The Press.
London, England, 1857-01-24 00:00:00

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metaphor, and if we were to apply to this
work the terms of the Linniean system of
ornithology, we should protest against these
essays being classified with such tame and
insipid birds as barndoor fowls. Each of the
" chicks'' before us exhibits in ornithological
language a rostrum cultratum, and the sharp-
ness of their bills is very remarkable. The
lingua ciliata, or tongue edged with fine
bristles, is more common to them than the
plain tongue, or lingua Integra. From first to
last the reader is made to feel that Sir Francis
Head is the literary parent of these hopping,
chirruppiug, lightly-tripping papers, which
skip about all subjects with remarkable
agility, but which never soar.
Sir Francis Head is nearly the best of the
popular light authors of the day. He takes
pleasure in writing. He enjoys the occupa-
tion as much as an active pedeArian likes a
breezy walk over a gorsy common. His mind
is fresh and impressible. He has seen much
of the world, mixed in good company, ab-
sorbed a great variety of knowledge, and can
still assume the independent tone of a
philosopher in his easy chair. He has a
quick eye for humour, and rather too active a
sense of the ridiculous. His effect in these
papers now collected is such as might have
been expected from Captain Marryat, if the
nautical novelist had become a Quarterly
reviewer.

We have not so many pleasant writers now-
a-days that we can afford to disregard Sir F.
Head. Literary is like culinary fare, and the
cook who succeeds at solid pieces is some-
times unequal to the achievement of the side
dishes. It is at the piquant literary Pat that
Sir F. Head excels. What comes from him
has a relish ; it is well peppered, and yet not
too hot. Everybody likes a few mouthfuls of
his savoury condiments ; but no one would
wish to be condemned to live on such light
food. We prefer, for ourselves, to see his
toils mixed up with those of others; or, to
speak plainly, we like his " Descriptive
Essays " better in the single numbers of the
Quarterly, where they relieve graver matter,
than when collected into books.

The French have a special turn for that
class of authors who make a reputation by
diffusing, rather than by discovering, ideas.
They call them vulgerisateur s Sir Francis
Head has many of the qualifications of that
particular class ; yet his talent for writing in a
particular style of his own is so distinctive as
to remove him from mere popularisers of
knowledge.
Graphic vivacity, and a keen eye for salient
effects, are the main resources on which Sir
F. Head relies. These qualities will take a
light popular writer very high, bat they will
not do everything for him. In his view, even
of a popular subject, Sir F. Head wants
symmetry ; and in scientific subjects, like
" The Electric Telegraph," ho does not excel
in thoroughly explaining the matter which he
professes to treat. In this latter respect his
light essays will appear at a serious disadvan-
tage to any one who compares them with
those of Dr. Larduer, published by Taylor and
Walton. We recollect when about eight years
since Dr. Larduer's essay on " The Electric
Telegraph" appeared anonymously in the
Dublin University Magazine, that nearly all the
reviewers in the various organs simultaneously
applauded its clearness and distinctive pre•
cis►on of statement. "The Air We Live
In " is a pleasant paper, conveying no new
information, and rather deficient in selection
of striking scientific facts. "The London and
North-Western Railway" is one of the best
" descriptive" essays in the collection, and
the subject, with its points and contrasts, is
well suited for one who is a master at
a sketch. The astounding results of railway
breed are admirably stated at the start :
A good many years ago one of the toughest and hardest
riders that ever crossed Leicestershire undertook to per-
form a feat which, just for the moment, attracted the
general attention not only of this country but of the spott-
ing world. His het was, that if he might choose his own
turf, and if he might select as many thiroagh•bred horses
as he liked, he would undertake to ride two hundred miles
in ten hours !

The newspaper& of the day described exactly how " the
Squirt " wa; dressed—what ho had been hying on—how
he looked—haw, at the ward " Away !" be started like an
arrow (will * bow—how gallantly Tranby, hie favourite
peer, atretc.ned hitaself in 141 gallop--bow ou arriving at

THE PRESS.

his second horse he vaulted from one saddle to another—
how he then flew over the surface of the earth, if possible,
faster than before—and how, to the astonishment and
amidst the acclamations of thousands of spectators, he at
last came in—a winner.

Now, if at this moment of his victory, while with dust
and perspiration on his brow, his exhausted arms dangling
just above the panting flanks of his horse, which his
friends at each side of the bridle were slowly leading in
triumph, a decrepit old woman had hobbled forward, and
in the name of science had told the assembled multitude
that, before she became a skeleton, she and her husband
would undertake, instead of two hundred in ten hours, to
go five hundred—that is to say, that, for every mile
" the Squire " had just ridden, she and her old man would
go two miles and a half— that she would knit all the way—
that he should take his medicine every hour and read to
her just as if they were at home; lastly, that they would
undertake to perform their feat either in darkness or in
daylight, in sunshine or in storm, " in thunder, lightning,
or in rain ;" who, we ask, would have listened to the poor
maniac? and yet how wonderfully would her prediction
have been now fulfilled ! Nay, waggons of coals and heavy
luggage now-a•days fly across Leicestershire faster and far-
ther that Mr. Osbaldestone could ever go, notwithstanding
his condition and that of all his horses.

Such a description thoroughly realises the
results. We must say, for ourselves, that we
have never felt so much the effects achieved
by railways as in seeing a britzka in the morn-
ing whirling along our West-end streets about
breakfast time to one of the railway stations.
There may be seated in it fbur red-coated
celebrities, who take their return tickets, are
whirled fifty miles to " the meet " mount
their favourite horses—ride the hunt, take
the up-train at three or four o'clock, and are
at their clubs or at Bellamy's about dinner
time.

Many of our readers must recognise the
following scene :

The scene in the refreshment-room at Wolverton, on
the arrival of every train, has so often been witnessed by
oar readers, that it need hardly be described. As these
youthful handmaidens stand in a row behind bright
silver urns, silver coffee-pots, silver tea-pots, cups, saucers,
cakes, sugar, milk, with other delicacies over which they
preside, the confused crowd of passengers simultaneously
liberated from the train hurry towards them with a velo-
city exactly proportionate to their appetites. The hungriest
face first enters the door, " magna comitante catervi,"
followed by a crowd very much resembling in eagerness
and joyous independence the rush at the prorogation of
Parliament of a certain body following their leader from
one house to the bar of what they mysteriously call
"another place." Considering that the row of young per-
sons have among them all only seven right hands, with a
thumb and four very little lingers at the end of each, it
is really astonishing how, with such slender assistance,
they can in the short space of a few minutes manage to
extend and withdraw them so often—sometimes to give a
cup of tea—sometimes to receive half-a-crown, of which
they have to return two shillings—then to give an old
gentleman a plate of warns soup—then to drop another
lump of sugar into his nephew's coffee-cup--then to
receive a penny for a bun, and then again threepence for
four " lady's fingers." It is their rule as well as their
desire never, if they can possibly prevent it, to speak to
any one, and although sometimes, when thunder has
turned the milk, or the kitchen-maid wer-peppered the
soup, it may occasionally be necessary to soothe the fasti-
dious complaints of some beardless ensign by an infi-
nitesimal appeal to the generous feelings of his nature—
we mean, by the hundred-thousandth part of a smile—yet
they endeavour on no account ever to exceed that harmless
dose. But while they are thus occupied at the centre of
the refreshment-table, at its two ends, each close to a warm
stove, a very plain matter offact business is going on,
which consists in the rapid uncorking of, and then empty.
ing into large tumblers, innumerable black bottles of what
is not inappropriately called " Stout;" inasmuch as all the
persons who are drinking the dark foaming mixture wear
heavy great-coats, with large wrappers round their necks—
in fact, are very stout.

The statistics which follow tell their own tale,
and might be printed with notes of admira-
tion :

It appears from the books that the annual consumption
at the Wolverton refreshment rooms averages 182,500
Banbury cakes ; 56,940 Queen cakes ; 29,200 pâtés;
36.500 lbs. of flour ; 13.140 lbs. of butter ; 2.920 lbs. of
coffee ; 43,800 lbs. of meat ; 5,110 lbs. of currants; 1,277
lbs. of tea ; 5,840 lbs. of loaf-sugar : 5,110 lbs. of moist
sugar; 16,425 quarts of milk ; 1.095 quarts of cream ;
17,520 bottles of lemonade; 35,040 bottles of soda-water;
70,08,1 bottles of stout; 35,040 bottles of ale; 17,52:1
bottles of ginger-beer ; 730 bottles of port ; 3,650 bottles of
sherry. And, we regret to add, 730 bottles of gin; 731
bottles of rum ; 3,366 bottles of brandy.

To the eatsbles are to be added, or driven, the eighty-
five pigs, who, after baying been from their birth moat
kindly treated and most luxuriously fed, are impartially
promoted, by seniority, one after another, into an infinite
number of pork pies.

The gracefulness and ladylike deportment of
several of the female assistants at railways
have often been admired. Some of them
have evidently been brought up in another
sphere of life. They have temptations to bear
atio4 1.54 F. lievi tilludaq to guardedly :

SATURDAY.

The warrior and the statesman are not always immaou•
late; and although at the Opera ladies undeniably sing
very high, and in the ballet kick very high, it is possible
that their voices and feet may sometimes reach rather
higher than their characters. Considering, then, the
difficulties which our seven youug attendants have to
perform--considering the temptations to which they are
constantly exposed in offering to the public attentions
which are ever to simmer, and yet never to boil, it might
be expected that our inquiries should considerately go no
further than the arrival at eleven p.m. of " the up York
mail." The excellent matron, however, in charge of these
young people—who always dine and live at her table—with
honest pride declares that the breath of slander has never
ventured to sully the reputation of any of those who have
been committed to her charge ; and as this testimony is
corroborated by persons residing in the neighbourhood and
very capable of observation we cannot take leave of the
establishment without expressing our approbation of the
bond sense and attention with which it is conducted ; and,
while we give credit to the young for the character they
have maintained, we hope they will be gratefully sensible
of the protection they have received.
Postscript.—We quite forgot to mention that, notwith-
standing the everlasting hurry at this " tea-and-turn•out "
establishment, four of the young attendants have managed
to make excellent marriages, and are now very well off in
the world.

These papers are sketches rather than essays.
The two sides of a debateable question are not
fairly presented in them, nor is the animated
fancy of the clever author well suited for sub-
jects requiring judicial estimates. He can
excite interest and keep drowsy readers
awake, and it is a great merit to be an appe •
tising writer, whetting the desire to learn more
knowledge on a given subject. But we fear
that these " essays" do not merit a second
perusal, and they are essentially suited for
periodicals, rather than for bookshelves. " The
Memorandum on the Battle of Waterloo,"
in which the author attempts to confute the
position of Sir Archibald Alison that " the
" Duke of Wellington and Blucher were sur-
" prised,' out-manoeuvred, and out generalled
"by Napoleon," is a weak attempt at argu-
ment. The case, as put by Sit A. Alison, is
not met by the writer. The defects of Sir F.
Head's mode of composition is seen in the
following passage :
On the 15th of Jane thelEmperor Napoleon made the
first move.
On the 113th the Duke of 'Wellington sail " check" to
him at Quatre•Bras.
On the 17th the two players stood in sullen silence
looking at the board before them.
And on the 18th, at sunset, the Duke chtckmated his
antagonist, who, deeming himself complete:y beaten, of
his own accord threw up the game and decanped.
But was this all ? No. Not only was Napoleon's army
so completely routed at Waterloo that it coull never for a
moment rally; not only were its elements scattered to the
winds never to meet again; but Napoleon, still constitu-
ting himself supreme judge of his own case—still prescrib.
ing for his own wounds—decided on abdicatiig his title of
Emperor, on descending from the throne of France, and
lastly on proceeding to England in the Bellercphon to sur-
render himself to the Sovereign of his antagorist.
The remainder of his life was passed in atptivity in a
British island ; he was buried in British soil, in which he
remained for nineteen years, until the Britisi Sovereign,
in the month of September, 1810, magnanimously re-
stored his mouldered bones to the French nation, 120,000
of whose soldiers he bad gallantly, but so unsuccessfully,
led to the attack of the allied army on the L'lth of June,
1815. _ _

That his first movement on that day was rapid, and
calculated to excite the enthusiasm of the F-ench army,
we most readily admit; but when the deadly results just
detailed are simultaneously considered, it certainly appears
strange that so able and eloquent a writer as Mr. Alison
should, in his history of this eventful perioi, aver that
he " out-manosuvred the English general."
If a French dragoon, with considerable activity and
grimace, were unexpectedly to present the but.•end of his
carbine at the breast of an English sentinel. and then,
pulling the trigger, were to blow his own brains out, would
anybody in his senses say that this dragoon had out-
manceuvred his red•coated enemy, merely becaue, galloping
" ventre i terre " at him, his first movements had been
quick ones? and yet such was precisely Napoleon's
conduct.

Analogy cannot in an argument be a.lowed to
supply the place of logical conclusim. The
chessboard is a very bad type for a eimpaign,
and the illustration of the French dragoon
and English sentinel is ili-chosen. Sir A.
Alison's case may be stated thus—" A French
" and English soldier were severally out on
" picket duty; it was the duty of each to
" keep their eyes open and prevent surprise,
" but the Frenchman quickly and stealthily
" stole around, and was suddenly on the point
" of disarming the English sentinel, when a
" Prussian sergeant, &o." We do not say that
such is a fair analogy of what occurred at the
Waterloo campaign, nor do we undertske here
to endorse the strictures of Sir A. Alison all
WO 897 is, that Sir F. Fioad'Es "Mmopiltirti".

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