The Press.
London, England, 1857-08-15 00:00:00

PERIODIC AL LITERATURE.

WE have this month a very interesting number of
the North British Review. The contents are various
and well timed. We have five articles bearing on
questions of the day, which, even where we do not
agree with them, merit our approval from their can-
dour and ability. China and India, the Divorce
Bill, and Scottish Lunacy Bill, and the French treat-
ment of criminals, are the subjects chosen ; and we
are happy to see that, on the whole, they confirm
the views we have long entertained on these ques-
tions. Of the Arrow it is said :

The calm and judicious statements of the character and
occupations of those who employ lorchas of the Arrow
class, aliould suggest to our Foreign•otlice the necessity of
giving positive orders to our representatives in China to
discontinue countenancing them. All who know China,
and take an interest in the people with whom we now have
such close mercantile relations, protest, equally with Mr.
Fortune, against permission being given to vessels of this
kind to sail under British colours.
In the Indian article the writer demurs to the charge
of mismanagement against the East India Company.
The degree to which they are blameable is, of course,
a matter ot opinion ; but the reviewer does not seek
to disguise the magnitude ot the crisis, and narrow
down the wavering allegiance of a nation to the
transitory discontent of a class. In the article on
the Divorce Bill, the writer regrets that Lord Itedes-
dale's amendment, relieving the clergy from the
compulsory clause, was not carried in the House of
Lords:—

We confess that we are sorry fur this, and for more
reasons than one. We respect all scruFles of conscience,
and we can readily believe that many clergymen of the
Church of England, considering the terms of the service
which they are called upon to perform over all persons
thus admitted into the " holy " bonds of wedlock, may feel
their consciences outraged by the compulsory performance
of the ceremony over persons brought together primarily
by guilt; but we lament it still more, because it w►ll turn
the hearts of many against a measure, which, but for this,
they might have approved and supported.
Literature is represented in this number by " Bacon's
Essays," " English Metrical Critics," and " Early
Christian Songs." The second is, perhaps, the most
noticeable of these three. But the author, though
he commands our respect for the knowledge dis-
played, is somewhat too much of a pedant and a
hobby-rider. On this subject the public is really the
best judge, and we cannot at all agree with the
following remarks :
Most readers of poetry, and, we fear we must add,
modern writers upon it, know nothing, and feel nothing,
of the laws of metre as they have been practised by all
great poets. " Smoothness" is regarded as the highest
praise of versification, whereas it is about the lowest and
most easily attainable of all its qualities. The consummate
perfection of the versification of all Milton and Shake-
spenre, and much of Chaucer, Spencer, Fletcher, and
Cowley, would not now be tolerated in a new writer; we
should find it held up to ridicule and contempt; facetious
critics, stringing together separate lines or short passages,
each a brilliant, but, separately, unintelligible, morsel of
some mosaic of harmony, would ask, " Is this music ? is
this verse 7' perfectly safe as to the reply, for it is certain
that, in the greatest work of the greatest metrist who ever
lived, Milton, there is no long and elaborate strain of
verse without one or more lines which, though probably the
most effective in the passage, will seem to be scarcely verse
at all when taken out of it. " Smoothness" might just as
reasonably be called the chief merit of natural scenery as
of poetry.

Now, poets like Cowley may bo all very well, and
undoubtedly possess high merit. Yet to prefer their
style of versification to the simpler metres of the
present day seems as odd a proof of taste, as to
prefer the towering head-dresses of our great-grand-
mothers to the easy and graceful arrangement of the
hair in a modern drawing-room. A very nice article

THE PRES S, AUGUST 15, 1857.

is one upon Isaac Watts; it is written in a pleasant
style, and is agreeable mixture of biography and
criticism. . _ .

The most noticeable articles in our two Scotch
magazines, i.e., Tait's, and the West of Scotland,
are upon the trial of Madeleine Smith. Both main-
tain her innocence, though with different degrees of
positiveness. This is certainly a curious circum-
stance. With the remarks of the writer in Tait
upon circumstantial evidence, we entirely agree.
Part X. of the National Magazine contains a good
story, entitled " Greenhill Hall." " The Silver Fan,"
by G. W. Thornbuty, is rather pretty. The en.
gravings are well selected, and the whole number
good, though a little overloaded with domesticism.
The Train and the Commercial Travellers' Moga-
zine contain plenty of light readable matter, and
show no symptoms of decay.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED—Auoust 13.
BOONS.

Leonilda. By Felix Mildred. Mitchell
Passages in the Life of a Soldier. 2 vols.
Hurst and Blackett
Yonge's History of England. By Charles Duke lunge.
Rivingtons
A Safe and Sure Method to acquire French. By C. Dagohert.
Shaw
Jane Eyre. By Currer Bell. Smith and Elder
L'Eco Italiano. By Eugene Camerini. Trubner and Co.