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

THE PRESS.

Captain lugletleld is happy in being uuem-
einnbered by a consort, hut *Captain Lyon. in
the Griper, when in fearful peril, wished for
one, "if not to rescue or to help, at least to '
" break the death-like silence of the sea."
Wherever Esquimaux are met they invariably
laugh at the Europeans. " A handkerchief
" with a portrait of our gracious Queen in the
" centre attracted murk attention
I observed them with it spread out on the
" snow, examining it in all positions with ap
parent awe." lie searched some graves and
cairns at the place where Adam Beck reported
that Sir John Franklin was murdered, but
nothing was found to corroborate Beek's tale.
Captain Ingletield opened a but the door of
which was blocked up by a large stone. In it
a dead man was found. Amongst the Esqui-
maux, when the last of a family dies, his house
is his tomb. It is closed up, and the neigh-
bourhood is forsaken. On entering the Polar
Sea he saw some remarkable cliffs exactly
resembling the Crystal Palace in shape. Once
the Isabel was nearly wrecked in the iee : her
stern was lifted out of the water, and she
heeled over to one side. Steam saved her.
"'The edges of the fan were burnished bright
" from abrasion with the ice." There is a
sketch of the babe/ in her perilous position.
the following extract is touchi uig :

About four o'eloult in the afternoon, while busy in my
cabin at my charts, I was informed that three bears were
near us on the ice: and, our poor thap4 really needing a
fresh meal (haying supplied Captain l'idlen with the re-
mainder of toy Cape lurk eligetl) set off 114
pursuit of the intruders The trio were vinlently cono
posed of a 'wither and twins: ton), 'wing rather anybitis
to scrum the hitter. for eaMing to England *tine, I tired
cautiously at the mother, but, not living successful in hit•
ting her the first t• in a vital part, I was obliged, as she
scampered over the ice, to tire such ratoluon shots that I
W 01111414.11 one and killed the other of her cubs: anti it was
nearly seven o'cluwk hetiire all three wen. secured and
hoisted 011 board. Poor Mrs. Bruin! it was quite heart-
rending to see the affection that existed between her and
her cubs. The latter, when they saw 164 mother
wounded, regardless of their own :offerings, von 1111 l steed,
licking her wounds, whilst she, with that natural instinct
observable amongst all wild animals, seined snow up with
her huge paw, and plastered it the 144441141 pall, tie
P`tallelt 1111Kiii iy its Myrtle effects. When she began
to eat the snow we knew she Was rent tally wounded
but even then her care bor the cubs did not cease, as she
kept continually nutting her head from one to the other:
and, though roaring with pain, she seemed to warn them
to escape, if possible : but their attachment was as great
as hers : and thus I was obliged to destroy the in all. It
went
starving dogs reconciled me to the Ileeessity.
Alt ! Captain Inglefield, were you thinking
of " your starting doge" when you intended
to take the young hears to England alive?
The truth is, Captain Inglefield is a sports-
man, and cannot refrain from having a shot at
any bear within reach. He is an able
officer, an agreeable writer, and, judging front
this work, a good man. We have only space
for one more extract. He anchored offs group
called the Hindi Islands, and the governor is,
as usual, hospitable :
On the rah 1 reruiyeil a message from the patentor,
that as it was the King of Deninark's birthday the
Eagnimaux would assemble nt his !liaise and hate n donee,
and the 'demure of my company was solicited Air the ',ces-
sion. Aveonlingly, at six o'clock, I repaired to the wooden
palace of his excellency, and there found, ellitillited into a
smallish chamlwr, as many Esquimanx as 4...441.1 vow
venientlY stand. I haul prepared my self with certain
bottles by which pinch could lie quickly made ; and
several of the officers and crew joining the piety, by their
assistanee each of the Esquimaux ladies was first supplied
with n glassful of the beverage', and afterwards the gentle.
men. when I made them maleistand that they Were to give
three cheers for the King of Denmark, which was done
with a vigour and good-heartedness that blade the woollen
walls echo again. I had prepared another treat for them,
which I am quite sure was to many the most iugrawable of
the two. My coxswain came in to tell me when all was
ready, and then I begged the govenuer would tell the party
to go Hatable, where I had somewhat to show them.
When all were assembled, the booming of One of our guns,
which by signal was tiered Unto the vessel, not a little
alarmed some of the most timid. and their fear was tod
much allayed when. from under their tt ry flows, si shower
of rockets flew into naubair with a whirl that startled some
of the more ancient sages atnOligst them, though, when no
damair was found to necnte to any of the party, the Awaits
of joy overpowered the imbue of the rockets. The blue
lights and white lights, which were bunt to enliven the
perforrnaneett, were oljects of great curiosity, and I
could sec some inquiring faces eagerly watching our tnove-
ments as the iwwifirra were placed to ignite them. Dancing
was afterwards commenced, and feeling that it was my
duty to lead off with the governor's wife, who was an
Esquimau', I begged the honour of her hand for a dance,
in the beet Esquiniatix of which I was master; and, to
the scraping of a disable,' fiddle. bound round with twine
and splints, 1 Ittuachttl into the mysteries of an Espii.

017

1116111 pada., which, but for the strenuous exertions of
my partner to keep toe right, I should certain)? hare set
into utter confUsion. It was composed of s Anima. des
rboers and a rya complex to a wonderful degree, and cs•
hawing to a frightful extent; and yet it appeared to be
the &terminal of the whole party to coin' at this
one figure till tired nature sunk. l`naccustomed to this
kind et' violent csetrise, I was soon bunched up, and tried
to escape ; but at last I had the gratification of °burning
an elderly lady epistolist) beginning to falter, and, out of
eompl .nt to her, 1 presume, this shiner was terminated.
The Esquunaux seem to think it impossible to he too
warm, so the duos and windows Were tightly dosed, and
certain lamps and tallow canines ( with which I had sup•
plied his c‘eellen.,l soon brought the Istarrioure up to
Wool' hest. After resting from mt lalsoir, I determined
to try their waltz, which 1 fluid wan not very unlike ours,
being performed somewhat in the same manner, and the
fair ladies with whom I now alternately figured inntructing
utr m the tup.tei ivm of the measure. some of my sailors
having obtained permission in attend the bitn, tjwy
lloW solicited to give a specimen of their skill, and Ile•
corilingly a sailor's hornpipe and reel. with the Its suit heel-
ad toe *teem' nt. met with great applause.
Having accomplished the object of his
voyage, and communicated with Captain
pullet' in the North Star, Captain Inglefield
resolved to return to England. lie eneoun-
tered very boistemus weather, which, no
doubt, as in the case of the ancient mariner
and the albatrotis, was caused by the
which nine fathom deep had followed him
from the land of mist and snow as a punish-
ment for killing the young hears.
Stromuess was reached on dill 4th NOVem•
her, four months after they hail left 'Woolwich.
The northern ice is no longer a sealed hook,
The mystery is gone from " the death-white
snow" that awed the imagination of .lane Eyre
and invoke the strange eloquence of Franken-
stein. lint the deeds of those by whom that
mystery watt solved arc HS sublime and their
fame will be as lasting as the ice cowered
reek islets, inottitt aims, anal headlands
through which they forced their way to fame.

'yrillo. A By the Baroness Tautphoeus.
1 Assistants : Bentley.
Tuns work will not add to its writer's repute..
tion. The Baroness Taut pinball% has rather
the talents of all essayist than those of a
novelist, her forte lying in disquisition, not
invention. tittelt at writer, in applying to fic-
tion, should take great pains, in choosing a re-
markable story, and in aterstrately elaborating
the plot. There are souse fietionists, like
t ieorge Sand, and others we could mime, that
van almost afford to do without. It story. Hut
the Baroness Tatitplmens wants inmpirntion,
and none of her love passages thrill the heart
or intaisten the eye.
To learn wind. passes for a 11114 hi " One
talld hot interest our readers. It is at novel
in %%licit the colouring and costume are taken
from rovincial fashionable life in t iernanny,
and tphe authoress hats evidently had in her
eye souse of the descriptions of rural life in
England by our own novelists,. Fietions,
where the scene is laid in foreign countries,
can interest us only in two ways—either nm de•
serilsing manners or by introducing us to original
diameters. " ()Tat " has little that is charac-
teristic of fierma life, and, instead of meeting
any new types of hsmoauaity in its
are for the thousandth time called on to give
our sympathies to puppets fantastically
dressed andl attitudinising in a conventional
style. But we read MI without emotion, and,
arriving at the mehanchuly catatstrophe of the
heroine at the end of the third volume, we
close " with a feeling of relief.
The following remarks on certain phases of
'gaiety in liermany are interesting, and we
extract them as a specimen of the writer's
Maillier as all essayist :
Dancing is in tiermany a paamion which pen-114m ell
elio.seu alike—in other respeeta they have hot little ul
common, and seldom mix. Commerce has not often
enahleil I ieriemlili to imams ',stannous riches ; and, omit
uvic indiviilualm of Idle barglirr Elittl4 id, IWCOMU NY,-,I
''l **Xi twollinary wealth, it %mail hot inime them ata,te their
wigimil %phew, so MmHg is the list of demarcation drawn
by birth and fortified by prejudice.
Efigland....loit no; we will not ‘ny what wealth
can do there. Cleverer ti.enot lorve already demerilicil the
rich parrrrest's provre,.m—his nlmomt certain elei sit otti,
though devoid or all flint committal.* moped nave wealth
alone. We must, however, oho, remember that iu Ellldl4llll
talent anal intellectual t 333 i l letter or every ileiicriptima will
(Amble the posaemsor to rine, pedlars et ell more quickly,
and certainly more m 010414 , ill the sorial wale, whertint
both are alike powcrlemm in tiennany. Birth and genealogy
deeide the position in life so completely that it is
lab!sival ituroseibilisy to change it, inseassuch as none can

i

618

give thusselves other fathers and forefathers than those
him wheat they have their origin ; while the multiplicity
el the dam ilistaumhsilsd noble, enabling them generally
tomum themselves, this spirit of rade is kept up
with • hale inferior to that of India. The low caste
(ult ) ere very frequently admirers or worshipiwrs
Of the bielt aisle (nobles) ; many wish also to belong to
thus—issue, irritated by the insuperable barrier opposed
to their unbitten, bate and ridicule the whole aristocracy ;
while ethers, more reasonable, are satisfied with their
Minn Mate, and regard the nobles as a data apart, who
have peculiar ideu, habits, and whims of their own, to
which they have an hereditary right not worth disputing.
A " noble in tiermany, no matter how impoverished he
may be, or how low his station in life, never loses the
thought, " I am a nobleman ; " and this idea enables him
to look down on the richest and most prosperous burgher
with a sort of proud contentedness that would be perfectly
incomprehensible to au Englishman.

Readers of novels would have little to regret
if no more fictions should come from the pen
of the authoress of " Cyrilla."

Reentil de Documents, (te., utiles h Consulter dons la
Crise Actuelie. Paris : Pagnerre.
WE have only a single number of this work before
us, which does not enable us to estimate its value,
but only to remark its scope. If it be what it pro-
fesses, a collection of historical documents upon the
Russian question, most of which have been hitherto
secret, it must be the most important work upon the
present crisis, to practical politicians, which has yet
been published. But we must see it in externs() to
judge whether it sustains its pretensions.

The Czar and the Sultan. London : Vizetelly.
THIN is a compilation of historical events and of
anecdotes, most of which we have met with in
magazines and newspapers, relating to the Eastern
question and the actors in it.

History of the Guillotine. night lion. John

• - *ilium Cmker. London : Murray.
THIR is an article revised and reprinted from the
Quarterly Rerieto of December, IM-14. Mr. Croker's
place in the world of letters has long been fixed—
above it he will never rise, below it ho cannot fall.
His faults and his merits—his laborious research into
trifles—the strange importance be attaches to them
—his exultation when he fancies he has detected an
error generally in points utterly frivolous his
absolute incapacity to measure the relative magnitude
of events—his paragraphs copiously besprinkled with
capital letters, italics, notes of admiration, and other
aids and accessories of the " forcible- feeble " school ;
with all these the public have been too long familiar
for the estimation in which he is held to be affected
either by our censure or our praise. The French Re-
volution is Mr. Croker's strong point—his hobby—
his cheval do bataille. He has worked it. hard all his
life, and few would regret if ho had ridden it to death
long ago.
This essay purports to be a history of the guil-
lotine, but the greater portion of it is devoted to an
attempt to prove that all previous authors who have
written on the French Revolution anal its incidents
are wrong, and Mr. Cmker undertakes to► set them
right. Thus, after mentioning M. Tillers, Laeretelle,
Miguel, and Sir Archibald Alison, he says, " In short,
" those who are hereafter to learn the French Rem-
" Whet from what are called histories will see it
" very much curtailed of many of its more terrible yet
" most interesting features, and especially of the
6' most pmminent of them all, the aat•tt.t.ortlE." Mr.
l7roker then sets to work to illustrate its performances
from every point of view.
" It appears that, when the revolution had swept
" away every other trace of fendality, M. Samson . . .
" was exercising an hereditary office as executioner,"
and accordingly his genealogy is set forth with are
much solemn parade as if it had been that of the
Marquis of Steyue.
In the "Report on the Mode of Decollation," re
commending the adoption of the guillotine, it is
maid, "'rids is the mode adopted in England." Mr.
Croker says he does not know whence \l. I Antis, the
author of the report, " could have taken up this
"notion,' remarking that " the English mode of
"decapitation bad always been lay the block and the
66 axe, with one ancient local exception—that of what
66 was called the Halifax gibbet, which was indeed a
" perfect guillotine." Probably the foundation for
M. Louis' statement was this Halifax gibbet, or the
maiden which Morton introduced into Scotland.

Mr. eroker's essay is illustrated by woodcuts of
old and curious representations of guillotines ; and.
indeed, those parts of his work which are devoted to
the history of the guillotine are as interesting as the
subject will permit. SO popular did Lit Sainte
guillotine become in Paris that it war "the model of
•' ornaments for women and of toys for children ;
" and the toymen funiished living sparrows to be
66 ,decapitated by the instruments." Mr. Croker, in
trying to fix the day on which the ;whim