The Press.
London, England, 1858-08-28 00:00:00

THE PRESS, AUGUST 28, 1858.

were forgotten in his beauty, his fortune, and his
splendour.
-

Felix et puloher et acer
Felix et sapiens et nobi:im et geuerosus

Et bi perfriiit cantat bone.
There perhaps seemed something divine even
in his murder of Agrippina ; if he was an Apollo
in beauty, perhaps also the destruction wrought
icycivot; SZAitTell might rather awaken a feeling
of submissive religious awe than of indignant
horror.

Stanford's Paris Guide. New Edition.
A Guide to the Channel Islands. By Frank
Fether Daily.
A Guide to the Cathedrals of England and Wales.
By Mackenzie Walcott.
London: Stanford.

IN spite of the migratory habits of Englishmen,
and of the crowds who fill every watering-place,
inland and marine, in this island,—who thread in
steamers the narrow friths of Scotland, or saunter
over the well-trodden paths of Snowdon or
Skiddaw,—there is no country in which the
tourist receives so little aid from the guide-
books which profess to direct him as in
his native land. To the Lakes, a much
more troublesome district than most parts
of Switzerland, there is no good itinerary.
Scotland fares little better; for Anderson's,
of the llighlands, though excellent in parts,
is very unequally executed, and is deficient
in historic information. Wales is (to speak
bull-wise) the only part of England which is
satisfactorily described ; Cliffe's " Books of North
and South Wales" being among the best of their
class, and only requiring a little revision to make
them perfect. For Devonshire and Somerset-
shire, indeed, we have Mr. Murray's handbooks
on the regular continental plan, which leave
nothing to be desired. But why, we may ask,
was his own country the last spot to be illuminated
by the care of this modern Greatheart of pilgrims ?
The covers of his works have long formed the
wished-for "bit of red" in every continental
landscape ; they have irradiated up the glaciers
of Norway, and cast a roseate reflection on the
snows of Mont Blanc. They have even invaded
Egypt, and thrown a light on the Pyramids
which, till lately, they have denied to Stone-
henge:—

lllie primus equis Oriens sittvit anhelis
Ast hic sera rubens aceendit lumina vesper.

But they have left the English traveller to the
tender mercies of local guides,—and what these
are the home tourist knows only too well. At
these Little Pedlingtons the publisher in the
I ligh-street dare not offend the publican in the
Market-place—so the hotels are "all excellent; "
he is under a similar disability with reffard to
the other branches of commerce—so garbled tea
and interpolated pickles arc supplied with im-
punity by the old-established family grocer, and
the varying tariff of donkey-boys and fly-drivers
is veiled in a discreet and dangerous silence.
Perhaps Lord Fitz-Runymede, the neighbouring
potentate, has in his armoury a Birnam walking-
stick which perthrmed the journey to Dun-
sinane, or some of the dorsal vertebrae of Richard
lll.,—that fact cannot be concealed ; but the
potentate does not like gaping visitors, and locks
them out most of the week,—so, for all the guide-
book tells, you may go sixteen miles on a " wrong
day," and return ungratified by a sight of these
curiosities. The writers who are silent on these
matters, and on the times of steamers and
coaches, arc profusely eloquent on' the merits of
local heroes. The inscription on the town pump
(erected by a venerated churchwarden) is copied
at length in small capitals, and an equally grand-
iloquent paragraph informs you how Madam
Blaize placed in the reading-room a votive clock,
after being cured by the local Jordan of gout
which had resisted all the influences of the
Abanas and Pharphars of Germany. Terrible
is this twaddle when you only want to know the
shortest road to Evesham, Tewkesbury, or Ban-
nockburn, and to be honestly told whether there
is anything to see when you get there ! Such
being the only competitors, Mr. Murray, had he
come forward earlier, might have preoccupied
the field against all after invaders, and have done
. for all what he has done for only two of our cowl-