The Press.
London, England, 1854-11-11 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

of " molten beauty and glory." Genoa, in its
turn, is visited and imaginitively sketched :

Genoa is to me, in recollection, like a gorgeous dream of
grand palaces, old churches, splendid and strange—narrow
streets', leading up steep acclivities, and down into dark
hollows, lined with towering houses, whose outside walls
are painted more brilliantly and variously than interiors
elsewhere—with animated and striking groups of pie-
tutesque people—pale women, with shining black hair, and
long white scarfs gracefully disposed about their heads,
and falling in light folds over neck, arms, and bosom, walk-
ing everywhere about the crowded dirty streets, as though
through carpeted drawing-rooms, with a regal yet uncon-
scious elegance,—wen, with rich olive complexions and
glossy black beards, wearing caps of brilliant red, or brown,
or purple, and t Liking and gesticulating on the most triding
topic, with marvellous waste of passionate energy and
dramatic effect; children, limbed like sculptured Loves,
with luxuriant hair, brown or raven, and cheeks round,
and red, and goldened, like ripe peaches—and all these
speaking in a language wonderfully melodious and impres-
sive, and looking out of large, deep, lustrous, yet melan-

choly eyes.
Lucca, Pisa, and Rome, all come in turn.
Some of her criticisms upon the works of art
in Rome are given with great feeling and ap-
preciation for the beautiful; but Italy, she
truly remarks, is, perhaps, the country of the
whole world where your eye is most often
offended and your ear agonised by bad pictures
and bad music. Throughout her travels Miss
Greenwood makes it a particular point to
notice the polittsse of the men to the women.
While her own countrymen arc lauded as being
the beau ideal of good breeding and politeness,

we come off the worst:—
I must say that no roughest boors, I had almist said
beats, can surpass in rude selfishness and cool incivility
the promiscuous Britons in omnibuses and steamers, the
general John Bull of public assemblies. My own
countrymen, how inexpressibly proud I feel of them for
the generous kindness, the chivalric gallantry, which
everywhere mark their manner towards woman, in what-
ever guise or character she appeals to them. How grate.
fully and mournfully I think of them when I am elbow ed and
thrust hither and thither in crowded passages to places of
amusement, or when I am sent pitching headlong to the
farthest end of an omnibus—for here the gentlemen move
towards, not from, the door, when a lady gets int 9 that
commodious vehicle. 0 young and gallant republican, let
it still be your pride to sustain this honourable distinction
of the American gentleman—a chivalric consideration fo►
woman ; yet be grateful, not boastful ; for as the old Turk
said to his son, while pointing to the Franks, " But for the
special grace of God, you might have been as one of these."
We arc not inclined to contest the justice of
these remarks. Whoever has witnessed a
dozen people gathered round a second or
third class pay-place, must have noticed the
selfishness, either rudely or cunningly ex-
pressed, with which some men will endeavour
to push forward—women, as the weakest, com.
monly suffering most in this contest for priority.
It is a pity that, amidst all our adoption of
French fashions, the queue has not yet been
legitimatised amongst us. Our pushing pro-
pensity, as minutes or places run short, is so
apt to exceed all bounds of civility as to call
for the restraint of recognised social customs.
Conscious of our national sin, we read, with
great concern, that, while on the voyage from
Leghorn to Civitit Vecchia, poor Miss Green-
wood was left forlorn and hopeless upon the
deck of the steamer, without pillow or mattress,
some boorish fellow having appropriated hers
as well is his own to make a comfortable bed
for himself. We made sure that the thievish
rascal would turn out to be a Briton, and most
likely a Cockney, and we experienced a feeling
of relief scarcely to he described on discovering
that Colonel Marshall of Kentucky, and United
States Minister to China to boot, was the
audacious brigand who stole a woman's mat-
trass and pillow to enhance his own personal
comfort. Rough and selfish as we may be,
we are left far behind by this " pink of polite-
" mess and chivalric consideration for woman,"
the Kentucky Minister.
In her lively sketches of places and persons
Miss Greenwood proves herself to be possessed
of much descriptive power, but her similes at
times are forced, and her use of superlatives
tiresome. A window in Westminster Abbey is
described as " acoiled rainbow." Upon arriving
in London, she tells us her mind is "surcharged,
" as it seems, with the grandest, fearfullest,
" proudest, and mournfullest memories." The
Coliseum at Rome is " the most interesting,
" impressive, enchanting, the grandest and
" dearest place upon earth." If "nicest" had
been added, the array of superlatives would
have been complete. This wordiness, with a
straining after effect, are the leading faults of
the book. Here and there the writing is ueg-

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ligent and ungrammatical, but generally spark-
ling, and always sincere. Her expressions are
the result of genuine feeling, set down upon
the moment of immediate impression, in
the freshness and bloom which " tardy recollec-
tion " never could bestow, and " Haps and
Mishaps," with all its little inaccuracies and
errors, will be found an entertaining and agree-
able specimen of American writing.

Captain Canot; or, Twenty Years of an African
Starer. By Brantz Mayer. Loudon : Bentley—
Routledge.
CArraini CANOT has been treated as a fabulous hero
by some of our contemporaries, but, that there really
was such a man as "Theodore Canot," well known
for many years on the coast as a slave-dealer, and
better known latterly as the" suspicious trader" at Cape
Mount (just below the Gallinas, one of the most famous
of slave depots), is a fact that every one is cognisant
of who has any knowledge of the history of the
slave trade, more particularly as carried on at " Sher-
hero and the Gallinas," or any acquaintance with this
locality of Cape Mount, where Canot finally estab-
lished himself as a lawful retailer (according to his
own account) of palm-oil and ivory. The editor of
this " memoir," as it is styled, assures us that he was
introduced to Canot by Dr. Hall, the founder of the
American colony of Cape Patinas, on the west coast
of Africa, and that the narrative is compiled from
notes he took of Canot's disclosures. That the outline
of the adventures here detailed was thus obtained is
probable enough, but the adventures themselves seem
to have been filled up by a person otherwise quite un-
acquainted with his subject. Some of the leading inci-
dents we believe to be accurately related, as perhaps
they were minutely dwelt upon in relation ; but all
the accessories of a slave-dealer's life are so over-
looked or distorted as to show great ignorance on the
part of the narrator. in the main, though partly
marred by a straining after dramatic effect, the book
contains a sketch of the manners and customs of the
aboriginal Africans, more particularly the coast tribes,
such as a man of Canot's experience and observation
would be competent to give. The subjoined notice
of the manner in which captains-general of Cuba are
accustomed to wink at the slave trade, when tribute
is duly rendered, reads much like fact :
Many of the Spanish governors in Cuba have respected
treaties, or at least promised to enforce the laws. Squad-
rons of dragoons and troops of lancers have been paraded
with convenient delay, and ordered to gallop to plantation'
designated by the representative of England. It generally
happens, however, that when the hunters arrive the game
is gone. Scandal declares that while brokers are selling
the blacks at the deot, it is not unusual for their owner
or his agent to be Ibund knocking at the door of the cap-
tain-General's secretary. It is even said that the Captain-
General himself is sometimes present in the sanctuary. and
after a familiar ;hat about the happy landing of " the con-
traband," as the traffic is amiably called, the requisite
rustled:lux are insinuated into the official desk under the
intense smoke of a fragrant cigarillo. The sale is of course
conducted as rapidly as possible, in order to forestal the
interference of the British officials with the Captain-
General.
General O'Donnell, now Minister of War at Madrid,
could, we believe, certify to the truth of Canot's
sketch.

THE Art•J ournai for November, among many instruc-
tive papers upon art, int hides the first part of an old
MS. upcn painting anti drawing. Mr•. S. C. Hall
appears to think that this M.S. is the work of Sir
Peter Lely, the Court painter of Charles 11., as the
method of treating portraiture hero described agrees
so well with what is known of Lely's style. The
MS. was found in the 1 larlean collection. There
are three engravings in the present number from
pictures in the Vernon Gallery, and the usual articles
upon foreign art and artists.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.
Moose.

Works of Samuel Warren, D.C.L. Vol. IV.
Blackwood and Sons.
Institute of 3felaphysirs. Professor Ferrier. Ditto.
England's !lope. Sermons. Rev. B. L. Witts,
tiewling.
Wilson.

The New Eristence. Part V. R. Owen.
The Discontented Children. M. and A. Kirby.
Want and Griffiths.
Words by the Wayside. E. Ayton.
The Planetary Worlds. J. Breen. Hardwicke.
Robespierre. A Tragedy. H. Bliss. Kimpton.
Anne Boleyn. Saunders and Otley.
Wild Flowers and Green braves. Ditto.
Gleanings from Eueern Europe. Miss A. M. Birbeck.
Dorton and Co.

PAMPHLETS

Amusing Tales. Miss Corner.

Dean and Son.

THE BISHOP OF DURHAM offers 6001. for the erec-
tion of a new parish church at Gateshead, and 306/.
in case the old church is repaired. His lordship also
subscribes 1501. to the Relief Fund, 54)1. to the New-
castle Infirmary, and 251. to the Gateshead Dir
pensary.

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