The Press. — London, England, 1855-04-14 00:00:00

that which has been in his own life, of anticipating that which shall be. Very strange! This clown is a creature that looks before and after. All the economy of his exist ence is adapted to one possessing these faculties ; he is descended from one who is in his grave ; those are climbing his knees who will be playing or working on this earth when he is in his grave. I cannot tell what these strange Bounds, so unlike the ordinary discourse which he hears when he is talking about the weather, or buying and selling in the market, mean to him, what kind of message they carry to him ; but I am quite sure it has something to do with these memories, and hopes, and fears of his ; that it joins itself to a number of vague feelings which he has had about other days, and about faces which he has seen and hands which he has pressed ; that it gives them a kind of distinctness which it had not before. I cannot explain how this comes to pass, and I am sure he could not. The music speaks to something within him, which the ordinary language does not speak to, something more near his own very self touching wires which that language does not reach, and making them vibrate. . . . Even the vulgarest street music is an education to the hearts of those who stand at the doors of pestilential dwellings to listen to it. Till that day which shall unseal all pent-up words, and reveal the secrets of all hearts, it may not be known what thoughts have been stirred up in human spirits by sounds that fell utterly dead upon our ears, what authentic tielin,„os of invisible things came to them through those channels when other avenues seemed to be closed; what awakenings of conscience, what aspirations after truths never yet perceived, what search fur treasures that had been lost. - - We have dwelt too long on Mr. 11Iaurice's main purpose to have space now for criticising his lectures in detail. They contain many profound thoughts and many striking beau ties. Persons who still think with Sir A. Alison that education has a dangerous ten dency may find food for consolatory reflection in this passage, showing how instruction pro motes order : I do not suppose that the only end of education is to make us free. It would not accomplish that object if it did not lead us to perceive an order in all that we do and in all that we think. Here, again, lam only enunciating a proposition to which we have all in some form or other given an assent. " Schoolmasters," says George Herbert, in an often-quoted passage, " deliver us to laws." Their business is not to supply a substitute for the paternal go vernment, or for the affection of the mother, but to make us understand the meaning of ordinances which are fixed for a whole society, and cannot be transgressed by any one without bringing down punishment; ordinances which are to be obeyed because they exist, but which are gradually to make their justice and wisdom apparent to us. These ordinances are not only imposed that the lessons may go on uninterruptedly—they are the most important part of the lesson. They help to make it intelligible to the boy how there should be rules of grammar and composi tion ; how it should be his obligation not to make false concords. On the other hand, the detection of his false concords, and the punishment of them, is part of his initiation into the principles of order. He finds that there are laws of speech which existed before his day, before his master's day, to which one as much as the other must conform himself. This is discipline and education united. We think it likely that these lectures will long outlive the " college " they were designed to promote. The men who are gratuitously devoting much of their time to the work are to be honoured; but, as regards labouring men, we are not sanguine of the result. But in success or failure Mr. Maurice will stand alone. He disclaims the aid of president and vice-presidents—of committee and subscrip tion-lists. He says : Either the teacher must boldly proclaim the Busby principle, and keep his hat on his head when the many headed king enters his school•room, in which case he will bepronounoed a direct rebel and probably be dismissed, or he must submit to a constraint which will destroy all harmony in his studies and all respect in his scholars. We admire the high principle of this tone, but we doubt whether it is either just or prudent. Even a schoolmaster or "principal" may be all the better for those controlling or opposing influences which teach him the necessity of self examination. Most of the institutions which make us what we are as a people are the result of that principle of asso elation which Mr. Maurice slights; and there may be real virtue as well as wisdom in some what modifying our own ideas to gain that support which only association can give. The passage, however, is eminently characteristic of the author, and may help us to understand how it is that with his distinguished ability he has yet effected so little and remained co inpa ratively so neglected. Sisters of Charity Abroad and At Home. By Mrs. Jameson. (A Lecture Delivered Privately, Feb. 14, 1855.) London : Longmans. Mas. JAMESON has good right to he heard upon any woman's question. She makes here an earnest ap peal, not upon the rights of woman, butfor their em- THE PRESS. ployment in a vocation peculiarly suited to their faculties, their sympathies, and their instincts. It is the woman's privilege, Mrs. Jameson contends, to share in the labours of this "working-day world," and at her own free choice to be permitted to direct her energies and devote those capabilities with which God han endowed her to the performance of her share of work in the great communion of labour : I know that many well-meaning, ignorant people in this country entertain the idea that; the existence of com munities of women, trained and organised to help in social work from the sentiment of devotion, is especially a Roman Catholic institution, belonging peculiarly to that Church, and necessarily implying the existence of nuns and nunneries, veils and vows, forced celibacy and seclusion, and all the other inventions and traditions which in this Protestant nation are regarded with terror, disgust, and derision. I conceive that this is altogether a mistake. The truth seems ome to amount to this : that the Roman Catholic Church has had the good sense to turn to account, and assimilate to it self, and inform with its own peculiar doctrines, a deep seated principle in our human nature,—a law of life, which we Protestants have had the folly to repudiate. Mrs. Jameson sketches the history of charitable sisterhoods from the seventh century, when we "find " communities of charitable women first mentioned " under a particular appellation." In our own land and day we have had ladies whose energy in good works might vie with the zeal of Angela da Brescia or Madame Legras. But when our eye first caught mention of one of these excellent persons, we thought the passage must relate to some Lady Barrymore who bad been the object of charitable care, not who solicited it for others : She attacked Home Secretaries, and she plagued magis trates ; no M.P. was safe from her ' • no Minister of State. I have heard men in o ffi ce say, " I dread the very sight of that woman 1" This lady was devoted to the reformation of juve nile delinquents, and, we learn, " made herself listened "to by her much speaking, and at length leavened '• the society in which she moved with her own feel ings, her own hopes, her own faith." As a practical question, Mrs. Jauieson advocates the expediency of charitable sisterhoods, on the ground that the neces sary qualifications for a hospital nurse, " obedience, " presence of mind, cheerfulness, sobriety, patience, " forbearance, judgment, kindness of heart, a light "delicate hand, a gentle voice, a quick eye," are hardly to be expected " for 141. 103. a year." Generally the work of the world is best done when pursued and remunerated as a trade or profession ; and if the payment of nurses be too low at present to secure the proper training and qualifications, why should not a higher rate be given ? We have no more right to expect amateur nurses than amateur surgeons or apothecaries. But the energies of some ladies languish for lack of employment, says Mrs. Jameson : As if in these present times we had not known women who in the midst of all the splendour of a luxurious home have perished by a slow wasting disease of body and mind, because they had nothing to do—no sphere of activity com mensurate with the large mental powers or passionate energy of character with which Clod had endowed them. Send such a woman to her piano, her books, her cross-stitch ; she answers you with despair I—But send her on some mission of mercy, send where she may perhaps die by inches in achieving good for others, and the whole spirit rises up strong and rejoicing. One of the ladies at Scutari, rich, well-born, and accom plished, on being informed that she had been selected as one of those who were to be sent to a post where addi tional difficulty, suffering, and even danger awaited her, clasped her hands and uttered a fervent " Thank God l" I remember a Sister of Charity who had been sent off at half an hour's notice to a district where the cholera was raging among the most squalid and miserable poor, and I never shall forget the look of radiant happiness and thank fulness on that face. Such cases must be exceptional, as most women must have, or can find, sufficient occupation for their thoughts, and sufficient opportunities of good, in the quiet, unobtrusive duties of home and neighbourhood. Without pretending, however, to judge Mrs. Jame son's theory of " organising female labour for noble "purposes of public utility," we may express a high opinion of her Lecture, though doubting whether the question she discusses be of that " terribly momentous" import which it appears to her excited imagination. Robespierre. A Tragedy. By Henry Bliss, one of her Majesty's Counsel. London : Kimpton. Ir is very seldom indeed that the candid critic can award to a new tragedy or any other poem the pre• cise place in literature fondly anticipated for it in its preface. That., however, we rejoice to say we can with a clear conscience give to " Robespierre." It will, unquestionably, remain amongst the " unacted drama," and in all probability achieve the distinction also of the unread. Mr. Bliss's estimate of the gentleman whom he designates as "the mystic Robespierre" is rather favorable, though he dm a not go quite so far as the Chartist lecturers, who thought that Robespierre was too mild. Tallien's appeal to the "Deputies of France" against Robespierre may be quoted as a fair specimen of the dramatic power displayed in this tragedy in rhyme. The uncertainty as SATURDAY, to where " Hebert's widow, where Desmoulins' went," when beheaded, is worthy of Sampson Brass's safely_ hazarded opinion that the soul of Quilp was " lookin' down " on them from " somewhere or an other " _ _ . My wife, my wife, Torn from mine arms this morning has been sent, Where Hebert's widow, where Desmoulins' went, Where your's may follow you, where I, and all, His list, or hate, has margin for, must fall. Forbid it, Deputies of France, forbid! Old Mountaineers, who sit where Herault did— Ye moderate men, that in the plain succumb— If ye dare dream of Vergniaud's martyrdom ; If seats here seem sufficiently bereft; If any pity, pluck, or brains are left ; Arrest atlast this merciless machine ! Down with him ! down, the incarnate Guillotine ! Hear my last summons ! sieze your last, sole chance ! It appears that " pluck" is not, 89 we flattered our selves, an Anglo-Saxon word or characteristic; and still further to upset old prejudices, " head and pluck," so time-honoured in their conjunction, are here originally varied to " pluck and brains." The above may be taken as a specimen of the sublimity of the tragedy : we add an example of its simplicity. Robespierre in prison is supposed to welcome death:— ROBESPIERRE. And welcome ! Ready ! Present! Hold I VOICE. What, without one prayer? ROBESPIERRE. VOICE. BAILOR (without). Ho! ROBESPTERB.E. Hark I JAILOR (without). Citizen! ROBESPIERRE. Who's there? " Ready !" " Present !" Sm., have a perfectly militia like nervousness about them ; but as the Militia has been scattered by the Ministers, we recommend such passages to the "Lumber troop." On the whole, to use the stereotyped phrase of the critics, we think that " Robespierre" should " flnd a place on every shelf "—whether that shelf be The seventh upwards crowned with learned dust, or the more useful depository whence the frugal vendor of viands disperses modern literature envelop ing the more solid "joys of sense." Finally, we can assure our readers that those who study " Robes pierre " will make acquaintance with Tom Moore's ever famous Bliss that the Muses have never cone( Ived. Recollections of the Mess-table and the Stage. By Henry Curling. London : Bosworth. A COLLECTION of anecdotes, derived from the author's experience of " Mess-table Chat and Green-room Gossip." The military stories relate chiefly to the Peninsular war, and the theatrical ones are supplied from recollections of Jerry Russell, the comedian. The volume is too slight for any other expression of opi nion than that Mr. Curling appears actuated by right feeling, and that there are geodnatured readers whom his goodhumoured reminiscences will please. PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED. BOOKS. Poems. Bessie Rayner Parkes. Life and Beauties of Fanny Fern. The Lost Heiress. J. Chapman. Kent and Co. Ward and Lock. America and the Americans. W. E. Tiaxter, M.P. Rontledge. The Illustrated Book of French Songs. John Oxenford. Ingram and Co. The New Existence of Man upon Earth. Part VI. Robert Owen. E. Wilson. Encyclopedia Metropolitana. Griffin. Quarterly Review. Murray our Indian Army. Captain Rafter. Bryce. Quarterly Journal of Public Health. S. liighley. PAMPHLETS. Robin Hood and Other Poems. The West of Scotland Magazine. Lacy. Murray. ' Cook. Travels in - rlether. H. L:Watts. Peace. A Poem. T. H. Stirling. Hall and Virtue. Balmoral. A. Macalister. Bosworth. Light from the Lantern of Diogenea. Shelton. Honlston. Inquire Within. AN apropos, called Zouave et Highlander, ou Pilbox (sic) et Triquet, has been put on the Petals Royal stage. It was not very successful, although M. Levassor is plus Anglais que lee Anglais, and sings an English (?) song. The thing is more amusing to a Briton than to a Gaul, from the ingenious mistakes made—from the impossible plaids upward — in everything outre-mauche. IT is said in literary circles in Paris that M. Th. Gautier is to leave the Presse, and to become theatrical critic for the Moniteur, and that his late post on the Presse will be filled by M. Nestor BoguelaD, ex-director of the Opera.