MRS. BRASSEY'S NEW VOLUME.*
HERODOITS acquired considerable notoriety as a traveller and historian ; Julius Cwsar was the author of a volume of Com- mentaries which are held to be not devoid of interest ; Columbus, though not much of a writer, sailed the seas to some purpose ; the explorations of Captain Cook and of Sir John Franklin. possessed a certain value ; Miss Isabella Bird, in our own times, has doubly justified herself iu leaving her home ; and finally, Mrs. Brassey has presented us with her magnificent work, called, Sunshine and Storm . in the East. Mrs. Brassey has, to- use the reviewer's phrase, already "made her mark " in literature; at all events, her Voyage in the Sunbeam,' has been read by thousands of people, and has received the kindly notice of most of the critics of the Press, ourselves included. But it would seem that Mrs. Brassey has been moved to rival, if not to sur- pass, her first success. In what measure she has realised this purpose, we hope to show.
It is impossible, in the first place, to be silent regarding the extra- ordinary merits of the binding,—of the pictorial design, that is to
• Sunshine and Storm in the East. By Mrs. Smalley. Leaden: Longman and Co. say, wherewith the binding is ornamented. It is a finished work of art, drawn, coloured, and signed by the hand of no less eminent an artist than M. Gustave Dore. Upon a warm, grey background of sea and sky, picked out with black cloud and wave-lines and gold sun-rays, we have a superb scarlet scroll, which is being unrolled at both ends by two groups of fairy-like beings in gos- samer attire, who seem partly to float upon the surface of the -ocean, partly to hover above it. On the back of the book, in the foreground, is a small vessel, heeling over under the stress of the gale. What does all this mean ? Mrs. Brassey, in her pre- face, is so obliging as to inform us. The nymphs of Ocean, we :are told, flattered by the attention already shown them by the 4 Sunbeam,' in her voyage round the world, are unfolding before the vessel's path a long scroll, on which are depicted all the kingdoms of the earth, and the glory of them, hoping thereby to induce Mrs. Brassey to continue her triumphal career. It is surely an encouraging sign to see Art applied to such worthy ends as this. We may now look forward to deriving a twofold enjoyment from our libraries. If, for any cause, the interior of a book fails to please us, we have but to close it, and straightway our eyes will be captivated by the charms of the outside. Our book-shelves must now be arranged upon a new plan, enabling us to see the whole of the bindiugs of the volumes at once, instead of only the backs, as heretofore. Or perhaps the covers can be so con- trived as to come off, and then, by framing them and hanging them on the walls, we shall be decorating our rooms with one hand, so to say, while we instruct our minds with the other. Ultimately, books may come to be bought and sold on the strength of their exteriors only, and literature will assume the position of a vehicle for the dissemination of bindings. But, in short, there is no telling where this novel idea of Mrs. Brassey and of M. Gustave Dore may land us. Meanwhile, they deserve all the credit they are likely to receive for their initiation of so -suggestive a reform.
Supererogatory though they may seem, there are other things besides its binding connected with Mrs. Brassey's book. In addition to two good-sized maps, showing the course taken by the 'Sunbeam' in her various trips—and incidentally, the con- figuration of the countries which she honoured with her proximity—we have on the fly-leaf a dedication to the "brave, true-hearted Sailors of England, of all ranks and services," supplemented by six lines of poetry, which we do not recollect having met with before, and which, for the rest, bear every sign of being original. A tendency to break into song is, in fact, betrayed throughout the volume, chiefly at the headings of chapters ; and this leads us to suspect that the next literary manifestation with which Mrs. Brassey favours us may assume the form of a volume of poems. To continue our catalogue, however, we are next treated to some twenty pages of " con- tents," comprising the titles not only of the chapters, but of a large number of illustrations, drawn on wood, after sketches by "the Hon. A. Y. Bingham," and also after photographs taken on the spot by Mrs. Brassey herself. But coming .after M. Gustave Dore, even the pencil of Mr. Bingham and the camera of Mrs. Brassey inevitably lose somewhat of their fascination. The illustrations have this to recommend them, however,—that they carry us rapidly to the end of the volume, and there introduce us to the appendix, which tells us the names and several occupations of the ship's crew and of the servants, of the distances traversed each day, -of the ports in which the 'Sunbeam' cast anchor, and many other important matters which bad been omitted, either acci- dentally or by design, from the body of the narrative. After the appendix, there comes an index. We may add that the paper on which the book is printed is glossy and substantial, and the letterpress itself clear and handsome.
At this point, having come to the end of our eulogistic capa- bilities, we would fain lay down the pen, and consider our task at an end. We entertain the most charitable feelings towards Mrs. Brassey, as towards all who have unintentionally injured us, and we should be sorry to say anything that would hurt her feelings. But our readers are, we fear, so unreasonable as to expect to be told something about the narrative itself, whereof all the above-mentioned things are, after all, only the outcome and adornment. In this predicament, perhaps the best thing to do will be to let Mrs. Brassey speak for herself. We shall, therefore, select two or three of the more stirring and picturesque passages of her story, and allow the reader to make what he can of them. Mrs. Brassey made a descent into the crater of Vesuvius, and appears to have got out again alive. Here is the record of her experiences :—
"I was carried up the cone in a portantina, while the others were dragged and hauled with straps, and pushed and helped with sticks, to the summit. It was a very windy day, and we were almost blinded and suffocated with the fumes of sulphur. My bearers slipped quickly over the edge, and proceeded to carry me backwards down the inside of the crater, through a dense cloud of smoke, their feet sliding, and the ground giving way beneath them at every step. Altogether, I spent a fres mauvais quart d'heure, and was by no means sorry to be safely landed at the bottom" [I], "close to the edge of the new lava-basin. We walked across the old bed to the spot whence the new supply was issuing, and gazed on the wonderful scene for some time in silence."
The note of admiration and the latter italics are our own. Mrs. Brassey not only gazed on the wonderful scene in silence, but she also keeps silence as to what the wonderful scene was. We will next listen to the thoughts which agitated her when standing on the site of the Temple of Diana at Ephesus :— "At the bottom of the hill stands the Temple of Diana of the Ephesians, excavated by Mr. Wood, twenty-three feet below the surrounding plain. It was once one of the Seven Wonders of the World, and though burnt eight times, it still contained many treasures of art and sculpture to reward the excavators. As these have been mostly removed to the British Museum, there is not much left to see on the spot."
As before, the italics are the irrepressible indication of our own feelings. Mrs. Brassey bestows a kind word upon the temples of Ptestum:—
" The Temple of Ceres or Vesta is a perfect little bijou, but is far eclipsed in grandeur by that of Neptune, from which a splendid view stretches over land and sea. We walked across the plain to the basilica. We had a hasty lunch on the steps of what was once the scene of many a splendid ceremony, and, having gathered some flowers and bought some photographs, drove back to Batipaglia. The train was fairly punctual, and at about six p.m. we found ourselves once more at Naples, where Tom met us at the Hotel de Hassle."
It will not be necessary, we apprehend, to make any further quotations from Mrs. Brassey's book, and we have very little more to say about it. The fact that the book exists is, however, a noteworthy phenomenon. The "Voyage of the Sunbeam" was naïf and amusing, and being also written by a lady whose name was not strange to English ears, it achieved a success. Mrs. Brassey is not to be blamed, therefore, for fancying that whatever she writes is worth reading. No author can fairly be required to know the depths of his or her own capacity. It is, of course, impossible seriously to criticise a book like this ; but if what we have said induces Mrs. Brassey to rest content with what she has done, and not to do any more, we shall have spared both her and her readers a serious mistake.
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