The Press.
London, England, 1854-05-13 00:00:00

MAY 13, 1854.

It was a common practice with Haydn, like his Brace of
Norfolk, to order a dinner for five or six, and then eat the
whole himself. He once ordered such a dinner to be
ready by a stated hour, at which time he alone appeared,
and ordered the repast to be served. " But where is the
company ? " respectfully inquired the headwaiter. "Oh !"
exclaimed Haydn, " / am de gompany !"
From these specimens our readers may
judge that the book is an entertaining one.
Dr. Doran has brought together a vast amount
of curious details, and, though his book makes
no pretension to medical science, yet his
sportive allusions and sensible hints are per-
haps as likely to prove useful in restricting ex
(less, and indicating the path to health and
longevity, as books of more pretending but less
lively character.

The Dodd Family Abroad. By Charles Lever.
With Illustrations by Phiz. London : Chap-
man and Hall.

THOSE of our readers who dislike the bustle of
the stage may, thanks to Mr. Lever, while
tarrying at home, have an opportunity of
amusing themselves with a Hibernian ex-
travaganza, iu which the Dodds burlesque the
character of the Irish gentry on their travels,
in the style of " screaming farce." Fastidious
readers, indeed, will be apt to decry the his-
tory of the Dodds as too absurd, and those
blessed with good memories will hint that
" Harry Lorrequer " has taken to repeating
himself. For our parts, we have laughed at
the Dodds, and we do not suppose that the
author had any other design than to set his
readers giggling, like a literary " Mr. Merry-
man." There is nothing new in the style of
the book. It exhibits talents with which their
lively and versatile owner might do much
more. The perusal of Mr. Lever's novels is
like a kind of literary steeplechasing. He
drags us along at a tremendous pace, in a
neck-or nothing style, of composition : never
stopping, like another novelist, when a diffi-
culty presents itself, he clears it at a bound,
and comes in with his reader and himself
panting at the last panting page. We are
afraid that it is now too late for Mr. Lover to
adopt a higher style of composition, and we
Must only accept his boisterous humour and
laughable caricature as we find them.
In " The Dodd Family Abroad" the reader
is often reminded of " The Adventures of
Humphrey Clinker" and Tom Moore's
"Fudges.' We are made to feel that we have
laughed before at the same kind of droll situa-
tions, ridiculous mistakes, confounding sharp
ers with statesmen, and mistaking ladies with
tine clothes and sullied fame for specimens of
"female aristocracy." To criticise the charac-
ters or the incidents in this style of writing
would be like looking for genteel comedy at
the Adelphi. We shall give one or two speci-
mens of the kind of persons described in it.
Our readers will probably recognise the ori-
ginal of the following picture
She is Spanish, by the mother's bide; "Las Caldenhas,"
I think the name, whose father was a grandee of the first
class. Her own father was the General Count de St.
Amand, who commanded in the celebrated battle of Aus-
terlitz in the retreat from Moscow. I'm sure, dearest,
you'll be amazed at my familiarity with these historical
events, but the truth is, she is a perfect treasury of such
knowledge, and I must needs gain some little by the con-
tact.

I am at a loss how to give you any correct notion of one
whose universality seems to impart to her character all the
semblance of contradictory qualities. She is, for instance,
proud and haughty, to a degree little short of insolence.
She exacts from men a species of deference little less than
a slavish submission. As she herself says, " Let them do
homage." All her ideas of life and society are formed on
the very grandest scale. She has known, in fact, hut one
"set," and that has been one where royalties moved as
private individuals. Her very trirekets recal such memo-
riea ; and I have passed more than one morning admiring
pearl earrings with the cipher of the Uzarawitsch ; brace-
lets with the initials of an Austrian archduke : and a dia-
mond cross which she forgot whether it was given her by
Prince Metternich or Mehemet Ali. If you only beard
her, too, how she talks of that " dear old thing, the ex
King of Bavaria," and with what affectionate regard she
alludes to " her second self—the Queen of Spain," yon'd
feel at once, dearest Kitty, that you were moving amidst
crowns and sceptres. with the rustle of royal purple beside
and the shadow of a thronely canopy over you. In one
sense, this has been for us the very rarest piece of good
fortune ; for, accustomed as she has been to only one
sphere—and that the very highest—she does not detect
many little peculiarities in papa's and mamma's habits, and
censure them as vulgar, but rather accepts them as the
ways and customs among ordinary nobility. In fact, she
thinks the prince, as she calls papa, the very image of
Pozzo di Borgo;" and mamma she can scarcely see with.

THE PRESS.

out saying "Your Majesty," she is so like the Queen
Dowager of Piedmont.

Miss Mary Anne Dodd, in a letter to Miss
Donlan, of Ballydoolan, describes how she was
coaxed by the lady just portrayed to smoke
her first cigar:—

I accepted the invitation, and, after exchanging my even-
ing robe for a dressing-gown, hastened to the chamber. I
could scarcely believe my eyes as I entered ! She was
seated on a richly-embroidered cushion on the floor, dressed
in Turkish fashion, loose trousers of gold-sprigged muslin,
with &small fez of scarlet cloth on her head, an d a jacket of the
same coloured velvet almost concealed beneath its golden
embroidery ; a splendid scimitar lay beside her, and a must
costly pipe, in pure Turkish taste, which, however, she
did not make use of, but smoked a small paper cigarette
instead.

" Come, dearest," said she, " turn the key in the door,
and light your cigar: here we are at length free and happy."
It was in vain that I assured her I never had tried to
smoke. At first she wouldn't believe, and then she actu-
ally screamed with laughter at me. "One would fancy,"
said she, "that you had only left England yesterday. Why,
child, where have you lived, and with whom?" I cannot
go over all she said ; nor need I repeat the efforts I made
to palliate my want of knowledge of life, which she really
appeared to grieve over. " I should never think of asking
your sister here," said she ; " there is a frivolity in all her
gaiety—a light-heartedness, without sentiment—that I
cannot abide ; but you, ma chere, you have a nature akin
to my own. You ought, and indeed must, be one of us."
We are also presented to another personage
in this book—a certain Mrs. Gore Hampton.
She figures oftener in the story than is either
agreeable or improving. Mr. James Dodd
thus describes her :

Our progress was slow, for the crush was tremendous ;
but, as we went, her recognitions were frequent. Still, 1
oould not but remark, not with women. All, or nearly all,
her acquaintances were of, I was going to say the harder,
but upon my life I believe the real epithet would be the
softer sex. They saluted her with an easy, almost too
easy, familiarity. Some only smiled ; and one, a sooun•
drel,—l shall know him again, however,—threw up his
eyes with a particular glance towards me, as plainly iks
possible implying, " Oh, another victim, eh ?" As for the
ladies, some stared full at her, and then turned abruptly
away ; some passed without looking; one or two made
her low and formal curtsies; and a fewput up their glasses
to scan her lace flounce or her lappets, as if they were
really the great objects to be admired. At last we came
to a knot of men talking in a circle, sound a very pretty
woman, whose jet-black eyes and ringlets, with a high co-
lour, gave her a most brilliant appearance.

The dramatis persona of this burlesque is
composed of English swindlers, Irish fools,
and continental impostors. His countrymen
have often complained of the gross injustice
done to them by Mr. Lever caricaturing them,
and we once heard from the Conservative
benches of the House of Commons an eloquent
commentary on the injury done to the Irish
character by novelists of this school. It is
possible, however, that the evil is greatly over
rated ; but of one thing we are very certain.
that English readers are getting rather tired
of farces being offered them for novels ; and
in his future performances we think that Mr.
Lever ought to aim at variety along with his
vivacity, and introduce us to more rational
company than he compelled us to travel with
in " The Dodd Family Abroad."

Th. Modern Mystery; or, Table• Tapping. By
J. G. Mac Walter. Loudon: Shaw.

A SMALL, cheap book, exhibiting learning,
argument, and humour. The author believes
that many of the phenomena of spirit-rappings,
ice., actually occurred, and have been truly
described. With much industry, he brings a
ludicrous collection of these cases together.
From the following it will be seen that Faust
on Walpurgis Night was scarcely in a more
exciting situation than was the Rev. Mr. Ham-
mond, of Rochester, U.S., when visiting a
family favoured by spiritual manifestations.
He says :
In the meantime the demonstrations grew louder and

louder. The family commenced and su-ng the " spirit-
song" and several other pieces of sacred music, during
which accurate time was marked on the table, causing it
to vibrate ; a transparent hand, resembling a shadow, pre-
sented itself before my face ; I felt angers taking hold of
a lock of hair on the left side of my head, causing an incli-
nation of several inches, then a cold deathlike hand was
drawn designedly over my face, three gentle raps over my
left knee, my right limb forcibly palled, against strong re-
instance, under the table, a violent shaking, as though two
hands were applied to my shoulders, myself and chair up-
lifted and moved back, and several slaps as with a hand on
the sides of the head, which were repeated on each one of
the company. Daring these manifestations a piece of
pasteboard, nearly a footsquare, was swung with such velo-
city before us as to throw a strong current of air into
oar faces, a paper curtain attached to one of the windows
was rolled up and unrolled twice, a lounge immediately

449

behind me was shaken violently ; two small drawers in a
bureau played back and forth with inconceivable rapidity;
a sound resembling a man sawing boards and planing
them was heard under the table ; a common spinning-
wheel seemed to be in !notion, making a very natural buzz
of the spindle ; a reel articulated each knot wound upon
it, while the sound of a rocking-cradle indicated maternal
cares for the infant's slumbers. I felt &perfect seltposaes-
sion, except a momentary chill when the cold hand was
applied to my face, similar to a sensation 1 have realised
when touching a dead body.

After mentioning many peculiarities attend-
ant on these spiritual manifestations, such as
that the spirits like to be civilly spoken to,
and that "an excess of politeness is never
" thrown away " upon them—that one gentle-
man, doubting the veracity of the raps, put
the spirit on its oath, and swore it to the
truth of its statement—describes the modes
of rapping:—

Now the alphabetical order of rapping is not only well
known, but its tediousness has been experienced and
commented upon in many a daily journal. The progress
made in this roundabout manner gives some 240 letters
in an hour. Consequently, as the method is diffuse, and
time is exhausted, the most momentous revelations—
none of the remotest consequences have as yet been re-
corded—can never be made unless the communion can,
like chapters iu a serial, be " continued in our next."
Whilst, by another end au improved method,

these letters are spelt with immense rapidity for the
moat part, and the words, as spelt, are called out ; and it
is said that an expert penman would be puzzled to follow
the dictation when the "steam " is really on.

The author then proceeds to account for the
many singular manifestations of a latent power
which have unquestionably occurred ; and ho
adopts the theory of Mr. L. C. Rogers, who
credits the existence of a newly-discovered physical agent,
" distinct from electricity, but closely allied with animal
magnetism," and which is identical with the od or odylie
force of Baron iteichenbach This force can be traced in
two distinct forms of operation ; one is totally independent
of a presiding Intelligence—the other exhibits the phe-
nomena of intelligence ruling and guiding it. It thus be-
comes prevision—intelligent clairvoyance—acts at a dis-
tance through matter and space, and thus produces all the
phenomena that have been attributed to direct spiritual
agency.
We are led on by a series of the nicest deductions through
a whole mass of attested physical phenomena, in which
electricity can be clearly discovered as primary causation,
until we arrive at that point where the line divides the in-
visible and the impalpable from the material and the
actual—that transition boundary where spirit and body
blend, where the one becomes in a manner the other, and
the positive characteristics of both are undistingnishabbe
and undefinable by any technology yet invented.
We have been much pleased with this little
work ; and, if any one should think that learn-
ing and logic are misapplied in dispelling a
delusion so absurd, let him remember that
spirit-rapping in America counts its believers
by hundreds of thousands; that a newspaper,
lately described in the PRESS, well supported
and respectably conducted, is devoted to it ;
and that this exciting delusion has been
followed by a great increase of insanity
amongst our naturally excitable transatlantic
cousins.

The following, with which we close, is, says
Mr. Mac Walter, only
a type of an enormous multitude of equally deplorable
eases. The superintendent of the Hospital for the Insane
in lndianopolis, Indiana, says. in the report for !MN
" An elderly gentleman, who had previously enjoyed
good health, now an inmate of this institution. was living
in peace and harmony with his family until the '
rappers' visited the neighbourhood. He attended their
exhibitions and believed their revelations ; but, unfortn•
nately for the old gentleman, it was revealed to him by one
of the 'mediums' that his second wife, with whom he was
then living, had caused the death of his fortnercompanion.
The old man believed all to he a direct and truthful reve-
lation from the spirit•world, and from that hour his
domestic happiness was at an end. Sleep forsook him
and be became a Maniac, which he still continues to be,
with but dim prospects of recovery."

RECENT RELIGIOUS TRACTS.
WE must be cursory in our notices of the numerous
tracts that have recently appeared. In The Jews,
their Past history, and Future Prospects (Seeleys),
Lord Arthur Hervey reviews the chief events in the
annals of the Jewish nation. The Dead Sea, and
Its Explorers (Freeman), forms the third number
of a new cheap series called " The Library of
Biblical Literature." It is illustrated with en-
gravings, and epitomises the knowledge to be found
in recent works on the Dead Sea. Popery in the
Third Century (Triihner) exhibits some literary
cleverness. It is an attempt to represent a Roman•
ist writing an " epistle" and preserving consistency
with his Church, while he uses scriptural language ;
the endeavour, of course, resulting in logical in-
congruity and historical contradiction. God's
Providential Care of Children (Seeley') is a sermon

450

preached at St. Pancras, by the Rev. Thomas Dale,
but it is scarcely equal to his general style. A
Charge to the Clergy of Sierra Leone (Seeleys), by
Doctor Vidal, is rather too vague, and not suffi-
ciently local in its matter. In War—ls it un.
Christian l (Seeleys) the Peace Society is instructed
by " A Soldier." The Rev. Mr. Owen, in Young
England (Seeleys), gives admonitions to the grow-
ing manhood of the country, delineating the errors
of theorists and the vices of voluptuaries. The Two
Sacraments (Seeleys) is the title of the republication
of addresses delivered by the Rev. Mr. Witts, in
which " Baptism " and " The Lord's Supper" are
treated of with much earnestness. In The Cross
and the Age (Seeleys) a " Christian Layman" pre-
sents us with the first number of his series
of " Tracts for the Times." He writes with pietistic
spirit, but some will object that a fanciful and
sentimental vein of thinking appears to predominate
in his views. The Philosophy of a Sunbeam
(Seeleys), by the Rev. Edwin Sidney (Rector of
Cornard Parva), is an interesting excursus in a
branch of natural theology. Its style is pleasing
and popular, and well suited for making impression
on the young. A Voice from the Pulpit (Judd), by
the Rev. T. G. Horton, is a delineation of the prin-
cipal features of an European war. In treating his
subject the preacher unconsciously intruded on the
peculiar province of the political writer ; but, though
his matter is not new, there is some ability in the
discussion of the question. In Our Language before
the Flood (Piper and Co.) the Rev. J. Curtis en-
deavours to adduce evidence which, in the author's
opinion, tends to show "that the language in which
" the events narrated by Moses in the first few books
" of Genesis are recorded is mainly, if not altogether,
"derived from and originated in the events themselves
" and the consequences resulting therefrom." There
is some display of erudition in this first number of
a work intended to be a serial ; but, in addition to
other reasons which we need not specify, philologists
will question some of the writer's assertions, and
logicians will complain of his want of closeness in
argument. In Gog and Magog, or the Doom of
Russia (Piper and Co.), the author, " Angel," makes
considerable use of "the liberty of prophesying." In
the historical events since the first French Revolu-
tion he sees certain declarations in Revelations
(xvi. 10 and 11) fulfilled. His views are cloudy and
vague. Do You Love God ? and Waters Wear the
Stones (Seeleys), are affectionate admonitions on our
religious duties, by the Rev. John W. Lester, of
Ashton Hayes, near Chester. Truths Maintained
(Aylott and Co.), by James Biden, is the title of a
collected series of tracts in which the author
dogmatises on theology, without much regard to the
graces of style. We do not approve of his mode of
studying Church history. A Quietus for the Coming
Struggle (Groombridge) is an exercitation, by
" Presbyter," on the declarations in Revelations and
Daniel. One of the most remarkable features of the
present season is the great number of religious
works that attempt to expound the prophecies of
Holy Writ.

Some Account of the Brigade of hospital Conveyance
Carts attached to the Army :in the East, &c.

London: Renshaw.
To Lieutenant-Colonel Tulloh, of the Royal Artillery,
and to Mr. Guthrie, the credit is due of forming an
improved ambulatory hospital for the use of an army
in the field. " The first principle of military medical
" conveyance being that wherever a gun can go a
" spring-cart should be able to follow," it is obvious
that many difficulties had to be overcome before the
requisite combination of strength, lightness, and
space could be obtained. The improved hospital-
cart can not only move faster than troops can march,
but can even keep up with horse artillery, while the
cost of each is only 251. The following extract from
" Mr. Guthrie's commentaries in surgery for the im-
" mediate exigencies of a field of battle" may be
useful elsewhere :

"3. Simple gun-shot wounds require nothing more,
for the first two or three days, than the application of a
piece of wet or oiled lint or linen, fastened on with a strip
of sticking plaister, or, if possible, kept constantly wet and
cold with water. When cold disagrees, warm water should
be substituted.

"4. Wounds made by swords, sabres, or other sharp-
cutting instruments, are to be treated principally by posi-
tion. Thus a cut down to the bone, across the thick part
of the arm, immediately below the shoulder, is to be treated
by raising the arm to or above a right angle with the body ;
in which position it is to be retained, however inconvenient
it may be."

Oaths of Allegiance a Security for National Inde-
pendence. By Pierce Connelly, M.A. London :
Hatch ard.
THIS pamphlet is a letter addressed to J. C. Col-
quhoun, Esq., in which the writer argues that alle-
giance to Rome and temporal allegiance to a Pro-
testant Sovereign cannot coexist in equilibrium ; that
they are contradictory; that a constant struggle is