The Press.
London, England, 1858-07-03 00:00:00

THE PRESS, JULY 3, 1858.

Academy. Long after, this picture received high
praise at the hands of Mr. Ruskin, as one which
had given him a high opinion of Mr. Seddon's
genius.
That autumn he made a sketching tour in
Wales; but the year following we find him at
Dinan in Brittany, where a part of his family
resided. Here he worked hard at landscape :

He would stoutly maintain that it. was far bitter to
secure but two or three good studies during the usual slay
which each artist was able to inako, than to confine their
practice, as was usual, to mere sketching. Instead of the
single day which they usually devoted to an important
scene and a large canvas, in his opinion weeks would hardly
suffice; and he would applaud, in spite of the decision of
the majority, the heroic resolution of an amateur Nho de.
Oared that he would give himself three weeks' herd work to
endeavour to draw one single branch of a tree properly.

Mr. Holman Bunt in 1853 made preparations for
an art-expedition into the East, and in company
with that distinguished artist, his friend Seddon,
in the winter of the same year, sailed for Alex-
andria. With his visit to Egypt Seddon's proper
art-career begins, and upon the quick, laborious
experiences and merited success of the three years
which intervened from that date to his death in
1856 the main interest of the memoir turns. It
is almost entirely autobiographical: through a
series of letters charming for their characteristic
truth and simplicity no less than their picturesque
vigour and detail we follow Seddon in all his
Oriental impressions, note the dull hue and colour
of the streets of Cairo, the artistic men and beasts
and buildings, the strange jargon, the spirited
donkeys, the handsome camels, the delirious
jugglers and snake-tamers, and having disguised
ourselves in a temporary turban of crimson and
gold, having donned a coloured kooftan, having
stuck a yataghan into our belt, and unfurled a
violet umbrella, so as to pass " for an average
Mussulman," we begin to come to terms with
camels and Arabs, and make studies of white
tombs and hedges of fine cactus, and ropemakers
in blue gowns and white turbans, and think of
sketching the town, with its domes and minarets,
a little before sunset, "when the rosy light is on
it and the mountain range, and the exceedingly
blue shadows give a beautiful effect."
It is impossible to read many pages of this
work without being struck with Seddon's
strenuous conscientiousness. Beauty and good-
ness and truth are with him endeared realities;
and the pursuit of them does not narrow his
heart or sour his temper, is not the gratification
of a voluptuous instinct, but what it ought to be
—a Divine duty and labour. A young man who
could from an art more than all others engrossing
spare time enough to form an evening drawing-
school for working men, was not likely in any
part of the world to want occasion for the exer-
cise of his kindly nature. Out of many passages
there is one which is remarkably indicative of his
gentleness of character. " Some think," he says,
and show they think, all Arabs thieves, and as they
repose no confidence, they are treated as fair
game. But during a year which I spent in an
open tent at the Pyramids and at Jerusalem
nothing ever was stolen from me, and several
things I had lost were brought back, nor had I
ever an unpleasant word with an Arab." In the
whole range of biography we know not a more
touching story than the circumstances under
which the " Sunset from the Pyramids" was
painted. All who remember that remarkable
picture, with its delicious hush and glory, its
vivid violet barred with gold, the two feathery
palms black towards the sky-line, and the shadow
of that funereal pyramid inverted in that won-
derful pool of water, must fill up their recollec-
tion of the picture with the figure of the artist,
who had pitched his tent there in the desert to
be near a poor dying fellow-countryman. " As
could not," as he touchingly says, " bear to let
him die alone, with none but an Arab servant, I
have begun a sunset view of the Pyramids, in
order to be on the spot and keep him company."
With the exception of the account of Severn
watching by the bed of Keats, and working hard
that his friend might have every necessary com-
fort, we cannot recall in any human biography
so loving, so disinterested a circumstance as this
of Seddon watching and comforting the last hours
of one who had no other claims upon him than
those of country and religion.
Mr. Holman Hunt was in this good company,
and their life among the tombs is exceedingly pic-
turesque. Poor Nicholson is " a nice quiet man, so
patient and uncomplaining," and the artist reads

633

to him the hymns and books he likes best, and as
he received " the service of his last breath " and
followed him to his grave in the English burial-
ground, had a foreshadowing of similar kind
offices that in two years would be performed
over himself: Seddon's letters are still dated
from the Pyramids. Mr. Lear has made his ap-
pearance in a remarkable costwne—in a straw
hat, with a brim as large as a cart-wheel, with a
white calico cover, and in consequence the
natives of the hills have conferred upon him an
appellation signifying "the father of the white
turban like a table." Mr. Holman Hunt, we
learn, has been prevented from painting a picture
of Jacob in the Wilderness in consequence of the
discovery he has made that the patriarch was a
middle-aged man of forty when he quitted his
father's house. A scene at the palace of Abbas
Pasha and a voyage up the Nile arc graphically
described. And here is a marriage procession at
Damietta :

While taking a walk one afternoon near the lake, we
went through a most lovely wood, j•tst like an English one,
with long grass and flowers, and orange and pomegranate
trees, covered with their crimson blossoms, among the
underwood. But the oddest thing we saw was a proces-ion
through the streets, conveying the property and dowry of a
bride to her husband's house. First came women, canning
jewels and a set a coffee things, treys, jugs, pots, sauccpa ns,
etc.—no one canying more than one thing, in order to
make a great show. Then, men and boys, carving two or
three ottomans, cushion by cushion ; a huge box, painted
bright green, large enough to hold the young couple, upon
a man's back, followed by several small boxes, carpets,
rugs, and mats; and the procession finished with blankets
anti feather-beds.
From Damietta the travellers go by sea to Jaffa,
and are interested in the room said to be St.
Peter's, when at the house of the tanner:—
You enter a room, to the lett of which is a doorway
leading into • square vaulted chamber, with a window
looking over the sea. the first chamber there is a win-
dow oti the left, shaded by a fig-tree, throutdi the leaves of
which you see the sea. The tbor oppnsite the entrance leads
into a court, in which is a water-wheel, with a large trough
by the side, and s fig-tree overshadowing it in front. To
the right is a thick wall, with old embrasures for cannon,
and to the leit a heautitul riew along the shore, with a few
fist-topped houses, anti the town wall, of great •atiquity
t probably Roman ), immediately beyond. The view,
looking along the line of cliff's, ie the seine that Peter gazed
on ; if I can spare a fortnight on my return I will paint it,
as I think that it would be generally interesting. The
country outside the town is a most luxuriant garden, a
mass of orange and lemon trees, pomegranates covered
with their erirnsm blossoms, and dark green mulberry cud
fig trees, with white and grey country-house; lying hurled
in the fo'isge; and near them are water-wheels, gent-rally
shadowed by large sycamore trees, with a few palms rising
here and there out of the bright green masses below. The
walks among the Rand• ns are little lanes bordered by broad
and large cactus hedges, on raised banks, tangled with long
grass and flowers, with bright red poppi•s and purple
thistles, and many other tall nmbeliiferous plants, as in
England. Here and there were huge fig•sycamnres, with
vines fantastically climbing to their topmost branches, and
in other places hanging down in long wreaths swinging in
the ninth, till their ends trailed upon the ground. When
we looked kick from the top of any height, we saw the
white town of Jaffa on a hill, crowning this glorious garden
of richly-varied green, backed by the blue sea, which
ended in a deep bay on the right, bedded iu the bosom of
the golden sand.

The pure blue sky, the light grey limestone
hills, with lines of yellow running along them
from the dry parched herbage, and, when the
sun is high, really "purple olivet," are all hap-
pily touched on. The first sight and associations
of Jerusalem affected him to tears. Here is a
scene at " Siloas fount" :

Defare daybreak the vacal performances of th• donkeys
and the bleating show that a move is going to t Ike place,
and socn small cloud.% of black goats and sheep issue front
the little rocky village of Siloam, and spread over the
mountain side, amid the shouts of the Arabs driving or
leading them to pasture. In about half an hour troops of
donkeys gorge galloping madly down the steep road, with
mea and urging them on to Joub'a well, and soon
return, now slowly climbing up tt Jerusalem with water
for the inhabitants to drink. Poor donkeys! they and their
drivers have a hard life; they gallop madly down hill, and
creep up with their heavy water-skies till sunsej.. The
spring of Siloam is intermittent, so the time when the
water flows varies ; but when it does, the .'reams of the
women aii.l shouts of :he men, all quarrellin ;, and trying
etch to get as much as he or she Call for hoe own garden,
quite dro•,vn the plashing of the little cascades of water,
leaping horn terrace to terrace, and running along the little
channels, and so distributing itself all over. When the
headman thinks that one division has had a sufficient
share, he has that chant.el stopped, and then every man,
woman, and child belonging to these gardens bursts into a
scream of indignant remonstrance at the injustice of giving
them an little ; nn tine ever allows that they have had a
fair share themselves. In the middle of the day all the
flocks are driven in water, and then they remain on the
mountain aides till after the sun goes down. Yon see them
returning in long strings, generally with a shepherd in
front anti one behind, and the sheep and black goats fol.

A

634

lowing in a lung line, one by one. The Syrian sheep have
very pecnlisr Oils, hanging loose from the middle of a great
round cushion of fat. It is very interesting to see the
sheep all going after the shepherd. as of old, though T fear
that, from the big atones thrown occasionally ett a straggler,
some of them are hirelings. The good shepherd now en-

eouragra his flock by talking to them, " ow, aow, auw,aow,
kik, kik, kik, kik, kik, tehe, tchi, wehke, weehke, chke,
iz, uzz, iz, sz, lz, sz, Natl, sshh, sshh, ashh, ow, ow, ow,"
end so on. I copied it down verbatim, so it is quite cor-
rect. The " weehke "is a deep, deep. deep guttural, pro
:minced rather below the pit of the stomach.

Subsequent letter tell of success and fortune,
Academic envy and selfishness, a secold return to
Egypt, and the close of a lice tbr the world, and
the hopes of his friends, only too short. lie
arrived in Cairo pale and thin on the 3rd of
November, and in three weeks sunk and died.
" The Sunset in the Pyramids" and these Letters
of his will keep in good remembrance.

One-and-Twenty. By the Author of " Wild-
flower." Three Vols. London : Hurst and
Blackett.

THOUGH these volumes will not give their author
any claim to rank among the Dii Majores of
contemporary fiction, yet, like his previous works,
they have a certain originality, which raises them
above the common standard of the circulating-
library. They are in some degree an instance of
what Mr. Stephen in his essay " On the Relation
of Novels to Life" pointed out as seldom attained
by novelists—a story the interest of which turns,
not on the exceptional experiences, but on the
every-day life of the hero, and the vicissitudes of
which grow naturally out of the course of his
ordinary occupations. Quitting the beaten tracks
of fashionable or merely domestic life, he has
founded his tale on the struggles, successes, and
reverses of a City business; and here also, avoid-
ing the temptation of employing for his ma-
chinery the Merdle aspect of commercial affairs
which novelists, following in the wake of " Little
Dorrit," have begun to use rather too freely, he
has endeavoured to depict the manner in which
such pursuits, honestly followed, affect the mind
and character. The business in question is that
of a corn-factor, and the scenes in which the actors
move are new enough to the general reader to im-
part a good deal offreshnesa to the book. A more
romantic thread than that connected with Mark-
lane is not, indeed, wanting,—affected, how-
ever, as such threads are wont to be, by objec-
tions on the score of probability. iVe are
inclined to disbelieve in the placability of the
hero towards the principal villain ; nor is the
character of the latter, even supposing such
diabolical malignity enough for the pur-
poses of fiction, one to whose due development
the author's powers are entirely adequate. The
story is told in the first person—a method the
conveniences of which hardly compensate for
its obvious disadvantages ; and the conversations
have, perhaps for this reason, a certain air of
unreality and weakness which renders the execu-
tion of the book unequal to its conception.
however, the style of people and manners de-
scribed are distinct in one's memory, and, as
we have said, uncommon ; and the plot shows
sufficient ingenuity to render it doubtful whether
the clCnouement is to turn upon the attainment
of material happiness or in( ral wellbeing. On
the whole, therefore, " One-and-Twenty may
be pronounced interesting, and is certainly an
advance upon the author's previous works.

PUBLTCATIONS RECEIVED.-JUNE 24.
BOOKS.

Tho Oricast and the Poor of London. Rev. F. Meyrick,
MA. Rivingtons

A Short Account of the Ancient British Church. Sir Oswald
Morley. Ridgway
The Scholar and the Trooper; or, Oxford During the Great
Rebellion. Rev. W. E. Heygate, M.A.
J. H. and J. Parker
The Facts and Fallacies of the Sabbath Question. H. Fulton
J. Chapman

The Court of Exchequer and the County Courts. Stevens
—Homely Rhymes.

PERIODIChf..

Fraser's Magazine. J. W. Pal ker—The Bombay Quar-
terly Review. Smith'and Elder—Le Folk!. Simpkin and
Marshall—Blackeroetro Magazine. Blackwood—Bentley's
Miscellany. Bentley—The Englishwoman', Animal.
Piper—Daresport Daunt. Chapman and ll•lll—Celbara 'a
New Monthly. Ditto—The National Rerieer. Ditto—
Titian. G roombri.lge—D 14 Dian l'Hirersity. Htir.t. anal
Bleekett—The London Review. Heylin—Art Journal.
Virtue anal Hall—Weatninaiter Review. J. Chapman—The
Matto Bag. Oakey.

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