The Press.
London, England, 1857-08-22 00:00:00

828

pared with either of the above mentioned
works ; but the writer catches up the tone of
middle-class society and draws its weaknesses
and its virtues, its open follies and secret
sorrows, with a light and easy pen. She has
some sense of humour, some pathos, and con-
siderable pictorial skill.
Mr. Waterton's " Essays on Natural
History" (5) form a quaint and amusing little
volume. The author has the contempt of a
practical observer for all bookish pedantry,
and evidently takes delight in all old-lashioned
ways and things. So far indeed does he carry
this disposition, that, if we are to believe him
serious, he is still in politics a genuine Jaco-
bite, as he is in religion a sincere Roman
Catholic. His allusions to " Charley," to
" Hanover rats," and " starving Guelphs
" fattening on the fertile plains ot• England,"
are worthy of the October Club; and we fancy
he must sometimes examine himself in the
glass, as the unique relic of a bygone age, with
as much curiosity as he finds himself investi-
gating antediluvian skeletons. His book con-
tains some very readable and indeed remark-
able chapters upon various sorts of animals—
monkeys, foxes, dogs, snakes, and pigeons,
forming his chief subjects ; and all are treated
with a queer, kindly humour, which, if not of
the highest order, is certainly quite original.
His principal delight is in contradicting the
learned writers on these subjects. But we
must say his assertions, whether true or false,
are scantily supported by facts. His style is
singularly desultory ; ho constantly seems to
break off in the middle of his stories, and he
frequently alludes to others of startling in-
terest which he never tells us.
The treatise upon " The Remarks on
" the Differences in Shakespeare's Versifica-
tion " (6) is a natural consequence of the
works of Collier and Halliwell, and a credit-
able addition to our Shakespearian literature.
It may seem strange that, with all that has
been written on Shakespeare, so little should
be known about him ; and that, if he had but
lived a hundred years earlier, he would have
been as unintelligible as Homer to the crit;cs
of the penny press—great and mysterious,
but never likely to be popular. The author of
this treatise examines Shakespeare's first,
second, and third styles in the same vein as
that in which Kugler and Dr. Waagen
die-
' course on Raphael's Umbrian, Florentine, and
Roman manner. He aims at proving that the
dramatist wrote during his youth in a smoother
strain than in his later life ; that the lines of
his youth are less frequently broken, and run
less interruptedly, than those of his later life ;
that he was more careful in versification, and
avoided the use of double endings and of weak
monosyllabic terminations (such as if or and)
in youth, but fell into the opposite extreme in
later life. To the Shakespearian student this
examination will be of great value, and the
treatise may be commended for its careful
working out of the arguments proposed and
the aptness of its parallel passages. More
than this—the shreds of criticisms on the
plays and their philosophy are often original
and valuable, being couched in sober language,
and avoiding those tenth-rate Germaniams
which beset Shakespeare's emotional com-
mentators.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED—AvousT 20.
BOONS.

The Young Bride. 3 vole. -By Mrs. Briscoe.
Hurst and Blackett.
Our Indian Army. By Captain Rafter. D. Bryce.
Sir Tears in India. By Colonel Mackenzie. Bentley.
Roughing it in the Bush. By S. Moodie. Bentley.
Panne. By George Meredith. Smith and Elder.
City Poems. By Alexander Smith. Macmillan and Co.
Nearer and Dearer. IL Beatley.