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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Heath Bennet , Mr . H . Cadman Jones , Mr . James Willis , Mr . William Hackett , Mr . George French , and Mr . A .. A . Dona , are responsible for the several Equity Reports ; Messrs . R . J . Corner and Edward Sykes for the Queen ' s Bench ; Mr . W . F . Finlaison for the Common Pleas ; Messrs . J . B Daient and Douglas Brown for the Exchequer ; Mr . P ,. C . Grates . for the Exchequer Chamber , -the Bail Court , and the Court of Criminal Appeal ; Br Spinks for the Ecclesiastical and Admiralty Courts ; Mr . J . W . M . Fonblanque for-the Court of Bankruptcy ; and Mr . G . H . Reed for that disagreeable place , the Insolvent Debtors Court .
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A BATCH OF AMERICAN BOOKS . The New Pastoral . By Thomas Buchanan Read . Triibaer and Co . Lectures on English Literature . From Chaucer to Tennyson . By Henry Reed . Trubner and Co . Cosas de Esjpana ; or , Going to Madrid via Barcelona . Trttbner and Co . A Long Look Ahead ; or , the First Stroke and the Last . By A . S . Roe . Trubner and Co You Have Heard of Them . By Q . Trubner and Co . The New Pastoral is a poem in blank verse . Mr . Thomas Buchanan Read takes the rural poets of England for his models , mingling the familiar and natural style of the present day with a little of the florid and artificial manner of Thomson , and the school of poetry which he represents . The scene of The New Pastoral is in Pennsylvania , and the descriptions of natural objects are interwoven with a love-story , and varied agreeably by the introduction of rustic characters . Mr . Read is , in no sense of the word , an
original poet , either in form or idea . But he has the minor merits of an elegant fancy , a fine ear , and a careful hand ; ' and there is & certain quiet attractiveness about his poem which ought to recommend it to all readers tcIio are willing to accept musical versification and graceful thoughts , without looking too exactingly for vigour of style and originality of idea besides . The Lectures on English Literature have a strong claim on our respectful sympathy , for the volume in which they are contained is published under very melancholy circumstances . The lecturer , the late Mr . Henry Reed , was Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature in the University of Philadelphia , and was one among the three hundred passengers who perished
in the shipwreck of the Arctic steam vessel . We have in the little booic Detore us the first instalment of the Lectures which the Professor delivered at Philadelphia , edited and published by Mr . William B . Reed , out of an affectionate desire to enlarge the public knowledge and perpetuate the memory of his brother ' s literary acquirements . Under these circumstances , even if the Lectures proved to be of little value in themselves , we- should hold it a duty to-speak of them with the utmost forbearance and gentleness . But it is pleasant to find , on reading them , that they call for no special indulgence at our hands . Standing on their own merits , they claim warm and honest approval from us , as the productions of a refined , gentle , and justly-judging mind . The book is in every , w « y a jnost creditable contribution to the Library of Critical Literature ; and we shall be glad to find , Tn some future day , that its success has encouraged the editor to publish fresh selections from his brother's manuscripts .
_ _ _ „ It is no very agreeable transition to turn from Mr . Reed ' s sensible and agreeable pages to the unspeakable vulgarities and flippancies in the volume of Spanish travels which stands third on our list . If the author had possessed any delicacy or good taste at all , he might have written a genuinely lively and pleasant book , for he shows traces , here and there , of that quick and comprehensive observation which is the t raveller ' s best gift . But his manner as a writer is so inveterately coarse , so absurdly conceited , and so obtrusively and offensively careless , that it is impossible to read six consecutive paSeiof hisT ) Ook ~ anywhere without feeling tempted to throw it intothe . fire orlhe waste-paper basket . The coarseness of this author , especially in the passages which touch in any way on women , is quite indescribable . Take tixis as one specimen out of many : —
Everything , at last , was tumbled into the boat , and stowed away—men , women , trunks , boxes , bags , and umbrellas . I was so seated as to have one of the latter articles , belonging to a very nervous native , playing , at intervale , the amusing part of a catapult against iny right flank . But to distract nay attention from these attacks , I had on the side nearest my heart , the most graceful little Valenciana I ever came in contact with . At the very first pitch of the boat , after leaving the steamer , she began to cling to me as for dear life . Another pitch—and if it had been for dear love , she could not have grasped my arm tighter . One more—O frailty , thy name is woman—the left leg of my trousers wa $ ruined for ever . Cloak , trouser , and boot , all deluged by a cascade from lips which , a moment before , seemed to have been made only for kissing 1 What does the English reader think of that as a specimen of the facetiousness of a fast Yankee ? The passage suggests ono rather curious consideration . Wo Enfflish are accustomed to bo considerably rated by tourists
from tho other side of the Atlantic for wanting that gallant and delicate consideration for women which is said to be tho most remarkable social virtue of America . Remembering this , and remembering also that the quotation just made ( one example among many of the special coarseness to which we arc now referring ) is from an American book , which is itself a reprint of . articles that originally appeared in ono of the first and foremost of the American Magazines , wo are , to say tho least of it , a little astonished at the stylo of writing , which we are fuirly justified in setting down , from the facts just stated , as a . successful style in America . In England , such a «»«« ftrr > « fl t . lmt . above extracted , * if it could have proceeded from any s '
, decently-educated Englishman ' s pen , would have been struck out of any Mairazine article by any Magazine editor ; and if it had been restored in a rapublicatkm , would have been marked with a " Query" by any respectable printer ' s rdader , and condemned as ruinous to tho character of the book with the reading public by any intelligent English publisher . The lowest "Sent" writer among us would not venture to make merry on the subject of a sea-sick woman , before the ungallant English public , as the successful Yankee traveller makes merry—first in Putnam ' s Monthly , then in Cosas de Espana—before the gallant and delicate American public . * Strungo , is it not ? Can it bo barely . possible ( as somo explanation of an apparent anomaly ) that in this matter of tonder consideration towards women , atolid
John . Bull possesses the genuine spirit , while smart Brother Jonathan displays the empty outward : form ? Is this , after all , the real sfcate of thj&caae ? We are prejudiced-enough ourselves to feel a strong suspicion that it is . Our fast Yankee has one merit at least—he has written a short book , which it is possible , with skipping and some occasional feelings of disgust , to read to the > end : But . the next author—a novelist—is determined not to let us off easily . He ' gives us four hundred and forty closely-printed pages * , devoted to the telling of the most unexceptionably moral and most intensely dull story that we ever remember attempting to read . As critics , we have nothing whatever to say on the subject of A Long Look Ahead , except ;
that , not being able by any means to see our way through it , we heartily wish the " Long Look" had been a little shorter . As readers , we found the characters insupportably wearisome from their excessive virtue , their excessive tendency to laugh heartily without the slightest reason for it , and their excessive prolixity in the way of solemn talking to each other about nothing at all . It may seem an over-confident assertion to make , but we most obstinately and absolutely disbelieve that it is . possible for any human being to read this book through . It is a positive curiosity of quiet , well-intentioned , wholly-unmitigated dulness . We feel drowsy even with thinking and writing about it . MorpTdne and Poppies should have been its title , and the Mansion of Eternal Repose the publishing-house from which it was issued to the world .
You Have Heurd of Them , by Q ., is a book of mangy gossip about famous authors , artists , and actors , by a Gent . In the introduction to his small , " scandalous chronicle , " Q . takes occasion to say that he cares little for criticism .. He need not care at all ; for , on this side of the Atlantic at least , we will venture to say that he will not be criticised . Judging by certain passages in which the Gent gossips fatuously about himself , we have reason to fear that he was once connected with the English press . It is delightful , after making that deplorable discovery , to see that Q . ' s mangy little book is published in America , and to find that his impudent little Preface is dated " New York . " Far be it from us to criticise him in any hostile spirit As English journalists he has laid us under the deepest obligation—by removing to the opposite side of the Atlantic . Only let him stop there , and we shall never cease to think with gratitude of our mangy little Q . . '
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MY COURTSHIP AND ITS CONSEQUENCES . My Courtship and its Consequences . By Henry Wichof . We have already ribticed the Nichof , Wichof , or ] Marshall affair . We now have the volume in our hands , and a more repulsive display of reckless vanity , presumptuous pretence , and naked coxcornbry we never encountered . The work is rendered more odious by an artificial character of naturalness , and a mock candour . Mr . Henry Wichof , Nichof , or Marshall , invokes iustice at the bar of English opinion , in a manner lively enough to secure for him a justice , but not that which he seeks . He tells the story of his own loves . In February , 1851 , a trial took place at Genoa , for the
abduction of Miss —— - —— , of Portland-place , London ; and Mr . Wichof , who figures as the accused , was condemned by . a Genoese judge to fifteen months' imprisonment . If is from this judgment that he appeals to the British public , as well as from the calumnies that have followed that judgment . He first saw the young lady in 1835 ; she then lived with an aunt , and for several years he frequented the house . At that tune Mr Wichof was attached to the American Embassy in London ; and he is as careful to make the public his confidant in his bonnes fortunes in diplomacy , as he is in those of a more tender character . The engaging manners of the vouno- ladv , and her highly-cultivated intellect , left impressions so deep and
pleasing that occasional absence from England , and a return to tho United States could not removelhem . """ Sir the loveliness of America paled before Portland-place . In the spring of 1851 , as lions come back to the fountains , Mr . Wichof came to draw his quarter ' s salary from the Foreign Office ; and hearing from a mutual friend that the young lady was residing in London , and afone , having lost her relatives , Mr . Wichof seized the occasion to renew his old acquaintance , jilting the fair of the West . He does not fail to remark that Miss Gamble was beautiful when he first knew her , and that time had left its traces ; but she remained as mentally gifted as over , and we are led to the impresssion that his suit was not unwelcome ; It . must be remembered that we have only Ms story , and that his story terminated in a criminal condemnation ; but the tale is curious , if it were only to be taken as the anatomy of feeling on ono side , —an analysis of the ideas in tho mind of a gentleman of forty coquetting with a lady of forty , and supposing that he is engaged in a game where the other sido is equally intent upon concealinont . In his account , the courtship is nothing less than a struggle between
the amour-propre of the two—the Xaukee being desperately atram ot Deing outwitted by a . woman ! In this surprising apprehension he confesses to tho cowardice of endeavouring to outwit her , lest she should outwit him . At last he makes up his mind "to pop the question , " and after beating about the bush without being able " to screw his courage to tho sticking point , ' he writes a letter filled with his aspirations . . . ... There is something very amusing in this timidity , couched as it is , like the whole volume , in language up to the standard of tho slang p hrases which we luivo quoted . Conscience makes cowards of us all ; and the astounding cosmopolitan " gent" who is superior to every delicate reserve— who tramples down the secrets of foreign office and society—who has resolved to outwit , if not to coerce , tho woman that he lias in his eye—who descends even to publish allusions to her personal appearanco ; yet trembles botore her—like any innocent Paul who cannot find tho courage to pop the question ' to his Virginia ! On the day after writing his letter , he reaves an answer , declaring indue form that then- acquaintance must end . In alarming and almost threatening despair , tho lover writes to his lady the horrible announcement that ho shall start by the next train *> r Pa . na " without his breakfast . " . This spcc . es of moral compulsion triumphed , as it has often done , and a note from tho lady reiulmittod Jun to her droad presence . The Chevalier now confesses that " he tried tho influence of a little neglect "— " for ladies don't like to bo forgotten ; " and so ho did not
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^ x ^ Ou ' -Sl ^ l 8 . 55 « l ' Hi . jE 4 . RA ., 3 PmB : M 9
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Leader (1850-1860), April 21, 1855, page 379, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2087/page/19/
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