The Press.
London, England, 1856-07-05 00:00:00

yittraturt.

Metes Ambrotiattai. By Professor Wilson.
Vol. IV. Edited by Professor Ferrier.
London: Blackwoods. tottglrei)
ON the general character of thb famous
"Noctes" we have nothing to add to our
previous remarks. This fourth volume con-
cludes the portion of them to be republished
under Wilson's name. We take for granted
that the rest of them are to be let sink, with
all their brightness and vivid writing, into the
limbo of forgotten periodicalism. We could
desire that Professor Ferrier had been more
free in his editorial illustrations, and that he
had given more notes explanatory of some of
the passages in this last volume.
One of the great charms in the " Noctes,"
as they first appeared, was the abundance of
good verses interspersed with them. We
find in the present volume a poem from a
man of genius, now no more, the late B.
Simmons, one of the most frequent writers in
Blaelcivowl twenty years since. He was a
clerk in the London Customs, but his specialty
was in poetry, and he had rare sweetness,
fire, and intensity. In relation to the contest
in the Crimea lately concluded, the following
poem in this volume of' the " Noctes" has
present interest. The correspondent of the
Times in October, 1833, observed :
.Some six months since, Achmet Pasha, the In-
tendant of the Palace, and the Sultan's especial
favourite, set out from Constantin ople for Odessa, in
order to proceed to St. Petersburg, there to conciliate the
favour of the new moister of Turkey—a title the Russians
eagerly arrogate for their Czar. Achmet was laden with
jewels and other costly presents, but that to which the
vanity of the Russians attaches most value was an old
sword, aelecied from the ancient Turkish collection, of
- handle

which the , and scabbard, covered with precious
stones, was sent to Nicholas as the weapon of Constan-
tine Palenlogue, who died, as you know, in the breach,
when the capital was stormed by Mahomet the Second.
Simmons wrote a long poem on the subject
suggested by that extract, and it has much
power. It thus commences :
O'er the golden-domed shrines of imperial Stamboul,
High rises the morning resplendently cool,
Till that proud double daylight is burning in smiles
On blue Marmora's waters and olive hid isles.

being of an exquisitely Walpolian flavour. Tt
was he that used the phrase since become
current, " But we must not be too hard on
" those miscalled representatives of our
" native country. Who knows but that some
" day we may be reduced ourselves to being
" Irish members of Parliament" !
Lord Cockburn, in his recently published
" Memoirs," has (though a Whig) highly
lauded these " Noctes" with honest Scotch
pride. He has also committed himself to the
assertion that the Scotch of " Shepherd's "
dialect is the best seen in our literature—a
dictum which may be doubted.
Many traits of Wilson's character are
shown in this volume, especially his ad-
miration for pugilism, in which he excelled.
He was, certainly, a fine creature, and deserves
the praise of Hallam, who alludes to him in
one place as " a writer of the most ardent and
" enthusiastic genius, whose eloquence is as
" the rush of mighty waters." He was, beyond
question, the most versatile genius in our
time. He was a good poet, a vigorous logician,
an accomplished philosopher (without a fixed
system of his own, but variously learned in all
the schools), a consummate master of lan-
guage, and as a man he was both genial
and natural. The ancient critics were fond of
using the phrase " the prince of poets," or
" the prince of historians," and Wilson might
be called " the prince of periodicalists." His
mind was a charming magazine iu itself, and
he could deal with every topic from Belles
Lettres to Boxiana. After all, the Tories
fairly met in literary combat the wits of " the
blue and yellow." Moore was the only Whig
poet (for Byron was no Whig or party man),
and Scott, Wilson, and Hogg were Tory
bards. We think, too, that more permanent
literature has been bequeathed to posterity by
T than b- the irthern

the Scotch _oriel Jyr —le no_
Whigs. Even in a political point of view
Wilson did great service for Conservatism ;
but his thinking on many grave subjects is
unsuited to our present time.
In those portions of the " Noctes" not
written by Wilson, there were some capital
bits. What can be more vivid and lifelike
than the following peep at the leader of the
House of Commons in 1831 :

" the angelic treble of Lord John," and the
" symphonous cadence of the manly bass of
Graham," and Mackintosh looking up to the
ventilator. The utter failure of Lord Althorp
as a parliamentary leader was a main causo
in the rapid collapse of the Whigs after the
Reform Bill; and what could be expected from
the sitter for the foregoing portrait?

The Martins of Cro' Martin. By Charlotit
Lever. Loudon: Chapman and Hall.
MR. LEVER has two capital qualities for a
novelist—inexhaustible invention and un-
tiring spirits. He does not pretend to finish.
His sketches are in a broad panoramic style,
rudely drawn and highly coloured, but full of
striking effects. His fictions are of the full-
blooded kind. All his characters have an
excess of vitality, and when they are in full
play it makes sober people almost giddy to
watch them. In the " Martins " there is less
of boisterous fun than in some of Mr. Lever's
previous efforts ; but there is plenty of adven-
ture of the most dashing kind. The plates,
by Phiz, are in keeping with the narrative.
We have horses (of course) making impossible
plu•'ges; one young lady firing a pistol at a
band of Irish savages ; and another, in
Cassandra-like attitude, announcing the ap-
proaching triumph of the Parisians in the
Three Glorious Days ; with tumultuous scenes
of Irish life in all its varieties.
In his " Preface' Mr. Lever frankly tells us
that he started with a design which he has
failed to carry out :
The picture of a new social condition that I desired to
develop, I have barely sketched—the greet political change
worked on a whole people, merely glanced at. . . . So
is it that now my task is completed I grieve to see how
little opportunity I have had of dwelling on the great
problem which first engaged me in the social working of
the Er- • 13111 of '29. It was a - over

.mancipation subject
which I had long thought and pondered, and in, I hope, a
spirit of fairness and justice. Firmly feeling that the
great evils of Ireland were rather social than political, and
strongly impressed with the conviction that the remedy
lay less in legislative enactment than in the growth of
habits of mutual charity and good-will, I have regarded
the working of the Relief Bill with intense interest as its
effects displayed themselves in the two opposite parties. I
have seen, or fancied I have seen, great mistakes on both
sides—golden opportunities of agreement neglected—
happy coincidences of feeling ignored ; and yet, with all
this, a more generous forbearing tone has unquestionably
. . _
Of

North : Has Lord Althorp nothing of the fine old - -
All Stsrnboul is astir—the Imaum's minaret sucoeeded; and if we have not reached the happy goal o
Spencer face about him ?
Is scarce hushed from the Hu of his godliness yet; perfect concord, mach of the bitterness of party has beefs
e. The are r
lines
l
good
d A ea. The there.
When—your brows to the dust ! Achmet Pasha appears Tickler: effaced—much of the rancour of old jealousies forgotten.
'Mid the thunder of horse and the lightning of spears! semblance to some even of the ablest of the race is
striking. But so much the worse. I know few things It would take more space than is at our dis
In a tempest of splendour—with banner and tromp, more painful than, in visiting some man of great intellec- posal, more time than we have to spare, more
By bazaar and atmeydan is winding his pomp, tual rank, to see his son carving the mutton at the foot of patience than we can boast, to unravel Mr.
Till it sparkleth away through yon gateway of gold, his table, so like him that you would have detected the
Like a stream in ale sunset triumphantly rolled. connection had you met the youth at Cairo—i-and yet so Lever's plot, and explain its course of action.
He doubtless goes forth, the Vicegerent of Fate visibly a fool that your eye is relieved by turning to a dish The heroine, Miss Mary Martin, is one of the
O'er some them. of that despotelominion; whose state of turnips. Lord Ilthorp has handsome features, but oh! author's truehearted, danger-spurning, Irish .`,
Shot the arch of its empire's plenipotent span how heavily they are carved. His eye is well set, and the girls—a saint for charity, and a Nimrod for
From the summits of Zion to yellow Japan. colour is beautiful, but not one spark of fire is there to the chase. A groom, in answer to the ques-
bring it out of the category of beads. The lips too are ,• she understands
i,ii,nlisi tai,,bliie,„well,,,,,.'
And recollecting what has occurred with the prettily enough defined, but no play of meaning, good or don whether
" :,astern Question: An the last two years, the bad, beyond a mere booby simper, ever rippler across replies fondly:—
~
„,,,,,, ',,,
..,':-
is .
.i.. 1
it
1., 4
concluding stanzas -*Ow read with curious them. His forehead is sinuous low, and eke narrow; the " Doesn't she ! " with a eenteniioasimiact a tie tip.
effect : -. ,
~ hair coarse, wiry, and growing down into his eyes; the "To bit a horse or to back him—to tube him his paces,
whiskers gross, bushy, gruier-like; the cheeks mere and cure him of bad tricks—to train him for harness
As for thee—the mistitled—frail shadow of God— patches of padding; the chops chubby and chaw•biennish; double and single—to show him the way over a wall or A
On the Janizar's gore-dabbled turban who trod— the nook short, the figure obese; the whole aspasit*at of wide ditch—to make him rise light and come down easy,
Anil who. casting thy bigot-sire& trammels behind, a stout, but decidedly stupid fanner of oevozpothiligr. she hasn't a match on this island; and as for training,'
Buckled round thy freed spirit the harness of mind. i... in sooee:,,
The conversation proceeds ,:=.-i-" ,' —-I added he, with a fresh breath," did you see Sir Lucius?'
Where sew is that "pint, lost Mahmoud the last?
Like the Cross, is the Crescent's supremacy put ? North: You should have advised George Crn hank to Scanlan, to whom the horse is shown, IS •arl.,
make a study of him for Parson Trullibet, in the new edi. attorney, and an admirer of Miss Kftte!.:(4e.' • ••'
Then up! and let echoing Christendom tell,
non of " Joseph Andrews."
That a Moslem could fall as a Constantine fell! " He's a nice horse !" said Scanlan, slowly, giving to
Tickler: A good hint ; and then his speaking, it is each word a slow and solemn significance. Then, casting
Ho! Leopards of Albion and Lilies of France, neither more nor less than a. painful medley of grunt, a keen glance all around and over him, added, " There's a :r
Let your flags in the breeze of the Bosphorus dance, stutter, gasp, and squeak. Every moment you expect splint on the off-leg!"
Or, by Allah the Awful !if late by a sun, him to break through outright. He hums and haws for "So there is, the least taste in life," said Barnes, '
The Caustic will pasture the steeds of the Don I three minutes, and then hawks up the very worst of all passing his hand lightly over it ; " and was there ever a
Simmons had great command of resonant lan-
possible words, and then flounders on for a little, boggling,
horse, worth the name of a horse, that hadn't. a splint? .••
and hammering, and choking, till he comes to another Sure, they're foaled with them! I wanted Miss Mary to
gunge, and if disengaged from the drudgery apparently full stop; then another grand husky blunder, let me take that off with an ointment I have, but she
of the desk,he might have soared high. As it some superlative beast, to tug him out of the rut ; and wouldn't. ' Its not in the way of the tendon,' Bats she. 'lt .1
wO, some, of the 'Meet celebrated of his con- then another short rumble of agonising dulness ; and then, will never spoil his action, and we'll not blemish him with
teniperailea';'iiicognieed his fire and spirit. having explained nothing but his own hopeless incapacity, a mark.' Them's her very words." i
At' aril tlineral in Westminster Abbe ,
down the unhappy lump at last settles, and pulls his hat
, y • over the bridge of his nose, and puffing and panting as if Miss Mary plays a great part through the
two persons were Ettinding together near the be had been delivered of a very large piece of dough— book. The interest droops after chapter I
grave. They entered into conversation. One while " Hear, hear, hear!" bursts in symphonons cadence sixty ', and, sorrowing for the sad catastrophe, .1
was advanced in years, and bore a Celebrated from the manly bass of Graham, and the dignified tenor we are in no mood to welcome the other 1
literary name. "I think," said he, " that a of Lord Advocate Jeffrey, and the angelic treble of the heroine, whose conduct has been so
noble Paymaster of his Majesty's Forces (Lord
..T. Russell):
" writer of the name of Simmons is one of the and Peel imiles—one little benignant dimple • and puzzling. ‘ 4)11(..I • sa)suo'3. sal' NO r
" ilioit promising of our young poets." Itt WO Holmes is troubled with his old cough; and Mackintosh The comic scenes are numerous i one -ogthij,.T
to 43iiii4VOns himself that a laurelled bird casts upwards a large grey melancholy eye, as if there best, is the painting an historical piutt*P"
wad ' speaking, and his delight nitty "1r were something wrong in the ventilator; and O'Connell
which the N..artins of Cro' Mart* iFis 44 to
conceived. The defect of Simmons was thit folds his brawny arms, and shows his teeth like a sportive figure. Mr. Martin, Mary's unoleltos some . '
mastiff; and the honourable member for Preston thrusts
10f•itilit' too exclusively Byronic ; but he was sclean hands into his pockets, and his cleaner tongue grandee with a sceptre ; nand his. •re Lady '
. . r
of .ailetfiery mould that the style suited hii into his cheek. Dorothea, is, we suppose, a Been of s
intellect. ,He was a constant guest at Gore- Shepherds What a pictur! Beauty of times past:—„ 1 .• ,i ,f,i ~; ji , • z
hottiKin Lad zi ti ton's circle, and was a Well, indeed, may Shepherd Cr' " What a "Is my uncle in the library,‘ i," ; akigAiii.. of
.'...
C4%41430.41 ,1,11 6of his plivitte letter pictur ! " Al! the points tire well seized---b Ji Telt phut, oi,f4 foil yit
Visi
Mg7itisippel ,telt ..ri DA1110V1.1) 9 0 P 139 iLii--- .4, 0 :'ll i..)3. b' . : 1 `,' f '.LAki "'

yl~l

" Miss; he's in the bother it, then, if I can ever
think of the name of it."
" The studio you mean," said she, smiling.
"Just so, Miss Mary," replied he, with a sigh, for he
remembered certain penitential hours passed by himself
in the same loeality.
" Do you think you could manage to let him know I
want him—that is, that I have something important to say
to him ?"
" It's clean impossible, Miss, to get near him when he's
there. Sure, isn't he upon a throne, dressed out in goold
and dimonds, E.nd as cress as a badger, besides, at the way
they're tormenting him ?"
" Oh, that tiresome picture, is it never to be completed ?"
mattered she, half unconsciously.
" The saints above know whether it is or no," rejoined
Terence, " for one of the servants told me yesterday that
they rubbed every bit of the master out and began him all
again, for my Lady said he wasn't halt' haggard enough, or
worn•looking; but, by my conscience, if he goes on as he's
doing, he ought to satisfy them."
" Why I thought it was Henderson was sitting," said
Mary, somewhat amused at the old man's commentaries.
" So he was ; but they tabbed him out, too, for it seems
now he ought to be bald, and they've sent him into
Oughterard to get his head shaved."
" And what were you, Terry?"
" Arrah, who knows ?" said he, querulously. "At first
I was to be somebody's mother, that was always cryin';
but they weren't pleased with the way I done it, and then
they made me a monk ; and after that they put two
hundred weight of armour on me, and made me lean my
head on my arm, as if I was overcome ; and faith, so I
was, for I dropped off asleep, and fell into a pot of varnish,
and I'm in disgrace now, glory be to God ! and I only
hope it may last."
" I wish I shared your fortune, Terry, with all my
heart," said Mary, with some difficulty preserving her
gravity.
Couldn't it catch fire—by accident, I mean, Miss—
some evening after dark ?" whispered Terry, confiden-
tially. " Them's materials that would burn easy ; for,
upon mr,conscience, if it goes on much longer there won't
be a servant will stay in the service. They had little Tom
Regan holding a dish of charcoal so long that he tuk to his
bed on Friday last, and was never up since; and Jinny
Moore says she'd rather lave the place than wear that
undacent dress; and whisht, there's murder goin' on in-
side now."
Whilst Mary was still hesitating what she should do,
the door suddenly opened, and a man in a medireval
costume rushed out, tugging after him a large bloodhound,
whose glaring eyeballs and frothy month betokened in-
tense passion. 'Passing hurtiedly forward Mary beheld
Lady Dorothea bending over the fainting figure of a short
little man, who lay on the floor, while her uncle, tottering
under a costume he could barely carry, was trying to
sprinkle water over him from an urn of three feet in
height.
" Mr. Crow has fainted, mere fright, nothing more,'
said Lady Dorothea. "In stepping backward from the
canvas he unluckily trod upon Fang's paw, and the savage
creature at once sprang on him. That stupid wretch,
Began, one of your favorites, Miss Martin, never pulled
him off till he had torn poor Mr. Crow's coat clean in two."
" Egad [cried her uncle], if I hadn't smashed my sceptre
over the dog's head, the mischief wouldn't have stopped
there ; but he's coming to. Are you better, Crow? How
do you feel, man ?"
" I hope you are better, sir," said Lady Dorothea, in an
admirable blending of grand benevolence and conde-
scension.
" Infinitely better,--supremely happy, besides, to have
become the object of your ladyship's kind inquiries," said
the little man, sitting up and looking round with a very
ghastly effort at urbanity and ease.
" I never knew Fang to bite anyone," said Mary.
" Doesn't she, by jingo," exclaimed the Artist, who with
difficulty caught himself in time, before he placed his hand
on the supposed seat of his injuries.
Interwoven with the stirring narrative are
sentiments worth note by those who keep a
commonplace-hook. Mary, in relieving the
crowd who come to her for assistance, enjoins
silence except in answer to her questions :
This may seem a very small matter, and yet to any one
who knows the Irish peasant it will appear little short of
miraculous. The passion for discursiveness, the tendency
to make an effective theme of their misery, whatever par•
ocular shape it may assume, is essentially national. and to
curb this vent to native eloquence was to oppose the
strongest impulses of their nature.
• • • •
It is a strange characteristic of human nature that at no
time do people inveigh so loudly against bad taith,
treachery, and so on, as when themselves deeply engaged
in some very questionable enterprise.
From the crowded dramatis persona, and
bristling action, the lovers of adventurous
fiction will find plenty of amusement in Mr.
Lever's melodramatic pages.

Salad for the Social. London : Bentley.
THE author of this volume is an American. It
is a collection of good sayings and doings, com-
piled in the Dr. Doran manner, but in rather
a more slip-shod style than marks that amusing
retailer of anecdote. How would Disraeli the
elder shudder could he see the brood of book-
makers to which his " Curiosities" have given
nsd. Itt such books correctness should be the
first requisite, but the practice now is to print

anecdotes without the slightest inquiry into
their authenticity or reference to their ori-
ginals.
The best chapters in this book are on medi-
cine and law. But we quote with hesitation,
nut feeling the slightest reliance on the inte-
grity of the writer. Between authors and
doctors there has long been a mortal feud;
and in noticing their opposition, the witty
caricatures of the mediciners of his time by
Moliere might appropriately have been re-
ferred to. It seems, however, that the keenest
satirists of the practice of medicine have been
doctors themselves :
Dr. Akenside, himself a physician, has said, " Physi-
cians, in despair of making medicine a science, have
agreed to convert it into a trade." Sir Anthony Carlisle
said, " that medicine was an art founded in conjecture,
and improved by murder; that he never could discover
any rational principle in a physician's treatment of a case,
and that, therefore, it was all guess-work." The late Pro-
fessor Gregory used often to declare in his class-room,
" that ninety-nine out of one hundred medical facts were so
many medical lies, and that medical doctrines were for the
most part little better than stark roaring nonsense." . . .
Dr. James Johnson, of London, has left upon record the
following extraordinary admission. " I declare as my con-
scientious opinion, founded on long experience and COTl-
viction, that if there was not a single physician, surgeon,
apothecary, chemist, druggist, nor drug on the face of the
earth, there would be less sickness and less mortality than
now prevail."
- -

Physicians have not unfrequeutly been dis-
tinguished for wit :
The celebrated Zimmerman went from Hanover to
attend Frederick the Great in his last illness. One day
the King said to him, " Yon have, I presume, sir, helped
many a man into another world ?" This was rather a
bitter pill for the doctor ; but the dose he gave the King in
return was a judicious mixture of truth and flattery :
" Not so many as your Mejesty, nor with so much honour
to myself."

The New Yorkers, keen as they are, are not,
it seems, too keen for quackery :
Among the excrescences that infest our Broadway, with
its ever varying light and shade, its disguised poverty,
reckless extravagance, and obtrusive vanity. may be seen
two specimens of the real old fashioned quack. It is a
pleasure to look upon something so broad and full of
character ; there can be no cheating here, all above board ;
note his peculiar turned•up hat, unlike any other ; specs
fixed upon the very tip of his nasal protuberance ; his
bright blue silk neckerchief ; a cloak, embroidered with a
superfluity of velvet, d3es the luxurious for his shoulders ;
and all this weight of material and immaterial, stuffed into
a pair of Hessians; a foreign title, too, and the man is
developed. The other Samaritan may be known by a
certain air of solemnity that accompanies him—enveloped
in a coat and continuations of the last century, black silk
stockings, and silver buckles to match. Smaller fry there
are innumerable ; but we cannot stop to enumerate all the
prowling vagabonds we meet, so leave them to pursue their
Elysium their own way.

The chapter on law relates some curious in-
stances of its expense and delay ; but we are
doubtful how far they may be trusted :

In the Chancery Court of England the case of Narty v.
buncan occurred, in which suit actually two thousand
pounds sterling were expended in determining which party
was liable to paint a board and whitewash a sign.
About a hundred years ago a Scotch gentleman be-
queathed to his " poor relations of whatever degree" the
sum of 20,0001. In effect, he left them a Chancery suit,
which has remained in the family ever since. In the first
place, the next of kin disputed the validity of the bequest;
but it was established by Lord Chancellor Camden, and
463 persons mule nut their relationship. Thereupon, in
the year 1766, a bill was tiled for the distribution of the
money amongst them, which has not been effected to
this day.
In the United States there was a case recently deter-
mined, which had been pending three years, before the
courts in Withering county, New York. It was a suit to
recover twentyfive dollars, the am, unt of a note given ;
the verdict was ultimately rendered for the plaintiff in
amount claimed, with the modest item of costs, 800
dollars.

A brief and a deed are neatly expressed in
verse :

For pay, to prove the honest man a thief,
For pay, to break the widow's heart with grief,
To stifle truth, for lies to gain belief—
That's a brief!
Ten thousand words, where one would serve the need,
Ten thousand meanings, dis‘wird meant to breed,
Where none can understand, and few can read—
That's a deed !

The impromptu lines of Sir George Rose,
Mr. Leach made a speech, &c.,
are ludicrously misquoted here. A correct
version is given in a notice of Lord Langdale's
He in the Quarterly Review two or three years
ago. But one of the strangest errors we have
marked in the volume relates to the a►►thor's
count►;yman Franklin, the "Bacon of the New
World" as he is absurdly called. At page 353
we read :

An edition of Cicero's "Da Senectute," with annots►
thus, appeared in Loudon a'oout the time of Franklin's
mis+ion to that capital, as translated by himself, with his
portrait annexed, when it is well known he was incom-
petent to such a task. The translation was really made by
Logan, who founded the Philadelphia Library.

- -
This is termed a " literary peccadillo '." it
should rather be called a mare's-nest. The
statement is as full of errors as of words. We
happen to have the original book before us,
and the titlepage bears the imprint,
" Philadelphia : Printed and sold b) B Franklin.
MDCCXLIV."—many years previous to his
visit to England The preface by Franklin
himself explailis the only part he had in the
production of the book :
This version of Cicero's tract, "De Senectute," was
made ten years since by the honourable and learned Mr.
Logan of this city; undertaken partly for his own amuse•
ment (being then in his sixtieth year, which is said to be
nearly the ago of the author when he wrote it), but princi-
pally for the entertainment of a neighbour then in his
grand climacteric ; and the notes were drawn up solely on
that neighbour's account, who wrs not so well acquainted
as himself with the Roman history and language. Some
other friends, however (among whom I had the honour to
be ranked), ostained copies of it in MS. And as I be-
lieved it to be in itself equal at least, if not far preferable,
to any other translation of the seine piece extant in our
language, besides the advantage it has of so many valuable
notes, which, at the same time they clear up the text, are
highly instructive and entertaining, I resolved to give it an
impression, being confident that the 'niblick would not un-
favorably receive it
I shall add to these few lines my hearty wish that this
first translation of a classic in the Western world may be
followed with many others, performed with equal judgment
and success, and be a happy omen that Philadelphia shall
become the seat of the American Muses.

Philadelphia, Feb. 29, 1743-4.
We fancy the book abounds with similar
errors, but it would be a tiresome and un-
gracious task to point them out We hope
that in future compilers of the author's class
will make it their first care to verify the
anecdotes they publish, and note the sources
whence they are drawn.

Revelations of Prison Life; with an Inquiry
into Prison Discipline and Secondary Punish-

ments. By George Laval Chesterton. Two
Vols. London : Hurst and Blackett.
THAT a work on this subject by a gentleman
who has had such opportunities of observa-
tion as the author should be either dull or un-
instructive is manifestly impossible. Even
the commonest police case, when well re-
ported, never fails to arrest attention. Be-
tween the most abandoned and most virtuous
of mankind there must always be some-
thing in common ; and those who have
never felt the temptation to commit crime
are often unable to forbear asking themselves
what would be their own behaviour and
sensations when placed in the felon's dock.
Mr. Chesterton, therefore, need offer no excus%
for the present publication ; and we must beg
him to remember that any strictures we may
pass upon it are intended for the execution,
and not in any way for the design.
We have several faults to find with the
former. A great variety of stories is crowded
into these " Revelations" which are in them-
selves no revelations at all. We do not re-
quire to be told either that respectable men
may turn out felons, or that felons may be-
come respectable men. The circumstances of
each particular case—i.e., its origin, progress,
and ultimate consequences to the criminal—
are what constitute its interest, and whenever
these are wanting, and whole pages together
dwindle into a mere register, we feel that we
are being victimised by a bookmaker rather
than instructed by aldiilosopher, as some of
our contemporaries hive not scrupled to aver.
A story which breaks off in the middle, leaving
an awakened curiosity wholly unsatisfied.
should not have been inserted at all. And
that there are many such in the present
volumes no one who has read them through

can deny.
In the next place, we think Mr. Chesterton
would have done well to have given us more
systematised information concerning the va-
rious penal theories. We see what his own
opinion is ; and of course, as far as any one
man's opinion can go, his is entitled to respect.
Ditt we should have liked to have found in
this work some assistance towards the dis-
covery of a principle—something that might
have led us to a law—instead of the diftjointed