The Sun.
London, England, 1864-02-03 00:00:00

ventures, however, had not damped her spirit, for
it was not long after that she accompanied the
Colonel to Canada, of which country she gives but
a brief account, and subsequently to Hong Kong,
on the occasion of the Chinese war. Of this place,
less often described by English visitors, we have a
fuller account. Its unhealthiness is terrible.
"In Hong Kong men take to their beds
and die, and neither they nor the doctors
who attend them can tell what is the matter. There
is some great element of life wanting in the atmo-
sphere; what it is I cannot tell." The explanation
which some have found for this, in the dissipation of
the victims, is not accepted by the writer. The
health of the soldier is, she maintains, a fair test of
the salubrity of a climate ; and she compares the
condition of a regiment in New Zealand and Hong
Kong. In the former they are quartered in sheds,
and exposed without thought of weather or season ;
in the latter, every care and precaution is taken,
even to the supp'y of coffee or wine when on night
duty. " Yet, years en years of New Zsalaud pro-
duce little effect on the battalion ; while a few sea-
sons of Hong Kong sweep out of existence the
soldiers that landed with the regiment on its bane-
ful shore." Mrs. Muter penetrated as far as Pekin,
being one of the only three European ladies who
have entered that city, but her impressions of the
Celestial Empire were by no means favourable, and
she was glad to leave it. Not, however, to rest ;
for after a brief period we find her visiting New
Zealand, en route to India once more, though only
for a short time, as the regiment which her hus-
band went to join was about to return to England.
A trip round the world, however, had no terrors
for a lady of such varied experience, and, accord-
ingly her last chapters are devoted to recording her
visit to New Zealand, which she considers the finest
colony we possess. Her work is animated, and
interesting alike from its descriptions of foreign
parts and from its narrative of personal adventure.
It has fallen to the lot of few ladies to pass through
such startling scenes, or to visit so many places ;
and in her double capacity of heroine and tra-
veller, Mrs. Mater has powerful claims on the
attention of the public.

Sir Goodwin's Folly. A Story of the .Year 1795.
By Arthur'Socker. Three Vols. Chapman and
Hall.
This is a most complicated narrative, and will
puzzle the reader who does not take pains to study
its numerous dranzatis persona, and to bear in mind
all the chief points of its elaborate plot. Being in
the last century, it of course brings before us quite
a different style of society to that which exists
nowadays ; and as the epoch described is a very
critical juncture, we meet with some very notice-
able incidents in the lives of individuals, and trace
some important events in the history of nations. It
was a trying time for English rulers when the
great French Revolution broke out in all its vio-
lence and vehemence. Even many well-disposed
individuals became infatuated by the notion that
a glorious era had dawned upon the world, and
that the establishment of freedom in one country
would be but the herald of regeneration in another.
Too soon was the bright dream dispelled, and the
fair vision vanished away. While the rapt enthu-
siasts were exclaiming with delight, and spreading
the glad tidings through the land of the liberation
of one country from oppression, which should be the
signal for the happy deliverance of another, sober
and earnest men learned a different lesson, and,
sadder but wiser, they strove to impart their intel-
ligence to others. While they had been singing
in their rejoicing exultation of spirit—
" O'er the vine-covered hills and gay yanks of France
See the day-star of liberty rise,"
the dictates of reason bade them know
that what they had hailed as the advent of
mercy was the introduction of a reign of terror.
These sentiments are fully discussed and fairly
exemplified in these pages. In a vivid manner and
with a glowing style the author puts before us
some of the chief characteristic of the times. We
thus meet with a work that blends historical inte-
rest with romantic sketches, and puts before ns
most stirring and animated picture of adventures.
These chronicles of " Sir Goodwin's Folly" belong
to a past generation, but the pride and passion, the
deceit and cunning, the vanity and envy, appertain
but too truly to every time, and form part of every
phase of human society, and every condition of
mortality. It would be quite impossible to give an
account of the plot, it would be a work of superero-
gation to undertake it, but some of the chief points
of interest and excitement in it may be enume-
rated. In the first place there is an excellent
moral to be deduced from the finale of Sir Good-
win's attempts at matrimony. It is always most
presumptuous for any one to fashion his own doom
as it were, and to resolve that all shall give way to
his desires. Time, place, and circumstance, the
chances of life, the changes of death, must all
work together to accomplish the desires end fur-
ther the ends of such excited and infatuated indi-
viduals. Sir Goodwin was spared the mortification
of rendering himself amenable to the laws of his
country for uniting himself to one whose husband
was alive, and also he escaped the shame of
bestowing upon his daughter a second
mother, who was not worthy to bear
that title. Yet he was morally guilty
in the sight of all, and he further more
might reflect that he had by his vile machinations
hurried three individuals into the grave. Are there
not many, nowadays, who for greed or gain, ex-
cited by the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh,or
the pride of life, press madly on to wreak their own
doom and ensure others' ruin. Mrs. Norland was a
sad proof of the fatal effects of sin, in luring the
thoughts from rectitude, and making the downward
road of sin all too easy and enticing. She and her
confederate in crime sought to compound felony, as
it were, with their ingenious contrivances, and after
all were completely foiled in their efforts. Major
Norland himself was a dexterous sharper, who
outwitted himself at last with his machinations and
mysteries. His inveterate desire to get the bribe,
Sir Goodwin held out so improperly, incited him to
lay plots for the destruction of his friend. Thus
one crime leads to another, and too much craft will
always betray itself in the long run. The author
of this work may be congratulated for having
brought out so skilful a story, and described with
such eloquence and earnestness his exciting pas-
sages of romantic incident. Besides the graver
portions of the tale, there are several secondary
personages introduced with much skill, and the
adventures of little Chiqwood aro most ludicrously
painted. Altogether there is enough to suit all
tastes in the contents of this remarkable novel, and
it may well aspire to attract notice from its various
events, vivid details, and ingenious illustrations of
character, all given in a spirited style and a
sparkling manner.

The New Scientific Quarterly,

The Quarterly Journal of Science, No. I. Church

and Sons. •

We have no distinct remembrance of any new
Quarterly making so auspicious a commencement.
It is as the chipping of the shell, not simply when the
bird is fully fledged, but when it is already strong
upon the wing. There is no 'prenticework any-
where apparent in the whole of the goodly number
before us—the initial number, as we cannot but feel
persuaded it will turn out to be, of what must in all
human probability grow year by year into a very
voluminous publication, Half-a
-dozen Original
Articles lead uff the contents—highly elaborated
articles almost every one of them. Before the be-
ginning, however, as one may say, without much
extravagance—certainly before the beginning of the
regular staple commodity in the way of contribu-
tions, there is prefixed to the inaugural number of
the journal a very noble and admirable well-written
and carefully-thought-out " Scientific Survey," by
way of introduction. It is beyond any prospectus that
could possibly have been issued by the originators of
the entire enterprise. Besides which it has a dig-
nified air of self-respect that seems wanting some-
ho w to almost every preliminary prospectus that ever
came under our observation. There is in this Intro-
ductory Scientific Survey none of that egotism that
j ars so offensively upon the reader of almost any, ii
not indeed of every, prospectus. Instead of fair pro-
mises, moreover, as to the future numbers of the
new Quarterly, we have here a series of thoroughly