The Press.
London, England, 1853-05-14 00:00:00

•• In bridal ranks victorious,

t)11. the tree air is glorious!
How cloth the steel bride's glance

Bright in the sunbeam dunce.
Hurnili!"

A Summer Cruixe in tl►e Mediterranean on Board an
A►uerican Frigate. By N. Parker Willis. London :
T. Bosworth.
I-low indefatigably 3lr. Willis travels about the world,
how jauntily he bears himself in it, and how
industriously he chronicles all that he is loomed to
see or to suffer—with what liveliness he can write
about commonplace occurrences or places that arc

MAY 14, 1853.

still more commonplace—how great is his appetite
for gossip—how well developed his organ of self-
assurance—and how mare the conseiousuess of su-
periority with which he addresses himself to peer or
to peasant. to brigand or to beauty—that large
Anglo-Ameriean public for whom he has persevered
during a quarter of a century in sketching his - Pen-
eillings by the Way''—with whom he has chatted
about the ' People he has met," or to whom he has
addressed his" Letters from under a Bridge," already
know full well. The present volume is worthy of its
many predecessors. It has all their Iheliness
and more than all their self-assurance. sar•
rating the personal events and sights in a tour
performed about twenty years ago. there is indeed
somewhat of an "old world" airabout it. Lords Byron
and Elgin. Sultan Mahmoud, Sir W. Bell, and the
Maid of Athens are written about in that antediluvian
style natural to a time when Childe Harold was not
only a marvel but a novelty, and when men dreamed
not of Dr. Layard or the siege of Acre. Notwith-
stonding this—and although he has pieised, as his
titlepage imports. over none but paths well trodden,
and waves well furrowed—Mr. Willis has eontrive.l
to write as usual a very readable book ; and Mr.
Bosworth, by introducing it to a British public, has
nade a happy commencement to a new series of
publications. in which, under the title of Literature
for the People," he designs—as 'vo are informed on a
tiyleaf—to "meet the rapidly increasing demand for
good literature at a low Kiev."

7'he Marvels of Seieure, awl their Testimony So truly
Writ. By S. W. }Atom. Hurst and Blacken.
THE inscription, " fotu•th edition," on the titlepage
of this book will suffieiently exonerate us front the
duty of examining with critical intent the contents of
a work OR which the public has already set the seal
of approbation. Discoursiag on so vast a theme, and
touching at so many lo►ints upon the domain of
the unknown or the doubtful, the►e ►use doubtless
many passages in the work open to serious question-
ings on the score of scientific. verity. But the inten-
tion of the author has been good throughout ; his
information extensive ; and his style animated and
familiar, without descending to commonplace.

The Idealist ; a Dramatic Poem. By J. V. Iliihrs.
A.M., late Fellow of Jesus College, Candwidge.
J. W. Parker and Sons.
THE author of this dramatic poem intends to show
how an idealist may be reconciled with reality. For.
this purpose he embarks Sir Wyndham Orey—the
Idealist as aforesaid, who is used up with London
and luxury—on board his yacht, together with a hun-
dred stalwart, men, and a few rockets, for the west of
Sicily. Hem he falls in with Reality, in the shape
of Ida, a fair cousin and ward of his own. and her
true lover, Count Rafaele Coligul. Here, too, lie
falls out with a certain Jesuit. Orsino, and his worthy
but surreptitious mother, a lady abbess. Battling
the arts of the Jesuit and Abbess, which are more
transparent and imbecile than are generally met with
even in "dramatic poems," the Idealist returns to
his house in London with a comfortable assurance
thathe has at length contrived to do some real good in
the world. His conversion is, however, only half com-
pleted. We leave him at the end of the third act
and last page contriving the inscription on his tomb-
stone, " Here waiteth an Idealist ;" and are threat-
ened with (at least) three more acts, in which not
only is Sir Wyndham to be thoroughly "realised,"
but the story " brought into closer connection with
English life and manners." But " sufficient for the day
is the evil thereof."