AN AMERICAN'S SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. THIS volume is
akin to various other books that have lately appeared from American pens ; where a traveller, without special qualification or novelty of ground, keeps a journal of his thoughts and observations, or writes home an account of his journeying!' in letters to his friends, which in due time are revised and given to the world. Whether the " cacoethes scaendi," a fashion of cheap books, or the rarity of good travels in America—for only the very best of this kind of English literature, and that of modern date, seems to be reprinted—be the cause of this Trans- atlantic fecundity, we know not. The result is a numerous class of books, which if not intrinsically worse than the inferior tours produced by the Britishers, are more empty and more wordy—less adapted to an old people, with whose general public the age of mere sentiment and out- pourings of individual opinion have passed away.
The author of Scenes and Thoughts in Europe, though belonging to the common grade of American tourists, is rather better qualified than most of them. He has not, indeed, any special training which would enable him to travel advantageously in Europe ; but he has better quali- fications than the run of his countrymen. In his youth he sojourned in Germany, if he did not study there; and in addition to the larger ideas which this advantage has given him, he seems to have contracted more scruples as to the sanctities of social life and personal feeling. Either in Europe or America, he has given some study to history and art, and considered the complex system of European society as it has grown up during so many ages, with an American bias, it is true, but without the self-sufficient vulgarity which characterizes many of his compatriots. Neither did he scamper over Europe at railroad speed. His letters em- brace a period of nearly three years; though he often left places slightly inspected, and lingered in othrs of no greater importance, time was allowed for the formation of opinion.
And it is opinion, conjoined with the writer's literary ability, that gives its character to Scenes and Thoughts in Europe. Though by no means an imitator of Emerson, or even a disciple, he resembles that writer in his manner of investigating things, so as to impart attraction to rather worn subjects by the vigour and novelty of his views. In fact, a great part of the book is less travels than essays upon subjects turned up in tra- velling. Incidents are few; • the descriptions are not numerous, and are less of the things themselves than what they suggest to the writer : criticism or disquisition is the basis of all the more elaborately handled topics. The number of persons of leisure in Europe compared with America, leads to a view of the European aristocracy ; in which a good deal of largeness and shrewdness are mixed up with some prejudice and some overstrained positions. The writer sojourned for six weeks at a cold-water-cure sta- tion ; and he gives one of the best because the most logical expositions in its favour that we have met with. Paris suggests an estimate of the French people, and a criticism on French literature and its principal classics ; which might perhaps have been done at home, but it is so ob- viously suggested by the genius loci, and draws so much illustration from the surrounding scenes, that it looks natural and appropriate. Venice is very briefly dismissed : Milan shortly, but not so short. The longest topic at Florence is a panegyric on the American sculptor Power, done with a critical tone, but with the unflinching purpose of a hackney puff- monger : the Yankee is placed on a level with the artist who produced the Medician Venus. Art is a leading subject at Rome also, but relieved by sights in which life predominates.
The form of the book is that of extracts from letters: the style is closer and more forcible than is usually exhibited by American writers, with a greater air of scholarly training ; but the sustained interest is not equal to the ability of the writer, perhaps from the incongruity of the matter in reference to the form. We expect a book of travels, with its narratives, its incidents, and its pictures : we get a series of disquisitions, without notice, title, or arrangement, and are consequently disappointed.
The author commences with England; but there is not much space de- voted to this country, and what there is chiefly relates to Wordsworth and the Lakes. It might be the contrast of London and seven years ago, but the sketches both of Havre and Rouen seem to bear hard upon those striking and rather pleasant towns of Normandy. "At three o'clock, we left London by railroad for Southampton, which we reached at six; and, crossing the Channel by steam-boat in the tught, entered the port of Havre at ten the next morning. The town looked dirty at a distance, and is dirtier than it looked. The small craft we passed in the harbour were unclean and unwieldy. The streets ran filth to a degree that offended both eyes and nose. Knots of idle shabby men were standing at corners gossiping, and looking at parrots and monkeys exposed for sale. The inn we got into, commended as one of the best, was so dirty that we could not bear to face the prospect of a night in it. We hired a carriage, and started at four with post-horses for Rouen, which we reached at midnight. Here we spent Sunday. Rouen is finely placed, on the Seine, with lofty hills about it. In the diligence in which we started early on Monday to overtake fifteen miles up the river the steam-boat to St. Germain, I heard a Frenchman say to a Frenchwoman, 'Rouen eat le pot-de-chambre de la Normandie.' You know of the Cathedral at Rotten, and of the Maid of Orleans' execution; but this is probably in all respects new to you. To me it was also new and satisfactory; being an indication that some of the dwellers in this region have a consciousness of the presence of stenches."
FRENCHMEN AND PARIS.
A Frenchman more than other men is dependent upon things without him- self. Nature and his own mind, with domestic interests and recreations, are not enough to complete his daily circle. For his best enjoyment he mast have a suc- cession of factitious excitements. Out of this want Paris has grown to be the capital of the world for superficial amusements. 'Here are the appliances, mul- tiplied and diversified with the keenest refinement of sensual ingenuity, for keeping the mind busy without labour and fascinated without sensibility. The senses are beset with piquant baits. Whoever has money in his parse, and can satisfy through gold his chief wants, need have little thought of the day or the year. He finds a life all prepared for him, and selects it as be does his dinner from the voluminous carte of the restaurant. To live is for him as easy as to' make music on a hand-organ: with but slight physical effort from himself; he is borne along from week to week and from season to season on an unresting current of diversions. Here the sensual can pass years without satiety, and the slothful without ennui. Paris is the Elysium of the idler, and for barren minds a Pa- radise.
FRENCH TRAGEDY.
The French appear not to have had depth enough to produce an original tragic drama. The tragic material, whereof sentiment is as essential an element as passion, is meagre in them compared with the Germans or English; hence the possibility and even necessity of a simpler plot and a measured regalarity. Cor- neille or Racine could not have wrought a tragedy out of a tradition or a modern fable: they require a familiarized historical subject. The nature of French tra- gedy compared with English is happily illustrated by the Hamlet of Duds, which I have seen played at the Theltre Francais. The title of the piece is, " Hamlet, Tragidie en 5 acts, imitde de l'Anglais par Duels." A fitter title were, "Hamlet, with the part of Hamlet left out by particular desire of French taste." It is as much an imitation of Shakspere as straight walks and parallel lines of trees are an imitation of nature. Hamlet is resolved into a tender-hearted affec- tionate son. He has not been put aside, but is king. Ophelia does anything but go mad. The mother is overwhelmed with remorse for the murder, which she confesses to a confidant. The heart of Hamlet's mystery is plucked out. The poetry is flattened into phrases. The billowy sea of Shakspere is belittled to a smooth pond, in every part whereof you can touch bottom. It is not deep enough to dive m.
CLIMATE OF FLORENCE.
It is much like ours of the Middle States,. except that our winter is oolder and drier. An American is surprised at this similarity on arriving in Italy; having got his notions from English writers, who, coming from their cloudy Northern island, are enchanted with the sunny temperance of an Italian *hue r and op- pressed by the heats of summer. The heat is not greater than it is in Maryland; and our winter is finer certainly than that of Florence, being drier, and though colder at the same time sunnier. As with us, the autumn, so gloomy in land, is cheerful, clear, and calm, holding on till Christmas. They have har y more than two cold months. Already in March the spring is awake, and soon drives back winter, first into the highest Appenines, where he clings for a brief space, and thence retreats up to the topmost Alps, not to reappear tor nine or ten months. Nor is that beautiful child at the light and air the Italian sunset more beautiful than the American.
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