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Leader (1850-1860), 27th November 1858, Edition 1 of 2, Page 1285, Untitled Article

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      we reach the common goal to which all biographies , JheSoever they start , conduct then- stunts . The body returns help lessly to the ^ all-embracing bosom of that Nature into So many of whose arcana he had found or fabricated the key ; the soul , to answer to God for the emp loyment of those talents which he used to explain the mysteries of His creative power and government . „ , * , ** , „ tfftn-This book , with no assumption of Pretentious literary merit is a truthfi * brotherly record It tells much that is hew and else untold , and what is old in it is well worthy of reiteration .

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      SUPERB CHRISTMAS GIFT BOOK . The Merrie Days of England . By Ed-vvaTd M'Dermott . W . Kent and Co . There is something very taking in tlie title of this book . The same may be said of its typography and its . glorious crimson and gold housing . IN or has Mr . M'Dermott failed to render its inside wellworthy of both the title and the outer splendour . We are glad to be reminded of the " merrie days . " There is little enough of merriment .. about the old country how . If it ever were a land of Arcadian happiness for the peasant , and of "joyaunce " for the lord , those characteristics had fled before

      our time . The English of to-day are a fast-living people , —all rising- early , late taking rest , and eating bread of carefulness . All burn the brief candle of life at both ends ; all draw upon nature ' s bank as though it were inexhaustible . It is a grave , wrinkle-browed , crow ' s-footei old country now-a-days , as far as we know of it ; and if its merriment is not precisely a myth , it is at least an old-fashioned bygone , a reverend piece of antiquity , coeval with caps and bells , Andra Ferraras , mayings , pageants , and pots of sack . We are ' grateful to the ingenious Dryasdust who will dig it up . carefiillv , furbish it lovingly , and lay it . before us at

      Christmas-tide , when we chew our annual cud—all of us—of sweet and bitter fancies . A short but happy sketch , in Mr . M'Dermbtt ' s best manner , of village life and all its " secret sweetness , " is followed" by one of " May . " Here our author calls in aid the lyre of Herrick and Spenser , as well as the pensil of Nash and Thomas . " Harvest Home" introduces some beautiful lines by the brother of the present Laureate . The essay on " Sports and Pastimes" bristles with long-bows and cross-bows , clothyard shafts and popinjays , and is enriched with extracts from the old llobin Hood ballads and " Robin ' s last Farewell . " The dramatic chaDber on " Plavs and Mysteries" popularises

      knowledge hitherto confined to a limited circle . A drawing of the " Noah ' s Ark" which adorned old Bartholomew Pair illustrates this chapter . The work comprises , in . all , nineteen chapters . These are illustrated by twenty wood engravings of the very highest class by Evans , Linton , Harral , Thomas , VVimperis , Green , Measom , Palmer , and Cooper , after designs by the artists we have mentioned , and hy Messrs . Bjrket Foster and Edward Corbould . It is a beautiful specimen of its class j for all engaged upon it seem to have wrought con amore , and ' we have no hesitation in saying it will warm the heart as well as glad the eyes of all who love tlie manners , customs , sports , and martial feats of our ancestors .

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      POETRY . Tonica . Smith , Elder , and Co . Poems . By Ada Trevanion . Smith , Elder , and Co . Potms . By Henry Cecil . Smith , Elder , and Co . Pleasure . A Poem . Iu Seven Books , By Nicholas Michel ! . TeggandCo . Modern poetry , with a few brilliant exceptions , has dwindled into a very innocent affair . If poetic " fire" is not very scorching , neither is poetic " dulness" below the mediocre level . A middle path , has been found out , and it iff fast being thronged with poetic perambulators . The quartett of productions , which heads our article in no instance rises greatly above mediocrity j it is fair , however , to say that not one sinks below . The works are of diiforcnt degrees of merit , but no surpassing

      difference is visible . lonica is the re Ilex of a classic tt \ ste ; Greek and Latin head-linos meet us cvorywhoi-o , and classio themes are the subject of sevoral of the pieces . The versification is smooth , sweet , and elegant , and we could select more than ono passage in which the thought and oppression would bo not unworthy of Tennyson . Beoma , by Ada Trovnnion , are mostly domestic in their tendency . Hemuiw , Tennyson , JJandon , and that school of poets appear to have materially influenced this wrltor . But hero and there we fauoy wo recoguiso an old aoqu «» i »» - & ?* " }; stance , in the pioco entitled " Cathleon ' s Ghost , lias not the writer closely copied—unooasoiously ,

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      The landscape beauties of Iia Cava , favoured haunt of English and German artists ; of Amalfi , with its lovel y valley' the paper mills , where " steep mountains , Swiss in height , Italian in their grace , rise on mountains yet more steep ;" ^ and of Capri , the . miniature Gibraltar , with its antiquities and the indescribably lovely Grot' Azura , are all cleverly sketched , and peopled with animated figures . But its women are , after all , the most beautiful piece of antiquity which Capri possesses ; truly the blood of the Greek has come down to them undefiled . I never saw in all Italy such lovely creatures . They are tall and stately , yet exquisitely graceful , with pure

      Neapolitans are not a ceremonious people , and -would not have minded looking on . Here , indeed , we must perforce draw the line . ¥ e might quote and quote all day from , the sweet and sparkling pages of the gifted authoress , but alas ! we have no space left to stow more plunder .

      oval faces , dark eyes , soft and downcast , and a sweet dignity in their aspect and their bearing that made them look to me like so many virgin queens . I could not think with patience of the comments I had heard on the so-called mesalliance of the two English gentlemen who married Capri girls . Women like those we saw are ladies , for their beauty is not mere beauty of form and colour , it is the perfection of womanhood . They may be peasants , they may be ignorant , but rude or vulgar they cannot be with such noble , intellectual faces . Was Nausica the less . a princess for washing her father ' s linen ? For my part , I looked at them , and

      A SUMMER AND WINTER IN THE TWO SICILIES . A Summer and Winter in the Ttoo Sicilies . By Julia Kavanag h , Hurst and Blackett . We had rather have new books on Italy from feminine than from the rougher hands of oar own sex . We are delighted to welcome Miss ICavaaagh ' s impressions de voyage , though in respect to male travellers we agree , to a great extent , with Dean Berkeley , from whotn she differs . Writing to Pope from Naples , so long ago as 1717 , that dignitary held that his silence was excusable when he lad nothing to write about but the exhausted

      subject of Italy . He was certainly premature . The Prince of Elbceuf had not yet struck upon rlerculaneum in quarrying stone for Ms villa at Portici . Pompeii had not unveiled its streets of tombs , its house of Arrius Diomedes , or its Forum ; nor were the cities of Etruria dreamed of . The Bean was probably—like many cliquists of his time—a liumbu" -, and , to be in the fashion , perhaps pretended to ignore features of Italy that must have been new and strange in his day , because he was too lazy to study or record them . But since him , so many plodding as well as imaginative persons have so diligently wrought in the vein of Italian travel , turning and

      insisting into a hundred marketable forms each grain of metal they could find , that unless we were allowed to pick our authors , we must confess we had rather be bored with no more masculine lucubrations about Venice , Rome , the Campagna , Florence , Milan , Turin , the Lakes , and Naples . All these taste forbids men-travellers—unless under special circumstances—to touch ; for they have been handbooked to death , and so worked out that a fallow is needed . But though we may differ from the worthy Dean as to the exhaustion of Italy a hundred and thirty-one years ago , and at the same time deprecate heartily the piles of yet unwritten travelbooks of which our present authoress has visions , we yet welcome for a while the new sparkles of fact which it is open to female penetration to strike « ., i n ... 3 j-l . A vmwf lir * litc virlii / tli fomalfi - liit . itl Iim > tioj 3 outnd the lights which lemale intelligence

      , a new may refleofc upon well-known objects , Sorrento is one of the most delightful of the Italian watering-places ; and in one of the few . small ,- seedily-furnished villas that perch amidst orange-groves on the verge of the precipitous cliffs overhanging the sea , Miss Kavanagh and her family party passed their summer and winter . JSast . and west of them stretched the arms of the lay . Vesuvius , Naples , and Ischia were opposite them ; below and all around were orchards of fig , olivo , orange , and lemon trees , interlaced with vines . No wonder , then , that a penetrating lady-traveller , familiar with the use of the pen , should give us so much charming word-painting of the scenery . and of the figures that peopled it , that we arc embarrassed how to select from the many passages of varying intensity and value which her pages place at our disposal .

      The beauty of the . bay , tlio no less stnkmg beauty of the people , " eternal nnd avenging dower of poor plundered Italy , of which the barbiu'ous nations may not rob her , " are ever-inspU'ing themes ; and Miss Kavanagh makes much of them . When on an excursion to Pastum , by way of Onstollnumro , the party onoountored King BomWs brother : — On tho road wo mot his Royal Highness Prince Leopold , b fat , good-humoured looking prince , who has a

      linnddoiuo villa in Sorrento . Ho was riding in a public carriage like our own , with two men , in cotton jackets , on tlie box . Outriders , equerries , lacqueys , postilions , were absent . There is no country like thia for oaao . This brother of a king , and descendant of tho Bourbons , is fond of tho mountains . Ho regularly goes off to thorn , ami passes under onr windows , rkllng on his donkey , nnd preceded in Eastern stylo by six llddlors , all blind of one eyo ,. On tho present occasfcn ho loaned back , lazily emoklng a cigar 5 and as usual , ho neither rocoivert nor gave any token of recognition .

      became a sudden convert to the theorj' of races . I had already seen , two years before , Agrippina , Faustina , Messalina , and other Ronian empresses revived under the aspect of Roman girl 3 ; but these before me were the daughters of an earlier and a nobler race than the Roman . Theseus , Ajnx , Agamemnon , the most heroic of men , Helen , Brisers , the loveliest of women , were the progenitors of"the women , of Capri . Carmela was , like us , lost in admiration . " Belle donne , " she kept repeating , "belle donne ; " and when a pretty girl like Carmela praises women whose beauty throws her in the shade , who can daubt the praise ?

      Not Without a pang , yet loth to brave the enchanting influence of spring , which might have made it hard to start at alj , our traveller left Sorrento for Naples , the scenes and people Of which she sketches with a free and skilful hand . A trip to lethargic Palermo and its picturesque environs occupies the first portion of the second volume . The following sketch of a floating Improvisators may be novel to many of our readers : — There were very few passengers on board . These few ¦ were now gathered at one end of the deck , looking at the little boy who escorts every steamer in or out of Naples . He . is a lad of nine at the utmost—small ,

      supple , brown as a berry , with a quick Italian face , such a face as out of Italy you never see with a child . He comes in a little four-oared boat , and on this floating stage , he will dance the Tarentellay act the buffoon , sing an aria , fight an invisible foe , atab himself at the feet of a faithless lady , and , turning up the whites of his eyes , die in the bottom of hia boat as gracefully as the ancient gladiator , from whom he is most probably descended . Having lain there long enough to impress the audience , he starts to his feet—bare , of course—doffs the cloth cap that covers his littlo curly head , and generally reaps a plentiful harvest of coppers and silver pieces . Of the coins that are thrown to him whilst he is acting , he

      takes no notice-t-they ma 3 roll in the bottom of the boat , and fall into the sea , for all it matters to the little Improvisatore . The sights of Palermo were soon " done , " having seen enough of Etna to corroborate the criticism , by some attributed to Leigh Hunt , that the mountain is " a big impostor , a hollow and miserable delusion , " Miss Jvavanagh returned to Naples , where the twelvemonth was easily made out by a survey of the city itself , nnd of tho classic

      Baia , Herciihineum , and X ' ompeu . It may be said we ought to blush at thus plundering our gifted and entertaining authoress , but so abounding a store of sweet and pleasant passages do these two volumes comprise , that we must plead the old schoolboy ' s excuse , that " out of such a lot" what wo have taken will never bo missed . Wo will , therefore , onco more lay tho Summer and Winter under contribution for a sketch of an infant Bourbon at piny in tho Villa lleale , or marine shrubbery at Nnplos , by way of pendant to that of her uncle , ajbove extracted :-

      —There is a little princess of seven or eight , who wears a pink silk skirt , flounced to her waist , « nd sticking out from her diminutive person in the most npp " rovod stylo , who runs about trundling her hoop with , groat zeal . YVp mot her tho other duy in ono of the arbours , where aho was sulking in a very ill-humour . A . little balloon had got lodged in a tree , and could not bo got down . Without it , bIjo would not go ; nnd all the Bcolding of her governess could not mako hor royal highness leave tho arbour without it . Her arm was Irreverently pullod , but alto sullonly laid down on tho stone bench , evidently prepared to resist to the last . Wo went on ; and what extremities wore resorted to in this difficult matter , ia more than I know , A soldier guarded tho entrance of tho arbour against intruders—a wise precaution , for tho

      Untitled Article

      No . " « , -XVttrtwnnrii 27 . 1858 . 1 TKE XEABEB . - 1288

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 27, 1858, page 1285, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2270/page/13/