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Leader (1850-1860), 2nd January 1858, Edition 1 of 2, Page 17, Untitled Article

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      shaped head to his tail he was straight as a line , small , dose , set-back ears , enormous shoulders , loins , and hams , and short legs , with a body well let down and low . As a prize boar , in shape and make , he might have been shown anywhere . He looked , from the length of bis 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 dog for thiB 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 far better been retained in the owner ' s pocket .

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      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 philipp ic 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 allissimo . 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 .

      Meade , professing to write of the Sepoy rebellion , traverses a very wide field , 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 , whipp ing women with stinging-nettles , tying them together by their hair , banging 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 spe ak of cruelties inflicted upon English men and women in Central India 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 exaggeration 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 g irls 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 Martineau . ( Smith , Elder , and Co . )—We have not met with a more succinct and comprehensive volume on British India than this , by Miss Martinenu , 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 , the great imperial 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 are 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 , and the foreigners located on their Boil .

      A Popular Account of the Thugs and Dacoits , the Hereditary Qarotters and Gang-Robbers of India . By James Hutton . ( Allen and Co . )—Here is a compact and in every way admirable account of the gurotters and gangrobbers of India . Mr . Hutton is perfectly master of his subject , and consequently treats it with lightness and ease , following up his explanatory chapters with a profusion of anecdotes . Thuggee and Dacoitee , now abolished , alter extraordinary efforts , by the British Government , were amon" the greatest curses of India ; but they were at the same time , and are , historical institutions very remarkable , and worthy of study . Certainly Mr .. ^ liuttOltl ' s _ Y ; ohuno contains the only record of their origin , achievements , and extinction whi'c ) ris " aFall coinple'teror'HkelyHJO' -bo' -populttP .--, _ Opinions on t / io Indian Ann if . By Colonel John Stiulholme Hodgson . ( Allen and Co . )—These ' Opinions ' deserve the attention of military and political readers . Colonel Hodgson , of tlio Bengal army , and Brigadier late Commanding the Punjab Irregular Force , is no inconsiderable authority on

      Indian army questions . That he has formed an acute judgment on various points of the highest interest is shown by the fact that many of his views , originally published at Mcerut seven years ago , have since been literally justified by eventa which in some degree he mny bo fluid 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 .

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      NEW YEAR'S GIFTS . First , to all yet undecided on the subject of a New Year ' s or Twelfth Day Gift let us introduce Comus : a Mask , by John Milton , as published by Mr . Routled ^ e , 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 offer 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 youn * . To the still younger we recommend Fairy Fables , by Cuthbert Bede , B . A ., with illustrations by Alfred Crow-quill , 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 tho elder generation , —Fairy Tale Charades , for Acting , by M . G . Avelino . Great dramatic doings may be carried on in drawing-rooms with the help of these simple and ingenious versions , lo folks ofdarker imaginations , Mr . Hain Friswell addresses Qhoat hlones and Phantom Fancies , published by Mr . Bontley . Mr . Friswell is not happy in his efforts at humour , and is somewhat wearisome in his preface and interludes , but tho gl . ost HtorieH themselves are cleverly and amusingly told . A special book of the season is Mr . Charles li . Bennett ' s Fables of Jhsop and Others Translated into Human Nature , published by Mr . Kent . It la a . llunqiTaT ^^ . which the creatures arc human in all but their heads , which , like those ot tho revellers in Comus , are the heads of lions , assea , wolves , foxes , swina , vultures , and oxen . This idea is very felicitously worked out by the arfcttft , whoso Shadows , ' noticed in these columns last your , brought him conspicuo ^ ly before the public eyo . The trial of a man lor ill-treatmg a horse iB tko frontispiece , bringing into view the sharks , apes , eleplmnta daws , and rats who wear the costume and strut on tho legs of humanity , lho footpad

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      travellers rarely explore the upper valley . The quiet wanderer in search ot emotions and impressions gains a thousand that are new by the way , and with Mr . Rooke ' s dainty itinerary in band , 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

      THE BLUE MOSELLE . The Life of the Moselle , from its Source in the Vosges Mountains to its Junction with the Rhine at Coblentz . By Octavius Rooke . Illustrated with Seventy En-• gravings . ~ 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

      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 Sierck , leaves the French and enters the Prussian territory , where , known as the Mpsel , 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 such 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 picturesque—cottages , costumes , boats ,

      cargoes , orchards , and vineyards—and Mr . Kooke s pencil has transferred many charming fragments of scenery and characteristic groups to the pages ot his most agreeable volume . The Moselle vintage is of the old-fashioned type , the wine being ge nerally 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 cunnino 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 .

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      fro . 406 , January 2 , 1858 . ] THE LEADER , 17

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 2, 1858, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2224/page/17/