The Press.
London, England, 1854-09-23 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

talk of being wronged! You'll find I have a way to
take these notions out of your head, you impudent nig-
ger ! You shall be tied up and flogged before all the
people in the place. I'll take the conceit out of you, if
I take all the skin off your back first."
Alfred shivered from head to foot as if with deadly cold.
He knew this was no unmeaning threat. But his eye
quailed not as he answered: " For your own sake, sir, be
careful what you do to me. I cannot bear what some can.
I have not been degraded quite to the condition of a beast,
and I have the feelings of a man. I tell you I could not
bear it, though I know some can. It would ruin me. I
should be either an idiot or crazy."
" You had better be crazy or an idiot than such a rebel-
lious, impudent scoundrel as you are now !" said Mr. Wynn.
His voice was terribly calm and cold. His anger had
reached the point where all outward demonstration ceases.
Alfred made a step forward, and raised his hand a little.
" Twenty-five years have 1 served you," he said, " and
never a lash has fallen on my back ; and, mark me sir,
never a lash shall fall there ! I have escaped that disgrace
and torture, and I never will endure it,—never!"
As he spoke these last words, Mr. Wynn also stepped
forward, and, seizing a small riding-whip that lay on the
table, struck a sudden, stinging blow directly across Alfred's
face, cutting the skin slightly from his eye to his chin.
Alfred caught it in his hands, as it was descending a second
time, and twisting it from his master's grasp, broke it in
three pieces, threw it over Mr. Wynn's shoulder into the
fire, and sprang to the window. There was a momentary
delay in undoing the lock, which was fastened; and, seizing
an oaken chair, Mr. Wynn made one bound across the
floor, a heavy blow descended, and Alfred was stretched
senseless on the carpet. At the same instant a wild shriek
rang through the house,—s prolonged cry of anguish and
despair, which curdled the blood of every listener,—and
Maum Abby rushed through the half-opened window into
the room. Stooping down she raised the lifeless form, and
laid the head tenderly on her bosom.
" My boy ! my boy !" she said in a low tone ; "it is
ended, then, at last—it is all over—and it has come to this!"
and, after those words. she spoke not again during all the
scene which followed."
Alfred is stunned, not killed. He is con-
fined in a strong room, that lie may be severely
whipped on the morrow. A party is sent to
bring him from his prison :
Some moments elapsed, and then there was a little con-
fusion heard above stairs, a quick step descended, and
Dick again threw open the door, exclaiming, " 0 massa!
come dis minute up star. I►at ar' Alfred done kill lieself!"
" What do you say ?" said Mr. Wynn, sternly, his face
growing a little more rigid and white as he fixed his eyes
on the child.
" Fact, masse," repeated he ; " dat ar' Alfred done kill
heself,—cut hole in he troat and let out all de blood. Done
shirked he wkiippin' dis time, massa, anyway."
Mr. Wynn rose quickly and left the room. Walter
lifted his head, and his chest heaved with a deep inspira-
tion, as if a load had been lifted from it, while he ex-
claimed fervently,
" Thank God for that!—he is dead!"
" Why, Walter! are you not ashamed to say so ?" said
Mabel. " For my part, I am really sorry, for now who
will build our summer-house? My heart was set upon
having that before another year, and there is not a work-
man anywhere around who was equal to Alfred. I'd rather
have nothing at all than one of those common things. 1
say it is a downright shame for him to kill himself, when
it is so inconvenient to lose him."
Mabel, it is to be observed, is the daughter
of Mr. Wynn, and, from early association, can
see no other cause for regret in the death of a
slave than the loss of his value, or the dis-
appointment of pleasure his services were ex-
pected to procure. The book, like " Uncle
Tom," though in an inferior degree, is calcu-
lated to excite sympathy for the sufferings and
wrongs of the slave population, and has suffi-
cient literary merit to form a good addition to
the library of abolitionist fiction.

Life and Landscapes from Egypt to the Negro
Kingdoms of the White Nile. By Bayard
Taylor. London : Sampson Low and Co.
WE have had so much of very good travel-
writing on the East that we are beginning to
be dainty in our appetite when Oriental lite-
rary fare is placed before us. " The Crescent
and the Cross" and " Eiithen" so vividly re-
alised their subjects that readers become im-
patient when asked to peruse merely sensible
writing by a tourist who goes over beaten
ground. Egypt is a less hacknied subject,
however, than Palestine, but, after the works
of Belzoni, Burckhard, Lane, Wilkinson (and
must we add Titmarsh?;, there is really very
little to be told. To be much interested in
such a theme we require that a writer should
exhibit either the liveliness and grace of Mr.
Shirley Brooks, in his " Russians of the
South," or the photographic felicity of style
that distinguishes a certain " special cor-
respondent" of the Times.
Mr. Bayard Taylor is an American author
and traveller, and is apt to be prolix ; and we
may remark that we have never heard it ex-

SATURDAY,

plained why a people so rapid in action as the
Americans are, should be so apt to be tedious

with the tongue and pen. What is there now
to be told or said about the Pyramids or the

voyage up the Nile ? The first are as familiar
to all of us in description as the Crystal
Palace, and many of us would not want the
aid of an Arab coxswain for the navigation of
the second. Even the crocodiles are become
so tame to us on paper that we skip away from
them almost as fast as if they were alive. Dis-
cussions on Egyptian antiquities, also, are ra-
ther overdone, and we do not care for them at
second-hand, where has in the instance before
us) the author is manifestly indebted for his
speculations to the works of Champollion,
Wilkinson, and Lepsius.
With these drawbacks, the volume of Mr.
Taylor is another of the vigorous, straightfor-
ward narratives of travel that many will find
interesting and some will even think novel.
The last half of the book is its best, portion,
and in the voyage up the White Nile the au-
thor has the advantage of a comparatively
fresh subject. His account of Khartoum, also,
has much new matter ; and his pictures of
natural objects and descriptions of Nubian
scenery, along with some other portions of his
subject, have much pleased us. He thus des-
cribes the central plateau of the desert, and
the effects of the mirage as witnessed there :
Beyond the Bahr bele Ma extends the broad central
plateau of the desert, fifteen hundred feet above the sea.
It is a vast reach of yellow sand, dotted with low, isolated
hills, which in some places are based on large beds of light
gray sandstone of an unusually fine and even grain. Smell
towers of stone have been erected on the hills nearest the
road, iu order to guide the couriers who travel by night.
Near one of them the guide pointed out the grave of a mer-
chant who had been murdered there two years previous by
his three slaves. The latter escaped into the desert, but
probably perished, as they were never heard of afterwards.
In the smooth, loose sand I had an opportunity of reviving
my forgotten knowledge of trackography, and soon learned
to distinguish the feet of hyenas. foxes, ostriches, lame
camels, and other animals. The guide assured me that
there were devils in the desert, but one only sees them
when he travels alone.
On this plain the mirage, which first appeared in the
Biban, presented itself under a variety of wonderful as-
pects. Thenceforth I saw it every day, for hours together,
and tried to deduce some rules from the character of its
phenomena. It appears on all sides, except that directly
opposite to the sun, but rarely before nine a.m. or after three
p.m. The colour of the apparent water is always precisely
that of the sky, and this is a good test to distinguish it
from real water, which is invariably of a deeper hue. It is
seen on a gravelly as well as a sandy surface, and often
fills with shining pools the slight depressions in the
soil at the bases of the hills. Where it extends to the hori-
zon there is no apparent line, and it then becomes an inlet
of the sky, as if the walls of heaven were melting down and
flowing in upon the earth. Sometimes a whole mountain
chain is lifted from the horizon and hung in the air, with
its reflected image joined to it, base to base. I frequently
saw during the forenoon lakes of sparkling blue water,
apparently not a quarter of a mile distant. The waves
ripple in the wind; tall reeds and water-plants grow on the
margin ; and the desert rocks behind cast their shadows
on the surface. It is impossible to believe it a delusion.
You advance nearer, and suddenly, you know not how, the
lake vanishes. There is a grayish film over the spot, but,
before you have decided whether the film is in the air or
in your eyes, that too disappears, and you see only the
naked sand. What you took to be reeds and water-plants
probably shows itself as a streak of dark gravel.
What the author calls his " mid-African
landscapes" are the best points in the volume,
and have a certain panoramic effect upon the
mind of the reader. After leaving Khartoum
he voyaged to the country of the Shillook
negroes, and paints for us the following
pleeasingly-vivid landscape :
After passing the island of Tahebeshi, the river, which
still retains its great breadth, is bordered by a swampy
growth of reeds. It is filled with numerous low islands,
covered with trees, mostly dead, and with waste, white
branches which have drifted down during the inundation.
In the forests along the shore many trees had also been
killed by the high water of the previous summer. There
are no habitations on this part of the river, but all is wild,
and lonely, and magnificent. 1 had seen no sail since
leaving Khartoum, and as the sun that evening threw his
last red rays on the mighty flood, I felt for the first time
that I was alone, far in the savage heart of Africa. We
dashed along at a most exciting rate of speed, brushing
the reeds of the low islands, or dipping into the gloom of
the shadows thrown by the unprittied forests. The innu-
merable swarms of wild birds filled the air with their noise,
as they flew to their coverts, or ranged themselves in com-
pact tiles on the sand. Above all their din I heard adt
intervals, from the unseen thickets inland, the prolonge
snarling roar of some wild beast It was too deep-toned
and powerful for a leopard, and we all decided that it was
a lion. As I was watching the snowy cranes and silvery
herons that alighted on the boughs within pistol-shot, me
men pointed out a huge hippopotamus, standing in e
reeds but a short distance from the vessel. He was be-
tween five and six fest high, but his head, body and legs

SEPTEMBER 23, 1854.

were of enormous bulk. He looked at us, opened his great
jays, gave his swine•like head a toss in the air, and plunged
hastily into the water. At the same instant an immense
crocodile (perhaps twenty feet in length) left his basking-
place on the sand and took refuge in the river. Soon after-
wards two hippopotami rose in the centre of the stream,
and, after snorting the water from their nostrils, entertained
us with a peculiar grunting sound, like the lowest rumbling
note of a double•bass. The concert was continued by
others, and resumed from time to time through the night.
This was Central Africa as I had dreamed it—a grand
though savage picture, full of life and heat, and with a bar-
baric splendour even in the forms of nature.
After leaving the islands of the Shillooks the
author took it into his head one morning to
set fire to the dry grass, and he thus describes
the effect that he produced, as well as the
sensations of regret for what he had done
At length I reached an open patch of grass four or five
feet in height, and so dry and yellow that it snapped like
glass under my feet. It was dotted with clumps of high
shrubs, knotted all over with wild, flowering vines, which
formed admirable lairs for the lions and leopards. There
was a strong smell of lions about the place, and I deemed
it prudent not to venture far, since the rank animal odour
peculiar to that beast grew more marked the further I
went. The jungle in which I stood covered a tongue of
land inclosed between two coves of the river, and through
the openings in the thickets I saw that it led to the open
tracts further inland. The wind was blowing towards
the river, and as I stood in the midst, contemplating
the wild, lawless grouping of the different trees and
shrubs, some imp of darkness whispered in my ear:
" What a magnificent conflagration this would make !
and then, perhaps, you might have the satisfaction of
bunting out a brace of lions !" Without more ado, I
whipped out a box of matches, and struck fire in one of the
thickest tufts.
The effect was instantaneous, and so was my repentance.
There was a crack and a crash, like the explosion of
powder, and a sheet of red flame leaped into the air. In a
few seconds it had spread to a broad swath of fire, rolling
rapidly before the wind, and leaving the earth behind it as
bare as the palm of my hand. The rank grass roared and
snapped as the terrible, power I had so thoughtlessly
awakened licked it away ; and not the grass alone. It seized
on the vines and tore them down, swung itself by them into
the boughs of the trees, and found richer aliment in their
gumsiand juices. It spread on both sides and against the
wind, and soon the long spires of scarlet flame, twisting in
the air, rose high and hot above the dome like tops of the
mimosa forests. Before we left the place, the volumes of
smoke reached nearly to the other side of the Nile. As I
heard its relentless feet trampling down the thickets, I
tormented myself with pictures of the evil which I had
perhaps originated. I fancied it spreading from day to
day, lapping the woods in coils of flame and flinging their
burning boughs front island to island, till, of all the glory
of vegetation which had filled me with such rapture, there
was nothing but a few charred trunks standing in beds of
ashes. I saw the natives with their flocks and herds flying
before it, the wild beasts leaping into the flood for refuge '
from its red fangs, and all that glorious region given up to
terror and desolation. As we moved slowly away, against
the wind, I watched its progress with a troubled conscience
and an anxious heart. Now it paused, and I flattered my-
self that there was the end, but the next moment the black
clouds rolled up denser than ever. Thus it wavered for
some time, but at last, thank God ! it seemed to fade gradu-
ally away, and I gave myself the hope that it had not
extended beyond the jut of land whereon it was kindled.
Our extracts sufficiently indicate the variety
of matter in the volume, which contains much
letterpress for au octavo. The earlier portions
of the work should have been touched with
more brevity, and the effect would be pro
portionately greater if Mr. Taylor had concen-
trated his attention on the novel portions of
his route. Without pretensions to be accepted
as a permanent record of African travelling,
Mr. Taylor's work may be recommended to
book-clubs as light, varied, and readable.

Quebec Chapel Sermons. By Henry Alford, B.D.
London : Rivingtons.
WITHOUT being remarkable for originality of thought
or eloquence of style, these discourses contain sound
expositions of Christian doctrine. Mr. Alford en-
forces weighty truths with plain good sense and scrip-
tural knowledge, but does not let the walls of his
chapel bound his view. He looks out upon the world
and observes its progress, thinking that a preacher is
likely to be more effective as he understands the cha-
racter, wants, and defects of his age. Looking back,
he discerns abundant cause for thankfulness :
" For nearly nine and thirty years has the vast portion.
of the globe which we with our kindred races inhabit been
almost exempt from the horrors of war. For upwards of a
century our own favoured land has never heard the din of
battle. During this period of peace immense progress has
been made in all that cheers and elevates the life of man.
'1,1%. e have powers in daily and ordinary exercise which the
last generation would have accounted fabulous. No similar
space of time can be mentioned in which the progress of
the human race upward has been so rapid and so wonder.
fid. And it would he ungrateful to Him from whom
cometh every good gift to conceal from ourselves that this
progress of invention and physical power has been also
accompanied by a gradual salutary moral change. The
very fact that the manners and language of society in the

THE PRESS.

last century would be no longer tolerated in our own is an
important one for the Christian to dwell on, as marking
the extension, so to speak, of the outworks of the city of
God among men; as showing that the light set on an bill
is shining down deeper, and penetrating the mists of the
underlying valleys. The fact that the heathenish and
absurd practice of revenging an insult by mortal combat
has at length sunk into merited contempt even with
worldly men of sense is a token that the strongholds of
ignorance and pride are beginning to give way among us.
We may trace the same progress in the present popular
estimate of the clergy, as compared with that of the past
century. We rejoice to feel that the characters drawn in
the works of fiction uf those days would no longer find
their types among the ministers of religion in our own ;
and this mainly, to say nothing of the increase of true reit.
gion among the clergy themselves, because the strong
power of public opinion will not now permit a minister of
Christ to be an unbeliever and a libertine, but expects of
him that he should be faithful, sober, and diligent, pains-
taking among his flock and in his pulpit. What can be a
better or more satisfactory sign that our moral tone has
improved than this coercion brought to bear from without,
in accordance with scripture and with truth, on those to
whom is committed the charge of souls ?"
This is the bright side of the picture. The work left
undone supplies matter for reproach
" It cannot be denied that we have not succeeded in
solving the problem of educating our people soundly and
successfully. Nay, perhaps. after all that we have done,
we are as far from the solution of it as ever. Anti it is, in-
deed, an urgent and practical question for every intelligent
English Christian to put to himself, how he may best aid,
or suggest, endeavours to raise the spiritual and mental
standard of his fellow-countrymen—how he may make
them worthy of the rights which God's providence
has put into their hands The Church of
the nation should grow with the nation. How do we stand
in this respect? All the exertions which have been made
in this metropolis is building churches and providing
clergy have fallen very far short of the actual increase of
population since those exertions begun ; su that not only
are we now no better of than in the year '3l, but we are
literally worse provided than tor were then with spiritual
instruction for the musses of immortal beings whom our
wants and our luxuries are accumulanny around 141. Here
is a cause for humiliation, and a soletntt'call to active exer-
tion, to which I hope many who hear me will be prepared
to respond, by contribution and influence, when the time of
appeal shall come."
One of the sermons which has pleased us most i •
that on Faith, Hope, and Charity. He believes
there will be ample room for the exercise of all tin...!
in a future state of being, and supposes that Prior,
in his beautiful lines, has not seized the true mean-
ing of St. Paul's words :
When constant Faith and holy Trope shall die,
tine lost in certainty, and one in joy,
Then thou, more happy power, fair Charity,
Triumphant sister, greatest of the Three,
Thine office and thy nature still the same,
Lasting thy lamp, and unconsumed thy flame,
Shall stand before the host of heaven contest,
For ever blessing, and for ever blest.
The apostle, Mr. Alford argues, draws a distinction
between the things which pass away and the things
which remain, and asserts that faith, hope, and love
abide for ever in the future state of glory—love being
the greatest. The working out of this idea furnishes
some of the most striking passages in this modest
and judicious volume.

The Fall of the Crimea. By Captain Spencer.
London : Routledge and Co.
THE publishers of this volume evinced more judg-
ment than the author. They required him to write
a history of the conquest of the Crimea by the Ras-
sians—ti book which, if composed with competent
knowledge, would be well received just now. But,
with strange perversion of taste, Captain Spencer,
instead of the authentic narrative required, issues
his old romance of " The Prophet of the Caucasus "
under the new title—a catchpenny device—of "The
Fall of the Crimea." "We endeavour," he says, "to
" blend amusement with instruction, by engrafting
" the creations of our fancy on the great truths of
" history." A wonderfully good opinion must he
have of the creations of his fancy if he supposes that
the great truths of history will not go down without
them. The reading world of the present day has
got rid of the captain's notion that history must
needs be flavourless unless spiced with fiction. The
style of romance which jumbles together fact and
fable, hoping to recommend the one by a plentiful
infusion of the other, has gone out of date. In both
we require truth ; but in fiction truth with imagina-
tion ; in history truth with fact. The simple read-
ers (if any are so simple) who take their notions of
history from such romance as this must be sorely
puzzled what to believe. Did Suvarof tear a shred
from the yashmack of a Circassian beauty whom he
met in an araba; and was he, by an exchange of
vashmacks, all but married to a hideous old Calmuc
in consequence? If this is pure invention, who is to
know how much of what relates to Potemkin and
Mansour is fact? The success which the author as-
serts his " Prophet of the Caucasus " had, might have
justified its reissue, but it was exceedingly ill-judged
to publish it as a genuine history of the fall of the
Crimea, to which it bears about as much relation as

907

"lienilworth " does (we beg Scott's pardon for the
comparison) to a history• of the reign of Elizabeth.

The Yearly Jour►uil of Trade for 1854 5. By

Charles Pope.
TWENTY-FOUR years' experience has enabled Mr. Pope
to greatly enlarge the design and improve the details
of this compact yet comprehensive volume. It now
presents a complete view of the progress of trade iu
all parts of the world, with the latest treaties,
tariffs, amount of imports and exports, and informa-
tion of all kinds which can aid the judgment and
facilitate the dealings of commercial men in their
ordinary transactions. The changes made in the se•
veral departments of our mercantile law during the
past year, with the decisions of law courts on special
cases, and the general regulations issued by Govern-
ment boards, are stated with all requisite accuracy
and completeness. The effect of the war on our
commercial interests, with the various orders in
council and declarations of Government, are duly
explained and recorded. The immense amount of
detail included in this Journal, indeed, makes it
valuable to the statist as well as to the merchant ;
and from the care taken to verify facts it is entitled
to be held as an excellent authority on all the sub-
jects it treats of. A good index supplies ready means
of reference to all matters contained in the book.

Modern Flirtations; or, a Month at; llarrowgate.
By Catherine Sinclair. London : Clarke, Berton,
and Co.
THIS fiction turns on the history of a male flirt.
The hero is a De Crespugny, heir presumptive to a
marquisate, and cornet of dragoons ; the heroines
are a number of young ladies with small waists and
blonde complexions. The story itself would scarely
require notice from us but for the horrors that are
perpetually being served up. At one page we have
the frightful and mysterious murder of a lovely un-
known, who is discovered in " her superbly-furnished
" boudoir," with "magnificent couch, rich coverlet,
" deluged in blood," &c., ti:c.; in others we have the
sudden and startling appearances of a wild maniac,
who breaks through bedroom windows at the dead of
night, or hides himself in the bed curtains, always
carrying a brace of loaded pistols, and ever about to
murder his victim, when " footsteps are heard, and
" with a wild and revengeful glance " he becomes
invisible. Attempts at midnight assassination,
poisoning of rivals with arsenical custard-puddings,
and finally a revengeful murder for the lost hbnour
of a seduced sister,—are occurrences treated by
the dramatis persona' as if they were the common
events of a month at Harrowgate in the present day.

Descriptive Sketch of the Windows of St. Neots
Church. By the Rev. Henry Grylls. London
and Oxford : John Henry Parker.
THE sixteen painted windows of St. Neots Church,
near Liskeard, Cornwall, have long formed a sub-
ject for dispute among antiquarians; many ascribing
them to a period as early as A.D. 1199, and as many
denying an earlier date than A.D. 100, to their con-
struction. The rev. author of this " Descriptive
Sketch " is of opinion that the different styles of
various portions of the windows mark different
periods of execution ; and that, probably, while the
earlier subjects were painted about the end of the
twelfth century, certain portions belong as un-
doubtedly to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Civil war and the Reformation did their work of de •
struction even in the far corners of Cornwall, and by
degrees neglect and spoliation utterly defaced this
flue work of mediaeval art. At length, after near
300 years of decay, the church and windows were
fully restored in 1825, at an immense expense, by
the liberal patron of the living ; and in the present
day St. Neots Church stands forth in all its pristine
beauty. The painted windows, unsurpassed in anti-
quarian beauty and uniformity of design, have been
fully restored upon their original outlines and in
their various subjects. Each window, representing a
different legend in many compartments, presents an
interesting and perfect specimen of Gothic art.

Early Musings. By Amelia Bewsher. London :
Hope and Co.
IT would have been better to have entitled this
volume " Early Rhymings." There are scarcely any
trace of "musing " in its pages, possibly from the
fact of the very " early " period of life when ate
verses were composed. Scattered through theme
occasional pieces are many proofs that the wnter hay.
a gentle and affectionate nature ; hut a genial ploy of
pure womanly feeling is not enough for one who
aspires to poetry. Using only the simplest forms of
versification, Miss Bewsher too often neFtlecte the
most common laws of harmony and metre. Verses
must not merely scan and rhyme, they must also
flow ; and the fair authoress often gives us such