The Press.
London, England, 1854-04-08 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

the slanderous pen of Moore against the cha-
racter of Lord Londonderry's celebrated elder
brother. In recording a breakfast at Mr.
Rogers's, in company with Lord John Russell,
Sydney Smith, Luttrell, Sharpe, &c., Moore
writes:—" Talked of Sir Robert Wilson. After
" the battle of Leipsic, to the gaining of which
" he was instrumental, Lord Castlereagh, iu
" sending over to Lord Stewart the public
" document containing the order for thanks
" to Wilson. amongst others on the occasion,
" accompanied it by a private one desiring
" Lord Stewart to avoid the thanks to Wilson
" as much as he could, in order not to give a
" triumph to his party." No sooner did this
false and foul calumny on the conduct of his
brother meet the eye of the late (Charles
William) Marquis of Londonderry than he
publicly branded it as a malignant falsehood ;
and on the 21st of May, 1863, Lord John Rus-
sell, in a published letter, expressed " his
" deep regret that the passage should have
" been published by him, admitting that the
story must " be placed amongst the calumnies
" that float in the idle gossip of the day."
Since then Lord Londonderry has ceased
to live. But if it so happened that it was now
in 1854 that the fourth volume of Moore's
disreputable autobiography was ushered before
the public, the calumny might have been
passed down to posterity without any chance
of being positively and unequivocally refuted.
Lord Londonderry, fortunately, lived to expose
its want of truth, for we need hardly say that
he was the "Lord Stewart" alluded to; but
surely it is time that those of us who are ex-
posed to intercourse with a crowd of parties,
of whose personal honour we cannot always
be assured, ought to have some security
against unauthorised reporters jotting down
their memoirs of "people they have met." As
journalists, feeling strong sympathies with
our literary brethren, we can truly record that
amongst the respectable men of letters there
are not two opinions on the impropriety and
scandal of authors becoming talebearers, and
literary men becoming tattlers-general " for
" the benefit of their wives and children,"
stereotyping idle scandal, becoming the
Gibbons of supper parties, and chronicling
the chit-chat of the tables in order to give
extensive value to the " spicy " matter so
anxiously asked for by the Curlls of the
publishing trade. Such a practice is mean
and unworthy of the profession of letters ;
and, as journalists, we call for its reprobation.
We may remark that no class has been more
severely noticed in Moore's mordant memoirs
than his literary brethren. He has aspersed
several of his literary contemporaries who
had less genius but far more integrity and
honour than he had, in saying which we pay
them no.compliment. We allude to that fact
now as reminding our professional brethren
that no other class in the community is more
vulnerable to the annoyance of literary babbling
than those whose editorial duties necessarily
expose them to contact with a variety of
characters. For the reputation of the literary
profession, therefore, we desire that tale-
bearing in memoirs and unauthorised " revela-
tions" about living persons " reported " by
persons with very superficial acquaintance with
the parties gossipped about should be em-
phatically discouraged. The Duke of Welling-
ton had a great dislike to military "Boswells."
On one occasion in the House of Lords he
denied the responsibility of the Horse Guards
for some military authorship, sneering snore
suo at " the reporters to regiments ;" and we
would say, let authors and journalists compose
books or essays, but, unless they desire to
bring literary men into contempt, let them
avoid recording tittle-tattle and printing it as
biography.

Doine ; or, the National Songs and Legends of
Roumania. By E. C. Grenville Murray.
London : Smith, Elder, and CO.
ALTHOUGH Mr. Grenville Murray enters the
lists of literature with a "maiden shield," and
" does not challenge criticism," it is due to
him to state that he has less reason to depre
cate it than many authors on the occasion of
" a first appearance." But, though an infant
in literature, he is not, as is often the case
when these events occur, an infant in the eye

of the law ; in fact, as we learn from the dedi-
cation, he has been married for ten years. In
an introductory chapter the history and pre-
sent condition of Moldavia, Wallachia, and
those adjoining provinces which were of old
the country of the llacians, are succinctly
sketched, and the state of their poetical
literature especially dwelt upon. After the
events of lg4B, "nearly all who have written
" in Wallach—poets, historians, or novelists—
" were banished ;" and it is, we presume, to
this circumstance that we are indebted for the
work before us, M. Bolentiniano, a Walla-
chitin poet, having collected the best of the
materials of which it is composed. Carried
away by hie admiration for those expatriated
authors, Mr. Grenville Murray pronounces a
glowing eulogium on the refugees in general,
but, in a qualifying footnote, excludes from it
all Republicans, with whom he has no sympa-
thy. Indeed, the people he describes aro
essentially aristrocratic. Amongst the Boy-
ards, who are the nobles of Roumania, the
distinctions of caste must be nearly as strong
as amongst the Hindoos ; for
a Boyard of the first class will by no means mingle with his
inferiors in rank. So marked, indeed, was the line between
them, that, not twenty years ago, a Boyard who paid a visit
to another of higher rank was °bilked to wait respectfully ou
the threshold of the door till bidden to enter ; nor could he
sit down in the presence of his superior till he had been
invited to do so three times. A peasant never dared
present himself before his lord without &present, the value
of which was jealously regulated by custom. ou all public
occasions, at balls and festivities, even in churches, the
right of precedency is vigorously maintained ; and even
among the ladies it is whispered that disputes on this
subject have been known to run so high as to end in
personal encounters of great liveliness and spirit.
French, or a kind of lingua-Frolics, is the language of
society.

The Zingari, or gipsies, " swarm in Moldo-
" Wallachia." They worship the sun and the
stars; but they differ from our gipsies if, when
Mr. Murray says they become " domestics," ho
means they enter into voluntary servitude.
In England the fettered hawk, with bright,
wild eye, escapes not more eagerly from its
broken chain than does a gipsy from the
slavery of domestic life, which tempting
offers have bribed him for a moment to
endure.

In the Moldo-Wallachian provinces one
branch of this strange race are called Netoti:
These the proud Boyards in 1831 conde-
scended to seize and enslave, having first
purified them for Christian use by the forcible
infliction of baptism. But Mr. Murray is not
here very clear in his narrative; for, after
mentioning this circumstance, he says of the
gipsies generally
They are slaves, and can be bought, sold, and punished
with impunity. There are still, however, a company of
them who preserve their ancient traditions, in almost
every village ; and, if the traveller chance to be benighted
in some peasant's hut, it is there that he will hear the
tender Doine sung, and see a pretty national dance called
the " ora," which will often remind b,im of the figures on
antique vases. Their dress is notable : they wear full
white trousers, a white tunic, and a gay-coloured sash.
Their long hair falls in wild disarray beneath their
slouched bats, and the long, sweeping moustache gives a
marked and chivalrous expression to their splendid faces.
The women wear their long hair tied in a bunch
behind, and falling in a single tress down the back. They
wear a tine long white shift, embroidered with gay-
coloured silks, instead of a gown ; this is secured by a red
woollen sash, beneath which descends the "font," a kind
of embroidered apron reaching to the knees. Their feet are
bare ; and where, sir wanderer, have you seen more pic-
turesque figures ?
The songs thus introduced Mr. G. Murray
describes very justly as having
about them something of the character of Nolan:
only that instead of belonging to a slow, grave misty
nation like the Scotch, they are the songs of a people
who lived beneath a summer Ay, and whose dreams were
all of sunshine and flowers, of moons and stars, and silver
seas.
Assuming, then, that the Ossianic resem-
blance does not extend to the authenticity of
these songs, they are interesting as specimens
of the modes of thought of a people who are a
kind of connecting !ink between the East and
the West, who to the warmth of the Oriental
imagination add something of the hardihood
which belongs to children of greyer skies and
greener fields. The " Daughter of the Laurel
Tree " is perhaps the best, and certainly as
good as any in the book :
" Open thy branches, beautiful Laurel Tree, and let me
go forth; for it is the hour when the Evening Star bathes
her silver hair in the limpid waters of the rivulet."