The Press.
London, England, 1853-10-29 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

faults left him in the field. By every army
under his command he was beloved ; iu camp
his soldier-nature was thoroughly appreciated;
nor has a nobler tribute been offered to any
public man than when, in the panic that fol
lowed Chillianwallah, the voice of universal
England pronounced him as the only general
who could be trusted to retrieve the lost pres-
tige of our arms. Of such stuff as his were
Roman dictators made; and, if temper and
self-command were sometimes wanting, by nu
soldier of ancient or modern times have the
passion or patriotism and the thirst of glory
been displayed in a more eminent degree.

The Lire, if the Poete-Laureate. By Wiltshire
Stanton Austin, jun., 8.A., Exeter College,
Oxon, and John Ralph, M.A , Barrister at-
Law. London : Bentley. •
WE opened this volume without the least
prejudice against the writers, but we can
warm* say the same on laying it down. Here
are two unknown persons assuming the most
opinionative tone on literature, uttering their
theta on books and men, as if each of them was
the; equal of Lord Jeffrey or Mr. Hallam.
We might pass over their flippancy in dealing
with past reputations, but their presumption
in pronouncing sentence upon their con-
temporaries is of a more offensive description
than either their dulness or inaccuracy. The
success of a maiden speech in Parliament de-
pends, according to a great authority, " upon
betraying one's impudence modestly; and for
a man in his first literary performances to fall
foul of his enntemporaries exhibits an utter
want of discretion. Now, in the life of I'yc,
whom these biographers have cruelly ex-
humed, we are arrested with the following
offensive note :
This reminds as that at the installation of Lord North,
at oxford, in 1772, the degree of I).C.L. was conferred on
rye among others. lie had assuredly as much right to it
as some gentlemen lately bo honoured.
Recollecting the many eminent names that
were amongst the list of honorary degrees, our
readers will exclaim with wonder, " And who
are :Messrs. Stanton Austin and Ralph, or what
honours have they won in letters, to entitle
them in venting their opinions with such
precocious arrogance ?" In their preface they
have praised themselves for "the production
" of a work popular in style, and to be relied
"on for its accuracy." On the very opposite
page to this of note just quoted we have
the fidlowing passage. We print it exactly as
it appears in their volume:—
- -

HP palished in 1827 "A Summary of the Duties of a
Justice of the Peace."
As we do not belong to that chum of writers who, accord.
ing to Mason, in his "Memoirs of W. Whitehead," "gain
what they think en honest livelihood by publishing the
lives of the living," so also we do not attempt to chronicle
nity of the minute circumatancea of the private life of our
Laureate.
lie died at Pinner, in Dens, in a house which he had
purchased there, on August 13th, 1813.
Thus it will be seen that poor Pye was a pro-
digy in psychology, if not in poetry. These
writers, who are "to be relied on" as biogra.
pliers, record the fact, stranger than any of the
qwasi-revelations in biology, that Pyo died in
1813, and published a book for magistrates in
1827! Dead as a man in 1813, and "damned"
as a poet long before, his apparition in 1827
(aematins his biographers) must have been as
alarming to his contemporaries as his appear-
ance to the good old King in "The Vision of
Judgment"—

" The Monarch, mite till then, exelaim'd, 'What, what!
Pye come agaiu! No more, no more of that!"

But we must proceed to quote one of the
most displeasing passages ever brought under
our notice. The coarse and highly indecorous
way in which these writers refer to a living
English lady, and that lady one so respected
as Miss Agnes Stricklami, far exceeds any
licence of allusion permitted to contemporary
critics. Referring to the poet Skelton, they
write :

" This ribald and ill•living wretch," such is the delicate
language of Mies Agnes Strickland, who insinuates that
King lienry'a "grossest crimes " resulted from the " eor-
rnlttion imparted" his former tutor, had been guilty of
1411 unpardonable enormity in the eyes of the Christian
clergy of that day. as ik 'imps also in the immaculate ima-
gination of :Mist. Agnes Strickland. Thu Church that
could denounce marriage and countenance brothels was
scandalised that one of its ministers should be so obtuse

SATU RDAY,

to all no•ions of decorum as to enter that state which it

had solemnly pronounced dishonourable. Preferring t4i
obey the moral rather than the ecclesiastical law, his name
was loaded with disgrace, and, merit• Skelton being a
priest, and having a child by his wife, every one cried out,
' 0 ! Skelton hath a child, fie on him !' "

It would be vain to look for either sense or
taste in biographers who iu their preface
speak of their attempt "to arrange, under a
" new classification, all interesting portion of
" our literary and dramatic annals," and choose
" The Lives of the Poets Laureate " as the
basis of their " new " critical system! From
Ben Jenson to Wordsworth there were thir-
teen poets appointed to the office of Laureate,
and amongst thorn were Shadwell, Tate, Eus-
den, Cibber, Whitehead, and Pye. A glance
at such names exposes the absurdity of the
truly ridiculous plan of the present work.
To the lives of IlOrydeu and Colley Cibber
the same space is allowed by these writers,
each receiving forty-one pages ! To Wanton
seventeen pages are given, and to White-
head twenty-nine! They allot eight pages
and a half to Nicholas Rowe, and to
Nahum Tate they give twenty-seven! Cibber
has written his own "autobiography" in a
style of graphic felicity entirely unappreciated
by these compilers. His descriptions of erni•
uent actors and actresses aro very clever ; and
one passage, which beautifully laments the
fleeting glory of histrionic laurels, has been
much admired. "Pity it is," says Cibber,
" that the charms of fine acting cannot, like
the beauties of poetry, be their own record,
that the animated graces of the player can live
no longer than the instant breath and motion
which present them, or at best. can but faintly
glimmer through the memory of a few surririny
spectators ! Moore quotes this passage in his
" Lifo of Sheridan," with the remark that the
sentiment of Cibber could not have gained in
power, even if it had been expressed in poetry;
but of that and many other excellent passages
these biographers of the " Laureates ' take no
notice. Of their want of acumen let us offer a
specimen. Referring to Cibber, they say
Writing of the Earl of Chesterfield, he says, " Having
often had the honour to bo the butt of his raillery, I must
own I have received more pleasure from his lively man-
ner of raising the laugh against me, than I could have felt
from the smoothest flattery of a serious civility." Eng-
lish literature presents few instances of such abject toady-
ism.

If they had said " utter coxeombry " in place
of " abject, toadyism" they would have been
near the mark. It was the vanity and folly of
Cibber both to talk and write in the Lord Fop •
pington style but these biographers miss the
points of his character. Although the pages
of this volume, in its present form, show
neither sound criticism, brilliant style, nor deep
research, they may yet be made useful, if not
ornamental. " I saw an excellent thing in
your last essay," said O'Connell to a pam
phleteer who was dull enough to have written
these " lives of the laureates." " What was it?
what was it?" eagerly cried Seriblerus. "It Avas—
t, mutton pie !" replied the other; and, in return
for the dull and bitter dicta of this heavy
volume, we present the compilers with " that
excellent thing " of O'Connell, which, if pro-
perly digested, may do them much benefit.

A Summer Search for Sir John Franklin ; frith
a Peep into the Polar Basin. By Commander
E. A. Inglefield. London : Harrison.
MIR volume contains, with appendices, 232
pages. It is illustrated by drawings of inter-
esting points in the Arctic regions. They are
beautifully tinted, and bring vividly before the
mind the craggy headland, the islets, the
lofty mountain, the ice and snow, that eon-
stitute the winding labyrinth of the frozen
realm, which rises silently sublime out of the
glassy sea.
Captain Inglefield—for we are happy to
state that he has been promoted from the rank
of commander since the publication of this
book—has been directed to hold himself in
readiness to submit his drawings to the
Queen. On the 10th of July, 1352, his ship, the
Isabel, a screw-schooner of 149 tom,. tripped an-
chor and sailed and steamed from Peterhead for
the Arctic regions. She belonged to Lady
Franklin. who gave her to Captain Inglefield
on certain conditions, which conditions ho
has ably performed. The crew numbered

OCTOBER 29, 1853.

seventeen men. The weight of fuel was
ninety-three tons ; and space was so carefully
economised that " the engineers cabin anti
" Mr. Abernethy's occupied positions on either
" side of the engine-room hatch, so that when
" the steam was up they enjoyed a tempera-
" lure of a hundred Fahrenheit."
On the 14th steam was got up, but so
deeply was the Isabel laden that, " during a
stork calm," she only made three knots an
hour. Divine service was duly performed On
Sunday, whenever the weather permitted.
On the 30th the morning " broke with a per-
" feet hurricane of wind the sea washing
our decks fore anti aft," and doing mane
damage. This warned them that they were
near " Foul-weather Cape," as Cape Farewell
is termed—vessels seldom passing it without
encountering a gale :
A stormy petrel flying on board Wati easily captured.
The raw little creature Kati lost ono kg, and, though the
%tiny was perfectly healed the want of it occasioned
as; capture, as these hints use their feet us a rudder to
guide them in their flight.
The same day ice was first seen, and
through the floes the babe/ " rudely pushed
and " elbowed " her way, going seven knots
an hour, anti " trembling from stein to
stern." The screw was not injured by the ice.
The configuration of the northern ice Was
" as if matte out of snow pressed into un-
" wieldy masses." off Cape Horn it is "much
" more like ice." On the 31st two coronae were
observed through the thick fog the
outer one of purple, the inner of a brilliant
" orange." At midnight on the 4th of Autaist
an aurora borealis was seen lighting up " the
"whole of the southern sky with its variegated
" corruseations of brilliant light." On the sth
Captain Inglefield kept the morning watch
himself, and was rewarded by " the sight of
" tis glorious a sunrise as ever gladdened the
" face of nature the yellow tints of
" the golden orb shedding their refulgence on
" the rude and grotesque masses of icc seat-
" tem(' here and there, and the land just
" tipped on its snow-capped heights." And
now the noises that ht'eak the silence of
the frozen realm were heard—"the hoarse
" surge of the waters as they rolled iuto the
" caverns of some mountain of ice," or " the
" roar of some other berg rent in twain with
" the noise of a park of artillery, and scat-
" tered over the water in showers of fragments
" for miles around."
At the Danish settlement of Fiskernocs Cap.
Lain Inglefield anchored, and was hospitably
received by the governor, with whom an inter
change of courtesies occurred. An Es-
quimaux pilot steered them from Fisker
noes, and when he was leaving he was re-
warded with " some biscuit, at piece of pork,
" and an old pair of trousers." This is an in
valuable fact for the Chancellor of the Exche-
quer when the pilot dues are next discussed.
At the settlement of Lievely he again an-
chored, and applied for dogs, but Sir Edward
Belcher had carried away all that could be
spared. His next point is Upernivik, and,
steering along the coast, he sketched the
headlands, and "accompanied " the sketches
with " angles and one true bearing." " Sauu-
" derson's Hope is a remarkable mountain,
" 3,000 feet in height, and forming a good
" landmark." At Upernivik he obtained two
dogs, and called them Tom and Bella, but
they did not like their new abode at first, anti
" it was some days before they settled down
" into domestic habits."
Again he sails on, and soon gt•ts into the
ice :
we had not been long struggling with the loose ice
when a great bear Came close down to the ship to inquire
o u business. I saluted him with R Shot trims " the rifle "
( a mink ride), but, nut striking hint in a vital part, he
made 14, and Our 'Abuts tii follow him in the whale-boat
moved fruitless. I was '.eery to krill' the poor brute v.O
hay wounded, and my dogs were in as much need of the
flesh as I was of the skin, to fail some of the promises I
made ti my friends on leaving England. Having succeeded
in passing through the pack, and in reaching the open
water, we pushed cm„ oily on ; while the tom, bursting forth,
dispdled the mist, and gladdening our hearts amidst the
solitude of ice and snow, rapidly thawed the latter thr.t lay
on our decks and yards atter a morning shower, which,
tliontdi slight, had covered them. Itirty.one days only
have elapsed since we tripp 1 anchor from Peterhead, and
here we are in Melville Bay, three days later only (as
regards the period of the season) than the Penny Expedb
!ton of last year. with apparently a far better season. and
in a vessel uneuetuubered with a consort or with any orders.