The Press.
London, England, 1854-02-11 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

entirely on charity and what they pick up, instinct teaches
them the necessity of a division of labour• ; and therefore,
in the same manlier as a well•regulated society of beggars
has separate walks for its members, they divide the city
and its suburbs into districts. Were a dog found in a
strange quarter he would infallibly be torn to pieces by the
r.,sident dogs ; and so well are they aware of this, that no
argument, not even a bone of roast meat, will induce a dog
to follow a person beyond his district ; a singular and
►uthenticated fact. We caressed, for experiment, one of
these animals, whose post, with many others, was near the
Mevlevi Khan ; we daily fed him till he became fat and
sleek, and earned his tail high, and was no longer to be
recognised fur his former self. With his physical, his
moral qualities improved. He lost his currishness, and
when his patrons approached expressed gratitude by licking
their hands, itc.; yet he would never follow them beyond
an imaginary limit, either way, where he would stop, wag
his tail, and look wistfully after them till they were out of
sight, then return to his post. Once only I saw him over•
step his limit : be was very hungry, and we were alluring
him with tempting food ; but he had not exceeded twenty
yards when he recollected himself, and ran hastily
back. 1 cannot say if any order of precedency is observed
in gaining the best stations, as near a butcher's shop, or a
khan.

Captain Slade met with various inconve-
niences in his travels, of which he includes a
list. Here is item No. 1:-
1. After making a complaint to a Paella of an inferior
officer; with the intention of getting him reprimanded, or,
at most, bastinadoed, to have his head brought in to you
on a wooden dish, with a polite message to know if you are
satisfied.

We must close our extracts from a book
which all will read, and which we do not
affect to criticise, because its merits are
obvious, with the following estimate of the
peace of Adrianople and the errors of certain
" antiquated" diplomatists
The peace of Adrianople undeceived the Austrian
Cabinet, which had constantly buoyed up the Sultan with
the prospect of assistance from England. Metternich was
wrong for once, but he cannot be accused of want of
judgment. He knew England's trice interests, and he
conjectured that her minister would have acted as be
would have done iu his place. It is melancholy to think
what an opportunity was lost of checking Russia in her
aggrandising career ; and that the Russian Cabinet
expected that England would take advantage of it was
proved by Diebitsch having orders to halt the moment an
English fleet should appear in the Black Sea. How nobly
might England have proclaimed, "We destroyed the
Turkish fleet for the sake of humanity, but we will not
permit that another take advantage of that act to ruin the
Sultan !" How justly would she have entered on the con-
test; how Europe would have appreciated it! France
would have cheered her on; Austria and Prussia would
have gratefully thanked her. The most satisfactory
results would have been obtained, without any cost to
speak of, by the gentle pressure of her peculiar and
powerful arm. Two English line-of-battle ships and
three frigates, joined to the Sultan's fleet, would have
turned the scale of superiority on the Euxine. Six
English line-otbattle ships with frigates, leaving the Turks
on one side, would have been more than sufficient to keep
every Russian ship in port, in which case, instead of
having imposed a peace at Adrianople, the Emperor
would have had to regret the destruction of his fleet and
arsenal at Sevastopol. Had the Turks had the command
of the sea, Varna would not have been taken in 1828;
neither in 1829 would ten thousand Russian troops, with
magazines and artillery, have been landed at Sizepolis,
without which important appal Diebitsch would not have
ventured to cross the Balkans.

John Railton; or, Read and Think. By Wm.
Robson. London: Routledge and Co.
THE author of this little book has been en
gaged in the education of the young, a fact
which we learn not alone from his avowal to
that effect, but from the general tone of his
very didactic volume. In nearly all of its
pages we can detect the hand of a school-
master. It has too much of dogmatic decision
on the merits of a number of characters, his-
torical, literary, and political. Mr. Robson
has evidently been prone to challenging the
pretensions of those who have gained celebrity
and influence ; and much of what has come
from his pen has the freshness resulting from
individual thought and independent opinion.
He displays considerable reading, much frank-
ness of speaking, and not a little thinking ;
but Mr. Robson has not yet arrived at the
ert of producing an educational work like
Joyce's Scientific Dialogues," or "Aikin's
ivenings at Home." He knows books better
tan things, and is more sentimental than
soientific. He appears to agree with Addison
in thinking that the pleasures of the imagina-
tion are superior to those which can be gained
from science, as the first are communicative,
while the last are confined to those who are
technically versed in their principles and de-
tails. 'We will extract a specimen or two of

137

Mr. Robson's style, and let us hear him hold-
ing forth against an English love of money :

In these reigns a new aristocracy—the aristocracy of
wealth—has sprung up amongst us, and endangered every
liberal opinion and feeling. Such is the power and extent
of this love of money that it pervades all classes and ages.
It has drawn upon us the ridicule of the whole world. I
heard it remarked by a very sensible lady, long resident on
the Continent, that it constitutes the principal difference
between the conversation of the French and that of the
English. From the peer to the peasant, all are absorbed
in money, or money's worth. It has reached even our
young men ; everything is to be decided by a bet ; argu-
ment, reason, are nothing; if you don't agree with nit,
will you back your opinion? If a young man buy a fine
horse, which proves to be a good hunter, the consequence
is, not for him to tell you how much he likes him, and how
long he means to keep him, but how much he is worth in
the field, or how much he will fetch " at the Corner " (Tat-
tersall's 1. The worship of Mammon is entirely lest active
of the character of the gentleman. J care not what the
political economista tell us of the improvement money
makes in a state, nor what they say of its being the symbol
of the necessaries, comforts, and luxuries of life. lam
quite satisfied that, where the spirit of gain exclusively
prevails, all the better feelings of humanity decline. Our
great enemy Bonaparte used to ridicule us as a "nation of
shopkeepers ;" the shopkeepers, an industrious, perse-
vering class, withstood him, and beat hint; but now, alas !
I fear we little merit that honourable distinction : we have
become a " nation of gamblers."
Mr. Robson is no enthusiast about the
" Fine Arts," and frankly confesses that he is
"a little of a heretic in these matters." For
" a little " we should read rather " very much
"of one." Echoing what came from the Abbe
de St. Pierre, one of his dialogues runs on
thus :

" But these opinions," said John, " were all very wrong,
were they not?'
" That is a question not to be easily answered," replied
Mr. Railton " They are doubtful; but his illustration is
correct: Italy has never been a nation of men since it
became a nation of artists. I am a little of a heretic iu
these matters ; much may be said for, much against, these
opinions. St. Pierre in such a Court must have been like
Apemantus in the splendid mansion and among the extra-
vagances of Timon. Louis IV. was possessed with the
idea of some of the great ancients—finding a city of brick,
and leaving one of marble."
" And is not that right and patriotic, father?" asked
John.
It is but a hackneyed phrase, often used, and necer
well," replied Mr. Railton. " All who have employed it
have been actuated more by personal vanity than by public
spirit."
" What, the great Pericles, who, I think I have read, w as
the first to use it ?"
" Ay," replied his father, " from the senseless and
cruel builders of the Pyramids to the as senseless erector
of the gewgaws of the Brighton Pavilion. The Egyptian
rulers, the Pericles, the Roman emperors. the Medici, the
Louis XIV., the Georges IV., all had but one view, and
but one end. Few gain from posterity the admiration they
expected ; and the pyramidical gentlemen quite missed
their mark, for even their names are unknown. What is
the history of Athens since Pericles fulfilled his boast, and
left it of marble ? What of Rome, since the emperors
acted up to the vain ideas of Augustus, and filled it with
such buildings as the Colosseum, the hideous arena of
gladiators? What of Florence, since the magnificent
Lorenzo? or of the Pontifical city, since his son Leo, to
carry out the grand ideas inculcated by his father, and to
marblify the mistress of the Christian world, dethroned
her, and destroyed the Church which supported her great-
ness ? What of France, since Le Grand Monarque planted
vices in a hotbed of magnificence, which produced the
blood-stained fruits of the Revolution ? No, John ; Cob-
bett's ' good, plain, brick buildings' ought to be more a
monarch's care than marble palaces."
This is at all events frank, if it be heretical.

The Cross and the Dragon ; or, the Fortunes of
Christianity in China. By John Kesson, of
the British Museum. London : Smith and
Elder.
WE cannot accept this volume as being at all
an adequate discussion of its important sub-
ject. Mr. Dickens describes a person writing
on " Chinese metaphysics " looking out first
for " China " in a gazetteer. and then getting up
metaphysics from a cyclopedia! " The Cross
and the Dragon " seems constructed upon that
system. It is really little better than a dull
review of what Protestant and Roman Catholic
missionaries have done, or trust to do, iu
China. It has neither Oriental scholarship nor
wide historical research, and is at once defi-
cient in subject matter and in style. In her
novel of " Mansfield Park" Miss Austen
describes the heroine, Fanny Price, as being
lost in the perusal of " Macartney's Embassy
to China," at a time when that work was ex-
citing interest of a kind not very dissimilar
from Mr. Layard's " Nineveh." Though dis•
figured with the affectation of Parisian levity,
Lord Macartney wrote with the vividness

resulting from actual travel, and it would be
well if bookmakers upon China would try
to entertain their readers if they cannot
instruct them. We once asked the late
lamented Mundungus in a college library,
" What are you doing with that enormous
atlas before you?" " I'm going," was his
reply, "to wril
don't intendt ' Six Months
to Sgo there !" ourn in Ken-
It
tucky,' though
is upon a similar plan that the appetite of
readers for " facts" about China is catered for.
We may cite from his preface the result of
Mr. Kesson's reflections about Christianity in
China
In common with the general public, he read of an insur-
rection in China with some surprise, especially when to
this it was added that the movement was a religious one,
having Christianity for its basis, and not only Christianity,
but Protestant Christianity ! His inquiries have led him
to the conclusion, that here there must be a mistake, and
that the rebellion is but feebly charged with the spiritual
element. He has, indeed, great doubts whether there
exists in China much that is deserving of the name of Chris •
tianity at all. It may appear presumptuous to doubt, in
the face of so much general belief, and so many sanguine
expectations of the future; but the doubt cannot be
avoided. It must be recollected that Protestant missions
in China do not yet number an existence of fifty years ;
and that, until within the last ten years, Canton was the
only spot in all the vast empire where the missionary
could teach or circulate the religious tract. With the sole
exception of Ciiitzlatf, no l'rotestant missionary has yet
penetrated into the centre of the empire.
To which we have only to say, that the body
of Mr. Kesson's volume shows that he has not
had enough of facts before him to warrant any
decisive induction. In the case of even quasi
religious movements, it is imperative to avoid
hasty generalisations. What blunders a philo-
sopher from the antipodes might have made
on Father Mathewism ! We need only refer
to Doctor Channing's extravagant conjectures
about " Teetotalism in Ireland" to see how
after events falsify the inferences drawn from
the plainest facts by the acutest minds.