The Sun.
London, England, 1855-09-10 00:00:00

Then gazing up through.the dim pillars high,
The foliaged marble forest where ye lie,
Hush'—ye will say—• it is eternity.
This is the glimmering verge of Heaven, and these
The columns cf the Heavenly Palaces.'—
And in the sweeping of the wind your ear
The passage of the angels' wings will hear,
And ou the lichen•crusted leads above
The rustle of the eternal rain of Love."
Enough has been given, we conceive, to justify nct
only what we have-said in praise of " The Church
of Brou," but also whatever has been remarked ly
us in commendation of Mr. Arnold as a young
Poet gifted with rare powers alike of judgment, of
taste, and of imagination. His charming lay of
" The Necka.n," brief though it is, might be taken
as of itself sufficiently corroborative. As might
also with nearly equal truth be observed in re-
ference to his larger but more unequal poem of
" Tristram and Iseult," the subject of which ap-
pears to have been suggested by a passage in Dun-
lop's " History- of Fiction," but the music and the
sweetness of which are all Mr. Arnold's own—a
music not readily to ho conjectured by those who
do not happen to be familiar with the lovely
recurrence of the interjectional refrain, after the
broken apostrophe—
" Iseult ! . . . .

Ah, sweet angels, let him dream !
Keep his eyelids ! let him seem
Not this fever wasted wight
Thin and palid before his time,
But the brilliant youthful knight."
And so on in like manner throughout. As to "The
Strayed Reveller," a poem reprinted from an earlier
and anonymous volume, that, although revised and
consieferably improved here and there, still con-
tinues to our thinking as it was once jestingly
called by some wag of a carping critic, little better
after all than "A stray driveller." Then, too,
" Mycerinus," and " Philomela," " Cadmus and
Harrnonia," seem to us so fastidiously vague and
classically correct as to be altogether without the
pale of our sympathies and beyond the reach of our
aamiration. Not so " The Forsaken Merman," a
fancy of singular pathos, and one coloured through-
out with a bewitching tenderness. " Consolation,"
and " The Future," and fragments of that kind are
on the contrary to us little else than mere rythmi-
cal conceits, one of them (the first of the fugitive
pieces headed " Switzerland,") having a refrain of
unpleasant dampness—
" Ere the parting kiss be dry,
Quick, thy tablets, memory !"

Incomprehensible, utterlyincomprehensible to us
has been the issue front the press by Mr. Arnold,
of the thin little volume constituting the second
series of his Poems—a volume as unworthy of hia
powers as well could be. Everything in the book
from first to last, " Balder Dead," au episode in
three parts, i. "Sending," ii. "Journey," and iii.
"Funeral," with this " The Sick King in Bokhara,"
and " The Harp Player of Etna" in four divisions,
i. "The Last Glen ," " Typho," "Marsyas," and
iv. " Apollo," besides a variety of others, broadly
entitled "Revolutions," and " Excuse," and "De-
sire," and " Indifference," and " Resignation," and
" Self-deception," and " Despondency," (subjects
rather too broad, and ample, and indefinite to come
with in the scope of interest or the grasp of sympathy)
—everything from first to last, in this volume of
1855, is calculated, we fear, rather to retard than
to advance the poetic reputation of which we have
here in our comments upon the volume of 1854
notified the brilliant and auspicious commence-
ment•

The Art Journal for September maintains its
well-earned reputation as au enlightened exponent
and patron of art. The engravings, as usual, are
executed in first-rate style, and the subjects have
been selected with much discrimination. The
larger illustrations comprise " The Vintage in the
South of France," engraved by J. Outrim and L.
Stocks, A.R.A., from a choice painting by T.
Uwins, R.A., in the Vernon Gallery ; " The
Dogana," Venice, engraved by J. B. Allen, from
the well-known chef d'ceuvre of Canaletti ; " The
Lamp of the Ganges," engraved by W. Roffe from
the statue by H. Timbrell ; and " Silence," en-
graved by G. Levy from the picture by Caracci.
The latter belongs to the Royal collection at
Windsor ; while " The Lamp of the Ganges," a
pleasing and elegant work of art, executed by com-
mission for her Majesty, now adorns the Royal
drawing-room at Osborne. Among the minor en-
gravings will be found three spirited illustrations
of a " British Artist," William Hilton, R.A., and.
a number of choice designs in various departments
of art. The Paris Exhibition, as might be expected,
is noticed at some length, and it is remarked that
by the arrangement there adopted of the pictures
and sculpture both are gainers, the one in richness,
and the other in purity.

Barry Coverdalc's Courtship. By T. E. Smedley.

Virtue, hall and Virtue.
The' September part of this highly popular maga-
zine story, which, with its animated and varied pic-
tures of life, is being issued in a separate form,
with illustiatious by Phiz.

DR. EASTON'S AOPOUNT OF THE HANGO

AFFAIR.

The Scotsman says the friends of Mr. Easton, the sur-
geon captured at Hango, and, in the first instance, sup.
poeed to have been killed by the Russians, have received
from him an account of the, occurrence at Hango, which
we give below. Dr Easton, in his private letter, dated
" Wladimir, August 5," says :

" I left St. Petersburg on the afternoon of Saturday
the 14th July, I think, escorted by a gendarme officer
and two of Lis men, and travelled along the celebrated
but most uninteresting road from St. Petersburg to
111, scow, reaching the latter place on Tuesday afternoon,
and leaving it at eleven o'clock p.m. We reached
Wladimir about noon next day, after a fatiguing journey
of four days.

" Here am I planted in the midst of Russia. Tho
governor is very kind, and his lady speaks English most
admirably, and uses it to promote my comfort and hap-
piness by every means possible. In truth, lam over-
whelmingly indebted to Lady Annenkoff for her unceas-
ing benefits, taking from exile most of its sting. I have
good quarters and kindness from all I meet. What can
I desire more, except liberty ?
" Wladivair is a very beautiful town, situated on a
small river called the liliasme, which waters the plain
above which the town stands. It is choke full of pic-
turesque churches, very old and very noisy when their
bells are clinking, which is pretty frequently.
" I send you an account of what came under my
knowledge at Hango. I see from the St. Petersburg
Journal very erroneous accounts have been published.
"June 4 or 5 (I inn not quite sure of the date.)—The
Cosoack anchored off Hango for the purpose of setting
at liberty several Finnish merchant captains taken pri-
soners in the Gulf of Finland.
" On this service a cutter with eleven men, under the
command of Lieutenant Geneste, accompanied by Mr.
Sullivan, was ordered to proceed on shore, hoisting a
flag of truce (white flag.)
" I, hearing there was a boat to bo sent to the shore
to land the prisoners, thought I might as well take ad-
vantage of the choice of a walk, however short.
" Three stewards were sent into the boat to purchase,
if allowed, milk, eggs, &c.
"Being a medical man, I of course paid no attention
to any of the arrangements connected with the boat, so
that I did not know there was any arms in her ; nor
did I think it necessary to pay any attention as to flags.
except that I sometimes called out to let the flag of
truce be well seen.
" The boat, bearing the white flag in her bows lashed
to a boarding-pike, was pulled under the telegraph
station, the Finnish captain, Lundstrom, I think,
directing where to land. Inside the point of land on
which the telegraph is placed we found a small harbour
with a wooden pier, which we went alongside of. "
Lieutenant Geneste then gave orders to the sailors
not to leave the boat, but to put on the pier the luggage
belonging to the prisoners.
" Geneste, Sullivan,
the prisoners, landed on the pier, on
ovi aosf
one of the stewards
taking the white flag with him.
from
asabwou tfaallll sideslO
myself,
few
sttebtpehsutuwhgrhheeetn stewards, and
" We had only taken a
I saw for the first time sol-
diers,a fire was opened on us.
and at a hurried
be stewards. I immediately
glance
I The first I
themEurid
slit ha
od
ins, u
nr reoxut nod:e od 0
fus
f.
jumped into the water to gettothe boat, but saw she
had drifted a little from the landing-place, with several
of the sailors seemingly dead in her.
~ seeing no other means of escape, I got under the
pier, thinking, if not discovered, I might manage to get
off to the ship at night. I found that one of the
stewards, wounded, and one of the sailors, unwounded,
also one of the Finnish captains, had likewise taken
shelter under the pier. The affair seemed to be over in
an instant, there being no resistance on our part—i n
fact no time for it.
" After a short time, all being quiet, the Finnish cap-
tain left the pier, and shortly after returned with men
from the village, when of course we became prisoners.
" We were placed in waggons and taken to Ekeniie,
where to
my great delight I found Geneste and Sulli-
van, with three of our men unwounded, and three others
wounded.
__ _

" While under the pier I of course did not know the
fate of the others, but, from the firing, thought all ex.
cept the two with me had fallen. We were very kindly
treated when prisoners, and everything was done for
the wounded that could possibly be done.
"ROBERT T. EASTON, Surgeon, R.N."

CHINESE BARBERS.--The barbers in towns of China
go about ringing bells to get customers. They carry with
them a stool, a basin, a towel, and a pot containing fire.
When any person calls them, they run to him, and
planting their stool in a convenient place in the street,
shave, the head, clean the ears, dress the eyebrows, and
brush the shoulders—all for the value of little mere than
a taif.penny. They then ring the bell again, and start
in pursuit of another customer. Wha4 would our Sag-
lish barb= Fay to this custom - -