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whose visits interrupted her evening reveries and her gar-
dening occupations. We were as intimately acquainted
with the footpaths of Les 11,Qhers and the parterres of
Livry as with these of our own little domain. Thus these
places and these impressions fixed themselves indelibly in
our imaginations at ten years of age ; and we beheld in
the mother we heard of but the counterpart of our own,
and in the children little more than a reflection of our-
selves. Since that period the book ceased to command
my attention : it contained a tenderness of feeling suffi-
cient for any age, but not enough of passionate warmth to
satisfy the ardour of my youth.

Then, like a great master of effect, the author
brings " Les Roeliers" vividly before us :
Many years afterwards, while hunting one day in the
forests of Upner Burgundy. the chase led me accidentally
to the edge of a wooded bill, from whence, appearing
through the yellow leaves and transparent haze of autumn,
I beheld an extensive valley spread under my feet : the
basin was formed by smiling meadows, through which
flowed a narrow river, bordered on either side by large
willows, while numerous herds of red and white horned
cattle were crossing at the ford; the breeze from the sur-
face of the water, as it turned the leaves, gave them a
power of reflection as if they had been plates of silver ; the
murmuring stream, apparently without current, seemed to
issue from the vast shadow of an extensive forest, as if
produced by the droppings of the mist from its innumer-
able branches: on the northern side it sparkled with the
rays of the setting sun as far as the eye could follow its
course between high wooded banks, at one moment seem-
ing to meet and inclose it, and again opening to afford it a
p usage.

He then draws a most graphic ske►ch of the
whole scene—too long for us to extract—and
vividly describes his sensations at learning
where he was :

" Where then are we V' I asked. "At Bourbilly," was
his response, the château of Madame de Sevigne." At
this name, the landscape, till now lifeless and indifferent,
became suddenly illuminated, as though its magnetic
sound had kindled wateh•lights on every turret of the
château and on the summit of each hill beneath the melan-
choly horizon. The lazy waters, extravasated puddles of
the Serin in the meadows, seemed to multiply reflections
of the infant with the fair hair, who became the idolised
child of her own century. I thought I heard her name
murmured by the river, the leaves of the trees, the echoes
of the old walls, and in the cries of the rooks fluttering
round the battlements of the keep. Such was the power
of a name, not only living itself, but capable of 1 eanitnating
the dead scene with which it had once been identified.
Nothing can be more dramatic than that pre-
sentation of the subject. He next enters on
the history of Madame de Sevigne's life. He
does not depreciate her, neither does he raise
ber to a higher pedestal. Lamartine's estimate
of her is, that she was a woman wholly ab-
sorbed by the maternal instinct, and that her
feelings on other subjects were superficial.
Sense, not sentiment, predominated in the
mero intellect of Madame de Sevigne ; and
that is the sort of character not likely to re-
ceive full appreciation of one with so much
French sensibility as Lamartine. Yet, though
exceptions may fairly be taken to particular
passages, we are on the whole disposed to
accept Lamartine's view of Madame de
Sevignit as sound. The conclusion of the ea-
tique is perfectly just. Many of our readers
will feel the force of this passage :

Enter the interior of all dwellings, select from the
volumes lying on the mantelpiece the one oflenest perused,
and bearing the marks of most constant opening, nineteen
times out of twenty it will prove to be the correspondence
of Madame de Sevigne ; the masterpieces of human
genius yield the first place to this immortal conversation.
It is the classic of closed doors.

Above all, it is a book more suited to old-age than to the
budding years of existence: it does not possess enough of
passion to satisfy youth. Before it can afford us pleasure,
the first heat of life must be tamed or deadened by the
progress of time. It is the book for the evening, and not
for the early dawn. It has a subdued light ; it abounds in
shadows, reveries, a sort of vague repose, and the calmness
of the setting sun. It suits the period when men, ceasing
all desire to advance or to act, seat themselves before the
door or at the fireside, to discourse in a low tone of the
events and crowds that occupy the world, without being
tempted to mingle with them again. It is less life than a
conversation upon life. This book refreshes after the
heart has been exhausted by the emotions of the day,—it
is the volume of repose.

There is however an important lesson conveyed by these
pages, and the life of Madame de Sevigne. In reverting
to them, mothers may learn to love as much, while
daughters may be taught tc love still more.
We could have wished that Lamartine had
given us a volume, not an essay, on De
Sevigne. Her entourage is not sufficiently
brilliant in this paper, and something more
should have been shown of the famous per-
sons with whom she was in contact. The
Hotel de Rambouillet ought to haze been
depicted; and there are some digressions
that we could have spared—as, for example,
the passage in which Lamartine utters an his-

SATURDAY,

torical heresy purporting that Mazarin was
greater than Richelieu. The author writes :

Mazerin, a thousand times an abler politician, because
more inclined to peace and more humane, is considered
by vulgar estimation a man of less colossal proportions
than Richelieu, because the rule of policy makes less noise
than the domination of terror, and the shallow-minded
feel mere reverence fur force than wisdom; but in the
judgment of philosophers and statesmen, Mazarin was the
great minister, while Richelieu was the great avenger.
And again he says, winding up tho pas.
sage :

How blind to their own interest are the people who
esteem Richelieu and who do not understand hlazarin.
The " blindness " (if it be such) is likely to
continue long, and is spread through many
lands. Mazarin was an administrator, and a
most able one, but Richelieu wits a creator,
such as the world has rarely seen. He had
original capacity for great affairs ; he changed
the map of France, and altered the internal
condition of French society, as much as if his
single life had been coeval with and equipollent
to a whole dynasty of sovereigns. His voli-
tion was sublime, and in his own brain he had
an innate right to command others. Many pro-
totypes are to be found for Mazarin, but not one
for Richelieu. He stands out boldly in history
by himself, and arrests the gaze like a Luther,
a Cromwell, or a Napoleon. Yet we can
easily understand how one with the tenderness
and moral aspirations of Lamartine cannot
sympathise with the irunhearted Richelieu, so
fierce and vindictive, so terrible and unfalter-
ing in acting up to the emotions of his soul.

(To be continued.)

Sinai and Palestine, in Connection with their

History. By Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, M.A.
London : Murray.
ONE of the most peculiar, and at the same
time most valuable, features in Dr. Arnold's
historical teaching was the importance he
attached to geography. In his lectures he
repeatedly enforces on the student the neces-
sity of good maps, showing not only the names
of places, but the elevation and shape of hills
and mountains, and the character of the
various natural boundaries and defences of
different districts. In his " History of Rome"
he has acted on this principle to the fullest
extent, and the consequence is that we have
nearly as clear a notion of the early Italian
wars, and the position of the numerous tribes
which Rome successively subdued, as we have
of the wars between England and Scotland.
What Arnold did for Italy, his distinguished
pupil, as far as concerns its physical conforma-
tion, has done for Palestine. The main limbs
of the country, so to speak, are exhibited with
remarkable distinctness, and their every vein
and every muscle is laid bare with a precision
that stamps them on the memory. Not a
gorge, not a brook, not a hill. not a pecu-
liarity, is omitted. At the same time, this ela-
borateness of detail is combined throughout
with the most vigorous and beautiful language
imagination and sentiment are called in to
fill up the barren outline of stone, sand, and
water: as the writer warms with his descrip-
ion, the living reality rises before our eyes—
and the effect is just as if a lecturer on ana-
tomy, having made us comprehend the exact
structure of a human skeleton, should sud-
denly, by a few magic words, reclothe the
dry bones with the soft and wavy garment of
the flesh, and recal the glowing hues of health
and beauty.
Mr. Stanley's object in the present volume
is to show the connection between the physi-
cal character of Palestine and the national
character of the Jews, their history and their
religion. As a fitting prelude to this the main
object of his work, he has given us sketches of
the land of Egypt and the peninsula of Sinai,
written with the same poetic spirit and the
same industrious accuracy. We would espe-
cially recommend to our readers the descrip-
tions of Thebes ani Memphis, with the tombs
and statues of the primeval kings. Ibe
several notices of Rameses scattered through-
out the introductory chapters are singularly
striking. The whole impression conve3 ed by
these remains is, says Mr Stanley, " that gods
" and men alike belong to an age and world
" entirely passed away, when men were slow
" to move, slow to think, but when they did

MARCH 1, 1856.

4 move or think, their work was done with the
force and violence of giants."
In his general view of Palestine Mr. Stanley
brings before us, among many others, three
prominent points—first, the complete seelu-
sion of the territory of " the peculiar people " ;
.(q)ndly, the central situation of a race des-
t ned to influence the world to the end of
time; and, thirdly, the universality of the
sc.uery and climate in which was fostered the
poetry and associations of a universal religion.
We select his observations on this latter
to ''c as a fair specimen of his style and
method :--
The sacred poetry, which was to be the delight and sup.
port of the human mind and the human soul in all regions
of we world, embraced within its range the natural
features of almost every country. The venerable pet of
our own mountain regions used to dwell with genuine emo-
tim on the pleasure he felt in the reflection that the
Psalmists and Prophets dwelt in a mountainous country.
and enjoyed its beauty as truly its himself. The devotions
of our great maritime min ire find a natural expression
in the numerous allusions, which no inland situation
could have permitted, to the roar of the Mediterranean
Sea, breaking over the rocks of Acre and Tyre—" the
goods lift up their voice, the floods lift up their waves,"
—ll a "great and wide sea," whose blue waters could
beLsee i from the top of almost every mountain, " wherein
are things creeping innuineraLle."lttele go the Phoe-
nician " ships " with their white sails, and " there is
that Leviathan," the monster of the deep. which both
Jewish and Grecian fancy wilt wont to place in the inland
ocean, which efts to them all, and more than all, that the
Atlantic is to us. Thither •• ti ey went down " from their
mountain:, and "did their business in ships," in the
"great waters," and saw the " wonders " of the " deep
and along those shores were the " havens," few and far
between' " where they would he " when " the storm became
calm, and the waves thereof were still." And with these
milder, and to us more familiar images, were blended the
more terrible, as well as the more beautiful forms, of
tropical and eastern life There was the earthquake and
possibly the volcano. "He looketh on the earth and it
trembleth—He toucheth the mountains and they smoke."
" The mountains shall be molten under Him, and the
valleys shall be cleft as wax before the fire, and as the
waters that are poured down a steep place." There was
the hurricane, with its thick darkness, and the long con-
tinuous roll of the Oriental thunderstorm. "He bowed
the heavens and came down, and there was darkness under
his feet. . . . Ho rode upon the wings of the wind.
. . . The Lord thundered out co heaven, and the
Highest gave His voice, hailstones and coals of fire. . .
The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire."
Hermon, with his snowy summit always in sight, fur•
nished the images which else could hardly have been
looked for—" snow and vapours "—" snow like wool "
" hoarfrost like ashes "—" ice like morsels." From the
jungle of the Jordan valley and the wild mountains of
Judah came the " lions roaring after their prey." And
then again, the upland hills experienced all the usual
alternations of the seasons • the " rain descending on the
mown grass," the "early and the latter rain," the
mountains " watered from His chambers, the earth satin•
tied with the fruit of His works "; which, though not the
same as the ordinary returns of a European climate, were
yet far more like it than could be found in Egypt, Arabia,
or Assyria

The following passage on the chosen locality
of our Saviour's ministrations seems original
and truthful
It was to these scenes that He, whom His fellows
townsmen at Nazareth rejected, came. He " came
down " from the high country of Galilee, where he had
hitherto dwelt; and from henceforth made his permanent
home in the deep retreat of the Sea of Galilee. What
has been already said at once gives the reason. It was no
retired mountaindake by whose shore he took up his
Rhode, such as might have attracted the Eastern sage or
Western hermit. It was to the Roman Palestine almost
what the manufacturing districts are to England. No
where, except in the capital itself, could He have found
such a sphere for His works and words of mercy ; from
nu other centre could " His fame " have so gone through-
out all Syria ; no where else could He have so drawn round
Him the vast multitudes who hung on His lips " from
Galilee, from Decapolis, from Judaea, and from beyond
Jordan," and ran " through that whole region round
About," "carrying about in beds" through its nurrow but
crowded plain " those that were sick, wherever they heard
He was"; and " whithersoever He entered," into any of
the numerous " villages or cities," there " they laid the
sick in the market-places," . . . . " many coming
and going, so that He had not time so much as to eat."
In that busy stir of life were the natural elements
nut of which His future disciples were to be formed.
Far removed from the capital, mingled, as we have
seen, with the Gentile races of Lebanon and Arabia—the
dwellers by the Sea of Galilee were free from most of
the strong prejudices which in the south of Palestine
raised a bar to His reception. "The people" in " the
land of Zebulun and Nephihalim, by the way of the sea
beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles," had " sat in
darkness," but from that very cause " they saw " more
clearly " the great light " when it came "to them which
sat in the region and the shadow of death," for that very
reason "light sprang up " the more readily. He came to
preach the. Gospel to the poor," to " the weary and
heavy laden "—to " seek and to save that which watt
1°81" Where could He find work eo readily as in the
ceaseless toil and turmoil uf these teeming villages and
1)11-y wst,T6 ? The heathen or half-heathen " publicans"

THE PRESS.

or tax-gatherers would be there, sitting by the lake side
"at the receipt of custom." The " women who were
sinners" would there have come, either from the neigh-
bouring Gentile cities, or corrupted by the license of
Gentile manners. The Homan soldiers would there be
found (revered with their slaves, to be near the palaces
of the Herodian princes, or to repress the turbulence of
the tialilean peasantry. And the hardy boatmen, filled
with the faithful and grateful spirit by which that peasan-
try was always distinguished, would supply the energy
and docility which He needed for His followers. The
copious fisheries cf the lake now assumed a new interest.
The two boats by the beach—Simon and Andrew casting
their nets into the water—James and John on the shore
washing and mending their nets—the " toiling all the
night and catching nothing"—" the great multitude of
fishes so that the net brake "—Philip, Andrew, and
Simon from " Itethaaida " the " House of Fisheries "
the " casting a hook fur the first fish tnat cometh up "
the " net east into the sea, and gathering of every kind "
all these are images which could occur nowhere else in
Palestine hut on this one spot, and which from that one
spot have now passed into the religious language of the
civilised world, and in their remotest applications, or even
misapplications, have converted the nations and shaken
the thrones if Europe.

In Mr. Stanley's descriptions of nature, both
animate and inanimate, there are, however, ter
taro omissions at which, though trifling in them-
selves, we have been a little disappointed All
must remember the lines of Moore which speak
of the hum of the wild bees of Palestine, and
the song of the nightingales in the Valley of the
Jordan. The latter are mentioned also by
many Oriental travellers, and Clarke supposes
that " the singing of birds" in the canticles
refers to them. But on both these points Mr
Stanley is silent. The wild honey eaten by
John the Baptist he considers to be the
manna which drops from the tamarisk, and
not the product of bees, thereby eliminating a
picturesque feature from the narrative: and
the nightingale he does not even allude to.
We are curious to know the truth. more
especially as Tennyson, in his splendid de-
scription of the Jordan valley by night, says
nothing about them either. We are rather
surprised that Mr. Stanley, who seems fond of
illustrating his own remarks from the poets,
should have omitted to notice this fine
passage, which tallies so exactly with his own
account of the spot :

The torrent brooks of hallowed Israel,
From craggy hollows pouring, late and soon,
Sound all night long in falling through the dell,
Far heard beneath the moon.
The balmy moon of blessed Israel
Floods all the deep-blue gloom with beams divine;
All night the splintered crags that, wall the dell
With spires of silver shine.
The terraces, sloping down to the river,
planted with the vine and the olive—the lion
roaring from his den of reeds and willows—
and the " light white cloud" and " large
white stars " above, form a picture, according
to Mr. Stanley's own showing, as perfectly
truthful as it must be confessed to be perfectly
beautiful.

In the present work there is little or nothing
that is doctrinal ; and we are glad of it. Mr.
Stanley's reverential doubtings are indeed far
removed from that conceited petulance which
distinguishes vulgar scepticism; but their in-
fluence is not on that account less fatal. But
though there is nothing in this 1 ook directly
theological, there does nevertheless lurk a
certain undefinable and untangible difference,
felt but not seen, leading us to a point from
which the whole question of the Scriptures
assumes a kind of hazy aspect.

In one or two cases Mr. Stanley is less
cautious. In his treatment of " natural causes "
his bias is perceptible ; as, for instance, where
he tells us that if we believe the thunder on
Mount Sinai to have proceeded from certain
physical sources which he describes, " they
" furnish an additional illustration, not to say
" Additional proof, of the historical truth of
" the narrative." That is to say, the less any
event is like a miracle, the more likely it is to
have occurred. But what, we would ask. is the
historical vane of the Bible dissevered from
its records of supernatural occurrences? What
avails it to prove the veracity of a narrative by
disproving all that renders its veracity im-
portant? This is an exact illustration of
Juvenal's expression,—

Et pmpter vitam vivendi perdere calms.
For the sake of truth to destroy the end of
truth. It is with coniiidcrable diffidence that
we venture thus to criticise a writer of such
learning, ability, and zeal as Mr. Stanley. But

771rmr-,.....

209

we cannot bring ourselves to regard his
method in these matters from any other p )int
of view than as injurious to the humble faith
and hallowed traditions of Christendom.

After Dark. By Wilkie Collins. Two WI..

London : Smith and Elder.
THE work of Mr. Collins consists mainly of tales.
whieh have with one exception been published in
Household Words. He has given to them a new
framework, in " The Diary of a Physician " style.
The device is as old as fiction itself, and the only
novelty of treatment in this case is, that the narrator
is represented as a travelling portrait-painter, who,
being compelled to rest his eye, and being sorely per-
plexed as to ways and means, is persuaded by his
wife to relate the tales he has heard during his ex-
perience, which are faithfully written down by her
and sent off for publication. This part of the book
will probably be judged " nicely " written. But it is
very artificial, and as unlike anything that ever has
occurred, or is likely to occur, as can well be
imagined. No one can mistake the care with which
effect is sought for, and elaborated. Mr. Collins has
considerable constructive skill,—the most available,
though not the highest, talent in fiction. He follows
the French school, in which the art of effect in
combining and dressing up incident is carried to
perfection. He seems to have no idea of character,
no feeling for the realities of life, no power of original
thought—but he can work up a story ; and it is tb•
constructive art he displays which has doubtless sug-
gested the notion that his tales are of foreign origin.
It is probable that Mr. Collins works on a principle,
and that he thinks skill and training have more to
do with the production of readable fiction than native
ability. His success may have good results, as care-
lessness of literary art has been carried too far. His
plan will always secure for him an audience. He is
real storyteller, though not of a high class. His
style, like his plan, seems to have been well studied,
but in this respect also the art is too apparent. The
simplicity, to a critical eye at least, is overdone.
The book consistently closes with a "tag." Th•
first sentence of the preface, in which ➢tr. Collins
speaks himself, and the last sentence of the aook,
spoken by the painter's wife, will sufficiently show
the art exercised :
The PRZ7ACZ :

I have taken some pains to string together the
various stories contained in these volumes on a single
thread of interest which, as far as I know, has at least the
merit of not having been used before.
The Tao :
Oh, Public, Public! it all depends now upon you !
The children are to have new clothes from top to toe ; I am
to have a black-silk gown ; William is to have a beautiful
travelling colour-box ; the rent is to be paid ; all our kind
frien la at the farmhouse ate to have little presents, and
our future way in this hard world is to be smoothed for us
at the outset, if you will only accept a poor painter's stories
which his wife has written down for him,—ArrEß DARK.
Mr. Collins's "pains "—his own word—and inge-
nuity are sure to be recognised Probably he will,
as he advances in his painstaking career, gain
elimpses of the higher skill—if indeed it be not an
instinct beyond the power of mere pains to attain—
which consists in "Ars celare artem."

Diary of Travels in Three Quarters of the Globe. By
an Australian Settler. Two Vols. London :

Saunders and Otley.
THE author left his "bush-home in the picturesque
"valley of the broad Clarence river "in the month of
July, 1854, for England. In his cottage, with its
modest roof of thatch, and shaded by the foliage of
the beautiful white cedar, be had passed fourteen
yews of successful enterprise and requited toil.
Spreading cedars, planted by the author's own hand,
marked the lonely grave of his brother. The place
was endeared to him by many recollections, but the
thought of home was stronger; so he jcurneyed to
Sydney, and embarked in the steamer Madras to
proceed by the overland route to Europe. These
volumes contain a record of his voyage. They are
intelligently written, but we would far sooner have
had a literal record of the fourteen years' residence
in the valley of the Clarence. The most noticeable
part of the book is that describing what be saw in
Constantinople and the Crimea in the winter of
1854.5, when our army was in its worst plight. At
Scutari, under date of December 19th, he notes how
the hospital accommodation had so fallen in arrear,
that, with a thousand sick detained afloat, many of
those who had been landed in the morning were,
when the day was nearly spent, still sitting or lying
upon the wet ground near the entrance gates :
As glaziers and plasterers are harried from a ward, a
number of the bags of straw are hastily dragged in and
disposed round the damp walls upon the dirty floor. The
poor wasted sufferers, half dead with cold, and exhausted
by long waiting, are then admitted, and appear thankful to
be stretched even upon this apology for a bed, the first, as
some told me, they had lain upon since they glutted
England.