Wanderings of a Journeyman Tailor Through Europe and the East. Between the years 1824 and 1840. By P. D. Holthaus, Journeyman Tailor, from Werdohl, in Westphalia. Translated from the third German edition, by William Howitt. J. Winchester: ‘New World’ Press.
An air of great simplicity and truth pervades this wander-book of the German schneider. Mr. Howitt tells us, that when in the autumn of 1840 he returned to his native village, a great reputation preceded him, and all came, eager to see the brave traveller, and to listen to the relation of his adventures. He never sought purposely to turn conversation upon the subject of his travels, nor to impress an idea of his own importance; but when he was drawn into discourse, it was speedily found that he had noted and deeply impressed on his mind every thing with a truly admirable interest, and an acute spirit of observation, for one of his rank and education; that he had not merely passed through the countries, but had gleaned valuable matter on his journey; various things which he had brought with him testified this interest, such as different kinds of coin, engravings, plans of cities, etc. We have found, on an examination necessarily cursory, the commendatory remarks of the Berlin Gesellschafter upon this work to be well deserved: ‘We see in the individual expressions almost every where the evidence of its being the production of immediate observation. There prevails through the whole a noble simplicity and singleness of purpose, a genuinely German sound mode of thinking; here and there is not wanting a humorous and pithy remark. The author sees in every place nature and men without spectacles, and thence it arises that we acquire from his book a more living and actual view of foreign countries, especially of Egypt, Palestine, and Turkey, than was the case from the travelled labors of many a learned and celebrated man. Frequently, nay almost always, it is a fact, that the learned are destitute of the opportunity of acquiring a knowledge of the real life of the people, while it is exactly here that the greatest peculiarity of the manners and customs of foreigners is to be found. Our honest hand-worker lived among the people, and therefore possessed the best means to describe them in graphic characters.’ There is something very forcible and comprehensive in the subjoined passage from the author’s preface. It is indeed a sort of compendium of the most interesting portion of the writer’s journeyings:
‘From my youth up, it was my most living desire to see the world. When I heard or read of foreign lands, I became sad at heart, and thought: ‘Wert thou but of years that thou couldst travel!’ Now are all the wishes of my youth fulfilled. I have made the attempt by land and water, and that in three quarters of the world. I have wandered several times through Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Wallachia; I was a long time in Budapest and Constantinople; and undertook, with the money which I had saved there, a pilgrimage through Egypt to the Holy Land. I kneeled at the Birth-Place and the Sepulchre of the Saviour; stood in adoration on the holy Mount Zion, on Tabor, Golgotha, and the Mount of Olives; bathed in Jordan; washed myself in the Lake of Gennesareth; looked in vain around me on the Dead Sea for living objects; was in the workshop of St. Joseph; and in many other holy places of which the sacred Scriptures make mention. Thence I returned to Constantinople, and betook myself through Athens, where I worked nearly a year, and thence through Italy, France, and Belgium, homeward to my Fatherland.’
The first German edition of fifteen hundred copies of the work was at once exhausted; a second speedily followed; a third was soon announced; and the fourth is doubtless ere this before a wide class of German readers. We cheerfully commend the book to the public acceptance.
Benthamiana: or Select Extracts from the Works of Jeremy Bentham. With an Outline Opinion on the Principal Subjects discussed in his Works. In one volume, pp. 446. Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard. New-York: Wiley and Putnam.
This work contains a copious selection of those passages in the works of Jeremy Bentham which appear to be chiefly distinguished for merit of a simply rhetorical character; which, appearing often in the midst of long and arduous processes of reasoning, or in the course of elaborate descriptions of minute practical arrangements, demanding from an active mind severe thought and unflagging attention, have scarcely had their due weight with the general reader, nor secured their just meed of admiration. He was singularly careless, writes his editor, in distributing his pleasing illustrations of playfulness, or pathos, or epigrammatic expression. His ‘mission’ he considered to be that of an instructor and improver; and the flowers which, equally with more substantial things, were the produce of his vigorous intellect, he looked upon as scarcely worthy of passing attention, and deserving of no more notice than to be permitted to grow wherever the more valued objects of his labors left them a little room. The volume comprehends a vast variety of sound opinion, and able though brief argument upon themes which relate to the social, moral and religious well-being of mankind. Touching the style of the writer, as evinced in these selections, we should say that it was formed mainly upon a due avoidance of prolixity, (an observance not always characteristic of Bentham’s writings,) concerning which he himself very justly remarks: ‘Prolixity may be where redundancy is not. Prolixity may arise not only from the multifarious insertion of unnecessary articles, but from the conservation of too many necessary ones in a sentence; as a workman may be overladen not only with rubbish, which is of no use for him to carry, but with materials the most useful and necessary, when heaped up in loads too heavy for him at once.’ A useful hint this, to unpractised writers.
The Correspondence between Burns and Clarinda. With a Memoir of Mrs. M’Lehose, (Clarinda.) Arranged and edited by her Grandson, W. C. M’Lehose. In one volume, pp. 293. New-York: R. P. Bixby and Company.
We have no doubt that the contents of this well-executed little volume are altogether authentic; full particulars relative to the custody and authenticity of the correspondence and the state of preservation of the original manuscripts being given in the preface. But we are very sorry to say so much against the book as this fact implies. It would be far better for the reputation of the immortal Bard of Scotland, if some hereditary friend, chary of his undying fame, were to come before the public with a pamphlet disproving entirely the agency of Burns in this correspondence. To those who are acquainted with previous records in the private history of the world-renowned poet, it is painful to convict him, out of his own mouth, of duplicity in matters of the heart; of insincerity in the profession of simultaneous passion for various lovers; and of other acts which are alike indefensible and disreputable. We must needs marvel too that the ‘Clarinda’ of the correspondence should have been doomed by a near descendant to the exposure inseparable from the revelations of this volume. That the treatment which she received at the hands of one whose duty it was to ‘love, cherish, and protect’ her, was equally undeserved and inexcusable, we can well believe; but that the ‘platonic attachment,’ which sprung up in a night, like the gourd of Jonah, and gradually waxed to ‘passion at fever-heat,’ was justified by these facts, or sanctioned by propriety, or that its history in detail is calculated to elevate the character of woman, or exercise a healthful moral influence, we have just as little reason to doubt. There is a sprinkling of verse in an appendix, which Burns was good enough to praise. It is of that kind ‘which neither gods nor men permit;’ and is conclusive, not of Burns’s judgment, but of his ‘tender’ sycophancy.