The Press. — London, England, 1854-11-04 00:00:00

IP" - NOVEMBER 4, 1854. seeking after distraction—ruined speculators in seedy coats and battered hats—impudent gamin: de Paris ridiculing everybody and everything—sleek curds with prayer-books under their arm, trying to look as if they had strayed into the temple of Plutus by mistake— and peasants in blouses, with huge shirt collars, and wooden shoes, and, if from Normandy, iu nightcaps also, gazing below with glistening and greedy eyes, as if they expected to see cartloads of gold and silver coin brought forth and distributed amongst them. Outside the Bourse, round by the railings, and in *all weathers—for, alas ! the authorities of the temple do not pique themselves on polite ness—are to be seen groups of women, chiefly cooks or concierges, iu dingy shawls and white caps, fine ladies in silks and satins—all mixed together poll-well, and all chattering at once. Once upon a time the fair creatures were per mitted to transact their petite: ajitires within the edifice ; but they made such an awful clatter that they had to be excluded. One o'clock strikes, a bell rings, and from a back room pour into the large hall some twenty or thirty gentlemen with lead pencils and little books. They take their places in a cir cular space fenced in such a way as to resemble a lady's work-basket. These are the agent de change, and from some inscrutable reason they present greater varieties of the genus honor than any equal number of men taken at hazard anywhere could possibly do. Some are excessively tall, others extremely short—some outrageously fat, and others in decently lean—some you see are jovial fel lows, some sour as vinegar—some to all appearance reckless spendthrifts, and others grasping curmudgeons—some paltry fops, and others en neglige. No sooner have they arrived in the work-basket than they begin shouting and gesticulating at one another with great violence. It might be supposed that, like gentlemen in the fish markets, they are dealing out insults as the preliminary to a combat, but they are only buying and selling—that is, only asking a colleague if he will take so much Three per Cent. at such a price, or so many Northerns at so much, and his answering that he will, or he won't. Meanwhile the crowd in the ball has become denser, and every man in it talks and shouts, and no man listens; and everybody pushes about everybody, in order probably to make room for himself to—like the gentlemen in the basket—gesticulate at ease. A stranger not knowing where he was would think himself in Bedlam. And as time wears on the agent shout louder, are more fierce in their ges tures, and rush to and fro as if making frantic attempts to escape from their basket; whilst louder and hoarser becomes the shout ing of the speculators around, and in their excitement they move to and fro like tempest tossed waves. What a scene ! What a tumult ! And every now and then the uproar is increased by the arrival of telegraphic des patches. " The funds at London have fallen ! Sell !" roar fifty people at once to the poor agent, arid, strange to say, in spite of the fear ful din, the agent seem to understand them. " Sebastopol is taken ! Hurrah ! Vive l'Em " pereur ! Buy ! Buy !" And the specula tors dance with delight, and hug each other, and send their hats flying in the air. " Sebas " topol is not taken ! The despatch was " false !" A loud yell of anguish arises, the speculators roar, " Sell !" and, in a state of fearful excitement, fight their way to the basket, and, grasping their agent de change by the collar, exclaim hoarsely, " Sell, 1 tell you! " Sell !" The philosopher would find the two hours daily scene at the Paris Bourse full of painful instruction ; and the most unreflecting of men could hardly witness it without a shudder, so strikingly does it prove the fearful power of gold, and the terrible fascination of gam bling. But what takes place at the Bourse, bad as it is, is but an imperfect indication of the extent and intensity with which the mo dern Parisians are afflicted with the auri sacra fames, and of the desperate recklessness with which they plunge into stock-jobbing specula tions in the vain hope of becoming rich with out the fatigue of years of labour. In England we love and reverence mere wealth infinitely more than we ought to do; and there is a THE PRESS. class amongst us who would have recourse to any expedients to get it ; but in Englund we still look on the man of ancient lineage, and the squire of hereditary acres, and the coun try clergyman, and the man of book learning, with infinite respect ; and we still, in our hearts, rate them higher than the luckiest schemer in the City. But in France repeated revolutions and the democratic deluge have broken down all social distinctions, except such as are derived from wealth alone. In France the richest man is the best man, the most influential man, and the man who carries off all honours the State has to bestow. Hence, to be rich is the desire of every Frenchman ; peasant and prince, workman and scholar, trader and beggar—all are alike — all have indeed no other object in life. In Paris in particular, where the tremendous power of wealth is more strikingly seen, and its exquisite enjoyments more keenly appre ciated, the love of gold, in an immense num ber of individuals, becomes a sort of frantic passion, which leaves nu rest by day ur by night. If this rage for riches caused men to take to incessant and persevering labour, it would, if not altogether blameless, he at least not unworthy of admiration. But unfortu naoly, as we have intimated, it causes labour to be despised as too difficult, too slow, and too uncertain a means of rising. " Bah !" is the common expression amongst Pari sians, " I should be a fool to spend years on " years of the best period of my life in ignoble " drudgery to gain a paltry iudependence, " and, perhaps, from the hazards of commerce, " not gain it at all And so they all take to gambling—all turn to the Bourse. The ser vant girl and the workman save up a few hundred francs in the savings' bank, and then employ them in speculations in renter or shares; the trader employs his savings, and not unfrequently his capital also, in specula tion; the doctor and the lawyer only earn fees to speculate ; the doctor's wife and the lawyer's wife diminish their household ex ► penses to have money with which to specui late ; the duke speculates, and so does the duchess; the bishop and the cure speculate; even the savant and the author, when by chance a hundred-franc note falls iu their way, hurry off to the Bourse. The Bourse !—that is the national temple of modern France !—the Bourse—that is now a days the way by, which the modern French man, especially if he be a Parisian, seeks for wealth and greatness. It has been said that the common talk of agriculturalists is of bullocks ; but in these times most certainly the common talk of the Parisians is stocks and shares; and well it may be, for " out of " the utterance of the heart the mouth speak " eth!" How the polished Frenchman of the ancien reginze, who used to converse so brilli antly, would be astonished if he could visit a Parisian salon now ! " A great rise to-day " in the Threes !" would probably be the salutation of the master of the house, and " What do you think of the Mediterranean " line as an investment?" that of the mistress. Perhaps even the fair damsel whom he might invite to dance would say, in her most lan guishing tones, " Could you let me have " twenty Northerns at 840 f.?" and he need not be surprised if, on going home, his domestic were to exclaim in sorrow, " Sir ! I can't sell " my Spanish Threes !" When a whole people is thus bestock exchanged, it is natural that Stock-Exchangeisiu should find its way into their literature. Accordingly, in the last few months there have been a great many books published in Paris about the Bourse and the things of the Bourse. Some have been grave treati=es on financial matters; some have professed to be guides to the different sorts of speculations and investments ; some have been filled with accounts of tragic and comic adventures to which the Bourse has given rise ; some have exposed the tricks and artifices of speculators ; and some have related the edifying his tory of the most successful and most envied jobbers. Out of the batch we have selected the work before us, not that it is the best and most complete, but because it is the smallest and most varied In the compass of fewer than two hundred pages it explains what is the Bourse ; how a man becomes a stock- broker (agen de change) ; what is the flOitliSle which is being very constantly talked of in the newspapers ; what is the value of certain of the principal French securities ; how stock jobbers talk amongst themselves, and what are their notions of morality ; and it com prises, besides, several anecdotes and stories which are very amusing. The author—the name he assumes is, no doubt, a nom de guerre—is evidently practically acquainted with stock-jobbing business, and he writes with more facility and spirit than might have been expected from a member of the honourable fraternity of stockbrokers. We can recommend his book to such readers as may be anxious to take a peep at the arts, mysteries, and per sonages of the Paris Bourse. 1. Poetical Works of John Oldham. Edited by Robert Bell. 2. Poetical Works of Cowper. Vol. 111. With Selections from the Works of Lloyd, Cotton, Brooke, Darwin, and Hayley. Edited by Robert Bell. London : J. W. Parker and Son. \\roux we have praised many of the good qualities displayed in the " Annotated Edition of the British Poets," we have also takeq objections to some portions of the critical illustrations from the editor's vigorous pen. hi knowledge of his subject, and iu the varied qualities of mind required for so prolonged an undertaking, Mr. Bell shows that he has nearly all the requisites desired. But., like most labourers in the field of English litera ture, he leans rather too much to the side of mere vigour, and, when an author's matter is original, he is too apt to forgive the defects of execution. We confess that in the case of Oldham we feel ourselves at issue with Mr. Bell, and we shall be curious to learn how far this republi cation of Oldham's poems will be acceptable to lovers of British poetry. That he had great literary abilities we admit. He conceived vigorously, and wrote with too " fatal facility." Honoured with an encomiastic epitaph by Dryden, and distinguished by the notice of eminent persons in his day, his memory has had the advantage of reflected lustre to pro • serve it from obscurity. The subject of his " Satires on the Jesuits," and the genuine intensity of his literary politics, give the value of historical colour to his effusions. But, even seen from a favourable point of view, his mind was too rhetorical for a poet of the rank which Mr. Bell would appear to claim for him. Nor can we discuss what Oldham might have been if he had taken more pains. Such speculative considerations are beyond the scope of criti cism. The bays cannot be conferred proble matically. The question here is not as to equity of judgment. Whether Oldham's books ought to be preserved amongst the British poets is entirely to be decided by the taste of British readers. Frequently coarse in diction, rough to excess in rhyme, polemical in his best attempts, and with little of the purely ideal, he clues not present sufficient attractions to compensate for his faults. Take the following passage from the Horace's " Art of Poetry, Imitated" : Those who did first in tragedy essay, (When the vile goat was all the poet's day) Used to allay their subject's gravity With interludes of mirth and raillery; Here they brought rough and naked satyrs in, Whose farce•like geAtute, motion, speech and mien, Resemble those of modern harlequin ; Because such antic tricks, and odd grimace, Alter their drunken feasts on holidays, The giddy and hot•headed root would please: As the wild frets of mervy-fuidErws how, Divert the senseless crowd at Bartholomew. The roughness of this passage is charac teristic of all the author's verses. " Grimace," " holidays," and " please," are strange termina tions to join in a triplet. If this sort of blemish were only occasional it would not annoy, but even the best passages are disfigured by it Thus in one of his most energetic passages from the " Satires on the Jesuits " let the rhymes of the first couplet be observed Dare something worthy Newgate and the Tower, If }null be canonised, and Heaven insure. Dull primitive fools of old who would be good, Who would by vines nick ski &Wood dodo J'"