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

LITERATURE

A T911:1' 2 GYP 7, PALE STLV sc.
By James Laird Patterson. Clo.rles _Dolman.
After the appearance so very recently of the pic-
turesque and masterly volumes descriptive of. the
East, by distinguished travellers like Kinglake and
Warburton, it seems, at the first glance, rather super-
fluous for any other wanderer in those regions 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 travels, 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 hie 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 and 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 also 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 Moriab, to
the hill of Zion, 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 witn which
those memorable localities are associated. Never-
theless, 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
plight still by the industry of their research justify
the publication of their memoranda and memorabilia
A. traveller of this kind is Mr. Patterson. Hie
• u Journal " evidences that he is a man of edu-
cation and a man of intelligence. His pro-
gress through the various countries named
aeon the title-page is marked by an accumu-
lation of very new and very valuable information.
This information he has here generously laid before
• IPe Public in a work the peculiar lucidity and the
.Iterary graces of which must command for it no
indifferent share of admiration. Setting out with an
account of all that more particularly arrested his
attention as he traversed Germany, Trieste, and the
fltdriatic, he commemorates with gusto the nature of
I!! first impressions on his arrival in Egypt. Here,
of course, he passes not unnoticed things familiar to
readers of Kinglake and Warburton, such, for
s=ample, as the luxury of the Turkish bath, the
characteristics
of the petrified wood, and the diverse
of the Nile Boats, and the streets of
Cairo, and the mosques, and the tombs, and
the
Egyptian music, and the desert cata-
:.nlhB) and the obelisks, and the pyre-
ho;T• Minute records are given of the voyage
'a up' and down the river, the numerous " won-
't*" of the Nile being each in succession enumerated
the*ern Thebes to Memphis, from the cataracts to
crocodiles. Subsequently we have a description
oi, .the journey across the desert and the entrance into
erasalem. Here it is that the value of Mr. Pat.
:Teen's
work becomes the more conspicuously ap-
parent. sets a proportionate value upon every
;nd
ttige of the Holy City, and it is with a loving heart
an adoring mind that he moves through its con-
stecrated precincts—through the holy sepulchre, by
.16he column of flagellation, to the summit of Calvary,
,„"ng the Via Dolorosa, into the garden of Gethse-
He penetrates afterwards into the cave of St.
Jerome, to the valley of Ajelon, to the site
of Jericho, to the pools of Solomon, and to the
valley of Terebinthus. Our traveller's movements
kz's then extended to the country surrounding Jeru-
&lem to Carmel and Tabor, to the Lebanon, , and
homewards by way of the Levant, Greece, and
(ift:lice. The volume is embellished through-
t•
. with a variety of curious, and some
them most attractive, illustrations. Amongst
r•
ose, for instance, there is a delineation of Jeru-
salemin the form of a frontispiece. Again, there is
Z▪ sketch of that island of Philos, mentioned in the
_Crescent and the Cross" in terms of such rapturous
Zitniration. Besides these, and other scarcely less
alnable plates, there 'are very excellent woodcuts
tinUrtraying the hieroglyphics for the name of the
*king of Judah, and giving a vivid notion of the ruins
tef aal bele. As appendices, we must also especially
ver to, as of inestimable value, the chapters
le.ting to the Catholics of the East, to the " Sepa-
til,stnit or Schismatic Christians of the East," to par-
ti:itelar "indulgences," and to the holy places of Pales-
Everywhere throughout his journal the author
fo, lees his ability, and what, if possible, is still more
vea‘ifYing in a traveller into the regions he has tra-
LI" irs", namely, a recognition of the holier and loftier
00.nenees of religion, insomuch that we have a more
"n Ordinary satisfaction in offering our meed of
nitnendation to the " Journal " of James Laird
Patterson.

(GENES AND ADVENTURES 1N CEN-
TRAL AMERICA. Edited by Frederick Bard-
T.,,.11 Esq. Blackwood.
series
volume is based upon the German works of
liesekle' Sealsfield, a writer, says the preface, who is
iil neWn in this country than his genius entitles
irl 1,141 De. .It consists of adventures in Lousiana,
etitkeXligs Southern Mexico, and the tropics. The
.4,11 pr gives an impartial account of the country, and
li brie he describes the profusion of plants and the de-
: atilfui climate in glowing colours, he does not omit
acell storms, prairies on fire, pathless swamps, and
...
gT2ntleas mosquitos. If we read of a district which
ents the appearance of a carpet 'of flowers of
4:3'„colour that "looks as if clothed with rain-
-111-438,, in a short time we find the traveller losing
. ewe,.etf in the beautiful garden, and following his
ti,.loottnarks for two days. Two travellers on set-
401g out are disappointed with the prospect, but have
1)," gone far when the country changes and their ex-
an‘,.tatians are satisfied. The following is a de-
lotien :____
4, In
Ri,e..'oresta of palms, of oranges, citrons, and bananas,
erol ti the valleys; the marshes and low grounds were
leanistded with mahogany trees and with immense fern
gi "8'
to height equal to trees. All nature was on a
„g_aptie scale—the mountains of an enormous height,
Zretat!e of the country seamed and split by barrancas
fillerwl eni t;; hundreds , aye thousands of feet deep, and
, The' iiky, too, most abundant and varied vegetation.
i p tro es, the sortasof°l the deep glowing blue of the
clouded with gold. Ildne which seems varnished or
jag Soil are not withouutt hi' ardent climate and teem-
, tualieir disadvantages. and reptiles of all kinds Vermin
Wes render the low lands thedeadly fever of those
uninhabitablelad-
sani. for eight months
• out. of the twelve. At the
districts comparatively free from those
there are large
gardens of Eden, of such extreme plagues, perfect
beaeut
wagat ih,ethat the mere
enoir enchanting
act of living and breathing an,
acenes becomes a positive and real
is
elevated tea by the
heart leaps with delight and the soul J The
eentemplation of those scenes of fairy-lik e tea gnifi-
ttut not long do the travellers rest in peace. having
4ellutiously encamped too near a ravine,
as-
sailed ,_ they are ae.
Virts:mi by a poisonous fog and a cloud of mosquitoes.
ta_tie vainly endeavouring to escape they are at-
.,''ed by enormous monkeys, and are rescued, after
bush ' • have
th injury, by some strangers near. Scarcely
bitel 4 little recovered from the effects of their mis-
asoPs,.....l when a sudden alarm is raised and a terrible
th„,' and deluge of rain overwhelms them. Thus
livi",, gardens of Eden, however charming, are n
tai" gut drawbacks. The adventures are very enter-
-41,1,,1ingi and the style is attractive. They extend ove,r,
1144(!ius districts of country. " The Cypress Swami)
the Two Nightsr est in Southern Mexico" are perhaps
g.
Bt intein
ID

4-tY IN 1848. By L. Mariotti. Chapman and
Hall.
ho a contains an account of the great struggles of
siatauyiL.rnost important epoch in the annals of conti•
Ino history. Italy WAS as much engaged in the
eht...urk like the
e IT"t°1113 strife as any nation of Europe ; therefore
present is exceedingly interesting. It
tesa"l4e most minute details of the whole of the pro.
l'as'7,.".4lEVll from the first faint effort to be free till the
eio" great crisis, when, as it is observed at the conclu-
leokn Austrian violation of Roman territories was
kupon as a minor, as a necessary evil."
this'"thing is certainly less settled in men's minds than.
set tawe question of Italian nationality. There
have
a
Nit° raen, both in and out of the country, who avle_
liti111: an undying Italy, to whom the existence. a
faet -Tin nation is a long established, growing, teeming
Wori,,lvan.refer to the sway twice held by Rome over the
In th'4--by Imperial ROMP, by Catholic Rome, to point out
144„4,.t5e1tY, in that land, in that climste; the germs of a
bot (.;;ldte vitality, a self-redeeming power, an eternity,
hike f existence merely, but of greatness and sovereign
tilatlitialleY• These men look forward to a third epoch,
tfiq c m
°1 democratic Roe, or 'ltaly and the people. In
Laind the existence of Italy is tantamount to
thin Pre-mnicence. There are other less sanguine
r,er:' 00 the other hand, who look in vain for a
eve:: in Italy, not in the present or future merely, but
141 441: the past. Tney can see nothing in it save only
the eaimerical abstraction. To them the bi.tory of
ideit :latitry
ainc© the time of the eresars suggests no
lets pal
that of decline, of a slow and gradual, but no
110 t 111„intertnitting decline. Rome, they think, could
an vertically, it could not perish as it was not