The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-30 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

The Convocation and the Crown in Council. A
Second Letter to an Anglica❑ Friend. By H.
E. Manning, D.D. Bvo., pp_ 39. Longman and

The recent act of Convocation, by which it has
put itself in direct opposition to the Crown in
Council, is a circumstance of great interest its the
history of the Church ofEngland. This act has been
severely censured, as illegal and ridiculous bythe
Lord Chancellor, on the otherland it has been warmly
defended by the Bishop of Oxford. The present
letter treats on the effect which is likely to be pro-
duced by the decision legally on the Established
Church, and morally on the religious feeling of
the English people. It is valuable because written
by one who is not personally affected by it, and who
stands and looks on as a spectator, and vito is, more-
over, well qualified to form an opinion by his great
familiarity with the proceedings in ecclesiastical
courts and matters of the canon law. Although,
of course, the writer is a zealous Roman Catholic,
the letter is written with great moderation, and
apparent goodwill for those who do not agree with
him in his religious convictions.

The Biglow Papers. By James Russell Lowell.
Second Series. Pp. 136. T.ii'mler and Co.

Another, a briefer, but an squatty racy series of
these delightfully ridiculous exemplars (in a
rythmical form) of genuine Yankee wit, humour,
sarcasm, satire, all rolled into one, sustains to the
full, if it does not acivally exalt still higher the
admiration excited in our minds by the publication
of the former and larger series of the Biglow
Papers. enhances our unaffected admiration, we
would say, for the grotesque genius of James
R. Lowell. An original, a thorough original,
the author of these same Biglow Papers indis■
putably is, if ever there was one. An original
be is, as surely as was Sam Slick, when he first in•
troduced us to the Clockmaker—nay, as surely even
as Boz himself, when he followed up his inimitable
little sketches of London Life and Character, pub-
lishei originally within the cdatnns of the Evening
Chronicle, in the green shill ling monthly num-
bers (illustrated, first by Seyt ,our, afterwards by
Phiz) of the immortal "Picket ick Papers/ Yes,
as truly in his way is the author of the " Biglow
Papers" an original as even the world-famous
author of the " Pickwick Papers." In his way—
observe ! For the two writers stand in no degree
upon the same level. They are wide as the globe
asunder. The one a great writer, the other a
very small one. 'The one fLeting and fugitive in
reputation, the other, years and years ago, secure
of a lasting fame as one of the glories of our national
literature. Yet, granting this immense difference
between the two men—between these two conspicu-
ous humorists —the ephemeral Yankee humorist and
the immortal English humorist—James Lowell is,
to our mind, as undeniably an original as Charles
Dickens himself. The Biglow Papers are as dis-
tinct an attestation of the grotesque genius of the
one as the Pickwick Papers were of the radiant and
perennial genius of the other. They are fugitive
pieces, these Biglow Papers, undeniably, and the
more's the pity. But shot though the folly is, here
iurniedrirciunige, aim,
and that
o
winged with
tawosioti,twapiitoehisn—stheidat fitsswsoihtf dt
Lwilriiogtnhilyta,f un
barbed with sarcasm
i The humour of the thing, such as it s, is sui generic
unrivalled, unapproached, unapproachable.
Coarse, vulgar, slangular, preposterous, if you will,
but racy, poignant, full of flavour—the flavour not
of attic salt, but of genuine Yankee acid.

Buy your own Cherries. By John W. Kirton.

Pp. 32. S. W. Partridge.

A capital low•life story, with a moral
running all through it like a golden
thread woven into a bit of tapestry. " Buy
your Own Cherries," may take rank with
the famous historiette, entitled " A Trap to Catch
a Sunbeam." Mr. Kirton's tale about the Cherries,
however, has this advantage over that yet more
popular story about the Sunbeam, written
by one of his anonymous contemporaries—to wit,
the fact of the former having about it much
less of what we may call the " goody " character.
A wholesome, manly, l'.omely sketch of artizan
life this is, in tiuth, and one flavoured, moreover,
with several charming little touches of genuine
humour, as where Jack Lewis, " Mr, Lewis," by
the way, goes a-marketing with his missus—or,
still better, where the goods come dropping in upon
Tommy and Sally to their exceeding wonderment.

The ilistory and Mystery of a Glass of Ale. By
J. W. Kirton. Pp. 72. S. W. Partridge.
A great deal of interesting information is here
compacted together very pleasantly. Mr Kirton ex-
plains the mystery and relates the history of " A
Glass of Ale " in an agreeable and colloquial wan-
ner: and we can't by possibility quarrel with him if
he tacks en to his present paper (about malting and
so forth) an earnest recommendation of the advan•
tiger of teetotalism. Teetotallers though we our-
selves are not, we cannot for the iife of us quarrel
with that part of Mr Kirton'a argument—if we give
but one casual glance any day in the whole year to the
reports of the police offices—otherwise, to the daily
records of the crimes resulting from the vice of
drunkenness.

The Doke and Duchess of Manchester are among
the guests of the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland at Dun-
robin Castle, N,B,