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

LITERATURE.

The Convocation and the Crown in Council. A
Stcond Letter to an Anglican Friend. By H.
E. Manning, DM. Bw., 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 is the
history of the Church of England. 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 who 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 R)man C ttholic,
the letter is written with great moderation, and
apparent goodwill for those who do not agree with
him in his religious convictions.

The Biylow Papers. By James Rase°ll Lowell.
Second Serits. Pp. 136. T. inner and Co.

Another, a briefer, but an ((pally racy aeries of

these delightfully ridiculous Exemplars (in a
rythmical for m) of genuine Yankee wit, humour,
31reasm, satire, all rolled into one, sustains to the
full, it it does not ao'ually 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
he 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 Caaracter, pub-

fished originally within the co. :limns of the Evening
Chronicle, in the green shit; ing monthly num-
bers (illustrated, first by Seyt .our, afterwards by
Phiz) of the immortal "Picky 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
upun 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 Tankee humorist and
the immortal English humorist—James Lowell is,
to our mind, as undeniably an original as Charles
Dickens himself. The Big low 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. Bu: shot though the folly io, here
and that
aim, and
with
taosoi twfliitehs —5
hiatfitss sohfodt
twiiigthhtufnulurniedrirciunige,
wit, pointed with irony, barbed with sarcasm
The humour of the thing, such as it is, is sui generic
unrivalled, unapproached, unapproachable.
Coarse, vulgar, &angular, preposterous, if you will,
but racy, poignant, full of fi tvour—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 lowlife story, with a moral
running all through it like a golden
thread woven into a hit 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, k.oinely sketch of artizan
life this is, in tt utb, and one flavoared, moreover,
with several charming little touches of genuine
humour, as where Jack Lewis, " Mr, Lewis," by
the way, goes a-marketing with his tnissus—or,
still better, where the goods come dropping in upon
Tommy and &illy to their exceeding wonderment.

The IliVory 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 man-
ner : and we can't by possibility quarrel with him if
he treks on to his present paper (about malting and
so forth) an earnest recommendation of the advan-
t igcs of teetotalism. Teetotallers though we our.
selves are nut, wo cannot for the :ife of us quarrel
with that part of Mr Kirton's argument—it 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 Duk© and Duchess of Manchester are among
thu guebta of the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland at Dun-
robin Ciatle, N,B,