The Sun.
London, England, 1855-10-16 00:00:00

alone is distressingly provocative of a comparison
with the inimi!able and incomparable lyric mas-
terpieces of Thomas Campbell. Enough for Mr.
Story if he win for himself the credit due to his
minor melodies (as he has here won it from our•
selves), without thus perversely bringing into con-
trast the twang of a Jew's harp, and what might
be mistaken for the glorious notes from the Clarion
of an Archangel.

My Exile in Siberia. By Alexander Herzen.

Hurst and Blackett.

These remarkable volumes are a continuation of
the memoirs of a distinguished Russian refuaee
now in London, where, about a year ago, the first
instalment made its appearance in the Russian lan-
guage, under the title of "Prison and Exile."
Portions of this having appeared in a translated
form, and been favourably notic4d in the "Revue
des Deux Mbndes" and the " Athenceum"—a Ger-
man translation also having been published at
Hamburg—the author has been induced to resume
his pen, and make further revelations of the secrets
of that vast prison house, his country, in connec-
tion with his personal history. At any previous
period, and under ordinary circumstances, a work
of this description, from the hands of an intelligen`
native, would have been regarded with consider
able interest; but at the present time these volumes
possess unusual claims on public attention and re-
spect ; and for these reasons. We are,engaged in
war with Russia, and the writer is 'a Ruinian author
of the highest reputation who has been persecuted
for his liberal opinions since his twenty-first year,
and has erected a battery in London in the shape
of " the first Russian free press," from which he
assails the stronghold of despotism by discharging
broadsides of light among his benighted and abused
fellow-countrymen, with whom, by the way, he is
very popular. The character of the man, and the
tone of the memoirs, may be gathered from the
n Aice of him by Madame Pulszky, who, in the
preface to a translation of a Russian novel, speaks
of him as "a distinguished Russian refugee, who
endeavours to blend German philosophy, French
political theory, and English practical common
sense with his original Russian nature." A de-
scription the accuracy of which the readers of the
memoirs will never for a moment be inclined to
dispute. Having been arrested . and sent from
Moscow in 1834 as an exile to Siberia for an alleged
offence against despotic authority, of which he was
innocent, he was again exiled there in 1839, shortly.
after his return—only succeeding in obtaining a
passport abroad in 1847, when he quitted Russia,
possibly for ever, after a thirteen years' per-
secution by the Czar. During this period he
had ample experience of Russian official life
in its various forms, including the police,
all of which he caustically describes, though
as the reader feels, without exaggeration, if with
heart-wrung bitterness. What sort of life that is,
we would refer the reader to the work itself to
discover ; but it may be described, in brief, as
one in which th sycophant, the scoundrel, and the
slave only can thrive, and from which honest and
liberal-minded men reap little other harvest than
insult and persecution. This being the case, the
condition of the people may be inferred, provided
no drawback is permitted the ima%ination, for it is
hardly possible to be worse. The reader is intro-
duced to a host of characters, some of them quite
original, others familiar, and all graphically and
forcibly delineated, the author succeeding in en-
abling him to realise what Russian life is, and what
a horrible despotism we are contending against.
Ttie author's revelations of Nicholas brand the
memory of that tyrannical drill-sergeant with a vin-
dictive meanness, which some may deem incredible,
but which is quite in keeping with other phases of
his character. The present Emperor figures more
respectably, but is not credited with that force of
character required to lay the axe to the root of the
huge abuses which impede the march of civilisation
,1)