Sue's conceptions. Tut: monthly part of Diogenes %bows that, grave peo ple as we are, we have fun enough in us for the support of a couple of hunu,rous poidicals, in which wit of the pencil disputes the palm with Nit of the pen. Some of the cartoons are better than whole volume of political economy. " Before and After the Strike—representing on one -isle a party of jovial, well-fed workmen discussing, with pia and pipe, their social grie‘inices, and on the other a Is and haggard artisan gaziiir despairingly un his %taming family—conveys a powerful lesson on the folly and wickedness of such combinations. The chief fault of /fief/cars is its too palpable adoption of nU Punch's peculiarities. I a I I