The Sun.
London, England, 1864-04-25 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, APBIL 25, 1864,

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dinirt. eiritubt

HER MAJESTY.

OSBORNE, April 23.

The Queen and Princess Helena, attended by
Viscountess Jocelyn and Major-General Seymour,
drove out yesterday afternoon.
Princess Louise rode on horseback, attended by
the Hon. Emily Cathcart.
APRIL 24.

Hl3 Rlyal Highness Prince Alfred, attended by
Major Cowell and Lieut. Haig, arrived at Osborne,
on Friday evening, from Sandringham Hall.
The Judge-Advocate-General had an audience of
the Queen yesterday.
The Earl of Clarendon arrived from London, and
had the honour of dining with her Majesty and the
royal family.
The Queen, Prince Alfred, Princess Helena, and
Princess Louise, attended Divine service at Osborne
this morning.
The Rev. George Prothero performed the service.

The Prince and Princess of Wales,

SANDRINGIIAM, April 24.

His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, attended
by Lieut.• Gen. Kuollys and Capt. Grey, arrived at
Sandringham about 9 o'clock on Friday evening, on
his return from London.
Her Royal Highness the Princess of -Wales,
attended by Col. the Hon. Henry and Mrs. Byng,
Mr. Wood, Mr. Fisher, and the Hon. Mrs. W. Grey,
drove out.

On Friday evening Dr. Wilberforce, the Bishop
of Oxford, arrived at Sandringham.
On Saturday morning Col. the Hon. Henry and
Mrs. Byvg left Sandringham for town.
His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, attended
by Lieut.-Gen. Knollys and Capt. Grey, drove out
on Saturday.
His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge,
attended by Colonel Clifton, arrived at Sandring-
ham on a visit to the Prince of Wales on Saturday
afternoon, and was met at the Wolverton station
by the Prince of Wales.
Their Royal Highnesses the Prince of Wales and
the Duke of Cambridge afterwards rode out.

.. -
Their Royal Highnesses are greatly enjoying the
comparative retirement of Sandringham, and are in
excellent health.

LITERATURE,

Doctor Jacob. Hurst and Blackett, Marlborough-

street.

" Doctor Jacob" is a novel written with a good
intention, and in a style well calculated to com-
mand popularity. The story commences with the
arrival of Doctor Jacob at Frankforteon-the-Maine,
where he presents letters of introduction from the
British Consul to Doctor Paulus, a brother clergy.
man, and through his influence is allowed to preach
in the church of Mr. Brill, the British chaplain, in
order to raise funds to enable him to proceed to
Jerusalem on a mission to convert the Jews. His
eloquence produces a great sensation, liberal sub-
scriptions flew in, and he becomes an universal
favourite with the denizene of Frankfort. At the
school of Franlin Fink, we find Elizabeth, an
English governess, highly esteemed by her employer,
who, on the arrival of Doctor Jacob, declares her
intention of immediately departing; and the reader
is led to be ieve that she must be the ruined victim
or the injured wife of the rev. gentleman. She is,
however, persuaded by Dr. Paulus to remain, least
her sudden departure should cause her honour to be
questioned. Meantime a certain Baroness Laden-
berg appears on the scene, apprises Jacob of
Elizabeth's presence, and volunteers to bring about
a reconciliation between them ; but for her own pur-
poses she, in her interview with the governess, defeats
the object she undertook to attain. All this time the
nature of the connection of Elizabeth with the Doc-
tor is a mystery which the reader cannot fathom.
Baron Ladenberg is killed in a thunder-storm, and
the Baroness, now free and rich, proposes to marry
Jacob, who, from his expensive habits and reckless
generosity, is overwhelmed with debt ; but, strange
to say, although he loves the lady, he declines the
proposition. At the house of Mr. Brill he meets
Kitchen Eggers, a rich and charming girl, who, at
eighteen years of age, falls in love with the Doctor,
who, although turned of sixty, appears to be irre-
sistible to the ladies, and notwithstanding his un-
willingness, actually forces him into a matrimonial
engagement with her. Meantime the rev. gentle-
man's creditors become pressing ; he pays some
with the mission money, and decamps in company
with Elizabeth, to whom he has been reconciled,
and who turns out to be his daughter. Kitchen
elopes and follows him; sees him walking with
Elizabeth, ham she takes to be his wife; as a
matter of coarse faints, and is carried senseless into
the apartment of Baroness Ladenberg, who has
for some time past been persuading her to marry
Baron Joseph, her son. After some days of duress
she is relieved by Doctor Jacob, who, declaring
himself unworthy of her affections, bids her fare-
well, and proceeds to lead a better life
at Vienna with his daughter, where both
receive pupils, and support themselves in
respectability. The book, although some of the
scenes between Doctor Jacob and his admirers are
very highly coloured, inculcates morality in so far
as it pourtrays most forcibly the misery and degra-
dation entailed by incurring debt—but the leading
characters are not natural. Jacob, an unprincipled
Sybarite, refuses to marry the baroness, although
by doing so he might not only save himself from
dishonour, bat obtain ample means of indulging his
expensive tastes for the future; and Kitchen, repre-
sented as a pure-minded and innocent girl, acts in
a manner totally inconsistent with such a character,
and ultimately marries one of the professors at
Fratalin Finks Academy, to whom, it appeared, she
had been long attached. Elizabeth broke of a prior
connection between her father and the baroness,
who, in revenge, prevented by mess of an anony-
mous letter, her marriage w, ;,'„'n an English gentle
man; anti on this accedent she quitted the paternal
home, and concealed herself as a governess for seven
years. The Story is written with spirit, the style
is epigranAreP:cic and brilliant, the descriptions of
ilndseaP'J and ruins are charming, and there are
few -passages in any book which exceed in dramatic
' 'power the following scene in the Cathedral of St.
Stephen :
Having contemplated the stupendous tower, with its de-
licate proportions of arch and buttress, standing clear and
defiant against the upper sky, as a grand thought should,
and the roof with its gigantic imperial eagle, in red and green
tiles softened and mellowed by age, he entered, bestowing
kreutzers here and there to the wretched old creatures who
begged and counted their beads ia the slanting sun.
Inside, the gloom, and loftiness, and perfume of incense
weighed upon his spirits like heavy retributive sorrow. He
seemed to be in a gigantic pine-forest at twilight, after the
glow of sun and before the light of stars. By-and-bye,
when his eye had become familiar with the darkness, he
could trace rich sculpture, abundant and most fanciful wood
carving, altars and tombs of gleaming marble, with delicate
rose windows, lighting up the darkness like stars. He
could not make his way for the throngs of worshippers, but
stood bareheaded beneath the stone pulpit of St. John
Capistran. Silence prevailed—for the Host was being ele-
vated, and most present were on their knees; acolytes in
white and red surplices were swinging the censers back-
wards and forwards; the atmosphere was thick and oppres •
sive with incense. By-and-bye, the six gorgeously robed
priests retired to their station beside the altar, and the
darkness and stillness and gloom were pierced by a woman's
thrilling pathetic voice. It was the Ave Maria. Rising
from notes of soft but steady passion, the voice ascended to
its pile iu the upper air, swift and straight like a skylark ;
then, when all the cloggings of earth and humanity were
left far below, it swayed gently to and fro, in sweet pulsa-
tions of tenderness and entreaty, a messenger between earth
and heaven— God and man.
Dr. Jacob leaned upon a carved coping of the pulpit
stair and prayed. He was not subject to impulsive emotion
of any kind, much less to religious emotion ; tlut he had
been living for months past with one aim and intent—
namely, to turn back the current of eelf.reproach that had
set in from his past life, and had failed miserably. He felt
now, as he had once said, that there is no fleeing from the
silent reproach of God,

His Excellency Baron de Beust, the representa-
tive of the Germanic Confederation, arrived in town on
Friday night from Germany iu order to attend the Con-
ference,