The Press. — London, England, 1856-03-15 00:00:00

MARCH 15, 1856. A Month at Malvern Under the Water Cure. By R. T. Lane. Spirits and Water. By the Same Author. London : Mitchell. MR. LANE bas given us two lively little volumes — the one containing an account of his cure at Mal vern, under Dr. Wilson, of water - cure celebrity ; the ot h e r a walking tour in Wales, and one or two stories, wilich are always told with spirit. The history of the patients' lives at Malvern is very interesting ; and cer t a inly, if it be not a little coloured,we must admit that water works wonders. PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.-MARCH 13. BOOKS. Throat Ailments. James Yearsley. Churchill. .llcdce Eionenses. Edidit Ricardvs Okes, Be S.T.P. ll and Daldy. The Daisy Chain. J. W. Parker and Son. The Bombay Calendar and Alsnanack jor WA. Bombay : Times Press. Gleanings after " Grand Tour"—ists. Bosworth and Harrison. The Mercantile and Maritime Guide. Glasgow : Mackenzie. The Publishers' Circular. Sampson Low and Co. THIS FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF NATteNS are much less apt to be influenced by accidental events than is generally imagined. . . . May we be allowed to hope that the time is approaching (not rapidly, or by violent changes, but slowly and quietly, like all those arrangements of nature which tend to the substan tial improvement of the species) when the establish ment of equal rights and rational systems of regular government over the whole of Europe shall diminish yet farther the consequences attached to the capriies and accidental fates of individuals, and shall reduce to complete order all the circumstances that affect the intercourse of nations; so as to subject their whole movements to certain general and invariable laws, to reduce every eccentricity of course, and to correct all accidental inequalities or alterations in the system.—Lord Brougham's Contributions to the ‘. Edinburgh Review." THE HOSPITAL. AND THE COLLEGE.—IS it any wonder that the hospital and the college, wide as they seem apart, if one looks at them from one point of view, should still retain marks of relation ship and of a common descent ? Every hospital which exists in London has produced an eminent college or school. Nearly every college which has been founded of late years has sought alliance with an hospital. You see it must be so. Guy, the book seller, might merely intend to provide a hospital for a number of sick people, but if any good is to come to these sick people, if they are not merely to suffer terribly, to die and to be buried, there must be a staff of medical men to look after them. These medical men must have a scientific knowledge as the basis of their experience—they must cultivate that knowledge by experience—they must have younger helpers to do the work which they have not time to do. These they must educate by direct in struction in books, and by all the fund of practical wisdom which the sufferers in the hospital supply. Thus a school or a college grows up in the very heart of the hospital to meet its necessities. Or if there is the college already, as in the case of Univer sity College and King's College, one vast field of humai culture must be disregarded or moat imper fectly tended, unless a hospital can be raised in which the information given by lectures may be tested, and illustrated, and expanded. This union I regard as one of those wonderful blessings which seem to be created by our necessities or our ingenuity, but are really the fulfilment of a Divine Purpose; our circumstances being used as the in. strument for making us understand and realise good that, if we had been left to our own devices, we should have MiSS6e. utterly.—Rev. F. D Maurice, Lectures to Ladies. GUIDE BOOKS IN THE UNITED STATES.—The town of St. Louis had, when I visited it, no less a popula tion than 120,000. The Catholic church, though simple, is extremely pretty. My first walk was to this church, my inducement thereto being the follow ing description, which I had read in the St. Louis Directory for the year:—" The cathedral at St. Louis is unrivalled in the United States for the elegance and costly magnificence of its sacred vessels, its pic tures, and decorations ; and few churches in Europe are in possession of similar treasures. There are pictures by Rubens, Raphael, Guido, Paul Veronese, and many others by the first masters of the Italian school." From thi s d escr ipti on I was led to hope for the enjoyment of a fine picture-gallery, as well as of other p rec i ous works of art ; but, to my infinite astonishment, I f ound that these treasures ex i s t e d _almost solely i n th e i mag i nat i on o f th e writer. There were no works o f ar t, b u t four oil pictures, and of T these only one that could possibly be ascribed to the old masters. It is common enough to find exag gerations and colouring in the statements of travel lers, but such a piece of downright falsehood as this I had not before met with.—lda Pfeiffer's Second J ourn.y Round the World. THE PRESS. Etc glrama. HAY MARKET.—We can only briefly glance at Mr. Bayle Bernard's clever domestic comedy brought out here on Monday evening. The play attracts rather by brilliancy of dialogue than by power of charac• terisation, effectiveness of situation, or complexity of plot ; and the personage? presented are, with one ex c lotion, mere mouthpieces for smart repartees, an incessant fire of which is kept up, with unflagging spirit, by every individual that appears on the scene, down to the very servants, who, like the domestics in Sheridan's comedies, are quite as ready with a good antithesis or a ludicrous comparison as their masters and mistresses. Mr. Compton's finished represen• tAtion of the one character of the piece, the deaf country postman, with his peculiar views on the de livery of letters, his love for long stories utterly irrelevant to the business in hand, his bad memory, and his slow, laborious utterance, was a carefully studied bit of art, and the man looked deaf, walked deaf, and talked deaf. The, mise•en scene was excellent. We propose to give a longer notice on a future occasion. A Sp 111 the vel Ott tht oel thi TI Ti Td GI, TA Ti sp Be tft ch an tia go ye . an to th, wt 181 co: th, 6. we tit Pu sh ex Or fOl he se al to to sti ID be th ye tit st wi TI hE th sll ht fe wl to re se in PI st SE st L of Si ti to ltl D is tt a 8 , tl 0 a 7 fttusir. EXETER-MALL—The concert given by Mme. Gold schmidt and her husband, in aid of the Nightingale Fund, attracted a largo and brilliant audience on Tues. day night, notwithstanding the high price of the seats, the whole of which were reserved at a guinea each. Nearly two thousand tickets were sold. Making all necessary abatements, therefore, for the expenses of the entertainment, a balance will remain over, as a contribution to the fund, well worthy the greatness of the occasion, awl the known liberality of Jenny Lind. The programme was, on the whole, admirably selected. Perhaps the instrumental compositions might have been more sparingly introduced, with benefit to the majority of the audience, to whom the highest class of purely instrumental music is always fatiguing; but the vocal pieces chosen were, without any doubt, not only the best specimens of ea.h class of composition which they served to illustrate, but also the best as calculated to display the varied resources of the great singer by whom they were principally execute.t. It included Mendelssohn's hymn, " Hear my I'rayer, 0 God," the soprano part in which was sung by Mme. Goldschmidt with a devotional intensity of expression peculiar to herself ; an arrangement of the 130th Psalm by M. Gold schmidt, displaying more musical knowledge than feeling or inventive power, and furnishing another illustration of the old Greek proverb, " Half is greater than the whole; " an air, with chorus, from Rossini's Turco in Italia, " squallida veste ;" the " Horst du," from the Camp of Silesia ; and the "Alziam gli evviva," quartet and chorus, from Eury anthe. The instrumental pieces were Mozart's symphony in G minor, Bethoven's Chorale Fantasia, and Weber's Concertstack , the piano parts in which were carefully and conscientiously played by M. Goldschmidt, and the clever overture to the Tempest by the conductor, M. Benedict. A chorus from Beethoven's Ruins of Athens concluded the concert. FIELDING'S FIRST MARRIAGE.—MISS Cradocx VMS not a portionless beauty. She had a fortune at her own disposal of 1,5001., by no means an insignificant sum in Fielding's eyes. Nor was this his only de pendence. A small estate, situated at East Stour, in Dorsetshire, had come into his possession after his mother's death, and offered him and his young bride an asylum in the country. Peace, happiness, and competence were now within his grasp. Soon after his marriage he settled in Dorsetshire, and commenced a new course of life. He preposterously resblved to become a squire of the first magnitude. He determined to show the rude squirearchy of Dorset how superior to their order was the London bred gentleman. Family pride also whispered to him the expediency of keeping up an appearance corresponding to the dignity of the distinguished race from whence he sprang. Accordingly, Squire Fielding soon began to create a sensation in the country. His mansion was the scene of profuse hospitality and riotous enjoyment. His horses and hounds were numbered among the glories of the neighbourhood. His equipage otyvied in splendour and elegance the carriages of his richer neighbours. and the yellow liveries of his serving -men were ion g held in remembrance. Directly the glories of a suit were dimmed or soiled, it was thrown aside, for the rustic flunkeys considered it their duty to keep up the squire's character by the lustre of their personal appearance. The day of reckoning came. In a very short time Fielding found all was spent and gone. The roar of mirth, the deafening cheer, the splendid liveries, prancing horses, staring rustics, full-mouthed dogs, faded before him like some "insubstantial pageant." He bad been generous, hospitable, pro fuse ; and what was his reward? Those who sat at meat with him now ridiculed his extravagance. Even the gaping boors of the neighbourhood cracked their heavy jokes at his expense.—Latorence's Life of Fielding. 259 THE ROYAL LITERARY FUND. THE above institution held its annual general meeting on Wednesday, at the rooms of the society, in Great Russell-street. Mr. Bond Cabbell, M.P., was in the chair, and an unusually large meeting of members, including among others the Rev. Dr. Whewell, Dr. Croly, Mr. Charles Dickens, Mr. Monckton Milnes, M.P., Mr. Mike, Mr. Forster, !cc. The yearly statement of receipts and expenditure having been read, Mr. C. W. Mum, pursuant to notice, rose to move : That, whereas during the eleven years from 1R44 to IR-i4, both inclusive, the cost of assisting 477 applicants to the Literary Fund amounted to 5,6011. 13s. 7d. ; and whereas the cost of assisting 624 applicants to the Artists' General Benevolent Fund wiihin the same eleven years amounted to 9941. 4s. 101; this meeting is of opinion that the expenses of managing the Literary Fund are unreason able, and that a great change must be made in the admi- nistration of its affairs. Mr. Dilke then briefly called attention to the com. parative cost of management between the two socie ties as instanced in the year 1855, when forty-eight applicants were relieved by the Literary Fund, at a cost of 389/. 17s. ad., for salaries, &c. ; while sixty five were relieved by the Artists' Fund, at a cost of 571. 3s. He thought these facts must carry convic tion to every mind. Mr. W. B. PROCTOR seconded the motion. Mr. ROBERT BELL opposed the motion : The facts of Mr. Dilke's motion were not to be disputed, but there was an essential difference between the two funds, which had not been stated, in the circumstances of each and in their mode of making grants. (Hear ) There was little or no necessity to inquire as to the applicants for assistance to the Artists' Fund, because artists were generally well known ; but that was not the case with the Literary Fund, inasmuch as literary men, whom it sought to relieve when in distress, did not form a distinct class easily recognisable like artists. The claims of applicants to the Literary Fund required to be carefully and delicately investigated. He thought it most important that they should strictly understand in what the expenditure of the Literary Fund consisted, which the resolution characterised as " unreasonable." The expenses to which Mr. Dilke objected consisted chiefly of two items—namely, the rent of the house and the salary of Mr. Blewitt, the secretary. It was idle for any one to speak in general terms of the extravagance of the committee or the society, when they could at once put their hands on the actual items on which the charge of extravagance was based. The amount of business devolving on the committee of the Literary Fund, he contended, was ten times larger than that transacted by the Artists' Fund. Mr. CHARLES DICKENS disputed some of Mr. Bell's statements. There was an unquestionable analogy between the Artists' and Literary Funds, and he thought the reference made in the resolution to the comparative expenditures of the two funds a con vincing proof of the mismanagement of the Literary Fund. He would separate the question from its details. It seemed to be regarded by the committee as rather a model sort of thing than otherwise that they should expend 401. of other people's money in giving away 1001.: But in case any ill conditioned spirits here (continued Mr. Dickens) should ask what can justify such a scale of expenditure, I will endeavour to supply the answer cut of my experience. I went lust June to Willis's-rooms, St. James's, a place of highly fashionable rescrt—l went to see all I could, and to sa, as little as I possibly could. Allowing for the absence of the fairer and younger portion of the female sex, it appeared to rue that the assembly might very justly be compared to Almack's in the morning. ( Laughter.) Various highly respectable dowagers were ranged in a row. T:,e ball was opened by a noble marquis supported by other noble marquises, who having walked a minuet, a member of the House of Commons took the floor—a mere commoner as yet, but still a gentleman of high character and great position ; to him succeeded a dis tinguished lard—the son of a distinguished lord—and to him a bishop. (Loud laughter.) To him succeeded a member of the bar, a learned taxing-master; and at length, in an interval of the theatricals, a man more immediately connected with literature--though, of course, not. consi dered very respectable—was allowed to step in and sustain the part of Pariglos, and delight the audience by explaining that this was the hest of all possible societies, conduct, d under the best of all possible management, at the best 4 f all possible expenditure, and with the best of all possib'e funds. (Cheers and laughter.) It is in these things—it is by our being so stupendously genteel—by keeping up such a fashionable appearance—by giving way to the common social vice of being permitted to hold on to great connections at any price—that our money goes. ( Hem, hear.) Why, sir, the very last distinguished writer of fiction whom you cau o rrht for your public dinner told yon in return for drinking his health somewhere towards the small hours of the morning, that he felt like the servants in plush, who are permitted to sweep the stage when there are no more great people to come on ; and I myself, some where about twelve years ago, felt like a kind of Rip Van Winkle reversed, who hail gone to sleep for a hundr. d years, and, waking, found the fund surrounded with ad juncts awl associations, from which I wish so much to see it emancipated. - - The house and the secretary he regarded as a p: posterous pretence, and, finally, he begged respectfully and strongly to put it to, tt• members of this institution that they must decide what this Literary Fund was, and what it was not—what it was for and what it was not tor. (Hear.) The question arose