The Sun.
London, England, 1854-07-10 00:00:00

NOTES ON MR. WYLD'S MAPS.

A hundred pages here comprise really the infor-
mation of a little encyclopaedia. They consist of
geographical and hydro,graphical "Notes," designed
to accompany Mr. Wyld's unrivalled Maps of " The
Ottoman Empire," and "The Black Sea." They
are issued from the same establishment. They
emanate from the same enterprise, attest the same
skill, and evidence the same ample and varied store
of knowledge. It is almost needless to add, more-
over, they are distinguished, these " Notes," not
less than the " Maps" which they are written to
accompany, and which they undertake to illustrate,
by the same unmistakeable marks of authenticity.
The materials, we learn from the candid and pithy
" Preface"—have been to a considerable extent
taken from the writings of Mr. Taitbout de Marigny,
formerly Consul from the Netherlands at Odessa, and
for many years familiarised with all the difficulties
of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azoff navigation.
Mr. Wyld's " Notes," however, undertake at the
same time to be more comprehensive than the works
penned by M. de Marigny on the same subject,
and, indeed, than those also of any former geo-
grapher or hydrographer who may have undertaen
to describe the coasts and ports of the Euxine.
Every one acquainted with the ancient and esta-
blished reputation of the ex-member for Bodmin,
both as a geographer and as a hydrographer, will
not be in any way surprised at the bold claim of
superiority advanced in the present instance be-
yond those of his many predecessors. It is a claim,
moreover, which the impartial reader will scarcely
close these " Notes" before having first acknow-
ledged to have been established as reasonable.
Their value just now, as illustrative of the import-
ance of the events of current history, can scarcely
be exaggerated by any terms of commendation.

LITERATURE.

The New Quarterly Review. No. XI.

Withoiit any doubt whatever the writers of this
youngest and cheapest of the quarterly publications
are among the most clever, and certainly about the
most daring, of contemporary reviewers. If we
wanted to make good our words on the instant, we
should only have to point to the current number of
the New Quarterly just "out," as an instalment of
the periodical under notice, affording our words of
praise the most brilliant and complete justification.
The New Quarterly reviewers boldly put their
goosequills "in rest and " have at " the most re-
doubtable among the living giants of contemporary
literature. Ex. gr. in the number for the quarter
which has just commenced, there are onslaughts—
fiery and slashing onslaughts upon Sir Archibald
Alison, in re his Vol. 111. of " The History of
Europe," upon M. de Lamartine for his " Memoirs
of Celebrated Characters," upon Sam Slick for his
" Americans at Home," upon Dr. Whewell for
his (or what is generally understood to be his)
" Essay on the Plurality of Worlds," upon Mr.
Bohn the bookseller, for his recent issue of Ero-
tica, as another volume of the " Classical Library,"
and at page 368, in one comprehensive sentence all
together, upon Mr. Macaulay, and Mr. Hallam,
and Lord Mahon, and Lord Campbell, and Mr.
Grote, and Sir Bulwer Lytton, and Mr. Charles
Dickens ! Upon the last seven, however, the lash
descends not for any of the ordinary delinquencies
of a man of letters, but because they don't contrive
to extricate their literary brethren from the clutches
of the publishers. As usual the contributions to
the New Quarterly are portioned out under appro-
priate headings, calculated to facilitate the
labour of reference. For example, after a
comprehensive " Retrospect of the Literature
of the Quarter," we have criticisms on " The
Literature of the War," on " The Crystal
Palace Hand Books," on " Modern Schools
and School Books," on " Travels," on "Novels,"
on " History and Biography," and on works the
character of which can only be numbered under
the " Miscellaneous." In a charming paper on
the gallant and lamented Joseph Rene Bellot, the
death of the heroic young French sailor, is thus
described and commemorated :

"It occurred, too, at the very outset of his second ex-
pedition, and before he had gathered in a new harvest of
renown. Death was the only glory he had to win,—
death under a British flag,—death in the cause of hu-
manity. Let our countrymen think of these things ;
and the memory of Bellot needs no other distinction.
There is his picture in this year's exhibition, all life-like,
and painted for his bereaved friend Lady Franklin, just
before he bade her a last farewell. There is to be on
some spot, dear to our nautical annals,—Greenwich,
they say, or Portsmouth,—a monument to Bellot, such
as shall record the love and gratitude of the English.
Let it be so. But the man who is his own memorial can
have no higher illustration !

We cannot refrain from offering one word upon the
immediate cause, as we conjecture it, of our poor friend's
death. His hands and feet were remarkably small, even
for his size, and that was considerably below mediocrity.
It was frequently the subject of remark amongst us
how much these peculiarities of structure exposed him to
dangerous accidents. If he worked a boat, his tiny
fingers were not more than long enough to grasp the oar,
and their strength barely adequate to wield it, even
under the most favourable conditions of water and
weather. When he walked, his small feet stumbled over
every roughness ; they seemed too slim and narrow to
sustain the weight of his slight body ; and he tottered,
slipped, and tumbled about, almost like a child in lead-
ing-strings. To us, therefore, the now familiar details
of his sad and untimely end have always presented them-
selves with an especial interest. We quote them from
the Arctic Blue-Books.

"'The ice suddenly broke up, leaving M. Bellot and
two men still afloat. The former, after making arrange-
ments, by building a barricade with snow, to protect the
men from the gale which had set in, went to the top of
a hummock, close to a crack five fathoms wide ; and not
returning shortly to the shelter, the men went out to
seek for him, and could find nothing but the short stick
he carried in his hand floating on the water. They re-
mained on the floe thirty hours after, and never saw a
trace of him. There cannot be a doubt that poor M.
Bellot was blown off the hummock into a crack by a vio-
lent gust of wind, when he indubitably perished by
drowning ; as, unable to swim, he was much hampered
with stiff wet clothes, and a south-wester tied under his
chin.'

"Poor fellow ! His short arms and little hands could
not reach or grasp the surface of the thick ice from which
he fell."

Another critic in the New Quarterly writes thus
gracefully of the homely masterpiece which will
carry down to the love of posterity the name of
Mary Russell Mitford

" It is now some thirty years and more since we
were first invited to stroll along the straggling street of
" Our Village, ' to thread our way through the labyrinth
of twisting lanes embosoming it as in a nest of turfy and
primrosy hedgerows ; to shelter beneath its " oaken
avenues, populous with rooks ;" to navigate among the
" islands of cottages and cottage gardens" besprinkling
its breezy common ; or to repose beside the " gorse-
fringed" waters of the bright flowing Loddon. A hue of
enchantment was thrown over all within, around, and
about that little quiet spot ; the magicpictures, half truth,
fiction, fascinated us as by a spell, and enhanced our
footsteps into close attendance upon our fair hostess
through years of visiting and gossiping acquaintance-
ship with scores of village worthies, of whose very,
existence we might previously have felt contented to re-
main ignorant. But no preconceived notices of refine-
ment availed us, after a first introduction, from soon
making familiar friends of Jacob Giles, the " cobbler
over the way," big burly Tom Corderoy, the village
Crichton," or even of vulgar Tom Hopkins ; nor did
we, at ten years' end, feel any scruples about our serious
interest in the matrimonial speculations of the vagabond
" rat-catcher," clever, idle, good-for-nothing, itinerant
Sam Page, the transitory muffin-boy, ballad-hawker, post-
boy, image-boy, organ-grinder, and wandering show
proprietor, when settling himself down in his place in a
quiet, domestic, tableau after his harlequinade of vagrant
experience. Who will ever forget the tragic horror of
the Cockney lady at the sight of the oak acorned by him
with the spoils of the grand battue among the rats at
Farmer Brooke's, or her comic perplexity as to its
animal or vegetable quality, veritable rival as it was to
scold, and
Munchasen's plum-pudding tree ? Then that shocking
the.
n
old toper, Master Green, whose standard of a man was
his capacity for double X., with his four wives of happy
the fifth in prospective tounket house.
memory, the slut, the ugly, the
cheer s h
illy,
Anti-Malthusian in doctrine, promoter of matrimony in
"
general, and love matches in particular, Who could re-
fuser, to drink a health to old "raster Green ?
And the Cricketers ! Could any one resist becoming
one of the club; and lending a hand to maintain the
supremacy of the Aberleigh lads over those Hylton and
Hartley fellows ; especially when ourhostess
was scoring,
as she must have been when she saw the •
cket-ball go
o
f cricket-ball
five hundred yards. Then the bevy young girls—Na-
ture's own children—nor starched, nor stayed, nor stif-
fend by conventionalities ; those charming little igno-
ramuses that learn music from birds, and painting from
flowers—that ride, shoot,
lage pets that twine round every d heart, old, middle-
aged, and young— h w o rather prefer to be wild colts,
untrammelled by beaux, or -na • t runony in perspective,
than to assume the • dignity of an "engaged," or the
• gra ,eur of a matron—whowould try f I"
to help nog
in love with one and all of them ? Or refuse homage
to those dear old ladies of every shade and type, almost
rivalling
them in beauty and sweetness, each with her real
woman's heart deep enough and wide enough to take
in and give out a whole world of love ? But those or-
dinary creatures of dirt and squalls, those gutter child-
ren, browning in the blaze of a vulgar sun !—is it pos-
sible we can ever be brought to sympathise in the joys
and sorrows of mud-puddling manufacturers ? But
children in " our village" are not dirty, not squally,
they dont make mud puddings, and lilies, and violets,
.and gypsey hats, transform them into the prettiest
painter's groups conceivable ; and we romp with them,
and toss hay with them, and gather cowslips to their
hearts' content, and end in becoming absolute slaves to
the coquetish tyranny of Miss Lizzy, whom we began
by adopting as a pet. Next in the scale come the dogs !
Mayflower, the pretty greyhound at their head. Were
ever any dogs like them before or since, save Landseers?
They must have sat to him for their portraits. Is it
not all glamour—is it not a phontom village, or an Ar-
cadia of fairy land But no we feel a genial glow, a

springiness of heart and step, a quick current of healthy
circulation, that no dream land, no mesmeric trance,
has helped to conjure up. Every creature is living flesh
and blood, every tree and homestead has a local
habitation and a name : we know it."
Besides the numerous reviews and notices com-
pacted into this single number of our very able,
fast-rising contemporary, in reference to the
literary productions of the past quarter in Eng-
land, there are, as usual, various criticisms on
contemporary French and German literature.

' Greive-Rise. By John Cordy Jeafferson. 3 vols.
Hurst and Blackett.
The first part of this story relates merely to the
simple details of a small country village (from which
the story takes its name), "Crewe-Rise" The time
when the reader is first introduced to the spot is
many years ago ; it may, therefore, be supposed
that the style and manners of the " Upper Ten," as
the chief inhabitants were called, were primitive
and peculiar. The heroine of the village, Jenny
Welsh, is a charming character, pure, fresh, and
unsophisticated, devoted to her grandmother, and
attached to her friends. At the commencement of
our acquaintance with her she is all gaiety and sun-
shine, but unfortunately she is soon cast down by
sorrow and anxiety. Yet even then she does not
lose all her pleasing attributes ; though more sub-
dued she is still serene. There are no passionate
outbursts of wounded feeling to mar the impression
she has previously produced upon the mind ; above
all, there is ever apparent a forgetfulness as far as
possible of her own individual griefs, and an ear-
nest endeavour to conceal her drooping spirits
from her devoted friends. Mary St. Ives is of a
totally different disposition, but attractive also in
her way. Possessed of many shining talents, which
totally eclipse poor little Jenny'a utmost powers,
she was, nevertheless, outshone in the higher qua-
lities by her pure and simple village friend. Jenny
had trust in Providence, and was composed in all
dangers and difficulties, while Mary was excitable
and impatient, and would not submit patiently to
her lot. Herbert Grmme is not so estimable or
admirable as either of the ladies of the narrative.
It is true that he improves greatly under the stern
taskmaster of affiiction, but there is not the
same native nobleness of mind and integrity
of heart evidenced in his life. While Jenny's
pure nature kept her unspotted from the
world, and Mary's high spirit seemed to rise and
overcome it, Herbert but too readily mingled
with its follies and yielded to its temptations.
After a great deal of trouble and anxiety, however,
he raised himself above the level of the weak and
vicious set with which he had been mixing, and
struck out a new line of action for himself. In his
energetic fight he was often cast down and dispirited,
but he found some firm friends at last. Some of
his adventures with the poor and suffering are very
powerfully described, particularly the awful night
scene with poor Nelly, whom he found almost
dying in the streets, the doors of the workhouse
and hospital alike closed against her. It is with
reluctance that we leave Jenny to become the wife
of Frederick Price, who is not her equal, although
a worthy man. Mary St. Ives, on the contrary,
with her daring determination to do right, and her
high appreciation of all that was great and good,
was exactly suited to Herbert Greeme, who wanted
some guiding influence to sustain and strengthen
his character. Among the, interesting personages
of the tale, one of the most prominent is the old
Captain, Herbert's uncle, who resides perpetually
at Crewe-Rise, and whose firm but generous conduct
was mainly instrumental in rescuing his nephew in
the hour of trial. The following are some conclud-
ing remarks of the author :
" We have seen something of the harmony of life, and
have looked beneath the surface-picture of humanity.
We have visited together the city and the village ; and
in each we have seen the minister if God and the phy-
sician doing their sacred duties— we have seen youth
and age, each lovely, though differing in their loveliness.
Wherever we have turned, much has met us to encou-
rage us in well doing—and though, at times, we have
been made to tremble, we have never had reason to be
without hope.
" Love, not only lasting but becoming more purified
by time, has made us speak with lowly reverence, love
perturbed and wounded has caused us to grieve, and
love's growth and victory have gladdened is—while
love's neglect has softened us with pity.
"We have had some converse with the veteran of a
past warfare, whose occupation was gone, before he had -
passed the flower of his honourable days • and we have
beheld his place supplied by a young soldier fired with
the heroism of the age, bold to do or die.
" This young soldier we have accompanied through
the most cruel trials of opening life ; we have watched
him rising from an enervating, unworthy life, have seen
him search for the right and find where it was to be dis-
covered, throw down the enemies of his better self, break
away from the allurements of artificial pleasure, reject
the tinsel and glitter of masquerade, and triumphantly
stand forth a simple, earnest, mighty man."

Lives of the Queens of England. Vol. VII.
Colburn.

The seventh volume of this valuable historical
work has now appeared, and the next volume will
conclude it. This department of history has re-
cently engaged much attention, as is proved by the
publication of many works of memoirs of queens
or princesses. Miss Strickland may be considered
as having been the first to draw attention to a sub-
ject which throws so much light on the secret his-
tory of courts and states. The present instalment
gives us the life of Mary 11., third Queen Regnant
of Great Britain.

Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay. Vol. VII.

Col burn.

The new edition of this celebrated work is now
completed. The Diary itself is too well known to
need criticism or comment. The edition is an ele-
gant one, with clear type, and the volumes of a
convenient size. A portrait is affixed to each
volume of one of the celebrities introduced. Whe-
ther we regard the writer as the well-known au-
thoress, or as the friend of so many of the distin-
guished characters of that eventful period, her
narrative mast possess a peculiar interest. Those
who wish to obtain it will find the present series
commodious and easy of acquisition.