TRAVELLERS AND GEOGRAPHERS. 525 JOHN CAIRD. (1823—still living)—Greenock-minister of Park Church, Glasgow-Sermons, (Religion in Common Life.) NORMAN MACLEOD.-minister of Barony Church, Glasgow-eloquent preachereditor of Good Words. The leaders of the Tractarian party in the Church of England (so called from the publication of Tracts for the Times, between 1832 and 1837) were EDWARD PUSEY and JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, the latter of whom wrote also an Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. Mr. NEWMAN has since become a member of the Roman Catholic Church. His brother, FRANCIS NEWMAN, Latin Professor in University College, London, is author of a sceptical work, The Phases of Faith, to which Henry Rogers replied in the "Eclipse of Faith." The well-known volume, Essays and Reviews, written by seven Oxford men, among whom BENJAMIN JOWETT is the leading name, represents a free-thinking section of the Church of England. J. FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE, a Cambridge man, lately Professor of Divinity in King's College, London, and well known for his association with Kingsley and others in efforts to raise the educational standard of the working classes, is the author of Theological Essays, The Religions of the World, and several other able works, which contain opinions at variance with the tenets of the Church of England, their "liberalism" sometimes going the length of heterodoxy. These opinions led to the removal of Mr. Maurice from his chair. JAMES MARTINEAU, a Unitarian minister in Liverpool, has produced some most eloquent works, among which may be named Studies in Christianity, and the Rationale of Religious Inquiry. Cardinal WISEMAN, born at Seville in 1802, represents theology from the Roman Catholic point of view. He has published an interesting contribution to general literature, entitled Recollections of the Last Four Popes. TRAVELLERS AND GEOGRAPHERS. SAMUEL LAING, of Papdale in Orkney, is the author of A Residence in Norway (1834-36); A Tour in Sweden (1838); Notes of a Traveller (1854). This agreeable writer is a younger brother of the Scottish historian already named. DAVID LIVINGSTONE, born about 1817, at Blantyre in Lanarkshire, has travelled much in Africa as a missionary. His work, Missionary Travels in South Africa, a valuable repertory of facts concerning that region, was published in 1857. The basin of the Zambezi has been the chief scene of his explorings, and he is at present engaged in striking out new paths in the same dimly-known ground. The discovery of Lake Ngami was one of his achievements. 526 TRAVELLERS AND GEOGRAPHERS. AUSTEN HENRY LAYARD, born in 1817 in Paris, is distinguished as the author of two works, Nineveh and its Remains (1848); and Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon (1853), describing his successful excavations, especially at the former place. Sculptured bulls and lions, with wings and human heads, stand, amid many other similar works of ancient art, in the hall of the British Museum, as trophies of Mr. Layard's toil. For a time he took a prominent part in politics as member for Aylesbury, and under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. He has lately returned to political life. RICHARD FORD (1796-1858) wrote Murray's Hand-book for Spain, and also a work entitled Gatherings from Spain (1846), which together form the best authority we have on the modern condition of that romantic land. GEORGE BORROW, born near Norwich about 1800, when travelling in Spain as the agent of the Bible Society, gathered materials for a work descriptive of his personal adventures, which he called The Bible in Spain (1844). Few books possess more vivid interest. Gipsy life has an especial attraction for his pen. His other works are Zincali, or the Gipsies in Spain, published before his chief book; Lavengro, or the Scholar, the Gipsy, and the Priest; and a sequel to this, called The Romany Rye. ALEXANDER WILLIAM KINGLAKE, born in 1802 at Taunton, having passed through Trinity College, Cambridge, studied law at Lincoln's Inn. His book, Eöthen, descriptive of his travels in the East, which was published in 1850, is remarkable for its thought and eloquence. Mr. Kinglake is at present member of Parliament for Bridgewater. SIR JAMES EMERSON TENNENT, born in 1804 at Belfast, is a merchant's son. Elected member for his native town in 1832, he devoted himself to political life, making literature his recreation. His books on Modern Greece, Belgium, and Wine are well known; but his great work is Ceylon, for which he collected materials during his five years' residence in the island as Secretary to the Colonial Government. He has been since 1852 one of the joint Secretaries to the Board of Trade. TRAVELLERS AND GEOGRAPHERS. 527 Supplementary List. To the list of travellers in Spain, headed by Ford and Borrow, the name of HENRY DAVID INGLIS (1795-1835), son of a Scottish advocate, who wrote under the name of Derwent Conway, deserves to be added. Mr. Inglis also published travels in Northern Europe, France, and Ireland. Sir JOHN BOWRING (born in 1792 at Exeter), otherwise famous as a translator, has written an account of Siam. ELIOT WARBURTON (1810-1852), an English barrister who was burned in the Amazon, has left, besides some novels and memoirs, an eloquent book of Eastern travel, The Crescent and the Cross (1846). China has been "done" and described by JOHN FRANCIS DAVIS, Chief Superintendent there, and WINGROVE COOKE, Special Correspondent of the Times; and Japan by LAURENCE OLIPHANT, Secretary to Lord Elgin. The Rev. JOSIAS PORTER, now a Professor of Biblical Criticism in Belfast, is author of Five Years in Damascus, and Murray's Hand-book for Palestine and Syria. Captain SHERARD OSBORNE, author of Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal, has since written A Cruise in Japanese Waters. Arctic travel and discovery, during this period of English literature, are represented by many eminent names, among which those of Dr. RAE, Sir ROBERT M'CLURE, discoverer of the North-West Passage, and Sir LEOPOLD M'CLINTOCK, commander of the Fox, are prominent. Sir FRANCIS HEAD (born 1793), for some time Governor of Upper Canada, wrote a popular work upon the Pampas and the Andes (1826); and a Yorkshire Squire, CHARLES WATERTON (born 1782), has depicted his wonderful adventures and toils in Wanderings in South America, the North-West of the United States, and the Antilles. Murray's Hand-books, some of which have been already named, form in themselves a most valuable geographical library. They are not the work of mere compilers, but, in nearly every case, of men who can describe clearly and gracefully what they have seen and heard in the land of which they write. UPON the opposite shores of the Atlantic a branch of our literature is flourishing in green and vigorous youth. We subjoin a brief view of American writers and their works, following the plan which has been adopted in the foregoing chapter. POETS. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, who divides the crown of American poetry with Longfellow, was born in 1794, at Cummington in Massachusetts. At first a lawyer, he afterwards devoted himself to journalism. His poem called Thanatopsis (a view of death) is full of Wordsworth's clear and pensive beauty of expression. The Ages-Lines to a Waterfowl-Green River-The Yellow Violet -and The Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood, are among his finest poems. LYDIA HUNTLY SIGOURNEY, born in 1791, at Norwich in Connecticut, is the Mrs. Hemans of American poetry. As Miss Huntly she appeared before the public in 1815. Four years later she married a merchant of Hartford. The delicate pathos AMERICAN LITERATURE, 529 of The Dying Infant, The Emigrant Mother, and To-morrow, is worthy of all praise. Pocahontas is her most elaborate poem. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, born in 1807, at Portland in Maine, has been since 1835 Professor of Modern Languages and Belles-Lettres in Harvard College, Cambridge. He first appeared as a poet in 1840, when he published Voices of the Night, The study of European literature, especially that of Germany, has had a powerful influence upon his mind. Tennyson is the English writer whom he most resembles. His chief works, verse and prose, are as follows: VERSE. Voices of the Night. The Spanish Student, a play. Evangeline (in English hexameters). The Courtship of Miles Standish. PROSE. Outre-Mer, or Sketches from Beyond Hyperion, a Romance. Poets and Poetry of Europe. Many translations, from Spanish, German, Swedish, Danish, and Anglo-Saxon, attest the linguistic power and poetic skill of this favourite author. On this side of the Atlantic Longfellow and Washington Irving are as well known as Tennyson and Goldsmith. NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS, born in 1817 at Portland, has written poetry and prose with grace and lightness. There is something of Leigh Hunt about his pen. He is the editor of the New York Mirror. Some of his Scriptural pieces, such as The Leper, The Daughter of Jairus, and The Shunamite Mother, are very beautiful. Melanie and Lord Ivon and his Daughter afford good specimens of his romantic style. But such sweet, natural lyrics as Better Moments, and Lines to a City Pigeon, surpass his more laboured works. In prose he has produced various clever, readable, gossipy books,-Pencillings by the Way-Inklings of Adventure-Loiterings of Travel, &c. |