The Press.
London, England, 1858-01-09 00:00:00

THE PRESS, JANUARY 9, 1858.

passage, to which many similar might be found
in the course of the volume :
Having, then, directed the studies of our youth so as to
make them practically serviceable men at the time of
their entrance into life, that entrance should always be
ready for them in cases where their private circumstances
present no opening. There ought to be Government
establishments for every trade, in which all youths who
desired it should be received as apprentices on their
leaving school; and men thrown out of work received at
all times. At these Government manufactories the disci-
pline should be strict, and the wages steady, not varying at
all in proportion to the demand for the article, but only in
proportion to the price of food ; the commodities produced
being laid up in store to meet sudden demands, and
sudden fluctuations in prices prevented :—that gradual
and neeessary fluctuation only being allowed which is pro-
perly consequent on larger or more limited supply of raw
material and other natural causes. When there was a
visible tendency to produce a glut of any commodity, that
tendency should be checked by directing the youth at the
Government schools into other trades; and the yearly
surplus of commodities should be the principal means of
Government provision for the poor.
Mr. Ruskin is in fact an advocate of a
" paternal " Government. He thinks that as
we advance in our social knowledge we shall
" establish such laws and authorities as may
" at once direct us in our occupations, protect
" us against our follies, and visit us in our
" distresses." The argument against any
attempt to adopt such plans is that, as the
tendency of Governments, on the whole, has
been from more interference to less inter-
ference, it is probable that in the long run the
practice of interference was found not to work
well. That the views held by such thinkers
as Mr. Ruskin are impracticable in the present
state of society is not, perhaps, a very new
objection to them ; but it is, nevertheless, a
perfectly valid one. We have called such
thinkers Platonists, but in fact that philoso-
pher would never have expected,as his modern
antitypes seem to do, to work out the pro-
cess of ameliorating society by the power of
Government alone. The reformation of indi-
vidual character was the keystone on which he
based his great political edifice ; a pre-requi-
site on which Mr. Ruskin has not laid nearly
sufficient stress in any part of the present
volume, though we do not imagine that he
would deny its necessity if pointed out to him.
We must content ourselves with noting the
omission, for to deal with it in full would in-
volve endless discussion. It is a pleasanter
task to observe the amusing kind of tact which
the author displays in talking to a Manchester
audience, and to call attention to the many
eloquent passages scattered through the
lectures. Some of our readers may remember
a magnificent paragraph occurring in the in-
troduction to " Modern Painters " on the
undue neglect of contemporary genius. The
text of extinctus amabitur—or rather, effetus
amabitur—is enlarged upon with equal pathos
and beauty in the following remarks:—
But if he does deserve praise, be sure that you give it
him, else you not only run a chance of driving him from
the right road by want of encouragement, but you deprive
yourselves of the happiest privilege you will ever have of
rewarding his labour. For it is only the young who can
receive much reward from men's praise: the old, when
they are great, get too far beyond and above you to care
what you think of them. You may urge them then with
sympathy, and surround them then with acclamation ;
but they will doubt your pleasure, and despise your praise.
Yon might have cheered them in their race through the
asphodel meadows of their youth; you might have brought
the proud, bright scarlet into their faces, if you had but
cried once to them " Well done," as they dashed up to the
first goal of their early ambition. But now, their pleasure
is in memory, and their ambition is in heaven. They can
be kind to you, but you never more can be kind to them.
You may be fed with the fruit and fulness of their old age,
but you were as the nipping blight to them in their blos-
soming, and your praise is only as the warm winds of
autumn to the dying branches.
The book will certainly repay perusal, but
we question whether it will advance its author's
reputation as a trustworthy guide iu matters
not comprehended within the sphere of art.

Souvenirs of Travel. By Madame Octavia
Walton le Vert. Vols. I. and IL New York :
S. H. Gostzol and Co.

A. FEW years ago an American book of travels
in England, or an English book of travels in
America, was pretty certain to be less a record
of the traveller's actual experiences in the
land of his cousins than a string of hostile
and sarcastic criticisms on their laws, customs,
language, and demeanour. Mrs. Trollops and
Mr. Dickens on the one side, Mr. N. P. Willis

39

and Mr. F. Cooper on the other, naturally en+
lightened the kindred countries on each other's
faults and failings. Latterly a less critical
and more urbane spirit has animated the
journalising travellers of both countries.
Lady Emmeline S. Wortley's very eulogistic
account of all she saw in her varied and ad-
venturous wanderings in the New World has
met with a fitting response in Archdeacon
Cleveland Cox's most interesting and accurate
" Impressions of England," while Madame le
Vert, in the readable volumes before us, is
almost open to the charge of Anglomania.
Tho amiable desire, however, of representing
the old country in a favourable light to her
compatriots has led Madame le Vert
into the same error according to our
English ideas at least—which her prede
censors, from a less pardonable motive, corn!
mitted. We mean the freedom and unreserve
with which the penetralia of English society
are set forth and portrayed.
It is true that for the humble villa on
Blackheath, no less than for the gilded halls
of Buckingham Palace, our joyous traveller
has no words but those of praise and appre-
ciation; still, however amusing to her un-
travelled compatriots it -may be to read lively,
albeit laudatory, descriptions of dukes and
duchesses, painters and poets, we are sure that
Madame le Vert's agreeable volumes would be
more readily welcomed among us were they
less personally eulogistic. Apart from this
defect and sundry slight inaccuracies—such as
giving to the venerable Marquis of Bristol the
title of duke, and informing us that she
travelled down to Belvoir Castle by the Great
Western Railway—Madame le Vert's descrip-
tion of London is both animated and faithful,
and proves her to be of that quick and obsery -
ing turn of mind without which travellers,
however accomplished and learned, might as
well remain at home.
But graphic as are her sketches in London
and Paris, Madame le Vert's powers of descrip-
tion are not fully brought out until she
reaches the more genial climes of Italy, or
Spain, or Cuba : southern scenery, southern
art, southern nature, all find in her an enthu-
siastic but discriminating admirer. Listen to
her account of life in Venice :
Enchanting were the beantifnl days of our sojourn in
Venice ; life was filled with a new joy as we lingered there.
Days and hours glided away upon a tide of pleasurable
emotions, while it seemed as though wings gently bore us
up, wafting as from scene to scene of interest. It was
like a delicious dream in which the put was mingled with
the present; all was so different from the world we bad
known before, in its mystical, unique, and strange character.
Or her farewell to Genoa :

I am seated on the deck, pencil in hand, to describe the
going down of the sun. It is just approaching a snow-
tinged peak, which it turns to a rose colour. Now a slight
gauzy veil has come over it, and from beneath stream down
the golden rays, precisely like the halo around the Virgins
of Murillo. It is passed, and the sun has touched the
summit of the Apennines. They glow like tire as it sinks
from view. But rich hues of amber and crimson yet linger ;
slowly it is fading, fading, fading, and purple twilight is
here. It was a glorions 'sunset upon the ' Middle-Earth
Sea," and as a beautiful picture it shall be cherished in
memory. But darkness has almost come, and I can
scarcely write. Still it is not darkness; for though
The moon is np, it is not night ;
Sunset divides the sky with her.

The night had such bewitching loveliness, we could not
think of sleep ; thus we passed the hours until nearly dawn
upon the deck of the small steamer. The sky was without
one cloud, and the full-orbed moon cast a long train of
brilliant light over the calm snrface of the Mediterranean,
revealing to our eyes the little villages on the shore, the
mountains which crowded to the very verge of the sea, and
the sails of distant ships.
-

All who have travelled in Spain. and mixed
at all with its people, will corroborate the
tribute which Madame le Vert pays (vol. ii.
p. 33) to the gracious and ungrudging hospi-
tality with which strangers are everwhere
welcomed in that glorious but ill-governed
land

In no part of the world are strangers more kindly treated
than in Spain. Ah ! how often in our wanderings there
did we meet the warm and cordial greeting of those who
only knew us to be from a foreign land ! How many plea-
sant attentions encircled us ! How many gratifying inci-
dents attended our sojourn ! And these came not only
from those of high position in society, but from thu
peasants, and lower classes of people chance threw us
among.
With ono more quotation we shall commend
our authoress to the gentle judgment of our
readers. She is speaking of the collection in
the Muse° at Ma 464