Literary Extracts.

Anglo-Maori Warder, Volume 1, Issue 12, 11 July 1848, Page 4

Literary Extracts.

The Natural History of Humbugs. By Angus B. Reach. Illustrated by A. Henning. Bogue.

(From the Athenæum.) Mr. Reach's "Bores" proved rather sprightly company at Midsummer time, it may be recollected. The new monograph which he here puts forth, like its predecessor, somewhat belies its title—being rather more of a Humbug than a Histoiy ! The thing, peradvenlure, must needs be so Out author confesses it himself. How could any one profess to pack away so vast a subject into a shilling duodecimo '. As w ell might Tom Thumb undertake to carry Lablache in his waistcoat pocket. The topic is Wide as the earth and boundlcsi as the tea. (We once, by the way, heard the Great Ocean itself called a " Humbug," by a distressed uenlleinan from Torkshiie, on boaid the Hamburgh packet!) What is the Delai Lama r—what the Empoior or eeto-Tum, with his sublime proclamations, only one degree less subline than Air. Sealy's caricatures of the same!—what is The Brazen Dnke now perpetual Street Porter of Piccadilly? Nuv, let eveiv modest man ask of himself. " WHAT AM I f'-and there are few whi will not crouch down, humbled by the colossal v.istness orthe theme and its desperate person Jity.—fewer still who will assert that one lithe of its pouts or counterpoints, one thousandth of its features ami phases, great or small,* have been here reached. Who would tiotplttck" the Katui.il History of Strange Birds" that should tell nothing .or the Ostrich, the Dodo, or the Pouting Pigeon? Omissions at least as important as the above are to be found in the treatise before us. We, who Love to live at peace with all the world, ■will have nothing to do with the home specimens of Humbugs 60 timidly and sparingly collected by Mr. Reach. Here, however, are a few, colled at a convenient distauce from Grub Street and Ainen Corner—which may be ventured upon without danger of a prosecution for libel. " As he is so fond of Humbug at home, honest John Bull is not likely to part with it when he goes abroad. In the steamer and the diligence lie wraps himself as in a cloak in that particular variety of his national teraperameat which it pleases him generally to exhibit when he is honouring foreign soil by placing his boots upon it dignity —full blown and uncompromising dignity. Lei us'plaut.odj6rres, gentle reader, on the decks of this gaudv, glittering steam-packet, the ■Satnigea ban ißrujSrfetn, now sweeping rapidly down stream, Leueatb the grey walls and vine-clustered ledges of the liheiu-fells. There is a fine specimen of an English exclusive family. The travelling carriage is upon the deck, and John sits in a stalely manner in the rumble, thinking of Old England. The glasses are down, but the fluttering green silk blinds do duty in their stead; and it is only when a fresher puff of air than ordinary jerks them aside that we can catch a glimpse of the occupants of the interior—the old gentleman. Tat, comfortable, and choleric, reading a London newspaper j the mamma, hot, cross, and flustered, fanning herself ■with a handkerchief wet with eau-de-Cologne; and the young lady, languid, pale, and bumciwite, listlessly knitting her Beilin wool, and occasionally glancing at the guide book which lies open in her lap. The Hon. Tom, the son and heir, is not visible, having met a couple of Melton men on board, and descended with them to a private cabin, there in privacy and peace to smoke their cigars and make up their books for the Leger over many boitles of golden Rhenish wine. Their courier has preceded them to Cologne, to engage the best apartment in the Rhenischeihuff, where they can have dinner served by English waiters in English fashion, just as qniellv and pleasantly as if they had not stirred from Porlman Square. And when the meal has been discussed in great state and gravity, and the grapes and peaches have been put upon the table, and Ihe old gentleman calls for bis bottle of port, aud the ladies talk of and write to Mav Fair till bed-time, Tom having gone on to Aix with the Melton men to risk his thalers at roulette. * * And these people, not content with being Humbugs themselves, make otheis Humbugs as well. Gliding pleasantly down the Seine last autumn in the pretty packet ' La Normandie.* I encountered the Fiimcounters. Being a habitue of the little dingy parlour looking over the iliews, Ihey did not naturally think roe of sufficient consequence to make themselves fools befoie me ; aud so the family, released from the crushing fetteis of their foiced gentility, came out remarkably strong and pleasant; Firmcounter telling a lot of funnv Stock Exchange stories about par and discount whereof the point was not clearly discernible ; and mamma and the girls laughing and flirting as comfortably as possible, and bull fianlic with fun and delight when the; tried on specimens of those steeple like Norman caps, which they bad pnrchased at Rouen. All at ' nee the young girl, who bad run away from the family group to see a fat little w addling cure get into a clumsy punt w bich came alongside for him, marched back looking as if she had had a tete-a tete with a ghost. ' Mamma,' said she, • did you ever, now—there's a portmanteau lying there, marked " The Honourable and Reverend Ambrose Myrtle!" ' —' He's one of Lady Louisa Finniken's set,' said Mrs. Fiimcounter, ju manifest alarm; 'be must be on board.'—' Tlieie, that's him," said Miss Fiimcotintei ; * it must be, lie looks so distingue ' And she indicated a tall, cadaverous-looking man diessed in a long black single-breasted frock coat, and ornamented with a broad-brimmed hat looped up behind. ' Hush, girls; here, sit down quietly, and put away (hose absurd caps,' whispered the maternal parent, Mr. Firmcounter gave two or tbtee ferocious hems, and drew up his shirt collar with tragic dignity, and the whole party became in a moment as stiff as if they wete sitting tound the big epetgne in the big dull diuiug-i oom in the Regent's Park. Confound the Hon. and Kev. Ambrose Myrtle, thought I. He was a desperately genteel Puseyile paraon, with a desperately genteel congregation, in a desperately

genteel chapel, ihe hells « hereof he was always selling a-ringing at provoking and unreasonable hours, senerallj early in Ihe morning. However, he took no notice of Ihe Ftrracouuters,or indeed of anybody else, and walked the plank (between the vessel and the quay I mean), when he got to Havre, with much dignity, followed by a small army of poitets carrying his luggage, consisting of three impel ials, eight portmanteaus, six carpet hups, a cumpstool, and a telescope. * * In another lespecl we ore making considerable progress. The monkey who has seen the world is not so much the novelty now as the monkey who has not seen the world. We have more travellers and fewer Haveners' tales. There are not half the number of those proverbially strange sights going now-a-days, which once upon a time tißed to be visible to adventurous reamers by sea and lund. With steam to bring us in as maiiv hours as it used to take days within the shadows' of the Pyrenees or the Alps, there is not half the amount going of the ancient sock of romantic adventures in Swiss chalet or Spanish poiada, and a gentleman, largely talkative on the subject of his travels, runs a chance of being pretty smartly cross-examined by eveiy competent counsel. Still there are Humbugs who use the little knowledge they may have of foreign countries to sneer at their own, who will always go on instituting odious comparisons between English fogs and Italian skies, who cannot Elir a step by night without finding out that' the tnoou is not quite the sort ol thing we used to have at Naples,' and who, over a better dinner than nine-tenths of the nobility of Italy ever had a chance or silting down to, will pathetically lament the absence of Parmesan or beccajicos. But the most terrible case of this species of Humbug which ever came within my notice was exhibited the other day by a young lady, who after having been born aud bred in the good suburb of Kensington for at least 6ome twenty vears went to pass a summer and autumn at Paris. She returned in rather chilly November weather, and 1 called to congratulate her upon her ulrival. We sat by the fireside aud chatted. Suddenly Laura glanced at the window and shuddered. To be sure it was a nasty day, foggy and thick, with a suspicion of a half-frozen drizzle. • Tell me,' said the fair foreigner,' have you often this sort of weather in November in London V " Justice compels us to remark that our author Imrdlv escapes the sweet contagion of foreign "air" when he talks with so charming a grace of" gliding pleasantly down the Seine." And what does so eiudite a professor of simple language make u r the new plural to " becca fico f" or of the very original title, printed for accuracy's sake in German text, of Her Majesty of Prussia?— But "let that pass," as Beau Tibbs hath it. And let us call Mr. Reach to a reckoning because we find no word in his " Natural History" of the French navy—nor of German esthetics—nor of the Austrian paternal government, so dear to Mi's- Trollope —nor of the famous Duchess of Bavaria, foretold in the Munster Melody. Here we must stop :—albeit the subject grows with every fresh word. An Encyclopedia expressly devoted to it should be forthwith set on foot.—Let us beg to recommend Ihe project to the Society for Ihe Diffusion of Useful Knowledge I