The Press.
London, England, 1857-10-17 00:00:00

You remember me cheerful and gay, but hen quantum
mutatus ab illo ;
Placens uxor severiter snubs me, now•a-days, for each
small peccadillo,
And I feel those who think that a marriage from trouble
and care will exempt 'em
Are fellows devoid of all sense, homilies quibus lumen
ademptum.
As soon as I wake in the morn comes the carnifex san•
guinolentus,
And hands me his little account for the hove' et oves he's
sent us.

Life's Problems. Essays, Moral, Social, and Psycho-
logical. London : Bell and Daldy.
Tim little volume scarcely answers to its title. We
miss the " social " element, and the book reads like
a series of unpreached sermons. Its author is a
man of taste and feeling, but he has not placed before
himself any distinct conception of what audience he
wishes to address. He follows in the wake of Mr.
Helps, and his sentimental platitudes are not a few.
But, undoubtedly, at times the author rises into real
eloquence of tone ; and we like the religionism of his
work more than what we meet with in books of
similar class. In the essay on " Cardinal Points in
Life's Compass" he says:—
In the daily intercourse with our kind, how often does
it appear to us that great capacity is denied a fitting field
for display and development, and rarest faculties are ill
bestowed on mean occupations ? How often a noble and
a loving heart, full of all high aspirations and gentle sym-
pathies, seems condemned a life long to the society of un-
congenial minds ; destined to solicit in vain the one re-
sponsive note wanting to make divine music, and to enable
it to give to the world its own sweet melody ; living to
waste, as it would seem, among those who neither share
in the gifts of such a nature, nor are capable of appre-
ciating their value. Yes, even on to the end, such things
have been, and are, and will be ! Yet are we not permitted
to hope, by all we see of a Divine rule of compensation,
that some ray of heavenly light and love illumines. unseen
to grosser eyes, the path of these seemingly misplaced and
neglected ones, " unsphered angels woefully astray "? Do
we not in effect learn at last to read this open secret of
God's dispensation, which goes so far to reconcile apparent
inconsistencies and dire disparities ; namely, that no
rightminded, truehearted effort is ever made in vain, or
left without fruit ! Here or hereafter it shall be gathered.
Among those denied all apparent fruition of their gifts or
their labours here, yet who still " possess their hearts in
patience," shall we not find the most favoured builders of
God's temple on earth? A better offering may be theirs,
to lay upon the altar nut built of hands, than if they had
been accompanied through life with sympathising hearts,
congenial natures, and the honour and plaudits of the
world !
This is a fair specimen of the author's best manner ;
and as a first production the little volume is credit-
able to its writer's literary powers.

The Poetical Works of John Edmund Betide.
A New Edition. F3ur Vols. London : Long-
mans.
Tnrs is a very neat edition of Mr. Reade's poems,
and its typography is all that could he desired. Mr.
Reade's literary talents have long been recognised,
but there is difference of opinion as to the measure
of his poetical power. Mr. Reade appears to us to be
a fluent rhetorician, hesitating as to whether he
should cast his writings in the mould of Goethe or
Byron. His best poem is " Italy," which is re-
printed for the fourth time. in this edition. It is a
graceful production, and it has some fine passages ;
but in reading it we are too often reminded of
" Childe Harold," and the Spenserian stanza ought
not to have been chosen. It is not too mach to
say that " Italy " would never have been written by
Mr. Reade only that Byron had shown the resources
of the subject. Page after page is filled with lines
like the following, vividly suggestive of the " Childe."
The dying gladiator is described by Mr. Reade as
if Byron had never composed upon the subject:--
Fainting he reels, blood gushingly hath broke
From the death-wound, slow oozing down his side :
He sinks as in his country's woods the oak
That cleft and thunder rent the storm defied :
In that large brow ye trace the freeman's pride,
Flashed from those eyes the heart that could not yield :
Nero by nature stamped, by fate denied ;
The hautiest scorn on that curled lip revealed
His loathing of their shouts wild hate no more concealed;
For he is feeling the approach of death,
The chill, the fainting sickness, but his mind
Is busy while thick heaves his choking breath:
Alas ! no eye shall bend o'er him reclined,
No pious hand shalt dig his grave, nor wind
His wreath, and consecrate with tears each flower;
Hurled to the dogs, his holly who shall find?
The pageant, sport, and ruffian of the hour,
Dragged from his lovely clime, enslaved to brutal power.
And so on throughout. The imitation of Byron is
further forced on us by Mr. Reade's choice of sub-
jects. Thus we have "Cain the Wanderer,"
" Hebrew Poems," &c. ; " Man in Paradise," and
" Revelations of Life." These affect the philosophic
tone, and they display powers of plastic rhetoric.
1 But we think that the defect of Mr. Reade is that