The Press.
London, England, 1854-12-23 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

her this evening, for all the women in the servants'-hall
began to scold and abuse her. The housekeeper said sbe was
a pert, stuck-up thing : the upper-housemaid asked, how
dare she wear such ringlets and ribbons, it was quite im-
proper ! The cook (for there was a woman-cook as well as
a man-cook) said to the kitchen-maid that she never could
see anything in that oreetur : but as for the men, every one
of them, coachman, John, Buttons the page, and Monsieur
the Prince of Crim Tartary's valet, started up, and said—
" My eyes !"
" 0 mussey !" What a pretty girl Detainda is.
0 jemmany. !"
" 0 ciel !"
" Hands off ; none of your impertinence, you vulgar, low
people !" says Betainda, walking off with her pan of coals.
She heard the young gentlemen playing at billiards as she
went up stairs: first to Prince Giglio's bed, which she
warmed, and then to Prince Bulbo's room.

He came in just as she had done ; and as soon as he
saw her, " O! 0 1 O! 0 1 O! O! what a beyou—oo--ootiful
creature you are. You angel—you peri—you rosebud, let
me be thy bulbul—thy 13a1bo, too ! Fly to the desert, fly
with me ! I never saw a young gazelle to glad me with its
dark blue eye that had eyes like thine. Thou nymph of
beauty, take, take this young heart. A truer never did
itself sustain within a soldier's waistcoat. Be mine ! Be
mine ! Be Princess of Crim Tartary ! My royal father
will approve our union : and, as for that little carrotty
haired Angelica, I do not care a fig for her any more."
"Go away, your Royal Highness, and go to bed, please,"
said Betsinda, with the warming pan.
But Bulbo said," No, never, till thou swearest to be mine,
thou lovely, blushing chambermaid divine ! Here at thy
feet, the royal Bulbo lies, the trembling captive of Betsinda's
eyes."
And he went on, making himself so absurd and ridiculous
that Betsinda, who was full of fun, gave him a touch with
the warming-pan, which, I promise you, made him cry
" 0-o-o-o ?" in a very different manner.
Prince Bulbo made such a noise that Prince Giglio, who
heard him from the next room, came in to see what was
the matter. As soon as he saw what was taking place,
Giglio, in a fury, rushed on Bulbo, kicked him in the
rudest manner up to the ceiling, and went on kicking him
till his hair was quite out of curl.
Poor Betsinda did not know whether to laugh or to cry ;
the kicking certainly must hurt the prince, but then he
looked so droll ! When Giglio had done knocking him up
and down to the ground, and whilst be went into a corner
rubbing himself, what do you think Giglio does ? He goes
down on his own knees to Betsinda, takes het hand, begs
her to accept his heart, and offers to marry her that
moment. Fancy Betsinda's condition, who had been in
love with the prince ever since she first saw him in the
palace garden, when she was quite a little child.
" Oh, divine Betsinda!" says the prince, " how have I
lived fifteen years in thy company without seeing thy per-
fections ? What woman in all Europe, Asia, Africa, and
America, nay, in Australia, only it is not yet discovered,
can presume to be thy equal ? Angelica? Pish ! Gruff-
snuff? Phoo ! The Queen? Ha, ha! Thou art my
Queen. Thou art the real Angelica, because thou art
really angelic."
" Oh, prince ! I am but a poor chambermaid," says
Betsinda, looking, however, much pleased.
" Didst thou not tend me in my sickness, when all for-
sook me ?" continues Giglio. " Did not thy gentle hand
smooth my pillow, and bring me jelly and roast chicken ?"
" Yes, dear prince, I did," says Betsinda, " and I sewed
your Royal Highness's shirt-buttons on, too, if you please,
your Royal Highness," cries this artless maiden.

The book is a clever piece of fooling, and to
country firesides, where stage pantomime is
inaccessible, will be productive of almost as
much fun its the best king and queen of
burlesque that our theatres now can boast.
Sudden Death. By Dr. Granville. London:
Church,3l.

DR. GRANVILLE brings together, in the first
instance, a collection of facts connected with
sudden deaths, some derived from his own
experience, but principally from the returns of
the ttegistrar-General, and from these facts
draws certain general conclusions. He finds
that sudden deaths, or " apoplectic seizures,
" paralytic threatenings, and actual strokes,
" are more common than in former times,"
and that " the proportion of such deaths to
" the general mortality of the country is fast
" increasing." But what is called sudden
death he regards merely as the abrupt ter-
mination of a disease which has, in most cases,
been some time in progress, and he thinks
that warning, care, and medical skill, might
have great effect in checking the malady and
in prolonging life. He says :
Under Nature's laws, there is no such thing as sudden
death lt will be seen that in every case
where death has abruptly cut short the thread of life
there had been a preparation, more or less, antecedent to
the occurrence, which must inevitably have led to it,
unless interfered with by a timely and successful watching
on the part of a medical attendant.
The death ntay have occurred unexpectedly, and in the
opinion of Mends and b3standers the victim may have
seemed to have been struck down dead, as if by lightning.
But, in reality, the event was only the natural termination
of an inward skate of things, which insidiously and unsus-
pectedly was treraring the blow. In di eases of tiaddan
death, so callad, in which an opportenity has boa adarded

SATURDAY,

for a farther and closer investigation, sufficient cause bas
been detected and clearly made out to convince us
that the instantaneous closing of life was merely the
natural termination of a train of morbid operations which
had been going on within for a longer or shorter period of
time ; and that, so far, such a kind of death was in no way
dissimilar from that which follows the termination of a
long illness.

The author is incidentally led to consider
the question—What is life ? But he finds,
and can give, no satisfactory definition of the
great fact With which all are familiar. "On
" no topic," he says, "have physiologists of all
" ages differei More widely than in their
" definition of life." His analysis of the
statistics of " sudden deaths " contains many
passages of general interest. He infers that
the cholera is rather an " inexplicable visita-
tion " from Heaven, ordained for all•w•ise
purposes, than the offspring of filth and
unsalubrious localities, and he makes out a
prima facie case to show that this awful
pestilence does not in reality increase the
average rate of mortality. Referring to some
tabular returns, which give the deaths in 1849
(a year of cholera) as 08,432, and in 1850 as
only 48,579, Dr. Granville remarks :

In contemplating the two preceding tables, what reader
will not be struck by the remarkable fact that, whether as
regards the total number of deaths in all England, or the
total number of deaths in the metropolis only, the large
inctease which appears in the year of the cholera (1849)
is followed in the succeeding year (1850) by a most
striking diminution in the amount of deaths, so much so
as to bring that year's mortality considerably below the
average number of deaths of the years preceding the
cholera year ? Thus in table 1., for all England and Wales,
the deaths of that year were 440,839, being the largest
amount in any one year since the census of 1841. But in
the year following that of the cholera (1850) the number
of deaths fell to 868,995, being not only 71,844 less than in
the cholera year, but even less than the number of deaths
of the year preceding that of the cholera by as many as
80,838. The same observations apply to the metropolitan
deaths, which in the cholera year were 68,432, whilst in
the succeeding year they only reached 48,579, a difference
of 19,1353.
The principle is further developed in a fol-
lowing passage :
If we take the deaths of the two years together which
preceded the cholera, and strike the mean ; and treat the
year of the cholera and the compensating year that follows,
in the same manner, we shall find that the four years pre.
sent nearly the same average. Thus, the mortality of all
England was :
In 1847 .. .. 423,304
In 1848 .. 399,893

Together .. .. 828,157—Ater. 411.668
In 1849, year of cholera .. 440,899
In 1860 .. .. .. 388,095

Together .. .. 809,834—Aver. 404,017
And for the metropolis the mortality was :

In 1847 ..
In 1648 ..

.. 59,131
.. 57,028

Together .. .. 118,759—Aver. 5A,318.
In 1849, year of cholera .. 88,432
In 1850 .. .. .. 48,579

Together .. 117,011—Aver. 68,605.
So that, in reality, it is found, when the aggregate of the
four years is taken, either for the whole of England or for
the metropolis only, that no greater number of people died
in those years because of the cholera intervening than if
the cholera had not visited us.

The author conceives that in the reports of
the Registrar-General the deaths from cholera
are greatly exaggerated, and his figures sup-
port his view ; but as we assuredly do perceive
some kind of connection between this in-
scrutable disease and dirt, defective ventila-
tion, improper food, and other evils incident
to an uncared-for and over-crowded popula-
tion, the "warning from on high," we may
humbly suppose, is intended to direct our
attention to this social misery and neglect, as
well as to put our houses in order, in the
sense of making our wills, and living soberly.
Generally, Dr. Granville treats sudden death
as a great calamity, and thinks it is justly
placed in that " beautiful Kyrie of plaints and
supplications :--
Flom battle, and murder,
And from sudden death,
(hood Lord deliver us.' "
Yet many wise and good men have doubted
whether sudden death be not rather a mercy
than a calamity when it closes a well-ordered
life. Illness is deceptive; often the mind is
in no state to contemplate dissolution, and
often a " slow-sudden " death finds the work
of preparation still delayed. When the cer-
tainty of death has been calmly contemplated,
when in the daily course of lite the lamp has
been kept burning and the "filet shod,' the
swirl unites of the stroke, however it may int

DECEMBER 23, 1854.

press beholders, is far from a visitation, in any
calamitous sense, to the individual. On the
contrary, it is often a beautiful and even
triumphant close to a life of active beneficence,
and, depriving the grave of its pains and
terrors, approaches nearest to that direct
translation from earth to heaven which it was
the special privilege of the most favoure d
Hebrew prophet to enjoy.
Idaline. A Story of the Egyptian Bondage.
By Mrs. J. B. Webb. London : Beatley.
THE most gifted minds have found it difficult
to successfully graft modern fiction upon
ancient history. Fenelon in a past age, Moore
and Southey in our own, may be adduced as
authors who have overcome the difficulty best,
but rigid critics object that in " Telemaque "
and in the " Epicurean " the fable is overlaid
with au embroidery of sentiment, and in " The
Curse of Kehama ' smothered beneath a load
of learning. But in " Idaline," though Mrs.
Webb deserves credit for industry, we have
little more than the dry bones of a past age
laid out in order. Not the most learned, but
the most imaginative, mind succeeds best in
reproducing the past. The Chevalier Bunsen
throws into his works an amazing amount of
antiquarian lore, but for living truth a scene
from Shakspeare's " Troilus " or " Anthony "
is worth it all. Had Nineveh been exhumed
in his day, with what Promethean power would
those grim, stiff sculptures have been roused
into life I Nothing can be more erroneous than
to take our idea of the existence of an ancient
people from their art-monuments and remains.
As well might we take our notions of laughing,
romping, boisterous childhood from their
earliest pictorial efforts on slate or wall. Yet
this is the error into which dull, industrious
writers perpetually fall.
Idaline, the daughter of an Egyptian High
Priest, Jambres, is betrothed in early years to
Sophie, a priest of Osiris, but chooses in his
stead to fall in love with a handsome Hebrew,
who converts her. Such is the bare outline of
the story. There is the usual amount of diffi-
culties and miseries, and a few horrors and
escapades, which supply material for narrative.
In the end Jambres, disgraced by his daugh-
ter's conversion, dies of a broken heart, though
converted on his deathbed by Idaline's per-
suasions; and then the young lady, consigning
" the mortal remains of her beloved father
"to the care of a faithful domestic," gets into
a covered carriage with her lover, and is mar-
ried that night !
The story is simple, but Mrs. Webb's at
tempts to combine her ancient impressions
and modern tendencies are usually unlucky.
Take as au example the description of an
Egyptian dinner party :
In the house of Jambres, the custom of placing the
male and female visitors at different tables in the same
apartment had been observed ever since the death of his
wife ; and Idaline was glad that it was not departed from
on this occasion, as she was thus spared the embarrass-
ment of being placed next to Sophia, and was able to seat
herself at the head of the ladies' table, by the side of the
Princess Thermuthis, who had honoured her and her
father by becoming their guest. The only drawback to
the satisfaction that she derived from this arrangement
was being compelled to litten to the praises of her in-
tended husband, which her aged friend took the first oppor-
tunity of pouring into her ear. Thermuthis thought that
the young bride elect received her congratulations and ex-
pressions of approbation with strange indifference ; but
her attention was quickly diverted from her by the arrival
of the customary wine-cup, which was presented even to
th eladies before the commencement of the more substan
jai part of the repast. This consisted of fish, joints of
*set', veal, or pork—for no mutton was eaten by the Egyp-
tans—poultry, particularly well-fattened geese, and a great
variety of vegetables, cooked in numerous ways, and some-
times mingled with the blood of oxen. After this course
followed fruit of every kind that the fertile soil of Egypt
produced, or that could be obtained from the neighbouring
nations. Amongst these were to be seen grapes, syca-
more-figs, olives, citrons, pomegranates, and bananas; and
with them were served up sweetmeats and confectionary,
prepared in the most elaborate manner by the Pontiff's
chief cook, and his numerous band of assistants in the
different branches of the culinary art, which art, was well
understood and greatly prized by the ancient Egyptians.
Nor were they less mindful of the quality of the beverages
that accompanied their feasts. Several kinds of wine
were manufactured with much care and skill in the fruit,
ful valley of the Nile ; and large quantities of it were
drunk, and of beer also, not only by the gentlemen, but
even by the members of the fail sex, who were occasionally
guilty of committing excesses that would shock the ladies
of the present day.
Such disgraceful scenes did not, however, occur at the
house of the high priest of On. There all was carried on