The Press.
London, England, 1858-03-06 00:00:00

SS, MARCH p, 1858.

the blood-discs, that is all the nitrogen in the blood
said to be solely composed of nitrogenous substances.
The trifle is only about 120, or, according to some
calculations, 150, which make the albumen and
fibnne much less ; so that of the 1,000 parts the 200
parts which are composed of solid matter are nearly
all nitrogenous. As to the rice of the Hindoo, he
only eats it when he can get nothing else ; and a
national diet is not always the best. Maize, for in-
stance, gives the Italians skin diseases, but they eat
a great deal of it; and the rice-eating Hindoos are
the worst of the race. Amongst ourselves it is
supposed that consumption would be much less fre-
quent if more fatty matter were consumed. Many
of his quotations from Lawes and Gibert relate to the
fattening of animals, which require the formation of
fat, not of muscles. "Sullivan on Cumberland "is an
entertaining paper, and the instalment of " What will
be do with it " as interesting as usual.
Fraser has a very good Indian article. We quote
one extract, which from a Liberal periodical is suffi-
ciently damning :

But one thing is most clear—either that the Indian
Government, with the whole Indian navy at its command,
with the whole Peninsular and Oriental fleet, with the
whole mercantile marine of the Eastern seas at its dis-
posal, did not appreciate the necessity of sending trans-
ports to Suez, did not advise the Home Government of
having done so, did not Implore the Home Government to
use that fleet to the uttermost, fur that hours were as men's
lives, and days as kingdoms—and if this be indeed the
case, then Lord Canning's condemnation is signed and
sealed ; or the Home Government did know that the
ships were at Suez, but did not care to depart from the
usual course, and so had recourse to that extraordinary
assurance—the most audacious, perhaps, that ever ema-
nated from Downing•sireet—that the Cape route was very
nearly as quick as the overland, and sailing-vessels would
make the voyage as fast as steamers.
Bitter indeed has been the satire passed by silent facts
on this idle boasting. We will not speak now of what
might have been, though no sare man will deny that,
owing to the non-transmission of troops overland, India
was brought to the very extremest brink of jeopardy.
e trust and believe that that jeopardy is past; but
what are the facts even now? We have been obliged to
evacuate Gude, and have yet to see the effect on the people
of India of that terrible necessity. The Punjaub is still
cut off completely from all India below Delhi. The
Dooab and Rohilcund are still in name only British
possessions. Cawnpore is again threatened, and all this
because we have no reinforcements ; because of the army
sent from England not a single company has yet reached
Allahabad, because the famous clippers that were to have
made the voyage in seventy days do not arrive in a
hundred, because, in one word, troops were not sent over-
land in July.
We have no wish to exaggerate, but there is no dis-
guising the fact that Christmas has arrived and finds us
still standing on the defensive ; that it must be six weeks
before we can hope to be in a position to strike an offensive
blow, and that in six weeks the hot weather down country
will have already commenced.
Nor can we be blind to the moral effects of this most
unhappy delay. In the Punjauh it iv not the energetic
ruler only, nor the I.nging Europeans only, who ask when
will the troops come? The anxious people ask the same
question. It is a sober fact that every day which passes
and finds forty thousand Punjaubi soldiers in arms, and
the Punjaub denuded of European troops, is a day of
danger.
Nor is it a little evil that the natives should have learnt
to measure the exact interval of time which, as they will
suppose, necessarily separates the Indian settlers from
their English resources. Four thousand men arriving
overland in August would have done more to teach the
natives that there was always help for us at hand, than
forty thousand arriving round the Cape in November.
Readers of THE PRESS will be familiar with these
arguments. Another good paper is on " Recruiting';
and the naturalist contributor is as pleasant as usual
with his feathered familiars.
We have not seen a better numb'r of the Dublin
for many months than the present one. In " Gerald
Fitzgerald " Mr. Lever is displaying an earhest
power for which the world scarcely gave him credit.
" Lord Macaulay " is a capital paper, almost equal
in its way to Mr. Bagehot's. the following rap on
the knuckles is as sharp as well merited :

Of course, Lord Macaulay may gaily assert " that a man
of sense syllogises in celarent and cesare all day long,
without suspecting it; and though he may not know what
an ignoratio elenchi is, has no difficulty in exposing it,
henever he falls in with it, which is likely to be as often
as he falls in with a reverend Master of Arts nourished
in iuode and figure in the cloisters of Oxford." But two
sneers are not half an argument : and " Oxford logic " may
be a sore subject to one who has felt the home-thrusts of
Mr. Stanley pierce the gorgeous mail of his rhetoric, and
whose reasoning faculties, strong as they are, must yield
in debate to the subtle dialectics of Gladstone. And,
perhaps, Lord Macaulay's Master of Arts might have told
him that to charge on a science the errors of its professors
is the common fallacy of "Non caeca pro causci."
There is, after all, a very simple solution of all this
nonsense of his lordship's which our Dublin friends
cannot he expected to be quite up to. Lord Ma-
caulay has never learned logic. At Cambridge,
where classical reading on;y means classical
" scholarship," he went in for classics and highly
distinguished himself. This gave him his taste. his
style, and his command of allusion so grateful to

the cultivated Englishman. But the Chancellors Medallist, Craver: Scholar, or first classinan of Cam.
bridge, knows necessarily no more of logic than a
young lady who is an adept in French. All Lori
Macaulay's writings betray this deficiency, and none
more so than the History of England. Of his lord-
ship's diction the writer says well :
We have said that Lord Macaulay's diction, though it
shows the greatest rhetorical skill, and is rich with various
oeauties, is not of that highest kind of language, which
is
the simple expression of great thoughts, and is noble is
virtue of their greatness.
The concluding paragraph iv, however, a silly at
tempt to throw in a sugar-plum at the end, end,
strange to say, is in direct cortradiction to the bulk
of the paper. " Pope and His Biographers "is an
article of which the object is to) piste before the
reader,

As briefly as possible, a sketch of Pope's various biogyE
pliers ; the successive stages through which Polon'
criticism has passed ; the state in which it now rests; and
the points which, in our opinion, still demand elucidation.
They will then be in a position both to appreciate the
labours of Mr. Carruthers, and to look forward, with hi.
terest, to fresh disclosures.

Five passages in Pope's career are selected for cm.
ment—i.e., the quarrel with Addison—the surrepti-
tious publication of the letters—the poet's intimacy
with the Blounts—his alleged acceptance of money
from the Duchess of Marlborough—and his conduct
towards Bolingbroke in the matter of the Patriot
King. On all these' points except the last the
writer's conclusions are in favour of the poet. The
essay on " Matthew Arnold?' is exceedingly good,
and the whole number quite equal both to its Soto
and its English competitors.

Bentley and the New Monthly are each about the
usual thing. We observe that the author of
" Ashley " and " The Red•court Farm " is beginning
to write him or herself out. " Heiresses "is a
promising story ; but " Queen Stork" finishes abor-
tively. The article on Lord John Russell is of
withering severity.
We have observed nothing in Tait that requires
particular notice.
The first number of a new female magazine, called
The Englishwoman's Journal, is promising. The
article on the House of Mercy is good, but rather
prejudiced.

The Gordian Knot is gradually being palled
tighter.

The Train has a capital story, called "A Strange
Night," which compensates for the vulgar rubbish
entitled "Sham Pamphlets."

•••ImMn

PUBLTCATIONS RECEIVED.—Msnat 5.
BOOKS.

Essays on Church Penitentiaries. J. H. and J. Parker.
The History and Design of the Foundling Hospital. John
Brownlow. R. and H. S. Wsrb.
Wild Oats. Captain Lascelles Wrazall.

J. and C. Brown.
A Dictionary of Trade Products. P. L. Simmonds,
F.R.G.S., F.S.S. Routledge.
Life Doubled by the Economy of Time. Houlston and Cu.
The Funeral Oration of ilyperides. Churchill Babington,
8.D., F.L.S. Deighton, Bell, sod Co.
Mortality of the British Army. Harrison and Sons.
The Moors and the Fens. F. G. Trafford. Three Vols.

Smith and Elder.
T. Hodgion.

Helms of Houghton.
The ()'Donoghue of the Lakes. Nicholas J. Gannon.
Bosworth and Harrison.
.4 Personal Journal of Mc Siege of Lucknow. Captain R.l'.
Anderton. Thacker.

The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford. Vol. B.
Bentley.
A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude in 1849-50. Major-
General Sir W. H. Sleeman, K.C.B. Two Vols. Ditto.
The Student's Blackstone. Sir Wm. Blackstone, F-nt.

J. Murray.

Statistical Society. J. W. Parker—Cassell** Arl•Trea-
sures Exhibition. Kent and Co.—The Ladies' Treasury.
Ward and Co.—lioulledge's Shakspeare. Routledge--
Mervyn Clithero. Routledge—Le l'ollet. Simpkiu and
Marshall—Tait's Magazine. Partridge and Co.—The Art
Journal. Hall and Virtue—Davenport Dunn. Chapman
and Hall—Paved with Gold. Chapman and Hall—lroh
Metropc.7itan Magazine. Simpkin and Marshall—The
National Magazine.

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A Narrative of the Campaign of the Delhi Army. V.
H. Delta—The Dictionary of Daily Wants. Parts'l and 3.
Hordston and Co.

MR. MABSETT'S ENTERTAINMENT.-At the Hanover-
square Rooms, on Monday enening, Mr. Stephen
Massett announces his first entertainment in London.
The opinions of the press in India, Australia, and
America are of the most favourable character in
reference to Mr. 11Iassett's powers as a vocalist,
reader, and imitator, and if he possesses but a tithe
of the talent ascribed to him, he cannot fail to be-
come a universal favourite with the English public.