The Press. — London, England, 1858-09-04 00:00:00

THE PRESS, SEPTEMBER 4,1858. Critics assure us that, by a comparison of dates, this story refutes itself, since it is not possible Solon should have been at the court of Sardis in Crcesus's reign. The objection is one of little weight. Are the dates that we Misch to ancient history more worthy of our confidence than popular stones, deeply impressed as the latter ever have been on the minds of all succeeding generations? If, in submission to the criticism of the nineteenth century, we relinquish these stories, the plums and sweetmeats of hi s tory are gone. It is no longer cake, but dry bread, or rather old crusts, to be digested only by learned writers on rigi n n which volumes are fruit of n ations and l a nguages, the interpretation of the o myths, and each like things, upo ful of fewer practical results than one such story as this of Solon and Cnesus. My youthful readers, then, at least, will resolve with me to keep fast hold of our pretty stories. We think we observe that our author becomes less critical in dealing with Greek history. The truth is that, if we omit these " pretty stories," which, in most cases, are all that people remem ber, we must make the authentic past interesting enough to serve as a substitute, either by vivid narratives of the really true and striking events, or by fully setting out the political lessons, his toric parallels, social life, and literary culture of the period. But, if we give nothing but intensely -dry crusts" with a number of " plums mingled with them, we must not be surprised to tind the crusts thrown away. Mr. Menzies does not, perhaps, pretend to have taken his materials at first hand, but a reference to Bishop Thirlwall, who, if we recollect right, has a note on the point, would have prevented what we think is a misconception, at page 287 : To plunder an enemy, or to exact tribute from an enemy, was honourable ; but debt was disgraceful, and tree degrading. When Cyrus became acquainted with the Asiatic Greeks he contemptuously spoke of their market-place as a quarter of the town devoted to the pur pose of mutual lying and deceit. We question whether, when Cyrus sneered at the Agora, he either viewed it as a place of trade or referred exclusively to the Asiatic Greeks. We fancy that he meant to ridicule the political palaver which went on there, and which, to a despotic sovereign, would doubtless seem a round about way of conducting business. In the following passage, also, relative to the Persian invasion of Greece, —which in other re spects is well put, and a good average specimen of Mr. Menzies 's style and treatment,—he seems, in the words we italicise, to misapprehend the general state of opinion on the subject : If not the most leviathan power the world has seen, there were at that time fewer obstacles to the universal dominion of Persia than have been opposed to the despots of later ages. This view of the subject is not the one which generally taken. To those who look at Salamis and Plates in the light which classic writers have since re flected upon them, the Greeks were a band of heroes, con fident in anticipated victory, and waiting only the opportm nay to deal a mortal blow at their great antagonist. But it was not so. They were distracted and divided—scarcely prevented by a sense of the common danger from prose cuting their own quarrels and separate interests—intent on no preparations, and, on the whole, sadly desponding about the final issue. The Greeks in Asia, originally of the same race with themselves, had long ago succumbed; and even the Athenian ambassadors, on their arrival at Sardis, had consented to send earth and water, the token •4 subjection to Persia; a concession for which their more icnorsnt fellow-citizens severely reprehended them on their return, yet the anecdote shows the impression which even the power of a satrap had made on the minds of the Athe nians. Long anterior to the battle of Marathon, and still mere daring the three years succeeding that battle, when the preparations for war in Persia were so vast as to inter ruin all ordinary business, the Greeks had lived in lively apprehension of the king, or the great king, as he was commonly called : and now that Darius, by his vigorous administration, had matte the centre' power at Suss to be felt throughout the empire, and had ccllected a considerable treasure, how was Grecian indepen dence to be maintained? Greece had not even the ad vantage which, at the height of Napoleon's military ascen dancy, still remained to England—the undisputed mas tery of the see—for the Asiatic Greeks were compelled to serve the Persians ; and the Phteniciaus, not inferior Oh that element to the Greeks, were in close alliance with the Persians. Again, in any other direction, what were the prospects for civil and social liberty ? The Romans were just then engaged in the harassing wars that succeeded the expulsion of the Taiquins. terminating, as Arnold thinks, in a tern -17117 suljugation of the city to a confederacy of the neighbouring states. Could Rome have resisted the tide of Persian &inquest had it overflowed Greece, and would not the Carthaginians have shunned a contest threatening re diminish their carrying trade and their mercantile Profits? Had Xerxes possessed a spark of Cyrus's mili tary genius, or a little of the good sense of Darius, or even the personal bravery wherein soldiers and princes are rarely deficient, the world would have been lost. Asia, not Europe, nag . ht for ages have presided over the civilize mankind, and given au Asiatic stein to society truly ever to be wiped out. " Classic writers " have not, we think, reflected 411 Y Mal light upoU Salamis! and Plata* aa that -• • which Mr. Menzies imputes to them. To begin with Herodotus,—a great part of his two latter books is taken up with a long and minute description of those very intrigues and quarrels which are alluded to in the above extract, and which went so far that ideas of submission were in some cases entertained. Then ~Eschylus, who had himself taken part in the contest, by no means gives the idea of "confidently anticipated victory." From what he says, it is plain that, whatever might be the result to the Persians, to the Greeks it was a matter of life and death :- I St iraill;`Exxiivwv,r•rt, 1) cietpoire arev:7l3', ixsuesfobTl EF caidac, yvraixac • YLY 'Tammy ayu.:v. If they had been " only waiting to deal a mortal blow " they would hardly have left the City of the violet crown, and the " sepulcres of their ancestors," to take their chance, while they committed the fortunes of Athens to wooden walls. The truth was, that, like Queen Elizabeth ' with the Spanish Armada, they would have been much better pleased if Darius and Xerxes had let them alone, but, having been attacked, they naturally "sharpened their cutlasses," and gave as good an account of the Persian as it was pos sible to do.—Probably Mr. Menzies has mistaken his own prepossessions, corrected by subsequent reading, for the general idea on the subject. We have already observed that the remembrance of such early impressions may be beneficial in writing a book of this sort; now this is an instance of disadvantage which may result from them. if there were many of such passages, we should consider the book rather pernicious than useful, because nothing makes the kind of people it is intended for more conceited than being taught to think that they have got hold of a number of " views not generally taken." Luckily Mr. Menzies has shown extreme moderation in the indulgence of conjecture or original specula tion of any kind, and has contented himself with a careful reproduction of his authorities. This speaks well for him ; and though a more thorough acquaintance with the Greek writers and the best modern commentators would have indefinitely improved the book, we can bestow very hearty commendation on it, as a whole, in its present form ; and we believe that there is a large class of readers who will draw from it both information and amusement which perhaps they will find nowhere else. 847 promise actions arc averted by the assumption insanity on the part of one of their admirers. None of these personages, however, have any thing to do with the story, which is carried on by a succession of jerks and snatches of scenes, now in Liverpool, now in New York, now back again among the servants,—" upstairs, downstairs, and " in my lady's chamber,"—and which have about the same effect on the mind as the rapid inter change of the slides of a very bad magic-lantern. There is so little meaning or purpose in the tale that it is difficult to see why it is told at all ; the hint given in the preface of an intention to satirize commercial avarice being not at all carried out except by an occasional remark in the author's own person. Of the comic characters the author writes that " a general portrait under a lame and " halt consideration, resolves itself into an indi " viduality "—a Pythagorean remark which, writing at a distance from libraries and learned persons, we have been unable to elucidate. In fact, Mr. Hastings's style is for the most part either above or below our comprehension ; he is always (to adopt for a moment his own sort of phraseology) either soaring on the pinnacle of hyperbolical metaphor or diving into the night cellars of provincial slang. He at one time adopts the fervid language in which an Alabama editor alludes to the national eagle and the star-spangled banner; at another expresses himself in the highly-exciting but somewhat difficult argot which the most sporting of our sporting contem poraries uses in his frolicsome moments. Thus, when Hiram Hall absconds (which in Liverpool, it seems, is facetiously called dying by sponta neous combustion ') we are told that— - - Hiram Hall knew no sombre hearse, or hollow mourning array, or black feathers marking the quadrangular coach that gives the last ride to mortality ; they did not nid-nod jocularly over his body, as if they hrd trumped a good card. The fact was, spontaneous combustion had followed suit, and caught a knave, who never gave a thought to the " final trump," but, finding his defeated stratagems scented, and partly tracked—cut the pack. He had lived by a methodical system of robbery, and surprised himself at his own success ; but the dark tide of his roguery became too strong, and overcame the pressure of the sluices. The day he died, the felonious member of the feline tribe crept forth from the fcetid bag. Elsewhere, certain architects are mentioned " that had neither the spirit of thought or [nor?] " feeling in their works, nor the biffin of a guess " at the first rudiments of Grecian architecture." What is the biffin of a guess" ? Mr. Hastings girds up all his powers for the description of a storm : The vessels hail for some days been wind bound, chafing and tossing on the waters that were a very calm to the waves of their elder sister—ocean. The wind then came from the south-east, but on the succeeding Sunday veered round to the south-west, and grew in the awful darkness and wildness of midnight to a tempestuous gale, sweeping from all points, and, like a general in the field, settled its throne in the full west, to see the carnage its gory sabre was to do From shore to ahcre the heaving tide, like a riderless steed. foamed and rose, and snot its briny spray across the winter fields. Each billow seemed an infuriate Neptune towering heavenwards, and crested with blanched snow, spurning their liquid footstool from their heels, and reading the riot act on their own demesne to the winds, and the iron sleet that jagged and ploughed it. The faithful ivy that had lain on the bosom of its old hall father, was torn away and scattered by the blast ; and the willow weeping on the frozen brook, snatched from its primrose couch, and dashed on the ice plateau. The mist rose up to heaven like incense offered by penitent waves, in prayerful plea to Him who had loosed the desolating elements from the hollow of his hand : and then fresh winds, that seemed to have taken breath in the lee of the mountain billows, tore round, and shred the smoking mist as a cloud of scythes. The following may be ironical, but there are so many similar absurdities that the author is hardly entitled to the benefit of the doubt (a practical joke of one of the youthful architects has driven his landlady's family for refuge to the lower regions) : When the faint streaks of morning light, through a misty damp atmosphere, looked in at the cellar window at Trinkett's abode, it defined the outline of three figures buddlirg together by the butler grate. A spiritless fire had been made behind the bars, and being washing week there were some large " pieces," such as tablecloths and quilts, not yet immersed. These did ti envelope the Mattlestoas in, and y crerything had been totally different the scene would have reminded an imaginative person of a midnight camp in the prairies. If Mr. Hastings has any talent at all, it is for the very bmadest farce. His madman in a railway-carriage, who talks a vast deal of non ' sense, and finally pricks his fingers with a hedge . hog placed in pocket by some young ladies • who have been irritated by the absurdity of his NEW NOVELS. Hartley Hall. By James Hastings. London : J. Blackwood. 2. A Friend in Need. A Romance. Three Vols. London : Bentley. 1. " HARTLEY HALL,"—which is the name of a person, not of a place,—is a tale of Liverpool life, professing to describe some of the humours, ras calities, and sentiments of that magnificently miscellaneous city. The story opens by the hero's father, Hiram Hall, absconding to America, leaving his wife and child behind, and taking with him a half-witted clerk. During the pas sage he joins a sharper in a robbery, but on its discovery manages to throw the blame on his accomplice, who is imprisoned at New York. Hall himself, by the death of a brother settled there, becomes possessed of a fortune ; repents, and embarks for Liverpool with the intention of paying his debts : but his accomplice, who has escaped, and whom he refrains from denouncing, returns in the same steamer, and, on its being wrecked at the mouth of the Mersey, strangles Hall out of revenge as they are swimming to shore. The son grows up with a taste for litera ture, falls in love, is disappointed partly by a rival, partly by the lady's death, it is not clear which ; transfers his affections to the rival's sister (!), marries, receives the confession of his father's dying murderer, succeeds to his father's American property (and we trust pays his debts— but Mr. Hastings has forgotten to set our minds at rest upon the point), adopts the half-witted clerk, and lives happy ever after as a successful author. The more sentimental and highllown portions arc relieved by a sort of underplot descriptive of the amours of a housemaid who hovers for some time on the brink of an interesting bigamy; and there is also a good deal of low-comedy business between two architects' clerks and their land lady's daughters, whose anticipated breach-of,. of