The Press.
London, England, 1856-11-08 00:00:00

PERIODICAL LITERATURE.

THIS month we have an average number of Black-
wood, containing as usual one or two articles of first-
class merit. The opening essay on Mr. Ruskin is
one to be read over many times, and considered
deeply. The backbone of the article is the question
of the identity or diverseness of truth and beauty.
Mr. Ruskin is thought by the reviewer to have as-
serted the latter opinion somewhat too baldly, and he
draws a distinction between what is a truth and what
is a fact with considerable propriety, though he has
not the gift of sufficiently condensing metaphysical
arguments to enable him to do justice to such a
topic within magazine limits. On the whole the
article errs on the side of depreciation, and we
are sorry to see any slight whatever thrown upon this
noble testimony to the true conditions of humanity :
To watch the corn grow and the blossoms set, to draw
hard breath over ploughshare or spade—to read, to think,
to love, to hope, to pray—these are the things that make
men happy ; they have always had the power of doing these,
they never will have power to do more. The world's pro-
sperity and adversity depends upon our knowing and
teaching these few things : but upon iron, or glass, or elec-
tricity, or steam, in no wise.
Another excellent article is one entitled " Scandi-
navia," ostensibly a review of the last new books on
these countries, but containing some admirable ob
serrations on the importance to England of cultiva-
ting friendly relations with her old Norse kinsmen.
We quote the following passage as being so strongly
in favour of that constitutional policy we have our-
selves advocated so constantly, and indeed couched
in almost the very same words :

SATURDAY,

There there is no Jesuit or Republican party, embarras
sing the efforts of true patriotism to realise constitutional
governme ; there there is no antagonism between the
Crown and the people, but they associate on a footing of
easy friendship, not without undemonstrative love, like
married folk who thoroughly understand one another.
Respect for the gradations of ranks is there combined with the
most perfect personal freedom. Equality is sacrificed to
liberty, a sensible people being fully aware that they cannot
coexist ; and there arc stronger feelings of regard towaras
England in these States than elsewhere, because the insti-
tutions of England, which have solved to a great extent a
most difficult political problem, are not a standing reproach
and a perpetual satire on their own, but on the contrary
keep them in countenance, and lend them a never-failing
moral support.

The two continuations, " The Athelings " and
" The Scot Abroad " are both good. In" Table talk
at Baden Baden," not otherwise a remarkable article,
there is a good song of the Mathews school, with some
easy and dextrous rhymes.
Fraser this month is what many readers will, we
dare say, call insipid ; that is to say, it has no article
which, either by its rollicking fun or telling argument
or striking arrangement of facts, is such as to leave a
permanent impression on the mind. At the same
time, the whole number is a very pleasant one.
" Glasgow down the Water " and " Sketches on the
North Coast" are both most agreeable and readable
productions. The "Journal of a Tour in the Crimea,"
and the review of Mr. Mansfield's " Paraguay, Brazil,
and the Plate," are sound and useful papers, espe-
cially the last mentioned. " Meg of Elibank "is a
curious bit of archaism in the shape of an autobio-
graphy of the wide-mouthed damsel of Border noto-
riety. "Ancient Gems" is as interesting as usual.
The Dublin University is strong this month in
political articles. The first, under the title of "How
must Sardinia fight Austria?" suggests that the
former should confine her efforts to a rivalship in the
matter of revenue, and even hints at the great results
to be obtained by a well-arranged system of smug-
gling on the frontier. " Neque to teneo, neque dicta
refello " is all we can say to this. The last article
in the number is a brief but very able and well•
written disquisition upon the prospects of Spain.
" Kidd on Reasoning " is an article upon logic, with
the principle of which we fully agree, but the writer
falls into a grave error in supposing that Aristotle
requires any defence against Sir W. Hamilton, who
is admitted by almost universal consent to have had
the profoundest acquaintance with the Aristotelian
system of any man either living or dead. The Arch-
bishop of Dublin, on the contrary, it is quite noto•
rious has committed several very superficial blunders,
which would, however, have bean of very little
account except for the obstinacy with which he has
persisted in them. Other works reviewed in this
number are Emerson's " English Traits," Ferguson's
" Northmen," and " The Life of Gainsborough.'
From the first•mentioned we select the following
remarks on clever men :

Clever men, good at devices and expedients—good at
means, but unequal to tha intellectual tension demanded
by the investigation of final causes—men of this stamp
of course love to he told that pursuits which would other•
wise proclaim their own inferiority are useless
Briefly, they deny that there ate more things in heaven
and earth than are dreamed of iu their philosophy. Such
men as these are the true ohstructives of society. By dealing
with facts as they arise without condescending to reflect
on their relations to theory, they constantly produce results
which do not work, and which either have to be undone at
a vast cost and waste of time, or are perpetuated as a
burden and a clog to future generations.
Of " The Fortunes of Glencore" we have an excel•
lent instalment.

Of the Eclectic Review considerably more than
half is occupied by two articles, "Studies of Foreign
Literature," and " Goethe." The first is principally
confined to Italian writers. The second is evidently
intended to be an exhaustive essay upon a theme
deferred so late. As far as we can judge, it seems
well written. The notices of books, chiefly theolo-
gical, embrace Mr. Barry's " New Introductinn to
the Old Testament," Mr. Whitehead's " Church and
the People," and a few others of less note.
Of the North British, the article which has most
attracted our attention—we cannot say has most
pleased us—is the review of Mr. Froude's "History."
It bears the marks of substantial ability, and the style
is pure and vigorous ; but we think that both Mr.
Fronde and his critic have set before themselves an
impossible task. What right has any one to derhum
against sophistry who can say with the reviewer that
"it is just as senseless to say that Henry cut off Anne
" Boley-n's head as that Queen Victoria hanged Pal-
" mer"? In another place the reviewer says :
We are not inclined to debate Henry character,
or any other subject, as between Mr. Fronde and an author
of the Obscurantist or pseudo-l:inserrative school. Mr.
Fronde is a Liberal, and so are we. We wish to look at the
question between Mr. Fronde and other Liberals. and
therefore, of course, first between Mr. Fronde and Mr.
Hallam.
Why only mention pseudo-Conservatives' This is a
very cowardly way of writing. Either the criuo
believes in real Conservatives and dare not say so, or

NOVEMBER 8, 1856.

else the use of the prefix "pseudo" is wholly super-
fluous, and merely adopted to throw a sort of mist
round what his views of Conservatism really are. But
the fact is that his true Ginservative is to be found in the
person of Mr. Hallam. Whether the Liberals choose
to confess themselves mistaken in the name or in
the thing, we care nothing ; but, either Mr. Hallam
is not a Liberal, or Liberalism is not what its pro
fessors ordinarily proclaim it to be. Of Wolsey the
reviewer says that be was an " heroical type of man "
and a " noble soul." It is the first time for many a
long day that a debauched priest, howei+r great a
genius, has been thus described in England. Another
very good article in this number is on religious novels,
in which the employment of fiction as a channel for
theological controversy is severely condemned.
Bentley contains a iively and curious article on the
" Newspaper in France." Louis XVIII. was, we learn,
an accomplished newspaper writer, and constant
contributor to the " Yellow Dwarf." The profits of
Dumas from the Parisian journals seem almost
fabulous. "Paris in 1856" is also a very amusing
article. The tale of the month, called " The
Steward's Bargain," is scarcely so spirited as usual.
Part I. of the National Magazine is the first spe-
cimen of a new periodical on the scale of Household
Words, though got up on a different plan. It is well
illustrated, and contains a much greater variety of
matter than that hitherto undisputed chief of the
weekly magazines. It contains tales by some of our
best known novelists, such as Holme Lee and
Wilkie Collins ; little antiquarian sketches by Dr.
Doran; essays, scientific and moral; but no articles
of a purely literary character. It is for the people
themselves to say whether the entertainment is one
suited to their palate. The idea seems to us good,
and the execution, on the whole, praiseworthy. But
all the contributions in every department must be
braced up a little if the magazine is to hold its
ground. We would offer to the conductors two sug-
gestions—one, that a good novel-writer is not neces-
sarily a good tale-writer; the other, that in all such
papers as are genuine essays, a pure English style,
clear and at the same time original argument, and
some evidence of scholarship, are indispensable to
real success. We by no means imply that the
essays in the present number are deficient in these
qualities. But they must be rigidly kept up to ihe
mark, and not be permitted to degenerate into the
slipshod, unconnected string of words which at the
present day too often passes for an essay, and is
praised for its "ease." In the part before us, many
of the engravings are extremely beautiful. The
National Magazine has thus far, we hear, met with
prodigious success.

Punch's Pocket-Book for 1857. London : Bradbury

and Evans.

Ifs. Lescx's remorseless wrath still falls upon the
crinolines and other isolating contrivances of our
womankind, and his coloured plate this year repre-
sents a handsome full-made girl, in her " slip,"
seeking the aid of an inflated petticoat to conceal
her unimpeachable figure ; while another pretty
creature, whose ample toilette is complete, watches
with affectionate interest the proceedings of the
lady's•maid and milliners. Mr. Tenniel, on the
other hand, departing from the modern, embellishes
Mr. Punch's pocket volume with a series of delicate
and piquant little cuts, as headings to the various
departments of the almanac, in which grotesque
humour is refined by a Watteau-like fancy. We
are glad to take this opportunity of remarking
upon the immense advance Mr. Tenniel has made
In the school of humour. His drawing was always
admirable, but some of his recent contributions to
Punch display a boldness and freedom of hand which
hid fair to give him a first place among the caricatu
flats of the country. 'Co return to the little annual
before us, we may observe that its literature has
met) and varied merit, and tl at such a collection of
squibs and fun would excite more attention but for
the periodical itself of which the " Pocket-Book" is
a parasite, and in which so much of the same kind
of writing is found. Mr. Punch himself is the worst
enemy of his children, and we should incline to re-
commend that this annual, instead o° being a kind
of extra volume of Punch, should take different
ground. However, that is the business of its direc-
tors—ours is merely to say that the book is a very
capital investment for the moribund coin called
half-a-crown.

Health and Beauty; or, the Human Body. By
Madame Roxey A. Caplin. London : Darton
and Co.

To those persons who, like ourselves, have a most
unconquerable aversion to the figure of a lady with-
out .stays, Mme. Caplin's work will bring bo►h conso-
lation and hope,—consolation because we shall no
longer fear lest a pretty shape should be purchased
atc the sacrifice of health ; and hope because we be-
lieve that no young lady will be able to resist the
arguments here a dduced in favour of that auxiliary