The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-01 00:00:00

MORNING.

Morning came, fresh, grey, chilly. A thrill and murmur
of awakened life seamed to run through the whole world.
From tar-off fi Ids and farms came pleasant country sounds
—cocks crowing, cattle lowing, sheep bells tinkling. A
fresh day had begun, a day just like any other working day.
The world would go on just the same as usual, for all that
happened in one small room at Chalcote Place. The spar.
rows came out of the ivy, and hopped and chirruped boldly
on the window sill—that room was so quiet. And from
tree to tree blackbirds and thrushes sang, and their notes
swelled into a ohorus of what seemed like praise and thanks-
giving. For God is great.

As a contrast to which we may take the fonowlog :

EVENING.

The eun was low in the west. The woods that bounded
their horizon were drowned in floods of molten gold, and
the level sward of the park, what With buttercups, and the
long streall.'s of sunlight, looked like a "Field of the Cloth
of Gold," T-Tpen the terrace the:gmaite urns were likewise

burnished gold—below, the grim old cedar trunks wer
scarlet, the cedar boughs were bronze, each leaf of the
copper beech was a glittering, blood-red ruby, and the roses
burned like sparks of fire. Far away to the left, in one of
the trees which stood up sharp and clear and purple-black'
against the amber sky, a thrush was singing his evening
song. All this was unconsciously noted by both Everard
and Sydney, and the calmness and gorgeous beauty of that
evening would come back vividly to their memories some
future day.

Some readers may be disappointed with the con-
clusion of the story, but all will be deeply interested
and enthralled by its perusal. It is a work of a
higher class and better tone than the majority of
the novels which come before us, and it is likely to
benefit as well as to delight the reader—to benefit
him by lifting his thoughts for awhile above the
sordid interests of meaner creatures, to contemplate
the struggles of a noble heart, not for gold ur gain,
not fcr pump or place, but for principle and virtue,
even at the cost of all things.

:1113 Biglow Papers. By James Russell Lowell.
One vol., pp. 200. John Camden Hotten.
If by no more than the publication of this delight-
ful little volume----comprising within it the whole
of the world-famous Biglow .Papers—Mr. Rotten
may be very fairly said to hare here most auspi-
ciously inaugurated his movement across Piccadilly
to a new and ampler tenement than the old one
hitherto (and, for that matter, still for
the time being) occupied by him, hard
by the north-east corner of Green Park.
It augurs well for his career as among our London
Publishers. Fur, it testifies at once his taste and
his enterprise. It conveys to the reader of it
—this choice little book—proof positive of the
soundness of Mr. Hotten's judgment and of the
niceness of his judgment. And we speak this dice•
tinctly and individually of the publisher of this
London Edition of the Biglow Papers, because ho
is at once, in regard to it, the Editor of the Volume
as well as the Publisher of it.
,The Editor of it, not,
be it understood, just nominally, but searchingly
and thoroughly. And—the work itself ! This won-
derfully comical book of "The Biglow Papers !"
For genuine Yankee wit, it is a masterpiece. Any
one who has a relish for the grotesque freaks of
rhyme indulged in by Tom Hood, for the racy and
abounding humour of Sidney Smith, for the capricious
rhythm and inexhaustible fun of Thomas Barham,
otherwise Thomas Ingoldsby—any one who has a
recollection of having yeaes ago shaken his sides over
Colman's " Broad Grins," over Haliburton's laugh-
ter-moving but imperturbable" Clocktnaker," over
Canning's extravagantly ridiculous " Anti-Jacobin,"
with its Friend of Humanity discoursing in immor-
tal sapphics to the needy Knife-Grinder—any one,
in a word, who has an eye for real motherewit, a
seen appreciation of the truly humorous, and
risible muscles susceptible of entering into the
run of a joke with an instant and com-
plete enjoyment— may be certain of this that
the "Biglow Papers" are just the very thing for
aim! Wherever he opens them, they are sure of
hitting him to a nicety in the midriff! If adaptable
co any known tune, they are certainly adaptable to
the air of "Away with Melancholy." The illustra-
tor of the very cover of this shilling reprint of the
work in its popular London Edition, has caught the
very genius of the book upon the point of his comic
pencil. For, there, upon the centre of that outer
title page, has he not (this ingenious draughtsman)
pourtrayed a very model or beau ideal of a Yankee
Volunteer? With the old constitutional initials--
that once renowned . "U. S." that seemed
to say (monosyllobbically), and with the true
Yankee twang, US can whip all creation !
rhe world-famous " U.S." by this time all but
•' U P'' imprinted here on the crossbelt of the
uniform of the Yankee Volunteer pur et simple
(in one sense anything but pure or simple), this
cute creature with the broad-brimmed hat upon his
cranium, his lantern jaws fringed with a pointed
stubble of beard, his olfactories just inhaling a
flavour of snuff from the point of his right thumb,
his left yet holding before him the open snuffbox—
indicative probably of his being, par excellence, one
who is (in his own estimation) always" up to snuff."
Beneath this spectacled effigy of your Fighting Yan-
kee—as a sub-title to
,the " Biglow Papers" ,there
appears (as we presume the English publisher's and
Editor's definition of these same " Biglow Papers"
not the author's)—the intimation that the little
book contains within it " The Choicest Humorous
Poetry of the ,Age." And, really, for that
matter, if we prefix to that statement the
two additional words, " Some of"—the aster•
tine, thus qualified, will have just hit it ! For the
fact of the matter is simply this—these Biglow
Papers are, in their own classic phraseology, " true
grit." Whether we accept them as from James
Russell Lowell (merely as the mouthpiece—of Hosea
Biglow of Jaalam—of Increase D. O'Phace, Esquire
—or of Bridofredum Sawin), these wonderfully
fanny,wise and witty,bitingly-causticyet thoroughly
good-humoured effusions, are, in truth, the truest of
" true grit." The Poet, in quaffing his pot of
Helicon-liquor, has drawn it evidently from the right
tap—one worthy of the name given (rather doubt•
fully) by the burly landlord to that memorable glass
of beer drunk by poor little David Copperfield on
cis birthday—" The genuine stunning." Here it is
at last—not dubiously foaming up in the tumbler
handled by David Copperfield, but sparkling and.
bubbling—as fresh as ever—never for that matter
stale, fiat, or unprofitable, in the " native pewter"
angered with an adept's touch by Hosea Biglow of
Jaalam aforesaid. Take the merest taste of it, and
say whether in spite of its profanities, its vulgarities,
and its stupendous eccentricities, it be not as we
have said—the genuine stunning—

We begin to think it's nater
To take sarse and not be riled ;
Who'd expect to see a tater
All on eend at bein' *Wed I
Or again—and surely the reach of profane famisa
iiarity could scarcely any further go—

God hcz sed so plum an' fairly
It's ez long ez it is broad,
An' you've gut to git up airly
Ef you want to take in God.

As to War—

I dunno but wat it's pooty
Trainin 'round in bobtail coats—
But it's curus Christian dooty
This ere cuttin' folks's throats.

Another while, pretty much to the same effect in
meaning though to a different measure, quoth our
transaltlantic chanticleer (still harping;on War)—
This sort o' thing aint jest like thet—l wish that I wua

furder—
Nimepunce a day fer killin' folks comes kind o' low for

murder.
The fun, the wisdom, the wit, the humour of the
thing can only be caught by reading these moat
whimsical papers each in its entirety—or, better
still, the whole series of Biglow papers just as they
are here prasened to us, with all their fantastic in-
troductiuus, foot-notes, interpolations, and runn,
ing commentaries. Mr Hottcn has done exactly
the right tlaiog in issuing precisely this very
edition of James Russell LOWeli'S literary master..
piece.

The Danes in Camp. Letters from Sonderborg.
By Auberon Herbert. One Vol., pp. 221. Sum,
ders, 0 tley, and Co.
The author of these pleasant letters excuses their
homely form, written as they were during his resi.
deuce in Denmark, and at the very seat of the war.
His object in their publication is, he tolls us, two^
fold. " I have been influenced by the double wish
to reproduce in some simple fashion, for th%s sake of
those of my countrymen who are interested', in the
present fortunes of Denmark, a part of my personal
impressions and experiences, and also to p le ce on:
grateful record the kindness with which soldier
and civilian, stranger and acquaintance invariably
befriended me during my visit to that country."
Written in an easy, gossipping style, full of inci•
dental anecdotes and reflections, these "Letters''
give a very interesting glimpse of Denmark and the
D,:‘nes. Mr. Herbert recognises many Point; of
resemblance between Englishmen and Danes. As,
for example, where he writes—
Comparing breakfasts, I here take occasion to notice
what has been striking me most forcibly during the last few
days—the resemblance between the Danes and the Englisl t.
There is not only a resemblance between us in certain
leading points of character, not only do I think that th,ty
have a double portion of that honesty and straightforward-
ness which we are apt to claim for our own national cha-
racter and peculiar birthright, not only have they u man-
liness and dignity of behaviour which is certainly a northern
rather than a southern virtue, but 1 find that it some

trifling matters of detail, particularly in our failings, the
resemblance becomes almost amusing. Before coming to.
these, I have to remark that we are neither of us a nation
of diplomatists. Ido not think that we have as a nation
ever taken kindly to the craft. I do not venture to say
whether that which is deficient in us is a less or a gain,
but whether loss or gain the Danes aro not more successful
than we are, They cherish their personal independence in
the same way as we do—their thoughts are outspoken—
their press is free—a spy is a thing as unknown to them as
it is to us—you scarcely meet a policeman in the streets,
and if you do he has nothing in common with the self-
important sergeant-de-villa whom we in England so much
dislike; even the guards on the railway are "good fellows,"
and not overclad in their own importance; and wherever
you go you feel that this fresh exhilarating northern air
was not made to be breathed by men living under the terrors
of a petty officialism.
Then as to our failings in common. Their cooking is of
the same unartistic kind as our own, and as far removed
from French. refinements ; their shops, like our own—
though a change begins to take place in England in this
respect—are wanting in the brilliancy and arrangement,
-which with other nations so success:ully attract the travel-
ling moths as they flutter about the continent. Indeed
their character is like our own northern island, with its
wealth deeply buried in it for those who care to pierce be-
low, and etaler, or the art of display, is not an instinct
born with the Dane. There is also a want of method and
management with them, as notwithstanding our great
'workshops and manufactories, and mercantile combina-
tions, I shall always contend that there is with us, and from
the administration of a fleet down to that of an hotel I look
-.upon both nations as equally unsuccessful; though how
much of the blame in some of these matters is to be laid on
the shoulders of constitutional government I do not take
on myself to decide. In a word, neither Danes nor Eng-
lishmen have been born diplomatists, or cooks, or haber-
dashers ; but they both have a share of sound qualities,
and not least amongst them a healthy love of individual
Teodoro, which takes little account of any inconsistencies
or inconvenience which may belong to it.
The people of Denmark evidently Nvou the heart
and captivated the imagination of the youthful
traveller—witness the closing passage of this his
very interesting tribute to them :
I hevo read of an Arcadia, but I never thought to have
set my foot within it. In all soberness of speech, the vir-
tues and happiness of this country would lead mo to give
this name to it, were it not that in the very moment in
which I first discover the picture, there is a dark eurtain
which seems to be descending and blotting all out. I have
read of a "patriot-army," of peasants, and ploughmen, and
fishermen fighting for their country, and burying the care
of self, and home, and family, in that deeper love; but ex-
cept in my dreams, I never thought to have seen what I
may imagined from my school books.
As I write, I feel that there is a bitter irony laughing
through my words. My Arcadia is a prey to Uhlans and
to Croats; my patriot army stands on the eve of a trial—
where perhaps the highest science and the fullest resources
of war could not save them. Can I accredit them with
either? can I hope Lhat we still Eve in days, in which
Pat'.iot armies gain victories, and repulse the host of count-
lefs it vaders ?

Dark as are the clouds, and cruel as is the game which
is being played out, however chances may fall, and whether
I succeed in persuading you or not, I am determined to
remain constant to my own belief, that I have both visited
Arcadia, and seen a patriot army.
Do you blame me in this 19th century for cherishing two
such illusions, if illusions they are ?
Among the many books recently published on
Denmark and the Danes Mr. Auberon Herbert's
"Letters may take high rank with the most in-
tern g.