The Press.
London, England, 1857-01-03 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

honourable to the talents, the candour, and
the industry of the author. The narrative is
clear and rapid, and the military details are
illustrated by plans of battles.

- -
A volume by Mr. Copping contains biogra-
phies of the two most celebrated Italian dra-
matists of modern day, Alfieri and Goldoni
(9). Their lives were as strongly contrasted
as their styles. Alfieri lived in a tempest of
passion, and died, worn out by his emotions, at
the age of fifty-four. Goldoni lived gay and
cheerful to the patriarchal age of eighty-six.
The tragic poet was born to a noble inheri-
tance, and was comparatively wealthy to the
last. Goldoni was always a struggling m an,
and was indebted to the French Government
for the pension which in his age contributed
to his support. It is said that he produced
more than 150 dramatic pieces, and printed
his "Memoirs" in his eightieth year. The
stories of these lives are told with workman-
like skill, but with little pretence to originality.
In the ease of Alfieri, we could have wished
for more discrimination and a higher moral
tone. A chapter at the end of the biographies
discusses with much acuteness the present
state of the English drama, and exposes the
wholesale plagiarism from the French stage.

Of ILLUSTRATED BOOKS FOR TEE SEASON two
are produced with especial elegance. Robert
Pcllok's " Course of Time" (10) is beautifully
printed on tinted paper, and illustrated with
fifty or sixty most delicately-executed wood-
engravings, from designs by Birket Foster,
John Tenniel, and J. It Clayton. The poem,
from its subject, admits of wide variety
of artistic design ; and charming rural
sketches and human scenes are mingled with
imaginative conceptions of the glories of
Heaven and the terrors of the Eternal Dark-
ness. We doubt the propriety of such designs
as appear at pages 19 and 3;i3. They are too
horrible for contemplation, and the more so as
the verse of the poet attempts to give them
reality, and to confirm them by Revelation.
The sale of the poem has been wonderful. It
has passed through twenty editions, and has
been rewarded more highly than any poem of
Scott or Campbell. We cannot help thinking.
nevertheless, that the gusto with which Mr.
Pollok has described the misery of the lost
indicates a disordered fancy, and that it is very
unprofitable reading for Christian people.
The other volume, an illustrated edition of
the Book of Job k 11), deserves the warmest
and most unreserved commendation. The
text is printed from the authorised version,
but is properly arranged in metrical form. The
illustrations consist of fifty wood-engravings
from drawings by John Gilbert. As the
figures and costume are Arab, the artist has
been enabled to draw from reality. His
designs are remarkably distinct, forcible. and
characteristic. We have met with no illus-
trated book to please us more. The historical
introduction aad notes are a most welcome
addition to this oldest and most sublime of all
poems. The volume is, in all respects, truly
magnificent.
An original artistic effort deserves a kindly
word (12). Many of our readers may remem-
ber seeing in the print-shops two or three
years hack a French print with the title of
'• line Silhouette." It represented a figure of
the Emperor Nicholas, which, with certain
accessories, reflected on the wall a profile of
Iris Satanic Majesty. In this little book of
shadows the idea has been happily and wittily
expanded. A crier appears in shadow as an
ass ; a drunken fellow as a queer fish ; a poor
needlewoman as a skeleton; a pompous
orator as a bantam ; a fashionable gentleman
in long great-coat as a pump, &c. In all cases
the idea is most ingeniously carried out. It
is such a book as Hogarth might have pro-
duced. Never in modern ,day have wit and
art been more happily blended in a slight
production.

FicrioN has not been behind other depart-
ments of literature in activity. Miss Mary C.
Hume, 9 daughter of the late Joseph Hume,
we believe, has issued a pleasing social tale—

11l (lustro)ated Edition. The Coarse or T
Loudon ine. Poem. B Robert Pollok, A.M.
A : Blackwoo . y is.
(11) The Book of Job Illogratal. Loudon: I•Ziabot and Co.
(U) Sketioras. By C. H. Bennett. Loudon : Bogue.

SATURDAY,

" The Wedding Guests" (13). It is written with
ease and elegance, something in the manner
of Miss Yonge's works. The most conspicuous
of the wedding guests are two young ladies,
Florence Forrester and Helen Montagu,
whose characters and fortunes are artistically
contrasted. The former is one of those
gentle, amiable spirits who seem created to
show with what patience the hardest trials
may be borne, when duty and religion lend
their aid. The death of her two children is
described with pathos almost painful in its
effect, though very tender and true to nature.
The story is marked by poetic sentiment, by
much insight into character, and by sustained
interest. The moral tone is elevated, and the
portraiture of cultivated society very lifelike.
Considering the popularity of our great
living novelists, it is wonderful that so few
attempts have been made to imitate their
styles. " SydneyFielding"(l4) is the first tale we
have remarked which shows the influence ex-
ercised by Mr. Thackeray. The work is some-
thing better than a copy of his peculiarities,
but it exhibits a view of life from his stand-
point. Sydney Fielding is one of Mr.
Thackeray's plain, gallant, credulous, gentle-
men ; and Julia Krane, one of his worldly,
scheming, young ladies—a Becky, but of
higher position and of greater natural advan-
tages. The careless old baronet, her father,
and the dissipated old peer, her admirer, are
conceived in Mr Thackeray's manner; and so is
the Paris life of Julia, in the circle of the Prin-
cess Ivanivieff. The story illustrates in a
spirited way the good policy of the old adage—
'Tis well to be off with an old love
Before you are on with a new.
The author has dramatic talent ; many of his
situations are highly wrought ; and he has
contrived to invest Julia'e tortuous career with
a kind of fascination which compels the reader
to follow it, though never sympathising with
her conduct. Though inclined to run in the
Thackeray channel, the ability of Mr. Keene
will probably in time, from its energy and
dash, work out a course of its own.
Of " Stories of an Archaeologist" (15) it may
be said that the manner is better than the
matter. The description of the meetings of a
society of travelling arehreologists at Naples
is written with a masterly pen, and the stories
which the Fellows, for mutual edification and
amusement, relate are distinguished by great
attention to all those details of costume and
fact which constitute the setting of historic
tales. They may, indeed, rather be regarded
as archeological studies thrown into a popular
form than as stories in the ordinary accepta-
tion of the word. In " The Figure in the
Tapestry," for example, there is a learned
dissertation on the Ta-.,5; of the Greeks,
and the tapestries of the middle ages. The
plan of the book renders such digression
not only natural, but necessary. As a collec-
tion of incidents illustrative of recondite cus-
toms and manners of past times, the tales
are ingenious, and show both the knowledge
and resources of a highly-trained mind.
In " Frirwin" (16), on the contrary, we have
what strikes us as the crude effort of an imagina-
tion not wanting in originality, but deficient in
culture. The story is raw throughout, and
wants the surface which in this day is indis-
pensable to success in fiction.
The skilful authoress of " Mary Powell " has,
in " The Good OldaTimes " (17)—a misleading
title—produced a tale of Auvergne in the
middle of the sixteenth century, when Pro-
testants stoutly contended for the possession
of Le Puy, and when Magdeleine de St. Nec-
taire was drawn to the Reformed Faith. The
peculiar talent of the authoress is shown in de-
scriptions of the domestic life of the period ;
the local and chronological colouring is both
judicious and effective. The people are in all
externals conformable to the period, but re-
deemed from stiffness by the natural play of

(Ls) The Wedding Guests; or, the Happiness of Life. By
Mary C. Hume. Two Vole. London : R. Parker and Son.
(14) Sydney Fielding. By Edwin Keene. Two Vole. London :
ey
B(15) Stories by an Archeologist and his Friends. Two Vole.
London : Bell and Daldy.
(16) Frincii. By Octavia Oliphant. Two V. Second
Edition. Loudon : Hope and Co.
(17) The Good Old l'inses. A Tale of Auvergne. By the
Author of "Mary Powell." Loudon ; Hill and Co.

JANUARY 3, 1857.

those human affections and passions which
are common to all time. The works of this
writer so agreeably combine social lore with
inventive tact, that they are welcomed in
circles which usually regard books of fiction
with some suspicion. Sixteen volumes, rapidly
issued, attest the success of the plan upon
which "Ye Maiden and Nlarried Life of Mary
Powell" was constructed. The purpose of
these productions is not very high, nor the
historic knowledge displayed in them very
profound ; but, as a compromise between the
bare facts of history and the looseness of fiction ,
the design has answered, and it is to the credit
of the whole series that they are pure in
thought and unexceptionable in style. The
tale of Auvergne appears to us iu all respects
equal to former productions of the authoress.
A Highland story, by Lady Rachel Butler (18),
most agreeably depicts the lights and shades
of Highland life at the present time. We are
particularly struck with the fidelity of this
tale. It is extremely simple and natural,
reading like a narrative of actual occurrences,
and sustaining attention by the current of its
action, and the interest felt in the fortunes of
the personages. If this story is the first
effort of the writer, she is to be congratulated
on her success. It agreeably reminds us of
the best manner of Mrs. Norton.
The tale of " The Neapolitan Marriage " (19)
may be dismissed with a word. The design is
to show the unhappiness which must be ex-
pected from an alliance between an Italian
noble of the Romish faith, and an English
Protestant young lady. There is nothing in
the story calling for special notice. It is re-
spectably written, and the design is worked
out, while a tragic conclusion is avoided. The
volume contains two other tales of slighter
structure.

There is considerable merit in the tale of
"Florence Templar"(2o). In the vicinity of a
quiet country town is a noble baronial
residence, the doings of whose inmates are
naturally the talk of the neighbourhood.
Lady Templar is excessively proud, and is de-
sirous to secure great alliances for her two
beautiful daughters. Hence their love is
crossed, and they sink beneath the trials to
which they are exposed. The story of Flo-
rence is told at most length. Her beauty is
destroyed by the smallpox. One of her
admirers, of station and fortune, is still devoted
to her, but she cannot resolve to wed him, and
she is killed by her struggles. The tale is
quietly told, something in the manner ma•
tured by Mr. Gwynne. There are evidences
of intellectual culture in the volume, but
hardly sufficient of that, or of ingenuity, to
overcome an impression of feebleness, oc-
casioned by want of decidedly original power.
In addition to the books for young people
noticed in a previous number we have a pretty
tale of girlhood by Mrs. Harriet Myrtle (21) It
shows nice discrimination of juvenile charac-
ter, and by a succession of likely home inci-
dents it teaches the manner in which good
may be made to triumph over evil dispositions.
—" Saxelford" (22) fails to reconcile us to the
strong objections we feel to making religion a
prominent feature in fictions for children. We
doubt the wholesomeness of inculcating that
collars should be worked to the glory of God,
and that the intricacies of crochet should be
associated with the mysteries of redemption.
The plan seems to us more likely to promote
formalism and hypocrisy than genuine piety.—
Of an entirely different character is the merry
little foreign tale, " Adventures of Jean Paul
Choppart" (23). It relates how a wilful little boy
" came to grief" by having his desire gratified
in getting away from home, and what whimsi-
cal and painful experience cured him of his
vicious propensities at last. " A Fairy Rhyme
for the Fireside " (24) is illustrated by some
fanciful drawings. The virtues of the mistle-

(10 Jessie Cameron. By the Lady Rachel Butler. London :
Blackwood?.

(19) ./n/in ; or, the Neapolitan Marriage. By Margaret Tulloh.
London : Hope and Co.
_ . .

(20) Plaroke Teutp/ar. London: Smith, Elder. and Co.
(21) The Ocean Chibt ; or, Showers and Sunshine. By .Mlll.
Harriet Myrtle. London: Addey and Co.
(Y 2) Surelford. A Story for the Young. By E. J. May. Lon-
don : Routledye.
(23) The Adventures of Jean Paul Choppart. London: Lam.
bert and Co.

(24) Queen Lata and the Mistletoe. By George /false. Lon-
don Addey and Co.