The Sun.
London, England, 1855-09-03 00:00:00

By Dudley Costello.

Bradbury and Evans.

If wo are expected to admire Dudley Costello as
one of the most brilliant wits of our generation,
upon the strength of these " Stories from a Screen"
—as some one among our contemporaries would
appear to have intimated through the publisher's
advertisement—then may it also be anticipated
that we should award the loftiest position as an
English essayist, upon the score of a few quaint
pages to the late Laman Blanchard. Neither of
these absurd positions are we prepared to enforce.
We can no more prevail upon ourselves for one
moment to regard Laman Blanchard as one of the
most eminent of our essayists, than we can claim for
Dudley Costello the meed of praise due to one of
the'most sparkling wits among the living crowd of
distinguished contributors to light literature. The
mere supposition in either case would be altogether
preposterous. Fancy, breathing the name of Lamaze
Blanchard as a master-essayist, in the hearing of
those familiar with the facile grace and exhilarat-
ing vivacity of Steele, with the exquisite refine-
ment evidenced by the sportive fancy and be-
witching humour of Addison, with the sen-
tentious and dignified morality inculcated by
the great didactic rhetorician, or with the
capricious drolleries and freaks of merriment
by which Elia won his way to glory through the
periodical outpourings of wit and wisdom, known
as the London Magazine ! Fancy this—and then,
indeed, you may perchance contrive to imagine the
possibility of our estimating Dudley Costello as one
elevated so loftily among the group of contempo-
rary humorists that his name might be classed in
the same category with those of our shrewd Jer-
rold, our protean Lytton, our incomparable
Dickens' our sometimes genial and always delight-
ful Thackeray. How utterly frivolous it were to
entertain the hope that any such position could
ever be seriously aspired to by the writer of the
" Stories from a Screen," any rational reader may
recognise easily enough by turning over the pages
of the volume before us, if he have the patience,
and examining, however cursorily, the twaddle, put
forth in it—twaddle, that some appear actually to
have mistaken for sentiment, mistaking also its
vulgarity for humour, and its folly for anima-
tion. In testimony of which we need merely
direct particular attention to the nonsen-
sical account of the journey made by Mr.
Alfred Washball, and his friend M. Alexis Bon-
temps, " To Brighton and back for Three and Six-
pence." Or, soaring a little higher in the social
scale, we may illustrate the justice of our remarks
by luring the notice of the reader more especially
to the record of an episode in the domestic life of a
" Queen's Counsel and his Pretty Wide," in the per-
sons of Mr. Peter Quince and his spouse Emily née
Snowdrop—one of the silliest little magazine tales
we can at this present writing call to our recollec-
tion. Yet it is a book that contains " stuff," such
as these two vapid articles just now particularised,
a book relating such " sooterkins of wit" as might
be gathered from " A Love Shift," or " A Paris
Wed ling," or " A Portsmouth Picnic," from the
" Fate or Johst of Ru(lenz," or the " Piscatorial
Adventures of Jean Gribou," from the " Corde-
lier of Sisteron," or the " Haunted House in York-
shire." It is a book composed of materials so crude,
so empty, so utterly valueless, that we aro told by
advertised puffs to accept as ebullitions of the fancy
of one of the most distinguished writers of our
generation. As well mistake the snapping of a
lucifer match for the " crack of doom," as affect to
recognise the mere semblance of genius through the
witless gabble of these " Stories of a Screen."
Lively they may be, sometimes, but then only with
the liveliness of unconscionable garrulity, the liveli-
ness of a prig mentally banished by every rational
hearer to the Coventry of the land of Boredom.

The Martins of Cro' Martin. No. X. By Charles

Lever.

With the departure of the Martins the interest of
this promising story deepens. Determined to
make the people read a severe lesson for their in-
gratitude, the bitterly indignant Lady
Dorothea
has left behind her instructions for the stoppage of
all the works, the distraint of the town lands of
Carrigalone, Killybegue, and Ryle-a-noe' the cut-
ting of tho demesne, the shooting over the seven
mountains, and the fishing on the coast—the with-
drawal of All support from the schools, the hos-
pital, and the dispensary, and for the carrying out
of other measures of a like -vindictive nature. The
discovery of these instructions proves a heavy
blow to the energetic and benevolent Mary Martin
who, however, speedily rises superior to despon-
dency, and casts about for means to avert or miti-
gate the impending misery. Scanlan, the attorney,
is sent for, and stimulated by the hope of winning
Mary's consent to be his wife, whereby he would
secure the management of the estates, the wily
designs, and. how13
pettifogger is promptly in attendance and at once
rmt hoelire Byte
undertakes to raise 1,0001. on a deed of settlement
respect,anDdorwothtoha
theteaf'us
available on her uncle's death, and also to do hie
best
de-
signed ee
li succeedsa tso recourse
hw a thwart
it
i with
Ladyto, what arts
or taken by the high-spirited h •
erom
must leave the reader to discover,e, we
our-
selves with adding that the se contenting
ene is
laid in Paris, where Captain
Martin,
spend-
thrift heir of Cro' Martin, • the
with a Mr. Herman Merl, 1B discovered in company
somewhat elaborately i a Jew gambler, who is
victimiser and ntroduced. To this pair,
Wil-
loughby, and the victim, enters Lord Claude
number closes.

Lord Wharneliffe we are happy
to say, is notso un•
well
as represented. The noble lord does not, it is true,
enjoy the best of health, but he is only labouring under
slight indisposition.
The Earl of Westmorland, the ambassador at Vienna,
from the Court of St. James's, visited Burghley House
on Saturday last. The noble earl has since left his seat,
Apethorpe Home, near Wandsford, for a tour of visits
in the north of England.
CRYSTAL PALACF.—Five Shilling Day—Sept. 1.-4 d
missions on payment, 353 ; ditto by season tickets
1,674 ; total, 2,027. Corresponding day last year, 1,748,
Fort Victoria, at Sconce Point, in the Isle of Wight,
which has been erected to guard the entrance of the
Solent Sea, is ready now to receive its artillery.
On Wednesday last a young man named Charles
Tutton, who stands charged with attempting to poison
his father with arsenic, absconded from Bath Easton to
avoid arrest for that offence.
Owing to the unusually large number of insane sol-
diers who have returned from India this year the ac-
commodation provided at Fort Pitt Hospital for this
class of patients has proved inadequate, and directions
have been given for the construction of a separate build-
ing, within the ramparts, capable of accommodating
locig ZO
insane soldiers. a