The Press. — London, England, 1856-12-13 00:00:00

DECEMBER 13, 1856. Who by his inborn greatness overtowers The sons of men. And yet it was not so— The light was of the star, and not of him, For had the stet withdrawn its radiance, He had but been a guideless wanderer ln utter darkness o'er a pathless sea. I am that pilot o'er that pathless sea— The ocean—Life--and Thou the guiding-star, Without whose love I should be cast adrift In a frail, rudderless, and sinking boat, Spurt for the tides of Life. Here is a piece in a different style. It might have turned up anywhere in " Whims and Oddities ": TO WILL-O'-THE•WISP. Over the marish, and over the bog, Over the pools, where arises the fog, Lamp of the leeches and fire of the frog! Why did you lead me astray? Why did you gleam like a beaconing light, Flickering out in the gloom of the night ? I was quite sure you. were leading me right, When 1 turned out of the way. Faithless, and fickle, and treacherous lamp, Why did I follow you into the swamp, Where the soft ground was so slimy and damp, And the long rushes so crisp? Wet, worn, and weary I homeward have sped, And find, on undressing and going to bed, A leach in each boot and a cold in my head! Treacherous Will-o'-the-Wisp! If the father had dealt with that thought, he would have added a reflective verse on the vanity of hopes and the wild errors of ambi tion. 'to our taste, " Panurgus Pebbles, or a Little of Everything is Nothing of Anything," is the most perfect piece in the volume. It is the picture of a smatterer, and is very neatly executed. Here is the training of poor Panurgus : When Pebbles picked up his scraps of knowledge, heaven only knows . Pcekilus Pigment, my artist friend, has ever beside his easel a spare canvas whereon he bestows at random the dabs of colour that remain in his brush, while he is working up his great picture for the Academy. On this canvas, upon the foundation thus laid, he afterwards depicts such a subject as the prevailing tints may suggest. l_'•an it be that Nature. when supplying the crania of a number of mortals with brains of different ten dencies, casts into the head of Pebbles the supetabundaut cerebral scraps. Panurgus was the son of an old squire, whose spouse was a fashionable lady. The father took him out for a ride; The mother sent him to school; The paternal care taught him to sing, " Tally ho !" 'rhe maternal drilled him in the " Busy Bee ; " The squire declared than his son should be " a man, not a milksop " The ludy said hers should be " a gentleman, not a atahlc•boy." Between the two influences, Panur•gus got off easily. If he did not go to school his father would screen him from his merited punishment ; if he refused to ride a spirited horse his mother shielded him from his father's wrath ; if he failed in the melody of " Tally ho !" the lady would express her pleasure that he did not take a liking to " a song that was not fitted for polite society." To which the squire retorted by observing—" that as to the matter of that, he did not think Dr. Watts was much better. How about that line— Abroad in the meadows to see the young lambs Go sporting about by the side of their —. A proper word truly to be put in the mouths of children !" So far his piebald breeding and disposition did our hero no harm—at least no present harm—but in after )ears the effects of these two counter•inffuences came upon him. • Here we have him at college. The reader will observe the local colour of an Oxonian pen : Four gownamen are strolling along the High-street '‘lien our hero passes. " Thattan old Bedleigh man," says one of the quartette. " Horrid stick !" grunts Bales, the Sec. of the St. Mark's Cull. Cricket Club. "He can't handle his bat a bit. I didn't know anything of him at school." He comes from our part of the world," says Snaffle of Merton. " I have seen him out with the governor's hounds : he funked at the first hedge, and I never saw him ag a i n !" " Look at his dwass !" drawls the elegant Pulker. "One would think he—aw--drawssed himself with a knife and fawk—aw. Whan he was at school he always had five patches about his person; two—aw—that lie knelt oc ; two—aw—that be leant on, and oue—aw—that be sat on—aw !" Poor Pebbles---had you only entered heart and soul into line pursuit at school, how different had your reception teen ! If you had given your attention to aquatics, how proudly would Fcatherwell have introduced you to the University eight! Ah—those crabs—truly cancers that ate away 3our popularity! If yon hail been a cricketer, Bides would have been proud of you ;—had you given your attention to your toilette, Pulker would have honoured you with his arm down the Broad walk on Show Sunday ; had 3ou been a hard worker or prizeman at school, Mugger and Grind, of lialliol, would have hailed you with jny, and have proposed and seconded you at the Union. Ilut no; Jack•otalbtrades and master of none was thy character, and between the various stools we have wen timed etunz-et thou to the ground, oh Pebbles! THE PRESS. Poor Pebbles, of course, got plucked, and then " Torn Hood " lets us have a peep at his rooms. Paimrgus, it seems, like other " Jacks-of-all trades," was an amateur:— The demou whispered, Pebbles have a taste. The following description might have been penned by Vyvyan Joyeuso for Knight's Quar terly Magazine:— His rooms were hung with proofs•before•letters, that vied in cost ( although they were, in a pictorial point of view, not very valuable) with the choice engravings of Burin, the great amateur artist of St. Mark's. His Madonnas, and Oak Crosses, and Saints, excited the envy of Reredos of Oriel ; while Snaffle, of Merton, did not tun► out in a better pink or brighter boots than Pebbles, although the latter seldom did more than ride to the meet and back. Featherwell admired Panurgus's gig, as she floated at her moorings by the barge, and he vowed she was well worth the money, much as it was, atwhich she was valued. De Villiers of Ch. Ch., had not more costly furniture than our hero. whose rooms nevertheless were a consummation of bad taste. Bookstall, of Balliol, did not lay out more on his library than Pebbles, whose numerous volumes were merely costly rubbish notwithstanding. In short, as Jack• of alhtrades had he set up in Oxford, and no small sum did it cost him to purchase his stock, so that when he came to survey his position, he found himself considerably in debt, and without a testamur. Pebbles " succeeded in nothing but ruining " himself," and there is the true Tom-Hoodian punning pathos in the finis of his history : He sleeps in a little churchyard near Boulogne. Featherwell and I visited the place 'est vacation. It was a bright summer's day, and the shade of the tower lay clearly defined across the grass, and the shadow of the weathercock seemed, as if in mockery, to rest upon Peb bles' grave. " Man is but a vane shallow," said Featherwell ; and so we turned away and left him to sleep under the head-stone, with the simple inscription— Hic Jacet, PANURGUS PEBBLES. Our readers can form a fair opinion of the pretensions of this volume from our extracts. The writer could make his own way without any adventitious distinction for his name. We entreat of him to have a care not to turn out a litera►;y Pebbles. His mind is evidently not formed ; he is still in a transitional state ; and he must make a choice as to whether ho ought to aim at being poet, artist, essayist, pun wright, or chansonnier. Let him find out his aptitude, and work in that vein, whatever it may be. We congratulate him on the fact that, he is not likely, judging from these pages before us, to become a writer of burlesques. If he should fall into that wretched literary plight, " Tom Hood " will become a lost man. Let none of his friends tempt him to write a piece for Robson. His animal spirits want the riotous vivacity absolutely necessary for " the professional humorist." His wit is evidently of too verbal a kind. It would not answer, or example, to have much writing in the fol lowing strain : Do not try to make things look what they are not—let a chair be a chair, a table a table. (We remember one in the Exhibition formed by the shield of a gladiator, who knelt with a drawn sword underneath—an inhospitable board—anew plan for cutting disagreeable acquaintances.) No, we say, let everything seem what it ia. Do not have your inkstand shaped like a wolfs head with a moveable brain-pan, or (though it does please your anti• Russian ideas) a bear with his throat cut, and a hinge instead of a vertebra. We repeat, this is false taste ; let your ink-stand be an ink-stand, or, at least, as ink slandish as possible. Let your mantel piece be a mantel-piece ;do not Gingham and Grodynaples advertise their mantle pieces in the best taste at one guinea? Let your sofa be a sofa in so far as may be. Our natural modesty prevents us from asserting that the new receptacles for letters in the City were first sug gested by us ; being in accordance with our theory, post boxes and nothing but it. The author's next volume will be his most important step, and we cordially wish him success in his career. We must add that it is or advantage in his favour that he is " a " popular man," thus showing that he has personal qualities which elevate him beyond " a book in breeches," and entitle him to more fiiendly sympathy than is given to a man made of brains, and nothing more. l'imt-gilice London Directory, 1857. London: Kelly. As we gaze on this latest product of Mr. Kelly's industry we hardly know which to wonder at most,--the rapid growth of the metropolis, which its dimensions indicate, or the remarkable ingenuity and patience which must be exercised in keeping pace with that growth. At the . close of the last great war, II 1198 in 1815, the London Directory was a little volume, about the size of "Keightley's History of Greece," containing a list of no more than 17,000 merchants, traders, &c , of London, and parts adjacent. It is needless to say that the collection of commercial names, which were all to be procured at regular places of business, presented little or no difficulty in comparison with the task of obtaining private ones. The private addresses of such persons as the world was supposed to care about were given then and for many years subsequently in the " Court Guide." It was not, indeed, till the year 1841 that the names of the gentry were added to Messrs. Kelly's publi cation. In 18-12 on official directory was added also ; while in 1838 the full Christian names had been inserted for the first time insteal of the initials only, a change productive of more convenience than would at first sight be ima gined. Strange to say, Mr. Kelly experienced considerable difficulty in inducing persons to disclose their Christian names ; and it was only by laying down a stringent rule that no person who refused to do so should hay( his name in the " Directory" at all, that the pre sent wonderful completeness of the work was accomplished. The energetic publisher is not, however, content with resting on his laurels. Every year he endeavours to devise some fresh improvement, and to keep the " Directory " alongside of all the changes which take place annually either in the streets themselves, in the arrangements of the Post-office, or the condition of public conveyances. In the present edition initial letters will be found appended to each place throughout the " street directory," imended to denote the ten postal districts into which it is contem plated to divide London and the suburbs. A. new and convenient description of all places where money orders can be obtained has been also introduced, which will save all persons who are in the habit of receiving remittances from the country an infinity of delay and irritation. The heaving, restless mass of human life oon tained within the limits to which this Directory extends might well be supposed to furnish no small amount of trouble to persons whose busi ness it is to discover fixed residences ; and how far the habits of Londoners are nomad or stationary, how many old homes are broken up or deserted and new ones established in the course of one year, are points which might afford much interesting speculation. Mr. Kelly computes that about 20,000 remo vals and 23,000 entirely new entries are re• corded by him in the present edition ; and that he has also inserted about 13,000 altera tions of names, and descriptions of trades, &c. As many of these have of course to be corrected in several different portions of the work, it is reckoned that the sum total of corrections in the entire volume amounts to about 175,000. This will afford our readers some little notion of the labour annually undergone in producing this ad mirably useful and convenient work. In collecting and correcting this information about twenty-five different forms or papers are issued to the clerks engaged in it. Nor is the increase in that aggregate of brick and stone which we call London less astonishing when we refer to the maps and directories of thirty or forty years ago. On comparing Cary's plan of London for the year 1815 with the handsome map turned out by Mr. Kelly for 1857, it would seem as if London had increased by nearly one half. We mean, at least, that the area has been nearly doubled. Let the reader take any ordinary map of re cent timeg, and observe all that oblong region which is bounded on the east by Grace church.street, Bishopsgate, and Shoreditch as far as the Church ; north, by the City road and New-road ; west, by a little bit of the Edgeware-road and Park-lane ; and south, by Piccadilly, and the Thames, round again to London-bridge, the very heart and viscera of London, and he will find that, since the earlier date above given, a space of exactly similar dimension has been added to A A the metropolis on the north side alone It is not so thickly covered with buildings, and in one portion the Regent's-park and Primrose hill occupy a considerable slice of it ; but it is as closely covered as any new districts not