South by East : Notes of Travel in Southern Europe.
By G. F, Rod- well. (Marcus Ward.)—Mr. Rodwell makes, it is evident, good use of his holidays. Travel is not always a neoftil way of employing them. It may, unless discreetly followed, weary out the body and disaipato the mind. Some sensible obeervatiens which Mr. Rodwell makes about the seneeTess practice of doing miles of galleries when the mind is utterly unable to assimilate impressions, show that he sees this danger and avoids it. He, on the contrary, knows what to look at, and has a defi- nite idea of what is to he got from looking. His descriptions of scenery, life, and manners are excellent. Nothing, for instance, could be better in its way than the picture which Ito draws of a great " function ° in the Cathedral of Venice. There is no straining after effect, and no idealising. Only one sees the thing as if one were there. The larger part of the volume is given to impressions of Italy. A visit to the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino, de- scribed in interesting detail, is one of the boat things in the volume. In a visit to Sicily, the author takes us to less familiar scones. The description of Syracuse, and heroin of the monastery, with its charnel- house, and of Girgenti, may 1.)(3 specially noticed. But why, when he quotes from Dryden° an amusing story of the hospitality of Akragas, did he not give his readers the inimitable tale from .A.thenams of why a certain house in that towa was called the " Ship?" Let him supply the omission in a second edition, and thank us for the hint. At tho same time, he may, if ho will excuse the hint, improve his style. Why, in- stead of saying that a 2V02210,11 was very pretty or very handsome, as the ease might be, dons ho use the detestable phrase of the reporters, and say that she "possessed great personal attractions ?" Some trite ob- servations at the beginning of the chapter on Rome might advan- tageously be omitted. The statement that "many othor emperors [besides Hadrian] were buried in Hadrian's mausoleum" (five only, we believe, wore buried there) might be corrected.
Previous page
