MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. 89 



otherwise. In the case of either homicide or murder the greatest prudence 

 and decision of character will be indispensable. We are of opinion, in 

 reference to the latter case, that the resident merchants should form them- 

 selves into a board, presided over by the superintendent of the trade, whether 

 it be an acknowledged council or not, and try the accused parties. If such 

 a court be instituted while there is no misunderstanding, it is not improbable 

 that the Chinese would be satisfied with their decisions in almost every matter 

 that might be brought before them. Hitherto the guilty has been screened, 

 and suffered to go at liberty on reaching the first British port on leaving 

 China. The Chinese among themselves distinguish between homicide and 

 murder ; but with respect to foreigners they make no distinction, in order 

 that the fear of committing either of the crimes might cause foreigners to 

 abstain from wrangling and fighting, lest death should ensue. We must 

 acknowledge that this severity has had considerable influence over the minds 

 of thousands of Europeans who annually visit China. But the principle is 

 too bad to be tolerated. 



The Metropolitan Journal, Part II. James Bollaert 



THIS isV new candidate, in the weekly form, for literary reputation. It is 

 conducted, if we are not mistaken, by Mr. J. Walker Ord. There are some 

 clever things in it; but the effect of its best articles is marred by the 

 egotism, and affectation, and petulance which characterize the greater portion 

 of its contents. It deserves praise for the typographical neatness with which 

 it is got up. A series of papers under the head of " Reminiscences of Lord 

 Byron and his Contemporaries, by an intimate friend of his Lordship," 

 is publishing in this " Metropolitan Journal." We give one of the 

 best : 



" Pisa is the most beautiful city I ever was in. It is the fairest flower in 

 the garden of the world ; as poetical in its look and atmosphere as it is in its 

 associations. It is like a city in a dream, or in a poem, such a poem as 

 Spencer might have written : its reality fades before its ideality, for though 

 we behold its palaces, its river, its tower, its paintings, its churches, and its 

 cemeteries (though these strike us with all the force of magnificent palpa- 

 bilities), and though we hear its unceasing voices most musical, yet the after 

 effect produced upon us is so unusual and so delightful that we walk through 

 it sublimed into a feeling of its ideality by the unearthliness of the realities 

 that surround us. It is the reverse of Manchester, of Leeds, and of Sheffield 

 they are sheerly commercial, Pisa is sheerly poetical : in the three first you 

 go about thinking of great-coats, pocket-handkerchiefs, and knives but in 

 Pisa you walk with Ariosto, and with heaven-thoughted Dante, with the 

 elegant Boccaccio, the patient Petrarch, or with the rural Tasso its common- 

 places are bits of poetry its poetry is celestial and But it is not my 



intention to write a history of Pisa though a very delightful task it would 

 be it is my own history that I am to relate, even a task still more delightful, 

 linked, as it is, with the memories of the illustrious, the beautiful, and the 

 good, and undarkened by one unvirtuous sorrow either of the loving or the 

 beloved. 



To be egotistical then. The first thing I proceeded to do, when I had 

 settled at my hotel, was to seek apartments ; so at about four o'clock on the 

 afternoon of the morning on which I entered the loveliest of all cities, I set 

 out with my Ariosto and walking stick in search of the object aforesaid. I 

 had been recommended, by mine host at the hotel, to the residence of a 

 nobleman who let apartments on the Lung' Arno.* I was told there was 

 nothing extraordinary in this, and that I need by no means be under any 



* The street on either side of the river Arno, which flows through the town. 



