The Press.
London, England, 1854-11-04 00:00:00

NOVEMBER 4, 1854.

seeking after distraction—ruined speculators
in seedy coats and battered hats—impudent
gamin: de Paris ridiculing everybody and
everything—sleek curds with prayer-books
under their arm, trying to look as if they had
strayed into the temple of Plutus by mistake—
and peasants in blouses, with huge shirt collars,
and wooden shoes, and, if from Normandy, iu
nightcaps also, gazing below with glistening
and greedy eyes, as if they expected to see
cartloads of gold and silver coin brought forth
and distributed amongst them. Outside the
Bourse, round by the railings, and in *all
weathers—for, alas ! the authorities of the
temple do not pique themselves on polite-
ness—are to be seen groups of women, chiefly
cooks or concierges, iu dingy shawls and white
caps, fine ladies in silks and satins—all mixed
together poll-well, and all chattering at once.
Once upon a time the fair creatures were per-
mitted to transact their petite: ajitires within
the edifice ; but they made such an awful
clatter that they had to be excluded.
One o'clock strikes, a bell rings, and from a
back room pour into the large hall some twenty
or thirty gentlemen with lead pencils and
little books. They take their places in a cir-
cular space fenced in such a way as to
resemble a lady's work-basket. These are the
agent de change, and from some inscrutable
reason they present greater varieties of the
genus honor than any equal number of men
taken at hazard anywhere could possibly do.
Some are excessively tall, others extremely
short—some outrageously fat, and others in-
decently lean—some you see are jovial fel-
lows, some sour as vinegar—some to all
appearance reckless spendthrifts, and others
grasping curmudgeons—some paltry fops,
and others en neglige. No sooner have they
arrived in the work-basket than they begin
shouting and gesticulating at one another
with great violence. It might be supposed
that, like gentlemen in the fish markets, they
are dealing out insults as the preliminary to a
combat, but they are only buying and
selling—that is, only asking a colleague
if he will take so much Three per Cent. at
such a price, or so many Northerns at so much,
and his answering that he will, or he won't.
Meanwhile the crowd in the ball has become
denser, and every man in it talks and shouts,
and no man listens; and everybody pushes
about everybody, in order probably to make
room for himself to—like the gentlemen in the
basket—gesticulate at ease. A stranger not
knowing where he was would think himself in
Bedlam. And as time wears on the agent
shout louder, are more fierce in their ges
tures, and rush to and fro as if making
frantic attempts to escape from their basket;
whilst louder and hoarser becomes the shout-
ing of the speculators around, and in their
excitement they move to and fro like tempest-
tossed waves. What a scene ! What a
tumult ! And every now and then the uproar
is increased by the arrival of telegraphic des-
patches. " The funds at London have fallen !
Sell !" roar fifty people at once to the poor
agent, arid, strange to say, in spite of the fear-
ful din, the agent seem to understand them.
" Sebastopol is taken ! Hurrah ! Vive l'Em-
" pereur ! Buy ! Buy !" And the specula-
tors dance with delight, and hug each other,
and send their hats flying in the air. " Sebas-
" topol is not taken ! The despatch was
" false !" A loud yell of anguish arises, the
speculators roar, " Sell !" and, in a state of
fearful excitement, fight their way to the
basket, and, grasping their agent de change by
the collar, exclaim hoarsely, " Sell, 1 tell you!
" Sell !"

The philosopher would find the two hours
daily scene at the Paris Bourse full of painful
instruction ; and the most unreflecting of men
could hardly witness it without a shudder,
so strikingly does it prove the fearful power
of gold, and the terrible fascination of gam-
bling. But what takes place at the Bourse,
bad as it is, is but an imperfect indication of
the extent and intensity with which the mo-
dern Parisians are afflicted with the auri sacra
fames, and of the desperate recklessness with
which they plunge into stock-jobbing specula-
tions in the vain hope of becoming rich with-
out the fatigue of years of labour. In England
we love and reverence mere wealth infinitely
more than we ought to do; and there is a

THE PRESS.

class amongst us who would have recourse to
any expedients to get it ; but in Englund we
still look on the man of ancient lineage, and
the squire of hereditary acres, and the coun-
try clergyman, and the man of book learning,
with infinite respect ; and we still, in our
hearts, rate them higher than the luckiest
schemer in the City. But in France repeated
revolutions and the democratic deluge have
broken down all social distinctions, except
such as are derived from wealth alone. In
France the richest man is the best man, the
most influential man, and the man who carries
off all honours the State has to bestow.
Hence, to be rich is the desire of every
Frenchman ; peasant and prince, workman
and scholar, trader and beggar—all are alike—
all have indeed no other object in life. In
Paris in particular, where the tremendous
power of wealth is more strikingly seen, and
its exquisite enjoyments more keenly appre-
ciated, the love of gold, in an immense num-
ber of individuals, becomes a sort of frantic
passion, which leaves nu rest by day ur by
night. If this rage for riches caused men to
take to incessant and persevering labour, it
would, if not altogether blameless, he at least
not unworthy of admiration. But unfortu-
naoly, as we have intimated, it causes labour
to be despised as too difficult, too slow, and
too uncertain a means of rising. " Bah !"
is the common expression amongst Pari-
sians, " I should be a fool to spend years on
" years of the best period of my life in ignoble
" drudgery to gain a paltry iudependence,
" and, perhaps, from the hazards of commerce,
" not gain it at all And so they all take to
gambling—all turn to the Bourse. The ser-
vant girl and the workman save up a few
hundred francs in the savings' bank, and then
employ them in speculations in renter or
shares; the trader employs his savings, and
not unfrequently his capital also, in specula-
tion; the doctor and the lawyer only earn
fees to speculate ; the doctor's wife and the
lawyer's wife diminish their household ex-
►
penses to have money with which to specui
late ; the duke speculates, and so does the
duchess; the bishop and the cure speculate;
even the savant and the author, when
by chance a hundred-franc note falls iu
their way, hurry off to the Bourse. The
Bourse !—that is the national temple of
modern France !—the Bourse—that is now a-
days the way by, which the modern French-
man, especially if he be a Parisian, seeks for
wealth and greatness. It has been said that
the common talk of agriculturalists is of
bullocks ; but in these times most certainly
the common talk of the Parisians is stocks
and shares; and well it may be, for " out of
" the utterance of the heart the mouth speak-
" eth!" How the polished Frenchman of the
ancien reginze, who used to converse so brilli-
antly, would be astonished if he could visit
a Parisian salon now ! " A great rise to-day
" in the Threes !" would probably be the
salutation of the master of the house, and
" What do you think of the Mediterranean
" line as an investment?" that of the mistress.
Perhaps even the fair damsel whom he might
invite to dance would say, in her most lan-
guishing tones, " Could you let me have
" twenty Northerns at 840 f.?" and he need not
be surprised if, on going home, his domestic
were to exclaim in sorrow, " Sir ! I can't sell
" my Spanish Threes !"
When a whole people is thus bestock-
exchanged, it is natural that Stock-Exchangeisiu
should find its way into their literature.
Accordingly, in the last few months there
have been a great many books published in
Paris about the Bourse and the things of the
Bourse. Some have been grave treati=es on
financial matters; some have professed to
be guides to the different sorts of speculations
and investments ; some have been filled with
accounts of tragic and comic adventures to
which the Bourse has given rise ; some have
exposed the tricks and artifices of speculators ;
and some have related the edifying his-
tory of the most successful and most envied
jobbers. Out of the batch we have selected
the work before us, not that it is the best and
most complete, but because it is the smallest
and most varied In the compass of fewer
than two hundred pages it explains what is
the Bourse ; how a man becomes a stock-

broker (agen de change) ; what is the flOitliSle
which is being very constantly talked of in the
newspapers ; what is the value of certain of
the principal French securities ; how stock-
jobbers talk amongst themselves, and what
are their notions of morality ; and it com-
prises, besides, several anecdotes and stories
which are very amusing. The author—the
name he assumes is, no doubt, a nom de
guerre—is evidently practically acquainted with
stock-jobbing business, and he writes with
more facility and spirit than might have been
expected from a member of the honourable
fraternity of stockbrokers. We can recommend
his book to such readers as may be anxious to
take a peep at the arts, mysteries, and per-
sonages of the Paris Bourse.

1. Poetical Works of John Oldham. Edited by
Robert Bell.
2. Poetical Works of Cowper. Vol. 111. With
Selections from the Works of Lloyd,
Cotton, Brooke, Darwin, and Hayley.
Edited by Robert Bell.
London : J. W. Parker and Son.
\\roux we have praised many of the good
qualities displayed in the " Annotated Edition
of the British Poets," we have also takeq
objections to some portions of the critical
illustrations from the editor's vigorous pen.
hi knowledge of his subject, and iu the varied
qualities of mind required for so prolonged an
undertaking, Mr. Bell shows that he has
nearly all the requisites desired. But., like
most labourers in the field of English litera-
ture, he leans rather too much to the side of
mere vigour, and, when an author's matter is
original, he is too apt to forgive the defects of
execution.
We confess that in the case of Oldham we
feel ourselves at issue with Mr. Bell, and we
shall be curious to learn how far this republi-
cation of Oldham's poems will be acceptable
to lovers of British poetry. That he had
great literary abilities we admit. He conceived
vigorously, and wrote with too " fatal facility."
Honoured with an encomiastic epitaph by
Dryden, and distinguished by the notice of
eminent persons in his day, his memory has
had the advantage of reflected lustre to pro •
serve it from obscurity. The subject of his
" Satires on the Jesuits," and the genuine
intensity of his literary politics, give the value
of historical colour to his effusions. But, even
seen from a favourable point of view, his mind
was too rhetorical for a poet of the rank which
Mr. Bell would appear to claim for him. Nor
can we discuss what Oldham might have been
if he had taken more pains. Such speculative
considerations are beyond the scope of criti-
cism. The bays cannot be conferred proble-
matically.
The question here is not as to equity of
judgment. Whether Oldham's books ought to
be preserved amongst the British poets is
entirely to be decided by the taste of British
readers. Frequently coarse in diction, rough
to excess in rhyme, polemical in his best
attempts, and with little of the purely ideal,
he clues not present sufficient attractions to
compensate for his faults. Take the following
passage from the Horace's " Art of Poetry,
Imitated" :
Those who did first in tragedy essay,
(When the vile goat was all the poet's day)
Used to allay their subject's gravity
With interludes of mirth and raillery;
Here they brought rough and naked satyrs in,
Whose farce•like geAtute, motion, speech and mien,
Resemble those of modern harlequin ;
Because such antic tricks, and odd grimace,
Alter their drunken feasts on holidays,
The giddy and hot•headed root would please:
As the wild frets of mervy-fuidErws how,
Divert the senseless crowd at Bartholomew.
The roughness of this passage is charac-
teristic of all the author's verses. " Grimace,"
" holidays," and " please," are strange termina-
tions to join in a triplet. If this sort of blemish
were only occasional it would not annoy, but
even the best passages are disfigured by it
Thus in one of his most energetic passages
from the " Satires on the Jesuits " let the
rhymes of the first couplet be observed
Dare something worthy Newgate and the Tower,
If }null be canonised, and Heaven insure.
Dull primitive fools of old who would be good,
Who would by vines nick ski &Wood dodo

a

1 '
~

Far other are the ways found out of late,
Which mortals to that happy place translate :
Rebellion, treason, murder, massacre,
The chief ingredients now of saintship are,
And 'Tyburn only stocks the calendar.
In the lines immediately following, " crime "
is set as a rhyme to " esteem," " confess " to
" images," and " spite" to " wit." These are
not the only faults of his verse, as judged by
our present standard of taste. His diction
abounds in terms descriptive of the grossest
manners, and savours too strongly of "the
town" as it was in the days of Charles 11.
Yet in the flow of particular passages (as in
that last cited) something of Drydenian music
may be perceived ; and that he was capable
(if circumstances had been more propitious)
of achieving high success in verse may be
admitted. Still we could have been content
with extracts from his works.
2. What Mr. Bell has judiciously done in
the third volume of the poems of Cowper
might be applied with advantage to the case
of authors like Oldham. In order to illustrate
the state of poetry during the lifetime of
Cowper the editor has given us well-chosen
extracts from Robert Lloyd, Cotton, Brooke,
Darwin, and Hayley, with some neatly-penned
critical remarks. In Lloyd we see the style
of the town poet, when Cowper was young ;
and in Hayley we have the other extreme, of
the mawkishly affected, tea-party bard. Of
all those versifiers none have written a more
enduring and vivid passage than that of
Lloyd in the " Author's Apology," where he
describes the miseries of an usher :
Were I at once empowered to show
My utmost vengeance on my foe,
To punish with extremest rigour,
I could inflict no penance bigger
Than using him as learning's tool,
To make him usher of a school . . .
For me, it hurts me to the soul
To brook confinement or control ;
Still to be pinioned down to teach

The syntai and the parts of speech !
Or, what perhaps is drudging worse,
The links, and Joints, and rules of verse;
To deal out authors by retail,
Like penny-pots of Oxford ale ;
—Oh ! 'tis a service irksome more
Than tugging at the slavish oar.
Yet such his task, a dismal truth,
Who watches o'er the bent of youth ;
And while, a paltry stipend earning,
He sows the richest seeds of learning,
And tills their minds with proper care,
And sees them their due produce bear,
No joys, alas ! his toil beguile,
His own lies fallow all the while.
The account of Brooke will interest many
readers, as it contains some curious facts.
Brooke was the precursor of Darwin, and his
poem of " Universal Beauty" is entitled to
the doubtful distinction of originality in a
wrong system of poetry. Any one might sup-
pose that the following verses had been written
after, and not previous to, the appearance of

•
Dar win :
PLANTS THAT OBEY THE INFLUENCE OF THE SUN AND
MOON.

Here, winding to the sun's magnetic ray,
The solar plants adore the Lord of Day,
With Persian rites idolatrous incline,
And worship towards his consecrated shrine;
By south from east to west obsequious turn,
And moved with sympathetic ardonrs burn.
To these adverse, the lunar sects dissent,
With convolutions of opposed bent;
From west to east by equal influence tend,
And towards the moon's attractive crescence bend;
There, nightly worship with Sidonian zeal,
And Queen of Heaven Astarte's idol hail.
As an instance of the utter oblivion of
Brooke's poetry Mr. Bell cites the Edingburgh
Review of 1804, professing its ignorance as to
the authorship of " Universal Beauty." But,
as in many other instances in the early num-
bers of that periodical, the critics were not
versed deeply in literary history south of the
border

This third volume completes the metrical
works of Cowper. Taken as a whole, the
edition is at once the best and cheapest
extant. The notes are not too numerous, and
are carefully written. One of them deserves
special extract. After thus printing the first
lines of the famous description of the post-
boy—
Hark ! 'tis the twanging horn ! O'er yonder bridge,
That with its wearisome but needful length
Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon
Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright,
He conies, the herald of a noisy world,
With spattered boots, strapped waist, and frozen locks,
News from all nations lumbering at his back—