The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-09-13 00:00:00

REVIEWS OF BOOKS.

,Tie Comedies of Aristophanes, (A new and
literal translation.) By W. J. Hickie. London :

H. G. Bohn.
In the book before us, which forms one of Bohn's
Classical Library, and the first volume of the
dramas written by Aristophanes, we have six of
the comedies, rendered as literally into English as
the differinc, idioms of the Greek and English
languages will permit. The plays here produced
are " The Acharians," " The Knights," " The
Clouds," " The Wasps," " Peace," and " The
Birds," all produced in as plain an English ren-
dering as is compatible with a due understanding
of the various habits, customs, and phrases of the
Greek poets and people. In addition to the trans-
lation, which exemplifies the terse and significant
conciseness of the Greek original, Mr. Hickie
furnishes his readers with copious notes and parallel
passages from different translators and commen-
tators, who have illustrated the author, or translated
his works, in Latin, German, or English. He
also supplies illustrations from original English,
historical, and dramatic authors. The aim of the
present edition is evidently completeness joined
with portability and cheapness. It will, when
finished, form a valuable addition to the English
collection of Greek and Latin classic authors.

Hogg's Instructor,

Edinburgh : Jas. Hogg

Thcs-serial, which, as noticed on -a
former occasion,
has been changed from a weekly into a monthly
publication, continues to labour hard in its efforts
to deserve public favour. It opens with an elaborate
essay devoted to Disraeli as an author more than as
a statesman; although the essayist does his best
to induce a belief that the brilliant orator, the
sagacious and chivalrous statesman, and the dashing
novelist, are merely convertible phases of the same
intellectual essence. In his endeavour to effect a
demonstration of this somewhat difficult proposi-
tion, the author of the essay gilds with no stinted
distribution of ornament the literary labours and
achievements of the author of " Vivian Grey" and
" Coningsby," while, with equal profusion and
much less candour, he hints doubts and hesitates
dislike in reference to his political career. Such a
course of procedure is disingenuous and unworthy.
There exists no regulation, literary or otherwise, to
induce a compulsory admiration of Mr. Disraeli's
wonderful political aptitude any more than there
did to ensure his ministerial sway ; but candour,
not to say generosity, ought to restrain even a
political opponent from insinuating implied feeble-
ness in one walk of life, by affecting an intensity of
admiration for another. Is an example, it could
scarcely be admitted, as a fair mode of testing the
essayist's ability as a critic, to insinuate that he
was a brilliant conversationalist, or had exhibited
wonderful self-possession in unfolding and uphold-
ing some false and scarcely plausible theory in
Physical science. To laud him for the latter quality
to such a degree as comparatively to obscure the
former, would be about as fair a mode of action as
lie has exhibited in his mode of treating Mr.
Disraeli. It is an attempt to smother his greater
fame, by heaping admiration on what the critic
takes pains to exhibit as the smaller. The second
article in the _lnstructor is a silly and sad attempt
to spin a pathetic story out of an incident which its
author, with much labour and an infinity of vulgar
pcotticisms, fails entirely to accomplish. The story
is as unskilfully elaborated, as it is tastelessly over-
laid and encumbered by provincial vulgarisms.
In point of fact, instead of being intended to pre-
serve what might have been an interesting little
domestic tragedy, its sole aim appears to be a wish
to embalm in a printed form some childish and
strictly local idioms of the Scottish dialect—not, be
it understood, the racy, musical doric of Burns,
of Ramsay, or of Scott, but of some twaddling,
loquacious, and illiterate Moorland herd. A patois
as inexpressive as it is repulsive. The number
contains a fair and readable essay on " The Life and
Poetry of Milton," chiefly devoted, however, to
laudation of a new edition of the poet's works. In
the essay, nevertheless, there is a considerable
amount of interesting reflection. "Monsters of
the Deep" and " Glasses from Life's Phantas-
magoria" are amusing as well as instructive ; and
in the " Notes on a Visit to France" much sharp-
ness of observation and readiness of description are
manifested, as will be gathered from the following
epitomized view of

FRENCH TOWNS,

A pretty good idea of French towns in general is got
by the sight of one. The old towns are each other's
Photographs. Your juvenile readers may, however, at
once banish all ideas of what they have seen at home, if
they wish to realize a French town. Let them bring up
again the bright tableaux of Bagdad and Bassora, which
their " Arabian Nights" created. Open bazaars display
the gayest wares ; and blandishments to allure unwitting
wayfarers into a purchase are formed by a prodigal num-
ber of huge-sized letters, the literary decoration of every
house. Silence, said to be characteristic of Oriental houses,
is altogether wanting. The Sunday carpet of Cairo streets
has its representative in a pave of stone blocks, more
rudely sculptured than the worst parts of London could
show, and sorely
testing the benignity of one troubled
with corns. While fine shops line either side, a gutter
in the middle forms a meridian of longtitudelor the whole
street, while ropes thrown across from house to house at
intervals, to suspend an oil lamp upon, become the
parallels of lata.de. At night these lamps throw their
pale gleams upon the kennel like the moon upon the silver
stream, and by day the fat horses of the town plash
through it, dragging after them their lumbering vehicles,
which correspond in clumsiness to the blocks over which
they jolt. Foot-pavements are superfluities, except in the
best parts of Paris, and in those towns where Ei

intercourse has initiated the luxury.
Close to the market, the old church, with ornate win-
dows and walls crumbling to decay, chimes an accom-
paniment to the great vocal choir outside. Every tongue
is vibrating as fast as a steel spring. To dispute about
prices is so identified with habit and character, that abate-
ment is very energetically argued as a matter of course.
Where this is not going on, other merchants, of garlic or
cabbages, make quite as much noise with their protesta-
tions of un bon march 6, if the listners will but " deal
here, and not with those imposing people over the way."
Yet a sense of dilapidation is begot. The strange gable
roofs, with tiers of attics one above another, run so high
up as to make the whole appear as a basement floor, with
a Primrose-lull" at the top. The centre of gravity, in
innumerable instances, goes beyond its valid boundaries,
giving to the houses every legal claim to be entered in the
category of leaning towers of Pisa, as illustrations in
works of juvenile philosophy. Too high, too broad, too
huge in every sense ever to get a thorough overhauling,
their ruinous aspect continuously sets us moralizing.
Very like is the present condition of the northern towns,
and much, too, of Paris itself, to what our pictures give
ris of London in olden times. Mediaeval architecture and
ruins arrest the eye, and bespeak the status of centuries
back, wonderfully contrasting with the exquisite and
tasteful embellishments of the splendid parts of the ca-
pital, which as plainly indicate France to be in the rear
of nations by as many hundred years.
The number contains, besides the articles to
Which we have alluded, a couple of sweet poetical
contributions ; and, as a whole, the September
Publication is entitled to claim a fair rank among
the mnnthlies.

illim JEWS IN POLAmD.--We learn from Warsaw,. that
,Th4s„government has lately ptblished the following order
"'"". teference tort he Jewish ceremonial observed at the
celebration ofrriage :--" As the custom in Jewish.
Litlrriaß, es of cutting a part of the hair of the fiancees de-
v`—`-`s, es the most part, upon the good pleasure of the
Rabbine or Jewish priests, the latter shall for the future abstain from. this Iceremony, and shall so engage to do in
writing. ,ri,
Wien be posh who refuse to enter into this engagement
d by a detention of two or three years in a
house of corretiou.
or priest should inf If it should happen that any Rabbi
ringe this order, he shall immediately
be incorporated in the
military service, he active 'y • and if he is not fit for
sh
military penal colony.
all Pass ten or twelve years in a
The Jewess who shall have sub-
ofmitted to this ceremony shall be compelled to PaY a fine
five silver roubles
Jewish benevolent , whieb shall be appropriated to the
edablishmente."—lournal de Frank-
fort. . .