The Press.
London, England, 1854-03-18 00:00:00

Southey's Cowper's Works and Correspondence. Vol.

111. London: Bohn.
WE surmise that the present will be the most popu-
lar edition of Cowper. Its print and paper are very
good, sufficiently so to please even luxurious readers,
and we do not think that there can be two opinions
as to the superiority of Southey as an editor over Mr.
Grimshaw. The present volume contains the poet's
letters from 1783 to 1788, along with some very va-
luable notes from the pen of Southey, one of which,
upon the forgotten author Pinkerton, is very curious
and interesting. The faults of Pinkerton, especially
his presumptuous dogmatism, are not sufficiently
censured by the late laureate. It is still a moot
question amongst those read in political literature
whether Pinkerton was the real author of the cele-
brated edition of "Junius's Letters" in 1802, which
is so much sought after. These letters of Cowper in
the volume before us are not, perhaps, amongst his
very best; too many of them are addressed to his
male correspondents, and it was in writing to women
that he especially excelled as a letter-writer. His pu•
rity of mind never becomes fastidiously squeamish,
his elegance of expression never degenerates into the
finical or modish. His whole letters, indeed, deserve
to be ranked amongst the classics of our language,
and they have the rare merit of being addressed to
the sympathies of all readers. Without any of the
wit of Walpole, there is an old English humour in
them which acquires additional contrast from the
pensiveness of the writer. They have the undying
charm that genius, and genius alone, can bestow ; and
we rejoice to see that Mr. Bohn has given the public
the best edition of the whole works of an author
whose name can perish only with the extinction of
his mother tongue. If Cowper never wrote aught
else but the tear-wringing " Lines on the Receipt of
his Mother's Picture" his name would last in lite-
rary annals.

The Feathered Tribes of the British Islands. By

Robert Mudie. London : Bohn.
Tins, the fourth edition of " Mudie's British Birds,'
is edited by Mr. W. C. L. Martin, who was lately one
of the scientific officers of the Zoological Society of
London. On first undertaking his editorial office
Mr. Martin was in doubt whether it would not bo
better to rearrange the whole in a systematic form
scientifically correct, but he wisely rejected the idea,
for in the works of authors of ordinary merit no im-
provement in other respects can compensate for the
destruction of originality which alteration necessarily
involves. Indeed there is in this work a certain inde-
finable charm which we so often feel but cannot
describe in the writings of authors whose tastes and
pursuits are pure and simple, and whose labours are
undertaken in earnest. " Mudie's British Birds "
consists of two handsome volumes, with numerous
illustrations of superior excellence, making a judi-
cious addition to Mr. Bohn's Illustrated Library.

Addison's Works. By Bishop Hurd. Vol. 11.

London : Bohn.
As a thinker we do not hold Bishop Hurd in much
respect—the school to which he belonged has be-
come obsolete, and he never could be ranked with
our " giant divines." But his scholarship was un-
doubted, and he had many qualities that fitted him
for editorial labours, amongst which accuracy to an
author's text is a chief requisite. We have here the
commencement of the Spectator, continued as far as
No. 135, while the first part of the volume is occupied
with the articles from Addison's pen which give per-
manent value to the Tatter. The paper of the pre-
sent edition is more than usually good, and the type
remarkably clear. We doubt whether the stiff and
cumbrous preface of Hurd should have been pre-
served, unless as a foil to the grace and amenity of
Addison. How obsolete some of the phraseology of
the Bishop of Worcester has become may be E een
in such a sentence as where he records, "The poem
" upon King William's campaign, addressed to his
" lordship, was received with great humanity." Hurd

MARCH 18, 1854.

was, in his own day, thought to be an elegant writer,
but in this very preface to Addison we meet with
s3ntences of which the final member is finished as in
the following one, recording the disappointment with
Addison's "Travels in Italy" :
How ware they disappointed when, instead of such par.
ticulars, they were presented only with a journal of poetical
travels, with remarks on the present picture of the country,
o )mpared with the landscapes drawn by classic authors,
a id others the like uncoaceming parts of knowledge!
One sentence in this preface we particularly com-
mend to the notice of the present Premier. Re-
ferring to Lord Somers, Hurd writes, " He was one
" of that kind of patriots who think it no waste of
" the public treasure to purchase politeness to their
" country." Lord Aberdeen seems to think that good
manners in a minister of state ought to be as obso-
lete as the diction of Bishop Hurd. Popery, and
not " politeness," is what his lordship thinks should
be " purchased to the country."

The Heroines of History. By Mrs. Octavius Freire
Owen. London : Routledge and Co.
THIS book of more than 400 pages, and illustrated
by Gilbert, contains biographies of twenty-four
heroines. Four—Jael, Judith, Salamona, and
Marianne—belong to the Jewish era; six to the
classic ; and the remainder, beginning with Eleanor
of Castile and ending with Marie Antoinette, to the
modern era. As the works from which Mrs. Owen
has culled her materials are bulky and expensive,
Gibbon, Josephus, and Miss Strickland's " Lives ol
the Queens of England " being amongst them, a
good compilation of this nature would be interesting
and useful. Mrs. Owen writes with taste and feeling,
and in the earlier periods adheres to historic truth,
or at least follows the best authorities, but when she
comes to the sixteenth century opinions will vary as
to her fidelity : the judgment of the biograper is, we
think, sometimes perverted by a woman's heart.
Thus the fair face and the grey eyes of the Queen of
Scots, with the scaffold at Fotheringhay, hide from
Mrs. Owen's view" the heart as hard as diamond" of
which Mary boasted in her damning letter to Both-
well which has lately come to light. But to lean to
mercy's side is in a lady graceful if erroneous.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. By Acton Bell.
(Parlour Library.) London: Hodgson.

THE authoress of "Jane Eyre," in a charming bio-
graphical sketch, has recorded the brief lives of her
two sisters, who were scarcely less gifted than herself.
The freshness and vivacity of " Wildfell Hall," and
its sharp distinct individuality of style, amply com-
pensate for its want of artistic finish, and qualify it
for a place in this excellent series of reprints.

The Carafas of Maddaloni : Naples under Spanish
Dominion. Translated from the German of Alfred
de Reumont. London : Bohn.

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THIS work, which professes to trace a picture of Na-
ples under the dominion of Spain in connection with
the fortunes of the Carafas, is the production of a
gentleman who fled from Rome to Gaeta in 1848,
and thence, in the train of Pope Pius the Ninth, to
Naples. Gratitude for the hospitable reception be
received induced him, he tells us, to employ his lei-
sure in illustrating that portion of Neapolitan history
which Italians have dwelt upon with reluctance, and
which includes the noted outbreak under Masaniello.
The work is learned and interesting, though deficient
in descriptive vigour, and its translation has been ap-
propriately undertaken for Mr. Bohn's series.

Introductory Lessons on the British Constitution.
London : J. W. Parker and Son.

A SERIES of six lessons, the first conveying elemen-
tary instruction on the nature of regal government
generally, the other five being devoted to the British
constitution. These lessons, which originally ap-
peared in the True Briton, will be useful to the
young or the self-taught.

The Stratford Shakspere. By Charles Knight.
London : Hodgson.
Tnts is the first complete volume of this cheap
edition, which we have already noticed. Along with
the poet's biography are the two plays of The Tempest
and The Two Gentlemen of Verona. It deserves fully
the commendation we have already bestowed on it.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.
Boors.

Views of Canada and the Colonists.
EdinJ. B. burgh Blacks.
The Outlines of Vikfujfilled Prophecy. Rev. T. R. Birks.
Seeleys.
Saunders and Otley.

Chalmers' Poems.

PAMPHLETS.
Another Note on the Turkish Question.
Sannders and Otley.

THE PRESS.