SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

Taavats,

The Island of Sardinia ; including Pictures of the Manners and Customs of the Sardinians, and Notes on the Antiquities and Modern Objects of interest In the Island; to which is added, some Account of the louse of Savoy. By John Warm Tyndale, M.A., Barrister-at-law. In three volumes Bentley. BIOGRAPHY, The Life and Remains of Theodore Edward Hoot. By the Rev. R. H. Dalton Bar- ham, B.A., Author of " The Life of Thomas Ingoldsby." In two volumes.

Bentky. Ficriow,

Charles Vernon ; a Transatlantic Tale. By Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Senior. In two volumes Lor.ginan and Co. Posse, Illustrated Poems, by Mrs. L. H. Slgourney. With Designs by Felix 0. C. Darley; engraved by American artists Carey and Hart, Pkiktdetphia.

TYNDALE'S SARDINIA.

FROM some cause or other, Sardinia is the spot in the habitable world about the least frequented by tourists, except the pestilential parts of Africa and the table lands of Asia. This is probably owing to the very cause that renders the island worthy of examination—a wild state of country, and a primitive condition of society. In Sardinia there are no luxurious hotels, or indeed any hotels worthy of the name. The roads even between towns are very bad, and the by-ways are little more than bridle-paths. Forests cover a considerable portion of the island ; marshes in a state of nature breeding malaria occupy great part of the lowlands ; from the prac- tice of vendetta "—a sort of blood-fend, and the scandalous corruption of law and justice, numbers of the inhabitants take to the woods and be- come outlaws, divided into two classes,—banditti, the victims of circum- stances; and "evil-livers," the victims of their own bad passions or misdeeds. Nominally Romanists, the superstitions and ignorance of the Sardes rank them below the most besotted Papists in Europe ; and the geography of some of the educated extends no further than to " terra ferma," as they call the Italian dominions of the King of Sardinia. The feudal privileges and power of the nobility have been violently abolished, to substitute in their stead a centralization, after the late Italian fashion of rule, without apparently producing other change than substituting a needy and corrupt bureaucracy for the rights of the landlords. In short, any one who wishes to have an idea of a country and a people during the middle ages, modified by little save a Southern climate, should go to Sardinia.

A region so singular and fresh should furnish a proportionate book ; es- pecially when traversed by a man like Mr. Tyndale, who appears an ex- perienced traveller, an accomplished classic, and who has spared no pains in investigating the antiquities and history of the island. His Sardi- nia, however, hardly comes up to expectation, from the author's striving to do too many things at once. He travelled through a considerable part of the country, province by province; but, instead of describing the scenery as he saw it, and narrating the adventures as they occurred to him, Mr. Tyndale mixes up with the account of his travels general and local his- tory, the antiquities of the district and of the country at large, with the institutions of the places and the condition of the people. And this is fre- quently done with too much elaboration. To illustrate an existing cus- tom by reference to a similar practice in classical antiquity, is suggestive and interesting; but quotations from almost every ancient author re- specting the character of the people or the events of their history, is tedious and repelling. Mr. Tyndale seems to have misunderstood the public want about Sardinia. The world would be glad to learn its pre- sent condition, and to welcome any work that described it graphically, illustrating the information by incident and adventure ; but it does not care about curt and consequently imperfect accounts from books, or episodes of history, which are remote both in time and place, and plunge the reader into topics which are rather strange than new. Even those points which are more fully treated—as the mysterious remains, that have given rise to as much controversy as the Round Towers of Ireland, or the précis of Sardinian history under the house of Savoy, or the account of the present political and social characteristics of the island—impede the reader, from being badly placed or out of place. The Island of Sar- dinia, in short, is a species of descriptive, historical, and antiquarian itinerary, in which the writer not only tells what he saw and heard at every place, but what he had read about it ; not unfrequently inter- mingling fact with fiction, by tales illustrative of the popular feeling and practices.

This defect in the plan we conceive to be the main cause of the unat- tractive nature of the book ; for though Mr. Tyndale has not sufficient animation and vigour to give buoyancy and life to such a mixture of sub- jects as he has brought together, yet his style, though rather literal, is not devoid of graphic powers. He can describe a scene or an occurrence and tell a story without losing the characteristics of the original, if he does not improve them.

These remarks apply to the popular nature of the book, not to the value of its materials; which is considerable. If the direct description and personal narrative were taken away from all the other matter, they would form an amusing book of travels. The account of the government, institutions, and classes of the people, would make an informing section; so would the description of the existing remains of the disputed anti- quities and the disquisition thereupon ; the tales would stand alone very. well ; and even the fragments of ancient and medireval history are curious to those who wish to dip into the Sardinian annals. The French have a habit of calling a series of special or partial exhibitions "studies " : Mr. Tyndale'e volumes will furnish the raw materials for a set of studies on Sardinia.

The absence of anything approaching even to a decent cabaret, and the paucity of travellers, render hospitality a pleasure, a duty, and a ne- cessity. " Though aware of the Sarde character for hospitality, it far exceeded my expectations: one-eighth of the letters were neither requisite nor delivered, and my only embarrassment was the choice and decision as to the party to whom-I should apply for board and lodging.

" The .traveller is sent from village to village with a note, or merely a verbal message, either being sufficient to insure a hearty welcome; and the following is one among my many opportunities of testing their hospitality. On arriving at a village, and while my servant had taken in my letter of introduction, one of the inmates of the house informed me of a death which had taken place in the family a few days .previonsly; and while expressing my regret at having presented the letter, and apologizing for having intruded under such cir- cumstances, the makter of the house came out and insisted on my staying with him. I pleaded my.ignorance of the melancholy event, and declined accept- ing his offer: but perceiving the refusal was solely out of delicacy he drew up, and seizing mely the hand, exclaimed, 'No, no; though we have lost a relative we shall gain a friend. Her death is a misery to us, and your presence will not make it greater; but not to show hospitality to a stranger, would be a reproach

us, and would indeed increase our unhappiness.' • * *

"But, however great may be the attention and kindness of one's host, certain disadvantages and inconveniences attend this mode of travelling; for after starting on a journey at daybreak, the fatigues of ten and twelve hours on horseback make one httle inclined for the formalities of a reception, with the etiquette required on those occasions; and a host's anxiety to please and amube often amounts to some- thing more than a superfluity, and even to an embarrassment, if one has any pur- . suit or occupation beyond the juere passing away the evening. " Full many a time had one to appear delighted with and reiterate thanks for attentions shown by the family, which the heart tacitly wished to escape. The : supper-table groaning with the weight of viands of every description, was a ne- itessary evidence to prove a welcome; but even a long day's journey and a toler- able appetite by no means insure the requisite capacity and compliment of eating :eepiously of all of them. Full many a time was I denounced as a bad guest for not eating at one repast what would really have sufficed for two days' meals; and as a Saide's capabilities in that respect are by no means inferior to his sentiments 'of hospitality, it was not easy to prove that my appreciation of the latter ought • not to be tested by my inability to compete with them in the former. Dishes -after diehes seemed so many incarnations of the daemons of nightmare and dys- ,pepsit and apoplexy, and the wines to be the liquefied regions from whence they ewe, The agriculture is backward, but classical " The Sarde plough, especially that used in the Southern districts, is interest- ing to the antiquarian, as corresponding in shape and parts with that used by the ancients, and as described by Roman and Greek authors. Such is its simplicity and lightness, that it is frequently carried by the labourers on their shoulders; and when taken to and fro by oxen, is reversed, according to the Roman usage.

"The oxen are yoked by the bead and horns,-a mode adopted also in many other countries; but here the cruelty isravated by the unequal strain and by the manner of driving them; for the cord baggeing fastened to the off-horn, and pas- sing round the forehead, so galls the ear that it is generally raw. The waggons, of an equally simple and rude construction, are precisely the plaustrum ' of the Romans; having heavy solid wheels on a revolving axis, with the usual accompa- _aliment of immense nails driven into the external circumference. They resemble _those used in Valencia, Calabria, and other countries which have inherited but not divested themselves of Roman customs; and so averse are the people to making any alteration or improvement, that a law was lately passed to prevent the entrance of these primitive machines into the principal towns, or being used on the high roads; a measure absolutely requisite for the latter, but the prejudice• for the ancient regime is still kept up in the rural districts.'

Although justice can scarcely be said to exist in Sardinia, the practice being a bad imitation of that of Spain, it is from no lack of practitioners. Like all countries where race and family distinctions are prized, and which have neither commerce, foreign settlements, a large army, nor a numerous class of functionaries to employ or carry off the offshoots of the -genteel classes, the lawyers are a numerous race. "At Cagliari there are about 350 barristers, about 70 at Sassari," a provincial city; the number of attornies Mr. Tyndale could not ascertain, but a Sardinian author declares " there is scarcely a spot where there is not an attorney, and in the large villages there are enough of them to make a college." The -sketches of the legal race in Southern dramas and novels would seem to be rather under than over the reality. They live by fomenting litigation, and when once they have got a property into law, (as is sometimes done in our own Chancery Court,) they actually live upon it till it is exhausted. Their fees, fixed by tariff, seem moderate : it is the corrupt administra- .tion, carried on by attornies, advocates, and judges, that ruins the suitor. "The fees of the town attorney are about one fifth higher than those of the vil- lage practitioner; and for the drawing up of a will, or making a settlement where "the property amounts to from 41. to 38/., the charge of the town attorney is 4s. '7d.; from 38/. to 1921. it is 6d.; and above 192/. about 11. 2s. 7id.; and it increases in a similar ratio. A marriage settlement in which the property is from 4L to 91. costs ls. Gid.; where it is from 91. to 151. it is 4s. 70.; from 15/. to 381. it is Gs. 2d.; and from 381 to 771. it amounts to about 9s. 3d.; and so on in proportion."

- In like manner, the physicians' charges are -fixed by law, and at a scale :ridiculously low in our eyes • but it is a question whether the charges may not be fair as regards Sardinian prices, though Mr. Tyndale seems to think not.

"The fees of physicians and surgeons are fixed by a tariff of the 28th Novem- ber 1841. The price of a simple visit is 9d.•' increasing, according to the time of day or night, distance, and length of visit, to about 8s. In surgery, the fees vary according to the degree of the surgeon, as well as the time, distance and operation, from 6d. to 8s.; and in the Besse Chirnrgia degree, (the phlebotomists and dentists,) the extent of whose occupations are defined by law, petty distinc- tions in the fees are actually made between bleeding in the arm, hand, or foot, the prices being 20., 3d., and 4:1d. respectively; and it also costs 2id. to have a tooth extracted, and 46d. to have a root or fang of it removed;-according to the imperial laws of the King of Sardinia! Nothing can be more ridiculous than the minutiae and regulations of this tariff; prices being fixed in it for all sorts of contingencies, and which are subject to just as many modes of evasion, abuse, and trickery."