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digo-planters chose to consider this drama as a malicious libel upon them, and put forward one of their number to prosecute Mr. Long for publishing it. Incredible as it may appear, Mr. Long was tried upon the charge, found guilty, and sentenced to a month's imprisonment in the common gaol, and to pay a fine of one thousand rupees.

The presiding judge, Sir Mordaunt Wells, in passing sentence, dwelt severely upon the insinuations in the play against the character of planters' wives in India, and asked the jury "to consider in their verdict whether the insinuation was not a reproach against the whole middle class of the women of England," and whether it "could have been published by a clergyman of the Church of England, with a bonâ fide and conscientious belief that it would forward the interests of society?" The jury were of the same mind as the judge, and found the defendant guilty; on which the judge pronounced the astounding sentence above mentioned.

Evidently the indigo-planters must have sore consciences if they cannot endure as a body charges which were not levelled against any individual among them. Their attempt to sacrifice Mr. Long, for rendering both them and the Government of India the service of showing them what the native population thought of them, whether rightfully or wrongfully, will recoil upon themselves. A sentence so utterly preposterous cannot, we should hope, be allowed to stand; but if it lead, as we trust it will to a thorough investigation, on appeal in this country into the true relations subsisting between the indigo-planters and the peasantry of India, and (if the report of the trial be correct, as we presume it to be) to a rigorous inquiry into the conduct of the presiding judge, and into the administration of justice in India, it will not have been passed in vain, and Mr. Long's condemnation will have aided the cause of truth and justice.

It is possible that the insinuations or charges in the play were wholly false; but that is not the point at issue. Mr. Long, it appears, has also translated from the Hindostanee attacks by native philosophers upon the fundamental truths of Christianity, and has circulated them among the clergy of the Established Church, the officials of the Government, and the leading Europeans in India, besides sending copies to London; and in so doing he has rendered good service to the cause of the Gospel, by thus giving every missionary who, like himself, may design to spend his life in the conversion of the natives of India to a purer faith, an opportunity of confuting statements of the existence of which they might otherwise have been ignorant. To know and understand the current of the native mind in questions of theology, is necessary for every teacher of religion, if he would combat error and clear away misconception; and it seems to us that Mr. Long might have been prosecuted for blasphemy, for translating and circulating such tracts among educated and zealous Christians, with as much reason as he has been prosecuted for libel for circulating among the same classes the play of "Nil Durpan.”

The fine levied upon Mr. Long was, it appears, paid into court as soon as inflicted, by a wealthy native; and there will be, we hear, no lack of funds to carry the case through every court in the empire, if need be, until it reaches the highest. We may therefore expect to hear more of it at some future time; and, unless a very different color be given to the case, it is plain that justice will not be satisfied by a reversal of the decision, without the dismissal of the judge, whose charge to the jury and whose sentence on the defendant shows a spirit of partisanship which is never witnessed on the bench of England and cannot be tolerated in her dependencies.

AICH'S METAL.-The composition of this siderably bent without cracking or breaking, celebrated alloy for cannon, with which such whilst its absolute and relative resistance exvaluable results have been obtained in the Aus-ceeds that of iron of good quality. Recent extrian marine arsenals, has hitherto been kept a secret. It possesses a high degree of tenacity; it can be puddled, hammered, and worked, like the best forged iron, and when cold can be con

periments assign to it the composition of 60 parts copper, 38-2 zinc, and 18 iron. It is, however, supposed by some that the iron is of no real value, being only useful in diminishing the net cost of the alloy.-London Review.

From The Saturday Review. is however, much to be lamented, that the THE GOLDEN TREASURY.* wholesale insertions and restorations of overMR. PALGRAVE's volume is no ordinary zealous collecting editors should have tainted book of extracts for schoolroom consump- many of our finest examples with undue sustion, jumbled together without rhyme or picion. In the first and second books, which reason, and where Dr. Watts' invariable should to all intents include the whole class busy bee alternates with a platitude of Mrs. chronologically (excepting, of course, the Barbauld. Our author confines himself to mediæval specimens), we can only find "O lyrical pieces by dead poets. He does not waly waly up the Bank," "Fair Helen of commence before the Elizabethan era, which Kirconnell," and "The twa Corbies," deexcludes Chaucer, "the morning star" of signedly printed together. These three English song, and others of whom we would specimens are, it is true, as good as are to gladly see specimens, as rendering the col- be found, but we are dissatisfied at the ablection more complete in an historical aspect. sence of others, and could even afford to The first Book comprises the ninety years ter- oust some of the Celias and Lucastas (not minating with 1616. The second takes us the one with the nunnery metaphor) to make down to 1700. The third to 1800. The room for them. Take, for instance, the fourth includes the deceased poets of this "Bonnie Bairns," with the requisite central century. These Books are named from idea developed strongly enough into an exShakspeare, Milton, Gray, and Wordsworth quisite ballad, considerably more lyrical than respectively. the average of its class. Or, should we here suspect some modern touches of Allan Cunningham, it might be inserted a century later. The religious character of the piece is not sufficiently strong to warrant exclusion, if compared with "The Ode on the Nativity." Now that the works of Mr. Tennyson are becoming so thoroughly classical, it might be interesting to his contemporaries, as it certainly will be to future commentators, to observe the influence of the second ballad, "Fair Helen," p. 87, on his "Oriana." Wordsworth's success, we may remark, in versifying this fine relic was in nowise notable. Mr. Palgrave has given us further on two comparatively modern variations on the uncertain original text of the "Braes of Yarrow,"-c -one anonymous, the other by Logan,-besides printing Wordsworth's "Yarrow unvisited and visited." Among this abundance on one particular theme, we venture to regret the absence of, to our minds, the best version of all-that by William Hamilton of Bangour, published about 1760, according to Percy. This Mr. Palgrave, in a note, considers inferior to what he has given. At any rate, Wordsworth chose the version which we prefer for imitation. Compare, for instance, one of Hamilton's verses with any thing in our author's ballad of pp. 118-120:

To our author's definition of lyrical poetry we are not disposed to except, especially as it is advanced with hesitation and modesty. "Lyrical has been here held essentially to imply that each poem shall turn on some single thought, feeling, or situation. In accordance with this, narrative, descriptive, and didactic poems-unless accompanied by rapidity of movement, brevity, and the coloring of human passion-have been excluded." Certainly nothing can well be more vague than the changes and combinations which the term "lyrical" has lately undergone on wrappers and title-pages of sensitive minor poets as yet ungathered to fame. Yet we conceive that by stretching a little its original meaning into "suitable for music," or "fit to be sung," we can get a rough but sufficient test for working purposes, without analyzing so deeply as our author what the term is intended to imply. There must occur a good deal of debatable land between lyrical and narrative rhyme in the real old ballad poetry, as opposed to its most successful modern imitations, such as "Lord Ullin's daughter" or "Rosabelle." It is probably on this score that so many genuine ballads are here excluded, that we are inclined to consider this kind of composition as somewhat too slenderly represented. It

The Golden Treasury of the best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language. Selected and Arranged, with Notes, by Francis Turner Palgrave, Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. Cambridge: Macmillan and Co. 1861

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We admire and applaud Mr. Palgrave's courage in admitting a thoroughly typical and honest ballad of a totally different tone and manner, “Sally in our Alley," the freshness and genuine feeling of which will outlast many more showy productions. It abounds with a most quaint expression of real and deep pathos, yet one can scarcely repress a rising inclination to smile at every other line.

We do not doubt that Mr. Palgrave has found the task of selection from among the sonnets of Shakspeare difficult enough. He warns his readers, with great justice, that these pieces are not to be mastered or understood offhand. Indeed, we know nothing which requires tougher study or thought. Among the smaller lyrical fragments out of the plays, we are glad to find an old favorite of ours, seldom quoted and almost unknown as compared with "Crabbed Youth and Age," or "When Icicles hang by the Walls." It occurs in the Twelfth Night :

"What is love? 'tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come is still unsure;
In delay there lies no plenty ;
Then come kiss me, sweet-and-twenty,

Youth's a stuff will not endure."

This we take to be perfect quintessence of Shakspeare, and yet it is often passed over unnoticed. For exhaustive statement, pregnancy of meaning, and closeness of thought, it is seldom equalled. The words are all of the commonest, or even homeliest description; and the ideas at first sight seem almost trivial. Shelley and Keats might have studied such an extract with advantage. We miss in Mr. Palgrave's work, however, one verse out of Hamlet which, unlike the former, is justly celebrated, and claims, we suggest, admission in this collection, as being more essentially lyrical than the great proportion of the Shaksperian extracts already admitted therein. It is the well-known

"Why, let the stricken deer go weep, The hart ungalled play:

difficulties of his task; yet in most cases we should prefer to print the first line of the extract, for to give a new title is a kind of retouching pro tanto, and a modern Shaksperian heading generally looks like a restoration in an Elizabethan structure—that is, very rarely of a piece with the rest. Carpe diem especially has an Epicurean echo about it totally foreign to the more real philosophy and more earnest atmosphere of the quotation. We also suggest that one specimen at least of the many mad songs once so curiously current in this country, and, we believe, almost peculiar to it, might be added to the volume.

A well-arranged and conscientiously selected collection like that before us is peculiarly valuable as conducive to and encouraging a more expansive appreciation of the poetry of different schools and centuries. Such universality of taste is but little current at the present day. There is an increasing tendency to swear by some particular poetic master and to hate and deny all merit to the rest. Thus the lover of Shakspeare must be the hater of Pope; and the reader of Byron shall hold no converse with Wordsworth or Coleridge. We suggest, no doubt, extreme cases, but to speak roughly and in all generality, Pope, Wordsworth, and Mr. Tennyson may be said at the present moment to be the suppliers of ideality to old age, middle age, and youth respectively. These parties of verse-readers interchangeably hate each other's gods, and thereby much after-dinner discussion is promoted and no very tangible result ensues. It is, however, about equally probable that a ploughboy should come to be lord chancellor utterly without talent, as that any man should raise himself to be the poet of his own or any subsequent age without some intrinsic merit of the highest character. Granting this, the fault will be in ourselves and not in their verses if we cannot discern their excellence. It is therefore folly to insist upon proselytizing every one to that par

For some must watch, while some must sleep! ticular style of composition which may suit Thus runs the world away."

our individual age or temperament.

Mr. Palgrave has headed the Twelfth Another advantage of such a collection of Night extract with "Carpe diem." He miscellaneous pieces is, that chances of comapologizes, once for all, in a note for the va-parison and more extended reputation are rious titles he has prefixed on his own re- thereby afforded to the poets of one poem, sponsibility. No doubt he has bestowed whose single work is often only accessible in much thought on this, as on other incidental such volumes. Charles Wolfe, who wrote

to;

tolerably expressive. In one collection of songs we have seen, the perverse delicacy of the editor has softened this to "swelling breeze."

We are glad to observe that our author has printed a remarkable piece called "Tomorrow" (p. 163), of the author of which, it appears, nothing has survived except his surname, Collins. We had also seen this song before in a manuscript version, with some trifling differences from the present. Mr. Palgrave's note here is to the point, and suggests a novel and unexplored direction of criticism :

the "Burial of Sir John Moore," is the [ject to manufacture new headings, it is not most remarkable type of the class we allude unfair to ask him to prefix an old one when for although his literary remains were published, and to a certain extent known, his whole fame rests on these few stanzas. But besides Wolfe, and putting out of sight all the anonymous pieces, equal to the best, where all record of the hand that wrote them has been lost, we have only to turn over the pages of Mr. Palgrave's Treasury to find detached poems of the highest excellence by authors whose very names many will probably meet with there for the first time. As of the poet, so of any particular work-continued popularity would undoubtedly, in a very great proportion of instances, presuppose certain merit; but in reviewing a lyrical collection, we may in all justice qualify this conclusion by observing that the preservation of some songs to the present day may have resulted entirely from their lyrical success,—that is, because they were songs, and not from their excellence as poetry. More than this, the personal reputation of some favorite vocalist of the time may have earned them undeserved popularity. Thus, any song which Mr. Robson takes in hand would have an excellent chance of street success. These remarks arise from our finding Gay's "Black-eyed Susan" among the fortunate candidates for admission into Mr. Palgrave's exclusive volume. We confess to suspecting that the popularity of this poem is, in a great measure, to be thus accounted for. To our minds, there is a stagemarine flavor about it, redolent of later Dibdinism, if we are allowed the expression. A really perfect specimen of the genuine seasong is given us here, at p. 201, without title. This is by Allan Cunningham, and we have always heard it called "The Snoring Breeze." As Mr. Palgrave does not ob

"It is a lesson of high instructiveness to examine the essential qualities which give firstrate poetical rank to lyrics such as "Tomorrow," or " Sally in our Alley," when compared with poems written (if the phrase may sweetness of Shelley, etc., etc. .. . Intellibe allowed) in keys so different as the subtle gent readers will gain hence a clear understanding of the vast imaginative range of poetry-through what wide oscillations the minds and the taste of a nation may passhow many are the roads which truth and nature open to excellence."

In conclusion, we thank Mr. Palgrave for a pleasant and instructive volume. In the arrangement and carefully considered juxtaposition of the different extracts, it is certainly superior to any book of the class we have yet seen. With his evident knowledge of the subject, our author has modestly confined himself to four pages of preface, and a very moderate amount of notes at the end of the work. In other respects, he is content to retire into the background, and let each poem speak for itself; but whenever Mr. Palgrave does speak, it is sensibly and without pretension.

JEWISH MARRIAGES.-What is the reason fourth day, because the assembly of the Twentythat most Jewish marriages, mentioned in the three meet on the fifth; so that if the husband newspapers, take place on a Wednesday? Is should find his wife unworthy, he may have recourse to the consistory in the heat of his disthere some religious reason in favor of that pleasure, and procure just punishment accordday? ing to law. Vide Dr. Lightfoot's Works, ed. [Among the Jews a virgin marries on the 1684, ii. 534.]—Notes and Queries.

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POETRY.-The Bells at Spire, 194. Stand by the Flag, 194. No more Words, 194. Shakspeare on this War, 211. Charity, 211. General Lyon, 215. Hora Novissima, 215. Extract from Hamlet, 225. Autumn, 237. The Power of Virtue, 237. A Summer Night, 237. Cæsar's Assassination, 237. "Qui Transtulit Sustinet," 238. The Song of the Irish Legion, 238. The Will for the Deed, 238. Little Rhody, 239. To Arms, 239. Rule Slaveownia, 239. April 19, 1775.-1861, 240. The Gathering, 240. The Departure, 240.

SHORT ARTICLES.-National Savings-Banks in England, 198. Consumption by the Sea-side, 204.

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