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    Mmthliu.

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    you have played your part in this little comedy . I only wish Captain Mowbray could have seen you ; how he would have laughed , ' and here she again relapsed into a violent fit of laughter , upon which Mason rushed out of the room , seeing that the case was evidently hopeless , and stung to madness by the last taunt , which showed him how the image of Mowbray was impressed upon her mind , and suggested that he might have been partly instrumental in procuring him this defeat . " ' It is then all at end , ' said he to himself , as quitting the house he strode hastily across the park . « The toil , the care of so many years , is utterly thrown away ; and as if these were not enough—as if the disappointment of hope , so long cherished , were not sufficiently bitter—she has added insult to my mortification . If she must have refused me , she might surely have done so kindly and tenderly .

    She does not suspect that my views had reference only to her fortune for aught she knew , I might have felt the love I feigned . Surely then , it was inexcusable of her to turn it thus into ridicule . But , by heaven ! I will be revenged : she shall not be able to boast that she can insult me with impunity . No , I will leave no stone unturned , no plan untried , until I have devised means of making her bitterly repent the day when she heaped insult on the head of James Mason . '" To protest against the fearful untruth , of such a scene as this would be idle ; the whole book exhibits a complete misapprehension of realities . Young girls laugh in the faces of suitors in novels , but no girl does such a thing m life ; unless , indeed , there be some impertinence to justify it , by betraying a want of real feeling in the suitor .

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    THOMSON'S TRAVELS IN TIBET . Western Himalaya , and Tibet ; a Narrative of a Journey through the Mountains of Northern India during the years 1847-8 . By Thomas Thomson , M . D . J Ueeve and Co . This work should have been named , " Botanical Memoranda , made during a iourney , &c . ; " and by that name have prevented the serious disappointment of every candid reader who , believing in its title , will expect a book of travels . L > r . Thomson is a careful and apparently trustworthy man , his memoranda , therefore , would have earned their meed of praise . All genuine observation is useful ; and we presume that botanists will make some use of Dr . Thomson ' s book . But the general reader will pronounce

    it one of the dullest of dull books . Every one remembers the wearisome iteration of the historian of the great itetreat , and his minuteness in specifying the number of parasangs the army marched each day , till one began to think that the incessantly recurring phrase , evrevdev e £ e \ avpei o-Tadfiovs Bvo irapaa-ayyas 8 e < a , k . t . X ., must have been written with an eye to a land-surveyorship ; but tiresome as these details are , they are at least definite , whereas Dr . Thomson's incessantly recurring phrases , " the ascent was steep , " the " descent was rugged "—and the vague descriptions of the road , are not only wearisome , but convey no definite information . The one good remark of this kind we noticed was the following : —

    " It is not easy to convey an idea in words of the mode in which these mountains are arranged , unless it is recollected that it is an universal rule that all mountains are ramificat ions of an axis , giving off branches on both sides , and that each branch is again divided in a similar manner , till the ultimate divisions are arrived at . All mountainous districts are in this respect similar to one another , and differ principally in the proportion borne by the altitude to the superficial extent of the ranges of winch they are composed . "

    But for the rest , his itinerary notes are as useless as they are tedious . They are written by a man who is " nothing if not botanical . Scenes are to him interesting only as they enrich his herbarium . The romance of the Indus is shut up in the Caracfana or the Pinus excelsa . The Indian races interest him not . , but he is in raptures with the oxybapJius Jlimalayanus . Altogether , man seems regarded in this work as a " cultivating animal "—a biped having the tendency to grow crops and cultivate gardens . The whole spirit of the book is summed up in this extract : —

    " We encamped at Lara , a village nine miles from Dankar , at which there were only two poplar trees , and a very small extent of arable ground . The wheat was ripe and very luxuriant , the cars being largo and well filled . " TJio poplar trees , and tlio full-eared wheat , were what he saw at other places besides Lara . Tlio botanist , us before hinted , may gather something from tins minute record , but only the botanist in the moat exclusive sense . The general reader may love flowers with the passion of a Dutchman for tulips , and not gather much entertainment here . IIo will toil through chapter after chapter hoping to meet with an interesting page , which ho meets with just often enough not to make him give up in despair ; but when the volume is dosed lie will find that he lias learned little , and been amused less .

    In trying to get an extract or two from its pages wo have been evon more struck with its continuous dulness . Hero in one winch may interest the reader who lias been tramping through ploughed lieldH all day ,. and han returned home- hoarse with shouting " down charge" to a . volatile poi ntor : — " Al > out the name time , I was invited by the Thannadar of iHlcardo to be present ut a limiting party , which lie had arranged for the capture of \ Aw chaJcor , or painted partridge , by wirrounding a rtpot , of ground , in which these birds nro numerous , with u ring of nuiii , who , approaching from nil directions , gradually form a dense circle of ixsrhapH a hundred yards in diameter . When the partridges are disturbed by a horseman in this enclosure , they naturally ily towards the living wall by which

    they nro surrounded . Loud shouts , and the beating of drums and waving of caps and clonks , turn them back , and they are driven from side to side , till at last , exhausted with fatigue , and stupid from the noise and confusion , they sink to the ground , and allow themselves to be euughl by hand . The scene was u very strikiiiK one . The npot selected was u deep dell , full of rocks , but without trees . Tin ) sport , however , did not seem so successful as usual , six or eight bird * only being captured . Tlio chakor is un extremely common bird in all parfu of tho valley of thii Indus , nnd i ndeed throughout Tibet . In winter , when tho hills are covered with hiiow , they are to bo found in great numbers close to tho river , even in tho immediate ' iieiglilxMirliood of the villages ; ancHn general , when approached , they lio very closo uinoiig the crevices of the stones . "

    Dr . Thomson ' h qualities ub a writer of travels may bo gathered from this account of Kashmir and its valley : — « On the morning of tho 22 nd of April , after following tho bo « o of tho low liilla

    for half a mile , till the last projecting point had been rounded , I entered the vallev of Kashmir . This " celebrated valley" did not at all come ap to the expectations which I had formed from previous descriptions , and from the appearance of the termination of the valley of the Sind river . The first impression was one of considerable disappointment . It was by no means well wooded , and the centre of the valley along the river , being very low , had an unpleasant swampy appearance . The road to the town , which is about ten miles from Gan < Jerbal , led over an elevated platform . There were several villages , and plane , willow , and fruit-treeg were scattered here and there , though far from abundantly . The platform was in

    general covered with a carpet of green , now spangled with myriads of dandelions and other spring flowers . The mountains on the left , which at first were very lOw , gradually rose in elevation , and were throughout rugged and bare . As I approached the town I mounted an elephant , which formed a part of the cortege sent , according to the usual oriental etiquette , to receive an expected visitor ; and I conse - quently saw the town to much better advantage than I should have done had I ridden through it on my little Ladak pony . Passing completely through the city , I was conducted to the Sheikh Bagh , a garden on the banks of the Jelam , at its eastern extremity , in a pavilion in the centre of which I took up my quarters .

    " The town of Kashmir is apparently of great extent , and seems very densel y populated . Its length is much greater than its width , as it is hemmed in between the Jelam on the south and a lake on the north . The principal part of the town is on the north side of the Jelam , but a large suburb occupies the opposite bank , surrounding the Sher-Garhi , or fortified palace of the ruler of the country . . The streets are in general so narrow , that there are but few through which an elephant can pass ; and the houses , which have mostly several stories , are built with a wooden frame-work , the lower story of stone and those above of brick . There are no buildings of any great note ; and the elaborate account of Moorcroft renders it unnecessary to enter into any detail . The river is crossed by many bridges , all built of deodar-wood . "

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    IV . December 5 , 1851 . ggg | tLENA bella , —Shall I apologise for the meagreness of my two iM ^ tl * notes ' " ¦ can imagme vour face wnen y ° opened the last , gWS and saw that the bulk of it was not in the handwriting of your ijL jjal vassal—I can see your proud flush , and impatient look round at Giorgio , —as if he could help it ! But I kiss your white hand , and am forgiven—as well as Giorgio , guilty of standing by while you opened the insulting meagreness . I know you would make me feel the vis vita in your beloved lingers for calling your hand white ; but I will maintain against Europe , on the bridge across the river , that your hands are

    exquisitely white—under the brown . Talking of white hands , Yseult—I mean the living Yseult here in London —must have been so named after the whiteness of her hands—for that is something wonderful ; the more so since they are not white , in the sense that linen is so . Walter Stanhope , whom at one time I suspected of a very vivid admiration for Mrs . Edwardes , declares that her hands are the brightest piece of painting he ever saw in nature . And when , at times , he lias called me Tristan , I assure you that he hit closer than he thought .

    Even the sadness of the name fits ; for when I left qur own valley to escape from sadness , I was mistaken to seek the antidote in England ; and the person of all others who seemed most likely , in my wandering , to give a healthier mood , is now a source of anxiety . There is something seriously amiss in the household of the Edwarcleses : neither of them is happy ; although Edwardes is prosperous in all respects , and their children are the envy of all . But I have found that it is often so in English houses ; and there is this difference between the sorrows of the Englishman and those ot any other countryman whom I have known , that his do not so often he > the natural visitations of humanity—in happiness snatched away by death , in disappointed love , in sudden reverses of life—as in some self-ma e trouble , or some slow negative endurance , too paltry to talk about .

    not sorrow so much as " worry . " , This , however , has been one reason why I have written less ; for 1 ia much to note and think upon , ftiul little definite to tell . - I must confess that in Cheshire the reason was less respectable , might have told you much that Stanhope said in our long walk , our ri < e , and the sail we took in coming round to Liverpool ; but in the first p tours have been drugs with your English reading ; and in the next , vcrsations reported after long intervals arc not good material . ktau ' I ^

    has told me much that made English society intelligible , and his c ""^ tions may reappear in more fresh and substantial foiin . My no c Werneth was the reflex of life in a country house—empty . I * V' ° i | ttt have put a brace of game within , it would exactly have contained w lift : amounts to at the foot of the hills in Cheshire . I have now * ec ° l" t for that abortive lcttcr-bud ; and also for my not writing more ' . enclosed Julie ' s letter . If you had known her , how much more cJiun that would have seemed to you ; for we cannot read a letter thoroi g ^ until we can recall the voice and manner of the writer—until wo can what we read . . „ j ^ d Do not imagine from what I have ' said that life is extinct in * ng ^ Let twenty-six millions attest tho contrary , if you , most august lleio ,

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    gg 0 fftt fi LE ACER . [ gAffyftj jgfr

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    We should do our utmost to encourage the Beautiful , for the Useful encourage itself . — Goethe .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 11, 1852, page 880, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1951/page/20/