Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Critical Notices Of The Literature Of The Last Three Months,
munarcus loss prominent , but not without influence on the Church aud oti European society , as Clovis , have received as much notice as the great churchman , probably more . So likewise in the ease of continuous events , which less depend upon any single man than upon general opinion , as the heresies of various kinds , Mahomet and his theism , the crusaders , and the papal assumptions over the civil power , "
Irom Christianity and Dean Milman to Kazan and M . Turnerelli is a A'iolent transition , and if we purposed to outrage good taste so far as to attempt any display of ingenuity in protending that we had discovered an affinity between cither the subjects or the authors , we should well deserve to be pilloried in Dr . Riccabocca ' s stocks for the remainder of our natural lives . But the fact is , the trimestre not being able to boast of anything new in the department of historical literature except a few well-done new editions of such standard works as "Gibbon ' s Rise and Fall" wo
, are compelled to place side by side in the same category the two books to which Ave have alluded . M . Turnerelli ' s work , * hoAvever , can hardly be said to be historical . It is , in fact , semi-artistic and antiquarian , with a slight mixture of the ethnological , the residue offering a very large proportion of what , in these times , may not inaptly be called the Russian clement . Kazan , the old seat of the Tartar khans , is now , and indeed has been for some three centuries , a mere province of Russia ; and neither
prior nor subsequent to this fate does it seem to have had much history to leave as a legacy to its enslaved posterity . In so far as it Avas Asiatic it could never bear comparison in point of Avealth , beauty , or refinement with either its Mahometan or sun-worshipping nei ghbours , and as to its Europeanism , it was and is still several degrees below the questionable and imitative civilization of Russia , and certainly not superior to
Christianized Greece . For those , however , who have a taste for this kind of light , sketchy , historical reading , the book is not without interest . M . Turnerelli appears to have lived for some time in the country , and if he has a high opinion of the Czar , and an affection for the state of society in which he has resided , he very frankly acknowledges it , and thus puts the reader on his guard against being led away by a certain occasional brilliancy of description , which throws prominently into light everything that has an
atom of good iu it , and shadows more deeply from the sight the recesses in Avhich all that is rotten and impure lies festering . Of far more practical value , as the work of a scientific man , and one thoroughly and intimately acquainted with the subject about which he writes , is the " Memoir " of the Mediterranean , by Admiral Smyth . f It is a learned work , and at the same time full of interest for the unlearned in the chief matters of which it treats . The greater portion of it consists of
a nautical survey of the Mediterranean , conducted under the superintendence of the author , in the course of which he corrected a vast number of errors and superstitions which had crept into the science of navigation , laid doAvn upwards of 100 charts , proved rocks , upon which it had been said and believed that ships had struck , to have never had any existence except in the lively imaginations of sailors , and established some new theories upon tides , currents , and other physical phenomena , which prove his zeal for science , as well as the extent and depth of his knowledge .
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Critical Notices Of The Literature Of The Last Three Months,
munarcus loss prominent , but not without influence on the Church aud oti European society , as Clovis , have received as much notice as the great churchman , probably more . So likewise in the ease of continuous events , which less depend upon any single man than upon general opinion , as the heresies of various kinds , Mahomet and his theism , the crusaders , and the papal assumptions over the civil power , "
Irom Christianity and Dean Milman to Kazan and M . Turnerelli is a A'iolent transition , and if we purposed to outrage good taste so far as to attempt any display of ingenuity in protending that we had discovered an affinity between cither the subjects or the authors , we should well deserve to be pilloried in Dr . Riccabocca ' s stocks for the remainder of our natural lives . But the fact is , the trimestre not being able to boast of anything new in the department of historical literature except a few well-done new editions of such standard works as "Gibbon ' s Rise and Fall" wo
, are compelled to place side by side in the same category the two books to which Ave have alluded . M . Turnerelli ' s work , * hoAvever , can hardly be said to be historical . It is , in fact , semi-artistic and antiquarian , with a slight mixture of the ethnological , the residue offering a very large proportion of what , in these times , may not inaptly be called the Russian clement . Kazan , the old seat of the Tartar khans , is now , and indeed has been for some three centuries , a mere province of Russia ; and neither
prior nor subsequent to this fate does it seem to have had much history to leave as a legacy to its enslaved posterity . In so far as it Avas Asiatic it could never bear comparison in point of Avealth , beauty , or refinement with either its Mahometan or sun-worshipping nei ghbours , and as to its Europeanism , it was and is still several degrees below the questionable and imitative civilization of Russia , and certainly not superior to
Christianized Greece . For those , however , who have a taste for this kind of light , sketchy , historical reading , the book is not without interest . M . Turnerelli appears to have lived for some time in the country , and if he has a high opinion of the Czar , and an affection for the state of society in which he has resided , he very frankly acknowledges it , and thus puts the reader on his guard against being led away by a certain occasional brilliancy of description , which throws prominently into light everything that has an
atom of good iu it , and shadows more deeply from the sight the recesses in Avhich all that is rotten and impure lies festering . Of far more practical value , as the work of a scientific man , and one thoroughly and intimately acquainted with the subject about which he writes , is the " Memoir " of the Mediterranean , by Admiral Smyth . f It is a learned work , and at the same time full of interest for the unlearned in the chief matters of which it treats . The greater portion of it consists of
a nautical survey of the Mediterranean , conducted under the superintendence of the author , in the course of which he corrected a vast number of errors and superstitions which had crept into the science of navigation , laid doAvn upwards of 100 charts , proved rocks , upon which it had been said and believed that ships had struck , to have never had any existence except in the lively imaginations of sailors , and established some new theories upon tides , currents , and other physical phenomena , which prove his zeal for science , as well as the extent and depth of his knowledge .