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

SUNDAY IN LONDON.

It was a Sunday evening in London, gloomy, close, and
stale. Maddening church bells of all degrees of dissonance,
sharp and flat, cracked and clear, fast and slow, made the
brick and mortar echoes hideous. Melancholy streets in
a penitential garb of Root steeped the souls of the people
who were condemned to look at them out of windows in
dire despondency. In every thoroughfare, up almost every
alley, and down almost every turning, some doleful bell
was throbbing, jerking, toll'ng, as if the plague were in the
city and the dead-carts were going round. Everything
was bolted and barred that could by possibility furnish
relief to an overworked people. No pictures, no unfami•
liar animals, no rare plants or flowers, no natural or arti-
ficial wonders of the ancient world—all taboo with that
enlightened strictness that the ugly South Sea gods in the
British Museum might have supposed themselves at home
again. Nothing to see but streets, streets, streets. No-
thing to breathe but streets, streets, streets. Nothing to
change the brooding mind or raise it up. Nothing for the
spent toiler to do but to compare the monotony of his
seventh (lay with the monotony of his six days, think what
a weary life he led, and make the best of it—or the worst,
according to the probabilities.
At such a happy time, so propitious to the interests of
religion and morality, Mr. Arthur Clennam, newly arrived
from Marseilles by way of Dover, and by Dover coach, the
Blue-eyed Maid, sat in the window of a toffee-house on

SATURDAY,

Ludgate•hill. Ten thousand responsible houses surrounded
him, frowning as heavily on the streets they composed as
if they were every one inhabited by the ten young men of
the calender's story, who blackened their faces and be-
moaned their miseries every night. Fifty thousand lairs
surrounded him, where ?eople lived so unwholesomely
that fair water put into their crowded rooms on Saturday
night would be corrupt on Sunday morning, albeit my lord,
their county member, was amazed that they tailed to sleep
iu company with their butcher's meat. Miles of close
wells and pits of houses, where the inhabitants gasped for
air, stretched far away towards every point of the compass.
'Through the heart of the town a deadly sewer ebbed and
flowed in the place of a fine fresh river. What secular
want could the million or so of human beings, whose daily
labour six days in the week lay among these Arcadian ob-
jects, from the sweet sameness of which they had no escape
between the cradle and the grave—what secular want could
they possibly have upon their seventh day ? Clearly they
could want nothing but a stringent policeman.

.:,
A CALVINISTIC CHILD'S SUNDAY.

There was the dreary Sunday of his chi!dhood, when he
sat with his hands before him, scared out of his senses by a
horrible tract, which commenced business with the poor
child by asking 'aim in its title why he was going to perdi-
tion ?—a piece of curiosity that he really, in a frock and
drawers, was not in a condition to satisfy—and which, for
the further attraction of hie infant mind, had a parenthesis
in every other line with some such hiccupping reference as
2 Ep. These. c. iii. v. 0 & 7. There was the sleepy Sunday
of his boyhood, when like a military deserter he was
marched to chapel by a picket of teachers three times a
day, morally handcuffed to another boy, and when he
would willingly have bartered two meals of indigestible
sermon for another ounce or two of infeticr mutton at his
scanty dinner in the flesh. There was the interminable
Sunday of his nonage, when his mother, stern of face and
unrelenting of heart, would sit all day behind a bible, bound,
like her own construction of it, in the hardest, barest, and
straitest boards, with one (hilted ornament on the cover
like the drag of a chain, and a wrathful sprinkling of red
upon the edges of the leaves, as if it, of all books, were a
fortification against sweetness of temper, natural affection,
and gentle intercourse. There was the resentful Sunday
of a little later, when he sat glowering and glooming through
the tardy length of the day, with a sullen sense of injury
in his heart, and no more real knowledge of the beneficent
history of the New Testament than if he had been bred
among idolators. There was a legion of Sundays, all days
of unserviceable bitterness and mortification, slowly passing
before him.
We have only to add that Mr. Dickens retains the
questionable assistance of " Illustrations by Phiz,"
which at all events have the negative merit of being
too feeble to intrude between the reader and the
author.

The Post °lice London Directory for 1856.
London: Kelly and Co.
THE fifty-seventh annual publication of this useful
Directory has just been issued, and this year it stands
alone. The attempt to establish a rival Directory,
though prosecuted with great enterprise, has failed.
The undertaking was a hopeless, almost an impos-
sible, one. Publications of this magnitude can rarely
be produced at a start—they require years for their
growth and development. There is not a greater
difference between the first issue of the Times and
that journal at present than the first number of this
Directory and the immense volume before us. Such
enterprises partake more of the nature of institutions
than of private speculations ; they are carried on, not
only from year to year, but from generation to gene•
ration, and increase their claims to public support by
the application of their growing resources to the im-
provements which experience suggests. In this way
their continued prosperity conduces even more to
the convenience and good of the public such
enterprises are intended to serve than to the profit
of the proprietors; and the kind of mi.nopoly they
enjoy arisen not from any exclusive privileges, or• even
from any prejudice in their favour, but from a well-
grounded conviction that no rival can displace them,
because no rival could gain at once their experience,
their system, or even command their resources and
capital.
The present issue of " The Post-office Directory "
contains no less than 2,652 pages of close print, a
great part of the pages containing three columns in
each. The volume is not only by far the largest
issued from the press, but it is necessary that the
whole should be produced with great rapidity, so that
the latest changes may be introduced. The machi-
nery by which all London can be simultaneously cata-
logued, and the whole of the matter in this prodigious
volume simultaneously printed, must needs be of a
very complex kind ; end when hostile ingenuity picks
out a few errors from such an amazing number of
of details, a tribute of praise is really paid to the
general correctness of the work —as exceptions
prove rules—and our wonder is moved, not that
some errors should occur, but that they should be
so few in number. In the references we have had
time to make we find that very recent alterations are
duly recorded, and that strict accuracy has been in-
sured to almost the very date of issue.
The volume seems now to contain all the informa-
tion that can possibly be desired in a Directory. The
ibinding is not only strong but handsome, and the
exterior index conduces greatly to facility of reference.
We have only to wish the proprietors the success
their enterprise justly raeritea

DECEMBER 8, 1853.

The Wonders of Science ; or, Young Humphry Davy. I

•
By Henry Mayhew. London : Bogue.
THE object of this pretty volume is to explain the
elements of natural science by relating the boyhood
of Sir Hum phry Davy, and showing by what obser-
vations, simple experiments, and reasoning he
arrived at the principles which were subsequently
manifested in his brilliant discoveries. Much may
be said against this mode of blending fact with
fiction, and the connection of real incidents in the life
of so eminent a man as Davy with imaginary conduct
is not free from objection, but the result in this case
is so natural, and so pleasantly teaches elementary
science, that the objection may be overlooked. The
volume is dedicated to Mr. Faraday, and from this
dedication we make an extract which shows that it
was through the good-nature of Davy that Faraday
was enabled to pursue the inclination of his youth
and devote himself to science. The letters have
been published before, but are well worth reproduc-
tion:—

The following letter becomes peculiarly interesting as a
record of the circumstances which brought together two
of the greatest chemical geniuses that the world has yet
seen _ _

"To J. A. FARIS, M.D.

" Royal Institution, Dec. 23, 1829.

" 7/1y dear sir,—Yon asked me to give you an account of
my first introduction to Sir H. Davy, which I am very
happy to do, as I think the circumstance will bear testi-
mony to his goodness of heart.
" When I was a bookseller's apprentice. I was very fond
of exrerimeut, and very averse to trade. It happened that
a gentleman, a member of the Royal Institution, took me
to hear some of Sir H. Davy's last lectures in Albemarle-
street. I took notes, and afterwards wrote them out more
fairly in a quarto volume.
" My desire to escape from trade, which I thought
vicious and selfish, and to enter into the service of science,
which I imagined made its pursuers amiable and liberal,
induced me at last to take the bold and simple step of
writing to Sir H. Davy, expressing my wishes, and a hope
that, if an opportunity came in his way, he would favour
my views ; at the same time, I sent the notes I had taken
at his lectures.
" The answer, which makes all the point of my commu-
nication, I send you in the ()aging', requesting you to take
great care of it, and to let me have it back, for you may
imagine how much I value it.
" Yon will observe that this took place at the end of the
year 1812. and early in 1113 he requested to see me, and
told me of the situation of assistant in the laboratory of
the Royal Institution, then just vacant.
At the same time that he thus gratified my desires as
to scientific employment, he still advised me not to give up
the prospects I had before me, telling me that Science was
a harsh mistress ; and, in a pecuniary point of view, but
poorly rewarding those who devoted themselves to her
service. He smiled at my notion of the superior moral
feelings of philosophic men, and said he would leave
me to the experience of a few years to set me right on the
matter.
" Finally, through his good efforts, I went to the Royal
Institution earls in March of 1813, as assistant in the
laboratory ; and in October of the same year went with him
abroad, us his assistant in experiments and in writing. I
returned with him in April, 1815, resumed my station in
the Royal Institution, and have, as you know, ever since
remained there.—l am, dear sir, very truly yours,
" M. FARADAY."
The following is the note of Sir H. Davy alluded to in
Mr. Faraday's letter :

" To MR. FARADAY.
" December 24,1812.
" Sir,--I am far from displeased with the proof yon have
given me of your confidence, and which displays great zeal,
power of memory, and attention. lam obliged to go out
of town, and shall not be settled in town till the end of
January : I will then see you at any time you wish.
" It would graiify me to be of any service to you.
wish it may be in my power.—l am, sir, your obedient,
humble servant, "H. DAVY."
It is remarkable that it was in somewhat a similar
manner that Professor Owen owed his first advance-
ment to the good offices of Abernethy.

The Adventures of the Caliph Haroun Alraschid.
Recounted by the Author of " Mary Powell." Lon-
don : Hall, Virtue, and Co.

WE cannot think this volume happy either in choice
of subject or execution. It wants invention, and
does not exhibit that skill in historic reproduction
and colouring which have given popularity to the
author's previous works. The adventures of the
Caliph are mainly made up from the " Arabian
Nights ;" and our old favorites, " Cogia Hassan,"
" Ali Cogia," " Noureddin," and "Abon Hassan," are
not improved in this new version of their stories.
We should be sorry to see this ingenious author sink
into a mei e bookmaker. Even the binding seems a
mistake. Instead of the sombre dress it wears, it
sliou'd have glittered with gilding and arabesque
design. It may, however, prove an acceptable
'present to those young persons who have not yet
made acquaintance with the "Arabian Nights" in
any shape.

THE PRESS.

Malvern ; or, the Three Marriages. By Mrs.

Hubbuck. London : Skeet.

THE action of this novel takes place in a hydropathic
mansion at Malvern. There is reality in the cha-
racters assembled at this cheerful place (more
resembling a foreign spa than a medical establish-
ment), and in the life that they lead. Their occupa-
tions, chit - chat, and amusements are cleverly
described, and the book is relieved from tameness by
an ingeniously.constructed plot, which supplied
motive to the characters and purpose to incidents
in themselves trivial. The plot, it' less natural or
commonplace than the social anion of the story, is
not exaggerated. It piques curiosity and sustains
attention. The impression produced on putting
down the novel is, that a case such as sometimes
appears in our law or police reports has been
agreeably worked up into a tale exhibiting lively
social sketches portrayed in a ladylike manner.

The House of Elmore. A Family History. London :

Hurst and Blackett.
WE do not recognise the author of this " History,"
yet there is in it so much power, intellect, and
imagination, as to make it improbable ►•hat he can
long remain unknown. His grasp of character is
firm, and truth is never sacrificed to mere effect.
Unlike most fictions we meet with, this is crowded,
not only with adventure, but with strong feeling. The
nature of the chief actor, Elmore, justifies this
rapidity of action. Men of strong passions lead
eventful lives ; and in his cave there is—partly from
the darkness of early associations, partly from the
gloom of his temperament a depth of inward
emotion which seems to place him at the mercy of an
irresistible destiny. The story, from its complex
nature, does not admit of description—nor is it tie-
cessary. It is of modern date, and many of the
sketches are clever and penetrating, hut the romantic
element predominates. The most objectionable part
o' the book is that relating to Elmore's wife, who,
though described !ts lovely and amiable, and made to
attract our sympathies, is deeply stained with crime.
The author's power requires discipline. The
"History," on the whole, would be mere impressive if
passages which appear to us strained—as that for
example at vol. iii., 135-o—were modified. But
objections to style are hardly admissible. If by a
"new hand," and the author will submit the strong
faculties he undoubtedly possesses to some training,
he may hope to win a distinguished place as a
romancist.