The Press. — London, England, 1855-12-08 00:00:00

DECEMBER 8, 1855. of industry, are in each case selected so as to harmonise and heighten the effect of the view. The narrative of Mr. Mayhew must be spoken of with more reserve. The opening, indeed, is excellent—the description of Rotterdam embodying the most striking peculiarities of the country, and being written with great point. Some of the descriptions are equal to any that Mr. Dickens has penned. The exces sive cleanliness of the Holland housewives is pleasantly noted It was morning when we landed, and the servants were still busy cleaning the handsome blue " millstone " steps that stand in front of almost every doorway on the quay. The tall streetdoors were ajar, so that you could just get a peep of the exquisitely clean halls within, with their white marble pavements and richly-corniced ceilings looking so snowy that they seemed like plaster-of Paris models, rather than human habitations. You could see, too, the holland covered stairs at the end, without a speck upon them, and with their brass bands of stair rods shining in the sun like strips of burnished gold. Then the maids themselves were as clean as the houses they tended ; their close caps were white as the walls, while the ample apron, which they wore tied tight around their dress, was as spotless as a charity-girl's " That girl yonder scouring away at the brass knocker," said we to out companion, as we walked along to the hotel, " is a prodigy of cleanliness, from the close white border of her cap down to her equally white wooden shoes. Just stop for a minute to look at the little box by her side in which she keeps her rottenstone! See the wood of it is scrubbed as clean with sea-sand as her own sabots, and the little bits of brass at the corners are as bright as new sovereigns." \'e had scarcely finished admiring the neatness of this maid before we were forced by the fountain of water projected against the win dows of one of the houses in our path to direct our atten tion to another girl, who stood out in the road pumping the jet against the house. " There never were such people !" we exclaimed ; " why, that maid looks as though she had just been sent home from the wash ; her hair is as smooth and glossy as a coach-panel ; her cheeks as red and shiny as apples; and though her skirt is of black stuff, you can discover as she stoops that her under linen is white as driven snow ! Look, too, the long brass syringe that she is working is polished like a piece of golden dinner-plate, and even the copper hoops of the pail in which it stands are rubbed up as bright as if they had been burnished." The sketch of the " river roadways," with their floating houses, is also excellent : How prettily the white smoke there rises, like a cloud of snow before the wind, from the narrow funnel of the little raised green cabin, filming over, as with a bloom, the objects behind it! Yonder is a woman busy washing at one of the sterns, while her little plump-limbed girl is playing, like a kid, along the roof of the only house. that perhaps she has ever known. " May she never know a worse !" we inwardly exclaimed ; for the tidy white cur tains showing at each cabin window, and the bright red. leaded flower-pots, with the geraniums blooming in them, ranged along the cabin-top, tell you that, unpleasant as such a life may appear to us, still Dutch care and cleanli ness can convert even a berth on a canal-boat into a place of comfort—ay, and doubtless to those who pass all their days in it, of fond and happy associations. The subsequent narrative is less descriptive, and too much occupied with " legends." We are sure Mr. Mayhew would conceive we had not read his book if we did not exclaim against his remarks on nobility in the section en titled the " Castellated Rhine Pass." Can it be that he believes in the surly nonsense he has written ? Possibly so, as clever men have not unfrequently some crotchet in their brains perverting their sense. But it is a pity some friendly critic in the shape of a bookseller's reader was not by, while the work went through the press, to expunge all such silly stuff as that pride in ancient lineage is to find " glory " in scoundrelism," and that respect for coro nets is to " revere the gilt hats which once " covered very dirty heads." What have such reflections to do iu this elegant drawing-room book ? There is no worse class of canters than the Tartutles of democracy. 2. The " Keepsake" of this year maintains its reputotim for fanciful scenic engravings, pretty po. traits, and varied writing. The liknesses of the Duchess of Argyll, Viscountess Sydney, and the beautiful Lady Abercrombie, dispose us to read with placidity the poem of " The Ordeal," and the story of " The Go verness." One of the best contributions is that by Albert Smith on " Bedfordia," de scribed as " the sick man " of the London quarters. This descriptive sketch sparkles with wit. Mr. Smith is not quite so fine as Mr. Wilson Croker—he does know where Russell-square is; though not even the late Secretary of the Admiralty could have a more thorough contempt for it than the lecturer of the Egyptian-hall. 3. The " Court Album " contains a collection of beauties well kiaowu in the social circles of THE PRESS. the metropolis. The sweet face of Lady Malmesbury bears no trace of the ill health from which she has suffered. Who would think that the Countess of Durham, here depicted as in the blush of girlhood, had acquired claims to matronly character and loveliness? This likeness, as also that of her sister, Lady Louisa Hamilton, were probably taken a few years since. The style of these two portraits (they are by Gray) is striking and attractive from its extreme simplicity. The peculiar sketchy manner of Mr. Hayter is displayed in portraits of Lady Emily Dungar von, the Hon. Magdalen Montagu, the Hon. Letitia Vivian, Miss Verner, Mrs. Hurtopp, Lady Mary Yorke, and Miss Ashworth. M r. Tidey contributes a characteristic likeness of Mrs. Thistlewayte : her mourning dress indi cater the loss she has sustained. Her brother, Colonel Pakenham, fell at Inkermann. 4. The design of " Sabbath Bells" is to collect from the poets passages descriptive of the sanctity and peaceful joys of the Sabbath This design has been carried out with much taste, and the reader will be both astonished and delighted to find how much exquisite poetry the devotional feeling and repose of our seventh day have given birth to. The illustrations from drawings by Mr. Foster ate printed in colours, and exhibit in greater per fection than we have ever witnessed before the rustic grace of his pencil. In every scene save one the village church is an object in the landscape—at but the distance of a field, through which the villagers are wending their way to the house of God, while children stop by the hedge•row to gather the flowers that profusely bloom in it ; or seen in the distance over ripe corn-fields such as Constable loved to paint; or with the steeple faintly visible over stream and grove ; or the square tower forming a boundary to the village road ; or the outline almost lost in the blue distance beyond flocks and herds ; or with the old porch conspi cuous through which devout villagers reverently pass ; or at the extremity of newly-ploughed fields, with the tower reflected against the crimson sky of evening : or seen through an opening in the woods ; or partially buried in deep snow; or gleaming in the light of the full moon ; or viewed by the loiterer afar off, as he sits watching the flow of the placid stream at his feet. Over all these varied aspects of rural scenery there seems to brood " a sabbath stillness." The beautiful verse could not possibly have met with more appro priate illustration. The one picture where no church is visible is a view of the ocean, glow ing in the glory of golden sunlight.. The sub ject was suggested by some lines in the " Sunday Morning's Walk" of Bishop Mant : Along the strand my pathway led, the salt seashore beside, Where from his throne the sun look'd down and lit the golden tide ; And as the billows danced and shone beneath his sparkling rays, They seemed to clap their hands for joy and shout then Maker's praise. The picture is one of the most truly poetical in the volume. We anticipate for " Sabbath Bells " an extensive and enduring popularity. It is a book to place on the library shelf when newer works crowd it from the table, as it _never can be opened without pleasure by per sons who can appreciate the beauty of devo tional poetry, and the charm of thoroughly rural scenery. PERIODICAL LITERATURE. Is Blackwood the concluding chapters of "Zaidee" are exceedingly beautiful. This writer possesses the rare power of being both rhetorical and natural at the same time ; and we think the scenes in which Zai:iee is recognised by the different members of the Vivian family have never been surpassed. The article on "Simony" is a terse and lucid state ment of a question much misunderstood by the public. It clearly establishes the fact that in the early centuries of Christianity this term was applied exclusively to the traffic in spiritualities—the giving money for ordination or consecration—but never to the purchase of the benefice. The cause of its being afterwards applied to the latter is to he sought in the early nature of lay patronage. This gave to the patron an absolute right of presentation independent of episcopal institution; and it was against this system that the great battle was fought and won by Hildebrand and Becket. We cannot 1173 follow the author of this article through his various arguments on the modern state of the law, nor are we wholly sure that we agree with his pro posed remedies; but his historical outline of the subject is valuable and well timed. The most strik ing article in the whole number is that on "Our Rural Population and the War," in which the diffi culties we have experienced in obtaining recruits meet with startling explanation : The cotters and yeomen—the free tillers of the soil, the essence of our rural population—are gone; and a thin race of hirelings and vagrant workers is what we now find in their room. This is the text of the article ; and all nations and all times are taxed to furnish their illustrations. A wry remarkable passage is one relating to China; but we prefer to give our readers another, which comes more directly home to the business of the day : - - • - Who but peasants have won the most striking victories of modern Europe? It was the hardy peasant-proprietors of Switzerland, fighting for their free homes, that again and again overthrew the chivalry of Austria and the bold lances of Burgundy. It was not the mountains, but the healthy life and independent proprietorship of the people, that made the Tyrol so long an impregnable country to the French. And who was it that won Crecy, and Agincourt, and Poitiers, but the free yeomen of England,—the race of small proprietors, whose bold hearts and stout arms made their country redoubtable abroad, and whose rustic abun dance and cheerful hearts then made England what it was, " merry England!" England then beat the world with her bowmen, for no other country at that time possessed the class from which such stout " experts" could be drawn. The softening of the feudal system in England centuries be fore any such relaxation took place on the Continent, allowed of the growth of those peasant-proprietors; and so se got the start of modern Europe iu this matter, and in a hun dred ways reaped the benefit. But now England hu atandoned the position. Having been first up, she is now resolved to be first down. The present aspect of these islands in relation to the rest of Europe is not a pleasant one as regards the future. The eastern half of Europe (namely Russia), still thralled by a gigantic feudalism, has not yet reached the era of small holders and peasant-pro prietors, but will reach it, —Germany has entered it, — France is fully in it,—Britain is past a I The article will be welcome to all alarmists, though we think it would be easy to suggest other reasons why recruiting in our agricultural districts is not so brisk as could be desired. Still to obtain recruits at the rate of a thousand weekly is not very desperate work after all. " Friends in Council Abroad " is the first article in this month's Fraser. It is a very long paper, ex tending to nearly twenty pages, and we are doubtful bow far it will add to the author's reputation. As we see there is a great deal more to come in the next num ber of the magazine, we shall wait till then to dis cuss it a t length. " The Monktons of Wiucot Abbey " comes to rather a sudden termination. The story is written with that singular command of the hor rible which distinguishes Mr. Collins, and seems to point him out as the legitimate successor of Mrs. Radcliffe. "The Political Press of America" is a capital article, and evidently written by one whose acquaintance with American journalism is of native growth. Our classical readers will enjoy the following anecdote The classical tongues fare, if possible, still worse. There is no end to the tricks played with them. Dauiel Webster was fond of quoting certain Latin authors, parti cularly Virgil, whose Yneid he had, in familiar phrase, at his fingers' ends. On such occasions it rarely happened that a single newspaper (by no means excepting those of Boston) reported the quotation accurately, and, as error is prone to variety, the various rea'lings wers not numusing to compare. Once he cited the well-known line from the episode of Nisus and Euryalus : Adsum qui feet; In me, me conserthe ferrum. The reporter of the Herald (which paper must be con fessed to have a " bad preeminence " in ignorance of this sort, though the Tribune sometimes runs it very bard) supposed the latter half of the orator's quotation to be a translation of the former half, and accordingly it appeared thus next day — Adsum qui feet; he or me (sic) must perish. The quotation, by-the-bye, is itself incorrectly given by the writer. The review of Mr. Lewis's "Life of Goethe " is a good critical performance ; and we are glad to see that some of those eccentricities in morals to which both tioethe and his biographer seem indulgent are treated with well-merited censure. The Dublin opens with an article quaintly and prettily called "Holly and Ivy," which seems in tended as a sort of Christmas offering. It contains some very musical verses, and some still more musical prose. Here is a sample To our thinking, the ivy is one of the loveliest leaf-robes with which the bountiful hand of Nature has decked our fair world. It would be no inappropriate emblem of the great Christian grace of Charity. See how it creepeth now along the ground, and doth not vaunt itself; and if it raises Welt upwards, it is not that it behaveth itself un seemly, but rather, in love and fidelity, clinging :o some aged tree, or hoary ruin, to which it has ministered through the long sears that are gone, holding to them in their age and weakness, as it (lid in their youth and itirrngth--liing , suffering, and kind, and loving; hiding and healing all the il