The Press.
London, England, 1857-05-30 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

" eight o'clock," says the Universal Chronicle of
the 24th of April, 1759, "the remains of the
" late Mr. Handel were deposited at the foot
" of the Duke of Argyle's monument in West
" minster Abbey ; and though he mentioned
" being privately interred, yet, from the re-
" spent due to so celebrated a man, the bishop,
" prebends, and the whole choir attended to
" pay the last honours due to his memory.
" There was a vast concourse of people of all
" ranks." The Gentleman's Magazine of 1759
adds " there were not fewer than 3.000 persons
present on this occasion." Dr. Zachary Pearce,
Bishop of Rochester and Dean of Westminster,
preached the funeral sermon. And where did
the authorities deposit his remains? In the
Poets' Corner.
On the 10th of July, 1762, his monu-
ment, by Roubiliac, was inaugurated ; but
the year of the birth is wrong ; as before
stated, it should be 1685, not 1684. In 1784
was the grand Commemoration in the presence
of George 111 , occupying five days, a century
after Handel's birth. In June, 1834, was the
Royal Festival in the Abbey, at which Wil.
Liam IV. and Queen Adelaide were present.
And at how many musical festivals in West-
minster Abbey, York Minster, Edinburgh,
Norwich, Birmingham, Chester, Derby, Dub-
lin, Liverpool, Manchester, Bradford, and those
of the three choirs in Worcester, Hereford,
and Gloucester, the memory of Handel has
been honoured, Mr. Bowley records in his
letter in some interesting calculations. But
all the attendances at these provincial gather-
ings have been exceeded at those of the
Sacred Harmonic Society since its formation,
and from their records it appears that out of
344 performances at Exeter-hall, about one-
half, or 172, consisted of entire oratorios by
Handel. What conclusion is to be drawn
from these facts and figures ? That it is
utterly absurd on the part of M. Schcelcher to
set up the theory, that Handel, living or
dead, was not thoroughly appreciated, valued,
and rewarded in this country. From Royalty
he enjoyed a pension to his death of 6001. per
annum. From private patronage of the no-
bility he drew a considerable income. It is
nothing to the purpose for the republican
biographer to affirm that " the barons " were
divided in their estimation of Handel's genius.
He had a large party of the nobility on his
side when he was a director of the Italian
Opera. He became impracticable, and subse-
quently impossible. Even then, Handel
might have remained a composer, but he
choose to be an impresario, and he paid the
penalty of his daring. Musicians are prover-
bially bad managers. M. Schcelcher in his
blind idolatory endeavours to establish that
Handel was perfect in his compositions. The
truth is, that he wrote for money as well as
for fame. To write for money he had to ac-
commodate himself to the taste (?) of the day.
Some friend to whom he had sent a score for
inspection, pointed out to him the beauties of
the work according to his judgment, but
Handel replied warmly that he required no
such criticism, he knew full well that which
was really good, but he wanted to learn that
which would sell ! This was common sense,
and his biographer in his next edition would
do well to introduce the anecdote. Equally
fruitless are the attempts to defend Handel's
plagiarisms. The surpassing genius of Handel
requires no idol worship, and still less
the clumsy defence of half-informed partisan-
ship.
A mere collector of materials and dili-
gent searcher after facts will not make a com•
petent biographer. M. Schcelcher has laid the
foundation, but the edifice has yet to be
erected. His prejudices are strong—his criti-
cisms are curious—his conclusions are arrived
at with a rapidity only to be acquired by
French historians. His depreciation of
Samuel Wesley is most unjust, and arises
from sheer ignorance, and his apprecia-
tion of Mendelssohn is singularly light and
flippant. What does he mean by affirming
that he bad no " special grudge " against
Elijah? What position can he expect to hold
as a critic when he calls the music of Elijah
and Paul " hollow," and that it has only
gained what he terms an "assumed place."
He couples in the oddest manner, amongst
modern attempts, Costa's Eli and Mr. Leslie's

SATURDAY,

Emmanuel. He ignores altogether, in men-
tioning the latter, Charles Horsley, and he asks
not the question what Macfarren and Stern-
dale Bennett might have done, if they had had
chances offered to them in the springtide of
their youth. It is monstrous to make a mar-
tyr of a musician in the days of Handel. The
martyrdom is really in these days, because
there is now no belief in the present. The
future is ridiculed in all countries, and those
unhappy composers who have been dreaming
of it have indeed hut a narrow circle of ad-
mirers. Indiscriminate fanaticism, arising
from imperfect acquaintance with music, is M.
Schcelcher's rock. His shortcomings might
have been pardoned, but why distort history?
Handel was rewarded during his life and has
been honoured since his death in the country
of his adoption more than any other composer
who has ever existed. We did not require, for
the glorification of the Shakespeare of music,
the sacrifice of historical truth. What has
France done for Berlioz, one of her greatest
composers ? How long was
.it before the
grave of Mozart could be found ? What did
the Viennese for Beethoven ? Was not Liszt
almost the only contributor to the fund for the
monument at Bonn, inaugurated in 1845 in the
presence of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert?
Who are canvassing the musical amateurs in
England fur the projected monument at Halle
for Handel?

A Winter's Sketches in the South of France and
the Pyrenees. By F. H. Johnson. London:
Chapman and Hall.
THE facilities of travelling have so greatly in-
creased the number of English tourists, and
the multiplication of books has at the same
time so augmented the class of persons who
thirst fur literary distinction, that we rarely
now open a new volume of travels without the
most gloomy anticipations. Every ponderous
Paterfamilias, complacent Cantab. priggish
Templar, or pert apprentice, who spends
his six we 3ks' holiday on the Continent,
believes, forsooth, that the world will be much
interested in " the faithful record of his own
" impressions," or " the dearly-bought results
" of his experience," or some such stereotyped
phrase, and forthwith proceeds to invest his
first quarter's salary in the publication of
some red or blue covered octavo, with gold
letters on the back, which are usually the only
bright thiags about it. People seem to think
that because they have "impressions" they must
necessarily possess the talent for imparting them
to others. Nothing is rarer than this faculty.
We believe that for one man who could write
down a really correct, to say nothing of a
brilliant, description of a landscape or town,
or a field of battle, or convey to us a just idea
of the manners and appearance of a foreign
people, there are twenty who could compose a
very tolerable novel, essay, or oration. Keen
powers of observation and discrimination,
natural good taste, and a style at once
clear and well coloured, are indispensable
qualifications for a writer of travels. How
seldom they are united the very few good
books of this class sufficiently testify, and how
poor are the results without them English
readers of the present day have but too much
reason to know.

We have felt bound to make these few pre.
liminary observations in order that the prals3
we are about to bestow upon the work before
us may not appear to result from either
thoughtlessness or partiality. Of the three
qualifications above mentioned Mr. Johnson
possesses only two, and is not, therefore, in
our opinion to be ranked in the first class of
traveller authors. He lacks the power of
seizing on traits of character and points of
scenery in such a style as to bring them
vividly before the reader —a talent con-
spicuous in such works as " Highways and
Byeways," "Eothen," " The Crescent and the
Cross," and Mr. Stanley's "Palestine and
Sinai "; but he writes like a scholar and a
man of taste. His own admiration of what he
sees is communicated to his readers through
sympathy, if not through apprehension, and
his style is sufficiently glowing to sustain our
interest. These sketches are infinitely supe-
rior to the average of tourists' reminiscences,

MAY 30, 1857.

and we should think will secure a very con-
siderable public
Mr. Johnson's route was across France to
Bordeaux, then on to Pau, and from thence to
Bagneres. During his stay at the latter
places he made numerous excursions into the
surrounding country, and these it is which
constitute the staple of his volume. In his his-
torical sketches and reminiscences Mr Johnson
is not, however, always sufficiently accurate,
or careful of what his readers might expect to
be told. In an otherwise nicely written
account of the battle of Orthez he fails to
mention the celebrated charge of the 7th
Hussars, which under Sir Stapleton Cotton
inflicted such havoc un the retreating French. 3
In his description of the same town, he
introduces a history of Gaston de Foix, a
celebrated personage in the days of the Black
Prince, and the reader is astonished to find
not a single allusion to the young hero of
Ravenna, or anything said about his relation-
ship to the " Gaston Phoebus " of Mr. John-
son. In another chapter Mr. Johnson has,
we think, done great injustice to the character
of a gallant soldier. Of the famous Gabriel de
Montgomery, by whom Henry 11. of France was
accidentally slain, he writes in these terms :
Though threatened by France and Spain with the loss
of her dominions as a heretic, the Queen was not one to
be easily intimidated. Beady-witted and full of resources,
like most of her sex in the hour of danger, she raised
money from England ; and lacking the power to wield the
sword herself, she hired a strong and not over-scrupulous
English arm to do it for her. This was Montgomery, the
accidental slayer of Henri 11. at a tournament, and a fair
sample of the Dalgetty school, with the cruelty of the
middle ages added to its mercenary vices. He assumed
vigorous command of her army ; overthrew all opposition ;
drove the French forces from the field ; carried their fort-
resses by assault and butchered their defenders; killed
without mercy all opponents, lay or clerical ; and fairly
earned the character of a brave, cruel, and ferocious ruffian.
At Trie, in the Bigorre, this disgrace to his country and
knighthood, stormed a monastery, hung the prior at the
door of the chapel, and flung twenty miserable monks into
the wells of the cloister ; all for the honour and glory of the
true faith, and bis august mistress.

Now, Montgomery was by no means a merce-
nary soldier, in the same sense as Dugald
Dalgetty : neither can he exactly be called an
Englishman. A cadet of the house of Eglinton
had entered the French service in the reign of
Francis I. Either himself or his son James was
captain-general of the Archer Guard, received
the Lordship of Lorge from the French Crown,
and, what is more interesting, succeeded in
repurchasing the old fief of Montgomerie,
near Lisieux, in Normandy, from which his
ancestor, Roger de Montgomerie, had set out
to participate in the conquest of England.
The son of James, Gabriel de Lorge was
esteemed one of the most accomplished gen-
tlemen in Europe, and, until the unfortunate
accident which resulted in the King's death,
none stood higher in the estimation of the
French Court. He was thus a distinguished
and probably wealthy member of the French
aristocracy, and it was nothing but the relentless
hostility of Henry's mother, Catherine de
Medici, that drove him to seek refuge with the
Huguenot Queen. That his manners were
not of the mildest sort is very probable. He is
said to have knocked down Cardinal Beatoun
when Ambassador to Scotland. But there is
nothing whatever in his career to show that
he was either mercenary or a bravo, And his
death, earned by apparently true zeal for the
Huguenot cause, was that of a gentleman
and a Christian.

Mr. Johnson has brought together a good
many amusing anecdotes. Here is one of
Henry IV. :

There are scenes in the Chateau of Pau, ascribed to
Henri, which would form a volume for the romancer or
the dramatist, without requiring the congenial exaggera•
tion of M. Dumas to heighten the colouring. Oue has
been related on canvas, of a there amie, who, during his
absence from the chateau, had been feteing a humbler
admirer, and was surprised at breakfast by the King's
unexpected return. The sharp eyed monarch, detecting
a pair of legs only partially concealed beneath a couch,
maliciously finished the gallant's intended meal; after-
wards handing the bones into his place of refuge with
the charitable apothegm, " 11 rant que tout le monde
vive,"—and said no more about it ; an example which, we
dare say, every body else concerned took care to follow.

The following is an interesting trait in the
Empress Eugenie :

It was among the 13agnerais that the present Empress
of France spent many of her youthful summers, when
Mademoiselle de lgontijo, and the warmhearted people

THE PRESS.

still refer enthusiastically to the beauty and goodness of
la belle Eugene.
One Sunday morning, in the grey dawn, Bagneres was
aroused by a roar of artillery that brought half the popu•
lation out of bed, in expectation of one of the earthquakes,
which now and then shoot quite harmlessly throlgli the
Fyrenees. It was to proclaim that France had that day
gained an heir to the throne, and all classes were congra-
tulating each other on the subject; not so much upon its
political bearings, as that their dear spirituelle little guest
of lormer times was safely a mother. One old lady who
prided herself upon having lodged the now new Empress,
especially recounted how /a charmante mignonne robbed
the fruit garden in spite of every watchfulness, and would
slide down the oaken baluatratie of the staircase, " because
it was shorter and nicer than plodding down the stairs ;"
"and now she was the hope of France, the best pledge of
peace and order! Well! the good God must have created
her for the work, or she could never have been so singu-
larl chosen !" In all quarters anecdotes are told of this
lady,—" gracioaa y amiable," her countrymen call her,—
and of her unaffected kindheartedness ; one coming
within our own knowledge deserves recording. A gover-
ness, who had taught English to the family some years
before, and who had been admitted to some intimacy,
applied to the Empress soon after her marriage for the
patronage which could be so easily given, and se invaluably
applied. The answer was an order to attend at the
Tuileries, where her illustrious pupil received the humble
teacher with unaffected warmth and kindness ; inquired
after her prospects and at once promised what she re-
quested. The same evening a communication was for-
warded from the palace, to the effect that her Majesty had
conferred upon her visitor of the morning a yearly allow-
ance of forty pounds, as an acknowledgment of former
services.

* The accommodation and the society to be
found in Pau and Bagneres, with the expenses
of living, are described by Mr. Johnson with
great clearness, and will be found very useful
to all invalids who may contemplate a trip to
the South. Subjoined is a good dissertation
on the climate and mineral waters. corrobora-
ting the views expressed by Dr. Taylor in a
work noticed in these columns last autumn.

NOVELS AND TALES.

1. Good in Everything. A Tale. By Mrs.

Foot. Two Volumes. London: Hurst

and Blackett.
2. The Wreckers. By the Author of " Smug-
glers and Foresters." London : Newby.
3. Under the Lime Trees. By Caroline Ricketts.

Loudon : Booth.
4. A Twine of Wayside Ivy. By Margaret

Casson. London : Moxon.
5. Stories and Sketches. By James Payne.

London: Smith end Elder.
WE do not think Mrs. Foot has chosen a very
felicitous title for the work placed at the head
of our list. It is a story of great crimes and
great sorrows. But the one are inadequately
punished, and the other are quite superfluous.
Mabel Beresford, a murderess and a destroyer
of the happiness she sees about to be con-
summated, is permitted to succeed in all her
designs, and, though eventually stricken with
madness, escapes exposure and the scaffold,
while the victims of her wickedness are too
noble and innocent to require so severe an
ordeal for the purification and elevation of
their characters. The punishment of Fre•
derick Beresford and Helen Monmouth seems
perfectly wanton, and so far from being likely
to work any good effect, rather tends to im-
pugn the moral government of the world. In
addition to this defect the incidents of the
story are exceedingly strained and improbable.
Characters and crimes like Mabel's. •when
handled with the consummate skill displayed
by Sir Bulwer Lytton in his novel of
" Lucretia," are really tragic, and excite terror
and pity ; but in less practised hands they
degenerate into melc.drama and savour of
transpontine horrors. In justice, however, to
Mrs. Foot, we must say that she has contrived
to produce an exciting, if not an interesting,
fiction ; and those readers who can for the
time lay aside the critical spirit will probably
find their attention enchained by it.
2. " The Wreckers " is a story through which
shine glimpses of very considerable ability.
But it is something like a spoiled photograph.
We can only guess of what the subject might
be capable under more successful treatment.
We discern certain features pretty clearly
which we can at once pronounce good, but the
whole effect is that of a daub. The author's
descriptive power is high. His smugglers
and wreckers are hot mere shadows, and his

537

storms are singularly vivid and impressive.
But the plot is so utterly wild, the positicn
of Beatrice in the old wrecker's house so near
to an impossibility, and her gradual change
of feeling so clumsily and abruptly told, that
we feel sure the author must have considerable
labour yet before him ere he can hope to gain
the ear of the public. The Rayners are a
family of whom, to use a vulgar phrase, " we
'can make neither head nor tail " ; and
Stephen himself, whom we presume is meant
for the ehef•d'csuvre of the story, is not only
uninteresting, but repulsive. The book, we
repeat, is very unequal, and contains more
evidence of imagination than literary skill or
knowledge of life.

3. " Under the Lime Trees" inclines to the
" namby-pamby " school. The circumstances
under which it was composed are stated in the
preface to be as follows :
I had been spending a portion of the summer with my
relations at Seaton Court. The season had been unusually
wet, confining us (a large and merry party consisting
puiccipally of young people), far more than we approved
of, to the house. It had been proposed, in order to beguile
the time thus inactively spent, that each should relate a
story for the benefit of the rest.

While the tales were in contemplation, the weather
changed. Intense heat succeeded the storms and rains that
had shattered the roses and well-nigh desolated the
garden. The wood fires, which had been lighted in hall
and sitting room, to dry the air of the large and rambling
house, were quickly abandoned. We sate with open doors
and windows ; we gasped ; we consulted the thermometer.
It stood at SO deg. Employment was out of the question :
existence was barely supportable, until some one suggested
the Lime avenue ; and thither, like an impetuous strum,
we rushed simultaneously.
These little stories, however, are not deficient
in elegance or pathos. If they do not stir us
up very deeply, they, at all events, afford a
gentle distraction, anti are to be recommeuded
as wholesome after-dinner reading. The two
best are " Lucy Dawson" and " Limenian
Life."

4. "A Twine of Wayside Ivy" contains
three tales, written in a rather old-fashioned
style. Their second title, namely, " Leaves
from an Old Maid's Notebook," is the more
appropriate of the two. " The Haunted
Nell" is a very dismal tale, intended as a
warning to all young ladies tempted to indulge
in that " soul-subduing " pastime which the
world harshly styles flirtation. Seeing, how-
ever, that the fair delinquent was in this case
rewarded by three husbands instead of one,
we are doubtful to what extent our lady
readers will profit by the lesson. " Evelyn
Shirley's Two Balls " is nicely written ; but
the catastrophe is a trite one, and the charac-
ters are without individuality. " Constance
Vere " is related, perhaps, with more power ;
but it excites no curiosity, and, like the pre-
vious tale, hinges upon such a very familiar
contretemps, that we scarcely muster interest
enough to cut the leaves. These stories pur-
port to be actual experiences, and they may
very well be so. But writers should remember
that it does not follow because a thing is true
that it is necessarily interesting. Many com-
binations of circumstances which when new
were romantic, have now lost all power over
the imagination, and must be indebted to
ingenious treatment, or original illustration,
for any charm they may possess.
5. The majority of Mr. Payne's sketches
have appeared in Household Words, and the
remainder in Chambers' Magazine Among
them will be found many that excited great
attention on their first appearance—especially
" Change for Gold," " How we Lost Our Minis-
ter," and "By the Court." They now consti-
tute a most amusing volume, full of humorous
adventure and pleasant satire, usually charac-
terised by great common sense and kindliness.

A Saunter through Surrey. By M. C. Turner, Esq.,
of the Inner Temple. London: Walker.
A LIVELY detail of the incidents of a vacation ramble
through Surrey, comprising the pedestrian expe-
riences of the writer and of a couple of friends, who,
starting from Charing-cross with 151. between them,
saunter for as many days through Box-hill,
Leatherhead, Ockley, to Selbourne in Hampshire ;
and then back by Farnham, Guildford, Wootton,
Dorking, Esher, to town. To any home tourists for
the autumn we can recommend this little volume for
matters of fact. Every desirable information is con-
tained in it ; no place' of interest was left unvisited;
and the bt.ok would have formed a pleasant and

538

unexceptionable guide if the author had only
restrained his very iusipid attempts to be witty.

Oswald's German Reader. London : Routledge.
A VOLUME of careful selections from the fit st German
authors in poetry and prose. The principal feature
of the book is the strict chronological order of
authorship followed, so as to ithibit the gradual
development of style, thus enabling the pupil " to
"master the grammatical and idiomatical pecu-
" liarities" of the language at various periods. The
book is worthy the attention of German students.

The Reason Why. London . lioulston and Wright.
As extract or two will best exhibit the nature of this
book :

Are umbrellas, with steel frames, dangerous in an electric
storm

They are dangerous in some degree, because they might
convey electricity to the hand, and then transfer it to the
body. But, gent rally speaking, when it rains, the rain
itself, being a good conductor, relieves the disturbance of
electricity by conveying it to the ground.
Are iron bedsteads dangerous in electric storms?

No, they are sale, because the iron frame, completely
surrounding the body, and having a great capacity for con-
duction, would keep the electricity away from the body.
Why is it safe to be in bed during an electric dorm ?

Because feathers, hair, wool, cotton, dm, espi:cially when
dry, are good insulators or nonconductors.

Upwards of 1,300 such questions are asked and
answered in a series of lessons, arranged alphabeti-
cally, beginning with acids and ending with zoology.
In general, the answers are simple, tolerably correct,
and adapted to any capacity ; but it is by no means
an attempt to make science popular. The author
endeavours to interpret cause and effect in accord.
ance with the progress of discovery.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.-MAy 28.
BOOKS.

Gossip. By Henry Morley. Chapman and Hall.
A Winter's Sketch in the South of France, and the Pyrenees.
Chapman and Hall.
Olive. A Novel. Chapman and Hall.
Recollections of a Lifetime, or Men and Things ! have seen.
By S. G. Goodrich. Two vols. Sampson and Low•
The Practical Angler, or the Art of Trout Fishing'
. . _..

A. and C. Black.
The City: its Sins and Sorrows. By Thomas Guthrie.
HD. A. and C. Black.
Caste and Christianity. A Looking•glass for the Times.
By Temple Christian Faber. Hardwicke.
The Book of Ballads. Edited by Bon Gaultier. W. Black•

wood and Son.
Greece under the Romans. By George Finlity, L.S.I).
IV. Blackwood.
Saunders.

The Poetical Legends of the Channel Islands.

and 01.ley.
A German Reading Book, with Notes. G. Rutledge.
Martin Doyle's Common Things. V. Routledge
The Romany Rye. By George Burrows. Two vols.

Murray.
China. A General Description of that Empire and its
Inhabitants. Two vols. Murray.
Helen and Olga. A Russian Tale. By the Author of
" Mary Powell." Hall and Virtue.
The Pleasures of Home, A Poem in Five Acts. By the
Rev. Thomas Campbell, M.A. Saunders and Otley.
Poems. By Alastor. Saunders and Otley.
Hunters' Panoramic Guide from Niagara to Quebec.
China. By Sir Oscar Oliphant.

The Decimal System. (Fro ge and Son—Notes on
some of the Principal Pictures in the Royal Academy. Smith
and Eider—The Scandinavian Question. J.R. Smith—The
Gates of the East. Ward and Lock.—Considerations on
Divorce. C. J. Stewart.

PERIODICALS.

The Monthly Review. Hall and Virtue—The Royal
Gallery of Art. Colnaghi—Froaer's Magazine. J. W.
Parker—Art•Treasure Exhibition. (Part 1.) Kent and Co.

MUSIC.

Hope.

-----
Garcia's New Treatise on the Art of Singing. Cramer and

usir.

HER MAJESTY'S THEATRE.

GIUGLINI, the new tenor, is the great success of the
establishment. The magnificent contralto Alboni,
and all the prime donne, including even the lively
Piceolomini, hide their diminished heads by the side
of Giuglini, who is the reel " draw," as it is termed
when audiences rush to a theatre to patronise a
favourite. This success of a tenor is rather remark-
able, as generally it is the soprano voice which takes
a public. A contralto always pleases but rarely
attracts, and this is another curious tact in operatic
events. In the Trova tore, Giuglini has ample scope
to develop his powers, and he takes especial care
never to attempt anything beyond them. The charm
of his voice and style will always be in an adagio,
and Verdi has afforded Manrico some excellent
opportunities for passion and sentiment. Alboni's
Atueena is a strong feature in the cast of this popular
work.

Next Monday there will be the novelty of a
morning operatic performance, with Alboni and

THE PRESS.

Belletti in the Barbiere, and Piccolomini and Giug-
lini in the Traviata. Next Tuesday Signor Corsi
will make his welcome first appearance in England
in Verdi's Aino, with the opening night of Charles
Braham as the tenor.