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Leader (1850-1860), 7th February 1857, Edition 1 of 2, Page 139, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      While we are dealing with ladies who write , let us anticipate the publication , in a volume , of " Florentia ' s" graceful and sprightly sketches of Italy in The New Monthly Magazine—her glances at the demi-mondeat Florence , her very entertaining notes , social and picturesque , at the Baths of Lucca . Mr . Charles Kowcroft ' s rattling novel , George Mai / ford , an , Emigrant in Search of a Colony , has been reprinted ( Hodgson ) . It is a book the popularityof which increases continually . The sam « publisher issues , in the " Parlour Library , " Aubrey , by the author of "'EmiliaWyndham . " One of the most notable reprints of the season is an elegant volume ( Chapman and Hall ) of Mr . Thackeray ' s Christmas Books , containing Mrs . Perkins ' s Ball , Our Street , and Dr . Birch . This is a publication which it is only necessary to announce . To the library of Magic-land we have a most charming contribution , Fairy Gold for Young and Old , in eighteen Tales , translated from the French of Savinien Lapointe ,

      by Henry F . ' Chorley ( Routledge ) . The volume is a gem . Mr . Chorley informs us tbat Lapointe is a shoemaker of Paris , and a teller of stories . When he published this collection , Beranger wrote to him , confessing that Lapointe had succeeded , far better than himself , in . walking in the steps of Berault , King of Children . " I expect a second volume with impatience , " he added . " Be quick over it . I am seventy-three , and children of my age have not time to wait . " Mr . Chorley has translated Lapointe's " exquisite whimsies " -with grace and humour . Harry and Ms Homes ( Routledge ) , by the author of cc Amy Carlton , " is a book for the young ; conventional In the manner of its morality , but agreeable and amusing . The Rev . James White has compiled a pleasant and useful little book , Landmarks of the History of Greece ( Houtledge ) . It is a carefully-arranged narrative , well sifted , always instructive , and never dull .

      compound of both , the one being very unlike the other . Mr . Murray has published , moreover , The Poetical Works of Lord Byron , in one volume , " a new edition , carefully revised , with a portrait . " The type is small but clear , and the form of the volume is very convenient . We recommend this volume to all readers who have no " Byron . "

      It purports to be an introduction to the Grecian annals , and as an introduction , is admirable . The student will advance his views , as he advances his researches . Fazist ( Boston : Ticknor and Field ) is an attempt by Mr . Charles T . Brooks to interpret in English the great German tragedy . There is , at least , vigour in tlie language of the translation . The Crystal Sphere : its Forces and ^ its Bemgs , by Professor Milton Sandars ( Bailliere ) , is a remarkably interesting illustrated treatise , somewhat affectedly named , on water , and the creatures that hauntifc . To young and amateur students Professor Sandars's explanations will be particularly welcome . Perhaps not so welcome , thougk . excellent In its purpose and contents , is a simple little volume , Duty to Parents ( Hope and Co . ) , in which a variety of maxims . and reflections are set forth in favour of the text " Honour thy father and thy mother . " Next , we have a new book by the endless and incorrigible " Fanny

      Fern "—tlie Play-Bay Book ; or , Little Stories-for Little Follies \ Kxagh . t and Son ) And now we take up a volume ^ the name of which will attract the ' youngeyed' generation . It is The Sioiy of Reynard the Fox ( Bogue ) , according to the version of David Vedder , illustrated by Gustav Canton of Munich . The narrative and the pictures are alike admirable . There is , "besides , an interesting treatise on the genesis of tlie story , on which Goethe wrote , which Kaulbach illustrated , which has been reproduced in every European country , and enjoys the most unbounded fame . Among new editions we have Mr . Robert White ' s Madeira , its Climate and Scenery : a Handbook for Invalid and other Visitors ( Edinburgh : A . and C . Black ) , a manual which it is unnecessary to recommend , and a third volume of Essays , Critical and Imaginative , by Professor Wilson ( Blackwood ) , containing his treatise on the Genius and Character of Burns , his criticism on Coleridge , and his " forty stripes" with a prickly rod , adjuged to the unfortunate Tupper . Prom

      Scotland we receive also a volume of special interest to a numerous class of readers—Patrick ^ Hamilton , the First Preacher and Martyr of the Scottish Heformation—an historical biography , is compiled from original sources by the Rev . Peter Lorimer ( Constable and Co . ) . Messrs . Low publish The Kifle , Axe , and Saddle-Bags , and other Lectures , by W . H . Milburn , the blind American preacher , whose writings have been competently edited by the Rev . T . Binuey . A strange sort of book , intituled Immortelles from Charles Dickens , by " Ich" ( Moxon ) , is a compound of vague criticism and miscellaneous extracts from the works of Mr . Dickens . "Ich" sits atthef « et of his favourite novelist , and eccentric is the form in which he bodies forth his admiration . A plainer book , ivith a plainer meaning , is The Gates- of the East ( Ward and Lock ) , by C . L . Kenney . It is a plea in favour of the Suez Canal , clear , brief , and readable , though to us not convincing . Still plainer , and still more practical , is a volume published for the London and

      lirighton liailway Company ( Waterlow ttIul S ° »* s ) , containing the By-lams , Mules , and Regulations to be observed by the Company's Servants . We must not omit from our catalogue The Year-Book of Science and Art for 1857 ( Bogue ) , one of the universally useful , well-stored , companionable volumes prepared by Mr . John Timb * , " with power to add to their number . " Another , in fact , comes to hand—Cur iosities of History , with A ' eie Lights : a Book for Old and Young ( Bogue )—a cabinet volume , by Mr . Timbs , well stored , well arranged , pleasant to xead , useful to consult — a book of historical varieties . It contains a multitude of historical elucidations , neatly stated , and judiciously grouped . Who was tho Man with the Iron Mask ? is a tea-table question of the commonest occurrence . Take down limbs . Matthioli , the Mantuan Senator , imprisoned for having deceived Loins XIV " . What was the story of Essex and Queen Elizabeth ' s ring ? in Limbs you find it explained , clearly enough , that the whole story , the Countess i of ham

      Notting ' s treachery included , is as fanciful as " Midsummer Night ' s Dream . " Also , that Wolsey is by no means proved to have been the son ol a butcher . Also , that Jane Shore did not perish of hunger , or give a name to Shoreditch ; that Clarence was not drowned in malmsey ; that Joan of Arc was alive eight years ufter history savs she was burned , history fixing 1431 as the date of her martyrdom , whereas , in 1439 , she received a public reward from the Council of Rouen . We must , note , also The History of the Decline and Fall of Ihn Roman Umpire . By Edwurd Uibbon . Abridged by William Smith , LL . D . ( Murray . )—Dr . Smith has incorporated with his abridgment the researches of recent commentators—Ins notes to the complete addition with those of Mihnan and Guizot . lie Ima entirely omitted Gibbon ' s dissertation on the causes of the spread of Christianity , and his accounts of the theological disputes of tho Oriental sects . In fact , he has mutilated Gibbon instead of epitomizing him . Better have written a new book ; for this is neither Gibbon's nor Smith ' s , but a

      Untitled Article

      GEOGRAPHY OF NORTH AMERICA . Black * Atlas of North America . A Series of Twenty Maps . Drawn and Engraved by John Bartholomew . Edinburgh : Adam and Charlea Black . ijTp North American atlas in existence can compete with this . The maps are complete , careful , beautifully executed , and furnished with an elaborate index . The first represents * the region of North America generally , the second , British America , with all the discoveries in the Arctic up to 1856 . The third and fourth are devoted to the several provinces of Canada , New Brunswick , Nova Scotia , and Newfoundland . The United States are then arranged in groups , and occupy fourteen maps , an additional sheet containing Central America , with a distinct plan of the Panama railway , Mexico , and the West Indies . A , chart is appended , ia which are traced

      the lines of communication between Europe , North America , and the Pacific . The work must be invaluable in political , commercial , and professional libraries , no less than to tutors in colleges and schools . It is difficult to realize in the mind an adequate conception of the vastness of the territory known as North America . The Danish possessions in Greenland appear paltry in comparison with the massive continent itself ] yet its bulkycoast , heaped almost for ever "with white ice and snow , stretches , in an unbroken line , nearly twelve hundred miles along Baffin ' s Bay . How disproportionate , however , its area to its population . Not many more than nine thousand souls , including about two hundred and fifty * Danes and other Europeans , inhabit ; its frozen immensity . Far different are the natural and social aspects of the Hudson ' s Bay einpire—for an empire it is , in its

      magnitude . Over Labrador , over the prodigious extent of country round Hudson ' s Bay , to the Arctic and Pacific , the jurisdiction of this extraordinary company has been established . Parliament has been incited by Government to investigate the condition of the territory and the settlements it comprises ; such an investigation is , indeed , necessary , for very little is reported in England , from Hudson ' s Bay , except as to the enterprise of the trappers and traders in fur . The area of the Hudson's Bay dominion includes two millions and a half of square miles , or considerably more than a fourth of the whole surface of North America . The United States are scarcely more extensive . The western parts of the dreary region are occupied or intersected by numerous rivers , lakes , and marshes ; the ground , though in some places densely wooded , is generally barx-en ; the contiguous sea is only open from June to October ; the water in the lakes freezes eight feet thick in winter ; brandy congeals ; the solid rocks are split by the

      cold . Nevertheless , a great variety and abundance of berries and culinary herbs are yielded by this vigorous soil , and in this capricious climate . Barley and similar crops flourish along the Red River borders . Buffaloes , reindeer , fallow deer , musk oxen , beavers , wolves , foxes , and other animals find plentiful pastures in the plains ; on the northern and eastern coasts , the Esquimaux tribes are numerous , in the interior and the south , the American Indian still retains possession . The Hudson ' s Bay Company , itself , has its head-quarters at York Factory , five miles from the mouth of Hayes River . About a thousand persons are employed in its service , the retired officers and servants having formed a distinct settlement far up the Red River . The whole territory is distributed into districts , each administered by a governor , who , presiding over a local council , is vested with a criminal as well as a civil jurisdiction over the inhabitants . It is time that some exact information should be obtained as to the spirit in which these privileges are exercised , and as to the extent to which the available resources of the Hudson ' s Bay region are developed . The introductory description prefixed to Black ' s Atlas is only an outline ; but is , nevertheless , a very creditable performance . ^ It is at once concise and satisfactory . But the maps themselves arc admirable , and we commend them to all students of modern geography .

      Untitled Article

      Ebbsijarz % 9 1857 . ] OF HIE LEAD EE , 139

      Untitled Article

      THEATRICAL NOTES . A drama , in three acts , called The Black Book , was produced at DnuitY Lane 011 Monday night . It unfolds a story of disputed possession of some estates in Germany , to which a young lady named Mina , performed by Miss Onvisu , has the rightful claim , but is unable to prove it , because there is a douDt about her father ' s marriage with her mother . A benevolent gentleman , in the person of Mr . Charles Mathews , who appears at a masquerade in the costume of a friend contrives by several ingenious methods to establish the young lady s ownership and her mother ' s marriage . Finally , in dramatic fulfilment of tho gossip which he has denied ia its matter-of-fact bearing , he marries Miss Oiiv » 3 tt—that is to saythe young Baroness , Mina .

      , , Mr . and Mrs . Baunky Wii-i-iams returned to the Adelpui oa Monday evening , and received a hearty welcome . A play in three acts , by Mr . Lisigh Hunt , entitled , Lovers Amazements , or How will it End ? is to be produced at the L , ycicum . There arc but tour characters , which are to bo performed by Mr . and Mrs . Charles J ) h . lon , Mise Wooixiar , and Mr . Leicui Muhkay . Tho play has already been printed in the pages of a periodical . All lovers of delicate poetry , generous emotion , and fine wit , will rejoice in this announcement , though they would have been better pleased if Mr . Hunt ' s satisfaction at again delighting a theatrical audience were not at the present moment contradicted by a heavy domestic afliiction .

      The IIaymahkkt , on Wednesday , completed tho One Thousandth night of its season , which , during a period of more than three years , has been continued without any other interruptions than those prescribed by law . M . r . Buckbtonis and his company may be congratulated upon this evidence of their success . Within those three years some changes have come over the great world —and some over the Haymarkkt world , since , in the first months of that long season , Mrs . 1 ' itzwilliaji had not yet succumbed to cholera .

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  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 7, 1857, page 139, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2179/page/19/