The Press. — London, England, 1857-01-24 00:00:00

A 88 metaphor, and if we were to apply to this work the terms of the Linniean system of ornithology, we should protest against these essays being classified with such tame and insipid birds as barndoor fowls. Each of the " chicks'' before us exhibits in ornithological language a rostrum cultratum, and the sharp ness of their bills is very remarkable. The lingua ciliata, or tongue edged with fine bristles, is more common to them than the plain tongue, or lingua Integra. From first to last the reader is made to feel that Sir Francis Head is the literary parent of these hopping, chirruppiug, lightly-tripping papers, which skip about all subjects with remarkable agility, but which never soar. Sir Francis Head is nearly the best of the popular light authors of the day. He takes pleasure in writing. He enjoys the occupa tion as much as an active pedeArian likes a breezy walk over a gorsy common. His mind is fresh and impressible. He has seen much of the world, mixed in good company, ab sorbed a great variety of knowledge, and can still assume the independent tone of a philosopher in his easy chair. He has a quick eye for humour, and rather too active a sense of the ridiculous. His effect in these papers now collected is such as might have been expected from Captain Marryat, if the nautical novelist had become a Quarterly reviewer. We have not so many pleasant writers now a-days that we can afford to disregard Sir F. Head. Literary is like culinary fare, and the cook who succeeds at solid pieces is some times unequal to the achievement of the side dishes. It is at the piquant literary Pat that Sir F. Head excels. What comes from him has a relish ; it is well peppered, and yet not too hot. Everybody likes a few mouthfuls of his savoury condiments ; but no one would wish to be condemned to live on such light food. We prefer, for ourselves, to see his toils mixed up with those of others; or, to speak plainly, we like his " Descriptive Essays " better in the single numbers of the Quarterly, where they relieve graver matter, than when collected into books. The French have a special turn for that class of authors who make a reputation by diffusing, rather than by discovering, ideas. They call them vulgerisateur s Sir Francis Head has many of the qualifications of that particular class ; yet his talent for writing in a particular style of his own is so distinctive as to remove him from mere popularisers of knowledge. Graphic vivacity, and a keen eye for salient effects, are the main resources on which Sir F. Head relies. These qualities will take a light popular writer very high, bat they will not do everything for him. In his view, even of a popular subject, Sir F. Head wants symmetry ; and in scientific subjects, like " The Electric Telegraph," ho does not excel in thoroughly explaining the matter which he professes to treat. In this latter respect his light essays will appear at a serious disadvan tage to any one who compares them with those of Dr. Larduer, published by Taylor and Walton. We recollect when about eight years since Dr. Larduer's essay on " The Electric Telegraph" appeared anonymously in the Dublin University Magazine, that nearly all the reviewers in the various organs simultaneously applauded its clearness and distinctive pre• cis►on of statement. "The Air We Live In " is a pleasant paper, conveying no new information, and rather deficient in selection of striking scientific facts. "The London and North-Western Railway" is one of the best " descriptive" essays in the collection, and the subject, with its points and contrasts, is well suited for one who is a master at a sketch. The astounding results of railway breed are admirably stated at the start : A good many years ago one of the toughest and hardest riders that ever crossed Leicestershire undertook to per form a feat which, just for the moment, attracted the general attention not only of this country but of the spott ing world. His het was, that if he might choose his own turf, and if he might select as many thiroagh•bred horses as he liked, he would undertake to ride two hundred miles in ten hours ! The newspaper& of the day described exactly how " the Squirt " wa; dressed—what ho had been hying on—how he looked—haw, at the ward " Away !" be started like an arrow (will * bow—how gallantly Tranby, hie favourite peer, atretc.ned hitaself in 141 gal lo p--bow ou arriving at THE PRESS. his second horse he vaulted from one saddle to another — how he then flew over the surface of the earth, if possible, faster than before—and how, to the astonishment and amidst the acclamations of thousands of spectators, he at last came in—a winner. Now, if at this moment of his victory, while with dust and perspiration on his brow, his exhausted arms dangling just above the panting flanks of his horse, which his friends at each side of the bridle were slowly leading in triumph, a decrepit old woman had hobbled forward, and in the name of science had told the assembled multitude that, before she became a skeleton, she and her husband would undertake, instead of two hundred in ten hours, to go five hundred—that is to say, that, for every mile " the Squire " had just ridden, she and her old man would go two miles and a half— that she would knit all the way— that he should take his medicine every hour and read to her just as if they were at home; lastly, that they would undertake to perform their feat either in darkness or in daylight, in sunshine or in storm, " in thunder, lightning, or in rain ;" who, we ask, would have listened to the poor maniac? and yet how wonderfully would her prediction have been now fulfilled ! Nay, waggons of coals and heavy luggage now-a•days fly across Leicestershire faster and far ther that Mr. Osbaldestone could ever go, notwithstanding his condition and that of all his horses. Such a description thoroughly realises the results. We must say, for ourselves, that we have never felt so much the effects achieved by railways as in seeing a britzka in the morn ing whirling along our West-end streets about breakfast time to one of the railway stations. There may be seated in it fbur red-coated celebrities, who take their return tickets, are whirled fifty miles to " the meet " mount their favourite horses—ride the hunt, take the up-train at three or four o'clock, and are at their clubs or at Bellamy's about dinner time. Many of our readers must recognise the following scene : The scene in the refreshment-room at Wolverton, on the arrival of every train, has so often been witnessed by oar readers, that it need hardly be described. As these youthful handmaidens stand in a row behind bright silver urns, silver coffee-pots, silver tea-pots, cups, saucers, cakes, sugar, milk, with other delicacies over which they preside, the confused crowd of passengers simultaneously liberated from the train hurry towards them with a velo city exactly proportionate to their appetites. The hungriest face first enters the door, " magna comitante catervi," followed by a crowd very much resembling in eagerness and joyous independence the rush at the prorogation of Parliament of a certain body following their leader from one house to the bar of what they mysteriously call "another place." Considering that the row of young per sons have among them all only seven right hands, with a thumb and four very little lingers at the end of each, it is really astonishing how, with such slender assistance, they can in the short space of a few minutes manage to extend and withdraw them so often—sometimes to give a cup of tea—sometimes to receive half-a-crown, of which they have to return two shillings—then to give an old gentleman a plate of warns soup—then to drop another lump of sugar into his nephew's coffee-cup--then to receive a penny for a bun, and then again threepence for four " lady's fingers." It is their rule as well as their desire never, if they can possibly prevent it, to speak to any one, and although sometimes, when thunder has turned the milk, or the kitchen-maid wer-peppered the soup, it may occasionally be necessary to soothe the fasti dious complaints of some beardless ensign by an infi nitesimal appeal to the generous feelings of his nature— we mean, by the hundred-thousandth part of a smile—yet they endeavour on no account ever to exceed that harmless dose. But while they are thus occupied at the centre of the refreshment-table, at its two ends, each close to a warm stove, a very plain matter offact business is going on, which consists in the rapid uncorking of, and then empty. ing into large tumblers, innumerable black bottles of what is not inappropriately called " Stout;" inasmuch as all the persons who are drinking the dark foaming mixture wear heavy great-coats, with large wrappers round their necks— in fact, are very stout. The statistics which follow tell their own tale, and might be printed with notes of admira tion : It appears from the books that the annual consumption at the Wolverton refreshment rooms averages 182,500 Banbury cakes ; 56,940 Queen cakes ; 29,200 pâtés; 36.500 lbs. of flour ; 13.140 lbs. of butter ; 2.920 lbs. of coffee ; 43,800 lbs. of meat ; 5,110 lbs. of currants; 1,277 lbs. of tea ; 5,840 lbs. of loaf-sugar : 5,110 lbs. of moist sugar; 16,425 quarts of milk ; 1.095 quarts of cream ; 17,520 bottles of lemonade; 35,040 bottles of soda-water; 70,08,1 bottles of stout; 35,040 bottles of ale; 17,52:1 bottles of ginger-beer ; 730 bottles of port ; 3,650 bottles of sherry. And, we regret to add, 730 bottles of gin; 731 bottles of rum ; 3,366 bottles of brandy. To the eatsbles are to be added, or driven, the eighty five pigs, who, after baying been from their birth moat kindly treated and most luxuriously fed, are impartially promoted, by seniority, one after another, into an infinite number of pork pies. The gracefulness and ladylike deportment of several of the female assistants at railways have often been admired. Some of them have evidently been brought up in another sphere of life. They have temptations to bear atio4 1 . 54 F. lievi tilludaq to guardedly : SATURDAY. The warrior and the statesman are not always immaou• late; and although at the Opera ladies undeniably sing very high, and in the ballet kick very high, it is possible that their voices and feet may sometimes reach rather higher than their characters. Considering, then, the difficulties which our seven youug attendants have to perform--considering the temptations to which they are constantly exposed in offering to the public attentions which are ever to simmer, and yet never to boil, it might be expected that our inquiries should considerately go no further than the arrival at eleven p.m. of " the up York mail." The excellent matron, however, in charge of these young people—who always dine and live at her table—with honest pride declares that the breath of slander has never ventured to sully the reputation of any of those who have been committed to her charge ; and as this testimony is corroborated by persons residing in the neighbourhood and very capable of observation we cannot take leave of the establishment without expressing our approbation of the bond sense and attention with which it is conducted ; and, while we give credit to the young for the character they have maintained, we hope they will be gratefully sensible of the protection they have received. Postscript.—We quite forgot to mention that, notwith- standing the everlasting hurry at this " tea-and-turn•out " establishment, four of the young attendants have managed to make excellent marriages, and are now very well off in the world. These papers are sketches rather than essays. The two sides of a debateable question are not fairly presented in them, nor is the animated fancy of the clever author well suited for sub jects requiring judicial estimates. He can excite interest and keep drowsy readers awake, and it is a great merit to be an appe • tising writer, whetting the desire to learn more knowledge on a given subject. But we fear that these " essays" do not merit a second perusal, and they are essentially suited for periodicals, rather than for bookshelves. " The Memorandum on the Battle of Waterloo," in which the author attempts to confute the position of Sir Archibald Alison that " the " Duke of Wellington and Blucher were sur " prised,' out-manoeuvred, and out generalled "by Napoleon," is a weak attempt at argu ment. The case, as put by Sit A. Alison, is not met by the writer. The defects of Sir F. Head's mode of composition is seen in the following passage : On the 15th of Jane thelEmperor Napoleon made the first move. On the 113th the Duke of 'Wellington sail " check" to him at Quatre•Bras. On the 17th the two players stood in sullen silence looking at the board before them. And on the 18th, at sunset, the Duke chtckmated his antagonist, who, deeming himself complete:y beaten, of his own accord threw up the game and decanped. But was this all ? No. Not only was Napoleon's army so completely routed at Waterloo that it coull never for a moment rally; not only were its elements scattered to the winds never to meet again; but Napoleon, still constitu ting himself supreme judge of his own case—still prescrib. ing for his own wounds—decided on abdicatiig his title of Emperor, on descending from the throne of France, and lastly on proceeding to England in the Bellercphon to sur render himself to the Sovereign of his antagorist. The remainder of his life was passed in atptivity in a British island ; he was buried in British soil, in which he remained for nineteen years, until the Britisi Sovereign, in the month of September, 1810, magnanimously re stored his mouldered bones to the French nation, 120,000 of whose soldiers he bad gallantly, but so unsuccessfully, led to the attack of the allied army on the L'lth of June, 1815. _ _ That his first movement on that day was rapid, and calculated to excite the enthusiasm of the F-ench army, we most readily admit; but when the deadly results just detailed are simultaneously considered, it certainly appears strange that so able and eloquent a writer as Mr. Alison should, in his history of this eventful perioi, aver that he " out-manosuvred the English general." If a French dragoon, with considerable activity and grimace, were unexpectedly to present the but.•end of his carbine at the breast of an English sentinel. and then, pulling the trigger, were to blow his own brains out, would anybody in his senses say that this dragoon had out manceuvred his red•coated enemy, merely becaue, galloping " ventre i terre " at him, his first movements had been quick ones? and yet such was precisely Napoleon's conduct. Analogy cannot in an argument be a.lowed to supply the place of logical conclusim. The chessboard is a very bad type for a eimpaign, and the illustration of the French dragoon and English sentinel is ili-chosen. Sir A. Alison's case may be stated thus—" A French " and English soldier were severally out on " picket duty; it was the duty of each to " keep their eyes open and prevent surprise, " but the Frenchman quickly and stealthily " stole around, and was suddenly on the point " of disarming the English sentinel, when a " Prussian sergeant, &o." We do not say that such is a fair analogy of what occurred at the Waterloo campaign, nor do we undertske here to endorse the strictures of Sir A. Alison all WO 897 is, that Sir F. Fioad'Es "Mmopiltirti". 1' Ilk&