The Sun.
London, England, 1864-12-02 00:00:00

worth or weakness of the metal.

Through some such period of probation all of us must
pass, There is no shirking it. Come it will, unless we are
to be cast out as useless lumber among the rubbish of

humanity. With some the process io short, sharp, sudden ;
a hot branding-iron, pressed hissing into the quivering
flesh, a swift shock of agony—but the man has stood the
test. He bears upon him now the mark of the Great
Artificer—warranted sterling gold, free from all mixture of
base alloy.
And with others this test is lighter, scarcely felt per •
haps. It is but slight work to which the master means to
put them. No need for sharp trial here.
As a fair sample of the writer's eloquence in descrip-
tion, we may give this picture of
JANET IN CHUB K.

But by degrees strange fancies began to possess her mind.
Janet war always easily swayed by surrounding influences.
Hers was not one of those serene, self-possessed natures
that remain delightfully the same under whatever circum-
stances they may be placed; and now, as she sat gazing
into the d m heights of the ♦aulted roof, the vast cathedral,
with its springing arches and clustered columns, and sculp-
tured capitals, appeared to lose its dead material aspect and
become instinct with life. The heart of the old builders

seemed still pulsing in their works. The still face of the
saint, looking down from his canopied niche, retained the
touch of that ancient humanity that had wrought itself into
the patient stone. The leaves twining around the head of
the columns still trembled with the life that had guided the
sculptor's tool. The gaunt forms, struggling forth on the
projecting bosses, shivered with that terror of the Unseen
that had made the soul of the workman quail within hint.
For in those days men wrought with their hearts as well
as with their hands, and in the dumb insensate stone shaped
out the life that stirred within their breasts. And so, as
Janet looked up at the silent faces that for long centuries
had bent down over the changing throng of worshippers,
she felt how completely these works of hands long crumbled
into dust linked the ages together, The dross and impurity
that had marred the lives of these long ago dead, lay buried
beneath the dust of forgotten centuries; only the immortal
truth and beauty, the self-sacrifice and devotion which
formed the essence of their work, remained. And then
Janet wondered whether her life, too, would thus bloom
when the grass grew green over her forgotten grave.

In a lighter vein is the following delightful and ex-
hilarating account of the fire lighted in the lonely
Hall of Marton to welcome its returning master :
There is nothing like a bright blazing fire to make a roam
look cheerful and inviting. It smiles upon you as you enter
like the kind face of a friend. This one seemed fairly
laughing to itself in uproarious glee at the bare idea of
being allowed to burn for any other purpose than just to air
the room, and sparkled and crackled, and darted its long
tongues of flame hither and thither as if in a perfect ecstacy
of delight, fairly shaming the afternoon sunlight which was
coming softly in through the diamond panes of the west
window at the end of the room.

Some of the minor characters of the book are capi-
tal. We follow their fortunes with interest, and
they linger pleasantly in our recollection on closing
the third volume.

The Weather Guide Book : a Concise Exposition
of Astronomic-Meteorology. By Alfred Pearce.
One Vol., pp. 141. Simpkin, Marshall and Co.

The author of this very ingenious and certainly
also very original treatise, appears to be particu-
larly desirous of impressing upon the apprehension
of those who may meditate consulting his argu-
ments ae those of a professed astro-meteorologist,
that the system he calls astro-meteorology has
necessarily nothing whatever to do with Astrology.
Under the vague general impression that
it has, there is (ho feels that !) a certain
amount of prejudice in many minds against astro-
meteorology. Among the men of science, not of
pseudo science, but of science itself, pur et simple,
among the physical philosophers, as we may term
them, astrology is of course confessedly under a sort
of a taboo. Neither Owen nor Faraday would com-
placently sit down under the imputation of dabbling
in astrologicsl inquiries. They would repudiate
such a charge as that, with an indignation mitigated
only by contempt. True, that great men of science,
great philosophers, groat geniuses—such men, let
us say, as the two Bacons, the Chancellor and the
Friar, might stand adspicientes in ccelum—"
as the dear old serie-comic wag says in Moliere's
play, "nous aeons change tons cela !" And so—
very naturally—feeling that the misapprehension
might be so far prejudicial as needlessly to
narrow his audience, Mr. Pearce sets forth
the fact of the matter very distinctly indeed
—italicising his statement thus i❑ so many
words—when he says, on page ono of his Preface,
that " Astro-Meteorology is altogether distinct from
Astrology." Of Meteorology he gives (almost tin.,
necessarily we cannot but think)Sir John Herschell's
definition, in the manner following :
Meteorology, which, in its ancient and etymological sense
included all the appearances of the heavens, as well astrono-
mical us atmospheric, is at present restricted in its meaning
to the description and explanation of those phenomena
which group themselves under the heads of the weather, of
the seasons, and of climate—phenomena, which scientifically
regarded, are referable almost entirely to the agency of those
laws which govern the ever-varying affections of the at-
mosphere of our globe in its relations to heat, moisture,
and electricity, awl the movements which the changes of
those relations, brought about by astronomical or other
causes, impress upon its parts.

Having quoted which definition of Meteorology,
our Astro.Meteorologist explains that his prefix
Astronomic is employed simply to denote the fact
that his theory is based on astronomical foundations.
Having observed, as he says, "the constant reour•
mace of certain changes in the state of the atmos.
phere, and variations of the weather in coincidence
with certain relative variations of the Earth, Sun,
M 001), and Planets, (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter,
Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune), [he says nothing
about the long-exploded-planet, or in other words
the asteroids]—be has come to the conclusion, in

common with others who think with him, that the
coincidences above referred to have relations with
each other no less direct and intimate than those
traceable between cause and effect. Hence—Astro-
Meteorology. Hence—this present treatise by Mr
Pearce, as one of the ablest among our astro-
meteorologists. Hence—(and probably also from
the success achieved by his own Quarterly
Weather Guide)—this concise and, we will add,
this singularly lucid exposition by him of
Astronomic Meteorology. Subdividing hs trea-
tise under sixteen separate heads or chapters, Mr
Pearce here descants very ably upon the mystery
of the weather as explicable by the scientific rules
deducible from the study of meteorology, but still
more, according to his favourite theory, through
those other rules which he believes for his own
part quite as firmly to be deducible from astronomic
(not astrologic but astronomic !) or planetary meteo-
rology. Discoursing afterwards, turn by turn, upon
the influence (according to this theory) exercised
upon the earth's atmosphere by the Sun, the
Moon, Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Venus, Mercury,
Uranus and Neptune. Having separate chapters
besides this, devoted to Rain, to Storms, to Earth-
quakes, to Comets, and to Meteors. The last
chapter of all—that is, the sixteenth—explaining
to the reader—of course, upon the theory of the
astro-meteorologists—How to Predict the Weather!
Having thus set forth the nature of the contents
of the little volume now under notice, we can only
end here where we commenced—namely, by re-
marking that it is, as a treatise on Astro-Meteoro-
logy, as ingenious as it is original. It is certainly
entitled to an attentive and respectful consi.
deration.

An Address to the geetotallers of Great Britain and
Ireland. By the Rev. Cesare Contini. Bvo.,
pp. 65. Knowles: Bayswater.

Whoever has translated this earnest discourse
from the Italian into our English vernacular has
done good service in the good cause of Temperance.
For the remarks of this Italian Either Mathew,
the Rev. Cesare Contini—Priest (as the title-page
of the little pamphlet informs us) of the Diocese,
and City of Rome, and besides that, Member of the
Statistical Society of France—are such, are so
animated by the heart-born eloquence of truth and
simplicity, that we would willingly believe them
destined (now that they are published, as here,
" done into English") to enjoy a wide circulation
and a lengthened popularity. It is as if Father
Contini were not satisfied with having sympathised
heart and soul in the furtherance of those
good principles, the diffusion of which amongst his
fellow-men by Father Mathew, won for the latter
so beautiful and permanent a renown (et esto
perpetua !) but, as if the promptings of his heart
in that way, were only to be fully evidenced
by his scattering handfulls of the good seed of his
benign advice, to the right hand and to the left, in
Ireland end in England, at the moment of his
bidding these islands farewell. The effect pro-
duced by an examination of the discourse of Father
Contini will be found, by anyone who looks into it,
wonderfully impressive. The argument, in truth, is
that of a good man in a just cause, and, therefore, it
could hardly be otherwise than—as it is, and as we
have just now said that it is, namely—most impres
sive,

An Algerian Monkey, versus British Apes, By
" The Spectre." With Illustrations by W.
Schwenck Gilbert. Bvo., pp. 40. Chapman

and Hall.

Several of these grotesque little illustrations are
really quite as grotesque, are almost as funny, as
the tidbits of that delighful caricaturist, known
amongst his fellows as "Dicky" Dayle. Of "The
Spectre's" letterpress wo say nothing—the literary
amber holding within it these odd flies and midges of
pictorial comicality is so far transparent that it can
be glanced through in about ten minutes, " beaus
moments," so far, that they at least won't hang
heavily.

Punch's Pocket Book for 1865.

Gilt-edged, bound in morocco with a tongue-and.
loop, having its usual folding coloured frontispiece
and its accustomed coloured vignette—both of these
latter, by the way, for the first time, by Charles
Keene, neither by them, alas ! for the first time,
by our delightful and gratefully remembered, but
now dead-and-gone, John Leech—Punch's Pocket
Book appears, once more, right hilarious;y. Mr.
Punch himself, it is true, seems to be offering it
on his title-page, rather demurely, but in the
comical illustrations that follows among the
letterpress, he may be said to be kicking
up his heels with ail his wonted ridiculousness.
Mr. Tenniel has this season employed his pencil
most industriously in the adornment of the
Pocket Book with comical eats, some among
them, in their comicality, of the very first excel-
lence, The Allegorical Designs proposed by him
to be placed over Downing-street, over the House
of Lords, over the House of Commons, over the
War•office, and over the Exchange (and all of
them of course, alike, Over the Left) are con-
spicuous among these successes in the way of pic-
torial eccentricity. The embellishments contri-
buted by Tennis! to the Second Part of the Pocket
Book are to our thinking not nearly to clever—
with one solitary exception, however, when we say
this—namely, l'enniel's sketch of Love Above-
boa rd.