6 changes have taken place, new varieties succeeding to those which may have disappeared. The Winter's Wreath, one of the most ably conducted of all the Annuals, is merged' in Friendship's Offering. Ackermann's Juvenile is united to Mrs. S. C. Hall's Forget-me-not. With regard to some others, we are in suspense. The only novelties are, a Landscape Album, and a Missionary Annual; the latter still in the bud. The fourth volume of Mr. Roscoe's Tourist in Italy, contains a most delightful series of views from the pencil of Mr. Harding, to whose high merit we have on former occasions borne a willing testimony. His subjects are always skilfully selected and treated with equal dexterity and feeling. In the present volume, we are transported to the most picturesque parts of Italy; the Neapolitan coast and the shores of the Gulf of Genoa. The first five subjects are Vietri, La Cava, Vico, Mola di Gaeta, and the Garigliano. We are then led back to the Campagna di Roma, and presented with interesting views of Castel Gandolfo, Villa Madama, and two scenes in the romantic neighbourhood of Tivoli... Then follow Narni-Terni-Vallombrosa-and Fiesole; names that are in themselves pictures to the fancy. Nine views, not one too many, are assigned to the coast between the Magra and Nice. The remaining two, with the frontispiece and title-vignette, are subjects equally well chosen, taken from the Val d'Aosta in Piedmont. The views are admirably engraved. The entrance to Aosta, by Higham, is exquisitely finished. Alessio is, perhaps, the most strikingly beautiful combination of the powers of the pencil and the graver in the volume. But the whole series is good, without an exception, and does the greatest credit to all parties concerned. The letter-press consists of an amusing olio of narrative, historical and romantic, biographical anecdote, and slight topographical notice. Mr. Stanfield and Mr. Leitch Ritchie have found ample scope for their respective powers of pencil and pen, in the rich and romantic scenery of the Rhine, studded with towns, castles, and convents, and peopled with the whole population of romance, barons, bandits, blue-eyed damsels, goblin miners, and all sorts of phantoms. But alas! all the romance belongs to the past, and ill accords with the unpoetic reality. After amusing us with all sorts of good stories, and keeping the mind of his reader in a sort of luxurious dream as he floats down this majestic stream, Mr. Ritchie for a moment assumes a graver and more earnest tone, and drawing back the scenic curtain, shews us what it conceals. The country of the Rhine is a paradise of painters; but to the poet, whose vision embraces not merely the outside forms of things, but their moral associations, it is something very different indeed. We have scarcely any where seen human nature in a state of greater degradation than on the banks of the Rhine. The "deep blue eyes' of the peasant girls glare upon you with the scowl of famine, from between the ridges that are heavy with corn and wine; and the hands "that offer early flowers" grasp a rope-fit token of their bondage-the loop of which is yoked round their waist, as they drag their barges against the stubborn stream. A procession of this kind, of from ten to twenty persons, chiefly females, is one of the most common spectacles that greet the eye of the voyager, when they are withdrawn from the picturesque ruins, and vine-clad hills, that border the river. The same thing, we are aware, may be seen elsewhere. At Dieppe, for instance, the fishermen's wives and daughters drag the family-boats out of the harbour, keeping step to a merry song, and ending with a shout as they fling the coil into the sea. But here the labour does not last for a hundred paces, but for a score or more of miles; and for singing, there are heard only sobs of weariness; and for sunny cheeks and lightsome eyes, there are seen only the pale and spirit-broken look of ceaseless toil aud hopeless degradation. If the mothers act the part of horses, the children take that of dogs, and may be seen harnessed, as the latter animals are in London, to little carts or wheel-barrows, which they drag about the streets. The work of the fields also is performed in general by the women and children, who may be observed, almost naked, digging, sowing, and carrying burdens, beneath the burning rays of that sun which ripens the vines, and fills the land with plenty. The Rhine, born in the bosom of the Alps, midway between Italy and Switzerland, runs its course, of four hundred leagues, to the ocean, with an almost uniform rapidity. The wealth, therefore, that grows on its banks, may be carried down the stream, but can never re-ascend in that interchange of commodities which forms the prosperity of a country. The fluctuations of the tide of commerce are never felt among the mass of the people. No one becomes rich, but all continue poor. The nobles and other proprietors sell their corn, wine, iron, and other commodities, for money; and the labourers eat, as usual— that is, in favourable years-their crust of black bread. The ten or twelve thousand streams of all dimensions, that fling their waters into the Rhine, only use the latter river-which is more than adequate to its own supply-as a highway of commerce, on which the wealth that passes, leaves little more than its dust to the people, although it pays abundant tolls to the Government.' pp. 160-162. Mr. Ritchie is a powerful writer,- not always alike successful in his tales of wonder and horror, some of which are not told for the first time, but always lively and entertaining; and his topographical sketches are particularly happy. We shall make room for a further specimen. The scenery of the Rhine, in the more picturesque parts at which we have now arrived, has not the slightest affinity to river-scenery, except in the rolling, tumbling motion of the water. The terms "beautiful river", "magnificent river", so liberally bestowed by its admirers, are quite misapplied-it is not a river at all. No one, when gazing around him from the deck of his vessel, or from the lonely and silent shore, can imagine that he is anywhere else than on the bosom or the banks of a lake, whose waters are imprisoned by an impassable barrier of rocks and mountains. The Rhine is here a succession of lakes, (so far as the pilgrim of the picturesque is concerned,) each different in detail from the rest, yet all bearing some general resemblance like a series of family portraits. The remark of Hazlitt, that "nature uses a wider canvas than man", and is therefore difficult to copy in such a manner as to unite the requisites of a fine picture, would be here misapplied. The objects are only just sufficiently numerous to keep the mind and eye on the stretch of interest; and the space only just extensive enough to admit of distance. Some further and loftier pinnacles may indeed be sometimes observed mingling with the tints of the sky; but in the body of the picture, the lake is clasped by the mountains in a close embrace, only varying in character from the gentle to the grim, And these mountains, be it observed, are, after all, only mountains in miniature. They have often, indeed, the steepness, the rudeness, the rock, the shadow, the over-hanging ridge, or jagged pinnacle of the Giants of the Valley of the Rhone; but in size, compared to them, they are but mole-hills. There is, to say the truth, something of the petite about the mountains of the Rhine, which uniting with the other peculiarities of the scenery, gives one the idea of a picture. Among these peculiarities may be mentioned a preciseness-if we can possibly make ourselves understood in the appearance, disposition, and grouping of the various objects. Nor is this term or its meaning, conveyed, as might be suspected, by the tame and uniform appearance of the vineyards which clothe the sides of the eminences down to the water's edge, and of the low woods which in general crown the hills. The characteristic extends even to the details of the piece. The small towns are pitched into an angle of the shore with the regularity of a geographer's dotted mark, which signifies, "here stands a town". No suburban streets, no straggling houses, no scattered farms, give relief to the taste by resembling the accidents of nature. The groves on the hill-sides are few and far between; but there is no grove without a church-spire rising in the midst, and over-topping the trees. Frequently a daring and fantastic cliff frowns over the river, or rises majestically from the brow of the steep; and each of these cliffs is crowned with a castle, till the wonder grows uniform. The woods, moreover, look like plantations; the vines obtrude an unceasing idea of the artificial; and at this, the autumnal season, the same grey, delicate, faded tint overspreads hill and valley, field and grove, assimilating with the colour of the rocks, and of the ruins that crown them, and only finding a contrast in the dark and turbid waters below. This is the result of the impression received during the whole voyage, or, in other words, the feeling into which those impressions finally subside; but the traveller on setting out, or even after passing through the second or third lake, would find it difficult to persuade himself that "to this complexion they should come at last". At first, all is novelty, and wonder, and delight; then, as the novelty is gradually lost, the wonder subsides, and the delight vanishes, or only re mains like the remembrance of a dream. The voyage of the Rhine is like the voyage of human life! In youth we enjoy-in manhood we reason and compare-in old age we sink, according to the individual character, either into apathy or content. Some there are who have no manhood of the soul, and whose morning of enjoyment fades suddenly into a night of bitterness or regret. We have met with such travellers on the Rhine-and men too of apparent intelligence-who, forgetful of the feelings which in the earlier part of the voyage beamed in their faces, and sparkled in their eyes, declared the whole, after reaching Cologne, to be flat, stale, and unprofitable—a cheat and a delusion.' But we must not forget the more important personage-the Artist. The subjects of the truly picturesque drawings in this volume, are as follows: Strasbourg. Heydelberg (two views). Frankfort. Bingen (two views). Rheinstein. St. Goar. Coblentz (two views). Ehrenbreitstein. Andernach. Nonnenwert. Drachenfels. Godesberg. Bonn. Cologne. Brussels. Antwerp. Ghent. Bruges. Rotterdam. Near the Hague. Scheveling. Sea, near Brill. The scenes are particularly well suited to Mr. Stanfield's bold and glowing style; and the effect is so happily expressed by the burin, that, in several instances, the engraving seems to warm into colour. Coblentz from Ehrenbreitstein, reminds us strongly of Turner. Frankfort, Bingen by Twilight, and Bruges are, next to this, our favourite prints. Altogether, it is a delightful volume, and deserves well of the public. The Keepsake is radiant, as usual, with Turner and Stanfield, Martin and Chalon, and a list of titled contributors. Lord Dover opens the volume with Vicissitudes in the Life of a Princess of Brunswick :" the same singular story has appeared in a little volume recently published under the title of "Past and the Present Times."* Mr. Leitch Ritchie, who seems the crack man of this year's Annuals, has supplied two tales. There are also two by the Author of Frankenstein; a ghost story by Colley Grattan; two pathetic tales by Mrs. Charles Gore; a Mexican story by the Author of Hajji Baba; and a very tragical' story of modern science' by Lord Morpeth. We must conclude that the volume is designed for the gay and happy, from the predominance of the mournful and pathetic. To our taste, there is too much of the minor key, and we turn for relief to the plates. Juliet from Liversage, by Heath, is a gem,—dramatically conceived, and exquisitely executed by both pencil and burin. The Bridesmaid, from a drawing by Parris, is so lovely that one is ready to wonder how she came not to be the Bride. Pepita and the two Robbers, from Cattermole, is very clever. Turner's Ehrenbreitstein, engraved by Wallis, is beautiful in design and execution. The Invisible Girl is a gentle and lovely creature ; * 12mo. London, (Cadell,) 1831. and there is a Flemish richness in the print, very attractive. The Frontispiece is admirable as a work of art; but the lady looks.. rather too much like a figure from the Journal des Modes. The medallion of the King on the title-page is a complete ocular deception: looked at in a proper light, it is difficult to resist the impression that it is an actual medal. We have omitted to notice 'Caius Marius mourning over the Ruins of Carthage," by Martin, grand, shadowy, and gloomy, which L. E. L. has illustrated in the following pleasing and spirited stanzas. He turned him from the setting sun, He knew that so his course was run, From gloomy seas and stormy skies, He sat, the column at his feet, A few wild flowers blossomed sweet And many a wave of drifted sand The place of pleasant festival, The calm of quiet home, The senate, with its pillared hall, The palace with its dome, All things in which men boast and trust, Lay prone in the unconscious dust. Yet this the city which once stood Who said she ruled the ocean flood, A bird rose up-it was the owl The wind it brought a sullen howl, The wolf is on his way; The ivy o'er yon turret clings, And there the wild bee toils and sings. And yet there once were battlements, This is the city with whose power Rome battled for earth's sovereign hour! VOL. VIII.-N.S. 3 D |