The Press. — London, England, 1854-05-13 00:00:00

450 preached at St. Pancras, by the Rev. Thomas Dale, but it is scarcely equal to his general style. A Charge to the Clergy of Sierra Leone (Seeleys), by Doctor Vidal, is rather too vague, and not suffi ciently local in its matter. In War—ls it un. Christian l (Seeleys) the Peace Society is instructed by " A Soldier." The Rev. Mr. Owen, in Young England (Seeleys), gives admonitions to the grow ing manhood of the country, delineating the errors of theorists and the vices of voluptuaries. The Two Sacraments (Seeleys) is the title of the republication of addresses delivered by the Rev. Mr. Witts, in which " Baptism " and " The Lord's Supper" are treated of with much earnestness. In The Cross and the Age (Seeleys) a " Christian Layman" pre sents us with the first number of his series of " Tracts for the Times." He writes with pietistic spirit, but some will object that a fanciful and sentimental vein of thinking appears to predominate in his views. The Philosophy of a Sunbeam (Seeleys), by the Rev. Edwin Sidney (Rector of Cornard Parva), is an interesting excursus in a branch of natural theology. Its style is pleasing and popular, and well suited for making impression on the young. A Voice from the Pulpit (Judd), by the Rev. T. G. Horton, is a delineation of the prin cipal features of an European war. In treating his subject the preacher unconsciously intruded on the peculiar province of the political writer ; but, though his matter is not new, there is some ability in the discussion of the question. In Our Language before the Flood (Piper and Co.) the Rev. J. Curtis en deavours to adduce evidence which, in the author's opinion, tends to show "that the language in which " the events narrated by Moses in the first few books " of Genesis are recorded is mainly, if not altogether, "derived from and originated in the events themselves " and the consequences resulting therefrom." There is some display of erudition in this first number of a work intended to be a serial ; but, in addition to other reasons which we need not specify, philologists will question some of the writer's assertions, and logicians will complain of his want of closeness in argument. In Gog and Magog, or the Doom of Russia (Piper and Co.), the author, " Angel," makes considerable use of "the liberty of prophesying." In the historical events since the first French Revolu tion he sees certain declarations in Revelations (xvi. 10 and 11) fulfilled. His views are cloudy and vague. Do You Love God ? and Waters Wear the Stones (Seeleys), are affectionate admonitions on our religious duties, by the Rev. John W. Lester, of Ashton Hayes, near Chester. Truths Maintained (Aylott and Co.), by James Biden, is the title of a collected series of tracts in which the author dogmatises on theology, without much regard to the graces of style. We do not approve of his mode of studying Church history. A Quietus for the Coming Struggle (Groombridge) is an exercitation, by " Presbyter," on the declarations in Revelations and Daniel. One of the most remarkable features of the present season is the great number of religious works that attempt to expound the prophecies of Holy Writ. Some Account of the Brigade of hospital Conveyance Carts attached to the Army :in the East, &c. London: Renshaw. To Lieutenant-Colonel Tulloh, of the Royal Artillery, and to Mr. Guthrie, the credit is due of forming an improved ambulatory hospital for the use of an army in the field. " The first principle of military medical " conveyance being that wherever a gun can go a " spring-cart should be able to follow," it is obvious that many difficulties had to be overcome before the requisite combination of strength, lightness, and space could be obtained. The improved hospital cart can not only move faster than troops can march, but can even keep up with horse artillery, while the cost of each is only 251. The following extract from " Mr. Guthrie's commentaries in surgery for the im " mediate exigencies of a field of battle" may be useful elsewhere : "3. Simple gun-shot wounds require nothing more, for the first two or three days, than the application of a piece of wet or oiled lint or linen, fastened on with a strip of sticking plaister, or, if possible, kept constantly wet and cold with water. When cold disagrees, warm water should be substituted. "4. Wounds made by swords, sabres, or other sharp cutting instruments, are to be treated principally by posi tion. Thus a cut down to the bone, across the thick part of the arm, immediately below the shoulder, is to be treated by raising the arm to or above a right angle with the body ; in which position it is to be retained, however inconvenient it may be." Oaths of Allegiance a Security for National Inde pendence. By Pierce Connelly, M.A. London : Hatch ard. THIS pamphlet is a letter addressed to J. C. Col quhoun, Esq., in which the writer argues that alle giance to Rome and temporal allegiance to a Pro testant Sovereign cannot coexist in equilibrium ; that they are contradictory; that a constant struggle is THE PRESS. going on between them which will result in the com plete triumph of one or the other. " Shall we wait " till Popery shall have gone on gaining strength " some five and twenty more ? Or shall we resolve " at once to try the issue ? to settle now which of the " two shall be the master ? This, my dear sir, seems " to me to be the question which Lord John Russell " really brings before the country and the Parliamint " in the Oaths of Allegiance Bill. This pamphlet is written without bigotry. The author, as is well known, was formerly a Roman Catholic. PERIODIC AL LITERATURE. The Art-Journal. London: Arthur Hall, Virtue, and CO. THE last number keeps up the reputation of this journal. The principal engravings, Landseer's " War," and a portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds, are in the highest style of excellence. The former is engraved by L. Stocks, the latter by T. W. Hunt. Macphail's Edinburgh Ecclesiastical Journal and Literary Review for May. London : Simpkin, Marshall, and Co. WE have here four articles of average merit, and one on " The Grave of l'rofessor Wilson." The latter will perhaps most attract the attention of the general reader. But truth compels us to state that the writer wholly mistakes and overrates the position which the late distinguished professor held in the world of letters and learning. "Gorgeous," "splendid," " Shaksperean," are epithets not applicable to his compositions, either in prose or verse ; neither is it correct to say that his poems were " hailed with " boundless delight." In describing his lectures, " the fervid eloquence, the far-stretching intellect, " and the boundless mental wealth of the teacher," are said to have absorbed " all the admiration " of the hearers. Yet, notwithstanding these surpassing powers, his deportment in society was gracious. " Every person might be at ease in his company, yet " every person so situated felt he was in the conde " scending society of a king of men." So much can be said with truth and judgment in favour of the late professor's learning, literary excellence, and varied social powers, that we have thought it right to notice this indiscriminating eulogy, the superla tives of which are inapplicable not only to Professor Wilson, but to the greatest man that ever lived. O'Byrne's Encyclopedia of the War. Part I. London : Skeet. This is the first number of a work designed to supply a want which all who have had to collect materials for a narrative of any public event must have expe rienced. Scattered in newspapers, annual registers, blue books, and gazettes, the labour of obtaining and arranging authorities is immense. This Mr. O'Byrne (a relative, we believe, of the naval O'Byme) de signs to obviate by compiling a history of the war as events occur. The geography of the belligerent countries will be described, and the biography of those whom events make conspicuous supplied. This, the first number, is well executed; but, as the author, to ensure accuracy, is compelled to keep in the rear of newspapers, it will be more interesting years hence than now. The Life and Adventures of Dick Diminy the Jockey. No. VIII. By Priam. London : Vickers. THE eighth part of this tale is as exiting and melodramatic as its predecessors. Sir Brigwell Fleece, the rascally baronet, and St. Leger Bolt, the Protean blackleg, after a personal conflict in which they half strangle each other, become allies in iniquity. The latter, " who can be a gentleman " when he pleases," fascinates several distinguished members of the nobility, both male and female, by the force of certain puns and compliments which we previously supposed were only potent on the stage of minor theatres. However, there is ample incident in this number of Dick Diminy; and the parody of the vaticinations of the " prophets " whom sporting papers keep on their establishments is amusing. PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED. Booxs. The West Indies before and since Emancipation. J. Davy, M.D., F.B.S. Cash. Addison's Works. Vol. 111. Bishop Hurd. Bohn. Locke's Works. Vol. I. Ditto. Mrmoira and Correspondence of Mgjor•General Sir W. Nott. J. H Stocqueler. Hurst and Blackett. Oakfield. I). Arnold. Longman and Co. Weiss on English Education. Ditto. Marmont's Turkish Empire. Sir F. Smith, R.E. Harrison. Angelo. Bentley. Julie. F. Carlen. Ditto. 7'urkey, Russia, the Black Sea, and Circassia. Captain Spencer. Routledge. llo.ipitals and Sisterhoods. Murray. Leaves from My Journal. Lord Robert Grovenor. Ditto. Handbook for Turkey. Third Edition. Ditto. SATURDAY The Oki Printer and the Modern Press. C. Knight. Ditto. Major Thorpe'e Narrative. Seeleys. Ministering Children. Ditto. On the Prugression of a Teacher. Miss Sarah Jolly. Ditto. PAMPHLETS. Confirmation, Rev. B. L. Nitta. Ditto. The Two Sacraments. Rev. B. L. Witte. Ditto. The Cross and the Age. No. H. Ditto. The Love of Pleasure. A Lecture by the Rev. H. Stowell. Ditto. I Hearkened and I Heard. Rev. J. Lister. , Ditto. The People's Budget. Wilson, Fun Jottings. N. P. Willis. Rowe. 3farriage in Mayfair. A Comedy. Saunders and Otley. Why are we at War with Russia t Hardwicke. ()n the Working of the Municipal Corporation and Public Health Bills. Colonel S. Bullock. Ridgway, The Representatives of the Greek Preposition. J. H. Kaye. lint gds. ROYAL ACADEMY. [ Second Notice.] No. 192, " The Rape of the Lock," by Mr. Leslie, R.A. This class of subject has been worn a little threadbare. To be handled with effect the painter should borrow the pencil and the palette of Watteau. The nymphs and shepherds of his Arcadia are always the living ladies and gentlemen of the Court of Louis XIV., though in masquerading attire. Our modern imitations are unreal and lifeless, and sug gest no more the personages of past times than of those in which we live. A strict attention to costume is peremptorily demanded, and this Mr. Leslie has neglected. One of bis ladies wears a cloak, while another is in a riding-dress, and brandishes her whip over the tea-table, though the scene is the drawing room of the " gracious Anna" in her palace at Hampton. No. 157, "Life at the Seaside," by Mr. Frith, R.A. A picture that has been deservedly commended for the dexterity with which it is painted and the variety it presents. It is to this variety, however, that we are inclined to object as excessive. The groups are so crowded that we are reminded rather of the Margate steamer than of its sands. There is too much of studied contrast in the groups; the distance approaches the foreground too nearly ; due subordination is not preserved ; and among such a multiplicity of objects, to all of which a nearly equal degree of importance is given, effect must necessarily be wanting. No. 361, " Second Class—the Parting," by Mr. A. Solomon. The subject is simple and touching. A widowed mother accompanies her boy to the seaport at which he is to embark on his first voyage. We could wish that the painter in his anxiety to give in terest to the principal female figure had not idealised the face and attitude. The expression of the boy, however, cannot be overpraised. The reddened brow denotes the grief that his firm eye tells us he can re tain and control. His whole countenance shows the mixture of awe and resolution with which he enters an unknown world—his consciousness of danger and his courage to resist it. We read in the speaking countenance of that boy all that renders a man amiable in private and respectable in public life—a kindly and even a tender nature united with patient courage and fearless devotion to duty. The tender ness of this group, which is farther increased by the artless sorrow of the sister, is finely contrasted with the gay indifference of a jolly tar, seated behind with his buxom bride, bound to the same destination, but with no feeling of doubt or uncertainty to dash the pleasure of the hour. The excessive attention that a certain class of mo dern painters lavish even on the least important de tails of their pictures induces us to offer a few remarks on this subject. The principle of Sir Joshua Reynolds to sacrifice all the accessories of his pictures to the general effect may per haps have been carried by him, and the admirable artists his contemporaries, to an excess. Their practice, however, was far more in accordance with that of the great masters of the sixteenth century than the method since adopted ; and, what is still more important, is truer to nature. When the eye is fixed upon one object, or,one group of objects (as it always must be), as a centre, the surrounding objects become subordinate, and lose all sharp ness of outline and strength of colour, nor do they recover their natural distinctness until the eye is directed towards them. Mr. Sant, in his "Children of the Wood" (No. 334), has mate rially injured his effect by the brilliancy and multi plicity of the objects with which he has surrounded the orphans, and the introduction of which is pecu liarly ill-fitted to the scene and to the story. The various vegetable productions with which the wood abounds are all made out with a bewildering and misplaced accuracy; and the whole is lighted with a brilliancy which is still farther removed from poeti cal truth. The well-known ballad represents the wood as not less drear and dismal than the purpose of "the cruel uncle." _ti