The Sun.
London, England, 1855-05-17 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

The Newcomes. No. X. By W. M. Thackeray.

Such changes as there have been in the fortunes
of the Newcomes—such fluctuations in the motley
arabesque of Mr. Thackeray's new literary kaleidos-
cope ! Clive married to Rosy—Clara divorced
from Sir Barnes and united to Lord Highgate—
Miss Sherrick espoused bx the Rev. Charles Honey-
man. The Colonel happy, yet discontented—happy
in his attendance upon his pretty little daughter-
in-law, and discontented with a half sense that his
sou is, somehow or other, the victim of dejection
and disappointment. Ethel, in like manner, both
improved and deteriorated—sorrowful with a name-
less grief, yet gladdened at the same time by the
consciousness of living to more purpose than when
carried away in the giddy whirl of Mayfair frivoli-
ties : caring for her adopted children, and between
whiles carrying consolation to surrounding un-
fortunates. Besides these a variety of other
scarcely less remarkable alterations. The B.
B. C. in considerable peril--J. J. advancing stea-
dily on the way to artistic fame and fortune—
F. B. " coming out" more gloriously than ever, as
one of the more humorous and original among our
author's many humorous and original characters.
Added to which we may here record that poor old
James Binnie has died off at Edinburgh—and that
his very delightful sister, Mrs. Mackenzie the Old
Campaigner, has at last revealed both to Clive and
the Colonel the latent flaws, and blurs, and general
demerits of her Veneered disposition and lacquered
temperament. Another circumstance, moreover,
is worthy of note in the present serial, now that it
its
completion. rapidly approaching the appointed period of
completion. Both the heroines of the story become
wealthy—Ethel as the heiress of old Lady Kew,
Rosey as the heiress of old Mr. Binnie. Miss
Newcome has her 60,0001., and Mrs. Clive, besides
moneys in bank, and B. B. C. shares, shares in the
East India Stock—to such an extent, indeed, that
her handsome young husband becomes in the esti-

atiou of City men quite a personage of import-
ance. Insomuch that there aro projects set on foot
for the nomination of the Old Colonel as a Director
in Leadenhall-street, and a talk even of his beloved
Clive aspiring to the dignity of a member of Par-
liament. How charmingly all these developments
of his narrative are related by Mr. Thackeray it is
needless to intimate. With the graces of his idio-
matic and ripened style the readers of the " New-
comes" have become long since delightfully fami-
liarised—blandishments of composition to the pos-
session of which neither " Vanity Fair," nor yet
" Pendennis," can make any pretensions what-
soever. Let us acknowledge at once, however,
that we are grievously disappointed with
the course taken by our great novelist in the un-
ravelment of the tangled thread of this his ela-
borate and ingenious plot of " The Newcomes."
We cannot become reconciled to the notion of
Clive the debonnair being married to Rosey the
contemptible—instead of to Ethel the magnificent.
We have never yet forgiven Sir Edward Lytton for
uniting Pisistratus Caxton to his cousin Blanche in-
stead of to his first love, the beautiful, tender, gentle
Fanny Trevanion—ultimately spouse of that middle.-
aged Marquis—once the gallant gay Lothario Sir
Sedley Beaudesert. Nay, we don't yet half like
the perverse defiance of all our hopes and wishes
in regard to the most loveable of his heroes with
which Mr. Dickens united David Copperfield to
Agnes—only aftei having conducted him through all
the incongruous discomforts and the crowning sad-
ness of his married life with poor, dear, little, silly,
delightful Dora—redeemed though that strange epi-
sode in the incomparable story is by the exquisite
pathos with which the genius of the great writer
surrounds the memory of the child-wife's death-
bed. And so, in the like manner, we are more
than half angry with Mr. Thackeray for coupling
our brave, noble, gallant, handsome Clive with that
pretty, empty-headed, empty-hearted, selfish, in-
tolerable Rosy—leaving both Olive and Ethel to
pine in secret over the evil fate by which their des-
tinies have become, apparently, for ever separated.
We are more curious, if possible, than ever as to
what will be the end of this " strange, eventful
history" of " The Newcomes." Mr. Thackeray
has fairly bewildered us as to his ulterior object.
We cannot for the life of us even dimly conjecture it.
Is he going to resort to the old hackneyed resource
of novel-writers upon such emergencies, namely,
by killing off Rosy, so that he may unite Clive to
Ethel Newsome, thus giving the hero, after all, his
first and best beloved, in spite of all the impedi-
ments which, up to the very close of the narrative,
may have seemed, to the unsuspecting reader, alto
gether insurmountable! This were scarcely judi-
cious, we fancy, so soon after David Copperfield.
And yet, to end the work before us otherwise, we
cannot but imagine would be wonderfully distaste-
ful to its readers, leaving them with a painful sense
of a disappointment never to be alleviated, that
of the hero's and heroine's permanent separation,
and interminable estrangement. Wherefor, all
these things considered, again we say, our curiosity
bringinggreat
thangreater.
the
storyeveras
of t oc4 MT
The
Thackeray'"
Newcomerker ay',s,
to a close—a close already probably written, and
od isne ege
arnbhoafuoptrs
which we (and we doubt not many thou-
sands as well as ourselves) must continue now, for
some time, strangely solicitous.

The Martins. Nos. V. and VI. By Charles Lever.
Several new characters are introduced in the
course of these two numbers of " The Martins of
Cro' Martin." A capital specimen of a fine old
Irish Barrister in the person of Counsellor Valen-
tine Repton, an aged gentleman, full of vivacity
and anecdote. A horrid sample of a man who
has fairly gone to the dogs, in the instance of
a broken officer of the-9th Foot, Lieutenant Tho-
mas Magennis, a drunken, brawling, fire-eating Pat-
lander. Besides these two more conspicuous per-
sonages—Joan, the herd's daughter, servant and
wife of the last-mentioned, Captain Magennis, of
Barnagheela—and Hosey Lynch, the barber, or
rather Figaro, of the neighbouring borough of
Oughterard. Towards the close of the number of
" The Martins " for May, the interest of the story
may be said to have really commenced. Massing-
bred has, by.that'time, become fairly installed as a
guest at Cro' Martin Castle, after having nearly
fought a duel with Counsellor Repton (a flash in
the pan, caused by the prying Figaro Hosey Lynch),
and (a yet more noteworthy incident), after
having given the "cut direct" to honest, unoffend-
ing Joe Nelligan. The tandem-driving attorney,
Maurice Scanlan, re-appears on the scene in the
closing chapter of the instalment just published ;
and a new interest is infused into the tale by the
circumstance of the newly-appointed Viceroy being
Lady Dorothea's relative, Lord Reckington, the
Chief Secretary coming over with him being no
other than Jack's father, Colonel Massiugbred.
The e are glimpses, too, of possible embarrassments
of a pecuniary knid on the Cro' Martin estate, to.
gether with intimations of a proximate election, and
further hints as to some mystery in the Cro' Martin
inheritance, and new phases revealed in the cha-
racters both of Mary Martin and her companion,
Kate Henderson. So that there are prospects of
the plot thickening already, and good promise that
out of materials such as those here enumerated,
Mr. Lever will educe one of those animated and
romantic fictions his hand knows so well, cm-mile
cala2no, to conjure, up for the popular entertain-
ment.

The Dwarf ; or, Mind and Matter. A novel. By
E. Berwick. 3 vols. Newby.
principally in the
This is a very interesting story ; the plot is skil-
fully arranged, and a great deal of variety is visible
consistseiitsa.ndTehxeptlaolietsofGerald Nugent, the
Dwarf, who certainly evinced an example of mind
triumphing over matter. The scene is laid in
in
adventures the
events.
Austria, in the time of Maria Theresa ; and Gerald
Nugent shows himself a zealous champion in her
cause at the time when she was menaced by power.
ful enemies from without, and endangered by
secret treason from within. By foresight, ability,
and courage be contrived to fathom the secrets of
the conspirators, to circumvent their manoeuvres,
and to deliver them up to well-merited fate. The
character of Maria Theresa is well drawn ; in the
few scenes in which she appears she exhibits that
striking decision and courage which so eminently
distinguished her; and the passage which describes
theattempt to poison her is very e xciting and interest-
ing. The romance of fiction is joined to the realities
of history ; and Milenka, the niece of the Black Baron
of Erlsfurth, is well qualified to adorn a tale. 6'he
was brought up in disguise by a strolling player,
and it was not until the conclusion of the troubles
and trials hero narrated that she received her
rights and became Countess of Reiterberg. Alto-
gether, the reminiscences of the Dwarf form a
pleasing sketch, and considerable ingenuity is
shown iu the manifold manoeuvres and complicated
plots and counterplots of the conspirators, and
their adroit and agile foe. Those who are amused
by delineations of a dramatic nature in change and
variety will doubtless appreciate and applaud this
work.

._.--

Lives of the Princesses of England. By Mrs.
Everett Green. Vol. VI. Colburn.
This is the sixth and concluding volume of these
useful biographies. They form an admirable com-
panion to Miss Strickland's Lives of the Queens.
Mrs. Green has successfully accomplished her labo-
rious undertaking, which we regret to see has been
retarded by illness. In the present volume,
the concluding chapter of the eventful life of Eli-
zabeth, the el test daughter of James the First and
Queen of Bohemia, is given. The remaining me-
moirs are those of the daughters of Charles the
First, two of whom died in infancy. The other

three present very different aspects—Mary, the
eldest, was married to Prince William of Orange,
who died in his twenty-fifth year. After ten years
of struggle and difficulty, she herself closed her
career at the age of twenty-nine. Her sister, Eli-
zabeth, died at Carisbrook Castle, nearly broken-
hearted by grief for her father's death. The visi-
tors to the Royal Academy of this year will re-
member the picture of her death. Henrietta
became the wife of Philip of Orleans, brother of
Louis XIV., and, after shining as one of the
brightest ornaments of that brilliant court, she
died very suddenly, at the age of twenty-six,
with strong suspicions of poison. Thus, though
their destinies were so different—one being left a
widow ruling over a turbulent court and nation
—the other leading a gay and brilliant life amid the
dissipations of Versailles—the third, early closing
her career iu silence and solitude in the walls of a
castle prison—the mournful destiny of their race
seemed still to pursue them. With their lives the
records of the English Princesses closes. Charles
11. had no children. The two daughters of James
11. were not only Princesses, but Queens of England,
and, as such, are chronicled in Miss Strickland's
pages. The brief life of their younger sister,
Princess Louise, who was born in France after his
abdication, is also related in the biography of
Mary of Modena. Thus the writer has reached
the limit she originally fixed—the period of the
Hanoverian dynasty. She has acquitted herself
very ably, and her series of lives show us some
very interesting portions iu the lives of the chief
countries of Europe.

PRINCE ALBERT'S EXAMPLE.

(From Punch.)

A cankerworm was gnawing at the heart of England's Oak,
And palsy threatened its great arms that braved the thun-
derstroke ;
Its glorious crown was fading, and our foes began to hoot,
" Behold the Oak is rotting and the axe is at its root !"
Aristocratic vermin did offices infest,
Not the Best men, but such men as lackeys call the Best,
Men with the very richest kind of fluid in their veins,
But men whose little heads enclosed exceedingly poor
brains.

We drew the sword for Freedom : the battle-flag unfurled
Against barbarians marching to overrun the world ;
The sword was bravely wielded, the flag was nobly borne,
But by unready Rulers were our arms of glory shorn.
Than rose a cry among us for a Government of worth,
We said, "Away with empty Rank, and down with stupid

Birth ;
Incompetent Nobility shall us no longer rule,
Born with a spoon of silver in its mouth ; born, sometimes,
fool."

These tidings heard Prince Albert at Windsor where he

l,
And walked upon the Slopes and lunched at half-past two
each day,
And with a grand piano made the grander pile to ring,
So as beseemeth him whose son hereafter shall be King.
"That cry," said he, "is just ; it is a shame and a dia.

grace
That any but a proper man should be in any place ;
An end must to this wrong be put ; there is no doubt of

that ;
Some one the movement must begin—myself shall bell the
cat."

Field-Marshal the Prince Albert then did order and de-

cree,
That in Hyde Park a Grand Review straightway should

holden be;
And thither he betook himself in sight of all the land,
His charger prancing under him ; his baton in his hand.
Before the troops assembled, in all the people's view,
On the altar of his country the good Prince that baton

threw ;
And thus he spoke, " 0 public and soldiers ! I resign
The title with the token that ought not to be mine.
" Lie there, thou idle symbol of victories not won,
Reward of warlike services which I have never done ;
And let that soldier win thee that shall have done the most
In this our war with Muscovy of all the British host."
Then all the people shouted, and said " Long live the
Prince,
What truthfulness, what rdanliness, what greatness to

evince !"
" Hooray for good Prince Albert !" was the universal roar:
They cheered him thrice, and after that they gave him
one cheer more.

Then every Lord incapable, and every booby Duke,
Accepted at their Prince's hands a lesson and rebuke ;
They cast away their offices ; their places up they threw,
And England's Oak revived again and England throve
anew.

THE SECONDARY STATES OF CONTI-

NENTAL EUROPE.

From the Journal des Debats of yesterday.)
Whilst attention is generally and almost exclusively
directed to the question of peace or war, which has so
long occupied all the chanceries, and has been discussed
with varied chances of success in the Conferences at
Vienna, the policy proper to each of the States of Europe
has been following its course ; and facts which are not
without importance have been accomplished. The
session of the Legislative Chambers was closed at
Berlin on the 7th inst. ; this was the last of the Legis-
lature, and people were already intent on the general
election to take place at an early period. The King, re-
tained by an indisposition, which happily wax of short
duration, caused himself to be replaced by M. de Man-
teuffel, president of the cabinet, who gave the custo-
mary allocution on the oocasion. Through the co-ope-
ration of the legislature many useful reforms bad been
effected in different branches of legislation ; the object of
the first of which was judicial proceedings ; the second
was the amelioration and multiplication of the ways of
communication. The Charnbere, for example, had granted
to the government the subsidies necessary for the
construction of a bridge at Cologne over the Rhine,
which would again contribute to lessen the distance be-
tween Paris and Berlin. Other laws had developed the
principle of commercial freedom. The budget of the
State had been subjected to a careful control, and
nevertheless it had not undergone any reduction ;
this was because the financial administration of Prus-
sia is recommendable by its habits of order and eco-
nomy, and is applied to 'maintain the equilibrium be-
tween the revenue and expenditure. Towards the close
of the session, the Government requested of the Cham-
bers the authorisation requisite for employing in 1855
what remained of the loan. of more than 100 millions of
franca voted in 1854. This sum had been placed at the
disposal of Government, so that it might be prepared for
the expenses which war would demand, if war became
necessary. The Government having avoided war,
has been able to reserve in the treasury the largest
portion of the sum borrowed ; but war is always possi-
ble, and this is why it is proper the ministry should
be enabled in case of need to dispose of this resource.

SALMON FISHERY IN WALES. —0 wing to the efforts
which have been so strenuously made by the various
societies to preserve and improve the different fisheries
and salmon streams in the principality, this year the
sport promises to be exceedingly good. It is now as-
serted that the breed of fish in the best rivers is increas-

ing every year by thousands. The artificial mode of pro
pagation has been introduced with marked success, and
young fish will soon be sent afloat in large numbers.
THE BRONTE FAMlLY.—Curious particulars respecting
the Bronte family, of which " Currer Bell" was the lite-
rary chief, are given in the Belfast Mercury. "They
were natives," says our authority, " of the county Down.
The father of the authoress was Mr. Patrick Prunty, of
the parish of Ahaderg, near Loughbrickland. His parents
were of humble origin, but their large family were re-
markable for physical strength and personal beauty. The
natural quickness and intelligence of Patrick Prunty at-
tracted the attention of the Rev. Mr. Tighe, rector of
Drumgooland parish, who gave him a good education in
England, and finally procured him a euracy in Wales. In
his new sphere he was not unmindful of his family claims,
for he settled 201. per annum on his mother. Prunty
was the name which the family bore in their own
neighbourhood of the county Down. The patron of
Mr. Patrick Prunty, disliking the name, requested him
to take that of Bronte, from the fanciful idea that the
Greek word Bronte would appositely signify the singular
quickness and intelligence of his intellect. After Mr.
Bronte had assumed the duties of his clerical office, he
married, and the issue of that marriage were the three
gifted women who delighted the reading world under
We titles of Currer, Acton, and Ellis Bell. Of this
triad, Currer was the bright particular star,' and her
fictitious title of Currer Bell was not less revered by her
readers than was her real name of Charlotte Bronte by
her aged relatives in the county Down, to whom she
presented very lately the sum of 1201., with conies of
her works."
Sr. PAUL'S SCElOOL.—Yesterday the annual apposi-
tion of the scholars of St. Paul's School took place, in
the presence of the Rev. Dr. Kyna,..ton, the head master,
the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Llandaff,
the Bishop of St. David's, the Bishop of Winchester,
the Chief Baron, some of the governors of the school,
and a large assemblage of the friends of the students.
The commemoration address in praise of Dean Colet,
the founder of the school, was spoken by Mr. Blyth,
the Captain, who obtained the Truro prize and medal,
and also the Milton prize. The other prizes were thus
awarded : a governor's prize and the Sleath prize to'
Mr. Miller ; a governor's prize and a second Truro
prize to Mr. Matthew. The following subjects were
selected for delivery this year, and the roles thus dis-
tributed : Shakspeare, King John, act 3, ac. 3 ; act 4,
se. 2—King John, Monkhouse ; Hubert, Lawrence ;
Pembroke, Whalley ; Salisbury, Steel ; Falconbridge,
F. Williams. Terentii Eunuchus, act 3, sc. I—Thraso,
Little ; Gnatho, Griffin. Shakspeare, Love's Labour
Lost, act 1, ac. 2 —Armado, Graham ; Page, Sweeting.
Aristophanis Equites, 1151-1262—Cleon, Millyr;
Sau-
sage Seller, Atwell ; Demos, Williams. Euripidis
Hip-
polytus, 905-1105 Hippolytus, Whalley ; Thesus,
Fliutoff. Molibre, Le Bourgeois Q entilhomme. act 1,
sec. 1, 2—M. jourdain, Matthew ; Le maitre de
musique, Antwell ; Le maitre b. dansueriGWrahhaalmley;
;PLres-
mier laquais, Sweating ; seconda
1 gas,
musicienne, Monkhouse ; Le maiiey.
tred'Tarhr
students
through Le maitre de philosophie, W
through their several partswYitohsittihoenudsauyaloafability
aaunrds
correctness which mark the App h
School, and testify to the conscientious care
alumni.sicarean and labour
of the professors in the training of their
scene from Molibre has always been a morceau choisi
here. It is admirably adapted for a paradigm of a scho-
lastic histrionism, and it lost nothing of its humour in
the bands of the young gentlemen to whom it was con-
fid yesterday, as was evident from the hilarity of
thede audience. The head-master at the conclusion ad-
dressed a few words to the students.