The Press.
London, England, 1858-11-20 00:00:00

THE PRE S S, NOVEMBER 20, 185 g.

a quick eye for effect, combine to produce a
light literary tourist ; but many other qualities
are wanted for a thoroughly good writer of
travels. The matter must be well weighed,
the descriptions must be accurate as well as
striking, and there must be weight of opinion in
the author. A narrator or describer, who merely
tells us of strange places, and forms no distinct
opinion about them, fails to satisfy. There must
be not only the attempt but the ability to examine
and decide upon the defects of a climate, the re-
sources of a region, the habits of a population, or
even the expression of scenery. Inglis was a
remarkably agreeable writer of superficial terms,
and his work on Ireland was for many years an
authority upon the sister country ; but there was
want of matter in most of that lively writer's
productions, and his success had an injurious
effect in creating a demand for flimsy works of
travel as distinguished from the solid perform-
ances of Edward Daniel Clarke and others. It
became a fashion for popular novelists to com-
bine profit and pleasure by taking tours, and
scribbling their accounts of what they saw and
heard, and calling it " their travels." The
United States of America were successively
" done" by " Boz," Captain Marryat, Captain
Hamilton (author of " Cyril Thornton"), and
Miss Martineau. Numbers who could not
appreciate the profundity and admirable writing
of De Tocqueville's " Democracy in America,"
amused themselves with the graphic descriptions
by fictionists of their hasty peeps at other
countries.

The true test for deciding upon the merit of
a book of travels is whether it be worth keeping
for reference. Most of Mr. Laing's works would
stand this test. " The Crescent and the Cross,"
by Warburton, is a brilliant piece of writing,
with a sharp, crisp, scintillating style, and its
literary merits are indisputable. Sir C. Lyell's
Travels are agreeable reading always, and deeply
instructive when their author touches on his
favourite subject. The Handbooks from Albe-
marle-street are unique in this particular branch
of Literature. The Continent being opened
freely during the Thirty Years' Peace, the
" English Interest Abroad grew and prospered
in all the pleasant places in Europe. We all
went abroad to see our friends ; we all had rela-
tions resident abroad, and handbooks became
indispensable. Byron's works, to a great extent,
stimulated the desire for foreign travel. His
magniicent description of scenery had a vivid
effect on the imagination of thousands who longed
to see the places so beautifully portrayed, and the
vigorous and easy letters in his Memoirs
helped to augment the taste so produced. " Mr.
Murray " was familiarly associated with the poet
whom Lord Macaulay has termed " the most
" remarkable Englishman of the nineteenth
" century; " and with the " handbooks" anno-
tating and illustrating most of the scenes through
which the wayward Childe pursued his melodious
and melancholy way, the name of " Murray " is
identified by myriads of roving Englishmen. The
work before us, as well as Mr. Poulett Scrope's,
seems to show that with a new and special style
of Travel Literature the distinguished bibliopole
of Albemarle-street is desirous of identifying his
far-spread name.

The Alps will always continue to furnish sug-
gestive themes for good describers. Science and
sentiment combine to invest them with extra-
ordinary charms for tourists. Poets, naturalists,
painters, cannot but feel deeply interested in stu-
dying Nature under the various aspects which
she presents in that region. The author of this
work has many accomplishments for the part of
a writer of a good book of travels. He has bo-
tanical and geological knowledge, a genuine love
of scenery, classical scholarship, and that appre-
ciative faculty which results from a well-balanced
state of mind. His style is correct and animated,
and at times is effectively graphic, though it
wants freshness of tone and has no striking ori-
ginality. Mr. King's intellect is vigorous, his
sense is strong, and he commits no errors against
taste. His defect, we think, is that he becomes
rather monotonous from frittering away his energy
on too much matter of the same kind; he does
not select and contrast with sufficient care. Let
a traveller go to the Grecian Archipelago, we are
not to expect from him an account of every petty
islet; and Mr. King has given us rather too
much of the same matter. He deals with the
subject of the Italian valleys of the Alps, and he