POSTSCRIPT. Since writing the above, we have seen "the Young King" and Buckstone's comedy entitled "Love and Murder.'' The so called historical drama of "the Young King" is a very light af fair and is chiefly remarkable for Farren's admirable personation of an imbecile old maire of Nevers extravagantly drawn but yet rather amusing. As the piece is not new-having, as we believe, been played some time ago at the Lyceum under the title of " Philip of Anjou," it does not require a longer notice. Buckstone's comedy was produced at the Haymarket* on the 15th of August, and was greeted by a crowded and very good-humoured audience. The actor-author's object was to throw ridicule on that class of people, who live on excitement and experience more interest and sympathy for those who are the slaves of impulse and passion, than for that respectable good sort of gentlemen, who act on principle and respect the proprieties of social life. Mr. Buckstone's was a good three-act farce-misnamed a comedy:-it would have been better, if curtailed; for the piece at the latter end becomes very tiresome. Four exciteable ladies-two of whom were well represented by Mesdames Nisbett and Glover, and an equally exciteable lady's maid (Mrs. Humby) are deeply interested in the fate of a supposed murderer, who after all turns out only to be a lover in a peculiar and very awkward position. Apprehended and tried for murdering the husband of a lady with whom he was supposed to have eloped, the unfortunate swain evades the law by escaping from justice; and he seeks refuge in the house that contains his inamorata and the quintett of exciteable ladies, who compassionating the impulse-driven assassin protect him first in a lady's bedroom and then in a gardener's tool-house, where the lady's maid feasts him on champagne and much other excellent food for felons. The murdered man is meanwhile detected to be living and accessory to the trial of the lover, who of course is immediately liberated much to the disappointment of the côterie. Mrs. Glover and Mrs. Nisbett played their parts excellently; and so did Mrs. Humby. Miss Taylor we never liked and fear we never shall like. Strickland did his best with a very stupid character; but he should learn that gentlemen-no, not even colonels, always carry their hands in their trowsers-pockets. Farren had the murdered Mandeville to enact; and we most sincerely pitied him. He could not make a good thing out of nothing. We shall not in courtesy notice the author;-but we see nothing extremely ridiculous in the words set down for Mr. Frigid. Verbum sapienti. It is with the greatest pleasure that we hail the re-appearance of Mrs. Waylett at the Haymarket. So talented an actress ought to meet with every encouragement in the metropolis. Her reputation as a ballad-singer is so universally well-known, that any comment upon the manner in which she acquits herself in that department would be superfluous and unnecessary. We cannot, however, avoid remarking, that it is our hope to see Mrs. Waylett performing at one of the large theatres in the ensuing winter; and we will venture to prophesy, that she is certain of experiencing a most flattering reception. MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. Impressions at Home and Abroad. By J. O'FLANAGAN. STEAM Communication and quicksilver coaches make travelling a perfect joke as respects speed, expense, and fatigue. Seven weeks' holidays with attor. neys' clerks, operative schoolmasters, and sinecure professors, cannot be allowed to pass without pleasure and profit; and thus, during every season, we behold the most outrageous specimens of travellers galloping along the usual route, Paris, Lyons, Chamouni, Geneva, Zurich, Bâle, Strasburg, Cologne, &c. &c. as fast as diligences and steamers can carry them, through countries, each of which merits not a day's but a month's examination. False impressions are consequently formed, which English cupidity endeavours to turn to the best pecuniary advantage. A book is published-full of errors and absurdities of every kind :—the author's vanity is satisfied by the adulations of his own friends and of puffing advertisements, and the public is deceived. The Irish gentleman who fathers these volumes cannot be distinguished by any striking merits from the common tribe of tourists. His sketches of London are common-place in the extreme, and his foreign lucubrations are not much beyond what might be expected from a youth of seventeen. We have little doubt that the author has abilities for literature, but he has observed too little, and taken too little trouble in disabusing himself of national prejudices, to allow of our awarding him that merit, without which a work of this kind has no value-correctness. Narrative of an Expedition into the Interior of Africa, up the river Niger, in 1832, 1833, 1834. By MACGREGOR LAIRD and R. A. K. OLDFIELD, Officers in the Expedition. 2 Vols. 8vo. Bentley. EVERY thing that increases our knowledge of Inner Africa—that ultima Thule of modern discovery, must be welcome to all persons in the least degree anxious for the spread of geographical science. Discovery, it is true, formed only a part of the object contemplated by the expedition; for its projectors had an eye to commercial gain as well as to the acquisition of knowledge. A company was formed by Mr. Laird and other gentlemen of Liverpool, who fitted up a brig and two steam vessels, called the Quorra and Alburkah, and despatched them from that port on the 19th of July, 1832. The expedition reached Cape Coast on the 7th of September, whence, after taking in fuel and ten native seamen, they proceeded to Siberia, the American free negro settlement, to get further supplies of wood. On the 6th of October the vessels arrived at the Dutch port of Axim, and thence they proceeded up the river to Attah, which they reached in the month of December. The many difficulties which they encountered in this part of the voyage, owing both to the scarcity of fuel and to the insalubrity of the climate, were most distressing, and before Christmas the captain and eleven men of the Quorra's crew had fallen victims to the deadly miasma. Passing onwards through the dominions of the King of Attah, and trading in their way with the various inhabitants, anxious to barter their native produce for European articles, they at length entered the Shary, and went towards the Fundah. Mr. Laird and his shipmates reached the capital in April, and were well received by the king and the people also, who appeared to be sharp and enterprising, giving promise of improvement under the process of civilization. Mr. Oldfield, meanwhile, was pursuing his course in the Alburkah; and the narrative of his adventures is perhaps even more interesting than that given by Mr. Laird. He considers the Niger as the only pathway by which we shall be enabled to penetrate into the interior of Africa, and steam-boats to be the only species of vessels by which that river can be profitably navigated. In order that these vessels should be protected (the necessity of doing which is made very evident from both narratives), he proposes that British military posts should be established on the river as far up as Jago, and from thence to Sierra Leone and to Barraconde on the Gambier. Fernando Po appears to him to be better fitted in every respect than Sierra Leone to be the seat of government, especially as it offers so much facility for trading communication up the Niger. If colonies of West Indian negroes could be established here, and protected by military surveillance in their labour of tillage, they would introduce the arts of agriculture where they are most wanted, and gradually change the condition of the inhabitants. Besides the inestimable benefits of civilization thus offered, it seems not improbable that the kindly influence of Great Britain might be extended eastward to the Shary, and a communication be opened with the unknown countries between the Niger and the Nile. The illustrations of the work are appropriate and well executed. We have received much pleasure from its perusal, and we do not think it at all inferior in interest, however less novel,-to the volumes written by Denham, Clapperton, the Landers, and other adventurers into the interior of Africa. The Basque Provinces, &c. By EDWARD BELL STEPHENS, Esq. 2 Volumes. Whittaker and Co. HOWEVER revolting to humanity, and derogatory to a civilized nation in the nineteenth century, may be the disgraceful proceedings of the civil belligerents in Spain, we are nevertheless indebted to that infamous source for several admirable literary productions. Mr. Michael Burke Honan's "Court and Camp of Don Carlos" was replete with instruction, interest, and amusement. Captain Hennigen's "Twelvemonth's Campaign with Zumalacarreguy" was also highly acceptable to a public naturally curious in its researches after additional information concerning the country and inhabitants so deeply implicated in a deadly warfare. The work under notice has in its turn attracted public attention, and thrown into the great controversy an important mass of speculations, opinions, and new facts. But the prejudices of the author, and a constant endeavour to blacken the character of the Christinos, in order, by a singularly contrived contrast, to extol the generosity, mercifulness, and bravery of the Carlists, produce a feeling of incredulity and dissatisfaction in the mind of the reader. One is apt to doubt the accuracy of a narrative written expressly to serve party interests-an object every where apparent throughout Mr. Stephens's work. When Mr. Stephens was employed in penning those glowing paragraphs in which Don Carlos is represented as something more than mortal, and as a being rather approximating a heavenly origin on the score of generosity and good feelings, did not the decree of Durango and other Carlist atrocities force themselves upon his mind? Enough is however known of the object of Lord Ranelagh's visit to the camp of the Pretender; let us proceed with our subject. The author of "The Basque Provinces, &c.," possesses, amongst other evident literary acquirements, considerable graphic powers of description; and if he did not occasionally spoil a well-turned sentence with such puerilities as "bells set a-whirling," "bells set a-going," "bolted into the street," "go about her work," &c., his language would be deemed powerful and well chosen. As a specimen of the descriptive powers of the author, we quote the following extract : "The valleys of Navarre present to the eye of the traveller some of the most splendid scenery in the world, and are at the present moment rendered doubly interesting, as being the theatre of a contest on which so much depends, not merely for Spain, but for Europe. There may be seen the gratifying spectacle of a people fighting at once for loyalty and liberty, for the prin ciple of legitimacy, and the exercise of practical freedom; for the rights of their sovereign, and their own constitutional privileges. But the scenery, like the subject, is too extensive to be dealt with en masse, and well merits a separate description. The valley of the river of Bidassoa, along which I rode the day after I crossed the frontier, from its sources above Vera to its mouth at Irun and Fuenterabia, affords a richly characteristic specimen. "The river-banks contract in many places to precipices, then expand again into patches of alluvion, highly cultivated, and exhibiting rich crops of maize (the Indian corn of North America, and blé turque of France) vines, melons, calabashes, potatoes, and legumes; the river rushes rapidly over scattered rocks, and the mountain sides are thickly studded, here with oaks, and there with chestnut trees in full bearing; the road frequently shrinks to a rough escalier bridle-track for mules, and would be a perfect stair-case if furnished with a balustrade to preserve the way-farer from stumbling over its precipitous brink, which overhangs the stream often at a dangerous height. Eel-weirs and salmon nets are seen in each rocky gap below, while every chink and fissure, around and above, are filled with luxuriant box-trees and brilliant flowering broom and heath. For miles the valley thus exhibits the alternate aspects of garden, orchard, forest, farm, and fortress. In hundreds of places the passes might be defended by twenty resolute men against a host of invaders, or built up in a few minutes so effectively with loose rocks rolled down from above, that a Christino army of twenty thousand men would have no choice but to return as they came, or stay and be shot, or crushed from the piled-up magazine of rocks above, if they continued their march along the bed of the torrent. Even Rodil, when, two years before, he led what was then an overwhelming Christino force to burn and plunder Vera and slaughter the Carlist inhabitants, did not venture to enter the valley by the river-road. He led his army over the bare rocky mountain at the source of the Bidassoa, and returned to the Bastan by a similar open track, having effected nothing but the destruction of the Capuchin convent, the massacre of a few peasants, too infirm or too foolishly confiding in his clemency to fly. The bleak and blackened aspect of the convent, where the weary traveller and houseless out-cast of a merciless civil war once found an hospitable shelter, would of itself be enough to rouse the sympathies of a people who for centuries had looked upon it as their granary, their hospital, their house of prayer, and house of refuge. The women, always the most inveterate partizans and freest in their political invectives, are ever the most effective preachers and teachers; and from the style of execration in which those of Vera joined at the mere mention of the name of Rodil, and the indescribable tones and looks which betray so forcibly all that even Spanish curses cannot give vent to, I have not the slightest doubt that every mother's son in this valley is already imbued with a sufficient hatred of Christino rule to last his own life at least." The above extract is quoted as a specimen of Mr. Stephens's graphic powers of description; and, much as we differ from his political way of thinking, we cannot deny the truth of the assertions contained in the concluding portion of the paragraph. Indeed, in many instances, have the Christinos, as well as the Carlists, been blind to their own interests, by frequently spilling human blood with unnecessary cruelty and profusion. The following is a brief sketch of the author's introduction to Don Carlos : "The progress of Don Carlos and his ministers through the provinces, though highly gratifying to the inhabitants, awakening every where a spirit of activity, and naturally leading to the establishment of good order and discipline in things liable to the royal surveillance, was yet rather unfavourable to the transaction of the proper business that appertained to each ministerial bureau, which was indeed rather too serious and extensive to be gone through by an ambulatory cabinet. Don Carlos, therefore, on his arrival at Estella on the 17th September, took up his residence together with Seinor Erro and his secretaries, in the great square of St. John (Plaza San Juan), where they remained for the despatch of business till the 30th, when the court again continued its progress and rode through Alara into Biscay. During its sojourn in Estella, I had the honour of being presented to the king, who received me with his usual urbanity, enquired with considerable interest into the opinions entertained by the various classes of society in England respecting the pending contest, expressed himself highly gratified at my arrival, and hoped that the example would be followed by numbers of my countrymen. He declared that it would give him the greatest pleasure to afford them every possible opportunity of judging for themselves of the state of the provinces and of estimating the feelings by which the population was animated. In conclusion, he kindly assured me of his readiness to aid my researches in any department to which my attention had been directed, and requested to be informed of any thing which might be requisite to the progress of my enquiries, or to the transmission of my correspondence to the Morning Post for which journal I was engaged. I experienced similar obliging assurances as well as real assistance from all the secretaries and officers of the court with whom I had at any time occasion to communicate, especially from Don Wenceslaus Maria de Sierra, Secretario de Estado del Despacho, into whose office my business as well as inclination more frequently led me, for there I was always sure to find every aid and information which a traveller in my position could desire,-afforded with a degree of kindly attention, which doubly enhanced the favour, and which perhaps a stranger only could fully appreciate. I own that in leaving London I had little expectation of finding the systematic habits or proceedings which characterize its men of business, in full operation amidst the wild mountains of Biscay and Navarre; but I feel it a matter of justice to all concerned to state that I was agreeably disappointed, and that all my letters, &c., could not have been forwarded or delivered with greater care or despatch in any country than they were under the administration of Seinor Sierra, within the circle of the Basque Provinces and Navarre. I say within the provinces, for where they passed out of his jurisdiction, beyond the Carlist frontier, and within the reach of Christino influence, it is too notorious that the latter did not scruple to employ the most felonious arts to compass not only the violation of public correspondence, but to perpetuate the falsification and publication of private: instructive instances of which fell under my own observation." It is astonishing how prejudice will lead an author, who perhaps at the commencement of his work determined to be impartial and honest, into error and misrepresentation. "Prejudice," as a great political writer once said, "is the spider of the mind;" and most decidedly has the noxious insect insinuated itself into the recesses of the mind of Mr. Stephens, and woven cobwebs around it. The concluding remarks in the extract quoted above are as applicable to the Carlists as to the Christinos; and lately it is a notorious fact, that the excesses of Don Carlos' followers have not only for ever alienated from his cause the hearts of the Valencians, but have drawn upon him and his licentious host the execrations of the inhabitants of the tracks through which he has passed. Mr. Stephens has, nevertheless, written an exceedingly useful book; for, with a little discrimination, it is easy to separate the valuable and sterling portions of the work from those where misrepresentation and party-spirit are too prevalent. He has thrown much new light on many features of the Spanish character hitherto but little understood; and a considerable degree |