The Sun.
London, England, 1852-03-01 00:00:00

OVERLAND MAIL

(BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.)
TRIESTE, FEB. 29.

The Pyroscaphe arrived on the 28:h inst.
We learn from Bombay, under date of the 3d of
February, that a second Burmese war bad com-
menced.
The new Viceroy arrived at Rangoon on the 4th
of January. He had refuved to receive any deputa-
tions from the British commander, bad forbidden
communication between, the shore and-the .vessels,
insulted the British flag, and erected batteries and
stockades below the town to prevent the departure
of any of the 'vessels lying there. The commodore
proclaimed a blockade of the mouths of the Ira-
waddy.
On the 9th the Viceroy wrote to the Commodore
to allow the passage of the river;. he bad set fire to
the batteries mentioned.
The Pyroscaplr, Fox, and Hermes, were attacked
by the batteries in passing. They replied to the
fire, destroyed the fortifications, and killed nearly 300
perAons.
Imports weak; exports the same as at our last
advices.
Government Five per Cents., 105 r.; Debt, Four
Per Cent., 94ir.
vcehrapnooei 02(1). 7L:ndon, at six months' sight, 2e. ld.
Freights_ to London, 2/. ss. to 2/ 104. per ton ; ditto
to
61. per ton.—Chronicle.

emirs CquatisslON.—The Tithe Commissioners' 1
report for the year 18'1
tices for awards)? have been issued during the year; 54 cam-
In 12,144 tithe districts
pulsory awards hay al
J , just published, states that 54 no-
-206 apportionmentse have also been received, and 106 confirmed;
been received, an 1 254 confirmed.
blished ; 809 altered a
year, endrP6erlt
rent. charges have been finally este-
mergers of tit',..es or rent char
end of the apportionments, were 'Artie up to the
confirmed and 13,160 distinct
The commissioners state
granting them
of the Legis-
lature the expediency of
worheieshumthmeayryaffirm
will prevent.certain cases of
needless expense; for it is impossible to commute
and
tithes in the present manner without an expense dispropor-
tionate 'e
tsorndlieualamin
to the benefit obtained. In
ouant,m
conclusion, theyBtate
it will only be by the neglect of the parties concerned, if
extinguished before every case has been
titles are finally
considered.
THE METEOPOLITAN POLICE.—It appears from the
accounts respecting the Metropolitan Police Force (printed
on Saturday), that on January 1 last, the number of persons
5,549 ; consisting of one inspect-
belonging to the force was 5,549;
a.
18 superintendents, front
year;
inspect-
in;; superintendent, at 600
cctors, with salaries from 2004
50/ to 00/. a year; 124 insp
587 sergeants, from 1i 9L 4s.
to 81/. 18a. a year. There were
stables, comprising 1,250
to 63/. 14s. a year; and 4,819 con
2,349 in the second
in the first class at 51/. 12s. a year,
class aC49I. Bs. a year, and 1,174/ in the third class at 44/. 4s
The a year. sum paid for the police last Year amounted to
1 14s. 5d., which
442,299/. ss. 4d leaving a balance of 49,957-*
&c., from police
were the receipts in the year. The fees,
courts were 10,548/. 15s. Bd. The Commissioners of
Great Exhibition paid the force 17,426/. 2s. 2d.
GUARD Sun. FOIL THE DOWNS.—Oriit.TS have been
issued by the Admiralty to fit the London, of 90 guns, Cap-
tain the Hon. DI. Stoprord, now I...in_
Y gat Sheerness, in all re-
spects as a sea-goingship. Aa soon as she is cDmpleted she
will proce
ed to the Downs, to be there stationed as guard
ship unless required for more active service. her duties
there will be to enter volunteers either for particular
or general service. AFuard OAP at this place is extremely
useful, the man of war s anchorage lying so close in to the
Goodwin that the lookout kept on board can discover a ship
on the sands long before the people at Deal, Kingsdown, or
Ramsgate can observe her. Signals are immediately made
by blue lights, rockets, and micute guns, when the tuggers
and foul-weather galleys from the above-named .p aces put
to sea and give assistance. There has not been a guard
ship stationed there. since .1831, but the Serer., Ramilie9,
and Talavera, which were in the Downs fa m 1815 to itirit„
rendered essential services to merchant ships of all ntitim, 0
. that unfortunately got on these treclierous sands.

UN

T O N,

MAGAZINE DAY.
BL ACKW 0 OD.

A gfnial and delightful paper on Miss Mary Rus-
sell Mitford, the celebrated author of " Our Village,"
is the opening contribution to the present number of
Blackwood, having been suggested by her " Recol-
lections." The reviewer evidences, throughout, his ap-
preciation of her very charming style, her gentle
nature, her briliant descriptive powers, her grace, her
benevolence, and her originality. In the course of the
article the reader will find quoted some elegant verses
from the pen of John Banim, famed as the writer of
the " Tales of the O'Hara Family." Another portion
of " Struggles for Fame and Fortune," the third, will
he welcomed by those who have read the instalments
already published, more particularly as there is per-
ceptible in it a considerable increase of interest, and
in several other respects a very general improvement.
Mr. Coke's recent work on Kafirland has furnished
another critic in Maga with a plea for presenting us
with some " Sketches from the Cape," at all times
worthy of examination, but at the present moment
peculiarly acceptable. The nineteenth part of "My
Novel ; or Varieties in English Life," reveals anew
the various and remarkable abilities already so
frequently and admirably displayed by Sir Bulr
wer Lytton as a novelist—as, in fact, one
of the most gifted and accomplished writers of fiction
who has ever adorned our native literature. The
" initial chapter" to the tenth book here commenced
is one of the most clever yet published ; and we would
observe, by the way, that these initial chapters are
quite novelties in their way, having been originated
by the author of "The Caxtons"—combining the at-
tractions of the essay with the fascinations of ro-
mance, enabling the author and the reader to hold, as
it, were, at intervals, a friendly gossip together, and
empowering the romancist to pass judgment at
pleasure upon his own creation, after the merry man-
ner
of Fadladeen. [Alas 1 that so very recently
within the present week we should have lost poor Tom
Moore, " the beloved of all circles, the idol of his
own," as Lord Byron called him in that brief but
eloquent tribute to his friendship.] Randal Leslie
even now has the ground trembling under his feet—
undermined by his own suicidal craft. We are
more than ever in hopes that Lord L'Estrange's ill-
assorted marriage with Helen may never take place,
but that the gentle " child-angel" may be a comfort
to the toiling ambition of Leonard, while
Harley himself—most beautiful and loveable of
characters may have his dormant energies
awakened by the influence of the genius and
loveliness of Violante. Mention is made again
of poor Burley—the noblest of all the creations in the
present story—and we await with some anxiety his
re-appearance on the scene. As the type of a class,
Burley is painted with the hand of a master. Expec-
tations of good in Beatrice are awakened in the
mind of the reader, and we can dream of that good
possibly extending itself to the heart and fortunes of
Frank Hazledean. Then again—Audley Egerton,
the Minister, the strong public man, vigorous in
bearing, but with disease gnawing at his vitals—to
hear of him as we do in the present instalment is to be
filled with dread and compassion. There is a sweet
and exquisite pathos in the brief scene between
Audley and Harley L'Estrange. A timely article
suggested by Mr. W. J. Smith's edition of "The
Grenville Papers," and entitled "English Adminis-
trations," forms the next portion in the March num-
ber of Blackwood—being fraught with especial in-
terest at a juncture when the Grey-Russell Cabinet
bas been so suddenly succeeded by the Derby-
Disraeli Government. Mr. Prinsep's ingenious pro-
duction, issued from the press last season, and having
reference to the religion of Boodh, is selected by
another contributor to Maga as a reason for pre-
senting to the public some disquisitions on " Tibet
and the Lamas ;" while another writer has taken
Mrs. Moodie's " Roughing it in the Bush," under
criticism, describing, while so doing, rather pleasantly,
"Forest Life in Canada West," with all its peculiar
characteristics. The metre rendered popular by Mr.
Tennyson's " Locksley Hall," has been employed as
a vehicle for the utterance of a "Farewell to the
Rhine," by one penning his adieux at Bonn. After
this comes the closing paper for March, an argument
relating to "The Reform Measures of 1852," with a
" Postscript," expressive of exultation at the recent
change of her Mejesty's Government.

MR. DICKENS' NEW WORK.
BLEAK HOUSE. No. I. By Charles Dickens.
Buds are already germinating in the boughs of
March ; but, among all the evidences of the approach
of spring, none will be more welcome to the hearts;
and hearths of England than the " two green leaves"
put forth in the new serial by " Boz," those two green
leaves to the appearance of which we have been look-
ing forward ever since the close of " David Copper-
field." And the best of it is—we shall have them
renewed now during very nearly twenty months to
come. " Bleak House," as all the world knows now,
is the title of it—" a dreary name," according to the
opinion (see page 22) even of the Lord High Chan-
cellor. From all that we can judge by merely a
first instalment of a work of such considerable dimen-
sions, "Bleak House" threatens to be the last terrible,
and we trust also overwhelmingly successful, blow
directed against the iniquitous court pres Vied over by
that august functionary. The citizens of the United.
States not long since gave us a noble example
of what might be effected in the way of reform there.
The evils of the Court of Chancery have, besides this,
been long, very long, growing more and more noto-
rious—crying out for their own destruction trumpet-
tongued and in a thousand voices both within and
without the walls of Parliament. Beyond all which,
new hopes are kindled in the bosoms of those who
have fallen into the clutches of this monster grievance
by the elevation to the woolsack of a legal Reformer
like Sir Edward Sugden—perhaps the most profound
and astute intellect that has ever shed its light
through the gloomy intricacies of his profession. Last,
but not least effectual of all the enemies of the Court
of Chancery, comes Dickens, to whose gentle but
pui,sant genius humanity has already been largely
indebted, his story of " Nicholas Nickleby" having
led to the suppression of the atrocious
Yorkshire schoole, and his tale about " Oliver
Twist" having in a great measure conduced to the
amelioration of the sufferings of pauperism. Chapter
the first, "In Chancery," constitutes of itself a
caustic satire upon the evil to which its very title
directs attention—" that Court of Chancery,' ex-
claims Mr. Dickens, in a burst of noble and wither-
ing eloquence—" which has its decaying houses and
its blighted lands in every shire ; which has its worn-
out lunatic in every madhouse, and its dead in every
churchyard ; which has its ruined suitor with his
slipshod heels and threadbare dress, borrowing and
begging through the round of every man's acquaint-
ance; which gives to moneyed might the ineins ribune
dantly of wearying out the right; which so exhausts
finances, patienceccourage, hope • so overthrows the
brain and breaks. _the =heart ; ;lilt there is not an
honorable man among ifs e;raptitionere who would-
not give—who does not often give—the warning,.
' Suffer any wrong that can be done you, rather
than come here 1' " It is against this . same,
old, wicked greedy, implacable, and insatiate
Court of Chancery that "Bleak House" is directed in
purpose; it is upon it that the whole weight of its
censure through example is destined, we believe, to
fall : and that the influence of the censure thus pro-
nounced will prove triumphant, we are persuaded,
through the whole strength and earnestness of our
belief in the vitality of its author's genius. For
many reasons, therefore, we hail the appearance of
ff
jaaerrn
newyd :ee
the present fiotion with peculiar and fervent satisfac-
tion. Bleak House, if itself not "in Chancery," has
its principal inmates there—as may be understood by
an inquiry into the great case of Jarndyce and Jarn-
-1 dyce, the case still giving promise of being ever-
lastiogly perpetuated. How long it has already con-
tinued is mentioned by the author with this
—se,:,Twhjheaor
nl idwtytalcsee
promisedplaa
ni plaintiff
droll illustratioswnayh:
himself of a real horse, and trotted away into the
fr.seh°llcotkluailDndgt,lberhsee settled has grown up, possessed
Jarndyce and Jarn yce, are—w when
tL e great case of
led to suppose them to be
other world." Two of the wards in
dChancery in thhis
the story opens (and we are pp
rstone nineteen. Perhaps,
teen , ay turn out to be Esther
hove ,vet, the r
th
eal heroine m
rest iectaivoedlyßitisohhaerrdo aneditheroin,e)—Ada Clare, seven-
tive ee ith the third chapter, writing in t e per-
sonher• Chapter
.
Surat nerson, who takes up e thread of h
h t
fiersntarra
air:er the manner of an autobiograp
abrupt ly to certain " high" people,
the as eond, " In Fashion, LeicesterintroBdiurces
my Lady Dedlock, waited upon in their house in
savingu
an d-
town by- their lawyer, gr. Tulkinghorn. What they
mmaixyedbauaittne, to do with the story we cannot conjecture,
dwitu excepting
thatsa
mtheatoatshoeyofarjearihndysoo
third,a‘
naturalA
L dyce. Cbapter the Progress,"
education of Esther,
through her own lips, the birth (not the parentage) and
ultimately engaged as the companionc) ld oem somebody,
md describes,Jh manneraordny
of Ada, by her
t ;uardian a certain Mr.mysterious Jarndyce,'who
i he owner, and, we presume,
_
uoccupant of Bleak
1 louse. Chapter the fourth recounts
b 'del by Ada, Esther, and Richard with
the intercourse
Jel-
l) by, whose mismanagement of her family ilMrs.
a, : ,(I mock benevolence for strangers abroadat home,
are
eggestive of the title " Telescopic Philanthropy."
ri Che drollest scenes in the number are those in the
d yelling of Mrs. Jellyby—and the most remarkable
, aid original of all the characters is that of poor, dear
, Daddy, otherwise Mis% Jellyby; perpetually in such a
Ireafiful " stet° of ink." No wonder, after reading
he accounts of the freaks of her mamma, no wonder
or child exclaims at last—" I wish Africa was
the P°Peepy, brothers, is
d _ad it' Little one of her an
i nterestsog scapegrace : and, among the other
,-3.3 introduced may be mentioned,
ii perSOTleg
r. Kengel
the solicitor - Mr. Guppy, his clerk;
1 M
i Mr. jeg Mr. yoy, a nonentity ;
'QUR el 1 an admirer of