The Press.
London, England, 1858-12-18 00:00:00

THE PRESS, DECEMBER 18, 1858.

were bought by the Corporation, and measures
taken for its gradual suppression. Rowlandson,
the caricaturist, has preserved the humours of
its later days, which had sunk to a very low ebb,
exhibiting neither wit nor decency—nothing, in
fact, but " curiosities " of the lowest and vul-
garest kind in the shows, and downright black-
guardism in the frequenters. Wombwell's mena-
gerie was one of the latest booths of any
importance, and he and others, owing to the
high rents purposely exacted by the City for the
ground, found it a losing speculation. So, in
1855, it died a natural death, which probably
none but the " roughs " would be found to
regret. Mr. Morley has written its biography
and its epitaph in a pleasant and appropriate
spirit. His industry has been most commend-
able, and he has the knack of interweaving his
quotations with his text without giving them the
appearance of patchwork—a point requiring
much more literary skill than is generally sup-
posed. He also gives us an excellent and copious
index. Let us add that the volume, with its thick
mellow " toned " paper, its fair antique type,
its numerous quaint engravings—almost all from
original and recondite sources—and its hand-
somely-embossed gilt and " bevelled" cover, is a
most ornamental book for a drawing-room table,
and will make a capital Christmas present for
those who like a change from the figures of Mr.
John Gilbert and the landscapes of Mr. Birket
Foster.

Peasant Life in Germany. By Miss Anna C.
Johnson. London : Sampson Low, Son,

and Co.
IT is not often that a book fulfils the promise of
its title so thoroughly as this one does. Miss
Anna Johnson is no ordinary tourist. She seems
to unite in her single person much of the
adventurous energy of an Ida Pfeiffer to some
portion of the observant acumen of a Harriet
Martineau. Not that she by any means attains,
in either speciality, the lofty position occupied by
those two " bright particular stars." But how-
ever inferior to both, in their respective walks,
Miss Johnson may take her stand beside either
where earnestness and sincerity of purpose are
concerned. This merit every honest critic must
concede her ; and it is one which, with honest
critics, must always conciliate, if not plenary
indulgence, at least a ready absolution from all
venal sins.

The approval with which we closed Miss
Johnson's book is strong—stronger, indeed,
than it looks. A certain portion of its force has
been rendered latent by the preliminary necessity
of vanquishing a prejudice. The introductory
pages of " Peasant Life in Germany" present
certain infringements of the canons of Good
Taste, which predispose unfavourably. There
is in these pars a mixture of the pragmatical
and the sanctimonious, too decidedly " Yankee "
in its savour to agree with a more refined digestion.
A sneer at " lords and dukes and nobles "
meets us in the opening paragraph ; a stump-
orator's allusion to the people, " passed by as if
" they were dogs, or worms to be trodden upon,
" because they bend their necks to the yoke of
" princes," graces the top of the second page ;
and a quiet intimation that the author's idea
of a tour through Germany was directly inspired
by Heaven, startles us at the bottom.

All this sort of thing, however, softens down
as Miss Johnson begins to grapple with her
subject. The republicanism and the sanctimony,
although plainly the directing influences of all
the fair apostle's exertions, are not offensively
obtruded. They may, indeed, be regarded as
tending to relieve an occasional heaviness,
inherent perhaps in the method of treatment
followed. At any rate they inspire, here and
there, a rhetorical flourish which enlivens,
and an eccentricity of judgment which amuses.
Miss Anna Johnson, we have already remarked,
is no ordinary tourist. The staple subjects of
nomadic literature present no charms for her.
Courts and castles, princes and pictures, state
dinners and statues, are alike indifferent to her
somewhat hard humanitarianism. It is the
people only, in the limited sense of the term—
those lying on the far side of that " gulf which
" separates the prince and the peasant "—who
claim her sympathies and are the object of her
investigations. The method adopted for carrying
out these investigations must be acknowledged as