The Sun.
London, England, 1855-06-18 00:00:00

LITER AT UR F.

The Ilroder}l Orlando. A Poem. By the Rev.
George Croly. Second edition. Henry Col-
burn.

Fancy a Merry-Andrew in a masquerade—grin-
ning, squeaking, lolling a preposterous tongue out
through an orifice in his mask, leering through two
smaller ones a little higher up, with eyes the pre-
vailing expression of which appears to be an in-
genious compound of a squint and a goggle—fancy
all this, and thgn imagine in the very crisis or
climax of the tomfoolery, in the midst of the
grinning, leering, squinting, squeaking, and extra-
vagance—the disguise being dropped off, and the
wearer of the motley revealing to the as-
tonished gaze of the beholders the person of a
sedate and learned Reverendissimo. Suppose the
incident we have here described, and you have
conjured up a scene precisely analogous with the
one just performed in Mr.Colburn's establishment.
In the revelation, we mean, of the authorship of
" The Modern Orlando." That silly and outrageous
example of rh3 tried buffoonery proving to have
emanated from the hand and brain not of a Bayes
or Of a Jack-pudding, but from the hand and
brain of the Rev. George Croly, LL.D. Wonder-
ful it is to remember, moreover, that the learned
doctor seems rather proud of his achievement. The
expression
altogether
Pre-
face,vsiosangleewahsasteesnmutghraonudghsmhiisrking:
as he confesses to being the Delia of the equivoque,
of
his
as Malaprop-like he "owns the soft impeachment."
The author's face still piebald with the chalk
and carmine, he, as the reverend curator of the
souls of Walbrook, appears to recognise no-
thing incongruous between his latest doings
and his acknowledged profession
• • • When " The Modern Orlando" first
issued from the press anonymously we repre-
ance:hiaring in ever
hended it in these columns as a literary perform-
y cantotion of the
andre-examina
work the
only vi-
dena-O. of an intolerable,
and none the less intoler-
able because a wholly vapid and frivolous,
affectation. A
convinces, i,, , .us the nore, if possible, of the sound-
ness of— our original estimate of its absur-
dities.i .I).e. Croly seems throughout to have mis-
stanzae
mis-
taken twaddle for vivacity, and italics for wit.
His figures of rhetoric are initials and asterisks.
His design may be most aptly
expressed as " con-
ccoonrrfeocutnlydedde.
"s'ignHaties endatsi_rea" "poem"
con-
fusion
onbe worsem ost
gallimaufry. No wonder our clerical jester, as
author of the "Modern Orlando," finds it in his
heart to lament over the loss of Beau Brummell, as
over that of a congenial spirit, exclaiming—
" Our pantomime has lost its Pantaloon."
He himself, as the clown of another pantomime,
pays his tribute in a note to the shade of that Prince
of Folly and Paragon of Affectation as a " genius,"
a man who " does more, and is more, than the mil-
lion." It is really something wonderful to us how
a scholar like the Rev. George Croly, and as we
had thought him to be hitherto a man of taste,
and one, if not fastidious in his literary predilec-
tions, at least skilled in the more subtle and refined
arts of literature, could possibly, in his sober senses,
have vamped up "a thing of shreds and patches,"
such as this would-be satire, upon the present gene-
ration. Time proves that lie would not only scrawl
these seven cantos of rhythmic "Nonsense from
the land of Nod," correcting the proof-sheets of it
and giving it with an air of complacent effrontery
to the world of readers and reviewers, but that
long afterwards he could have the astonishing hardi-
hood to revise a second edition of the whole, and
" write himself down"—never mind what—by de-
liberately placing his name, as that of the author,
upon the title-page. Throne-bout, the work is
plentifully sprinkled with dainty little scraps of
Parisian phrase—canaille, bailauds, rognons, salle,
patisserie, toupets, triste, chansons, et cetera, et
cetera—nothing less than the fribbling chit-chat
of the most incorrigible of mimetic -petit-ntaitres.
While, whatever has any pretension to be re-
garded as English is so egregiously and per-
tinaciously italicised as to degenerate into the
style peculiar to those who have been happily
called the " Forcible -Peebles." Pronouns, con-
junctions, prepositions, and interjections are
sown over the pages broadcast in italics, " I
felt," "I was," "I made," '' there stood," " yet
keeps," cum ceteris pariblis innumerabiliter.
And so, and so—" Carlo mio," as Dr. Croly would.
be regarded (judging from his preliminary excerpt
from "Lettere Sceite, v. 2)—turns his pen (as he
thinks) into a pencil, and his ink (es he fancies)
into colours, and his paper (as lie fondly imagines)
into a canvass, and, taktiig Nature (hapless Dame !)
as his sitter, daubs, as Elia would nave it, such a
wonderful viznomy ! With all the colours in the
wrong place, and every line askew—a hag instead.
of a goddess—a diabolic nightmare in lieu of a bea-
tific and celes ial day-dream. A monstrous freak such.
as that of scribbling a poem k!) like "Tile modern.
Orlando" requires at the hand of the critic scarcely
a hint even in the way of serious reprehension. It
constitutes a crime against good taste that contains

lin itself its own punishmeni. If it does not ac-
tually "damn its author to everlasting fame," it
would infallibly with any man otherwise less emi-
nent brand him with the braud of a long-enduring
rrdieulousness. It dismisses our author either (at
his option) to the " Limbo of the Inane" or the
" Paradise of Fools" amidst explosions of derisive
laughter. Leaving him---2the, merest travestie of a
Satirist, Vie veriest caricature of Ariosto—with
wry face and a blank look of bewilderment—secretly
in his heart of hearts (in another sense than the
one proposed) a veritable Orlando—Farioso!

LLOYD'S SHIPPING-'

<THIS DAY.)

LONDON, June B.—Wind this day of noon, N.W.;
moderate breeze, and cloudy weather.
MARGATE, Juno 17.—A French brig got on shore on tho
Sand this afternoon, and sunk ; crew picked up by tho
Prince of Wules (s.), and taken to London.
PoßTsNtount. June 17.—Wind, Arrived—
H.M.S. Devastation, and left for Woolwich ; Peninsula
(s.s. li2), Constantinople, and left for London ; City or
Aberdeen (s. 202), do. ; Victory (s.s. 1.i3), Constantinople.
Sailed—Nile, for Madras and Calcutta.
FALMOUT 1, June 17.—Wiud, Arrived—Free-
land, from Bahia ; Allison, Akyab; Maria, Pernambuco:
Thomas and William, from Liverpool, for St. Thomas, to
stop a leak.
PLYMOUTH, June N.N.W.
Childers, for the Coast, of Attics.

I)ovER, Juue 17.--Wiud, N.W. Sailed—Howard, for
Now York.

HARTLEPOOL, Juno 111.—Sailed—Stad Schiedam, for
Havannah.

SUNDERLAND, Juno 16 —Wind, E.S.E.
dustrr, for Hong Koog.
June 1 W. Arrived—Venerable, from
Greonla rad.

KINGSTOWN, June 16. —Wind, N.W. Arrived—Was
pella, trout St. John's, N.D.
DUBLIN, June 16.—iud, N.N. W. Arrived—Cascade,
from Part° Rico. . _ _

BELFAST, J uae 10.—Wind, N. Sailed—Mischief, for
Barbad oes.

(BY SUBMARINE AND BRITISH TELEGRAPH.)
GRAVESEND, Monday, 10.12 a.m.
Wind, W.N.W. ; tide, near low water; weather,
cloudy and moderate.
Arrived, June 17—St. Laurence, from Callao ; Johanna,
Aalbeckniuller ; Emma, Malnio.
Arrived, Juuu 18—Ann, from Shanghai; Scotia, from
Engelholtn.

DEAL, Monday, 9.44 a.m.
Wind, W.N.W. ; light and fine.
Passed, 17th—Lady E;linton (s.s., 165 transport), for
the Crimea; Slatur Bebow, for Palermo ; Chanticleer, for
Newfoundland—all from London; Peninsular (172 tram.
sport), from the Crimea; H. Tanner, from Callao; Pro.
peller, from Balaklava ; Chance (barque), from Glasgow;
H. Waren, from Matanzas—all for London ; Caribbean
(made No. 710 third pendant), from Sunderland, for
Bombay.
Sailed—Fifeshire, Rockliffe, and Gillivare, for river.

TIIE CALEDONIAN BALL. —On Friday evening, the
8 fancy quadrille
annul grand bat costume, in aid of the funds of the
Royal Caledonian Asylum and Royal Scottish Hospital,
took pace, with great eclat, at Willis's Rooms, King.
street, S. James's. The dresses were of more than
usual magnificence, comprising every imaginable variety
ofd ' °Bs suuc nc
lae' utechrbee,
of tr..:.tional costume. Tile dresses of the ladies and gen.
tlenuen forming Lady Agnes Duff'
(England and France), in particular, were of a very ele.
many more of the no.
gant description. Among the general company were
Prince
A‘tVheoizitrclethDeuDkuec
the Duchess of Wellington, the Duchess of Richmond,
ofIN
TljuacklivnglNll-DainN,
oaNtivd?
The Knit- :Ze't ng of
them,D,
HuAkTe.s
bility.
t u
Tuesday last gives the following list of -
vale at Berlin, and all at different- fashionable
arri.
hotels :—Prince Ga-
litzin, at the British Hotel ; his Highness Prince Tscher.
e
nitscheff, President of the Imperial Council of State,
Aide-de-camp of the
Emperor, and General of Russian,
Petersburg Cavalry, at the Hotel de ; Butterlin, Lieut.. General in the Russian
service,
at the HotelduN9r_ond;
Colonel Von Bukowiczk
1, at the Victoria Hotel; Von
Heckert, Chancellor of
the Prussian Embassy at St.
Petersburg (with
despatches) at Schlosser's Hotel; and
Baroness Vod Stieglitz, wife of a Russian councillor
of state, at the Hotel de Russia ; all direct from St.
Petersburg.
COLT'S NEW CARTRIDGE.--Colonel Colt, whose re.
volving pistol now forms a part of the necessary outfit of
every -officer of the army and navy, has recently in.
vont&l a new cartridge, which, with the lever ramrod, ig
calculated to render this weapon as perfect as any inven.
tion can well be. The cartridge is said to be waterproof.
to go off clean, and to be so adapted as to admit of rapid
loading. Amongst the many important testimonials re-
cently added to the value of this revolver is one from
Colonel J. A. Claimer, R.A., who, after submitting it
to a te-t of 400 rounds, at ranges varying from 50 to 100
yards, speaks of it an a " good, effective, substantial,
and serviceable arm." Lieutenant-Colonel A. Gordon
and Captain Sir Thomas Hastings, R.N., in their evi-
dence before the select committee on small ar me, she
speak in the highest praise of the efficiency of thewatpolle
-7•Urtited Service Gazette.