The Sun.
London, England, 1855-09-04 00:00:00

a wild canter through Europe, Africa, and Asia,
north and south, east and west, through the length
and breadth of the old-world hemisphere. Now he F
pulls up with a jerk at Egypt, now he takes a
flying leap into Westphalia. Here he pauses for a. '1.11.1P-:'41:
brief breathing time in Spain, and starts off again:
at a tangent into Italy. He jolters our memory 417-31. e.
too, not merely in regard to place, but, if possible
still more surprisingly in reference to time—burry,k(..,Vl 47:4:
ing us without any regard to chronological sequence \
to the days of Louis XIV., of Frederick 11., of
Mazarin, of Richelieu, of Swift, of Luther, of Lady *4
Temple and Lady Hamilton, introducing us helter-
skelter to arch-ambassadors, and ministers resi-
dent, and charges d'affaires, and gentlemen envoys,
to private agents, and secret agents, and deputies,
and commissioners, and nuncios, and legates, and
plenipotentiaries. He confesses his obligations can-
didly enough in his "Preface" to the works of writers
such as Miruss, and Martens, and Wheaton, and.
Cussy, and Flassan, and de Callibres, and De Wic-
quefort, and Bynkershoek—besides making the
most ostentatious reference to page and volume of
the books quoted, in the course of foot notes the
most manifold and miscellaneous. As to the pur-
pose of " The Roving Englishman," in this the
latest of his literary ventures, let us hear what he
himself has to say, almost by way of apology, cer-
tainly by way of extenuation
"In our own day, Lord Brougham has surely never
been held a foe to the laws, because be has passed so
many years of his valuable career in ably advocating
legal reforms. Dickens has never been censured as a
jail-bird or a ragamuffin for having popularly exposed
the mazy horror of a chancery suit, and drawn the im-
mortal characters of Dodson and Fogg, or Brass, of
Bevis Marks. Neither is it to be inferred that he, one
of the greatest and kindliest public teachers England has
ever known, desires to ridicule the institutions of mar-
riage and will-making, because he laughs with such ini-
mitable grace at the Commons in David Copperfield,'
or describes the true startling sadness of a poor man's
sullied hearth in Hard Times.' One may be sincerely
pious, yet repudiate the doctrines of the Mormons, the
Jumpers, and the fuddled tenets of the inspired cobbler
who improved an occasion last week on Kennington
Common. Mr. Layard may be an ardent reformer,
without going so far as that high-born Mr. Bligh, whom
the papers informed us lay on his stomach and harangued
the crowd during the recent disturbances in Hyde Park.
May I not, therefore, be allowed to point out abuses to
the full as bad as those which the strong hand of glori-
ous Brougham pulled happily down, or those which the
pleasant pen of Dickens is daily fretting so perseveringly
away 1"
Abuses, he means, of course—and they are abun,
dant enough, Heaven knows—in our blundering
old system of word-catching, hair-splitting diplo-
macy. So far as this laudable purpose of his is
concerned, we have but eulogiums for " The Rov-
ing Englishman." It is for inasmuch as he fritters
away that earnest and commendable purpose, by
allowing his style to degenerate into that of the
mere idle; discursive, slovenly; gossipping book-
maker, that our author appears to us to deserve
little else than reprehension. As rapidly as he has
gained his present popularity, so rapidly will he
lose it—unless he evince by his after writings
greater interest in preserving a reputation as
sparkling as it threatens now to be evanescent.