The Sun.
London, England, 1852-03-09 00:00:00

LITERATURE.
A TOM? IN EGYPT, PALESTINE, (S-e.
By James Laird Patterson Charles Dolman.
After the appearance so very recently of the pic-
turesque and masterly volumes descrieive of the
East, by distinguished travellers like Kinglake and
Warburton, it Beetle's, at the first glance, rather super-
fluous for any other wanderer in those region, of
beauty, grandeur, or magnificence, to adventure upon
their delineation. Reasons, however, are adduced in
the preface to the volume here submitted to our criti-
cism such as, we conceive, exonerate the author from
the charge of temerity, while they impart to the work
• a novel and not inconsiderable attraction. Speaking
at once in extenuation of his attempt, the writer says,
"The visitors to the east, who have recently put forth
ingenious and brilliant accounts of' their travele, have
been mostly such as thought they were doing a ser-
, Vice to society by throwing a certain air of in-
telligent contempt over . the sacred places of
, • Palestine." Remarks of this condemnatory character
are, it is true, but too applicable to the vivid and
luminous pages of " Eothen," in which the narrator
seizes with evident relish every imaginable opportu-
nity which can enable him to throw his little quirks
of humour and quips of facetiousness over those spots
which are viewed as sacred by the vast majority of
the educated minds of Christendom, Not so, how-
ever, was it with the beautiful 'end bewitching chap-
ters of the "Crescent and the Cross," in which, with
little direct sympathy for aught beyond the limits of
his own creed, the gifted—and, alas ! that we should
,• have to surmise alto the deeply lamented—Eliot
Warburton, never mentioned those holy scenes but with
an affectionate and reverential sense of their peculiar
•• sanctity. Loitering through the village of Beth-
lehem, bathing in the waves of the Jordan, roving
by moonlight through the silent streets of
Jerusalem, ascending to Mount Moriah, to
the hill of Ziory, and to the height of Calvary,
be always trod the soil, and scanned the scenery,
and explored the topographical curiosities of
Palestine, with a fitting appreciation of the many
grand and touching events, the sublime and pathetic
incidents, the awful and holy expiation with which
those memorable localities are associated. Never-
thelese, there was still room left for other travellers
over the same ground, travellers not qualified to de-
pict with words of kindred loveliness, the aspect of
the panoramas displayed to their wondering gaze by
the mountains and the valleys of the East, but who
might still by the industry of their research justify
the publication of their memoranda and memorabilia
A traveller of this kind is Mr. Patterson. His
" Journal " evidences that he is a man of edu-
cation and a man of intelligence. His pro-
gress through the various countries named
• Upon the title-page is marked by an accumu-
lation of very new and very valuable information.
This information he has here generously laid before
the public in a work the peculiar lucidity and the
literary graces of which must command for it no
indifferent share of admiration. Setting nut with an
account of all that more particularly arrested his
attention as he traversed Germany, Trieste, and the
Adriatic, he commemorates with gusto the nature of
nig first impressions on his arrival in Egypt. Here,
of course, he passes not unnoticed things familiar to
the readers of Kinglake and Warburton, such, for
example, as the luxury of the Turkish bath, the
strangeness of the petrified wood, and the diverse
characteristics of the Nile Boats, and the streets of
the Egyptian
and the mosques, and the tombs, and
Egyptian music, and the desert cata-
combs, and the obelisks, and the pyre-
nifli. Minute records are given of the voyage
both up and down the river, the numerous " won-
ders" of the Nile being each in succession enumerated
--from Thebes for Memphis, from the cataracts to,
the crocodiles. Subsequently we have a description
of the journey across the desert and the entrance into
Jerusalem. Here it is that the value of Mr. Pat-
tersen9s work becomes the more conspicuously ap-
Parent. He sets a proportionate value upon every
vestige of the Holy City, and it is with a loving heart
.• and an adoring mind that he moves through its con-
Secreted precincts—through the holy sepulchre, by
• the column of flagellation, to the summit of Calvary,
Along the Via Doloross, into the garden of Gethse-
11l ene. He penetrates afterwards into the cave of St.
Jerome, to the valley of Ajelon, to the site
•` Of Jericho, to tbe pools of Solomon, and to the
valley of Terebinthus. Our traveller's movements
(•are then extended to the country surrounding Jeru-
ialem, to Carmel and Tabor, to the Lebanon, and
• homewards by way of the Levant, Greece, and
Venice. The volume is embellished through-
out with a variety of curious, and some
.of them most attractive, illustrations. Amongst
those, for, instance, there is a delineation of Jeru-
"Belem in the form of a frontispiece. Again, there is
t 1 sketch of that island of Philee, mentioned in the
" Crescent and the Cross" in terms of such rapturous
admiration. Besides these, and other scarcely less
Valuable plates, there are very excellent woodcuts
pourtraying the hieroglyphics for the name of the
King of Judah, and giving a vivid notion of the ruins
of Baalbek. As appendices, we must also especially
refer to, as of inestimable value, the chapters
relating tar-the Catholics of the East, to the " Sepae
ratist or Schismatic Christians of the East," to par-
ticular "indulgences," and to the holy places of Pales-
tine. Everywhere throughout his journal the author
evinces his ability, and what, if possible, is still more
gratifying-in a traveller into the regions he has tea-
versed, namely, a recognition of the holier and loftier
influences of religion, insomuch that we have a more
than ordinary satisfaction in offering our meed of
commendation to the " Journal " of James Laird
Patterson.

SCENES AND ADVENTURES IN CEN-
TRAL AMERICA. Edited by Frederick Hard-
man, Esq. Blackwood.
This volume is based upon the German works of
Charles Sealsfield, a writer, says the preface, who is
less known in this country than his genius•entitles
him to be. It consists of adventures in Louisiana,
in Texas, Southern Mexico, and the tropics. The
author gives an impartial account of the country, and
while he describes the profusion of plants and the de-
lightful climate in glowing colours he does not omit
sudden storms, prairies on fire, pathless swamps, and
countless mosquitos. If we read of a district which
presents the appearance of a carpet of flowers of
every colour, that "looks as if clothed with rain-
bows," in a short time we find the traveller losing
himself in the beautiful- garden, and following his
oven footmarks for two days, Two travellers on set-
ting out are disappointed with the prospect, but have
not gone far when the country changes and their ex-
pectations are satisfied. The following is a de-
scription
„ " Forests of palms, of oranges, citrons, and bananas,
filled the valleys; the marshes and low grounds were
crowded with mahogany trees and with immense fern
plants, in height equal to trees. All nature was on a
gigantic scale—the mountains of an enormous height,
or
face of the country seamed and split by barrancas
renyinieths, hundreds aye thousands of feet deep, and
firn
'Th, hks, e most abundant and varied vegetation.
tropics:o;e", was of the deep glowing blue of the
clouded with"" of blue which seems varnished or
log soil are gold: But this ardent climate and teem-
and reptiles necVnthacut their disadvantages. Vermin
render the fowl:, and the deadly fever of those lati-
tudesout of the twelve. Vs uninhabitable for eight months
districts comparativelyeretehe same time there are large
frota those plagues, perfect
gardens of Eden, of suchextreme
beauty, that the mere
act of living and breathing
anflatnlcti.egat their enchanting
scenes becomes a positive
heart leaps with delight and the soul is il elvate:enjoyment. The
contemplation of those scenes of fed by the
atry-hke raagnifi•
conce," , ti
IWt not 101
; do the travellers rest in peace. i
ng
incautiously encamped too near
a ravine, theoyulauriet° as
Bailed by a poisonous fog and a clond of m
While vainly endeavouring to escape they are at_
tacked by enormous monkeys, and are rescued, after
much injury, by some strangers near. Scarcely have
they. a little recovered from the effects of their mia_
hags, when a sudden alarm is raised and a terrible
storm and deluge of rain overwhelms them. Thus
the gardens of Eden, however charming, are not
Without drawbacks. The adventures are very enter-
taining, and the Style ie attractive. They extend over
various districts of country. " The Cypress Swamp"
and " Two Nights in Southern Mexico" are perhaps
the most interesting.

ITALY IN 1848. By..L...llfariotti. Chapman an'

Hall.

This contains an account Of the great struggles, of
1848, a most important epoch in the annals of conti-
nental history. Italy was as much engaged in the
Momentous strife as any nation of Europe ; therefore
work like the present is exceedingly interesting. It
contains most minute details of the whole of the pro-
ceedings, from the first faint effort to be free till the
last great crisis, when, as it is observed at the conch'.
territories
Bino, " AuStrian violiltion of Roman was
looked upon as a minor, as a necessary evil"
"Nothing is certainly less settledin men's minds than
this came question of Italian nationality. There is a
set of men, both in and out of tho country, who have
faith in an undying Italy, to whom the existence of
an Italian nation is a long established, growing, teeming
fact, who refer to the tiWtiV twice held by Rome over the
!vorld—by Imperial Rome, by Catholic Rothe, :to point out
in that city, in that laud, in that climate, the germs of a
Pheeaix-like vitality, a self-redeeming poWer, au eternity,
not of existence merely, but of greatness and sovereign
ascendancy. These men look forward to a third epoch,
that of democratic Rowe, or Italy and the people. In
their mind the existence of Italy is tantamount to
Italian pre-eminence. There are other less, sanguine
thinkers, on the other hand, who look in vain for a
nation in Italy, not in the present or future merely, but
even in the past. They can see nothing in it save only
Itti idle chimerical abstraction. To them the bi,itory of
the country since the time of the Cmsars suggests no
reva but that Of decline, of a' slow and gradual, but no
as unintermitting decline. Rowe, they think, could
not full ;9 yertiotilly,it cpuid Apt pencil Da I, yaw not