contest, to create ultra-cheap occupations, of which a failure, as the women were abandoned to the the remuneration borders on starvation; and the worst of lives in the colony. Against that we special demands of the London market for females, might set successes within our own knowledge which concentrate upon the capital the over-abun-attending female emigration to New South Wales. dant supplies of the country. A statistical writer But, in fact, all these earlier cases of female emiin the Examiner ably illustrates this position, and gration were ill conducted; and the conduct of shows that to such attractions for females in want emigration has much improved under the superof employment will be added the very great one vision of a responsible board. of a free passage to the colonies; and, ever on the watch to block out dangerous rivalries, the faithful ministerialist of the evening press seizes upon the illustration to prognosticate that Mr. Sidney Her-will be in itself an absolute good; but the emigrabert's plan must end in "failure."

In its indirect and secondary consequences the measure may not work so perfectly. The translation of these wretched women to a happier clime

tion may be exceeded by the female immigration into London. Secondary consequences, however, generally point to broader causes and suggest larger remedies than the topical palliatives of proximate causes. So it is here; and, in truth, if the working of Mr. Herbert's plan exposes the evil anticipated, it will have done a greater service than its author

That would be true if Mr. Herbert's scheme pretended to regenerate the women of England, to reconstitute the elements of society in the empire city, or to fulfil any other enterprise as vast and "revolutionary"-according to the cant phrase, which characterizes any social measure that is thoroughly effective by that epithet. But his plan contemplated. We do not wonder that the official has no aim so wide. To counteract the broad mind is dismayed at the anticipation. What the causes of the evil, it would be necessary to improve objection really means is, that the emigration mathe state of the industrious classes; to revise the chinery of the country is so weak that it will not morals of commercialism, and some other morals; bear the strain put upon it if an impulse be given or to relieve the pressure of supply upon the de- to emigration in any particular quarter. We quite mand for women, by a general and constant draft believe that: we believe that the desire to emigrate upon the people, especially in the agricultural dis- so pervades the country, and is capable of such contricts, such as would result from systematic colo- stant and ready extension, that a facility offered in nization on a national scale. Mr. Sidney Herbert any quarter will draw to it immense numbers seekis not in office, and he is not called upon to super- ing the help; and we further believe, that, for sede the functions of government in that regard. this reason, the working of Mr. Sidney Herbert's Meanwhile, the victims pressed forward by the plan will render it imperatively necessary to prosystem suffer; and it is not in human nature-vide for that additional strain by strengthening the though it may be in official or highly cultivated general emigration machinery of the country. Inpolitico-economical nature-to abstain from help-deed, the fact must be self-evident to all who have ing the afflicted. Mr. Herbert steps forward to access to information on the subject. We said that help the sufferers of the sex which is dear to all the project threatened the most distasteful of all men of manly heart, just as an individual British things to the official mind-trouble, and the imposofficer might have rushed forward to rescue a Hin-sibility of evading duty. It does so; and under doo woman thrown under the car of Juggernaut, any other circumstances, enormous pains would be although he might not have power to abolish taken to set influences to work in dissuading Mr. the Juggernaut system. What if a second victim Herbert from his plan. He has gone too far, and be found? Perhaps she might have been slain too openly, for that; but the patrons of official intoo, in any case: at all events the one is saved; terest cannot refrain from trying a little of such more than that, humanity is vindicated and hope is dissuasion as consists in disparagements and hints restored to helplessness. For, be it always before of inconvenience. The ex-minister is scarcely the us, that privation and pain are not the worst evils man to be deterred by those motives; he may not that we can suffer the worst of all is the despair of have anticipated all that he was undertaking when helplessness abandoned by sympathy. We can all he volunteered to rescue the London needlewomen, of us endure suffering; none of us abandonment. but we fully expect that he will go through with To the abandoned, Mr. Sidney Herbert has ap-it, even if it oblige him to see that the national peared as the impersonation of human aid and sympathy-to woman in her lowest abjection the brotherly help of man. Apart from the mere material consequences, either way, that assertion of a high and immortal sentiment is worth any sacrifice.

emigration machinery be rendered effective. The Globe hints a hope that Mr. Sidney Herbert, impressed with the mischief that may flow from his benevolent intentions, may give up the scheme of his own accord-of course return to Queen VicIn its primary and direct consequences, the toria and the other subscribers their money, apoltransfer of women from over-womaned London to ogize to the needlewomen for his rash promises, the under-womaned colonies can do nothing but and take a tour to hide his blushes in the ruins good. We assume, indeed, that it will be properly of Petra, or disperse them on the unblushing conducted, and therefore do not think it worth prairies of the West. But the Globe dares not while to pause upon the objection of another critic, say that it hopes Mr. Herbert will be so obliging; not unbiassed by party rivalry, that the female it only tries to work upon his fears. No; he is emigration of 1831 to Van Diemen's Land proved too well backed the thing is done.

SHORT ARTICLES. Negro-English Bible, 346; Southey's Visit to America; Jewish Scripture MSS., 352; Curiosities of Science, 373.

PROSPECTUS. This work is conducted in the spirit of Littell's Museum of Foreign Literature, (which was favorably received by the public for twenty years,) but as it is twice as large, and appears so often, we not only give spirit and freshness to it by many things which were excluded by a month's delay, but while thus extending our scope and gathering a greater and more attractive variety, are able so to increase the solid and substantial part of our literary, historical, and political harvest, as fully to satisfy the wants of the American reader.

now becomes every intelligent American to be informed of the condition and changes of foreign countries. And this not only because of their nearer connection with ourselves, but because the nations seem to be hastening, through a rapid process of change, to some new state of things, which the merely political prophet cannot compute or foresee.

Geographical Discoveries, the progress of Colonization, (which is extending over the whole world,) and Voyages and Travels, will be favorite matter for our selections; and, in general, we shall systematically and very fully acquaint our readers with the great department of Foreign affairs, without entirely neglecting our own.

The elaborate and stately Essays of the Edinburgh, Quarterly, and other Reviews; and Blackwood's noble criticisms on Poetry, his keen political Commentaries, highly wrought Tales, and vivid descriptions of rural and While we aspire to make the Living Age desirable to mountain Scenery; and the contributions to Literature, all who wish to keep themselves informed of the rapid History, and Common Life, by the sagacious Spectator, progress of the movement--to Statesmen, Divines, Lawthe sparkling Examiner, the judicious Athenæum, the yers, and Physicians-to men of business and men of busy and industrious Literary Gazette, the sensible and leisure-it is still a stronger object to make it attractive comprehensive Britannia, the sober and respectable Chris- and useful to their Wives and Children. We believe that tian Observer; these are intermixed with the Military we can thus do some good in our day and generation; and and Naval reminiscences of the United Service, and with hope to make the work indispensable in every well-inthe best articles of the Dublin University, New Monthly, formed family. We say indispensable, because in this Fraser's, Tait's, Ainsworth's, Hood's, and Sporting Mag-day of cheap literature it is not possible to guard against azines, and of Chambers' admirable Journal. We do not the influx of what is bad in taste and vicious in morals, consider it beneath our dignity to borrow wit and wisdom in any other way than by furnishing a sufficient supply from Punch; and, when we think it good enough, make of a healthy character. The mental and moral appetite se of the thunder of The Times. We shall increase our must be gratified. variety by importations from the continent of Europe, and from the new growth of the British colonies.

The steamship has brought Europe, Asia and Africa, into our neighborhood; and will greatly multiply our connections, as Merchants, Traveliers, and Politicians, with all parts of the world; so that much more than ever it

We hope that, by "winnowing the wheat from the chaff," by providing abundantly for the imagination, and by a large collection of Biography, Voyages and Travels, History, and more solid matter, we may produce a work which shall be popular, while at the same time it will aspire to raise the standard of public taste.

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Or all the Periodical Journals devoted to literature and science which abound in Europe and in this country, this has appeared to me to be the most useful. It contains indeed the exposition only of the current literature of the English language, but this by its immense extent and comprehension includes a portraiture of the human mind ic the utmost expansion of the present age.

J. Q. ADAMS.

LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 302.-2 MARCH, 1850.

From the Spectator. TITMARSH'S REBECCA AND ROWENA.* THE plan of this jeu d'esprit is the most appropriate to the season of any of the various books that have been devised since Dickens first set the fashion of Christmas stories; for it is based upon the comic extravaganza which introduced the pantomime proper of the olden time, when pantomime aimed at a continuous action. In Rebecca and Rowena there is the same jovial defiance of times and manners as in the extravaganza, where the old "Lord of Misrule" might seem to have run riot; but there is in the book—what the theatre only attempted in a superficial way, if at all a sensible if not a profound view of life and its affairs; good-natured hits at the predominance of sentiment and the presence of silliness in modern | novels and theatrical pieces; with satire upon the conventionally perverted views of history, which only falls below the lofty style of the greater satirists by reason of the author's quiet and effortless jocularity.

dels in Prussia and Spain, rescues Rebecca at the siege of Valencia, and the scene drops upon their marriage; a few sentences indicating their future career. For "Nemesis is always on the watch;" and Mr. Titmarsh falls into the same custom, as regards Ivanhoe's second marriage, which he has written his book to ridicule.

There is no lack of variety and grotesque interest in what may be called the incidents of the piece; but the real interest arises from the manner in which the age of Richard the First is modernized, and the broad and general truths which lurk under much of the seemingly special satire. In this account of the Lion-hearted dancing and singing in the camp before Chalus, the jokes are of wider application than to kings and princes.

It pained him [Ivanhoe] to see a man of the king's age and size dancing about with the young folks. They laughed at his majesty whilst they flattered him; the pages and maids of honor mimicked the royal mountebank almost to his face; and, would one night, when the king, in light-blue if Ivanhoe ever could have laughed, he certainly satin inexpressibles, with his hair in powder, chose to dance the Minuet de la Cour with the little Queen Berengaria.

The story of Rebecca and Rowena is a facetious continuation of Ivanhoe. The professed purpose is to correct an alleged error of novelists in treating only of the youth of their heroes and heroines, and closing their story with marriage, to the omission of so many years and such important periods of life. Perhaps the real purpose of so shrewd a critic as Mr. Titmarsh is to throw a little ridicule over Scott's failure in his heroines and heroes, as well as in his rose-colored exhibition of the age of chivalry. Rowena is painted as a pattern lady who neglects her duties, both as a wife and mistress, to discuss theology, dispense charity, and observe the holydays of the church. She henpecks Ivanhoe, keeps him at a distance on account of her royal birth, and loses no opportunity of twitting him with his love for Rebecca. Wamba the Jester is silenced; the castle is so intolerably dull that everybody avoids it; Ivanhoe takes to sporting and drinking, and finally resolves to join Richard the Lion-hearted in France. He is in close attendance upon the king at his siege of the castle of Chalus, and is left for dead in the breach when Richard is mortally wounded. The news of his death having been carried to England, Rowena marries Athelstane; and when Ivanhoe returns some years afterwards, it is to come upon an illustration of one of the most unsentimental passages in Don Juan. Smothering his vexation, Ivanhoe disguises himself, settles in York, and leads a moderately comfortable life till the death of Athelstane and Rowena; then he starts as a knight-errant; and, after slaughtering Infi-Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the sea, * Rebecca and Rowena: Romance upon Romance. By Mr. Michael Angelo Titmarsh. Illustrated by Richard Doyle. Published by Chapman and Hall. LIVING AGE.

Then, after dancing, his majesty must needs order a guitar, and begin to sing. He was said to those who have read Lord Campobello's Lives of compose his own songs, words, and music; but the Lord Chancellors are aware that there was a person by the name of Blondel who in fact did all the musical part of the king's performances; and as for the words, when a king writes verses we may be sure there will be plenty of people to. admire his poetry. His majesty would sing you a ballad, of which he had stolen every idea, to an air tendom; and, turning round to his courtiers, would which was ringing on all the barrel-organs of Chrissay, "How do you like that? I dashed it off this morning." Or," Blondel, what do you think of this movement in B flat?" or what not; and the courtiers and Blondel, you may be sure, would applaud with all their might, like hypocrites as they were. March, 1199, his majesty, who was in the musical One evening, it was the evening of the 27th mood, treated the court with a quantity of his socalled compositions, until the people were fairly tired of clapping with their hands and laughing in their sleeves. First he sang an original air and poem, beginning,

VOL. XXIV.

25

Cherries nice, cherries nice, nice, come choose, Fresh and fair ones, who 'll refuse? &c. The which he was ready to take his affidavit he had composed the day before yesterday. Then he sang an equally original heroic melody, of which the chorus was,

For Britons, never, never, never slaves shall be, &c. The courtiers applauded this song as they did the other, all except Ivanhoe, who sat without

changing a muscle of his features, until the king | Thrice his grace had yawned at table, when hie questioned him; when the knight, with a bow, favorite gleeman sung;

said, "he thought he had heard something very Once the queen would have consoled him, but he like the air and the words elsewhere."

His

majesty scowled at him a savage glance from under his red bushy eyebrows; but Ivanhoe had saved the royal life that day, and the king, therefore, with difficulty controlled his indignation.

"Well," said he, "by St. Richard and St. George, but ye never heard this song, for I composed it this very afternoon as I took my bath after the mêlée. Did I not, Blondel?"

Blondel, of course, was ready to take an affidavit that his majesty had done as he said; and the king, thrumming on his guitar with his great red fingers and thumbs, began to sing out of tune, and as follows

COMMANDERS OF THE FAITHFUL.

The Pope he is a happy man,
His palace is the Vatican:
And there he sits and drains his can,
The Pope he is a happy man.
I often say when I'm at home,
I'd like to be the Pope of Rome.

And then there 's Sultan Saladin,
That Turkish Soldan full of sin;
He has a hundred wives at least,
By which his pleasure is increased:
I've often wished, I hope no sin,
That I were Sultan Saladin.

But no-the Pope no wife may choose,
And so I would not wear his shoes;
No wine may drink the proud Paynim,
And so I'd rather not be him;
My wife, my wine, I love I hope,

And would be neither Turk nor Pope.

bade her hold her tongue.

Something ails my gracious master," cried the
keeper of the seal;

Sure, my lord, it is the lampreys, served at din-
Psha!" exclaimed the angry monarch; "Keep-
ner, or the veal!"
er, 't is not that I feel.

""T is the heart and not the dinner, fool, that dotk
my rest impair ;

Can a king be great as I am, prithee, and yet

know no care?

Some one

O, I'm sick, and tired, and weary."
cried, "The king's arm-chair!"
Then towards the lackeys turning, quick my lord
the keeper nodded;

Straight the king's great chair was brought him,
by two footmen able-bodied,
Languidly he sank into it; it was comfortably
wadded.

"Leading on my fierce companions,” cried he,
over storm and brine,

66

I have fought and I have conquered! Where was glory like to mine?"

Loudly all the courtiers echoed-" Where is glory like to thine?"

"What avail me all my kingdoms? Weary am I now, and old;

Those fair sons I have begotten long to see me dead and cold;

Would I were, and quiet buried underneath the silent mould!

"O, remorse, the writhing serpent, at my bosom
tears and bites;

Horrid, horrid things I look on, though I put out
Ghosts of ghastly recollections troop about my bed
all the lights;
of nights.

The ballad of King Canute, illustrating a
well-known story, is an example of deeper thought
and satire at the same time, there is a boundary,
not always easily to be defined, beyond which it
becomes questionable whether ridicule should be
pushed. Conventional hypocrisies, sentiments, and
heroics, are bad, but avowed conventional sordid-"Such
ness is worse men find no difficulty in acting
down to low theories.

King Canute was very weary-hearted; he had
reigned for years a score;
Battling, struggling, pushing, fighting, killing

much and robbing more,
And he thought upon his actions, walking by the
wild sea-shore.

'Twixt the chancellor and bishop walked the king with steps sedate,

Chamberlains and grooms came after, silver sticks and gold sticks great,

Chaplains, aides-de-camp, and pages-all the officers of state.

"Cities burning, convents blazing, red with sacri-
Mothers weeping, virgins screaming, vainly for
legious fires;
their slaughtered sires."-

66

a tender conscience," cries the bishop. every one admires.

"But for such unpleasant bygones, cease, my
gracious lord, to search:

They're forgotten and forgiven by our holy mother
Church;

Never, never does she leave her benefactors in the

lurch.

"Look! the land is crowned with minsters, which
Abbeys filled with holy men, where you and
your grace's bounty raised;
Heaven are daily praised:
You, my lord, to think of dying on my conscience,

66

I'm amazed!"

Nay, I feel," replied King Canute, "that my end is drawing near."

Sliding after like his shadow, pausing when he "Don't say so," exclaimed the courtiers, (striving

chose to pause;

If a frown his face contracted, straight the court-"Sure iers dropped their jaws;

If to laugh the king was minded, out they burst in loud hee-haws.

But that day a something vexed him, that was clear to old and young:

each to squeeze a tear ;)

your grace is strong and lusty, and may live this fifty year."

"Live these fifty years!" the bishop roared, with

actions made to suit ;

"Are you mad, my good lord keeper, thus to speak of King Canute?

Men have lived a thousand years, and sure his majesty will do 't.

Adam, Enoch, Lamech, Canaan, Mahaleel, Me-
thusela,

Lived nine hundred years apiece, and may n't the
king as well as they?"-
"Fervently," exclaimed the keeper, "fervently,
trust he may."

"He to die?" resumed the bishop.
like to us?

I

suited to his station, and based on the best dictates of common sense, which through life the sculptor developed in a most exemplary manner, for whatever may be the opinion of the world as to his merits as an artist, or his accomplishments as a man, all agree in acknowledging his remarkable and undeviating sagacity.

In other words, the old gentleman wished to do "He a mortal something which he did not do, but which his son nevertheless developed, for everybody acknowledges it. It is very well that everybody does because we are thus saved the trouble of explaining it.

Death was not for him intended, though communis omnibus;

Keeper, you are irreligious, for to talk and cavil

thus."

A severe illness, which interrupted the pleasing labors of Mr. Thackeray, has prevented him from illustrating his own text as usual. His place is ably supplied by Mr. Richard Doyle, who has caught the true comic extravaganza style in his designs: they are grotesque, not theatrical, and

have nature and character in the heads.

Sir Francis Chantrey, R. A.
Life, Practice, and Opinions.
R. A. Edward Moxon.

From the Examiner.

Recollections of his
By GEORGE JONES,

At page 5 a well-known anecdote, of not a little interest in Chantrey's life, is thus darkly hinted at by Mr. Jones:

During the time that Chantrey was a carver in wood, he saw Mr. Rogers, and received employment from him. At an after period, when the artist had risen to eminence, the poet was reminded by the sculptor of their previous interview; and the frank, courteous, and friendly recognition of each other cannot be described adequately by any one after having been heard by many in the admirably descriptive language of the author of the "Pleasures of Memory."

That is, a thing which has been heard by many in admirably descriptive language cannot be described adequately by any one. Profound, but inconvenient. We would rather have had it told by any two, or half-a-dozen, than missed it altogether.

The supposed resemblance of his hero to two very remarkable faces is fondly dwelt upon by Mr. Jones. The first is to Shakspeare:

No one, after reading this volume, will presume to question the variety or profundity of its author's classical erudition. That very rare work, the Ars Poetica of Horace, is at his fingers'-ends. The Epistole of the same ingenious writer have not escaped his research. Quintilian and Cicero are friends at his elbow. Ομήρου Ιλιάς is a familiar book to him. He has scanned the marvels of the Historia Naturalis with the elder Pliny. Elian has made him free of the gossip of the Varia His-tion to health, and so he remained during the rest toria. He has sauntered with Pausanias among the buildings, temples, statues of the 'Ellados Ileginnois. Is it surprising that he should have forgotten his English, if he had ever happened to acquire it?

Soon after this time Chantrey went to Ireland, where he suffered so severely from a fever, that his disease he lost his hair, and was bald at his restorarecovery was doubtful; and in the progress of the

of his life, which, however, rather improved than injured the character of his head; and to those who never saw the sculptor, a portrait of Shakspeare may supply a resemblance, as the pictures and prints of the immortal poet have often recalled his open countenance to the memory of his friends. Whether it was the rest of his life, or his restoration to health, or the loss of his hair, which improved the character of his head, and what his baldness had to do with the openness of his countenance-we leave the reader to find out. The second resemblance is to Socrates, and here Mr. Jones, in the confidence of his classics, carries the likeness into mental qualities:

Nevertheless, when one would write an English book, there are prejudices that would seem to exact some small preliminary knowledge of the language. Cicero has even gone so far as to remark (we need not quote the De Oratore to so profound a classic as Mr. Jones) that it is a disgrace not to be properly acquainted with our mother tongue-but we shall be content to observe, for our own parts, that to be reasonably acquainted with our mother tongue is no impertinent preface Amongst these busts there is a head of Socrates, to the attempt to write in it. Mr. Jones has hardly been so sensible of this as it was desirable

to which Chantrey bore considerable resemblance, although the marble has a beard which conceals the mouth, and that feature of the English sculptor was the best in his face, and before he sunk into ill health it was of the most perfect form and beautiful expression. If the countenance had some similitude, so had the mind of the philosopher and the sculptor, for they were guided alike by strong reason and rigid investigation; both were slow to determine, and required the most accurate evidence for

decision.

The vivid Socratic peculiarities, reminding the