Originally published in Howitt's Journal (William Lovett) vol.1 #11 (13 Mar 1847).
Views a-Foot, or Europe seen with Knapsack and Staff. By J. Bayard Taylor. London: Wiley and Putnam.
The pride of the Americans, says N.P. Willis in his preface to these volumes, is in her self-made men. Here there is a young man for her to be proud of.
While yet a boy, and an apprentice to a printer, Bayard Taylor conceived the idea of making a pilgrimage through Europe, supporting himself the while, like Holthaus, the German tailor and traveller, by the labour of his hands. It was his youthful dream; but before this dream could be made a reality, sundry not trivial difficulties had to be overcome. The term of his apprenticeship was unexpired; the remainder of his time, therefore, and the most valuable part of it, had to be purchased from his master, and money had to be raised for the commencement, at least, of his journey. He had no wealthy connexions to help him, either by gift or loan. But he had the power to help himself, and that was best. He published a volume of poems, and it having better luck than such volumes generally, enabled him to purchase the remainder of his apprenticeship. This was a good beginning; and, after some little difficulty, having entered into an arrangement with two newspapers to furnish letters of his travel, for which he received part payment in advance, he was ready to set out.
With about five-and-twenty pounds in his pocket, and nineteen years of youth in his frame, he commenced his pilgrimage of two years. It was a bold scheme; but these two sound-hearted, intelligent volumes prove that he had not miscalculated his powers in any way. He was courageous, temperate, hardy; full of intelligence and acuteness of mind, and at the same time, as we have been informed by those who knew him, remarkably agreeable in person and manners.
Such was the young American, who, literally with knapsack and staff, like a regular German Handwerks Bursch, at an age when many a youth of wealth and rank, both in our country and his own, is sowing wild oats which shall spring up to a plentiful crop of after repentance, was tramping, feot-sore and weary, and often reduced to many a hard extremity, through Germany, Italy, and France, maturing and expanding his mind, and laying up invaluable treasures of knowledge and experience. These volumes contain those letters which were written during his wanderings, and which, like the labour of the travelling journeyman's hands, enabled him to accomplish his pilgrimage.
Nothing is more striking in these interesting volumes than the progress and expansion of the mind of the writer between the first page and the last. He came out an intelligent youth, whose capacity for wonder and admiration was immense, and whose actual knowledge was small; he returned a man, in the full stature of a man, who in those two years had lived more than many an ordinary life. And this growth of mind, and this sound maturing of the judgment it is, which perhaps more than anything else prove of what sterling stuff he was made.
We have not much room for extract, though in going through the volumes we had marked many passages for that purpose; for instance, the extremely interesting account of the fair, and the terrific flood at Frankfort—some of the strange, wild scenes in Bohemia—his graphic, picturesque sketches of peasant-life in Italy, which remind us not unpleasantly of our Danish friend Andersen, and many others. One little extract, how- ever, we will give, as the reader may thus form an idea of some of the hardships and private sorrows which such brave-hearted travellers must endure. He and his companion, his cousin, are on their way to Lyons.
"Notwithstanding our clothes were like sponges with the rain, our boots entirely worn out, and our bodies somewhat thin with nine days' exposure to the wintry storms, in walking two hundred and forty miles, we entered Lyons with suspense. But one franc a-piece remained out of the fifteen with which we left Marseilles. B. wrote home some time ago, directing a remittance to be sent to a merchant in Paris, to whom he had a letter of introduction; he determined to enclose this letter in a note, stating our circumstances, and requesting him to forward a part of the remittance to Lyons. We had thus to wait at least four days; people are suspicious and mistrustful in cities, and if no relief should come, what was to be done?
"After wading through the mud of the suburbs, we chose a common-looking inn, near the river, as the comfort of our stay depended wholly on the kindness of our hosts, and we hoped to find more sympathy among the labouring classes. We engaged lodgings for four or five days; after dinner, the letter was despatched, and we wandered through the dark, dirty city till night. Our landlord, Monsieur Ferrand, was a rough, vigorous man, with a gloomy, discontented expression; his words were few and blunt, but a certain restlessness of manner, and a secret flashing of his cold, forbidding eye, betrayed to me some strong hidden excitement. Madame Ferrand was kind and talkative, though passionate; but the appearance of the place gave me an unfavourable impression, which was only heightened by the thought, that it was now impossible to change our lodging till relief should arrive. *** Five weary days, each of them containing a month of torturing suspense, passed on. Our lodging grew so unpleasant, that we preferred wandering all day through the misty, muddy streets, taking refuge in the covered bazaars when it rained heavily. The gloom of every thing around us entirely smothered that lightness of heart which had made us laugh at similar embarrassments at Vienna. When at evening, the dull, leaden hue of the clouds seemed to make the air dark, and cold, and heavy, we walked beside the swollen and turbid Rhone, under an avenue of leafless trees, the damp soil chilling our feet, and striking a numbness through our frames; and then I knew what those must feel who have no hope in their destitution, and not a friend in all the great world who is not as wretched as themselves. I prize the lesson, though the price of it is hard.
"'This morning,' said I to B., 'will terminate our sufferings.' I felt cheerful in spite of myself; and this was like a presentiment of coming luck. To the time till the mail arrived, we climbed to the Chapel of Fourvières. *** At the precise hour we were at the Post-office. What an intensity of suspense can be felt in that minute, while the clerk is looking over the letters! and what a lightning-like shock of joy when the hoped-for letter did come, and was opened with eager, trembling hands, revealing the relief we had almost despaired of! The city did not seem less gloomy, for that was impossible; but the faces of the crowd, which had appeared cold and suspicious were now kind and cheerful. We came home to our lodgings with altered feelings, and Madame Ferrand must have seen joy in our faces, for she greeted us with an unusual smile."
A Popular Life of George Fox, the first of the Quakers, compiled from his Journal, and other authentic sources. By Josiah Marsh. London: Charles Gilpin. 1 vol. 8vo.
A faithful and deeply interesting life of one of the greatest and noblest men of England. We have long desired to see a popular life of this truly noble-minded reformer. It is only by its perusal that we can learn how far all the great movements of the day are indebted to him. He was one of the people; and his mind, strong and clear in its reasoning powers, was united to a heart of the most immovable honesty. Truth was the object of his inquiry; that he pursued with a single, and a far-seeing eye; and when he found it, he never again let it go from him. For that he lived and died. There is nothing so striking in the history of any man, as the sagacity with which George Fox struck through all the incrustations of cant and artifice of his age, piercing humbug, to use a plain term in Foxian style, to the core, and setting forth before the public eye the reality in its imperishable beauty. Fox made war all his life, and from the first hour of his career of reformation, on all cruelties and tyrannies. He was opposed to State Religions, to Slavery,. to War, to Intemperance, to the domination of man over man. He was a divine messenger for casting down all despotism, assumption, and adulation; and for setting up all that is simple, manly, truthful, merciful and loving. Let the fame of such men be spread as it deserves, for with it must spread a fresh portion of that spirit of reform and of onwardness which happily so distinguishes the present day, and is binding nation to nation, and making the youngest amongst the peoples minister to the growth of humanity in the oldest.
The Barker Library.—Interesting Memoirs and Documents relating to American Slavery, and the Glorious Struggle now making for Emancipation. London: Chapman, Brothers, Newgate-street.
Amongst the most remarkable circumstances of our time is the number of men who rise out of the working classes to become teachers of the nation. Education has already produced this effect. Those whom we have been so anxious to teach are becoming themselves teachers. This is a fact which points out to us that the seed cast into the soil of the public mind is already quickened, and that it will in a while produce fruits that will astonish us. We shall be astonished at the rapidity with which the action of national information and reformation, after a certain point of the process, will go on.
Let us contemplate for a moment the fact now before us. Some years ago, Joseph Barker, of Leeds, was a common weaver there. But he got knowledge, and he took to spreading it. He had got a knack of putting weft and warp together, and he did the same by the yarn of knowledge as fast as it came into his possession. He made the shuttle of intelligence fly just as fast as the common shuttle used to do. He got used to steam power, and he was uneasy till he could apply steam power to the diffusion of ideas. He first began preaching, and still acquiring as he preached; he not only taught the people, but still went on teaching himself. He at length abandoned all sects, and their dogmas, and set up, as the Apostles did, as a preacher of simple Christianity, just as he could understand it himself out of the Bible. And to enable himself to understand it thoroughly, and not to take it at second-hand, he studied Hebrew and Greek, and thus read the Scriptures in their original tongues. Joseph Barker, by his plain, sound, honest intellect, and unaffected but genuine eloquence, soon produced very extensive effects. He brought many thousands to think and act with him. In Yorkshire, especially, and the Staffordshire Potteries, he drew great numbers to his way of thinking. Of course the more he endeavoured to depend on the doctrines of the New Testament alone, the more he was denounced as a heretic; for it is one of the singularities of the day, that though we insist on every one believing everything in the Scriptures, we are violently offended if they attempt to preach everything they find in it. But these things did not move Joseph Barker. He was too much of a long-headed Yorkshireman to expect to escape what neither Christ nor his disciples ever could escape—carping and persecution—so he went on his way, teaching and practising common sense and love to everybody. In London, about two years ago, such was the feeling excited by his talent and his capacity for usefulness, that a subscription was raised, and a steam-press—the great object of his ambition—presented to him.
That press is now working away at Wortley, near Leeds, and with what object? To produce a Library for the People, of Three Hundred Volumes of the most valuable works of our standard authors in general literature, philosophy, religion, natural history, and science. These volumes are to cost to the purchaser—what? nine shillings? No, about nine-pence a-piece. Amongst them he proposes to have an improved version of the Bible with notes; a Dictionary of the Bible; a Common-place Book of the Bible, to enable people to see at once all that the Scriptures say on any particular subject; an Englishman's Greek Concordance of the New Testament, to enable every one to judge for himself as to the meaning of the Greek Testament, and to test the criticisms of preachers and theological writers; an English Concordance of the Bible; Lives of William Penn, John Wesley, Dr. Channing, Luther, Fenelon, Massillon, Saurin, Jeremy Taylor, Robert Robinson, etc., all their works, or selections from them. The works of Ramohun Roy, of William Law, Robert Hall, of Tillotson, Barrow, and the best writers of the English Church; selections from the works of Malebranche, Locke, Bacon, Newton, Paley, John Hales; of Eaton, John Howe, Owen Feltham, William Dell; of Belsham, Carpenter, etc. Histories of the Church, of the Reformation, of Quakerism; a volume on Political Economy; a volume on Domestic Economy; two or three volumes of anecdotes illustrating various branches of Christian truth; a volume on Health and Disease, and the Sanitary Improvement of the People; Natural History; Advice on the Pursuit of Knowledge, on the Formation of Character, on Marriage, on Parental Duties, and on Trade, etc. etc.
It will be seen that Joseph Barker is no bigot. He cares not out of what Churches or sects his writers are selected, so that they are good and honest men. The project for any man single-handed is stupendous; but when we contemplate it as the project of a man originally a working man, and still, though preaching diligently every week, disdaining to make a penny by the gospel, but depending on his printing-press for his support, it is one of the wonders of the age.
With the true feeling of a man who has had to experience the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties, Joseph Barker at once thinks how he can level these difficulties for others, and he determines to make knowledge cheap. He wants only to live simply, not to amass a fortune; he prefers to amass knowledge for his fellow workers in every quarter of the kingdom. The project is one of so noble, so important, so immensely important a kind, that it deserves the warmest support from all classes. Every man who desires the general education and elevation of the people should support it, and must, if he be consistent, support it. Every working-man, that desires to elevate himself, and place within the reach of his family a library of general knowledge and the truest entertainment, should support it. Every Mechanics' Institution, Working-man's Book Association, and Co-operative League, should support this gigantic project of a working-man for the working-men. Every man who can estimate a great and generous feeling,—who would honour and animate a man who has devoted his life, talents, acquirements and energies to second the great efforts of the age for progress, and to supply that cheap literature which must ere long be supplied to the million, should subscribe to The Barker Library, which, for nine-pence per volume, would eventually furnish a library of three hundred volumes for eleven or twelve pounds.
It is proposed to issue a volume monthly, and in a while, if practicable, weekly. The first volume, now in our hands, is a well-printed, neat book, bound in cloth, containing very interesting memoirs and documents relating to American Slavery. Success to the scheme.
Penal Settlements and their Evils, etc. By Joseph B. Atkinson. London: Charles Gilpin, pp. 84.
In this little volume, the evils of our transportation system are well exposed. Captain Maconochie's system is examined, and its defects and advantages duly weighed. The whole of the penal settlement plan being on strong data condemned by the author, our prison discipline is then reviewed, and treated as one grand resource for that punishment of criminals which tends at once to promote the security of society, and the restitution of the culprit to moral health, and to society. The different systems of prison discipline practised both in this country and in the United States, from the barbarous and brutalizing usage of Sing Sing to the solitary system of Pentonville, are, in our opinion, most ably and impartially discussed; and the result is, that, with all our improvement, we have yet much farther to go. The practice of solitary confinement at Pentonville has been found to reform the prisoner while he continues there, and in that state; but it will not bear the test of a return to society. Those who have been sent there and to our penal settlements have rapidly relapsed, even before they have reached the place of destination. The whole is fully accounted for, by the nervous and unnatural state into which solitude throws a criminal; and it is fully proved, that the Pentonville plan is good as a beginning, but is only a beginning. We must now proceed, taught by experience, to accustom the reformed culprit gradually to society and its influences, if we mean him gradually and firmly to acquire the habit of fortitude, of resistance to temptation, and of a living feeling within himself of the pleasantness and advantages of virtue. It is a little work which every one interested in this great question will do well to read, and read attentively.
New and cheap edition of Handel's Oratorio of the Messiah, and Haydn's Oratorio of the Creation. London: J. Alfred Novello.
These publications deserve every encouragement, as they enable the public to obtain, in a very cheap and handsome form, these great works of the great musical masters. To obtain Handel's Oratorio of the Messiah, with a separate accompaniment for the organ or piano-forte, for six shillings, and Haydn's Creation for four and sixpence, is no trifling advantage. Good music can never be brought too much within the reach of the people; and the name of Novello on its title-page is a sufficient guarantee for its correctness.