The Press.
London, England, 1854-01-21 00:00:00

66

The volume is beautifully printed, and it is
set forth with the typographical neatness of a
" library edition." Its price is three half-
crowns, and it contains all of Goldsmith's
poems, his comedies, and " The Vicar of
Wakefield," which many will think the very
cream of his composition. The whole works will
be completed in four volumes. We have some
doubts whether it would not have been better
to have published them in six volumes, as
being less weighty in the hand. But we have
no hesitation in looking upon this edition as
being the standard one that will be referred to
by all the lovers of Goldsmith. We must add
that Mr. Cunningham warmly acknowledges
his obligations to Mr. Forster, the biographer
of Goldsmith, and also to Mr. Bolton Corney,
whose assistance will be additional guarantees,
along with the editor's own research, for the
careful performance of his office.

The Little Duke; or, Richard the Fearless. By
the Author of " The Heir of Redclyffe," &c.
London : Parker and Son.
THIS little book contains 168 pages and eight
illustrations. The latter are all good ; the
horses are real horses of flesh, bone, and
sinew, not rampant dragons or furious wild
jaws,
making with flying mane and distended
making the final spring, as they are too often,
WC may say generally, portrayed. The print-
ing is clear, and the binding displays good
taste. Externally it is a child's book; yet it is
not a child's book only, for it describes human
nature, its passions and impulses, with virtues
and vices, which are common to every age and
every condition, and therefore it might be
read with interest by a child or a statesman,
the feudal lord of a bygone period or the busy
merchant of to-day. The tale opens in the
middle of the tenth century, when the North-
men had but recently settled in the rich valley
of the Seine, before Thor and Woden had
wholly lost the reverence of their fierce wor-
shippers ; ere yet the Viking had acquired
those graces which, blending with his own
courage, produced in a later day the brave,
the courtly, and the accomplished Norman.
The Little Duke is the son of William of the
Long Sword, Duke of Normandy ; but that
sword could not guard its wearer from a
treacherous blow, and he is foully murdered
at the commencement of the tale. The Little
Duke is seized by the King of France as a
ward of the Crown, but escapes by the devo-
tion of an attendant from his imprisonment.
The moral of the story is, that we must bridle
our passions and restrain our imperious
desires if we would be wise and happy, and
this truth is inculcated yet not obtruded
throughout the volume. Here is a scene
between the Little Duke and Prince Lothaire,
eldest son of the King of France, whose finger
a falcon had just pecked :
It really hurt him a good deal, and in a furious rats
he caused two nails to be heated red hot in the fire, in-
tending to have them thrust into the poor bird's eyes.
" I will not have it done !" exclaimed Richard, ex-
pecting to be obeyed as he was at home, but Lothaire only
laughed scornfully, saying, " Do you think you are master
here, sir pirate ?"
" I will not have it done," repeated Richard. " Shame
on you, shame on you, for thinking of such an unkingly
deed !"
" Shame on me ! Do you know to whom you speak,
master savage ?" cried Lothaire, red with passion.
" I know who is the savage now !" said Richard.
" Hold!" to the servant who was bringing the red-hot
irons in a pair of tongs.
" Hold?" exclaimed Lothaire. "No one commands
here but I and my father. Go on, Charlot—where is the
bird ? Keep her fast, Giles."
" Osmond ! You I can command "
" Come away, my lord," said Osmond, interrupting
Richard's order, before it was issued. " We have no right
to interfere here, and cannot hinder it. Come away from
such a foul sight."
" Shame on you too, Osmond, to let such a deed be
done without hindering it !" exclaimed Richard, breaking
from him, and rushing on the man who carried the hot
irons. The French servants were not very willing to exert
their strength against the Duke of Normandy, and
Richard's onset taking the man by surprise made him
drop the tongs. Lothaire, both afraid and enraged,
caught them up as a weapon of defence, and, hardly
knowing what he did, struck full at Richard's face with
the hot iron. Happily it missed his eve, and the heat had
a little abated, but as it touched his cheek it burnt him
sufficiently to cause considerable pain. With a cry of
passion he flew at Lothaire, shook him with all his might,
and ended by throwing him at his length on the pavement.
But this was the last of Richard's exploits, for he was at

THE PRESS.

the same moment captured by his squire, and borne off,
struggling and kicking as if Osmond bad been his
greatest foe; but the young Norman's arms were like iron
round him, and he gave over his resistance sooner, be-
cause at that moment a whirring, flapping sound was heard,
and the poor hawk rose high, higher, over their heads in
ever-lessening circles, far away from her enemies. The
servant who held her had relaxed his grasp in the conster-
nation caused by Lotbaire's fall, and she was mounting up
and up, spying, it might be, her way to her native rocks in
Iceland, with the yellow eyes which Richard had saved.
" Safe ! safe !" cried Richard, joyfully, ceasing his
struggles. " 0 how glad lam ! That young villain should
never have hurt her. Put me down, Osmond ! what are you
doing with me ?"
" Saving you from your— no, T cannot call it folly;
I would hardly have bad you stand still to see such
but let me see you face."
"It is nothing. I don't care, now the hawk is safe,"
said Richard, though lie could hardly keep his lips in
order, and was obliged to wink very hard with his eyes to
keep the tears out, now that lie had leisure to feel the
smarting ; but it would have been far beneath a Northman
to complain, and he stood bearing it gallantly, and pinching
his fingers tightly together, while Osmond knelt down to
examine the hurt.

If Sir Walter Scott had taken the same sub-
ject for a novel, and omitted every incident
and reflection not absolutely necessary to the
development of the story, and had rendered
his language intelligible to readers of every
eapacity, he would have produced a work like
this. We are never told that the scene is laid
in the tenth century ; we have no obsolete
antiquarian words, no minute descriptions of
armour, arms, or castles ; but we feel in every
page of the book that we are amongst human
beings like ourselves, but moulded by the cir-
cumstances and conditions of the age in which
they are placed.

Memorable Women. The Story of their Lives.
By Mrs. Newton Crossland. London :
Bogue.
THE first " story" in this book is entitled
" Rachel Wriothesley, Lady Russell." A more
correct title would be " the author's views of
" various historical events in the reign of
" Charles 11., and her suppositions as to what
" the actors in them felt and thought ; " for it
can in no sense be called a life of Lady
Russell. Her father, Lord Southampton, was
with Charles I. at Edgehill, as the battle is
called, although it was not fought there; but,
nevertheless, he did all he could to bring
about peace, " for " (we are quoting from the
book), "as Clarendon quaintly says, no man
" had more melancholy apprehensions of the
" issue of the war.'" Quaintly ! where is the
quaintness? The husband of the Lady Rachel,
it is said, " William Russell, belonged to one of
" the oldest and noblest families in England,
" being the third son of William Earl of
" Bedford." The great fortune and nobility of
the Russells were then of recent acquisition ;
and as to antiquity of descent, why, every one
who acquires a title or a million pounds has
that. The gay and careless Charles 11., who
was only resolute in one thing, viz., " that he
"would not go on his travels again," is re re
sented as a grim Machiavellian tyrant ; but,
whilst censuring him for accepting money
from France, the author forgets to add that
Algernon Sidney and other patriots were
guilty of the same crime. She seems to doubt
the existence of the Rye-house Plot, and
supports her opinion by Colonel Rumbold's
dying words, " in which he positively denied
" that there ever was any plot to assassinate
" the King." Exactly so : the King was to be
attacked when surrounded by his guards ;
that was Rumbold's design, and to kill him
thus in fair fight he did not consider assassina-
tion. The garrulous, narrow-minded, preju-
diced, fortune-hunting Burnet is constantly
cited as an authority, and spoken of as
" the warm-hearted Burnet." Of Lady Rachel
Russell there is little beyond the bare facts
with which every one is familiar. The real
lives are those of Madame D'Arblay and Mrs.
Piozzi. Speaking of the former the author
says :

If we except Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield," it is
hardly too much to say that before " Evelina " was pub-
lished there did not exist an English "novel" that was
not either corrupt in principle or coarse in style, and the
generality of such productions combined the two vices.
And this although Richardson had published
his " Sir Charles Grandison "!
There are some books in the English
language in which the words are so apt and