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*> rced « i to relieve » monotonous paragrap h , ^ or story-tellmg he had no ScuKhfiteY ^ . wJbite as &r ius . * Hecdat % . they were -of the oldest . aad , SSdWl He ielated- ^ ad solemnly > idi « d « us does At ap ^ dr an _ thiclc S ? a « SS ^ wa . . fether once ^ riatened . bis chUd ^ n JVTathe ^ , Mark , Lute , ^ ^ wrX » ts htov an old woman took comfort from * ihe . blessed words Me ^^ in 6 Sn ^ yUa ; " how iLard -Chesterfield said ^ " Xyrauiey and fKtoen dead fcheseJ ^ a y ^ ara , but ™ e dou't choose to have . it kw feow ^ arinok . grimaeed . at the . p . oxtmifc-pmflier ; aad is so . faithful to luS habit « f eKh «« isng-lQad ; but u » f <> Egotten i ' un , tbat we expect , m each of his ^ ssays / SfindS 2 * t < a * car < of jokes older than the hundredth edition of Miller . Suthe isorjahml atitimes , tfcatis . to say , when , with the pertness common to small « ritic $ ,. he writes a contradiction of every other critic among his ^ ontfimiaomcies . This , i * will be observed , . u an onfelhble accompaniment by and
^ f . a , eertain soEt . Qf modified imbecility admired the . superfacial nip-*> ant . Xiou haw only to imitate . Macaulay , -who talked of ' idiots . and biographers , ' andftftlkof ' noodles and critics , ' and advanced ( though youthful ) mind s ,-will turn m ; pon you the eye of veneration . Such was Mr . Eagles spraetice . Indeference to Christopher North , he graciously and magmlo-Suently apostrophised the spirit of Maga , and , also in reference to North , he undertook to clear away sundry critical and historical opinions of the nineteenth century . Any one who set down Cardinal Wolsey as a j > roud and pampered Giaurehman , ostentatious * grasping , selfish , and lusting for nnwir : lift disr > os « d ef as ' , & fellow that has not the smallest conception of the
ambition of jmch a mind as the cardinal ' s . ' He thought it bold ^ and also pluiasophical to sneer . at representative institutions ; he attacked Trial by Jury and-considered it settled when he had affirmed that there is invariably one pigtheaded brute in the jury-box and , perhaps , more than one great xo ^ ue to side w ith the criminal . he was always giving forth Greek and JLattn ^ utterances , and broug ht a mighty swarm from the anthologies to buzz about ithe ears of Mr . Owen 3 " ones and the artists of Sydenham , The Essay on the Crystal Palace , indeed , as one of Mr . Eagles ' s worst specimens of levity and conceit , is absurdly comp limented by being reproduced in a permanent h the mastercolourist b
form . The writer sought to raise a laugagainst - y representing him perambulating the world witu a pot of polychrome in his . hand , bedaubing every man ' s door-post , -wearing , a suii of motley , and yearning , to he « t Westminster Abbey with his bright blue and unmitjgated vermilion . ; moreover , he flung a stone at the Archbishop of Canterbury for allbwinff the Church of England ' to be dragged in triumph behind the car . of a commercial speculation . ' In fact , although scholarly and entertaining as a magazine contributor , Mr . Eagles was toe superficial and too commonplace tcTobtain or to deserve more than alight and ephemeral repute ^ strictly as a ' Sketcher' whose sketches may be i-eread by his surviving admirers , but . certainly are without a claim to lasting literary distinction .
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ARABIKN TRAVEL . Sinai , the ffedjaz , and Soudan : Wanderings around the BirtJiplace . of the Prophet and across iluz Ethiop ian Desert , from Sawakin to Chartum . By James Hamilton , Author of ' Wanderings , in North Africa . ' London : Richard Bentley . Mb . Hamilton is an enterprising traveller and an indefatigable writer . Scarcely a year has elapsed since he published an account of his journey ; to » the gleaming ruins of the Cyrenaioa , and from thence across the burning sands . of the Lybian Desert , to the oases of Anjola , Jalo , and Siwah . We have now to notice a continuation of his wanderings . The present volume contains his experiences under the sacred shadows of Mount Sinai and its rocky solitudes , a rapid excursion into the Hedjaz
and the environs of Mecca , and his explorations in the island of Meroe And along the banks of the Kile . It would be difficult for the most original traveller to strike much new out of a trip to the Mountain of the Law , but in his tour from Djidda to Tayf , and his journey back again to Djidda by a different route , Mr . Hamilton went over comparatively unbroken ground . There is always something fascinating in the manners and distomsof the Free sons of the Desert in the simplicity of their manners and the ihear . tiness of their hospitality . Kude they are as children of nature , but . then ( there is something strikingly dignilied in the flowing robe of the Arab .. and has folded Durban . Take , for example , a gentleman of Tayf , what can be more elegant and picturesque than his dress?—a caftan of Indian silk , . surmounted bv a T ) ale-blue merino iubba with green silk lining ; the kufiek
bound with > a striped cashmere turban , and the gold-handled jewelled poniard equally a part of hia wardrobe . And then , the curiously built cities , with their mosques amd minarets and obelisks , and the glaring rocks , and the fiery skies , and the parched plains , and the scanty water , nnd the delightful valleys , and the palm and date trees , and the tamarinds and tamarisks , are features which are to ba depended on in every book of Oriental "wanderings as being highly attractive —* even when we are requested to anathematize a sheikh or governor who revolts us by some act of tyranny inconceivable t *) -western imaginations . . _ 3 Kkd w > st original portionqf Mr . Hamilton ' s vplume , however , is that which contains an account of his adventures from Sawakin to Chartum in pursuit of the long-sought source of the Nile . Wo ure not aware that he made the attainment of this the specific object of his journey , yet he still seems ut one fimA tn iin < u > f > ntanf » : ^»< . | + im i- > / -ii-. r » nf vnniiKmnr tins lnnn ' -chGrished day-dream
of the world . Independent of the immediate excitement which leads on , aucceasivo travellers in pursuit of this mirage-source , there aro other Attractions ithat nepay the toil and the > danger of traversing these ill-. ouHivated , solitary countries , thinly peopled by a "barbarous though gentle raoe . The ¦ waters that irrigate jNubia and Egypt descend from the unknown regions ; and it is also from the same remote districts that the bIuvcs that find ready Tsaio in the markets of Cairo and Alexandria are brought ; bo likewise is ifheuvory , the senna , * he wax , the indigo , the skins , which town so great a source of profit to the caravan mastorswho penetrate northwards from the barnincr sande of those mvsfceriow regions . Soudan and W . adau
have < long been celebrated for their productiveness in each of these arUclos of commoroe'before ( Burp-pca-n i ; rav © uexT 3 had set foot within many degree ^ of their ' locality . The customs and manners of the people of these tropusal regionfl are very < rimil « r , and one government diflereiiFQm wnother only « b one
. sheikh is . more or less violent than another . Where clothing is unneeded ., the principal attention is bestowed upon the adornment of the person and the arrangement of the coiffure . In ano&t ibarbarous countries . great artifice is displayed in this respect ; but the ladies of Bifa ' a surpass any we , hav ^ heard ox read of in bringing this art to perfection . "Our tents ware pitched . upon the banks of , the river , " says Mr . Hanulton , " at the place where the serwants went down to -fill their jars for ; the supply of the sheikh's establishment . This part of the domestic arrangement . is the care of the female slaves . I Jaad . iihen an opportunity of admiring the pitch , to which
the passion of the sex for ornament may be carried ; it put all -the agonies of a coronation toilette to shame . Two of the sheikh slaves , whose paly dress-was a piece of cotton round the middle , had their dark 'bodies entirely covered with a most elaborate pattern in relief , produced by slashes into which some extraneous matter had been robbed to form a raised cicatrice . Pride suffers no pain , so that I suppose the operation was as agreeable as it certainly must have been protracted . The effect was pleasing ; something like embossed black leather . " Mr . Hamilton ' s volume is light and sketchy , and will afford a pleasant hour or two ' s reading without fatiguing the reader by pedantic details or political digressions .
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LIFE IN KANSAS . Kansas : its Interior and TZxterior Zdfe . By Sara T . X .. Kobinson . Sampson Low and Co . This octavo volume is decidedly possessed of very considerable merit . It describes with graphic simplicity both the discomforts and the pleasurable excitements of life in a new settlement . It also narrates , though with undisguised partiality , the most startling incidents that have hitherto attended the stru" -gle between , the pro-slavery and free-state factions . Mrs . Robinson herself is evidently a genuine , unaffected , warm-Tiearted woman . The generous impulses of her nature have moved her to throw herself headlong into the contest in behalf of the negro . Feeling warmly , she sometimes expresses those feelings with the tone of a thorough partizan . But her bitterness is excusable , not only as an accident of her sex , but because of
the terrors and g rievous wrongs she personally endured . Her husband illegally arrested , herself frequently insulteS , and her house pillaged and destroyed when it "was beginning to look comfortable and homely . A much slig hter cause would justify an occasional outburst of indignation , and very few men even , under similar provocation , would have the magnanimity to do strict justice to their enemies . Some allowance , therefore , must be made for the circumstances in which the authoress was placed at the very commencement of her married life . Transplanted from a quiet New Eng land village to a rude settlement in the midst of vast prairies , compelled to Labour \ vitli 3 ier own hands , and in constant expectation of attack from , bands of lawless rufiaans , the loving , true-hearted young wife bravely shared her husband ' s lot , and encountered adverse fortune with patience , and generally with good humour . Though sometimes speaking of herself as " alittlo tiling , " ifc is clear that , like Diomede , her Irttlc body contained a mighty rniud . Her stylq , natural and . untutored , indicates real character , but a character cast in a gentle mould . Had it been lier lot to settle quietly down in her native village , she would doubtless have proved that incarnation of
negative qualities which constitutes the conventional young lady in respectable and civilized society . She would have had her ilower-garden , sher aquarium , her vivarium , her aviary , and all such recreations , her piano , her drawin" - board , her milliner , and her morning calls . But it fell out otherwise . 'She was removed to a very different scene , and in the midst of thrilling events her character was struck out and _ developed . The consequenoe that alone concerns the . English public is a book , of genuine interest , and which if more dispassionate would possibly lose something of its womanly charms . The style , however , would undoubtedly be improved by the excision of certain Yankeeisms , painfully suggestive of a iiasal twang . The frequent and peculiar use of the words " l-eafiaed , " " notified , " " concluded , " " drowsing "—for dozing—is certainly not JLnglish , pure and nndefiled , any more than the phrase , " feeling like laughing , yet feeling sober . in view of remaining all night with the prairie wolves . " but these arc minor blemishes , and even impart , a certain raciness , as some wines are valued for being flavoured with a smack of the goatskin .
The natural aspect of the . Kansas territory is described as something exceedingly beautiful : — Tho pruirics , though broad and expansive , stretching away wiles in many places , seem uevor lonely or weariuomo , being gently undulating , or inoro abruptly iplling ; anU at tho nacont of each new roll of land , the traveller finds himself in the midat of new loveliness . There are also high bluft'a , uaually at uomo little distanco from tho rivers , running through the entire length of the country , whilo ravinoa run from thorn to the rivers . These aro at some points Quite Ueop and diltLcult to cross , and , to a traveller unacquainted with tho country , somewhat voxatioun , especially whora tho prairie grass is as . high aa a pevaon ' o Ueotl while ecatod iu u carriage . . . These raviaos are in many instances pictures of boauty , with trull , grucel ' ul trees , cotton wood , black walnut , hickory , oak , elm , aad linwood staading near , while spring * of uurecold wuter gush from tho rock . . . In tho etwtern part of tho territory most o «
, the timber ia upon tho rivore and creoka , though there aro in somo plucow most delightful spots ; high hills , crowned with ft heavy growth of troon , and ( loop vulea whore rippling waterw guah amid a dense shade of flowering Hhrubbory , Higher than the blufla are natural mounda , which also have about them tho look of art . They riso to auch a height as to bo neon at a great distance , and add peculiar beauty to tho whole aspoct oi' tho country . l ' 'rom tho euminit of Lhoae tho prospect in almost unlimited in extent and unrivalled in boauty . Tho prulrio for miloa , with ita guntly undulating rolls , lioa before the eye . KLvera , glistouiag iu tl » o wunllgUt , ilovr on betweon banka crownod with tall treea ; beyond tl > oao , other high points * uriac Trees arc acattored hero and there like old orchard * , and cattle iu largo iiumbora aro fig upou the hillalde and in the valloy * , giving to « 11 tho louk of cuU v « U « m * nd homo life . It is , iudeed , difficult tp raalizu that for tliouaundd of yoara UiJh country hasboona wwto uncultivated aud solitary , and that months only have elapsed amcc
tl » o white settler hua sought hero a homo . The x'ich black soil supports a luxuriaut vegotatiou . I ho paw . p aw-ana the custftrd-applo , tho plum , tho cherry , and tho mulborry , goosoberr os , bCkbexwc ^ BtrAwborrioe , and raspbdrnes , aa-c all indiSenoufl . Apples ,
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isrn . 3 ftg . ' Axfemac ^ -1857 . ] T HE ItE ABEB ., 811 : ¦ ' ¦ ¦ ' —— ^ . ^ i ^^—^ mm ^ mmtmmmm —^«—«^———^— - ^———__ .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 22, 1857, page 811, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2206/page/19/
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