The Press.
London, England, 1858-12-04 00:00:00

PERIODICAL LITERATURE.

Mosr of the magazines this month have something
about Japan. Blackwool is descriptive, Fraser corn
mercial, and Bentley historical. But neither of them
contain alytbing particularly well worth quoting.
In Blackwood, the good ship " What will he do with
it?" is coming mij•tstically into port; Darrell's pride
is beginning to waver, an the usual " Bless ye, my
children !" to loom in the distance. There are no
other very good articles in Oil:lumber. The paper
on " Sermons" is sound and just, but verges on the
dry. The tale called "Cousin John's Property" is
not quite up to the Blackwood mark, nor is the essay
on Mr. Bright quite so good as the subject requires.
In fact, it is too diffuse, though the comparison be-
tween America and this country is good.
Fraser this month is not a particnlarly brilliant
number. It is useless to affect to believe that the
magazines are always equally good, but it is solely
because we see the high level which three or fonr of
theta do manage to maintain that we feel it incum-
bent on us to notice the very slightest symptoms of
a falling off. The article we like best in the present
number of Fraser is entitled " People who are not
Respectable." The remarks on Mr. Disraeli, though
coloured by all the prejudices that are natural in au
enemy, are still good humoured and smart. " Snake
Birds" is a very pleasinzt paper in Beta's best style.
" India in a Mess " is also a sensible as well as an
amusing contribution, and we give the following
extracts from it :

Let in old Indian who retired--say only ten years ago,
just before the Panjaub campaign—let him revisit the
Bengal Presidency, and see if our language is exaggerated.
Where is the quiet, comfortable cantonment, in which
three or four regiments lived in en amicable fraternity of
dulness for three or four years ; where the drive on the
mall, and listening to the bacd, were as the rising and
the going-down of the sun for regularity; where men
amok together in the cold weather and perspired together
in the hot ; played a little cricket, played a little billiards ;
and so spun out three years of existence tinder the name
of service, till " the relief " came and took them all away
The cantonment is burnt to the ground ; the blackened
site of the old theatre is occupied by the tent of the
bearded, brown-clothed officer who commands the field
force which overawes the neighbourhood. A regiment of
Panjanbis come in to-day, a troop of Royal Artillery
marches out to-morrow. "Where were these Ponjaubis

in my time?" thinks the veteran; "and what the devil
are the Royal Artillery doing in India? " Or does he
think to visit the regiment of his youth, in which he
served from the green days of ensignhood till he attained
the dignity of lientenant-colonel commanding' Some
of the lads will be left among the captains, and of the
native officers will not Gangapandy and Pirbaksh rejoice
to see their old Sahib? Alas' the old regiment has no
existence on the fact of this earth. Of those captains
tour fell at Cawnpore, another at Delhi, one subaltern,
whom he recollects, is commanding a corps of outlandish
horse, raised among some Indian tribe of whom nothing
was written in the geography nooks of our veteran's youth.
tiangapandy is wandering, it is supposed, with rebel
hordes in Onde; of Pirbeksh it is happily known that