The Press. — London, England, 1854-01-21 00:00:00

pp.Mlllll 66 The volume is beautifully printed, and it is set forth with the typographical neatness of a " library edition." Its price is three half crowns, and it contains all of Goldsmith's poems, his comedies, and " The Vicar of Wakefield," which many will think the very cream of his composition. The whole works will be completed in four volumes. We have some doubts whether it would not have been better to have published them in six volumes, as being less weighty in the hand. But we have no hesitation in looking upon this edition as being the standard one that will be referred to by all the lovers of Goldsmith. We must add that Mr. Cunningham warmly acknowledges his obligations to Mr. Forster, the biographer of Goldsmith, and also to Mr. Bolton Corney, whose assistance will be additional guarantees, along with the editor's own research, for the careful performance of his office. The Little Duke; or, Richard the Fearless. By the Author of " The Heir of Redclyffe," &c. London : Parker and Son. THIS little book contains 168 pages and eight illustrations. The latter are all good ; the horses are real horses of flesh, bone, and sinew, not rampant dragons or furious wild jaws, making with flying mane and distended making the final spring, as they are too often, WC may say generally, portrayed. The print ing is clear, and the binding displays good taste. Externally it is a child's book; yet it is not a child's book only, for it describes human nature, its passions and impulses, with virtues and vices, which are common to every age and every condition, and therefore it might be read with interest by a child or a statesman, the feudal lord of a bygone period or the busy merchant of to-day. The tale opens in the middle of the tenth century, when the North men had but recently settled in the rich valley of the Seine, before Thor and Woden had wholly lost the reverence of their fierce wor shippers ; ere yet the Viking had acquired those graces which, blending with his own courage, produced in a later day the brave, the courtly, and the accomplished Norman. The Little Duke is the son of William of the Long Sword, Duke of Normandy ; but that sword could not guard its wearer from a treacherous blow, and he is foully murdered at the commencement of the tale. The Little Duke is seized by the King of France as a ward of the Crown, but escapes by the devo tion of an attendant from his imprisonment. The moral of the story is, that we must bridle our passions and restrain our imperious desires if we would be wise and happy, and this truth is inculcated yet not obtruded throughout the volume. Here is a scene between the Little Duke and Prince Lothaire, eldest son of the King of France, whose finger a falcon had just pecked : It really hurt him a good deal, and in a furious rats he caused two nails to be heated red hot in the fire, in tending to have them thrust into the poor bird's eyes. " I will not have it done !" exclaimed Richard, ex pecting to be obeyed as he was at home, but Lothaire only laughed scornfully, saying, " Do you think you are master here, sir pirate ?" " I will not have it done," repeated Richard. " Shame on you, shame on you, for thinking of such an unkingly deed !" " Shame on me ! Do you know to whom you speak, master savage ?" cried Lothaire, red with passion. " I know who is the savage now !" said Richard. " Hold!" to the servant who was bringing the red-hot irons in a pair of tongs. " Hold?" exclaimed Lothaire. "No one commands here but I and my father. Go on, Charlot—where is the bird ? Keep her fast, Giles." " Osmond ! You I can command " " Come away, my lord," said Osmond, interrupting Richard's order, before it was issued. " We have no right to interfere here, and cannot hinder it. Come away from such a foul sight." " Shame on you too, Osmond, to let such a deed be done without hindering it !" exclaimed Richard, breaking from him, and rushing on the man who carried the hot irons. The French servants were not very willing to exert their strength against the Duke of Normandy, and Richard's onset taking the man by surprise made him drop the tongs. Lothaire, both afraid and enraged, caught them up as a weapon of defence, and, hardly knowing what he did, struck full at Richard's face with the hot iron. Happily it missed his eve, and the heat had a little abated, but as it touched his cheek it burnt him sufficiently to cause considerable pain. With a cry of passion he flew at Lothaire, shook him with all his might, and ended by throwing him at his length on the pavement. But this was the last of Richard's exploits, for he was at THE PRESS. the same moment captured by his squire, and borne off, struggling and kicking as if Osmond bad been his greatest foe; but the young Norman's arms were like iron round him, and he gave over his resistance sooner, be cause at that moment a whirring, flapping sound was heard, and the poor hawk rose high, higher, over their heads in ever-lessening circles, far away from her enemies. The servant who held her had relaxed his grasp in the conster nation caused by Lotbaire's fall, and she was mounting up and up, spying, it might be, her way to her native rocks in Iceland, with the yellow eyes which Richard had saved. " Safe ! safe !" cried Richard, joyfully, ceasing his struggles. " 0 how glad lam ! That young villain should never have hurt her. Put me down, Osmond ! what are you doing with me ?" " Saving you from your— no, T cannot call it folly; I would hardly have bad you stand still to see such but let me see you face." "It is nothing. I don't care, now the hawk is safe," said Richard, though lie could hardly keep his lips in order, and was obliged to wink very hard with his eyes to keep the tears out, now that lie had leisure to feel the smarting ; but it would have been far beneath a Northman to complain, and he stood bearing it gallantly, and pinching his fingers tightly together, while Osmond knelt down to examine the hurt. If Sir Walter Scott had taken the same sub ject for a novel, and omitted every incident and reflection not absolutely necessary to the development of the story, and had rendered his language intelligible to readers of every eapacity, he would have produced a work like this. We are never told that the scene is laid in the tenth century ; we have no obsolete antiquarian words, no minute descriptions of armour, arms, or castles ; but we feel in every page of the book that we are amongst human beings like ourselves, but moulded by the cir cumstances and conditions of the age in which they are placed. Memorable Women. The Story of their Lives. By Mrs. Newton Crossland. London : Bogue. THE first " story" in this book is entitled " Rachel Wriothesley, Lady Russell." A more correct title would be " the author's views of " various historical events in the reign of " Charles 11., and her suppositions as to what " the actors in them felt and thought ; " for it can in no sense be called a life of Lady Russell. Her father, Lord Southampton, was with Charles I. at Edgehill, as the battle is called, although it was not fought there; but, nevertheless, he did all he could to bring about peace, " for " (we are quoting from the book), "as Clarendon quaintly says, no man " had more melancholy apprehensions of the " issue of the war.'" Quaintly ! where is the quaintness? The husband of the Lady Rachel, it is said, " William Russell, belonged to one of " the oldest and noblest families in England, " being the third son of William Earl of " Bedford." The great fortune and nobility of the Russells were then of recent acquisition ; and as to antiquity of descent, why, every one who acquires a title or a million pounds has that. The gay and careless Charles 11., who was only resolute in one thing, viz., " that he "would not go on his travels again," is re re sented as a grim Machiavellian tyrant ; but, whilst censuring him for accepting money from France, the author forgets to add that Algernon Sidney and other patriots were guilty of the same crime. She seems to doubt the existence of the Rye-house Plot, and supports her opinion by Colonel Rumbold's dying words, " in which he positively denied " that there ever was any plot to assassinate " the King." Exactly so : the King was to be attacked when surrounded by his guards ; that was Rumbold's design, and to kill him thus in fair fight he did not consider assassina tion. The garrulous, narrow-minded, preju diced, fortune-hunting Burnet is constantly cited as an authority, and spoken of as " the warm-hearted Burnet." Of Lady Rachel Russell there is little beyond the bare facts with which every one is familiar. The real lives are those of Madame D'Arblay and Mrs. Piozzi. Speaking of the former the author says : If we except Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield," it is hardly too much to say that before " Evelina " was pub lished there did not exist an English "novel" that was not either corrupt in principle or coarse in style, and the generality of such productions combined the two vices. And this although Richardson had published his " Sir Charles Grandison "! There are some books in the English language in which the words are so apt and SATURDAY, picturesque that if they are altered it can only be for the worse. Among these are Lord Berners' translation of Froissart, Pepyu' s memoirs, and, second to none, the memoirs of Lady Fanshawe and Mrs. Hutchinson. These noble women, who adorned, one the side of the Parliament, the other that of the Ki ng during the civil wars, and who to the tender ness of English wives united the calm courage of matrons of Rome, tell us what they D e w , what they did, and what they suffered, in language so natural, simple, and beautiful that their works have ranked first in thi s department of literature. They are printed, moreover, in a form which is neither volu minous nor expensive. Yet the author of the work before us has actually mi xe d these two memoirs together and given a version of them in her own words ! She might as well have given a new version of Macbeth. Many interesting particulars aro omitted, especially the strange circumstances attending Lady Fanshawe's birth, and the death of her mother fifteen years afterwards. Another life is that of Margaret Fuller, whose memoirs have lately been published. She was a governess for some time in a school in America ; there she formed a class of grown-up persons who assembled to learn from her how to converse! she also wrote for a newspaper, edited by our old friend Mr. Greeley, who so much admired the yellow marble of which London is chiefly built! finally, she went to Italy and married privately a gentleman named Ossoli, whom she accidentally met in the streets of Rome. A child was born, they had no money, and the American Consul gave them enough to take them ,to New York. The vessel in which they sailed was lost on the American coast, and they perished with her. Margaret Fuller said that she had met every person worth knowing in America, an d that intellect. Lives one of them was her equal in Lives of Mary L. Ware and Lady Sale complete this volume of 408 pages. There are eight illustrations by Birket Foster, of which the frontispiece is well done. The author's hist;iry more resembles that of Mrs. Macaulay than that of Mr. Macaulay, and her biographi cal labours were scarcely called for. Six Months in Italy. By George Stillman Hillard. London : Murray. " ANOTHER unsatisfactory book on Italy!" was our involuntary exclamation when this work was put into our hands; yet the perusal of a few pages proved that our first judgment was premature, and that the author (who is an American gentleman) is entitled to consider able credit for having read and thought much upon the subject, and for having had the courage to write upWards of seven hundred pages or more after a sojourn of only s ix months in a country which a residence of as many years would scarcely make him ac quainted with. It seems to us that this work presents a double aspect to the reviewer, and must be handled according as it be intended for English or American readers. Its volumi• nous character will prove a great imped iment toits circulation in this country ; for the author appears to think that he is singular in having visited Italy ; and the constant enunciation of the most obvious truisms, and the grave rela tion of facts which have been detailed with every species of circumstance from the time of Eustace down to the publication of the last editions of Mme. Starke and Murray, naturally tend to diminish the interest of the book in the eyes of those who are familiar with the scenes described. Thus the author tells us that at Venice " the churches are numerous " and full of interest " (though, by the WRY , he only seems to have seen one or two that are worth a visit) ; that at Florence "St. IA " renzo is interesting from its association with " the Medici family, and from the light shei.l, " upon it by the genius of Michael Ang elo; that, " when Rome - is viewed from a distance, " the dome of St Peter's is the central p oint " of observation; " and that " the museum of " the Vatican is the first in the world, and " comprises the highest triumphs of paMtini "in the frescoes of Raphael and Michae " Angelo." As this book may be regarded as a species of popular and discursive handbook, ,wehalo I , I