The Press.
London, England, 1854-06-17 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

of his religious light to the instruction of a lay
friend. Of the latter little is known, except
that his name was Nicholas, and that he was
a citizen of the Free town of Basle and a secret
Waldensiun. Another was Rulman Merswin,
a member of a noble family of Strasbourg, in
which city he founded a house for tho Knights
of St. John. It was about this period, 1350,
that the " Theologia Germanica." was probably
written. Until lately Luther was the sole
authority for, the text of the work, but in 1850
a MS. copy, bearing the date of 1497, was
found at Wurtzburg by Professor Reuss, the
librarian of the University. The differences
between this version and that previously known
are slight, but, as it contains a few passages
not found in former editions, it has been
selected as the groundwork of the present
translation. The foregoing particulars, selected
and condensed from the translator's introduc-
tion, show how in the darkest hour the light
of divine truth is preserved, still burning, if
unseen. There cannot be a doubt that the
Friends of God, spreading their doctrines in
secret, largely prepared the way for that pro-
test against Rome which at a later era found
a stern voice in Luther and a sharp sword in
Maurice of Saxony. The doctrines they held
are embodied in the treatise before us, but its
subject matter is obviously unfitted for minute
exposition in the columns of a newspaper. It
is divided into fifty-four short chapters, and
the argument is thus stated by the Chevalier
Bunsen :

Sin is selfishness.
Godliness is unselfishness.
A godly life is the steadfast working out of inward free-
ness from self.

To become thus godlike is the bringing back of man' a
first nature.

The chevalier, in his letter, further says :

This small but golden treatise has been now for almost
forty years an unspeakable comfort to me and to many
Christian friends ( most of whom have already departed in
peace ), to whom I had the happiness of introducing it.
May it in your admirably faithful and lucid translation
become a real "book for the million " in England, a privi-
lege which it already shares in Germany with Tauler's
matchless sermons.

It is not without awe and reverence we rise
from the book ; we echo the hope ; and even
those who do not usually peruse works of
this nature might well, if from mere cu-
riosity, be induced to become acquainted
with the thoughts of the nameless Knight
of St. John which for more than three
centuries have widely influenced the world,
and which are thus spoken of by a man dis-
tinguished for his piety and learning 500
years after their author has mingled with the
dust—most probably—of that " stately Frank-
" fort city which lies by silver Mayne."

Siluria. By Sir Roderick Murchison.
London : Murray.

FIFTEEN years ago Sir Roderick Murchison
presented the world with his first regular
attempt to classify the important series of
rocks known ever since by the name which he
then gave them—the silurian system. The
work—in two handsome quartos, and of much
pretension—was, by its price, beyond the reach,
and, by its minute and manifold details, be-
yond the comprehension, of ordinary readers.
But geologists had long been aware of the
singularly-imperfect way in which the rocks in
question had heretofore been arranged, and
hailed any attempt to set them in order. The
rocks had, certainly, been singularly unlucky.
At a time when other geological divisions
were fairly, and some completely, classified,
these were known by the preposterous title of
the " transition " strata, it being supposed
that, during their formation, nature was in a
course of transition from a state without
animal life to one with animal life; just as
if such a thing was possible—as if there could
be a period when existence partly was and
partly was not—when created beings were
only half alive. From this preposterous no-
menclature, the future silurian rocks only
escaped to be huddled together, without order
or distinction, under the barbarous German
mining term " granwacke." Yet in these rocks
were the first vestiges of animal life—a dis-
tinction of itself enough to invest them with
supreme interest. They were widely diffused
over the globe, and possessed many important
mineralogical features. It was of the highest

SATURDAY,

importance that they should be arranged, and
it was fortunate that the task fell to a geo-
logist so well qualified as Sir R. Murchison.
Sir Roderick now offers us an abridged yet
much more complete description of the silu-
rian system, and has finished with the care
and attention it deserves the work by which
he must be contented to be known to poste-
rity as a geologist. In fact, though he has
been for full thirty years distinguished as a
leader of science, it would be difficult to find
any other discovery on which to found so ex-
tensive a reputation, and certainly none by
which he could expect to be remembered by
the next generation. For the elucidation of
such a subject as the silurian strata he was
well qualified in every way. With a keen
eye, a quick perception, and a strong love of
travel, he could readily discern the features of
extensive strata, whose rugged forms, sharp
outlines, and characteristic arrangement in
low mountain ranges often enable them to
be traced simply by an experienced eye,
throughout a long range of scenery. With a
rather moderate amount of severe examination,
his position enabled him to command the ser-
vices of more close and industrious observers,
especially those connected with the geological
survey. With no knowledge whatever of natu-
ral history, he had Sowerby, Lonsdale, Agas-
sez, always at his command. Thus issuing
forth—half observer, half MecEenas—he was
enabled to provide more accurate information
on the many points of his subject than closer
investigators who trusted more to themselves.
In addition, whatever he has discovered ho
has had the readiest means of giving to the
world In his smaller disquisitions, an entire
evening at the Geological Society has always
been at his disposal; in his greater, he has
the advantage of Mr. Murray for a publisher.
The earlier and larger work confined its ob-
servations almost exclusively to the British
islands. In consequence there was much un-
interesting, though then perhaps not unneces-
sary, matter. The present book has seized the
larger features, not of England only, but of
the rest of the world where the system has
been explored ; and the author has combined
with his own observations those of a multi-
tude of observers with great talent and dex-
terity. To the common reader there is great
interest in the description of the natural phe-
nomena of those rent, shattered, and twisted
strata to which much of the romantic scenery
of Wales, Shropshire, and the south-west of
England, of the Tweed, Teviotdale, and the
Galway hills, the Ural and Swedish moun-
tains, and the Cordilleras of Australia, owes
its picturesque beauty. To the naturalist,
learned and unlearned, nothing in the whole
range of his studies can exceed in importance
the first development of life upon the globe,
in the strange crustacea, or the wild, ungainly
forms of fishes, which Nature produced in her
first attempts. The shells, numerous and in-
teresting, present none of those wonderful
aberrations of form which is found in the other
two divisions ; neither do the corals, many of
which are of extreme beauty. The first reptile
has lately been discovered in a series of rocks
immediately above the silurian, which Sir
Roderick inserts, in full detail, in his work.
In fact, like his great patron, the Czar, our
geologist is apt to carry his invading forces
into other countries; and, were this the place,
we might well object to his "occupation" of
many of the overlying rocks, which will be, we
believe, as temporary as his prototype's.

The concluding chapter will interest very
many. It is, as is well known, from the debris
of these strata that much of the Australian and
Ural gold has been obtained ; and Sir Rode-
rick, as a theorist, has the merit of suspecting
its existence in Australia before its actual dis-
covery. He makes some very sensible observa-
tions which may serve to quiet those who
expect us to be overwhelmed with gold. The
Spaniards, when they discovered America,
found the natives abounding in gold. They
expected, with their superior knowledge, to
find infinitely more. They were Arievously
mistaken. The natives had already picked
the greater part of the gold from the gravel.
Here superior science availed little. The
mines of Peru, intended for gold, ended by
being rich indeed, but in silver. Gold becomes
rarer and more difficult of discovery as you

JUNE 17, 1854.

advance into the mine. Scattered in particles
through the body of the rock, it ends by be-
coming imperceptible. The great resource of
the gold-seeker will always bo the gravel, de
tritus, and superficial clays, into which the
older rocks have been dissolved, and hence
early exhaustion has been the inevitable cha-
racteristic of all gold-producing countries.
The concluding chapter is devoted to gene.
ral considerations, and treats rapidly of the
theories of the progress of creation. The dis-
covery of great laws is not within the power
or even the aim of the writer. He still deals
with the clumsy machinery of successive up
heavings and depressions of the soil, and the
other time-honoured and less impossible sup-
positions of his predecessors he explains in
full detail. It is a good abstract of the opinions
commonly received, and, as such, is of value
to younger geologists. Tho rest of the work,
notwithstanding very many technical points
more than doubtful, will be, for a long time to
come, a textbook on its special subject.

Official Handbooks to the Crystal Palace. London:
Bradbury and Evans.
THESE handbooks, sixteen in number, serve to mark
the magnitude of the enterprise and in part to ex-
plain its wonders. The general guide to the palace
and park, by Mr. Phillips, will of course be the book
most in demand. It is concise, well written, and
pleasantly conducts the visitor through the courts of
the palace, and thence through the grounds, direct-
ing attention to the most noteworthy objects. It is
illustrated with a ground plan of the palace and with
numerous engravings. With the additions which
will doubtless be made to it from time to time, and
with greater care in the printing, it will be a handy
book for the million. The price—one shilling—is
the proper figure. A superior edition, enlarged so
as to embrace the principal contents of the other
guides, might form a compact volume and present
the visitor with quite as much information as he is
likely to require.
In the introduction to this general guide, a sketch
is given of the origin and gradual progress of the
enterprise. To the sagacity of one gentleman, a
solicitor, is the public indebted for this stupendous
work. When the Hyde-park palace was doomed, be
foresaw the probability of commercial success by re-
moving and reconstructing it as a permanent place
of public resort ; and, as soon as those magic words
took a consistent shape, the result became assured.
A charter was obtained from Lord Derby's Govern-
ment, "binding the directors and their successors to
" preserve the high moral and social tone which from
" the outset they bad assumed for their national in-
" stitution "—a provident ministerial act; and the
commissioners sent to the Continent to procure ex-
amples of the principal works of art in Europe were
" fortified by Lord Malmesbury, then Secretary of
" State, with letters to the several ambassadors on
"their route, expressing the sympathy of the Go-
" vernment in the object of their travels "—a liberal
one. Some notion of the magnitude of the under-
taking may be formed from the fact that at one
period 6,400 men were engaged on it.
The second handbook, by Mr. Phillips—the " Por-
trait Gallery "—is of doubtful utility. The aim is to
characterise the various persons whose statues and
busts appear in the palace. This characterisation is
done in a dashing, Sir Oracle style very unsuited to
a handbook. The dogmatism would be offensive
were it just, but it is often false and strongly coloured
by political prejudice. Louis Philippe, for example,
is described as " a sovereign who had been suckled
" in the lap of despotism, and fed for ever afterwards
" upon obsequious flattery and all the other dainty
" diet of a Court." Lord Eldon was such a nuisance
that " enlightened men felt it as a public relief when
"he deputed in his ripe old age." The style, in-
flated and rumbling, is as bad as the matter. In
the notice of Ctesar, the civil war of Rome is " a war
" wasteful of Roman blood in the field—thirstier for
" the flood of the same drear beverage by the axe
" and the dagger." Pope brought "intellective pre
" vision into poetry, which should feed on the indefl•
" nite and the vague, and should flower out into the
"softened and the flowing." Plain speech is des-
pised by the author. He is nothing if not poetical.
Pitt, as Prime Minister, held " the place which his
" eagle ambition had chosen for its eyrie on the
" rock," &c. Louis Napoleon does not simply reign,
but "the diadem binds his brow, and his foot is
" firmly planted upon the summit of power in tran-
"quillised France." The book is a mistake. If
biographical notices bad been given at all, they
should have been simply written, and have been
occupied with facts instead of wild opinions.
From all this bombast it is a relief to turn to the
little handbook by Mrs. Jameson to modern sculpture.
A critical introduction, elegantly penned, explains the
leading principles of sculpture, and prepares the