The Press.
London, England, 1855-10-13 00:00:00

In our day, the reception of ambassadors at Constanti-
nople is a most undignified affair. They go when they
like to see the Sultan, and they do what they please in his
presence. They (or some or one of them ) lecture him
as though he were a culprit, and he answers with fitting
humility, every nerve twitching with the bitter sense of
his fallen fortunes. I never saw anything so touching as
one audience. I would as soon have been present at the
ceremony of administering the rod to a weakly boy, or
the application of the cat-of-nine-tails to a sickly soldier.
I felt a sensation of sincere pity, almost of national humi•
liation, when I (among a crowd of some thirty or forty
tinselled nobodies, who all scuffled in a disorderly manner
into the presence together) witnessed the vulgar and
shameful scolding by which a Christian ambassador
thought proper to insult the mild and helpless prince who
now sits on the tottering throne of the Eastern Ca3sars.
There was small bowing or reverence there ; and the
Court of the Sultan might as well have been a bear-
garden.
We should have felt hesitation in quoting
these passages but for the far more virulent
attack on Lori Stratford in a recent number
of the Times. Should the rumour of his recal
be well founded, he will doubtless feel it due
to his own character to make his case public
as soon as he can do so with propriety.
There are many amusing anecdotes scattered
through the volume. The opening of ambas-
sadorial correspondence is an old grievance :

The French Ambassador of the day once made a com-
plaint to the feeblest and worst of English Ministers (the
Duke of Newcastle), that the despatches sent to him from
France had been not only opened, but were actually for-
warded on to him sealed with the royal arms of England!
"It was in consequence of a mistake at the Foreign-
office," replied the duke, laughing at his infamy as a good
joke.
The opening of despatches is looked upon as such an
infinite jest in some of the petty States of Germany, that
not long ago a certain Minister found that all the de-
spatches he received through the post for some time in-
variably reached him sealed with the official seal of one of
the German post-offices. He remonstrated with the
ministerial worthy with whom he had immediately to deal.
" Que foulez foam," returned the latter agreeably, " c'est
l'habitude."

Considering that the author is presumed to
be anonymous, he claims more credit for his
unsupported statements than is likely to be
accorded to them. In our judgment he would
have done better to have spoken more
openly or to have kept silence altogether.

PERIODICAL

THE New Quarterly, as a review of the current
literature of the quarter, and not a quarterly volume
of ponderous essays, bids fair to compete success-
fully with its elder brethren. In its hundred and
odd pages it contains an admirable résumé of the
works of the last three months. History, travels,
poetry, fiction, and science are all fairly represented,
while theology is not forgotten, nor miscellaneous
works neglected. The reviews are lightly and
cleverly written, the selections excellent, and the
number full of entertainment. After the hard, heavy
reading of the other Quarterlies it is a relief to turn
to tha light, fluent pages of this Review. In the
present number the opening review upon " Maud"
is just and critical in its tone, the writer con•
sidering the poem a failure. Acimitting that
there is great power in the conception and some
passages of beauty, yetihe conception " is often weak,
" and frequently confused," while the beauty of the
fine passages is as frequently destroyed by false
versification. We have little difficulty in assigning
this paper to a young poet of distinguished promise.
We must make room for some admirable remarks on
the claptrap about the war which the Laureate has
been so injudicious as to admit into his poem
We must, however, advert with censure to one of the
chief characteristics of the poem—one very unworthy of
Mr. Tennyson. We mean a certain sort of catchpenny
claptrap, derogatory, in the greatest degree, to the dignity
of pure art, and destructive of all ideal beauty, which has
been permitted to deface the whole aspect of the present
poem. It may be pardonable in cheap tailors to entrap
the public attention, and popularise their vulgar abomina-
tions, by forging nicknames out of great public enthusiasms
or great national calamities, and foisting upon the market
Sebastopol hats, or Crimea capes, and Bucharest boots;
bat such awiudlings of our sympathy by false pretences are
not the part of a great poet. During forty years of peace,
in which art has flourished and science progressed—of
which, indeed, his own works have not been the least noble
result—Mr. Tennyson has had ample and frequent oppor-
tunities, if he thought fit, of denouncing such a state of
things. Has he done so? Why, in his bucolic aspira-
tions, the wildest dreams of the Peace Congress have been
exceeded. His poem of the " Morte d'Arthur" closes with
these lines:—

Arthur is come again
With all good things, and war shall be no more!
In his " Princess," his hero, though living in barbaric
times, is made to express the desire that " the old god of
war himself were dead." In his " In Memoriam " he hears
the Genius "sg the death of war;" and his poetry
Ilitaughesi Is with inspiting proolamations "boo