The Sun.
London, England, 1855-06-01 00:00:00

THE MAGAZINP)S

Blackwood.—Blackwood commences pith a cri-
ticism on the works of the Rev. Mr. Kingsley,
whom it describes as "one of the most remarkable
end voluminous writers of the present day." it
ippears that in the space of Aix years ho has pro-
luced twelve volumes of prose and verse, sermons,
thilosophy, and fiction. The present criticism no-
ices only the latter, which certainly display a re-
markable diversity in the selection of their subjects
tad eras. They range from the Chartists of .late
years to the inhabitants of Alexandria in the fifth
century, from a picture of modern English society
to a voyage on the Spanish main in the days of
Queen Elizabeth. The critio, while condemn-
ing the opinions set forth, and the exaggeration
lisplayed; admits the talents and originality
..-..viuced in these romances. A paper on " Aland
—the Baltic in 1854," gives a description of the
ottle group of islands, which are seemingly in so
secluded and unpretending a position that they
would appear to be removed from all chance of the
vicissitudes of war. The natural character of the
country compelled a simple and primitive life. Not
o ily were the group of islands intersected and dis-
B •cted by water, but each isle was again subdivided
br lochs and morasses, so that almost every farm
wlsin a solitude of its own. The natural produc-
aons of the country supplied the limited wants of
the inhabitants, and with little demand for foreign
pods and few materials calculated for export, they
would seem to be totally removed from the chances
and changes of larger and more ambitious states.
But not so. " Once a kingdom, says tradition,
then a dependency of Sweden ; then over-
run by Russian soldiers ; converted into a
Inilitary station, and placed under the rule of a
nation alien in sympathies, laws, and blood, this
!ittle island aggregation becomes at last the scene
,f a war in which neither its interest nor its pa-
triotism is involved." After some remarks on the
Baltic expedition of last year, a description is given
of the capture of Bomarsund, to which the writer
thinks the English public were not inclined to pay
sufficient honour.—"Zaidee" is continued with in-
terest. The presentlnstalment introduces the for-
lorn and desolate little heroine to a new country
Ind new friends. A letter to Eusebius, bears
the title of " Once upon a Time," the name of Mr.
Charles Knight's new work, on which it is founded.
ft gives a most fascinating description of these two
volumes of anecdote and history, romance and
reality.—Part 111. of "Notes on Canada and the
North West States of AnLrica" gives some amusing
traits of transatlantic character. A canoe was
overturned in steering down the rapids of the Sault
St. Marie, and as the accident took place opposite
the town, many of the inhabitants were attracted
to the bank. The two adventurers in the canoe
were given,up for lost, when suddenly a person
rushed towards the group, frantically exclaiming—
" Save the man with the red hair." His earnest
appeals induced the bystanders to exert themselves,
and the individual alluded to was at length
safely landed. "He owes me eighteen dollars,"
said his rescuer, looking approvingly on his assist-
ants.' An article on the " Palmerston Administra-
tion" is written with great fairness and modera-
tion, and though it finds much to censure in Mi-
nisterial proceedings (as what impartial critic
can avoid doing ?), it is careful to " draw a dis-
tinction between evils which are the inevitable
result of bad arrangements too long tolerated
by the country and those which arise in con-
sequence of direct Ministerial error." In re-
marking upon the decline and fall of the Pre-
mier's popularity, it is observed with appropriate
alliteration, that " Palmerston, the favourite of
February, is Palmerston the mistrusted of May.",
In retracing his political antecedents, the writer
censures strongly his conduct during they Polish
insurrection. In conclusion, the writer expresses
himself convinced that the safety and honour of
the country are in jeopardy in the hands of the
present Ministry, " whether their neglect arises
from deliberate disinclination to push on the war,
or from absolute administrative incapacity." A
brief instalment of the " Story of the Campaign "
describes the progress of the siege, and concludes
the number.

Colburn's United Seriiice.—The narrative of the
siege of Sebastopol is :brought down to the latest
period. General Canrobert is exclusively blamed
for the return of the first expedition to Kertch, and
an early denouement of the siege is anticipated.
" Omer Pasha and his Army" are subsequently re-
viewed. The former is described as "a man of
wonderful phlegm and perseverance—always ready
in time of danger, and of very respectable abilitieS
as a commander." "Army Reform," a sore sub-
ject, we are afraid, is next treated, and as aristo-
cratically as may be. What is wanted, in the
writer's opinion, is not an opening for merit, but a
further opening of the public purse I Among the
remaining papers of a purely professional charac-
ter may be noticed the first of a series of lectures
on " Military Science," addressed to caudidktes
for commissions, an instalment of au article on
" Military Education," and an interesting account
of "Military Organisation in Sardinia." Besides
the above a graphic description of " Liverpool
Twenty-five years ago," and the " Editor's Port-
folio," fairly challenge attention.

THE QUARTERLIES.

The Edinburgh Review. No. CCVI.

- -
, A rather slovenly and scrambling article on
"Slavery in the United States," leads off the
newly-published number of the Edinburgh. It is
indirectly, or incidentally, a criticism (rather after
date) upon the renowned " Uncle Tom's Cabin" of
Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. As such it possesses
a peculiar interest, for, inasmuch, as it is rendered
the vehicle of some curious and, to us, novel frag-
ments of information. The reviewer sets out with
the declaration that " the sale of Uncle Toni's
Cabin' is the most marvellous literary phenomenon
that the world has witnessed." As it unques-
tionably is. He adds, morever, the following
particulars in regard to that sale—namely, that
(although the story was not completed until
the March of 1852, having been written
and printed from week to week as a sort
of feuilleton in a Washington newspaper called
the National Era), by the end of November, 1852,
150,000 copies had been sold in America—that, the
first London Edition being published in May,
1852, it came to pass that in the September of the
same year " the London publishers furnished one
house 10,000 copies per day for about four weeks,"
1,000 persons being employed in the labour of their
preparation ! Before 1852 had clOsed, more than
1,000,000 copies of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" had
been sold in England ! " probably," says the Edin-
burgh, " ten times as many as have been sold of
any other work except the Bible., and Prayer
Book." In France it appears that one publisher
alone has issued no less than five different
editions of the work in different forms. While,
wonderful to tell, before the end of that memorable
year of 1852—the Year of " Uncle Tom's Cabin,"
as it might be called, just as we call 1851 the year
of the Great Exhibition, or that of 1848 the year
of the February Revolution—Mrs. Stowe's book
had been translated into Italian, Spanish, Danish,
Swedish, Dutch, Flemish, German, Polish, and
Magyar ; there being, moreover, among these as
many as two different Dutch and twelve different
German translations! A marvellous success indeed.
One that may well be designated the most ex,ra-
ordinary of literary phenomena. After a dreary
account of certain adventurous "Travels in
Siberia," the Jdinburgh gives us an amusing
paper on
,"English Surnames," with a kind
of omnium gatherum of illustrative anecdot(
and running commentaries. It is comical
enough to find it gravely recorded in one part
of this singular contribution, that "Nearly 900
Kings are born annually in England and Wales." .
The subjoined table of kindred statistics will be
read doubtless with some degree of interest by the
numerous families of the names specified in the
United Kingdom :

Births. Deaths. Marriages.
Smith 5,588 4,044 3,005
Taylor
Wright
Walker
Turner
Cooper
Clark
Baker
Cook
Parker
From which it will be seen that they are
all upon the increase rather alarmingly.
Among the grotesque anecdotes about Stir
names given by the reviewer, no mention is made
by him of that ludicrous one which relates how
Adam, after inventing name upon name for the
millions upon millions of his posterity, grew tired
of his interminable task, and settled the difficulty
by saying—" Let all the rest be called Smith." Au
important essay upon the " Correction of Juvenile
Offenders," and a review of " Hue's Travels in
China," are followed by a biographical article re-
lating to the famous " Pascal Paoli,". the Corsican
Patriot and Liberator. It is amusing, by the
way, to find the 'reviewer, at page 445 of the Edinburgh, speaking
of the brave Sam-
piero as " the greatest military character whom
the island has produced"—as if there never had
been any such personage in the world's history as
the Emperor Napoleon the Great ! In a note, at
page 456, it is mentioned incidentally that the
Abbe Vignale, the priest who received the dying; confession of Napoleon at St. Helena, " was mur-
dered by persons to whom he had lent money—the
produce of an Imperial legacy—on usury."
Mention is also made a little further on
in the body of the same article of Rous-
seau's wonderfully prophetic language in the
" Contrat Social,' when speaking of Corsica, he
says—" J'ai le pressentiment que Bette petite ile
etonnera un jour l'Europe." An anticipation of
the coming of Napoleon as wondrous as the memo-
rable prediction of his advent occurring in Mr.
Burke's celebrated " Essay on the French Revolu-
tion." Among the younger contemporaries and
countrymen of Paoli, due reference is made
to that implacable foe of Napoleon, Carlo
Andrea, Count Pozzo di Borgo. It is in-
teresting to note the increase from 8001. to 1,0001.,
and ultimately to 2,0001. per annum of the
pension given to Pascal Paoli by the British Go-
vernment. All the more remarkable incidents in
his eventful career are noted by the Edinburgh
from his birth in 1725 to his death on the sth of
February, 1807. His arrival in Paris in April,
1790, is particularly mentioned, together with the
circumstance, there and then, of his witnessing
reviews of the National Guard by the side of
Lafayette, and of his attending, by that of Robes-
pierre, the sittings of the " Amis de la Constitu-
tion." France, it will be remembered, had
previously—namely, in the November of 1789
—declared Corsica an integral part of her
dominions. An eulogistic notice of " The
Chemistry of Common Life," and a rather dull
paper on the " Autocracy of the Czar," are fol-
lowed by a brief article (little more than a mere
paragraph) relating to " Lord Brougham on Cri-
minal Reform," and a somewhat laboured and
tedious disquisition upon another reform no less
necessary, namely, that of our " Army ;" and with
the last-mentioned contribution the current num.
ber of the Edinburgh terminates.

The Quarterly Review. No. CXCII.
As usual the old Tory Quarterly is much more
animated and entertaining than its Whig contem-
porary. We have long noticed this superiority of
interest and liveliness—and cannot but marvel that
its general recognition has in no way incited the'
Edinburyh, to forsake its customary dead level (of
late) of dullness and
mediocrity. According to
what has been, recently, the no less fortunate

- ---....
In this division it becomes very melancholy. Co- dpmem...l ."""""'Corn-peculiarity of the Qtrarter/j, its principle charm
plication and mystery were embodied in its details continues to be riwa::l:-,!-.e'l chi-..fly through
before, but now the enthralment of superstition -w.at may be termed is-, biograpdcal &pal I:-
and the craftines, of cunning are employed as meat. Altogether, out. of the eight articles
weapons against a young and inexperienced girl. composing the present number there are as many-
No wonder she sinks under so many trials, being as throe of this particular character. There is a
already weak and fragile. Mr. de Costello was biographical paper on " The Emperor Nicholas ;"
oinkand St. John hasty and unreasoning. All ' this one, however, too curt, and altogether insuffi-
ned to prod.ucJ an effect they little thought , cient, it must be confessed. There is a biographi-
of. -In the midst of worldly vanity, religious cal paper on " Sir Richard Steele," a memorial of
bigotry, and human - passion, the flapping of the that genial and exquisite essayist, defending him
wings of death was heard, aud, as a thief in the from the influence o - Mr. Macaulay's sneers, preju-
night, stole the tidings to their hearts that Adeline, dice, and depreciation. And, besides these, there
the young and beautiful, the centre of hope, fear, is also- in the number of the Qum terly now be-
rage, intolerance, and per=uasion, was to vanish as fore us 'a very charming and graceful biographical
a dream from their frivolous stage to the solemn paper on." Madame de Maintenon"—that astonish-
ing woman, woos° life was such a romance—born
p:Alace !--the wife, first
precirits 'of that city where- marriage and giving in
marriage is over. " A Visit to the Home of :in a prison and living in a;
Goethe "is very interesting The details of the iof the. crippled trfeou, and afterwards of the
private life ern.enius affor.d a pleasing Reading her story anew, we
Among other objects of interest was observed a let.; ' tin(' no extravagance in that phrase of Madame de
study. ; Grand Llioitargicc !
ter of Sir Walter Scott, in which he commence's— , S6vi„ome where she says, " the position of Madame
". Venerable aud much respected Sir." It is said ide Maint?nou is perfectly unique." And scarcely
that "this is a lesson to the vanity
that so often obtrudes itself upon the
and impertinence I any in the judgment pronounced upon her character
privacy of an I by Madame deDe,tra.nd:—"l rise up from it (i.e., the
eminent man." "My First Evening on Circuit 1 perusal of Madame de Maintenon's Correspondence)
is a lively sketch of the way in which some junior with a high opinion of her mind, with little esteem
members of the Irish bar recreated themselves, for her heart, and no taste for her person ; but I
after " grave hours that bring restraint to sweeten persist in believing that she was not false." More,
liberty." " Credulity and Superstition in the however, will be kaoWn upon this most important
Eighteenth Century " contains some remarkable ,as to the erect cerity of
proofs of the extent to which human ignorance and
M quadameestion, namely de Maintenon, so soon f
as M. Lavallee
absurdity may be carried. Conspicuous among shall have completed the enterprise upon which he
folly appears the fact that the fields around London
were crowded with people, who thought thus to has recently adventured—the publication of a corn-
plet:.: edition of her works, in ten little volumes,
shape of an earthquake, predicted for that time. their of which volumes h
appearance. Few of
already mad©
the readers of
Sir Horace Walpole mentions in a letter that the
Q will fail to fo wiinteest the
cc several women have made themselves earthquake epitomiseduarterl
rey cord here givenllow of the careerr of this
gowns ; that is, warm gowns to sit out of doors all extraordinary wornan—the wife and then the
night." " The Diary of a First Winter in Rome" is
,widow of Scarron, the wife and then the widow of
mijoaiutilsen7iffeNr, otherwise
belle I d•
continued, and gives many agreeable accounts
of the past grandeur and present beauties of the bignA., otherwisne eaes
she
a dweams odi se es li loe Ft r adn dui
sr
ien
gd '
her t i-
na e
Eternal City,
te, tenne, in consequence of her
temporary so' - -- • -

gourn, between 1638 and 1645, in the
_
island of Martinique. Born on the 27th November,
(1635, in the Conciergerie of the Chateau-Trompette
where her father, Constant d'Aubign6 was confined
at the period mentioned on a charge of treasonable
correspondence with the English Government),
Francoise was placed by her mother under the
care, first of all, of a Calvinist aunt, Madame de
Villette, and subsequently under that of " another
near relation and a zealous Catholic," Madame
de
Neuillant. Here it was under the latter guardian-
ship that the future spouse of the King of Franc©
used to go forth of a morning to keep watch over a
brood of turkeys with a basket on her arm, a long
stick in her hand, a coarse straw hat on her head,
and a mask on her face to preserve her complexion!
Afterwards she was 'educated firstly by the nuns of the
Convent of Ursulins at Niort, and secondly by those
of the Ursulin Convent in the Rue Saint Jacques
at Paris. Between the age of fourteen and fifteen,
Mdlle. d'Aubigne was removed from the latter
establishment, taking up -her abode with her
mother at Paris, in lodgings immediately opposite
the house of the Malade de la Reine, as he was
called, the author of the Virgile Travesti and of the
Roman Comique, the " divine" and " inimitable"
cri pple—Searron —the Pi lace of Burlesque. Shortly
after the death of Madame d'Aubigne, Scarron
married the destitute orphan—the girl being then
sixteen and the " buffoon-rhymster ' (as he is here
called by the reviewer) forty-two. It was in the
June of 1652 that Mademoiselle d'Aubigne became
Madame Searron. It is not the disparity of age,
however, that renders this union horrible—it is not
the difference of years between the husband and
wife. But, 0 ! the terrible appearance of the
bridegroom. Here is the description of him—the
description of—

SCARRON.
" Whatever was the crigin of his maladies, his form,
to use his own words, had become bent like a Z.' My
legs,' he adds, first made an obtuse angle with my
thighs, then a right and at last an acute angle; my thighs
made another with my body. My bead is bent upon
my chest ; my arils are' contracted as well as my legs,
and my fingers as well as my arms. I am, in truth, a
pretty complete abridgment of human misery.' His
head way too big for his diminutive stature, one eye was
set deeper than the other, and his teeth were the colour
of wood. At the time of his marriage he could only
move with freedoM his hand, tongue, and eyes. His
days were passed in a chair with a hood, and so com-
pletely was he the abridynxitt of man be describes him -
self
that his wife had to kneel to look in his face. He
could not be moved without screaming from pain, nor
sleep without taking opium."
As the Quarterly observes, there is something
wonderfully touching after the perusal of this
account of his deplorable condition, to read the
epitaph written upon himself by the unfortunate
cripple :

" Tread softly—make no noise
To break his slumbers deep;
Poor Scarron here enjoys
His first calm night of sleep."
In the October of 1660, eight years after his mar-
riage, Scarron expired. Subsequently his widow
obtained a pension of 2,000 livres—a pension
dropped for a while in 1666, but apeedily renewed
by King Louis XIV., who, later on, namely in
1674, presented Madame Scarron with the
estate of Maintenon, worth 15,000 livres a-year,
a gift which ei'er after changed her name to that
more famous one by which she is known in history,
—the name, that is, of Madame de Maintenon. This
princely gift being in reward for the care taken by
the future wife of Louis XIV. of his Majesty's
illegitimate children, the offspring of Madame de
Moutespan, the successful rival of the lovely and
iuckless Duchesse de la Valliere. The care of the
royal bastards devolved upon Scarron's widow in
1670, and either in 1684 or 1635, the Queen hav-
ing expired, July 30, 1633, in the arms of Madame
de Maintenon, the latter was married to the Grand
AI °reargue Louis the Magnificent ! At that period
Louis XIV. was forty-five, and Madame de Main-
tenon forty-eight—so that the disparity of years
was this time reversed for the mature Francoise !
It was not until the 15th of August, 1719—nearly
four years after the death of the great Louis, and
exactly fifty years, to . the very day, before the
birth of the great Napoleon—that Madame de
Maintenon calmly breathed her last at Saint Cyr,
at the ripe age of eighty-four. In addition to the
articles already particularised, there are in the pre-
sent number of the Quarterly two .elaborate contri•
butions—the one relating to the "Crystal Palace,"
the other to " Food and its Adulterations ;" be-
sides which may be mentioned an historical paper
on " Venetian Despatches," and a sylvan one en-
titled "The Forester," and, to crown all, a politi-
oil disquisition upon " Public Affairs," in reference
to the recent situation of things generally—a Tory
manifesto, reflecting peculiar honour upon the
Quarterly by reason of the calm, and just, and per-
fectly dispassionate tone in which every syllable of
it has been dictated.
1

Bradshaues Illustrated guide through
W. J. Adams.

Paris.

A positively invaluable hand-book for English
visitors to Paris, in which all that can be seen there
and in its environs, and how to see it with the
least fatigue, time, and expense, is clearly pointed
out. A splendid map of the French empire, and a
beautiful plan of Paris and its environs, together
with a number of illustrations (on steel), accompany
the work.