The Press.
London, England, 1855-08-25 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

great deal of dressing, a lounge in the club-room, a stare
out of the window with the telescope, an attempt to take
a bad sketch, a walk up one parade and down another, in-
terminable reading of the silliest of novels, over which
you fall asleep on a bench in the sun, and probably have
your umbrella stolen; a purposeless fine•weather sail in a
yacht, accompanied by ineffectual attempts to catch a
mackerel, and the consumption of many cigars ; while
your boys deafen your ears, and endanger your personal
safety, by blazing away at innocent gulls and willocks, who
go off to die slowly, a sport which you feel in you heart to
be wanton, and cowardly, and cruel, and yet carnot find
in your heart to stop, because " the lads have nothingelse
to do, and at all events it keeps them out of the billiard-
room;" and after all, and worst of all, at night a soulless
rechaei of third•rate London frivolity ; this is the life•in-
death in which thousands spend the golden weeks of
summer, and in which you confess with a sigh that you
are going to spend them.
Now I will not be so rude as to apply to you the old
hymn•disti:h about one who

Finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do:
but does it not seem to you that there must surely be
many a thing worth looking at earnestly, and thinking
over earnestly, in a world like this, about the making of
the least part whereof God has employed ages and ages,
further back than wisdom can guess or imagination pic-
ture, and upholds that least part every moment by laws
and forces so complex and so wonderful thatscience, when
it tries to fathom them, can only learn how little it can
learn ? And does it not seem to you that six weeks' rest,
free from the cares of town business, and the whirlwind
of town pleasure, couli not be better spent than in ex-
amining those wonders a little, instead of wandering up
and down like the many, still wrapt up each in their little
world of vanity and self-interest, unconscious of what
and where they really are, as they gaze lazily around at
earth and sea and sky, and have
No speculation in those eyes
Which they do glare withal?
Why not, then, try to discover a few of the Wonders of the
Shore ? For wonders there are there around you at every
step, stranger than ever opium-eater dreamed, and yet to
be seen at no greater expense than a very little time and
trouble.

But these admirable reflections are spoilt, a few
pages further on, by a definition of the qualities
which a naturalist ought to combine, quite beyond
the physical qualities of the man of 1855. He is
to be strong in body, able to haul a dredge, climb a
rock, turn a boulder, walk all day fasting, know
bow to swim, pull and sail a boat, and ride the first
unbroken colt at hand ; a good shot, a better fisher-
man, and able to fight for his life. Moreover, he is
to be gentle and courteous ; self-devoted, brave, and
enterprising ; patient and undaunted, reverent and
virtuous, &c. &c. We have not space to conclude
the qualities which are requisite to form a naturalist
for a six weeks' sojourn at the seaside. True it is,
however, that the town young men of the present
day are too effeminate, and it is the object of the
author in " Glaucus " to give the rising generation
an interest in out-of-door pursuits :

" Taking a walk " as one would take a pill or a
draught—seems likely soon to become the only form of
outdoor existence possible for us of the British Isles. But
a walk without an object, unless in the most lovely and
novel of scenery, is a poor exercise, and as a recreation
utterly nil. We never knew two young lads go out for a
" constitutional " who did not, if they were commonplace
youths, gossip the whole way about things better left un-
spoken ; or, if they were clever ones, fall on arguing and
brainabeating on politics or metaphysics from the moment
they left the door, and return with their wits even more
heated and tired than they were when they set out. We
cannot help fancying that Milton made a mistake in a
certain celebrated passage, and that it was not " sitting on
a hill apart," but tramping four miles out and four milea
in along a turnpike-road, that his hapless spirits dis-
coursed
Of fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute,
And found no end, In wandering mazes lost.

Seriously, if we wish rural walks to do our children
any good, we must give them a love for rural sights, an
object in every walk ; we must teach them—and we can
teach them—to find wonder in every insect, sublimity in
every• bedge•row, the records of past worlds in every pebble,
and boundless fertility upon the barren shore; and so, by
teaching them to make full use of that limited sphere in
which they now are, make them faithful in a few things,
that t hey may be fit hereafter to be rulers over much.
There is a fresh, healthy, and manly tone in Mr.
Kingsley's writings which few can fail to admire ; and
though there is not much real instruction to be
gained from this little book, yet the spirit in which
it is written may lead the reader to reflection and
profit.

Heroes of the Crimea. By George Ryan. London :

Field and Co.
A SERIES of biographical sketches of the most dis-
tinguished officers of the army in the Crimea. Mr.
Ryan has, in particular cases, gone so far beyond the
limits of a compiler that it is difficult to characterise
his book shortly. His prejudices seem very strong
with regard to certain names. His abuse of Lord
Raglan is not only premature bnt manifestly unfair.
No just judgment can he passed upon his qualities
as a commander until bis private despatches be made
public : we do not know the difficulties he had to

815

contend with, and until those are explained it is im-
possible to estimate him justly. The dispute be-
tween Lords Lucan and Cardigan is again opened up,
and a very singular charge brought against the latter.
We do not suppose that the noble earl will think it
worth while to vindicate his character from the
attack.

The Palace of Westminster, and other Historical
Sketches. By W. D. Arnold. London : J. W.
Parker and Son.

PORTIONS of these lectures have already appeared in
the Household. Words, and the remainder, delivered
last winter at Kendal, met with such success as to
induce the author to collect and publish them. They
are pleasant conversational essays. The subjects
treated are Westminster, India, Indian Caste, and
the discovery of America. In all his Indian
sketches Mr. Arnold speaks with all the authority
which a long residence in the country would give.
He considers that " caste " no longer exists in India
as a religious institution, and that to treat it as such
is manifestly wrong. It has become simply a social
or class distinction similar in every way to those class
distinctions drawn in the code of every European
society, and moreover practised to a far more severe
extent among us than among the Hindoos. To
eradicate such a system and to form, as Mr. Arnold
desires, a " true brotherhood," is a consummation
which time in the history of human progress can
alone work out.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.
BOOKS.

Gertrude ; or, Family Pride. Mrs. Trollope.
Hurst and Tllackett.
Customs' Tariffs of all Nations. C. N. Newdegate, M.P.
Murray.
The Principles of Pyschology. Herbert Spencer.
Longmans.
Embassies and Foreign Courts. " Roving Englishman."
Routledge.
Longmans.