THE LITERATURE OF THE ANNUALS.

FASIIION is usually accounted the most baseless of things ; and to say of any mode of being, that it was a "temporary fashion," is enough to condemn it, as founded on caprice alone. It is probable that this judgment is not wholly true, and that if we could pene- trate to all the causes and relations of things, fashions, as well as matters of graver moment, might have their uses and necessities, though of a more limited and fleeting kind. Hence a reason why would-be fashion-setters very often fail egregiously ; why some fashions endure, when others, born at the same time, perish; and why a departed fashion can so seldom be revived exactly in its pros- tine shape. But if this doctrine be doubtful as regards modes, it seems true in literature. When the Annuals first began to be the fashion, their engravings not only supplied a want or filled up a vacuum, in furnishing the drawing-room or boudoir table with elegant specimens of' the arts in a convenient form, and, then, at a very moderate price, but they did more—they stimulated cheap engravings, and first proved that a moderate price in art might 3 ield a good profit by the number of purchasers it would command. Their literature, though of an inferior grade to the form and embellishments, had then novelty to recommend it, and its cha- racter was more strongly marked. It might be slight, dreamy, devoid of matter, and not very happy in diction ; but it was original after its kind, and had the spirit and homogeneity which originality always gives. Fifteen or sixteen years ago, too, the public mind in its literary relaxations was perhaps more easily contented than now. In those days, politics were forgotten except by dealers in the wares; Mr. COLBURN was culminating ; feshionable novels were the rage, and Mr. LISTER was a first-rate fictionist; But the public mind has changed, and the Annuals have not changed with it, excepting for the worse. Their engrav- ings, both in design and execution, are inferior to what they were; of their contributors, some are dead, some have changed their vocation, sonic are exhausted, the new hands are mere imitators of the old; and the result is as if a "free and easy " manikin of the present day were dressed up in the wig, sword, dress-coat, and ruffles of his ancestors. I. These remarks are general, and apply not more to the pre- sent year than to some years that have lately passed. Indeed, the Oriental Annual, though exhibiting signs of the flaccidity which indicates a forced production, and something like exhaus- tion to boot, has both character and mark in its pages. For this distinction it is partly indebted to its non-Annual nature, which saves it from the commonplace of every-day life, whilst any vio-

lation of probability is less easily detected ; and partly to the

proprietors having poured new blood into it, in the shape of a new editor—Mr. BACON, the author of First Impressions and Studies in Hindostan.

It is true that this last-named work seems to have run away with Mr. BAcon s most vivid impressions and spontaneous thoughts ; throwing him back upon leavings and recollections, and driving him to compound his volume of the mixed materials of travels, personal adventures, geographical remarks, national peculiari- ties, and Ilindoo tales. For instance, he opens his book with an indifferent picture of Terceira, and his own reminiscences of the place ; he then goes on to Teneriffe, and treats of that in a similarly loose and rambling style; neither spot having any further relation to India than lying between it and England. When, however, he is once fairly arrived in Hindostan, he im- proves considerably : though his plan is somewhat crude, and the arrangement of his narratile abrupt, yet the matter has novelty, value, and reality. Some of his remarks are just; his descrip- tions of natural appearances—scientific picturesque, if we may so call it—are striking ; and his observations throw light upon Indian feelings and institutions. He has also picked up a good many stories, which if somewhat altered by transmission through his mind and his language, retain enough of Oriental imagery and modes of' thought to convey a good representation of Hindoo character. Some of them, too, furnish very excellent examples of the shrewd, mild, and patient nature of Oriental wisdom, either in proverbial sentences or in fabulous story. Of this latter ' kind, is the following fable; which appears to us a very skilful and felicitous allegory of the insolence and ingratitude of mean minds swollen by unnatural success. It is introduced into another story by a Sanias, (a religious devotee,) who is advocating the punishment of an ungrateful man by degradation, instead of a severer penalty.

TIIE FABLE OF THE MOUSE AND THE SANIAS. TIIE FABLE OF THE MOUSE AND THE SANIAS.

" You have all of you heard of the celebrated town and temples of Sanias- kotta, in Rungpoor. That sacred place deriVes its name front the hero of my story, who was a Sanias of high repute, a most holy man, and a powerful worker of miracles.

Before I proceed with my tale, I shall inform you how it happened that the place was thus named after the Sanias, in order that you may be sensible of his exceeding sanctity. After a life of rigid devotion to his religion, and of the severest penance and pilgrimage, this holy Sanias suddenly withdrew from the world, and none were informed of the time or manner of his departure. Hundreds of years afterwards, however, when ouly the tradition of his holiness remained, it happened that a Raj,. of the place was building new works upon the tort; and, while digging the foundation, the workmen were suddenly sur- prised by a loud outcry from beneath the solid earth ; and on looking narrowly at the spot whence they had withdrawn their tools, they found marks of blood ; and seeing the earth move, and hearing the voice continue its complaint, they cleared the spot and found that they had wounded the bead of a man who was lying in the earth. This proved to be the very Saunas who, hundreds of years before, had lived above ground at that place: all the intervening years he had spent in meditatiou ; and still so much was he bent upon the mysteries of his . own thoughts, that instead of desiring to see the daylight, he requested the ' workmen to cover him up again. He was immediately obeyed ; and, instead of ' building the new fortifications, the Baja ordered the present temples to be erected over the spot, as also the House of Mendicants and other religious buildings, which to this day hear the name of Saniaskotta. " Now it was during the lifetime of this extraordinary saint that the circum- stances of my tale occurred. That reverend man was one morning, soon after sunrise, seated upon the earth under the broad-spreading shade of a superb tamarind tree, around the trunk of which be had built his hut; and while he was ruminating upon the fruits of his own wisdom, and preparing spiritual food fin his daily disciples, a little mouse, mangled and almost dead, fell before ' him from the talons of a kite, who, having carried him into the tree, was

about to devour him. Behold,' cried the good man, even the smallest and , poorest of God's creatures are worthy of our sympathy and protection ; what ' shall I do to comfort this poor mouse ?"fhen taking up the miserable little annual, he caressed it, and took so much care of it, that in a few minutes it began to revive ; then he gave it rice to eat, and goon restored it to its full ; strength and sleekress. In gratitude for these fond services, the mouse became exceedingly well attached to the Sanias, and felt that, in returu for so much kindness, he was ready at any time to lay down his life for his benefactor ; and wuuld on no account depart from him, but continued daily to partake of his rice, and to receive other marks of his favour.

" It happened that, upon one occasion, while the mouse was playing about his patron's cottage' a large and very ferocious black cat came prowling by, who, perceiving the mouse, was preparing to spring upon and devour that poor little animal. By good fortune, however, the Sanias was seated reading in front of his door, and quickly discovered the jeopardy of his favourite. His heart was immediately enlarged with compassion; and in order to rescue the mouse, he in a moment of time transformed him into a cat superior in size and strength to his enemy; so that the black cat becoming terribly alarmed, remained not to con- template this wonderful transfiguration, but fled in the fear of annihilation. " Exulting in his increased bulk and newly-acquired strength, and sensible of , the great peril from which the Sanias had rescued him, the eat failed not to I exhibit an increased degree of affection towards his protector ; and the Saoiaa in return shoaed that he regarded the animal with fondness, as a signal mark of his power and skill. Thus, when lie beheld the cat exposed to danger by

the attack of a fierce dog, he hesitated not to repeat his spell, and at once

changed him into a larger and more powerful dog than the assailant ; and by this animus was he a second time delivered by the Sanias from threatening de-

struction. Not very long after this new instance of the devout man's supers natural power and his benevolence of heart, the dog was attacked by a fierce buffalo ; and the Sanias again befriended hint, as he had done before, by con-

verting him into a beast of the same genus, but of inure formidable appearance, so that his antagonist again fled in fear of him. And again, for the same reason, did the sanias transform the the buffalo into a rlainotwos,and. the rhino- ceros into an elephant " Then the elephant became over-elated at the extraordinary good fortune which had befallen him, in being changed from SO weak and helpless a creature as a mouse into an elephant of incomparable strength ; and thus rejoicing in his newly-acquired might, he wandered to and fro, displaying his terrible prowess in various acts of mischief and desolation, until the neighbours, becoming fearful as well as angry, exclaimed, Who is this elephant, that he should thus lay waste our gardens and vineyards, and destroy our cattle? Is he not the mi- serable mouse whose life the Sanias saved again and again? and now his usurped and unnatural strength is turned against his friends ! What manner of elephant is he? Truly his ingratitude deserves a severe chastisement : let us destroy him.'

" Then the elephant became greatly distressed. 'Is it thus ?' said he within himself ; then as long as that Sanias continues to breathe, he will relate the story of my former insignificance, and how I have been exalted to my present might from the pitiable condition of a dying mouse. This ignominy shall no longer cleave to me. The vile Sanias shall die, and with him will perish the history of my altered state.' Having come to this abominable determination, the ungrateful elephant rushed upon his benefactor, and would have torn him to pieces in an instant ; but the holy man, knowing by virtue of his piety and by divine intuition, the evil machinations which bad sprung up in the heart of the elephant, by one blighting glance of his eye paralyzed the liisibs of that mon- strous brute, and then, pronouncing a word or two of jadoo, and spirting a few drops of water in his face, he immediately retransformed him into a mouse; being convinced that the degradation to hia former insignificance would prove a much more severe punishment than annihilation could ever be."

The subject of the following extract is familiar to most readers of books of tropical travel, though Mr. BACON puts it more dis- tinctly.

CHANGES OF FEATURE IN TROPICAL LANDS.

The rivers, the rippling brooks, and headlong mountain torrents of old Eng- land, continue for ages to run in their wonted courses, their utmost depreda- tions being an occasional overflowing of their waters, or the temporary shifting of their sands. The records of remote ages show us that, centuries since, our forefathers were acquainted with the streams of our lands, wearing very much the same aspect, and :at least flowing within the same banks as in our own days. But it is otherwise with the rivers of India. These vagrant waters, from this mighty Ganges to the meanest tributary, are constantly seeking new channels, shifting over the plain from city to city, perseveringly under mining all barriers, whether natural or artificial, and compelling the husbandmen and the villagers to retreat before their irresistible invasions. In many parts, the Ganges may be traced to have had its course, but a few years since, distant full twenty miles from its present channel: I have known it make a di- gression of three or four miles in a single season. This is chiefly attributable to the soft and sandy nature of the soil, the peculiarly abrupt and tortuous windings of the stream, and the very sudden accumulation of the waters at the commencement of the monsoon, suddenly converting the smooth and silent river into a turbulent flood, which rolls down from the highlands with terrific force, saps or overleaps all opposition, and fills its former bed, while it devas- tates the adjacent country, and carves out for itself a new channel, or usurps that of some other stream.

It is not many years since the river Sone—so called from the word roan, gold—used to pour its broad waters into the river Ganges, under the walla of a small town named Mama: the junction now takes place about four miles lower down, at Moued ; which, formerly an inland town, now stands upon a pro- jecting tongue of land washed by both rivers. Neither of these places could be recognized by its former inhabitants, so complete is the transformation.

A good part of these phcenomena is no doubt attributable to the causes Mr. BACON indicates—the flatness of the plain, the

looseness of its soil, and the violence of the tropical rains. The want of a dense, industrious, and civilized population, who should restrain the river by embankments, has something to do with it The Dutch or the Chinese, for instance, would prevent such changes of its course; and though they could not stop inunda- tions by extraordinary floods, they would guard against annual mischief. Nor have the rivers of " old England" been immutable. The discovery of boats and other nautical remains in beds of rivers which now run in different chime's, proves this fact. The conver- sion of the Isle of Thanet into a little continent, the draining of the Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire fens, with many other simi- lar places, show, upon a small scale, how much art, with well and long-applied labour, can effect in fashioning nature. Nay, a slight survey of the Kent and Essex marshes, will show any one, that formerly the Thames and Lea spread out their waters in useless waste over the low flats, beneath high-water-mark, which now stretch on either side of their banks; and which would again be overflowed if the water-walls were removed or extensively in- jured.

Here is a sketch of the rose-beds of Bengal.

Ghazipore stands upon the North bank of the Ganges, about seventy miles by water, below Benares. It is not a very extensive town, but is justly celebrated as the Gul-istan, the :lambed, of Bengal. In the spring of the year an extent of miles around the town presents to the eye a continued garden of roses, than which nothing can be more beautiful and fragrant. The sight is perfectly dazzling ; the plain, as far as the eve can reach, extending in the same be- spangled carpet of red and green. The breezes, too, are loaded with the sweet odour which is wafted far across the river Ganges. The flower is cultivated thus extensively ,for the manufacture of rose-water ; that of Ghazipore being justly esteemed as surpassing in excellence every production of the sort. Whether or not this may be attributable to the superiority of the flowers, or the process of distillation, I cannot say ; but as the roses did not appear to me to possess greater fragrance than others of their class, I should rather refer it to the latter cause; unless, indeed, it be that the wondelful nbundance of the material enables them to be more lavish in its decoction fhan is elsewhere possible. It is no lets cheap than excellent : a gallon of the most delicious may be purchased for seven or eight shillings. They do not, however, understand at Ghazipore, the art of distilling the utr of roses in the same perfection as the Persians. The spurious compound which they endeavour to palm upon the traveller is weak, and possesses a sickly, disagreeable odour foreign to the rose ; but the purchaser is often deceived by a little of the true atr being rubbed about the stopper and neck of the bottle. The prices demanded fur this miserable imitation are exorbitant ; the explanation of which I received from one of the vendors—he assured me that long experience had taught him that it was part of the character of the English to despise every thing cheap, and to consider any thing choice and excellent which was extravagantly priced.

Besides the letterpress,Mr.BAcosr has also supplied the sketches of the elegant but fantastic shapes and decorations of Mogul architecture, as well as of the gigantic or luxuriant beauties of

tropical landscape, which really illustrate his pages. These sketches have received pictorial embellishment from the pencils of ROBERTS, STANFIELD, CRESWICK. and Di nut r; but what they have gained in picturesque beauty and artist-like effects, they have lost in truth of character : the scenes appear denaturalized; and instead of the arid and sultry brilliancy of Oriental climes, we have the clouded skies and bleak effects of' our moist atmosphere. We lately saw some miniature-paintings of Hindoo edifices by a na- tive artist ; and the difference between the formal minuteness of his style was not mole remarkable than the stupendous size and richness of colour of the massive and splendid structures : they gave us a grand idea of the character of Indian architecture, that these plates, pretty as they are, by no means realize.

2. Our old fa % ourite, Friendship's Verlag, is in form all that it was of yore. There is the embossed binding, with the gilt-edged leaves ; there is a due intermixture of prose tales with poems, long or short, sonic of which have a slight relation to the plates, and some have not. Most of the prose is readable, some of the verse is respectable ; but the thoughts are feeble ; and the tales are as little like nature as they well can he, without much of point or character to redeem them. The chief exception to this is a triad of verse by BARRY CORNWALL ; the last, or major third of which we quote.

NO. III. A LONDON LYRIC.

(Without.)

The vainde are bitter, the skies are wild,

From the not comes plunging the drowning rain;

Without, in tatters the world's poor child

Sobbeth aloud her grief, her pain ! No one heareth her, no one heedeth her, But Hunger, her friend, with his cold punt hand, Grasps her throat, whispering huskily,

"What dust thou in a Christian land?"

(Within.) The skies are wild, and the blast is cold ;

Yet Riot and Luxury brawl within;

Slaves are waiting, in crimson and gold, Waiting the nod of a child of sin. The fire is crackling, wine is bubbling Up in each glass to its beaded brim, The jesters are laughing, the parasites quaffing

" Happiness "—" honour "—and all for hint !

(Without.) She who is slain 'neath the winter:weather, Ah ! she once had a village fame, Listened to love on the moonlit heather, Had gentleness, vanity, maiden shame.

Now her allies are the tempest howling,

Prodigal's curses, self-disdain, Poverty, misery : well, no matter, There is an end unto every pain !

The harlot's fame was her doom to-day, Disdain—despair ; by to-morrow's light The ragged boards and the pauper's pall; And so she'll be given to dusty night. Without a tear or a human sigh,

She's gone—poor life and its " fever " o'er. Soh ! let her in calm oblivion lie,

While the world runs merry as heretofore.

('Within.) He who yon lordly feast enjoyeth, He who doth test on his couch of down,

He it was who threw the forsaken

Under the feet of the trampling town. Liar, betrayer, false as cruel, What is the doom for his dastard sin?

flit peers they scorn ; high dames, they shun him ?- Unbar yon palace, and gaze within.

There !—yet his deeds are all trumpet-sounded- There, upon silken Fe Its recline

Maidens as fair as the sunimer morning,

Walfching bins rise from the sparkling wine. Mothers all proffer their stainless daughters ; Men of high honour salute him "friend;" Skies ! oh, where are your cleansing waters? World ! oh, where do thy wonders end ?

3. Fisher's Juvenile Scrap-Book, by AGNES STRICKLAND and BERNARD BARTON, has somewhat deteriorated this year. The spirit has not moved the Quaker poet: his subjects are trivial or com- mon, and are not elevated by any felicity of thought or expression. Miss STRICKLAND has been reading the memoirs relating to Eng- lish history during the TUDORS and STtTARTs ; SO that most of her tales are founded upon historical incidents,—which are instructive as far as they are confined to matter of fact, but when the inven- tion of the writer is laid under contribution, the prosaic poverty of her fiction glares out. This is the judgment of age : children will doubtless form a different conclusion; and were the contents much inferior to what they are, the elegant embossing of the binding would redeem, in the eyes of little folks, a much worse interior.

4. Finden's Tableaux are this year devoted to illustrate the affectations—" affections " is the word, but our misprint is the truer term, so far as the pictures are concerned, at least. As for the " womanly virtues," we do not find they are more prominently set forth than in most romantic tales. Popular names, however, and taking titles, coupled with smooth verses and tasteful cos- tumes, are the staple attractions of the whole tribe of Annuals ; and here the tinkle of the rhymes, the glow of pictorial effect, and the glitter of the green and gold cover, are combined in perfection. It would be folly to look below the glossy surface over which the eye glides so smoothly : so let Mr. PERRING'S long ladies, so pictu- resquely grouped and attired, pass in gay procession without any impertinent scrutiny of their form or character ; while Miss MITFORD'S pleasant descriptions, and the sweet-sounding lines of her coadjutors, conjure up such visions as amuse the mind, when the brain, o'er-wrought with labour, yields to the dreamy influ- ence of the vagrant fancy.

5. Fisher's Drawing-Room Scrap-Book is an omniumgatherum of views, portraits, and designs, culled from various sources ; the subjects (which are all familiar to us) serving to give shape and direction to the sparkling jets of L. E. L.'s flowing muse. These, too, are her last gushes of song ; and they fall on the ear like the echoes of a departed voice. Not that L. E. L. is lost to us for ever : the nymph has only vacated this her favourite grotto. In plain prose, Miss LANDON has left England, and changed her name : L. E. L. is no more-the initial spell is broken : the next rills from her lyric fount will water the burning shores of Africa- may it never be dried up !

We must select a specimen, for "auld langsyne." When L. E. L. in pensive mood struck these few simple chords, she forgot that the metre is ill adapted to the English tongue, from its sing-song tone. It is impossible to read it without an invo- luntary remembrance of" Needy knife-grinder."

CROSSING THE RIVER TOUSE BY A 3HOOLA.

Light is the bridge across the dark blue river,

Gracefully swinging, far more like a shadow

Flung from a cloud, than the work of man and labour.

Formed of twisted grasses, fragile is the structure, Seems it as meant to bear no other burden Than sunbeams and moonbeams, dreams, thoughts, and fancies.

Light is the line it traces on the water, Light is the line it traces on the air- Made to carry over yellow flowers from the champac.

Yet must it bear the weight of many burdens, Winding around it passes the dark Hindoo, Often does it bend, though it breaks not with its freightage.

Airy bridge! thou art of airy youth the symbol- So does its hope bind the present and the future ; So slight is the structure which its heart carries onwards.

Hope's fairy arches cross human life's daik river; Frail the support ; while over it there hasten All the sweet beliefs that make the morning fair.

Soon the noontide comes, and the hurried hours grow busy ; Morning has passed like a bright and sudden vision ; Day has other freightage than its blushes and its dews.

Slight as is the bridge, yet it can well sustain them : Hope carries on life's passage to the last, Aiding in its labour, as it aided in its fancies.

6. Miss TWAMLEY'S Autumn Ramble on the Wye is a very lively and unaffected account of scenes whose picturesque beauty we are almost satiated with in descriptions and delineations. The lady's pen and the pencil of the artists agree very well generally ; and where they do not, she tells us. A due admix- ture of' antiquarian and traditional lore, and poetic eloquence of her own and others' utterance, gives the necessary importance to the narrative of a tour, whose best praise is that it reads like a lady's letter to a familiar friend. The plates are engraved by RAD- CLYFFE, and illustrated Mr. Roscox's " Tourist in Wales."