The Press.
London, England, 1857-11-07 00:00:00

PERIODICAL LITERATURE.

TILE New Quarterly contains nine reviews of well-
selected works, and three political articles. Among
the most noticeable reviews are " Mr. Carruther's
Life of Pope," " Tom Brown's School Days," " Vic-
toria and the Australian Gold Mines," and the "Bio.
graphies of Distinguished Scientific Men." In the
first-mentioned, we have some sensible observations
on the lives of literary men in general, and an im-
partial estimate of Pope in particular. The reviewer
of "Tom Brown," evidently a public-school man
himself, informs us that he has never seen the pecu-
liar sensations produced by tossing in a blanket so
well described before. He is warmly in favour of
the theory propounded by the present author, him-
self a fine specimen of what such training will effect,
and concludes with the following excellent re-
marks :--
There is not much chance, we are afraid, of this book
being read by the parents of boys who do not go either to
public schools, or to any large private school ; or we might
hope that the knowledge of the discipline which gentle-
men's sons go through, aryl the rough experience they
have to put up with, wonld make them ashamed of the
effeminate manner in which their children are brought up.
Whether this is the case in provincial towns we do not
know : it certainly is in London. A boy is perhaps the
most sacred being in this metropolis ; and the whole
majesty of the law, in addition to the fury of his maternal
parent—no ordinary power—is raised to avenge him if be
meets with one of the many cuffs to which his usual ways
of amusing himself always richly entitle him. We fancy
that the redoubtable Doctor Arnold himself would have
shrunk from being obliged (to use his own expression)
"to discuss the thickness of priepostor's sticks" with
an Old Bailey barrister, and a jury of philoprogenitive
London tradesmen. Such people, we imagine, would raise
hands and eyes in horror, to read of the " dreadful suffer-
ings " which fellows like Tom Brown pass through before
they emerge from the fag condition of life; but they
would be informed of the fact that such things exist
of which they are at present not aware, and they might
perhaps be enabled to observe that boys who have been so
treated do not usually make worse men, citizens, or
soldiers than the coddled denizens of the home circle,
whose idea of independence is the power to insult with
impunity, and of manliness, precocious dissipation.
, The political papers in this Review are up to its
usual standard. That on "Parliament and Party "
is an attempt to show that the latter is a necessary
adjunct to representative government, and that the
. necessity for it increases with the increase of Minis-
' it terial patronage and the growth of a centralising
spirit, which are both characteristics of the present

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day. The article upon France is written with un-
common vigour, but. in far too adulatory a tone to-
wardsthe present Emperor and far too bitter a one

towards his opponents.
Dam jacet in rip& caleemus Casaris nostem
represents too truly the spirit of this writer, which
we trust will never become popular in England.
His attempt to cry down the obvious similitude be-
tween Imperial France and Imperial Rome is a
signal failure, and when he attempts to grapple with
the writer in Fraser's Magazine, he is impar congresses
Achilli most conspicuously. Tne Indian article
seems to bear evidence of being written by a gen-
tleman well acquainted with the subject. He enter-
tains very decided views, which he expresses in very
decided language. But what we desiderate in all
writers on India just now, whether Ministerial or
otherwise, is solidity. They skim the surface of the
subject, butA they do not go resolutely to the bottom.
They give us too little evidence; and we must really,
therefore, suspend our judgment until such time as
we have more facts to guide us and less passion to
perplex us. The following remarks, however, seem
very just, and with the reservation above indicated
we present them to our readers:—

It is obvious that no greater folly could have been ex-
hibited by any Government than was shown by our own, in
deciding to subjugate Oude, by an army composed chiefly
of natives of the province—men who were all deeply at-
tached to its institutions, and who had, at the same time,
invariably exhibited the greatest dislike to our own. It
was as absurd as would be the determination of France to
annex Switzerland, if the great bulk of the French army
were Swiss, serving temporarily in its ranks. But such is
the subservient flattery constantly administered by the
natives to our high civil functionaries, that it is not im-
possible that they may have really been led to believe that
the annexation would be popular in Oude ; just as their
overweening vanity induces them to conceive their own
labours to be a blessing, instead of, as they are, a curse to
the people of Hind. It is astonishing the amount of
nonsense that a native, when it suits his purpose, will
make an Indian civilian swallow, who happens to be of
the type too common among the body—at once pretentious
and a fool. Even the Times did not hesitate to repeat
lately, because they happened to tally with its opinions,
the views of a Kulin Brahmin as to the competence of
Lord Ellenborough to understand the crisis that has taken
place. We only wish, for the sake of our fellow-country-
men in India, that what they are day and night praying for
might happen, and that this experienced and able noble-
man were atlonce despatched to restore order to Hindoc-
sten. His arrival might not be very acceptable to the
Kulin Brahmins, and other natives of that stamp who are
now laughing at us in their sleeves, hut he would soon
bring them and their civilian patrons to their senses—and
show the world that it had prematurely decided the British
lion to be an ass.

About Poona and the Southern Mahratta country the
people are nearly all against us too ; for there our title-
inquiry commissions, and consequent confisNitions, have
been most rife. Indeed, as one can tell from the compara-
tive foulness of localities where an approaching epidemic
is likely most to rage, so one had only to trace the course
of annexation and title-inquiry commissions, to see at
once where the most violent hatred towards us was certain
to be exhibited from first to last. Such is the eagerness
which Lord Dalhousie tells us the natives always express
to come under our paternal sway—such the fondness they
testify for our vaunted beneficent and enlightened rule.
Sir John Malcolm, who had more knowledge of the natives
in his little finger than Lord Dalhousie has in his whole
body, used to say that British India and the native States
were both governed equally through natives; the chief
difference being, that in native States the best natives were
generally clothed with power, and in British India the
worst. And Sir John was right ; how indeed should it he
otherwise ? Would the great. statesmen of England take
office as tide-waiters and gaugers, if it were the fate of
England to be conqueted by a horde of Russians, who kept
all the higher appointments for themselves ? No, the native
gentlemen of India are to be found in office only in native
States—it is the mere dregs of the official classes that fill
our own cutcherries. The Bengal Amish and the Bombay
Carcoons are notorious everywhere for their scoundrelism
and corruption. What the Madras men filling correspond•
ing offices are, the Madras Torture Commission fully
revealed.
Blackwood is deficient this month in literature ;
in fact, beyond the two tales we have none. India
and Central America monopolise three papers, Military
Education one, and domestic affairs in general, with
a dash of Indian, another. Of " What will he Do
with It" we need say no more than that it continues
thoroughly worthy of tha literary talent, kindly
nature, and eloquent humour which has won for Sir
Bulwer Lytton's later fictions a popularity not less, if
less noisy, than that of his younger contemporaries.
Men about town will prefer " Vanity Fair " to " My
Novel," but poll all England, and the choice would
probably be reversed. " Military Education " is a
careful and weighty article, in which the writer does
not shun the responsibility of publishing a definite
scheme. Hi' plan has evidently not been formed
without much patient thought, and evinces fami-
liarity with the topic. We are glad, also, to perceive
that he bears in mind the same precautions to the
necessity of which we have so repeatedly—we had
almost said exclusively—called attention our.
selves

1092

Now, we have no wish to see the nature of the connec-
• n between the British nation and its military officers
hanged in this respect. We think that it is at once the
most honourable sal the least expensive that could be
devised. It gives us precisely that at raugement which, in
a constitutioual country, is best calculated to render en
armed force not only effective but safe. We have the
officers taken principally from those classes in civil life
which, being accustomed from their boyhood to command,
command iu a generous spirit, and the ranks filled with
men who, being accustomed from their boyhood to obey,
render a willing obedience to those w:ioin they acknow-
ledge as their sock' superiors. The former, connected by
the ties of relationship with the rank, the wealth. and the
more advanced intelligence of the country, can be relied
upon wider all circumstances to maintain order aad obey
the laws. 'rime latter, constrained to look up to their officers
as much by private feeling and association as through
the force of discipline, never think of entertaining opinions
of which their officers disapprove. But if you bring about
a violent change in all this, you must make up your minds
to at least the chance of disagreeable consequences.
In " Cambria and Cottonopolis " the Premier meets
with some heavy punishment from Tlepolemus ;
and the other papers, especially that on Panama, are
very able and useful.
It would require more space than wa can affaril to
do full justice to the contents of Fraser. We have
twelve articles, all on interesting, and at the same
time widely different, subjects. A tierce exposure of
an evidently worthless book tnititled " Edinburgh
Dissected," a paper on "Metropolitan Communica-
tions," another on St. Simon, and we need not add
" The Interpreter," are perhaps the best contribu-
tions. The naturai-history article, usually so plea-
sant, is this month rather overladen with learning;
and the piper on Dress is written too exclusively
from the pictorial point of view. Nor is the author
consistent with himself—as, for instance, in con-
demning broad cloth because it is spoiled by rain,
and then recommending hats with feathers, which
would surely spoil much quicker. Besides, as we
have before repeated, in an age like the present that
dress will always be the most i:opular which hides
the most defects. "The Interpreter" is this month
uncommonly good. Neither Napier nor Maxwell
have often given a more stirring battle piece than
the assault of the 7th of September. From " Metro-
politan Communications" we extract the following,
which expresses pretty much the same view as we
advanced in this Journal more than a year ago :

Another very important office which a metropolitan
system of rails would perform, is that of taking the
working population to and from their labour. At present,
as we have seen, the higher and middle classes desert the
Cty and great centres of metropolitan trade when the
business of the day is over. The workman, however, is
unhappily not thus provided for; and the money value of
property in the neighbourhood of great thoroughfares is
gradually squeezing out his dwellings, and driving him
far away from his work We are, in fact, gradually
bringing about a similar state of things to that which exists
in Paris. IVhat we call " improving a neighbourhood,"
means improving the dwellings of the working classes off
the face of the earth. We destroy what the police term
rookeries in St. Giles' and Westminster, without making
any provision for the rooks. House accommodation for
the poorer classes, by these so-called improvements, is
greatly increased in price, and iu many instances is not to
be had on any terms; consequently the workman has to
walk long distances to and from his work, thus causing
a loss of time and strength, which to him i 3 money. It
is a matter of great importance that this great injustice
should be remedied; and no better method could be
devised of elevating working men's condition than by
giving them the means of following the example of the
classes above them, and of exchanging the loathsome, high-
priced dens in the fever jangles of metropolitan courts
and alleys for the purer air of the suburbs. When we con-
sider that the great lines of railway can carry coals at a
halfpenny per ton a mile, and that coals cannot load and
unload themselves, as passengers do, it is quite clear that the
working population can be carried at a rate entirely within
their means.

"Lord Macaulay of Rothley " is a brief but appa-
rently careful account of that nobleman's family, and
his connection with the English Babingtons.
The Dublin opens with an excellent article upon
France. The style is strong, the criticism clear, and
the conclusions on the whole just. The review of
Alexander Smith's poems is, we think, too laudatory.
We have never been among that gentleman's depre-
dators, but we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that,
with all his powers, he belongs to a vicious school,
and has as yet betrayed no symptoms of emerging
from it. The next in merit are papers upon
"Chancery Amendment in Ireland," and " The
Castle of Dublin," one of a very interesting series
which has now reached the sixth number. The
following is curious :
From the official correspondence of these times we learn
that the Queen used occasionally, at the instance of the
viceroys, present silk gowns of the newest London fashion
to the wives of the more powerful Irish chieftains, seeking
thus to insure their favourable influence with their hus-
bands. Writing of Torlogh Lynogh O'Neill, the Deputy,
addressing the Queen, says :—" For that his wife bath
been an instrument and chief counsellor to frame him to
this order of obedience and dutiful manner of proceeding,
I humbly beseech your Majesty to bestow a garment upon
leer, as a token of your favour, which Mr. Marshall telleth
me your Majesty did give order for at his being there, who