The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1874-11-14
Recent Publications.

tory of the Poaris Expedition, the Cruise Of the
Tigress, and rescue Of the Polaris Survivors, to
which is added a General Arctic Chronology
Edited by E. Vale Blake. Harper Bros, N. Y.
From Loring, Short g. Harmon.
In all the startling narratives of Arctic ad-
venture, nothing has been found so thrilling
as the "wonderful drift on the ice-foe," as
it flashed across the world on the telegraph
in May, 1873. Jules Verne's romance mar
rating similar adventure is tame in COM
parison. The book, which is finely illus
trated throughout, opens with resume of
previous explorations. A chapter follows,
giving Tyson's early experience as whaler.
His position ON board the Polaris, which
sailed June 20, 1871, was as assistant navi-
gator. The general incidents of the expe-
dition, and the adventures of the party Oh
the ice-foe, as well as those of that portion
of the crew left on board the Polaris, and
their perilous escape by boats, has been
made familiar to the public. This book
gives the details of the floating journey,
which proves to have been a thrilling monot-
ony of slow starvation. They lived in snow
huts, divided their stores in meagre handfals,
depending almost totally on the precarous
supply of seals which the Esquimaux caught
when they were lucky,) devouring skin and
entrails and drinking the blood, and all this
six months they never smiled, ''except when
Heron came out of his hut and saw the sun
shining for the first time" The picture of
"Puney," the little Esquimaux girl, picking
the snow out of the wall, OF. sitting wrapped
in musk-ox skin. looking up to her mother
every few minutes, saying ''I am so hungry,"
and the babe almost perishing for the food
which they cannot give, is very pitiful. The
interest eliminates when the ice-foe breaks
up and first their huts and then the tents
are swallowed up, while they escape from
one piece to another, standing all one night
holding their boat, with huge waves dashing
over their fIail support. and pieces of ice
like cannon balls sweeping across it, bowling
them off their feet continually. OF the ex-
pedition little need be said. 1t is evident
that fatal elements of discord existed from
the first. The vllainy which has been
charged was probably only the misunder-
standing OF malicious recrimination. 1t was
not unsuccessful when we consider that it
accomplished as much as any expedition. in
making point farther north than had been
made before, and correcting many geographi-
cal errors. And now we can but still more
long for the solution of the greatest of earth's
mysteries, the greatest since Baker closed the
search for the sources of the Nile-and prob
ably we shall not have long to wait, since DR..
Isaac /. Hayes, In his comments on the Aus
trian expedition, announces that he is salts
fed that the open polar sea may be reached
by steam vessel through Smiths Sound, and
his readiness to attempt it.
The MISTRESS OF THE MANsE. BY j. G. Holland
Published by Scribner and Armstrong. For sale
by Loring. Short & Harmon.
The metrical works of DR.. Holland furnish
an example of what may be done by good
degree of talent, facility, experience, and
worthy intentions-without the true poetic
gift. equally indescribable and indispensable.
The excellent T. S. Arthur himself could not
more volubly inform us show to make home
happy" Martin Farquhar Tupper could not
insist upon familiar truths with more ponder /:
ous.sense of original conviction; and all the
bards of all time must admit that DR.. Hol-
land "counts his feet On his fingers" unde.-
stands the laws of rhyme and accent, begins
each liae with capital letter, and has no J
part or parcel in the mitigated censure that it /
was reserved for an American humorist to pass
upon Chaucer,a las to his spelling. We frequently
concur in his views I'VE thoroughly believe in 1
the goodness of his heart-original 'errors
~AvePrcu anu y~U IN presence OF INT, oar~-z
fully written and really good poem. we re-
main unstirred by the; subtle touch that has
sometimes moved us in works of less scope of
plan and merit of execution. Coventry
Patmore has taken a similar theme for his
very delicate and beautiful CANCEL in the
House," and by comparison of these two po-
ems so similar in design and extent, we have
been enabled to see more clearly wherein
THE Mistress of the Manse'' is lacking. This
need, we believe, consists, in measure, of a
want of refinement of ideas and expression.
In saying this we wish distinctly to be un-
derstood not as accusing DR.. Holland of any
coarseness of thought or word, but simply of
a lack OF the fine, almost feminine
which graced Patmore's work. DR..
Holland is moralist rather than psychologist
and sometimes in his very obvious interpre-
tations of thought and feeling misses in his
calmly evolved theories, the measureless
notifications of individual natures, outward
and the indefinitely multiplied
reflections, as in opposite mirrors, of mind
in mind. 1t is, we are aware. easier to point
out at first reading, faults and inconsistent
cies, than to appreciate at their full value ex-
cellent and well expressed ideas. These
abound in the book, its intention is thor
oughly good, its language is at times happy
and fOrcible, it contains some passages of
real beauty; and the plot of the poem,
though simple, is well managed and supports,
without interfering with, the general plan Of
the work which seems written rather as the
of the authors theories of do
mestic life than as romance in verse. We
The Mistress of the Manse" as
a book which will afford much pleasure and
profit to many readers, and whose popularity
is attested by the large and prompt circula-
ton it has already had.
MRS. PARTINaToN's MOTHER GoosK's MELODIES,
edited by Uncle Willis. Boston: S. w. Tilton g.
Co. From Loring, Short & Harmon.
What Mrs. Partington has to do with
Mother Goose, is conundrum full as pro-
found as any submitted in the rhymes, but
there she is, lugged in to make a preface.
Notwithstanding the claim that Mother
Goose was Boston woman, we shall persist
In believing that the time-honored runes were
old in Shakespeare's time. The circus clown
who is the lneal descendant and the only rep
which we have of the old clown of
English drama, delights the gaping rustic and
charms the child with just such humor, and
when we see the good old times of "Merre
England" illustrated by burly fellow with
baby head on his broad shoulders bearing in
a smoking platter, and acknowledge the fit
ness Of it, we can understand how Punch
and Judy show, and the clowns wit, should
be sin concatenation accordingly" The
publishers have lngeniously appropriated some
Of the best of J. w. Eliott's airs from Nov