The Press.
London, England, 1858-02-20 00:00:00

THE PRESS, FEBRUARY 20, 1858.

am3unt of twaddle. In fact the authoress has the
power, which is much less common than is desirable,
of wr►ting conversation which reads naturally and
easily, and which might really be supposed to have
taken place. Whether this is the result of careful
elaboration, or simply of feminine tact and ladylike
education, we do not know, but the result is ex-
tremely pleasing, and would probably render the
volumes of the authoress popular evon without her
other merits. The story of " Uncle Itilpti " moves
through too great a succession of small incidents for
short analysis, but when we say that it is a love
story of which the conclusion is not perfectly ob-
vious, and that the scenes belong to domestic upper
middle•class life, we shall convey a sufficient idea of
its character.

3. "Dawn and Twilight" is one of those books
which from its external appearance, '0 general tone,
and the mixture of religion and aristocratic society
which pervades it, we are apt to associate with the
influence of Miss Yonga. It belongs to a class of
which for our own part we think there is now quite a
sufficient supply; though such works enjoy, we
believe, an extensive circulation, and are widely read
by persons similar to those whose fortunes they
record. These volumes describe the career of Con-
stance Montrevor, a beautiful, wellborn, accom-
plished, and in every way good and charming young
lady. Constance grows up in the country, in the
society of her widowed father, her uncle who has the
family living, and her two cousins, his sons Percy
and Eustace. The latter is in love with her, and
appears to have a very good chance of success,—if
the authoress would only allow him to try, which she
does not, partly because it would bring the story to
an end in no time, partly because Eustace is of that
much-enduring type which young lady authoresses
choose for working up into model clergymen. The
marriage of fist cousins is certainly not desirable,
and if Eustace's presumptuous hopes had been
nipped on physiological grounds, we should have had
nothing to say. But, when he sounds his father on
the subject, " his answer was given even more folly
"and decidedly than Eustace's question demanded,
" and it made him clearly see that both to his father
" and uncle any attempt on his part to win his
" cousin's affections would cause great sorrow and
"discomfort." We are not further enlightened as to
the objection, which seems purely arbitrary, and
would, we are persuaded, have bad no operation in
real life. Meantime the lady goes on through her
first season "in msliden meditation, fancy free," but
is at length fascinated by the attractions of Mr. Clif-
ford, a senti-Byronic hero, about whom there is
an occasional gloom which we feel bodes no good.
When Constance makes the acquaintance of a young
lady who is dying of consumption from having been
jilted by a perfidious lover, the reader will be pre.
pared—which Constance of course is not—for the
announcement that Mr. Clifford is the culprit. After
watching the deathbed of the victim of his incon•
stancy, she cannot very well marry him, but will have
no one else, and on her father's death devotes her
large fortune to establishing a sort of religious hos-
pital in the manufacturing town where her chief
property lies. Here, one day, a railway accident
occurs, and among the casualties is Mr. Clifford, who
having in his travels met with Eustace, has been
converted by him, and lives long enough to leave
Constance with an entirely satishictory impression of
his spiritual state. The story is throughout amiable
and well-principled, and the denouement of Mr. Clif-
ford's mystery is described with a good deal of power.
The conversations are natural, if occasionally trivial,
and the characters very fairly discriminated. By
those who affect this class of books, " Dawn and
Twilight" will doubtless be found an agreeable
story.

British Almanac and Companion for IS3B. Lon-

don : Knight and Co.
THIS excellent volume is so well established in
public opinion that its thirtydrirat number needs tio
praise of ours to commend it to popular notice. We
need only state that the high character of its useful-
ness is fully maintained in the present issue. Some
of the best articles which have been written udon the
subjects are to be found here upon "The Manchester
Exhibition,"—" The Leviathan' " " The Atlantic
Telegraph,"—" The Educational Conferonce,"—" The
Purchase of Commissions," Sze.; while an excellent
chronological account of the connection between
England and India gives an especial value to the
current number. From the article upon the Levia-
than we extract the following description of the hotel
departments :

The hotel departments are limited to the upper half of
the ship, and to the centre rather than to the two ends; all
below is a mystery, not to he solved by the passengers. In
these lower regions the compartments are subdivided and
strengthened by iron walls, longitudinal and transversal,
horizontal and vertical, so as to adapt the vast interior to
the reception of engines, boilers, furnaces, steam-pipes,
smoke-funnels, working-tunnels, coals, water, and cargo. . . .
The two longitudinal iron walls, about thirty-biz feet
asunder, divide each of the five central compartments into

three, one adjacent to each side of the ship, and one in th centre ; they have square openings fur doors and wiudow:
communicating from the saloons in the centre of the ship
to the sleeping-cabins at the side. The saloons are in two
ranges, one over another, each nearly fourteen feet high,
and most of them sixty feet in length by thiriy-si-in
breadth. As all the saloons and berths in each comport.
ment have doors of communication, each is devoted ex.
elusively to first, second, or third class passengers, as the
case may Le. Thus this matchless ship will contain five
or six hotels, each not only secluded from all the others,
but adapted in all its parts for a particular class of voyagers.
It may perchance be consistent with the plans of the Com.
puny that even third-class passengers will experience an
amount of comfort rarely obtained on shipboard; but, Le
this as it tiny, all the requirements of class-exclusiveness
will be Provided fur those having the will and the means to
pay for it. The height of the " tween decks" will be a
boon such as sea-passengers have never had before. What
the commercial arrangements will finally be perhaps no
one at present fully knows; but so far as the slip is con-
cerned, there are ample means for accommodating 4,100.
human beirgs—viz. 800 first-class passengers, 2,0./0 second-
class, 1;201 third-class, and 400 crew. The crew will be
pretty equally divided into three equal bodies; one-third
engineering, one-third sailing, and one-third domestic.
The command of this mighty host is intrusted to Captain
Harrison, who has been for so many years connected with
the Cunard line ; and his staff will consist of twelve offi-
cers in addition to the chief, sixteen engineers, a sailing.
master, purser, two or more surgeons, &c. &c. It is, of
course, only the saloons or general rooms of assemblage
that have so remarkable a height as 13 or 14 feet; but even
the aleeping.cabitie have ( the better class of them) a
height of 7k feet, with 14 feet of length and 11 of breadth.
These berths are ranged in veritable streets and squares,
right and left of the various saloons; theme are long corri-
dors, out of which short passages branch ; and each of
these passages gives access to four cabins, with all the
conveniences that can add to the comfort of the passengers.
There are 500 side lights or windows in the upper part of
the hull of the ship, each consisting of a circular piece of
very thick plate glass, from 8 to 14 inches in diameter,
nicely wedged into a circular brass rim, and this rim held
in a cast-iron frame. When the passengers emerge from
their cabins and saloons, and ascend to the deck, a superb
promenade is befive them ; the upper deck is more than
an eighth of a mile in length, flash from end to end, ex-
cept skylights, staircases, and ventilating openings. These
ventilating openings are square vertical shafts, carrying
fresh air and light to the boiler.-rooms far down in the
bowels of the monster ship. So vast a:e the arrangements,
that there are even staircases in the paddle-boxes, to give
passage for domestics without walking the decks. That
gas for lighting the ship will be made on board ; that
electric telegraphs will be employed to communicate
signals from the captain to Lis subordinates far ahead or
astern, or far down in the depths of the monster; tnat
electric lights will be hoisted at maintop as night-signals
on the ocean ; that compasses are to be hoisted high aloft,
out of the way of the attraction of the iron of the ship—
these are among the on &Is of the Great Eastern; and it
will be safer to treat them, at present, ouly as such.

The writer anticipates a mighty future for the great
ship, not in short passages and moderate trade, but
in long voyages :
When, under the best appointments, and by the costly
Suez route, a voyage is male to Australia in fifty days, the
achievement is jaistly regarded as creditable to the
companies concerned ; but if the Great Eastern should ac-
complish the distance in forty days or less, and if cheap
fires and cheap freight should result from the large amount
of passengers and goods taken, then there will be every
kind of saving effected at once—time, money, provisions ;
and, we may perhaps add, the dread of sea-sickness, and
the physical and mental exhaustion attendant on a long
ocean voyage. Thera is talk of a trial trip to America; tins
may be, but we must look further for the real glories of
the Great Eastern. A ship that could take out guests
enough to people a small town, goods enough to supply all
the shops in that town, and co sls enough to serve the
town with fuel foi three or tour years—ought to have a
mighty future before it.

The usual abstracts of parliamentary documents,
chronicle of events, and descriptions of public im-
provements, are given with great accuracy, and
testify as usual to the singular ability displayed in.
the compilation of this must excellent volume of
reference.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.-FEDIWARY 18.
BOOKS.

A Narrative of the Missionary sent by the Governor
General of India to the Court of Ava in 1t4:51.
Captain Henry Yule. Smith and Elder.
The Descendants of the Stuarts. By William Townsend.
Lng.nand Co
The Poetical Tros of Henry Durand. all) n
thea liev .
ac
A. 'Bonifield. W Lay.
- - . By J. 1'

Select Odes of Horace in English Lyrics. .IYti•
black. Smith and Elder.
Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron. BY
E J. Treliveny.
Rational Philosophy in History and in System.
Constable and Co.
The Galley Slave and His Daughter. By Mrs. 11.
Thompson. Maddou and Oldham.

PAMPHLETS.
Mind and Body. Brown and Co—Scenes from the late
Indian Mutiny. Moody—A Few Hints to Cottage
Brides. Ditto—Remarks on the Rapid Tranionbmion of
Troops to India. E. Stanford—A Description of the
Building at South Kensington. Chapman and HAI--
Truth out of Place. By William be Burgh, DI).
Hamilton and Co—Poor Rates. A Simple Irish Tale.
Maddon and Co—The Cherubim. A Tale by the Rev.
W. Dalin. Ditto.