The Press.
London, England, 1856-12-06 00:00:00

SATURDAY,

immense majority of men whose experience of acqui-
sition and consumption is exactly the reverse of Mr..
Thoreau's. The great theory of this gentleman is,
that we have no right to live better than the savages,
unless we are better men; and that, in proportion as
we subdue our passions, and cultivate our intellects
and morals, we are to exchange a cave for a wigwam,
a wigwam for a log hut, and the hut for a brick
house. There is a sort of rough moral arithmetic
about this assertion which the world would be the
better for recognising, however impossible to act
completely up to it. Mr. Thoreau's idea of a house
for a young man just beginning the world is certainly
curious :

Formerly, when how to get my living honestly, with
freedom left for my proper pursuits, was a question which
vexed me even more than it does now, for unfortunately
I am become somewhat callous, I used to see a large box
by the railroad, six feet long by three wide, in which the
labourers locked up their tools at night, and it suggested
to me that every man who was hard pushed might get
such a one for a dollar, and, having bored a few auger
holes in it, to admit the air at least, get into it when it
rained and at night, and hook down the lid, and so have
freedom in his love, and in his soul be free. This did
not appear the worst, nor by any means a despicable
alternative. You could sit up as late as you pleased, and.
whenever you got up, go abroad without any landlord or
house-lord dogging you for rent. Many a man is harassed
to death to pay the rent of a larger and more luxurious
box who would not have frozen to death in such a box
as this.

With all his eccentricities,: however, Mr. Thoreau
writes like a scholar and a thinker, and l►is work
contains some wholesome correctives to the luxurious
materialism of the age.

Arthur Vaughan. By the Ben T. Williams, M.A.

London : Kent and Co.
" ARTHUR VAUGHAN " is simply the biography of a
young dissenting minister, for what purpose written,
or oy whom likely to be read, is beyond our under-
standing. We can discern no purpose whatever in
the book, and there is no story that deserves the
name. It is made up of one half cant, one quarter
nonsense, and one quarter coarseness. We subjoin
a specimen of the latter:—

At. Dyfftin, Mrs. Vaughan had for one of her house.
maids, a pretty, buxom girl of nineteen, whose name was
Lucy. She had auburn hair, clear bright eyes, regular
teeth, and a Grecian nose, was of the mid.dle height, but
rather broad and round about the shoul.lers, which,
according to our hero, was the only fault in her external
appearance. Now, Arthur's kind attention to Lucy was
more than could be desired from a young man towards a
pretty girl in his mother's service. Her light and merry
disposition, in truth, afforded him much pleasure in his
frequent conversations with her. When dressed for the
evening, with her face of health and happiness, with het
hair done up nicely, and with her clean servant's cap, she
came in with tea, Arthur would follow her round with his
eyes; and when she went behind Mrs. Vaughan's chair
and looked so wickedly, and slightly winked at him, he used
to feel such a thrill of joyous pleasure as he thought for the
time unsurpassable. After tea, he would go out to the
kitchen,—" Lucy, what a naughty girl you are ?"
" No, no, sir; you were looking so serious that I could
not help it."
`You little devil, Lucy; give me a kiss my dear girl.
By Jove, I cannot keep away from you, Lucy."
" Don't then, sir."
Poor Lucy, pretty, buxom girl of nineteen ! Poor
Arthur, impulsive and amorous young student ! What
was Socratic morality or Spartan denial to them ? Irre-
sistible passions drew them to each other, and they were
willing to be led.
This is pretty well for a serious religious fiction.

A Boy's :Voyage Round the World on Board a
Man-of-War. London : Addey and Co.
THE general nature of this little work is sufficiently
proclaimed by its title. But it possesses some value
at the present moment over and above that of being
an entertaining book for children, as being the work
of an American, and containing an independent
expression of opinion by an American sailor. The
author served as a powder-boy on board an American
seventy-four, seems to have undergone no particular
hardships and to have encountered no special tyranny,
yet he continued in the service without enthusiasm,
and quitted it without regret. If this is at all a fair
sample of the feeling that prevails in America with
regard to the navy, we can very well understand why
the Yankees do not increase their fleet, and trust so
much to privateenng in case of war. The author
moreover gives it as his opinion that a sailor's life
affords but little real opportunities of seeing the
world ; and there is altogether a want of heartiness
in speaking of nautical matters which we should
hardly have expected from a countryman of Feni-
more Cooper.