The Press.
London, England, 1856-08-30 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

from inquiring. Let us hope we have sufficient
vigour left to furnish a more healthy style. True
poets still exist among us, and so long as one of
them remain there is no reason to despair.

Out and "Home." By the late Rev. W. G. Tupper,
M.A. Edited by his Brother. London : Bosworth.
IT is not possible to read this little volume without
that kind of pleasure which we derive from being in
company with an intelligent, cultivated, vivacious,
and holy intellect. The greater part of the book is
occupied with the journal of a voyage made by the
author to Bombay, touching at the Cape, Mauritius, and
Ceylon, and back by the overland route. " Home "
was reached very soon after he left Malta. His
health, extremely delicate when he quitted England,
was not improved by the fatigues of travel, though
the journal is written in a buoyant spirit. As the
ship in which he sailed quitted the English shore,
he seems to have had a presentiment of his lonely
death :

Pascal's " Je mourrai seul," or a kindred thought, was
strongly on my mind ; it was altogethera parable of dying;
all good affections following as far they could, but a sepa-
ration made—the one to go and the other to stay. Looking
and longing in plenty, but no more seeing, at least not yet
—not at present.

The journal is full of acute observation, and in
style is a perfect model of the happiest union of
literary culture and lively fancy with devout and
prayerful sentiment. At St. Vincent he notices the
new Portuguese church in progress :
No doubt it will be in its unpolished way the glory of
the plate. the centre and heart of it, as the churches
abroad always seem to be. When shall we learn, I wonder,
to try our best to make our churches in England the home
of the poor? It will be a lesson which it will take years
to learn them I am afraid, more especially as those who
ought to know it already have not learnt it yet.

The condition and prospects of our Church in the
countries he visited always engaged his earnest atten-
tion, and his notes on the subject are very acceptable.
At Cairo he felt himself growing weaker. He longed
for a desert excursion, but could not manage it.
" I had somehow taken it for granted that Cairo air
" was bracing, and wondered why it did not brace
" me." He adds, " I have had enough of travelling,
" and shall be heartily glad when I find myself at
"home." He reached home sooner than he expected.
A month later there was a funeral at sea, and the
bo,ly of William George Tupper was committed to
the blue waves of the Mediterranean, in sure and
certain hope of the Resurrection, which had long
been one of his daily thoughts. To the journal are
added some thoughts in prose and verse. The fol-
lowing is remarkable as being fundamentally one
with the principle which Mr. Ruskin has so
eloquently expounded in his chapter on the "Mystery
of Art".—

Omnia exeunt in mysterium (St. Aug.?). Take anything,
the simplest and most ordinary, you may go along with it
a little way and then you stop, but it goes on beyond you
into infinity ; as if we stood in the centre of a dark space,
into which things flow we know not whence ; the lamp of
our intellect throws its light a little distance round, and
gradually gives way to the darkness beyond.
The following thoughts deserve attention. There
can be no doubt that to abolish the outward forms or
ceremonies of religion is to open a door for impiety
to enter:—

I have often thought what could be the reason of the
great prevalence of disregard to, and false shame about,
religion in the younger men of the present day. Why
should any gentleman think it " cant," .17c., to abstain from
laughing at such things and so forth ? I believe it is be-
cause outward signs which would distinguish Christians
from other men have fallen into disuse, or rather that, with
the errors cut away, good has gone, just as an old rotten
tree cut down in the midst of a forest is sure to break
away some green and good branches with it. I think such
a custom as that of crossing oneself was a most excellent
one, and it is much to be regretted that, with errors great
and manifold, that has gone too. I would not have it re-
vived for the world, for doubtless it would lead others to
reintroduce errors and abuses, such as the worshipping of
crucifixes and the like; still I regret much that it was ever
discontinued, for it is such outward acts as These which
bind and keep together in a true spirit of piety men who
cannot see into each other's motives and feelings. Sureiy
this sort of freemasonry is sadly wanted. It could not be
revived ; alas ! that ever it died.
• • • •

The object of education is to make children fit to enter
heaven, ultimately ; therefore proximately to make them
good sons and daughters, good servants, good subjects,
good fathers and mothers, good men and women ; and the
key is to lead them forward to confirmation, ever looking
back to baptism, and seeking the reflection of it in con-
firmstion. Let any amount of culture come under this—
as much as you please as the roof mill corer—but if it lies
out of this roof or over it, it will rot, actively and passively.
Imagine the possibility of education without religion !
Imagine it being lawful to teach " to do good and to distri-
bute forget not," but unlawful to add, " for with such sa-
crifices God is well-pleased."

The volume is a pleasing memorial of a true
Christian man, with scholarly acquirements, and a
most amiable spirit.

835

Young Singleton. By Talbot Gwynne. Two Vols.

London : Smith and Elder.

Two of the most promising of our young novelists,
Mr. Reade and Mr. Gwynne, fail in their latest pub-
lications to fulfil the hopes conceived of them. Mr.
Reade's " Never too Late to Mend," in spite of some
powerful writing, is certainly not an advance on his
previous efforts, and the same must be said of
the "Young Singleton" of Mr. Gwynne. In design
the fiction bears strong semblance to the " Zelnco "
of Dr. Moore, the object being to show the crimes
and misery to which ill-regulated passions may lead.
Young Singleton is the son of an Anglo-Indian, as
the author terms him, " the passion-led selfish son of
" a passion-led selfish father." With the evil nature
of his sire he has the misfortune, as the author seems
to consider it, to inherit certain property alienated
from the Church in times past. An old parish dame,
moralising on the tragic close of the story, says of
the Singletons :
They was always an un'ortnit family, 'cos of the
Church property : none o' them as ever f heerd tell on
died nat'ral, and taint likely as this an should.
Old Singleton, as contradistinguished from Young
Singleton, is a fiend for cruelty, delighting in the
murder of his own children. The son, spared by
accident, is described as possessing great sensibility
and considerable genius, both perverted by natural
malignancy. In some cases he appears more sinned
against than sinning, but in the great blot of his life
he stands without excuse, and he rapidly degenerates
afterwards. It does not strike us that this painful
and improbable story is redeemed by particular
merit in execution. The characters are hard and
mannered—ac. for instance, Dr. Savory, the school-
master ; Mr. Blinkins, the apothecary ; and Goldup,
the valet. The mo-t amusing part of the hook re-
lates to the debut of Young Singleton on the boards
of the Brighton Theatre. The passage, however, is
scarcely in keeping with the general tenor of the nar-
rative. The gravest fault of the narrative is, that
the author, in his desire to "point a moral," does in
reality offend our moral sense. In Singleton's child-
hood, we are told; there were " seeds of vanity, envy,
" and hatred springing up—his soul about to be
" overrun with weeds." • And as a man " who can
" think without awe and dread of his impenitent and
" blaspheming soul." It is an ungracious task at
any time to trace the downward progress of an irre-
claimably evil nature, and it is nothing short of cant
in fiction to do so for the avowed purpose of vindica•
ting " the ways of God to man." Viewed philosophi-
cally, the truth of this particular conception may be
doubted. In any nature where great sensibility
exists there are saving elements, and, on the whole,
stronger tendencies to good than ill. The good
points of the book are power of description, dramatic
force, and ready invention, which give vitality to the
whole story, and will probably, in the opinion of most
readers, outweigh the faults we have indicated.

THE TEXT OF SHAKESPEARE.
TO THE EDITOR OF " THE PRESS."

Sir,—My remarks on the new readings of Shake-
speare, in your issue of the 16th instant, were in•
cautiously copied from notes made when travelling,
with no authority at hand hut Blackwood, hence my
erroneous interpretation. of the first passage from
King John, the text of whicb, nevertheless, seems
unquestionably correct

•
• If the midnight bell
Did, with its iron tongue and brazen mouth,
. Sound on into the drowsy race of night :
That is, did the midnight bell' proclaim 'the onward
progress of drowsy night? meaning• simply that
night's deepest loneliness, or deepest silence, and
the churchyard's gloom, would.. better become the
expression of his murderous wishes than "proud
day, attended with the pleasures of the world."
G. R.
14, St. James's square, Aug. 27.