The Portland daily press., 1873-12-13
Recent Publications.

The Egyptisn Sketch Beck. BY Charles
6. Leland.
This "Sketch-book Of nonsense, which is
about as much as this work pretends to be-"
as the author himself puts it, wi tn becoming
modesty, is, taken all in all, as amusing and
instructive, as mirth-provoking and thought
suggesting bit Of copglomeration as it has ev
er been our good fortune to come across; the
rapid alienation ''from grave to gay" serves
to keep alive degree of pleasurable expect
ancy as to what form the next Kaleidoscope
change may present, that is quite unusual in
narratives protesting only to be books of trav-
ell.
Mr.. Leland has, particularly in the matter
Of anecdote, carried out his frankly declared
intention of being American whenever it
so pleased him. And American" the book
most decidedly is in double expressions that,
like his showing how the asses Exo-dusted
from Egypt, would have only single, though
singular meaning to the English-speaking
reader not pretty thoroughly versed in our
Pacific slope vernacular.
Indeed there are passages so strongly sug-
gestive of a certain Innocent Traveller Abroad
that one catches himself specializing, If they
Twain be not one and the same writer.
With the proneness of all testers to make
their point at all hazards, there are bits OF
coarseness interlarded We would gladly have
had expunged; and there are whole pages
that by their insertion have only rendered
the book Questionable for young readers.
Would the book have been less accurate or
acceptable sketch of egypt itself, and Egypt
as it isl had the entire chapter OH "Sprit
Sweethearts, Fairy Lovers and Goblin Wives
been omitted, with it, ample H.
lustrations from aucient writer whose
works are now happily inaccessible and long
since interdcted or out of print, and its
suspicious SAVIOR of wholesale cribbing from
De Balzac?
The spirited descriptions of what came un-
der his observation are so clearly portrayed,
that it requires no great effort of the imagina-
tive faculty to copjure up life-like panorama
of the Dancing Dervishes, the Cophtic
School and Wedding Ceremony, Singing-wo.
men and Dancing-girls, Market Place and the
Nile Voyage. q"
And the sober vein of more deliberately ex.
pressed opinions where the anthor is seriously
intent upon elevating his readers apprecia-
tion of Saracenic Art, and compares it with
the Gothic, boldly striking out their distinc-
tive features in his final summing up in
single sentence, with all their spirits, orien-
tai legends and art are properly human; and
with all its peoples Gothic art is really myth
ical and fairy-like," cannot fail to interest and
instruct
And the many useful hints to travellers
form no slight recommendations many a
traveller in other lands than Egypt, would do
well to ''mark, learn and inv ardly digest
his structures upon the overweening conde-
scension or vulgar familiarity of some would
be gentlemen travellers. And these passages
are by no means occasional, but scattered
through the book may prove to the casual
reader, or the careless one, looking only for
jokes, as great and pleasant surprise as the
unexpected discovery of glistening pearl to
the gourmand, intent only on his oyster
New York, Hurd & Houghton. Portland,
Loring, Short & Harmon.
Memoir and Letters Of Sara Csleridxe.
by her Daughter.
This record of the life of Sara Coleridge
will be found of much interest to readers of
English literature. Coleridge's daughter was
like her fatEer in intellectual characteristics.
The same spacious profound, subtle and
comprehensive intellect distinguished both.
The brief autobiography, begun with the in
tention of sketching a history of her life fo-
the benefit of her daughter, terminates very
abruptlya an early period of her youth,
sickness preventing the completion of the
record; and thus we are left to the letters to
learn what we may of her after life. This
short sketch gives us vivid picture OF her
own home, of that of her uncle Southey, VINO