The Press.
London, England, 1856-05-10 00:00:00

scribing the origin and progre3s of the work, from
which the reader may see that the pursuit of
Entomology is as exhilarating as it is curious. The
book has had the good fortune to become at once
popular and authoritative, from its union of scientific
precision, most careful origin al research, multitudinous
facts, and an easy, unstudied manner of description.

Modern Society in Rome. A Novel. By J. R. Bests,
Esq. London : Hurst and Blackett.
Tins is one of those books in which the roal events
of modern days are introduced under the disguise of
fiction. It is extremely difficult to define what is le-
gitimate and illegitimate in literature. It is ridicu•
ions for criticism to depreciate compositions which
fascinate the public mind, and which will be read
though, as Goldsmith says in his preface to " The
Vicar of Wakefield," a thousand faults be found in them.
If a writer of genius chooses to take the last Queen's
Drawing-room for his subject, and can make out of it
a romance which shall engage the sympathies of all
readers, what pedantry would it be to object to it that
it violated rules of art, in confounding what was purely
real with what was purely fictitious. But when these
elements of fact and fiction, of reality and romance,
are mingled together, we have a right to require that
some purpose shall be answered, though the purpose
be no higher than to enchant us for the time. It
will not do for a writer to throw reality into the shape
of romance merely that he may not be brought to
task for the accuracy of his statements, and that he
may indulge in a looseness of narration which in
memoir-writing would not be permitted. His work
should be one thing or another—it should have the
solid value of true statement, or it should have the
interest and art of novel-writing. Mr. Beste's book
is one which, though clever, fulfils neither condition ;
as a novel it is contemptible, as a memoir it is not to
ba depended upon. Yet the siege of Rome, which it
is intended to commemorate, one of those terrible
episodes of modern history, uniting in itselt so much
to admire and so much to deprecate, so much to at-
tract and so much to repel, so much to give hope
and so much to inspire despair as regards the future
of Italy, that, let it be related in however clumsy and
imperfect, and even unreliable a manner, it will still
be likely to obtain readers and fasten it,elf on the
mind. The history of that siege truly related, with
all its events day by day and hour by hour, would be
one of the most striking books ever written. Even
Mr. Beste's rude framework of fact, with his ex-
tremely artificial, waxwork sort of inventions, is not
without such merit as the novels in penny periodicals
possess. He does not tell us, however, while speaking
of his familiarity with Roman glnciety, whether he
was present at the siege of Rome; and, if he was not,
it cannot be conceded that his representations have
the worth of reality. The latter portion of the book,
describing the flight of Garibaldi from Rome, his
wanderings when hunted down as a brigand, with his
poo; high-couraged wife, Anita, sharing all his dan-
gers, and her death at last from sheer exhaustion and
fatigue, will most powerfully seize the reader's atten-
tion. Many stories have we heard of him and her
which strongly moved our sympathy, but that mist
of time which magnifies while it brightens must
gather about them and the scenes in which they
played their part before romance can appropriate
them. The sunrise and sunset are more favorable
to poetic aspect than the noonday ; and perhaps, to
pursue the figure, vision is truly clearer when light
is oblique than when it is vertical, when objects cast
the longest rather than the shortest shadow.
The composition of Mr. Beste's work is good, and
there are reflections in it, resulting from the autho►'s
familiarity with the Roman character, well worth
reading. The following, suggested by the crowding
and confusion in St. Peter's on a high festival, is
amusing :

" Wherefore, your Eminence," asked Mr. Agelthorpe a
few days later of the President of the Council, Cardinal
Antonelli, for whose superintendence nothing seemed to
be too great or too little ; " wherefore do you issue more
tickets than the tribunes really contain of seats?"

" We so avoid giving offence," replied the Minister.
" The French Ambassador, for example, sends for one
hundred tickets to distribute among his friends and coun-
trymen, the Tuscan Minister will send for fifty, the Aus-
trian Ambassador for one hundred and fifty, Prince Tor-
lonia for one hundred ; it is easiest for us to give all they
ask to all, and to let the holders of the tickets fight it out
afterwards among themselves."
It is remarked, to the honour of the Roman revo•
lutionists, that, "during the whole course of this
" siege, the persons and property of foreigners of
" every nation were scrupulously respected." In his
last chapter the author reviews the present state and
future prospects of Italy—both gloomy enough. Pied-
mont upholds the cause of constitutional freedom, but it
is doubtful whether her Government—" struggling
" with the members of its own Parliament, who re-
" proach it with having undertaken a bootless and
" Quixotic adventure to support France and England "
—will be able to hold its ground. At present, it seems
not unlikely that the temptation held out to Piedmont