The Sun.
London, England, 1863-06-09 00:00:00

LITERATURE

London Scenes and London People. By Aleph.
1 •01. pp. 362. Coilingridge. City Press.
A very delightful series of gossipping papers, full
of anecdote and information, with which Aleph has
from time to time favoured the good citizens of
London, have here been collected in a goodly
volume, and placed within reach of the general
public on either side of Temple Bar. This
is one of those pleasant books which may be
taken up at any moment and opened at any page.
The sketches are short, the subjects various, an
the style and manner of the narration very easy and
delightful. Many curious facts and incidents, but
little known to the generality of persons, are ex-
plained end commented on, as they are suggested in
our wanderings round the city.. Here, for instance,
is a glimpse of

LLOYDS' UNDERWRITERS.
The chief room now is exceedingly commodious, well
lighted by several skylights, nobly set among very fine
mouldings, while the walls are as pure-looking as paint can
make them. The space, perhaps 80 feet by 70, is set out in
ranges of double-seated boxes, with centre tables, the whole
having a wide avenue in the middle. These tables are
fully occupied, during business hours, by the members,
either expecting calls to, or actually engaged in, profes-
sional duties. Of course, the rates of assurance on ship-
ping and cargo vary. Is the vessel sound, new, Al, or old
and in doubtful repair? Is it about to track a winter or
a summer sea? Then, what is your commodity—brim-
stone or flour, wine or sulphuric acid ? On such, or similar
accounts the per centage required varies from fifteen t.,
forty, and, in extremely hazardous cases, to fifty, or even
more. Nor must you expect a single underwriter to take
the whole risk. You wish to insure, say £1,500 against
risks at sea. Well, Mr. A. will take £lOO, Mr. B. £l5O,
Mr. C. 300, and so on, till your venture is safe—a plan ob-
viously wise, and satisfactory to all parties; for thus, while
the risk diminishes en one side, the security increases on
the other. Losses from the inefficiency of underwriters are
exceedingly rare, nor are there many actions at law on
such subjects—much fewer, indeed, than the vast interests
represented would make probable. Wonderful Londonl
illustrious merchant princes 1 who thus make commerce safe
when it seems most dangerous, and interpose the im-
penetrable aegis of credit between the perils of the ' great
deep,' and the costly freights embarked upon it."
And here, by way of contrast, is a delightful peep
into a far more " comfortable" region—
GARRAWAT'S COFFEE-HOUSE.
Most persons believe that the best time to ask a favour of
a millionaire is at his dessert, when the generous food and
the good wine have made him, perhaps, a little somnolent,
by opening all the flood-gates of his benevolence readily ac-
cessible to every kindly emotion. Some wine merchant of
the olden times, considering this well-ascertained fact, and
having rich cargoes to dispose of, thought within himself,
Why should a sale he such a dry affair? A pleasant bowl
of punch, a glass of old wine, or even coffee and muffins,
would make any auction far more popular. A sale by inuh of
candle—good, for it gives time, but not too much time, for
the buyers to deliberate; but why not a sale with friendly
nods of recognition, whispered health-drinking, and
queries as to children and womankind ?" The thought
was a happy one, and it soon became a fact at Garra-
way's. Sales of wood—especially of hard wood, such as
mahogany, Spanish and Honduras—were, at the period I
refer to, the staple there ; and it was really a cheerful sight,
entering the coffee-room from the fog and cold of a Novem-
ber afternoon, to find all so genial; a capital sea-coal fire,
red and blazing (in really cold weather there is nothing
pleasanter to the outward man than a bright conglomerate
of gasy coals) ; a curious arrangement of dwarf spits, or
rather poly form forks, all armed with muffins, twirling
round and round most temptingly, and implying, with
dumb eloquence, "Come eat us ;" guests imbibing wine,
sipping coffee, or munching toast, and casting at intervals
a satisfied look over the catalogues of the sales just due.
The warmth and the good cheer have smoothed the wrinkle
from every man's face. These intending buyers are no
longer in a hard-bargaining mood. Oh, no 1 If the ma-
hogany suits them, why should they fidget so much as
to price ? The punch is undeniably excellent, and they
cannot fail to realise a large profit on their ventures.
Sir Thomas Gresham, the Mayor of Garrott, the Vicar
of Bray, and other notabilities are introduced to us
in these pages. The pauper grave of Chatterton is
very impressively described. London Stone, Newgate
(" the fifth chief entrance in the city wall, so called,
being latelier built than the rest") Lombard-street,
Mom fields, with its array of old upholsterers' stores,
each in its turn, with many others, affords Emitter
of interesting comment. When we come to Barber-
Surgeon's Hall, we are reminded that " the pole,
which even now, in country places, projects over
the shaver's shop door, indicated at first that per-
sons might be bled there, as the patient, when phle-
botomy was performed, grasped a tall rod, to keep
the arm steady." We take leave of the volume,
heartily responding to the hope expressed in the
introduction by the publisher that Aleph may long
continue to instruct and amuse the citizens of Lou
don with his vivid sketches of their Soenes and
People.

Sir Aberdour ; or, the Sceptic. By Walter Purcell.
Cantos 111. and IV. Pp. 137. Pickering.
Mr. Purcell's muse appears to us rather too stately
a dame for that light, delicate, ornate skiff of the
Spencerian stanza. In herself she seems to bring
too much ballast on board, sinking the craft so
low that the level of the current is almost up to
the boat's edge—sailing heavily in consequence,
and making but little headway. The two cantos
of the poem here published present us with but a
fragmentary portion of the writer's imaginings.
Few though the pages are, however, they contain,
nevertheless, several passages of more or less merit.
Here is one thoughtful stanza, worthy, if only in
the moral of it, of quotation
There is a God who immaterial is ;
If immaterial why should there exist
Nought else than bodies ? None can answer this.
All todies have extent, so must consist
The substance Thought of the materialist.
Extent is indispensable to thought ?
Not so, God is. True, no anatomist
Has ever found a soul ; but who has sought
And found a grief or joy ? or a reflection caught ?"
In the same reverential strain the author of " Sir
Aberdour" continues
" He who created can, if He so will,
Annihilate ; but why should cease to be,
Ere yet its destiny it could fulfil,
My soul, when from its prison-house set free ?
I feel within that which assures to me
A life hereafter; whence arises this?
Am I deceived by a just Deity ?
Am I deluded by self-artifice f
God guides and not misleads, and I shall cross th'
abyss."

Here, again, is a rather fine antithetical illustration
of the accuracy of a metaphor—a twofold illustra-
tion in reference, now to the blindness of Milton,
now to the deafness of Beethoven :
" The eyes are but our prison-windows, closed
Were Milton's, still is was for him to view
The awful splendours that o'er Heaven reposed,
The beauties mild which on the poor earth grew.
Beethoven had no ears to hear, yet who
Could sounds of harmony arrange so well ?
Oh, what could not the soul of genius do,
If 'twere encased in a less earthly shell
Than this debasing form, wherein ' tie doomed to dwell
Our citations will—(we are perfectly satisfied of
this)—while affording excellent proof of the quality
of Mr. Purcell's muse, tend to justify completely
what we have said as to the weight the lady carries.

Strange Things Among Us. By H. Spicer. 1 vol.,

pp. 233. Chapman and Hall.

A book to thrill the marrow of one's bones, and
make " each particular hair to stand on end !" Let
no nervous, sensitive, highly imaginative reader
venture a glance upon ts pages. No one in a lonely
house, or in the gloom of twilight, or thinking of
absent friends, should dare to open it. It is a book
to produce ghosts' It is not only a chronicle of the
various appearances of " spirits" from the " vasty
deep" of the unknown, but a work of magic some•
what akin to that ponderous volume of the " mighty
wizard," Michael Scott, fraught with danger to un-
skilled eyes. The author's object, be tells 114, is
" to inquire, not dogmatise; to suggest, rather than
demonstrate"—" the book is, in fact, but a sketch—
a study—a ballon perdu flung up experimentally
among the currents which have of late set some-
what steadily in a direction of much
Perhaps the
very shortest ghost-story on record, communicated
to the writer by a friend now occupying a tbs..
tinguished post in the Federal army of America—
'My brother George, who was residing in England,
looked into my tent one night in India,' said Colonel
J.,' to tell me he was dead' "—the death having,
of course, taken place simultaneously with the
apparition ! Beginning with this brief narrative,
we pursue an " inexhaustible subject"—mesmerism,
table-turning, spirit-writings, omens, appearances,
, warnings, Lord Lyttieton's ghost, the passing bell,

visions, incantations, dreams and presentments,
until we shudder at the creaking of a door or turn
pale at the flickering of a shadow ! Mr. Spicer is,
however, no credulous believer in all the incredible
mysteries of which he treats, and we glauly tran-
scribe the following very truthful reflections from
the chapter relating to the spiritual manifestations
at the seances of the Mediums

" Supposing that these presumed intelligencers were in-
deed, as they profess, the souls of friends departed, what con-
ceivable element of rational comfort could be deduced from
such a renewal of intercourse ? To believe that the ' desire
of our eyes,' taken from our tender love and care, should be
summonable from its hallowed rest to put half-a-crown into
a showman's pocket; to receive and answer questions fil-
tered through coarse and vulgar minds, perhaps (if the
result be not satisfactory) to be dismissed with scorn and
ridicule. is an insult to the Deity, and revolting to huma-
nity. Far better than the trite phrase and dubious answer
familiar to spirit-seekers, is the comfort of believing that
the departed, having, indeed, no longer a portion for ever
is anything that is done under the sun, are forbidden to
witness the struggle and the strife—the folly and the guilt
—the temptation and the snare—the warring passions—the
disappointment the despair of this bitter, bitter world.
Let us rather bless from our inmost hearts the God of
peace, who, in breathing into the parting spirit the life
divine, hath released it, for eternity, from the troubled
dream of this."

With which beautiful sentiment, in which we very
heartily concur, we take leave of the " Strange
Things" which Mr. Spicer has presented to us.

The Nullity of Mtaphysics set forth in Six Dia-

logues. Pp. 104. Longman and Co.

No author's name appears upon the title-page to
this little volume. The Dialogues are there tempt-
ingly spoke❑ of as Brief. Metaphysics are there
mentioned, moreover, as considered by the inter-
locutors throughout as " A. Science among the
Sciences.° Though our doing so may be only too
suggestive of the presentation to view by the
" Skulasticos" of Hartocles of the specimen
brick of the house that said Skolastikos announced
as " on sale"—we are tempted, nevertheless, to give
here, as a sample of the whimsical volume before us,
at least one little fragmentary excerpt, ex. gr. :
" When a speech consists of grammatical parts, the im-
mediate parts out of which logic derives meaning can never
be more than two—as Stop, Thomas,' or Stop directly.'
If the speech is made up of more than two parts, then one
or both of the parts must also be made up of parts—as
' Stop-directly, fearful-Thomas :' here stop-directly is one
part of speech, and fearful- Viontas is another. But the
former of these is a constructed verb, and the latter is a
constructed noun, and out of these two as premises the one
sense of the whole construction immediately flows as the
conclusion."

What the author precisely proposes to ,his reader
can alone be learnt by that reader upon an atten-
tive and consecutive perusal of his six dialogues.
But—whether they are likely to be worth the
trouble of the reading thus from first to last
anyone who cons the foregoing extract, brief
though it is, may very readily conjecture.

A Popular Treatise on Photography. Translated
from the French of D. Van Monckhoven by W.
H. Thornthwaile, Pp. 137. Virtue Brother

and Co.

Beyond any question the little eighteenpenny
pamphlet here presented to notice, is far and away
the best popular treatiseupon the art of photography
that we have anywhere yet seen published. It le
illustrated throughout, almost we had stiid profuselYt
certainly copiously, with apropos engravings on
wood, wonderfully useful several of them, for inas-
much as they render comprehensible upon
the instant some of the more complex de-
scriptions in the letterpress. The original
work, as penned by that manifestly Dutch-French-
man (that Fren3hman, that is to say, of Dutch
extraction), has long bean well known among con'
tinental photographers as the " Traite Populaire
de Photographiesur Collodion." It has been, here,
very faithfully rendered into English by that other
skilled student in the art of photography, Mr.
Thornthwaite. We doubt not but that among the
masters of the craft, but more especially among the
beginners who are now aspiring to become
masters of it, the little book will be more
than merely acceptable, that it will. indeed, be very
heartily welcomed. "It is not in mortals to
command success, but we'll do more, SemprO'
nious," says Addison's Roman redivivus [and with
him apparently the conscientious translator of thi'
iittle treatise on Pnorograpby], " we'll deserve it!'
Besides the treatise itself, making up the bulk of
the volume, there will be found in these
well
et°hrner:
pacted pages an excellent description of, loge
and
with incident al remarks upon, the Stereoseot e
or
4
Photographic Optics, and other varied matters pot
undeserving of consideration by the practizeliOtO
_.
even, we would say, the mere theoretical, ph
grapher.

Winkworth's Chorale. Containing 200 Tunes'
Edited by Sterndale Bennett and Otto Gold'
schmidt. Longman and Co.
A beautiful little volume is the one here jointly
edited by Jenny Lind's accomplished husband an
by the gifted Professor of Music to the University °
Cambridge—the latter being, as everyone knows bY
this time who knows anything at all about t 1
progress of the divine art here in this
coulitry, one of the very first of living Bali
lisp composers. As a musical collection the wori
is not unworthy of the combined labours of the tsvl
eminent musicians whose names are thus intimatel:
associated upon its title-page.

Cassell's Publications.
Among a whole bundle of wonderfully cheat
illustrated periodicals, issued, as usual, this wont]
from the establishment of Messrs. Cassell, Pettei
and Galpin, we would here particularise, as especl
ally deserving commendation—the thirtieth sixpenn:
part of the " Illustrated History of England," th
eighteenth of the illustrated new edition of th
" Popular Educator," published at eightpence
halfpenny, and the latest instalment of " Cassell
Illustrated Family Paper," a decorous and there
fore a most deserving rival of very many among tb
less carefully conducted cheap periodicals.

ST. THOMAS'S HOSPITAL AND THE SVICRE
GARDENS.—A new scandal has arisen in regard I
the "Grand Committee," in whom the recommendatic
(for the future choice of the Governors) of the site of tl
Hospital building is vested. Mr. T. B. Simpson, the pr,
prietor of the Surrey Gardens,where the hospital has fowl
during the past year, a retuge in its self-created emergent
and a lease of which the committee have secured for g'
years in addition, charges the report of the grand COn
mittee with overstating, by £lO,OOO, the price fixed for the
gardens; and not only with omitting any mention that tl
amount had been fixed inclusive of all other interests ar
charges, but also stating that there was cause for appreher
sion "of great delay and considerable ex?enses, occasion(
by reason of the number of persons whose interest wou
have to be purchased." when, in fact, an agreement b
tween Mr. Simpson and Mr. Baggalley (on the part of tl
hospital) defined, on the 19th March last, all arrangemen
and interests, and a guarantee had been provided, at t:
Treasurer's solicitation, on the 2d of June, to be placed b
fore the committee preparatory to their report on the 4
inst. There are, therefore, is is asserted, no legal diffict
ties, there is no room for apprehensions, and there need
no delay. No Act of Parliament and no compulsory pow'
heing required, the architect of the hospital may exmaroen
operations in the Surrey Gardens to-morrow mornin
should the governors so resolve. Concealment and want
candour are chargeable against this retort, not in this /
stance only, as, according to Mr. Simpson, in mentiont
the other sites the report omits all reference to the expel
of levelling, laying out, draining, &c., works of no trifiii
character, the many thousands already expended on wht'
in the Surrey Gardens are included in the purchase moll
The disparaging allusion in the report, as to the level
the Surrey Gardens in comparison with that of Bethele
has already received its answer in the report of the arcbiti
of the hospital (to which, inadvertently, of course, poi
ference is made, although the report of the committee
-supposed to be founded upon it)--viz , that the soil is ss
and gravel, the level being practically the same as t
sites of Bethlehem, of Buckingham Palace, the barracks
Birdcage-walk, and nearly, it not quite, the whole of 13
gravia. That there have been fewer patients brought to 1
Surrey Gardens than to St. Thomas's has been due to
care having been used to spread sufficiently wide, by
ordinarychar channels of publicity, a knowledge of the char
in the hospital's locality. How well adapted that locality
to the requirements of the South London districts is
deuced by the fact, as stated by Mr. Pigeon at the meetu
that in the month of February 1,300 more out-patients t
bean attended to in the Surrey Gardens than during I
same month in the previous year at the old hospital,
this increase is progressing. But no mention of this
made in the speech of the treasurer or the report of the at?,
mittee, though it must in fairness be stated that it d.
mention a fact which proves very strongly that the hop]
is well situated where it stands---viz., that of the 215 ac
dents brought there, 118 were from places south, and
from places north of the Surrey Gardens,