The Press.
London, England, 1857-07-18 00:00:00

THE PRESS, JULY 18,1857.

" affected by the sudden changes of tempera-
" Lure which occur at this period of the year."
The rivers of China are particularly unhealthy
at this season, a fact for our commanders in
the present expedition.
We have but short space to speak of Sir
John Davis, who inscribes his two volumes
to Viscount Palmerston, " the steady protector
" of British interests in China," or of Sir Oscar
Oliphant's clever little book. The first work
is so well known that it is only requisite to
call attention to a new and revised edition as
published. Sir Oscar Oliphant, on the other
hand, contributes, on good authorities, one
of the best•arranged handbooks to the history
of China yet published.

1. Shining After Rain. London: Saunders and

Otley.
2. Gossip. By H. Morley. London: Chapman and

Hall.
3. Our College. Leaves from an Undergraduate's
Scribbling-book. London : Earle.
4. 'such is Life. By Doubleyou. London : Eyre.
1. " Shining After Rain " is a simple and touching
story, in which unaffected earnestness of purpose
and great purity of taste may persuade us to over
look serious errors of construction. The plot has
often been used before. The heroine, who is bred
in luxury, but whose native excellence of character
saves her from the supposed evil effects of a life cf
ease, after nursing a sick lather and mother, and
being coldly treated by a selfish step sister, is left an
orphan, destitute of means, owing to the ruin of her
father's affairs, with the charge of s younger brother
solemnly intrusted to her by her mother on her
deathbed. With all these difficulties she grapples
resolutely, wins golden opinions from all with whom
she comes in contact, and eventually meets and
marries the lover whom she had known in her days
of prosperity, when he had been separated from
her by the machinations of the stepsister. With
this style of narrative our readers are, of course,
perfectly familiar. In the Fresent instance the de-
tects of the story consist in the inartistic brevity with
which portions of it are hurried through, and also in
the fact of the heroine's marriage taking place in the
middle of the story. From this point all is plain
sailing. Sunshine has set in, and the second volume
reads very like an amplification of the summaries
which used to be affixed to most fashionable novels
some thirty years ago. The merits of " Shining
After Rain" consist, as we have said, in its sim-
plicity and absence of effort. The characters are
natural, though the dialogue is a little stilted; and
the story, on the whole, leaves a pleasant impression
on the memory.
2. " Gossip" is a collection of very clever tales
which first appeared in Household Words. They
are of course thotouchly impregnated with that
mannerism which Mr. Dickens has made fashionable.
But they are undeniably amusing, and in most
instances contain some useful reflections and facts.
Specially good papers are those on medical subjects
and on education. The following sketch of a sue•
cessful country doctor will amuse our readers :

The truth is, that I know •ery little indeed about my
profession. As a student, at the opening of three sue
cessive sessions, I was warmed a little by my teachers into
good designs of study ; but I was so fond of pleasure that
I could accomplish vary little indeed. I had a youth's
relish for fun, and a youth's disrelish for labour. Not
that I was absolutely idle. I attended a very fair number
of lectures, slurred over a good many " parts " in the dis-
secting•room, went round with the physicians and the
surgeons to the bedsides ; but I did not fie attention
properly on anything or anybody that meant work. I was
not by any means the idlest fellow at St. Poultice's, and I
do not think that there was any active harm in me. I was
quiet enough to be thought well of by the lecturers, and to
be considered quite respectable, and better than en aver-
age St. Poultice man, even in those days of initiation. It
was often thought that I could easily have taken honours
in some classes, had I tried for them. When the time
came for passing my examinations at the Hall and College,
I grew rather nervous ; for I knew myself so well, as to be
quite sure that my attainments would not bear a close
investigation. My nervousness was tempered by a spring
of hope arising from two sources : One was the know.
ledge that at the College of Surgeons the examination
(which was only on two subjects) would last but for an
hour; during which I should be cut into four quarters and
divided among four sets of examiners, each of whom would
have little civilities to say at starting, and might spend
even as much, I trusted, as five minutes apiece over then,
in consideration of the fact that they all knew, and would
think it polite to ask after, my father.
At the Hall, my hope lay in the fact concerning the
examining apothecaries. that each of them was supposed to
keep seta of examinations, got up by him as an actor gets
up parts. Every such line of business was known, and
taught publicly to me and to my feliow•pupils during our
hospital walking time by certain gentlemen called
grinders; who also kept duplicates of all the drug bottles
exhibited in trays on tile examination tables. They also
in those days—l do not know tow it may be now--even

707

contrived to get from Chelsea•gardens, on the morning of
examination, duplicates of all the plants that had been
sent down to lilackfriars on the previous evening, to he
named by candidates for the apothecaries' licence. The
Hall, therefore, could he passed alter grinding for a sew
months without any previous study. I ground at second-
hand ; borrowing the notes and information gathered by a
friend who was himself in attendance on a grinder. Yet I
passed ; I went through the Surgeons with a flourish. In
justice to the Apothecaries I should say that they almost
rejected me ; but the scale turned finally in my favour
when I was asked the quantities of opium put into the
several compounds of the pharmacopoeia that contained
that drug. It was one of the stock questions of the place,
of which my friend had written down the answer for me on
the back of his visitiug•card. 1 had nothing like an idea
on the subject; but I knew the list by heart, and had it
at that moment near my heart, for it was in my waistcoat
pocket. So I passed, and became licensed to practise.
Immediately afterwards, I took charge of a large pauper
Union. There was no time for study, and there never
has been any since ; for I have prospered, and I should
have no heart for study had I failed. I look solid and
oracular, deal to a judicious extent in jokes ; which are, I
find, accepted best and repeated oftenest as mine, when
they are not my own. I understand my patients' charac-
ters and humours; although I do not understand their
maladies so well as I could wish. Of course, I take care
not to let that fact be suspected. Profound in tact, I give
to no one reason for supposing that there can be anything
between consumption and nail•cutting that I do not
scientifically understand. lam considered to beespecially
able in respect to chest diseases; and I use the stetho-
scope—by which I am supposed to hear the sounds that
betray physical order or disorder—with much grace and
gravity. I never yet heard anything more than a general
bumping, which I take to be produced by the patient's
heart, and a crepitation which I believe to be caused by
the hairs of my whiskers rubbing against the wood.
Nobody knows that, however. All that is known about me
is that 1 am, as before confessed, a respectable practitioner
in the world's esteem, grave and a little bald, and that I
keep a brougham. Ladies arid gentlemen, I may this very
day have written out my fiat for 8i: draughts for one of you.
Nevertheless,let no one tremble ; for if it should be so, the
chances are nineteen to one that I have ordered you a
little harmless effervescent, or a draught coloured with T.
Card. Co., which is something innocent and aromatic. I
do not prescribe savagely. I live in fear of my own
ignorance and do no active harm.
Two other very laughable articles are " Country
News" and " A Monster Entertainment"

3. " Our College" is a series of tales founded on
the familiar adventures of undergraduates. The
writer's powers of story-telling are about the average,
and the stories themselves are of much the same
calibre. The serious element is, however, too pro-
minent for a work of this kind, and altogether its
contents are better suited for an after-dinner con•
versation between old-fellow students, than for
the perusal of the general public.
4. " Such is Life " is a sprightly little volume, but
we scarcely comprehend the full force of the
title, or the designation assumed by the author.
Whether it is taken from the game of vingt-un, and
is intended to denote his rash and speculative
disposition, we cannot tell. Perhaps that is the most
probable hypothesis. The stories contain no new
ideas, but they are agrteahle reading from the
buoyant good spirits and simple good faith that
pervade them.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED—JuLy I.
Boo Ks.

Leonora D'Oreo. Three Vols. G. P. R. James, Esq.
Newby
The Irish Sketchbook. M. A. Titmarsh.

Chapman and Hall
.4 Woman's Story. Mrs. S. C. Hall. Three Vo

Hurst and Blacken
T. Hodson

The Howar. Rev. G. R. Gleig.

Segue! of the Argument against Immediately Repealing the
Laws which Treat the Nuptial Bond as Indissoluble.

Rev. John Keble, M.A. J. H. and J. Parker
Refigure of Ancient English Poetry, consisting of Old Heroic
Ballads, Songs, 4.c. Thomas Percy, Lord Bishop of
Drornore. Routledge
Lands of the Slave and the Free. Captain the lion. H. A.
Murray, R.N. Routledge
Addresses. His Royal Highness Prince Albert.
Bell and Delay
A Visit to Schamul. J. W. Parker and Son
The Quarterly Rcrietc. Murray

Dusir.