The Sun.
London, England, 1837-02-24 00:00:00

ABEL ALLI UTT, 3 Vols.
Bentley, London, 1837.
Abel Allnutt is the production of a practised writer, and
who is also a disciplined man of the world. It is a desultory
tale, having no pretensions to a well conceived and well de-
veloped plot, but depending for effect on its characters,
which are numerous, cleverly sustained, and not less ably
discriminated. That of Major Allnutt, in particular, may
vie, in spirit and strict adherence to nature, with the very
best of Theodore Hook's. Who, at one time or other of
his life, has not met—or fancied he has met—with such a
character as this?—
"At the peace he returned home as Major Allnutt. So
long as he was employed by others his conduct was distin-
guished by prudence and sagacity, but no sooner was he his
Own master, than he became the plaything of his own schemes,
and the ready instrument of every schemer. He was one of
those visionaries who conceive they can stride into affluence by
a single step. His quickness in the field of battle made him
conclude that he might be equally successful in the arts of
peace, and he rushed with the same ardour on what he thought
was an indisputable invention, as he did on an unguarded point
of the enemy's line. He wrote unanswerable pamphlets which
were never read, and for which he never got more than the
warm thanks of those to Whom he presented them, backed by
the bill of costs of his publisher. He invented a ship that was
never to sink, in which he embarked half his fortune, and just
escaped with his life, as he was exhibiting her capabilities to
an astonished crowd of patrons and spectators. He then con-
soled himself by endeavouring to convert young town-thieves
into honest yeomen ; in which having failed without taking
warning of experience, he devised a scheme for rearing salt-
water fish in fresh water, hoping to supply the town with cod
and turbot, to the discomfiture of Billingsgate, and in the suc-
cess of which he was about exulting-, when, as the Armenian
Said of his horse, he exclaimed, had they lived but another day,
the experiment would have beta complete."
This description of a restless, sanguine temperament re-
sembles, in point of manner, one of the serious and unexag-
gerated sketches in the " Idler." The jest, however, about
the horse is not of Armenian origin, for it may be found
among the " Facetize " of that patriarchal Greek wag
nierocles. But jokes are great travellers, which may ac-
count for its presence in the dominions of old Tigranes ;
and this, by the bye, reminds us that an ingenious essay
might be made out of " The Travels and Transmigrations
of a Good Joke." But to resume. In the third volume,
which is by far the best, we find a most graphic sketch of
the members of a respectable provincial English family, who
are of the Jonathan Oldbuck school—that is to say, bit-
ten with a mania for antiquities. One of this family, says
Mr. Morier,

" Seemed by nature cast in the mould of an old man, as if
It were intended that he should begin life by the end, instead
of the beginning,—his person was stiff, and the shape of his
face antiquated. His manners were distinguished by old-
fashioned courtesy and a tone of great benevolence ; but at the
same time he was subject to such fits of absence, that a stran-
ger often set him down as proud and supercilious. One of the
principal feats on record against him was performed at an even-
ing party after he had drunk tea, viz., placing his tea-cup
"'thin a gentleman's hat who was standing near him, mistaking
It for the servant's salver."
The Cockney's " Journal" of his tour to Constantinople,
Which occurs in die third volume, is a rich bit of sly, quiet
humour. But indeed Abel Allnutt is light, sprightly, and
amusing throughout, and will not derogate from Mr. Mo-
rier's reputation as a novelist.

EDUCATION REFORM, VoL. I.
Longman, London, 1837.
The author of this elaborate dissertation, of which the
first Part only is completed, is Mr. Wyse, M.P., who has
been long and honourably distinguished by his advocacy of
a national system of education. His present volume be-
trays, in every page, marks of unwearied research and assi-
duity ; and his arguments being chiefly of a practical cha-
racter, are sure to make an impression on all those—and
they are a fast increasing number—who have studied the
subject with attention. Mr. Wyse puts forth no narrow,
Pedantic theories ; but on the contrary, ridicules the absur-
dity of those learned ignoramuses, who conceive that the
essence of all true knowledge consists in the facility of ma-
nufacturing Latin and Greek verses. At some leisure
period we may return to Mr. Wyse's volume ; but for the
Present must content ourselves with this brief, hasty notice.

MINING REVIEW, No. IX.
Simphin and Marshall, London, 1837.
There is a curious essay in this Number on the " Quick-
Silver Alines of Bavaria," which is illustrated by one or two
neat wood-engravings, showing the manner in which the
ore is worked in the mine. The Number contains besides
articles on geological and mineralogical subjects, which, to
the initiated in such matters, cannot but be deeply inte-
resting.

THE HISTORY OF PARTY. Vol. 11.
dr GROROR WINGROVR COOKE, ESQ., BARRISTER-AT-LAW.
London, Macrons, 1837.
In this volume the history of the Whig and Tory factions
is carried down from the accession of George I. in 1714,
to the rise of the Earl of Bute in 1762. Though more in-
teresting than the former volume, it is less valuable as an
historical performance. During the whole of the forty-five
Years of factious warfare, of which it professes to detail the
leading incidents, the Whigs tenaciously held the reins of
the Government—giving, for the most part, stronger evi-
dences of a love of place than of attachment to principles
Purely constitutional. Mr. Wingrove Cooke is an avowed
Whig—an admission distinctly and honourably made by
himself in his preface to this work ; but it affords us little
Pleasure to add, that throughout these pages he appears to
us to write exclusively in the spirit of one. Thus, though
the Whigs were always in power—though the direction of
the policy of the kingdom was exclusively in their hands
from the commencement to the conclusion of the period
Whose political history is included in this volume—yet does
the author endeavour to palliate their most unconstitu-
tional acts by supposing how much more reprehensible
Would be the conduct of their opponents if, for any part of
this, time, entrusted with the national destinies. In re-
fusing to allow that the Tories might have been influenced
7 any feeling of patriotism when opposing the unconstitu-
tmnal measures resorted to by the Whigs—measures which
every, impartial person has long learned to look upon as the
ciaP-traps of a then faction more retentive of place than of
public principle or personal honour—he assumes the character
Of a partizan. We do not mean to insinuate that the conduct
of the Tories would at an) period—if in place—be more im-
maculate than that of the Whigs—far from it ; but we contend,
that the repetition of such inferences when a trial was not al-
lowed them, and when the leaders of the Tory faction stood
forward as the champions of Constitutional liberty, in opposi-
tion to a time-serving Whig Cabinet, is quite unworthy of a
writer of Mr. Cooke's acknowledged ability. It may do very
Well to defend as far as they are defensible, such shameful
violations of the Constitution as the Septennial Act and the
Peerage Bill; but the partiality is not justifiable which ex-
tends to the denunciation of every effort made by the Tories
to defeat these measures. Mr. Cooke is himself obliged to
admit that the Whigs, during the long administration of Wal-
Pole, carried bribery to an extent unexampled in the previous
annals of this country ; but, instead of censuring, he palliates
the time ; nor does he say one word in favour of the Tories
who sought to stern the corrupting torrent by the passing of
Triennial
Bill, and a return to the constitutional practice of
partiality,
Parliaments. But, independently of the author's
We cannot notice, without reprehension, a leading
Principle of faction which he puts forth, and even attempts
to •
oplJustify on the score of moral necessity, namely, that in
Tesie life the end justifies the means.
hus, in speaking
,r_sth. e conduct of the Whigs who in 1736 opposed the
t Act, Mr. Cooke emphatically observes, " The con-
duct of the Whigs upon this occasion was that rather of
Zentdent than of lofty-minded men. But it is a melancholy
ve, that the chivalrous honour, unswerving regard to rin-
gp.lv 'tend recklessness of consequences, so admirable in
i e life, utterly disqualify their possessors for the go-
bt Pernalet of a free country!" This doctrine will admit
tewo interpretations. Either, as we observed above,
th4t th end in politics justifies the means—a most de-
tteetoth:le principle ; or that no honest man can advanta-
d_ ustY Preside over the councils of a free people. But we
;ineY
(in toto the proposition which we have just quoted.
chivalrous honour" and the " unswerving regard to
kocinie
so " admirable in private life," are not less ne-
a eeegsar
at y in the composition of the qualities requisite to form
habitstatesman, than a knowledge of the language and
historyf the people whom he is appointed to govern. The
4eref mixed and republican governments—ancient and
assertinon furnishes ample proofs of the correctness of this
are prepare(Without having recourse to extreme cases, we
aseee to prove, that an unswerving regard to principle
ever, thatsTU in
public as in private life. We admit, how-
v_a.iled in most subversive of the lib
.OCf
jOhneke's doctrine upon this subject long pre-
of
pc sr
Cabinets of Europe ; but a fallacy more
.
of mankind was .olirlit(iligmaoterde.dangerous to the morals,
This work, honweevver, when completed, will form a very