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No. 406, January 2,1858J THE LEADER. 17
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BOOKS ON INDIA. The Sepoy Revolt: its Ca...
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THE BLUE MOSELLE. The Life of the MoseHe...
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NEW YEAR'S GIFTS. First to all yet undec...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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A Month In The Forests Of France. A Mont...
shaped head to his tail he was straight as a line , small , close , set-back ears , enormous shoulders , loins , and hams , and short legs , with a body well let down and low . As a Dtize boar , in shape and make , he might have been shown anywhere . He looked , from the length of his coat , and his stiff bristles , quite as large as a good-sized bear , with white tusks of the most formidable dimensions—weight above 3501 bs . " And now " said I , " for poor Barricade . " We went under my direction to search for her , when she was met , walking slowly and in a fainting condition , and brought to the little village . As to the vieux sanglier , he was soon slung on a pole , and borne by the blouses to the inn , the horns playing all the way the ' Death of the Wild Boar . ^ Space will not permit us to do more than merely allude to Mr . . Berkeley s sound and sportsmanlike views on otter hunting . Beyond all question , the only useful do" - for this summer branch of the chase is the breed he prefers —to the exclusion of that noisy , false , babbling species known as the large , rough northern otter dog . The large sums of money frequently paid for such had Jar better been retained in the owner ' s pocket .
No. 406, January 2,1858j The Leader. 17
No . 406 , January 2 , 1858 J THE LEADER . 17
Books On India. The Sepoy Revolt: Its Ca...
BOOKS ON INDIA . The Sepoy Revolt : its Causes and its Consequences . By Henry Meade , ( Murray . )—From the ten years' local experience of Mr . Meade something better mig ht have been anticipated than four hundred pages of invective . This work contains little that is not vitiated by the violent antipathies of the writer , who seems to have imposed upon himself the task of dragging the East India Company to execution . It is much to be doubted whether so laborious a philippic will have much effect on public opinion at home . A few lines in the preface will prepare every reader for a book of execrations , pitched in altissimo . Torture and lawlessness , and the perpetual suffering of millions , have become so familiar to him , says Mr . Meade , autobiographically , that he is conscious of not feeling as he ought to feel when wrong is done to individuals and nations . Perhaps some of this involuntary injustice has been bestowed upon England herself , and her representatives in the East . Mr . wide field
Meade , professing to write of the Sepoy rebellion , traverses a very , and continually breaks off into not uninteresting digressions , but a bias is everywhere apparent . " We have no heart to chronicle the massacre of Jhansi , " he says , and it may be allowed that those horrid incidents should not be unnecessarily described . But when Mr . Meade comes to treat of Travancore tortures , inflicted upon the natives , he has heart enough for long and dismal expatiation , upon racking ? squeezing fingers , whipping women with stinging-nettles , tying them together by their hair , hanging men by their hands , lighting fires under them , and other variations of atrocity . Mr . Meade is invariably one-sided and acrimonious , but why did he dilate so leisurely upon this subject if he dared not trust himself to speak of cruelties inflicted upon English men and women in Central I ndia and elsewhere ? He calls the revolted Sepoy a leopard trained by us to hunt down the people of India , which at length has sprung upon ourselves ; and this taint of rhetorical exairireration pervades the whole book from beginning to end .
However , had Mr . Meade been capable of discrimination , he might have been a competent witness ; he has seen much of India , and devoted some study to its wants , resources , and institutions , and he occasionally produces telling explanations of events associated with the mutiny . His picture of the mock state kept by the old King of Delhi is effective , and partly illustrates the absurdity of the royal pension system as hitherto maintained . The king , or Padishah , never forgave the English after a governor-general had insisted upon having a chair in his presence ; all letters addressed to him were styled petitions ; and he supported twelve thousand men , women , and children within his enormous palace in a life of the grossest sensuality . Indian
lutes and love-songs amused the ladies of the colossal hareem ; and in that school of licence and brutality the young princes of the fallen dynasty were educated to ' do what they liked' to the young English girls and children handed over to them , as prizes of war , by the aged monarch , who to this day has a guard of honour in attendance upon him at Delhi . British Rule in India . An Historical Sketch . By Harriet Martmeau . ( Smith , Elder , and Co . )—We have not met with a more succinct and comprehensive volume on British India than this , by Miss Martineau . It is a narrative , spreading from time to time into pictures . From a general sketch of the country and its early annals , Miss Martineau passes to the early enterprises of traders , the establishment of factories , the appearance of European military power in the East , the germination of a policy and a power , and the consolidated erection of British rule . Hence the story is one of rapid developments—the double government , the revenue and subsidiary systems , thfl rrrfl . i * . imnorifll wars , the successive conquests of large territories , and
grand improvements in the social and physical condition of the native races under Christian control . Some of our late wars arc pointed to as the foundations and bulwarks of an external Indian policy , and the book is brought to an end with a broad and vivid sketch of modern Indian life and manners among the Hindoos and Mohammedans , nnd the foreigners located on their A Popular Account 0 / the Thugs and Dacoits , the Hereditary Qarotters and Qang-Robbers of India . By James Hutton . ( Allen and Co . )—Here is a compact and in every way admirable account of the garotters and gangrobbers of India . Mr . Hutton is perfectly master of his subject , and
conaoquently treats it with lightness and caac , following up his explanatory chapters with n profusion of anecdotes . Thujrgeo nnd Dacoitee , now aboliahod , alter extraordinary efforts , by the British Government , were among the greatest curses of Iiuliu ; but they were at the same time , and are , lnstorical institutions very remarkable , and worthy of study . Certainly Mr . Mutton ' s volume contains the only record of their origin , achievements , Frnl ^ xttnction-whieh-is-at ^ , Opinions on the Indian Army . By Colonel JouuStudholme Hwrlgsony ( Allen and Co . )—These * Opinions' ilesorvu thu attention of military and noiitionl readers . Colonel Modason . of thu Bengal army , and Brigadier luto
Commanding the Punjab Irregular Force , ia no inconsiderable authority on Indian army questions . That ho has formed tm acute judgment on various points of the highest interest is shown by the fact that many oi his views , originally published at Meorut seven years ago , have since been literally justilied by events which in some degree he may be enid to have predicted .
We commend the studies of this distinguished soldier to the notice of those who care for more than superficial information on Indian military matters . The Indian Mutiny . A Narrative . By a former Editor of the Delhi Gazette . ( Routledge and Co . )—This volume , though a cheap and popular compilation , has evidently been put together by a writer whose judgment and knowledge may be depended upon .
The Blue Moselle. The Life Of The Mosehe...
THE BLUE MOSELLE . The Life of the MoseHe , Jrom its Source in the Vosges Mountains to its Junction with the Rhine at Coblenta . By Octavius Rooke . Illustrated with Seventy Engravings . Booth . The author complains of the neglect that leaves the Moselle to glide with scarcely a tourist admiring its beauty . He loves the graceful river , and the people of the valley will be grateful to him for publishing this beautiful volume . Readers of it will yearn to be where Ausonius was inspired by the subject of one of his noblest poems . All the country , from the spot where the Moselle trickles out of the earth amid moss and stones , to the stately
heights of Ehrenbreitstein , is rich in the varieties of landscape , yet summer travellers rarely explore the upper valley . The quiet wanderer in search of emotions and impressions g ains a thousand that are new by the way , and with Mr . Rooke ' s dainty itinerary in hand , may listen to many a legend of crime , passion , and mystery . The stream itself is a tradition , for it claims as ancestor a certain ethereal maiden , who undertook a pilgrimage from the Vosges hills to the Rhine , and married that ancient river . Upon the banks , as they slope down into Germany , stand ruins and memorials haunted by tales told of the past ; at Remiremont , children still hear of Charlemagne , Queen Waldrada , the Huns , and those free-hearted ladies of the mountain convent whom Pope Eugenius reproached for the scandal of their lives ; at Epinal also survives a romance of bad manners , and at Toul pastoral poetry revels on the yellow slopes on both sides of the river . From that point the Fair Girl dances on brightly , indifferent to the shadowy histories of Theolinda and Alcidor , the knight who died fighting against the
Vandals , and his bride who , with roses in her hair , charged the enemy , and afterwards receiving a title of chivalry from Pharamond , is supposed to have bequeathed to Joan of Arc a suggestion of heroism . The glancing river passes Metz and the graves of the Cordelier conspirators , and shooting by Sierek , leaves the French and enters the Prussian territory , where , known as the Mosel , it glimmers among lowlands and highlands singularly rich in their growth of wild flowers . According to the fanciful working out of the legend , the Moselle at Treves passes out of girlhood to become a woman of more ripe and abundant beauty . Wine and corn enrich the valley , and all the ruins are peopled with ghostly legends . Below Treves is the district generally visited by sush tourists as come to look upon the loveliness of the Moselle , which is here at the present time much what the Rhine was half a century ago . No great roads line the banks , cutting off the quaint houses of the old towns and villages from the river-side ; every object on land and water is pieturesque- ^ cottages , costumes , boats , cartransferred
goes , orchards , and vineyards—and Mr . Kooke s pencil Has many charming fragments of scenery and characteristic groups to the pages of his most a-reeable volume . The Moselle vintage is of the old-fashioned type , the wine be ing generally pressed out by ' the white feet of laughing girls , ' the clusters having been cut from the tree and placed in baskets on the harvesters' backs . Wherever a shelf of rock is accessible the vine flourishes;—within the walls of mouldering castles , on the crags and precipices , and along the cleared lands bordering the forests . . , , The writer of this elegant volume gossips cheerfully and instructively all the way to Ehrenbreitstein , and his seventy original sketches , admirably engraved by Mr . T . Bolton , with borders and floral ornaments from the cunning hand of Noel Humphreys , appropriately illustrate one of the most graceful gift-books of the season . We should add , that the type and paper are excellent .
New Year's Gifts. First To All Yet Undec...
NEW YEAR'S GIFTS . First to all yet undecided on the subject of a New Year ' s or Twelfth Day Gift let us introduce Comua : a Mask , by John Milton , as published by Mr . Routledge , with thirty illustrations by Pickersgill , Birket Foster , Harrison Weir & c . engraved by the Brothers Dalziel . It is a dainty little volume , with rich ' brown binding , bordered and stamped with gold , —a jewelled version of an English classic which is a jewel in itself . To those whose sympathies are lyrical , Messrs . Low ofl ' er the Pastoral Poems of Wordsworth , profusely and tastefully illustrated . This also is a delicate little volume , draped in blue , with golden emblazonry . It forms a very fitting gift for the young . To the still younger we recommend Fairy Fables , by Cuthbert Bede , B . A ., with illustrations by Alfred Crowquill , presented to us by Mr . Bentley in a suit of gilded green , —a pretty volume , full of short , fresh , and fascinating tales for the parlour and nursery fireside . Mr . Bentley , moreover , issues another kill-time for Twelfth Night , and indeed any other night of gaiety rejuvenescent to the elder generation , —Fairy Tale Charades , for Jclino , by M . G . Avelino . Great dramatic doings may bo carried 011 in drawing-rooms with the help of these simple and ingenious versions . Xo
folks ofdarker imaginations , Mr . Main Fnswell addresses U / wst Mones ana Phantom Fancies , published by Mr . Bontley . Mr . Friswoll is not happy in his efforta at humour , and is somewhat wcurmoiue in his preface and interludes , but the gliost Htoriea themselves are cleverly and amusingly told . A special book of the season is Mr . Charles H . Bennett ' s Fables of Jhsop and Others Translated into Human Nature , published by Mr . Kent It is a thiu-nuart 0-vuluiue . otLwgQiii : iit 2 , representing versions of popular fables , in the revellers in Comus , are the heads of lions , asses wolves , oxofl swine , vultures , and oxen . This idea is very felicitously worked out by the artist , whose * Shadows , ' noticed in tlieae column * last year , brought lum eon-*» Eou » lvbefore the public eye . The trial of a man for , 11-treatiug a horse is the / frontispiece , bringing into view the sharks , apes , elephants . daws , and ruts who wear the costume and strut on the legs of humanity . The footpad
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 2, 1858, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_02011858/page/17/
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