The Press. — London, England, 1856-07-26 00:00:00

26, 1856 =-.-- master of that sort of knowledge. Although the subject of the Alps is familiarised to us all, we think that the author might have given us more interesting descriptions, and we are disappointed at the merely matter-of-fact •character given to his book. The passage about the Convent of the Great St. Bernard merits notice: — The hospitality of the convent is so proverbial, that one is almost afraid to give any impression which may seem to detract from that reputation ; but I must say my own experience has been—and many travellers have made the same remark to me—that it is much better to visit the Hospice accompanied by ladies than as a bachelor. The next year, my brother and myself breakfasted at the Hospice one morning, and thought it rather cold comfort altogether. 'The ladies of our party, and the friend in whose charge we had left them for a dsy or two, while we crossed the Col du kGesnt, had slept there the night before, and left about ten minutes before we arrived. We caught 'them at Martigny, sand found them load in their praises of the abundant - .. • - good tethers. I .'s situation " as their good that ' evenings tholes' chat with L gentlawn I have ever encountered. The following melancholy incnient `ties a solemnity attached to it. We think that the name of the lady should have been liven. He is writing of the Vicinity of Interlaken: — Sees from below, the slope appears so gentle that this -description weed scarcely be credited—but it is strictly .sceurate. A melanchaly accident which occurred in 1850, .on the oilier side, where the descent is of the same cha racter, but more rapid still, attests its truth. An English lady staying at Interlaken, one day took the path, and wandered on till she came to the summit. Here she met :an Italian courier belonging to another party, also at Interlaken, and pleased at her exploit, begged him to cut ,her initials on a tree, that she might thus prove to her ifriends how far she had rambled. He complied, but in ,doing so, broke his knife ; with the superstition common Ito his race, startled at the omen, he implored her to turn 'back, saying that some calamity was impending. She laughed at the prognostication, and having induced him to complete his task, strolled on along the ridge. She never reamed, and next day her mangled remains were found, some thousands of feet below, on the other aide of the mountain. Her ( foot had slipped and she had begun to roll ; site had seized a young sapling, hoping to arrest her pro- Seem, but the imp Sus wee too great; it snapped,, and was found in her grasp when the body was discovered. Her toney„ jewe e, and watch were safe; the watch' having en st 'OM httiMirit received, wafted the hour of ,I; the accid B"ihoted.l that it tooleidaee butca . few "ihitutes it l f itritted from the otaltiorr. o "tif 5- / The ascent. of the Wetterhorn i atiAkt4t; resat, feat perfumed by the author.. "Wu 'Basel bookii.si istates that it was ascendedl3l4 1855, by Me Opar, a Scotch gentleman, and it I •• he aesigtedYelsenthere that the guides once aseentied,it. The feat is vaatty difficult, and reflects. snub 'credit on Mr ..,Wills's athletic powersi , 'Mei has. written..Joilhis exertions in a modest style, quite free from "brag" The , Whapter recording the aneentis the best in, the wbook. The party had almost began told ' "Ispaitr" ofl4eaehing the 'summit; One ofith 8 tguides. ilas !tutting &air ' war with a hatable es 0- through the? ionI:1--: .rt Ili , 1,1. , • f' map! '' we all lixoltiticroi.iti ) bittathless anxiety; for it depended t!ttepon the Itigeeetis ofthie assault, whether that impregnable fortress was to be ours, or whether we were to return 4slowly and sadly, foiled by its calm and massive strength. ' Suddenly, a startling cry of surprise and triumph rang 'through the air. A great block of ice bounded from the top •of the parapet, And before it had well lighted on the glacier Lauener exclaimed, " Ich schaue den blauen himme!! " 0(I see bl sky!) A thrill of astonishment and delight TIM thro it i our fr ames. Our enterprise had succeeded ! ' !ire were ° oat upon the actual summit. That wave above ' l iiiiY . froxeln, ' it sOemed, in the act of falling over into a `",tlfirsirige eta motionless magnificence was the very peak X'llheilf! tauenet's blows fie* with redo'ohled energy. In a : l iltety minutes a practicable breach was made, through which ~I (c r disappeared and in a moment more the sound of his X'' e was heard behind the battlement under whose cover b ''we stood'. In his excitement he had forgotten us, and • U '•ery soon the whole mass would have come crashing upon ~,. our heads. A. loud shout of warning from Sampson, who ~'2, Slow occupied the gap; was echoed by five other eager ":, •olces, and he tattled hii"ektergies in a safer direction. It '' ' 'was not long before Liiiieeer and Sampson together had widened the opening, and then, at length, we crept slowly rovn. As , I took the hist Stage *alma disappeared fromi my -%tliagitt is my lefithoulfif ipmed apAnat the angle of the lay 3 '' l l ni l ) r!' elge ' 'M ue er MI lirt OW% all filfiltirx fell abruptly hospitality and delicate attentious of the good fathers. I Bare no doubt whatever that,, were one's situation such as 4 ini4se ()Fr stsn,cl i any ,vcal need of their good offices , 7;o-trouble nr'iitten n would be spared, and that theimost careful iind nfi4»edlftintkindness would be lavislied on the humblest sufferer. I am -speaking only of the want of that external cordiality mad warmth of reception which are so delightful in strange lands and strange places, and which, in the coarse of a few hours, produce an impression, to which the memory clings gratefully and gladly for years afterwards. Such a reception I certainly experienced at the St. Bernard, on the only occasion on which I had the good fortune to visit the Hospice in company with a lady; and such a reception I once met wish, when not provided •with that excellent letter of recommendation, at the Ilos. Fel Lice of the Simplon, wb I passed one of the most agree. mole evenings of my I4e, and bad the pleasure of some khoers' chat with one, ot,t7pe most refined and accomplished .J 1 S , S. away beneath me towards an unknown and awful abyss ; a band from an invisible person grasped mine ; I stepped across, and had passed the ridge of the Wetterhorn The author attempts to describe his sensa tions in a style which is not equal to the occa sion:— The instant before I had been face to face with a blank wall of ice. One step, and the eye took in a boundless expanse of crag and glacier, peak and precipice, mountain and valley, lake and plain. The whole world seemed to lie at my feet. The next moment I was almost appalled by the awfulness of our position. The side we had come up was steep, but It . aris a gentle slope compared with that which now fill omit from where I stood. A few yards of glittering ice at our feet, end then nothing between us and the green slopes of Grindelwald, nine thousand feet be neath. lam not ashamed to own that I experienced, as this sublime and wonderful prospect burst upon my view, a profound and almost irrepressible emotion—an emotion which, if I may judge by the low ejaculations of surprise, followed by a long pause of breathless silence, as each in turn stepped into the opening, was felt by others as well as myself. Fialmat told me repeatedly afterwards that it was the most awful and startling moment he had known in the course of his long mountain experience. We felt as in the more immediate presence of ; Him who had reared this tremendous pinnacle, and hap:math the " majestic roof " of whose deep blue Heaven we 6;1 poised, as it seemed, half way beneath the earth and This volume is carefully got up. The ii its 1 /A collected on the Alps lave been named by Mr. James Atkins, of Painswick, and some is irited sketFhes . from , the ikellil ; of, Mrs. Wills illuatrat r p iil pacres. ' 1 0.,, CXCVII. London:: The Quarteetr Be +Hem Hari; • m arra jr.. I: , •.7 l'ft t•I T f t 'ektrrent" nikitiber of the 41ittrteriy has several artieleS of !timer* excellence, a' quality which the accomplished editor seems to prize above originality of subject or view. The paper on Savonarola is an elaborate summary of his career. The nine works under review furnish material for criticism on his character; of the works themselves little is said. As in all essays of this class, it is duly noted:—" The " family of Savonarola came from Padua. . . Giro " lamo was l;r4September 21st., 1452." In two classes of 1;1' bical essejrs this minuteness is allowablq; tis when the personage has long been lost sight' of,":an 1 the facts of his life can only be gained froln!'lobscnre and not generally accessible records ; or *hen the subject is recently d e ceased, and it is desirable to set forth contemporary know ledge. In a Review of the high class of the Quarterly it appears almost impertinent to state particulars which are to be found in any biographical dictionary. In the essay on "The Civil War," in this number, we read :—" Oli‘er [Cromwell] was born April 25th, " 1599." As this eminent critical review does give the dates, it might have been as well to state - whether New or Old Style was intended. The birth of Savonarola is generally assigned to 12th October, 14.52. The public would have been glad of a search ing and critical estimate of the value of M. Guizot'a publications on Charles 1., Cromwell, and the Pro tectorate; but the reviewer gives little more than a bare narrative of well-known facts, to the period of she raising the royal standard at Nottinahati." ",The "'rise of that extraordinary man" (Croin4ien), we are told, " must form the subject of another article." One of the mo,t amusing papers in the number is that on the" Police and Thieves," chiefly intended to show the acuteness and services of the "Detectives." The keen scent of the old Bow-street officers has not been lost. The spirit of Townshend— a memoir of him would be worth reading—lives in the Inspectors Bucket of our day. The review of Mr. IGrote's - "is highly laudatory. The • " Greece, - reviewer •esteems Mr. Grote as the advocate of the ballot in the (House of Commons, and a great banker of London, peculiarly fit to criticise Thncydides, and to correct Ao, ideas of Athenisn society . tr,ansraitted to us by 1'1'44 i and Aristotle, fe r race w ill t hi n k it 6 r me greatly exaggerated staten tha it would " be'.as "reasonable to judge of Atheniliu institiVois and so " cial arrangements from the writings of these philo " sophers, as of the social condition of England or "France from the theories of Robert Gwen or Fou " tier." The reviewer particularises faults of Bossuet, Hume, Gibbon, and Macaulay, only to intimate that Mr. Grote is free frum their defects. Some very ques tionable peculiarities of Mr. Grote are extolled as me• rite of the highest order. In reference to the defeat and death of Philistus, the faithful servant of the Dionysian dynasty at Syracuse, we are requested to admire the patchwork sentence, "He had been an "actor in its first day of usurpation, its 18th Bru " make : his timely, though miserable, death saved " him from kbating in its last day of exile its St. " Helena.""flie taste is little to be commended which suggests so forced a parallel. As an example of the historian's sagacity, tho passage is qUoted in which he supposes that there was more freedom of individual life in Athens thsn in modern societies. L snyposes that in this country = and in almost all i rk GO T • ( " t 111 , 'lt • r" et ; i ?l t titt il ' 44 iescl •odi xibobweb 'l6 The intolerance of the national opinion cuts down indi vidual character to one out of a few set types, to which every person or every family is constrained to adjust itself, and beyond which all exceptions meet either with hatred or derision. To impose upon man such restraints, either of law or opinion, as are requisite for the security or com fort of society,—but to encourage rather than to repress the free play of individual impulse, subject to those limits, —is an ideal which, if it was ever approached at Athens, has certainly never been attained, and has comparatively been little studied or cared for, in any modern society. No acute observer of modern life, and of its wide %iversity end in fi nite variety o f chareeter, will feel disposed to concur in this sentence. •If Eng- , land be more intolerant than Athens of freedom of opinion, at all events her intolerance is milder in its sentences. What Socrates have we put to death ? Sir William Molesworth ? He died a Cabinet Minister. Robert Owen ? The sage is in contforte able circumstances; and, approaching ninetk lectures freely in support of his very peculisr yte The vegetarians are permitted to grow fat on of turnip and tankards of lemonade. The spiii ti rappers have no more formidable enemy to encounter than Mr. Faraday. Harriet Martinestrie It light of her age still; and Dr. Cumming snrviveeihe date he has assigned for the destruction of the world. Te speak in this day of " the intolerance of national " opinion cutting down character to set types," is simply absurd. In this, as in numerous other in. stances, the reviewer selects for panegyric sentiments by Mr. Grote which no thoughtful mind would think of endorsing. Throughout, the praise is far too in discriminate to gain respect. Possibly it may be independent;' assuredly it is not just. The political articles are The Papal Government," represented as utterly et:irrupt; and on the disputes with America. In the last article alone do we find any trace of the Conservative sentiment of which this distinguished Review is supposed to be one of the most powerful exponents. Speaking of the difficul ties which the Opposition hate had to encounter this session, it is observed : . , Never, perhaps, had the leader of an Opposition a more difficult task than has been imposed on Mr. Disraeli during this session of Parliament. He sees before him an Ad ministration subsisting by its deference to Conservative principles, while excluding Conservatives from power by the help of Radical majorities. And we think in this state of parties—too anomalous to last long—Mr. Disraeli has strikingly manifested the great sagacity which accompanies his vivid genius, less by what he has done, than by what he has refrained from doing. Illustrated Webster Spelling-book. London : Ward and Lock. HERE we have an edition of the Webster Spelling.. book, which has attained such reputation on the other side the Atlantic that one million copies are sold annually. The lessons are plain, progressive, and conveniently adapted to the capacity of children, beginning with the alphabet and ending with pretty reading lessons. To render the book more attractive, the publishers have had this edition copiously illus trated by some of the best artists of the day. The pictures are of a nature to instruct the mind while pleasing the eye of children. Taking into account the usefulness of this primer, the delight the en- - gravings ( there ' i re 06 lilind4dland fifty of then{) will afford children, and the cheapness of the prise), - there seems every probability that the Webster Spelling book will enjoy at least as much popularity in this country as in the United States. Sunshine and Shadow. A Novel. By the Author of " Mabel." Three Vols. London: Newby. THERE is nothing very distinctive in this novel. It is a story of domestic life, with such incidents, tpi might naturally befall the family of a contdry baronet. The narrative is quiet, without being dull. The character of Louisa, the heroine, is gracefully . drawn; she passes from the bud to the flower before the reader, and has to suffer just enough of life's crosses to draw forth the good principles of her na ture. Her first lover, Fitzormond, Is in - Wimple of the wretchedness which attends ati litretrulated nature. Publishing necessities, we'ettppose, have cut up the story into three volumes, though the matter is only just sufficient for one. The novel is conceived in a good spirit, and penned with taste ' and feeling. ~~, ~~ ‘,. I.vp I,ntm3 PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.—Jvvr 24. .11, 114. 1 BOOKS. I.lll•Juri England in Time of War. , .14mith and Elder The Land Rerenue of British 1a444, 1 , 8 ,„ 1 Thacker and Co. Paraguay, Brazil, and the Plata." (l Macmillan and Co. The Lion killer. °"""-' Lambert rind Co. The History of Jean•Paui Choppier?. Ditto The Camel; his Omanisellani.ileibitss end Usss. , u •ii ~fl, l l ITelllboar and Co. Crime and Justice. Chiniur4s. Ppii I. stedow Ind Dims #fiarilign s• Piffi Ppm , „ Se ooo4 ,PWaßtkl v ." l " n Crosland. Awn V i ti an g s o f i fts *i i p se i od er tea - , 16 c m 1 9 81 0... ).: 10 ± 7:33‘soit