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Leader (1850-1860), 4th August 1855, Edition 2 of 2, Page 19

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      A Batch Of Books. Land, Labour, And Gold...

      observation never fail him . To persons unacquainted with the writings of DTtvious tourists in Cornwall , his work will be full of interest and amusewent . To others better informed on the subject , the freshest part of the Londoner ' s Walk will be the part devoted to the Scilly Isles , which the author visited , and of which ho gives a most animated and interesting account . All the information which the volume contains is rendered easily accessible by an- Index ; and future tourists on foot will find a map at the beginning ) and a table of distances between town and town , to help them on their way , at the end of the volume .

      The Crimea : its Towns , Inhabitants , and Social Customs . ( Partridge and Qp , \ -We are informed on the first page that this short book , with a long title , is the production of " A . Lady , resident near the Alma 11 (!) What next ? Will there bo forthcoming- works on the Seal of War , by "A Lady , visiting in the . neighbourhood of Inkerman *? " or by "A Lady who lets lodgings on the shores of the Putrid Sea ? " " Resident near the Alma !" What extraordinary visions does that ultra-genteel ' phrase conjure up of a ten-roomed house with visitors' and servants' bells , and front and back drawing-room , and the contorted zinc chimney-pot of" civilisation , in a barbarous region within hail of a bloody battle-field ! What was the

      " i « sident lady" about when the Allies entered the Crimea ? Was she sittin" at homo , with her foot in a thread j ^ irrup , working an " anti-Macassar ? or was she promenading on the heights with a Crimean footman behind her ? To these questions , aud to others of a similar nature which present themselves , we gut no answer ; and the critical mind loses itself " , in consequence , in a maze of soft domestic conjecture . The strangest part of it is , that this little work , notwithstanding the absurd piece of clap-trap on the title-page , really possesses merit . The " Lady , resident near the Alma , " has something to say , and says it briefly , clearly , and innocuously enough . We have laughed at her tille-pago , but we very gladly acknowledge , in all seriousness , the merit of her book .

      Woman and Her Master . By Lady Morgan . ( Bryce . )—The younger generation of readers may need to be reminded that Woman and Her Master was sufficiently successful in its day to entitle the work , after a lapse of years , to the honours of republication . Lady Morgan ' s " history of the female sex , " from the earliest times to the later period of the lioinun Empire , may be described as a series of elegant discourses on the Kights of Women , preached from historical texts . Compared with the transcendentalisms of some later writers on the subject—of American writers especially—this book , strongly and ' uncompromisingly as it is written on the women ' s side , becomes a pattern of moderation , " it will serve , in our day , not only to aflbrd to all readers much curious and interesting historical information , but also to mark the limit bevond which the claims of women cannot be reasonably

      or usefully advanced . Side by side with it , in strange contrast , there bes on our table a volume by the late Margaret Fuller d'Ossoli ( Woman in tlie NincleentJi Century ) , which is nothing but one loud virago-rant from beginning to end . We refrain from exposing this very foolish and violent book , because the writer of it can dt > no more mischief to a good cause ; and because we believe that Margaret Fuller herself would , in the later and wiser days of her life , have disapproved of several of the passages from her earlier writings , which are now most injudiciously republished by her brother . If the Rights of Women are only to be obtained by turning the natural relations of the sexes topsy-turvy , we feel inclined to exclaim desperately : — Long may the Wrongs prevail ! Women have cause to thank Lady Morgan —but they must dread Margaret Fuller as one of those dangerous friends from whom , it is an absolute act of uierev on the part of the men to protect

      them . Poems . By Bessie Rayner lVrkes . Second Kdition . ( John Chapman . ) — A . collection of 1 ' oe . ms by Miss I Jessie Itayner Parkes came under our notice more than two years ago ; and our remembrance of that little volume caused ua to open witli some interest the edition before us , containing ten or twelve new poems . We must plead guilty to having allowed a longer period of silence to pass by , since our second meeting with Miss Parkes , than is quite consistent with our ^ profession ( honest though it bo ) of gratitQffefor the pleasure she bus given us . It i . s not diflicuU to percoive that

      tit * artist ' s point of view is natural to bur , whatever habits of expression aba may have derived from artistic associations . A gentle , trusting , reverent heart speaks in all her pouins , and speaks healthily and strongly . -Fugitive Poems , liy Tristram . ( K . I Inrdwioke . )—Tristram , the only pttet Deaides Miss l ' nrkes in our miscellaneous batch , this week , gives us tr ' scoro or so of ballads in a blushing little duodecimo , crowned with a gpldettgarland . Tristram is tho . smoothed rhymester , in a small way , that we have ever encountered . On , on , on , Hows tlio meandering mediocrity 6 f his linuud mnt ^ v without a fall to break its Hat and watery sameness . If tins

      Tristram plays the flute , which looks probable , wr do not envy his neighbours . The outpourings of a soul like his could be stopped by nothing but aahori notice to quit . „ , , . ., N Pttpsfrom a Me ( fry . By the ttev . F . W . Sholton . ( Irubner and Co . ) — Pecpn from a Belfry \* the titlo of an Aiiuru-an book , written by nn Episcopalian Minister . ' It is written in a spirit of thorough good-will ; the Bnneipj « s of religious freedom , neighbourly brotherhood , chanty , and all Christian virtues being enfeebled ( if ' wo may use the word ) by short cs .-ays and fictions . If there is littlo , to praise hi tho book , there is K-ss to condemn ; find there is always that which win * our respect — the tolerant

      humility of the true Christian . - „ , . ... tyundCarc : a Family Hook ( W I ' """ ¦ !/ ... ' /« j v ? . l » y Mrs . L .. C . luthill . ( Trubhcr and Co . ) —The author of Joy anJCnK ,: >« an American lady — MM . TuthiU . She addresses her book to those interesting members ol « ooioty , the » young mothers . " Mrs . T . i thill ' * " views in respect to miring dwiteiudor mind , mi . l teaching the yoi . n- i . U-u to . uller putlently the sum 1-tooth . oomb and other infantine trials : uv discloso . l in an ima-inai ^ Correspondence between a you ..- married lu . ly , who knows nothing an . ci « Unt , who knows everything , and has no objection to toll it . I »» me imi .-Rftge wo fuvd a verse from the Hook of Tupper , describing a baby Ml . it OftCOvna a weU-apping , a nuwtu ! ii « rer , » rest ing-place , and « i lu > K . > o cannot say that any of thco particular phases of mlant character bocius

      to have been directly considered by the aunt who knows everything or to have occurred to the niece who has just experienced the fresh sensations of nursing . But even the knowledge of mothers and their elderly female relations must give way before that philosophy , the distinguishing virtue of which has always been its partiality for the safe side of a fact . Motley . By Cuthbert Bede , B . A . ( James Blackwood . ) — Of all books ' ^ written with a purpose , " the dullest and most resultless are generally those which are written with the determined purpose of being funny ; and of all professed funnmess that we ever yawned at , Motley is the heaviest lightness , and the most serious vanity . We have to acknowledge from Messrs . Black The Tour of Mont Blanca popular abridgment from the late Professor Forbes ' s instructive and animated narration of his Travels in the Alps of Savoy . Messrs . Low and Son have sent , us The Art of Elocution , by Mr . George Vandenhoff , written fi ™

      the results of tbe authors own experience with his pupils , and reported to have the " approval of several Professors of Elocution ; " To Messrs . J . W . Parker and Son we are indebted for Mr . Robert Bell ' s edition of Shakspeare * ' s Poems . The volume is as intelligently and admirably edited as any of its predecessors in the Series of the English Poets . It will fit everybody ' s pocket , and it is within reach of everybody ' s purse . With Shakspeare ' s name , and with these recommendations , the book is independent of our rood word . It carries its claims to success on the face of it .

      Juwub *4h 1855.] The Lea Be B. »75t

      jUWUB * 4 h 1855 . ] THE LEA BE B . » 75 T

      Egypt's Pi.Ace In Universal History. Egy...

      EGYPT'S PI . ACE IN UNIVERSAL HISTORY . Egypt ' s Place in . Universal History : an Historical Investigation . In Five Books . By-Christian C . J . Bunsen . Translated by C- H . Gottxell . Vols . L and II . Longman and Co . The facilities for explaining Egyptian history do not appear to increase with the zeal of its investigators . The Chevalier Bunsen , like other antiquarians who have written on the same subject , criticises keenly all theories which have preceded bis own ; perhaps this is the easiest part of the Egyptologer ' s task . So much remains in obscurity , so much is lost in confusion , sa much depends on conjecture , that learning and ingenuity seem equally at fault when they attempt to fix the limits of the Pharaonetic rule , and to determine between what eras in tbe annals of our race the ancient monarchies

      of Egypt rose , nourished , and fell . If we analyse the views of any student , from Ciiampollion to Leps ' uts , we find him surely stealing away from his proofs to his suppositions , from bis discoveries to his hypotheses , from interpretations that are incomplete to new readings that are " obvious , " and from irreconcilable statements to " indisputable conclusions . " Like a lover of old porcelain who from glittering dust and painted fragments attempts to reconstruct a vase , the decipherer of Memphian inscriptions places his lists of kings in everv conceivable variety of juxtaposition . Chronology allows him a certain space , " more or less expanded as bis opinions may determine , and historical records interpose admitted boundaries which he can neither overlook nor overleap ; and to harmonise his dynasties with the exigences of time and of events , he arranges them , transposes them , rejects some , extends others * and marshals the whole , at length , into a systematic and consistent , array . This is antiquarianisni ; but is it history ? Partly the one , and partly the other , we think ; and , therefore , in applying these remarks to the Chevalier Run ^ n ' s volumes of research , we by no means undervalue the basis of

      solid erudition , the laborious inquiries * the acute comparisons instituted by that indefatigable writer . So far as tbe antique monuments of Egypt can , in the present . state of learning , be comprehended , we believe he coiaprehends them ; he is not so fearless as Lepsius , or so posi ^ ve as Osburnes he does not pretend to the Daniel's eye of Forster , or to the private and exclusive information of Wilkinson ; but he claims tbe merit of having concentrated the li"ht of varied learning on his theme ; of having aimed at a logical method T and of affirming nothing in a tone of absolute dogmatism . And this credit , which is no less than be demands , is no more than he deserves . There mav have been more surprising theorists , there have undoubtedly been more original investigators ; but as a critic of Egyptian history , written , rotored , or imagined , the Chevalier Bunsen is unsurpassed . We ' who question the reality of his discoveries , may concede bun this praise ; because our scepticism arises , not from any sense of deficiency in his skdl or in his acquirements , but from our conviction that the foundation of existing theories on those remote periods in the annals of our race winch concern the kiiii » s and people of ancient Egypt are for the most part

      uncertain and unsubstantial . . T Whit proofs are necessary to support this view are supplied in the worKs of the Kiivptolo-ers themselves . We do not often , it is true , find a student of liKToHvphies ' so audacious as to correct the hierophantsof Old Nile iu the use of U . eir secret and sacred language ; yet evou Cliampolhon altered some of tl . e-rraven texts that hail withstood the hot breezes oi two thousand years- and Lepsius , who thinks himself entitled to a pyramid as much as anv riinraoh . und who accordingly wrote his own name m gigantic cartouches in the tombs will not allow that either Manetho , Eratosthenes , or any other

      scribe of the empire , should put his hieratic enigmas in tho way ot a satisfactory solution . But the Berlin doctor would probably dispute our ideas ofhiin and liis Nilotic labours , so that we must pass by both for the present to touch on some of the points which the Chevalier IJunscn has most pallontly investigated . The object he originally proposed to himself was to define the limits of Egyptian history , tosettlo its connexion with that ol other a-cs ana clearer ot the place

      nations ; to derive from the monuments a knowledge which Kgvpt occupies in the epic story of human fate and progress ; and to tix , two thousand years before the building ol bolomon s f cl"P T" £ ' , , *• „ n . o . cs . date in hisu > ry-a wide basis on wl . Vch to coiwtruct tlio ammk oUhc older world , lie finds a parallel between the empire ol L ^ P \ U " ^ . ^ UJ Chiim-in the union of provinees . aml in the length ol dyn ^ U . * i M « as well h » in the vagueness of its chronology . But m h . s jvoi , " f \'^ X ™ of the kings is at least attempted , and if every nam , ... tlu . » J > a 1 1 me o . jUc realm of sin , and sand » not ussigno ;! i « M >~ l >« J """ , /? , I ' ,, oulira ia partial the fault is Chevalier Bunsen ' > 1 hat the C »»« ^ t ! Jrluuistancu that he darkness , and is liable to error , is shown liy tlic

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 4, 1855, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_04081855/page/19/