On Wednesday the curtain fell on the most gorgeous and successful
Pageant ever enacted--a Pageant in which all the nations of the earth
played a part, with the Crystal Palace for their "tyring house." Honour
then to all who had hand or heart in this Triumph of Peace! Honour to
our Queen for her most judicious patronage! Honour to Prince Albert for
the admirable tact with which he fulfilled the duties of his important
office! Honour to our countrymen for the manner in which they have
maintained the dignity of a free people! Honour to our foreign visitors
for the friendly spirit in which they responded to our invitation and
received our welcome! Honour to that efficient corps the Sappers and
Miners, (and happily we have only to mention the military to recognise
their services as civilians), and to our Police for their good-humoured
firmness! Honour to Paxton, for his design--to Fox and Henderson for
their execution of it! and, though last not least, honour to that band
of zealous and indefatigable spirits, the Digby Wyatts, Dilkes, Coles,
Scott Russells, &c., to whose prevision and supervision, at all times
and in all places, the success of the World's Fair and the comfort of
its visitors, owe so much! If ever there was a fitting time for
instituting an ORDER OF CIVIL MERIT, it is now; if ever there were men
who deserved to wear such an order, they who planned, and they who
carried out the GREAT EXHIBITION OF THE WORKS OF INDUSTRY OF ALL
NATIONS, they are the men.
We could not allow the Great Exhibition to close without making a Note
of it: we have therefore little room this week for Notes on Books. We
must, however, take notice of six additional volumes of the _National
Illustrated Library_, which we have received. Of three of these we may
well speak briefly, as they form the Second, Third, and Fourth Volumes
of _Boswell's Life of Johnson_, to which we formerly directed the
attention of our readers. _The Book of English Songs from the Sixteenth
to the Nineteenth Century_ is a very well selected volume. The Editor's
endeavour to present a fair view of this branch of our National
Literature has been attended with success, and the book will, we have
no doubt, be a popular one. _The Orbs of Heaven_, by Mr. Mitchel, the
director of the Cincinnati Observatory, is intended to furnish a popular
exposition of the great Discoveries and Theories of Modern Astronomy,
and to exhibit the structure of the universe so far as revealed by the
mind of man. The book is a reprint of a series of lectures delivered in
the hall of Cincinnati College, with such success as to have led to the
establishment of the Cincinnati Observatory--need we say more? The sixth
volume is a very interesting but painful one, _The Mormons, or
Latter-Day Saints, with Memoirs of the Life and Death of Joseph Smith,
the American Mahomet_. How startling is the contrast in the
subject-matter of these two books--the one rich in a display of the
infinite wisdom of the Creator, the other depicting most vividly the
foolishness of man.
The new volume of Bohn's _Standard Library_ is the second of Dr.
Neander's _History of the Planting and Training of the Christian Church
by the Apostles, with the Author's Final Additions; and his
Antignostikus, or Spirit of Tertullian_, which completes, we believe,
the series of translations from the writing of this learned German
divine. _The metamorphoses of Ovid, literally translated into English
Prose_, forms the new volume of Bohn's _Classical Library_, and the
Translator, Mr. Riley, has endeavoured to render the work more inviting
to the scholar, and more intelligible to those who are unversed in
classical literature, by numerous explanatory notes calculated to throw
considerable light upon the origin and meaning of some of the traditions
of heathen mythology.
It will be seen by our advertising columns that Messrs. Puttick and
Simpson exhibit a numerous List of important Sales of Books,
Manuscripts, Autographs, &c., which they have in preparation for the
ensuing season.