The Sun.
London, England, 1839-01-22 00:00:00

PROFESSOR BONNYCASTLE'S ALGEBRA, &c.

t N INTRODUCTION TO ALGEBRA ;
with Notes and Observations, designed for the Use of Schools
and ether Places of Public Education.
By JOHN BONNYCASTLE,
Professor of Mathematics in the Royal Military Academy,
Woolwich.

16th Edition, corrected and vreatly iin?roved, by S. MAYNARD,
4s. bound.
Abo, by the sz me Author,

A KEY to the above, 4s. tid. 1 oun 1.
THE SCHOLAR'S GUIDE to ARITHMETIC, 16th Edi-
tioa, 3s. 6d. bound.
A KEY to ditto, 4s. 6d. bou• d.
AN INTRODUTION to HENS RATION, lith Edition,
4s. 6d. bound.
A KEY to ditto, 4s. bound.
A TREATISE on ALGEBRA, 2d Edition, 2 vols. Bvo.,
253. boards.

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On the 25th will be published, in dewy Svo., price 7s. 6d., boards,
11 HE NEW ARMY LIST,
Exhibiting the Rank, Standing, and various Services of
every officer in the Army, Including the Ordnance and Royal Ma-
rines, dis!ing,nishing those who have served in the Peninsula, who
have received Medals, or other distinctions, and who have been
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I'ublished by -Smith, Elder and Co., Cornhill; and sold also at
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sreet, Strand.

This day was published, in quarto, price 41. 45., illustrated with 14
Plans and Maps, and 34 Etchings by Captain Jones,
T"E BATTLE OF WATERLOO.
The History of this important Battle, the details of which have
so long excited the attention of Europe, is alone to be obtained by
the careful consultation of this volume, which consists of a series of
Narratives, by Officers and Privates, from every arm in the ser-
vice, while their recollections were alive to the conflicting mo-
ment, which is the peculiar character of this work ; there is also
affixed an Authorized List of the Officers who served in the Cam-
paign, which cannot fail being interesting in an after time to the
Families of their posterity.
This work is particularly recommended at the present moment,
by having our recollection revived in the publication of the 12th
Volume of the 4‘ Duke of Wellington's Dispatches," and also as
enabling the visitors of the ingenious Model of the Battle, now
exhibiting, to increase their satisfaction by previously consulting
the enlarged Plans in this work, besides the Circumstantial details,
the whole beinc, from Eye-Witnesses.
Sold by L'Booth, Duke-street, Portland-place ; and by all
Booksellers.
, on India Paper, 51. ss. Proof Copies of the Etchings

GARDENING OPERATIONS TOR
THE WEEK.

(From the Gardener's Gazelle. )
Prepare hot beds for Cucumbers; take care to let out the
rank steam before the mould is put on, and as soon as it is a
give a small portion of air every
proper heat sow seeds in pots ;
day by tilting the lights in a very trifling degree for a short time.
In the event of snow falling to any considerable extent,
have it cleared away immediately from the roof of green-
hcuses, pits, &c.
The more rare the opppttunities of giving air may be to
houses and pits, the more care should be taken to reap the ad-
vantage of such opportunities, even if but for half an hour in
the day.
In other respects continue as before.

The Leeds petition against the Corn-law received
9,000 signatures during the first two days.

EDINBURGH REVIEW. No. 138.
Longman, London, 1839.
After many years of unaccountable neglect, this influen-
tial Journal has at length seen fit to do justice to the talenti
of Mr. Peacock, the author of " Headlong Hall," and
other tales—or rather philosophical satires—whose spark-
ling wit, and easy grace of style, are among the least of their
good qualities. We do not think, however, that the Re
viewer evinces much discrimination in his criticism, when
he attributes to Mr. Peacock the power of delineating cha-
racter, as in his " Maid Marian ;" for it must be manifest
to all who have read his works with attention, that his pri-
mary defect is the utter inability to breathe into his various
sketches the breath of life. His characters are not so much
real flesh and blood, as opinions personified. Like Martin,
Jack, and Peter, in the " Tale of a Tub," they are mere
vehicles for the promulgation of certain abstract theories
and crotchets. One, however, of Mr. Peacock's sketches
we should perhaps except from this objection, and that is,
his Doctor Folliott—a jovial, caustic, English Divine—
fond, but not immoderately so, of good eating and drinking,
a gentleman and a-scholar, who is drawn with a life-like
freshness and spirit quite unusual with the author, and
which leads us to infer that lie is here giving us an insight
into his own idiosyncracy. In the subjoined remarks we
heartily concur with the Reviewer
A genuine devotion to good eating and drinking, neither
disguised nor excused, but studiously indulged and boldly pro-
fessed, as the natural occupation of a sound mind in a sound
body, is a quality on which Mr. Peacock's eye pauses with an
enjoyment almost akin to love. Not that he really esteems it
(we know nothing of him, but imagine him a temperate man,
with a thorough contempt for made dishes,) but because it is
his calling and his delight thus audaciously to reverse the
opinion of the world, and to make all the idols, for the worship
of which men quarrel, appear hollow and ridiculous in the pre-
sence of that which they agree in despising. On the same
principle, it may be observed that the desire of dinner is in these
novels, the one touch of nature that makes the whole world
kin; the one thing good for man all the days of this vain life,
which he spendeth as a shadow, on which all philosopher's
agree—the one thing which abides with him of his labour.
ab en/t/s.
areA .All
rcuownitnr
go vile
ur stiteusr,, haonad• e Nw• eird
edri v
All conflicting theories shake hands at the sound of the dinner-
earsgunendte,r wahsertheetyheprdniespeeudt:
strangely converge and meet in the common centre of the dinner.
table.

The sentence which we have marked in italics contains
a sound and wholesome truth. All conflicting theories do
indeed shake hands at the sound of the dinner-bell ; and
Heaven forbid that it should ever be otherwise ; for con-
ceive what a heart-rending thing it would be, were a good
dinner to be allowed to grow stone-cold, and " waste its
sweetness on the desert air," while the guests were noisily
discussing in the drawing-room the Poor-laws or the Popu-
lation question ! " Statistics and Philosophy of Storms" is
a curious scientific treatise, in which the phenomena of hur-
ricanes—especially those tremendous ones which occur pe-
riodically in the West Indies, end along the coast of the
Americas—are attempted to be explained and accounted
for. In the course of his discussion, the Reviewer gives an
interesting account of the hurricane which ravaged the
island of St. Vincent in the year 1831 :
In passing from Barbadocs to St. Vincent this hurricane
moved only at the rate of ten miles an hour. Before it reached
St. Vincent, Mr. Simonds observed a cloud to the north of
him, so threatening in its aspect, that he had never seen any
thing so alarming during his residence of forty years in the
tropics ; and he informed Colonel Reid that it appeared of an
olive green colour. Mr. Simonds hastened borne, and by
nailing up his doors and windows, saved his house from the
general calamity. The water of the sea was raised to such a
height in Kingston bay as to flood the streets, anrseveral
buildings in Fort Charlotte were unroofed, and others blown
down. The most remarkable phenomenon, however, which
took place at St. Vincent was the effect of the storm on the
extensive forest with which a great part of the island is covered.
A large portion of the trees at its northern extremity were
killed, without being blown down. These trees were frequently
'examined by Colonel Reid in 1832; and they appeared to him
to have been killed, not by the wind, but by the extraordinary
quantity of electric matter rendered active during the storm.
During the paroxysms of the storm, two negroes at Barbadoes
were greatly terrified 'by sparks of electricity passing off from
one of them. This took place in the garden of Codrington
College, where the but of-the negroes having just been blown
down, they were supporting each other in the dark, and endea-
vouring to reach the main building. Another remarkable
phenomenon accompanied this hurricane. In consequence of
the sea breaking continually o'varthe cliff at the north ,point, a
height of seventy feet, the spray was carried inland by the
wind for many miles, and it rained salt water in all parts of the
country The fresh water fish in the ponds of Major Leacoek
were all killed, and at Bright Hall, about two miles to the
south-south- east of the point, the water in the ponds continued
salt for many days after the storm.

In the review of " Southey's Poetical Works," the
anwude honourable is made to this distinguished writer,
who for years together was never mentioned in the Edin-
burgh Review but in terms of ridicule, softened off by a
sort of supercilious and condescending expression of regret
that he had so misapplied his luxuriant powers of imagi-
nation. And how is he spoken of now ? As one of th 3
most sterling poets of the age, worthy to be compared
to Schiller, and who has written works which the world
" will not willingly let die." Now we think Southey is
here just as much over-rated, as before he was under-
rated by the Edinburgh. We grant that he has penned
many passages all a-blaze with imagination, and teeming
with the rarest and most delicate beauties of thought
and feeling, but we doubt much whether he has written
one single poem which, as a whole, will find favour with
posterity. His " Roderick," as beir, the most eqiiably
sustained of all his works, stands the best chance, but
even here there is much verbose declamation, cold and
glittering as a sunned iceberg ; and a constant attempt
at the stern passion, of tragedy, which is as constantly
ineffective. As for " Kehama," if we except one or two of
its gorgeous oriental descriptions, and its exquisite apos-
trophe to Love—the love of a Psyche, not of a Cyprian
Venus—it is a loose, sprawling poem, the chief figures
in which remind us of those grotesques ones which we
see cut out and painted on paste-board, and pulled by
wires. " Thalaba" is another sort of Fantoccini produc-
tion, whose chief recommendation is the high-toned mo-
rality by which it is sustained throughout. But if we
demur to Southey's claims as as a first-rate poet, as a
prose writer, we feel that we cannot praise him tco
highly. His style is all that it should be—easy, flowing,
copious, but not redundant, utterly devoid of tameness
and monotony, and full of the most agreeable melody.
It is evidently penned con amore—as all prose must be,
to be worth anything--and is enlivened by frequet.t
touches of the most relishing archness and sarcasm.
Those who have read his " Life of Nelson" may con.
gratulate themselves on being acquainted with the most
stirring, eloquent, and picturesque biographical essay, in
this or perhaps in any language ; nor can his " History
of Brazil"—heavy and elaborate as it is—fail to be pe-
rused, always with advantage, and frequently with the
deepest interest. " Southey,"says the Reviewer,
Is said to have burned more verses, between his twentieth
and thirtieth year, than any other living bard has written in all
his clays l Were his productions confined to poetry alone, he
would fill a respectable place on the shelves, even in this pro-
lific age ; but when to this is added the mass of prose which
he has contributed to our literature, and the prodigious though
desultory studies which he has gone through, in the process
of reading up' the several subjects on which he has exercised
his pen, his exertions border on the incredible. Those of
Voltaire, and even of Scott, both of whom, comparatively
speaking, drew from their own imagination and fancy the ma-
terials of their voluminous writings, sink to nothing in the
comparison I His life has been one incessant course of literary
production. The fertile field of his genius has never been
left to itself for a single season, to recover strength by such
abandonment. On the contrary, it has been wrought from his
earliest years under a perpetual system of rotation; exhaust-
ing crops of history, ethics, and polemics, alternating with the
lighter produce of poetry, criticism, and biography."
Southey is certainly a most prolific writer, but his exer-
tions are by no means unparalleled, as the Reviewer would
seem to imply. Cobbett wrote quite as much ; and Mr.
Walter Wilkins, in his instructive account of the " Life
and Times of Defoe," has given a catalogue of the produc-
tions of that remarkable author, which—if our memory be
correct—extend to some three or four hundred volumes!
" L:ster's Life of Clarendon" is less an impartial criticism
on this well-digested work, than a defence of it from the
attack made in a late number, of the Quarterly. The
Reviewer draws the character of Clarendon quite as
favourably as it deserves, and sums up with the per-
tinent remark, that he was " more of a penman than a
statesman—much better fitted to describe events than to
direct them." Truer words than these were never spoken.
By his habits of thought and feeling—for his mind was of
a retrospective rather than a prospective order, clinging to
the past, and distrustful of the future—Clarendon was ill
qualified to advance the interests, or sympathise with the
feelings, of such stirring and troublous times as thos:p in
whic!i he lived. But with the pen in his hand he was quite
at home. We say nothing of the political spirit o'his
history—for however impartial he may have supposed
self, this famous work is less a history, than au elaborate
vindication of Charles the First—but as a delineator of
character, and a minute, eloquent chronicler of events, he
has been seldom surpassed, and certainly never equalled, in

As a companion-piece to the above, we add the portrait
of Isabella's husband, Ferdinand—one of the wariest and
most politic monarchs that ever swayed the Spanish sceptre,
and whose character, in some respects, bears no slight re-
semblance to that of the more celebrated Charles the Fifth :
" Ferdinand's character exhibits many points of contrast
with that of IsabAh. His education, when young, had been
much neglected. Ho was brave, but his courage seems to
have been rather the effect of reason, than of natural impulse.
He was of an equable temper, and seldom showed signs of
passion ; his manners \sere courteous and extremely agreeable;
like Isabella, he was temperate and frugal in what concerned
his private expenses ; but he is accused, not without founds._

tion., of having carried economy, or rather parsimony, so far
as to have endangered by it the fate of his armies in Italy.
He seldom spent h's time in frivolous amusements; during
his whole reign he directed, by means of his secretaries, the
complicated concerns of his policy. Ferdinand was devout,
or at least he was attached to the exterior forms of religion ;
but in him religion seems to have beets a duty ; while in Isa-
bella it was a necessity—a law of her existence. He is ac-
cused cf having co-operated with his consort in the establish-
ment of the Inquisition; but this statement, which has only of
late been made by the Castilian writers, rests on no historical
foundation whatever. It is not so easy to acquit Ferdinand of
the reproach of ingratitude towards those who have shed the
greatest lustre on his reign. Indeed, during the course of his
life, he seems to have had no other rule to direct his actions
than his own interest. Friends he never bad any, and he only
stirnated men in proportion to the services they could render
him."

" Luther and the Reformation" is a paper that deserves
great praise, if only for its masterly sketches of Erasmus
and Luther, and its graphic and condensed account of the
fanatic John of Leyden, whom Rebertson has brought so
vividly before us in his best work—the " History of Charles
the Fifth." In his portrait of Erasmus, the Reviewer does
every justice to the various learning of this ripe and ready
scholar, observing that "in his hands the Latin language
was bent to uses of which Cicero himself might have
thought it incapalile. Grasping at universal excellence
and immediate renown, he poured out orations, verses,
essays, dialogues, aphorisms, biographies, translations, and
new editions of the classical writers, with a rapidity which
at once dazzled the world and exhausted himself." Yet,
with all this, Erasmus was not a man of first-rate mind.
Like Dr. Parr, he had a prodigious swallow—was a perfect
Mira) librorma—but wanting steadiness of purpose, depth
of thought (though even as a thinker he was far in advance
of his age), strength and earnestness of character, he has
left us no single work which is half so fertile in ideas, or
affords half the intellectual nourishment that is supplied
by one of Milton's prose essays. His most popular
writings are those with which he took least pains, and
which he professed to throw off merely as the relaxation
of his leisure hours. Perhaps the best, certainly the
most graphic, of these, is his " Naufraguim,"
wherein he describes the sudden falling of a thunder-
bolt cm a vessel, which, as a specimen of picturesque
narrative is hardly surpassed by any of the daintiest bits in
LiN V. Erasmus would have been a greater and a wiser
man had he not stood in such awe of Majesty ; but the
love of crowned heads was a weakness he could not over-
come—a fact which, in pourtraying this distinguished
scholar, the Reviewer ought not to have omitted.
" Foreign Relations of Great Britain," is a rapid and ani-
mated summary of the leaching European events of the last
forty years, from which the Reviewer draws inkrences for
the guidance of the present day, which evince a vigorous,
inquisitive, and philosophical intellect. Some detached
passages in this paper remind us of Lord Brougham—as,
for instance, where Napoleon's Russian campaign and
final overthrow are described, which, though only in out-
line, is a sketch full of force and energy. In the course of
this episode the Reviewer quotes an epigram on Napoleon
by Mr. Justice Williams, which, he tells us, is " now for the
first time made public." We subjoin this classical little
gem, as also a free and hasty translation—paraphrase rather
—of it, in which, however, we have in vain attempted to
imitate the neatness and conciseness of the original, which is
quite worthy to vie with many of the epigrams in the Greek
anthology. We should observe, that in the last line and a
half, the literal meaning of which is, " place, Oh stranger,
against a tomb (that is, as a set-off against a tomb) Hes-
peria, the Ister, the Pyramids, and Scythia," we have, for
the purpose of condensation, deviated, perhaps unwarrant-
; ably, from the text :

112,EEc.v/a,:0.) xyzi,ccFrda. Eya.
E<C.C4lC(.l.(4Yr.ic.
T)I3E NECtrOAEWY c04)12,./4 s-' as-cc4)oc rs Ert tErfa
KEIII.,Z, ap,olPactr,v VEtl,2O-11,•
6ap.a.g.acrsE ...Pit?ecrOE slq,covot
N-rvos, 61ccie7o; atJavalo;*

OZJEY 7:),u-Pou• fiEc 6ict) EEly'ar,7l
1740 v, aqaj4i6ac,

I, who than Alexander greater far,
And Caesar, harnessed Victory to my car—
Ev'n I, Napoleon ! doomed to fate to bend,
Lie on this rock—untombed—without a friend—
Revenge your wrongs, mad tyrants, then, and shed
Your well-earned wrath upon my vanquished head—
Ye cannot check my fame's immortal spread.
I need no tomb, for Europe tamed and rent,
And Egypt's sands, form my best monument.

ROB OF THE BOWL. 3 VoLs.
Bentley, London, 1839.
. .

Mr. Kennedy is a gentleman already favourably known
to the public, by his tragedy of the " Siege of Antwerp"—
one of the most stirring dramas which have appeared of
late years. His present tale, which we believe, is his first
essay of the sort, satisfies us that he is calculated to suc-
ceed quite as well in prose as verse, which is not often the
case with those, though Scott .and Southey are brilliant ex-
ceptions, who have commenced their career as poets. Rob
of the Bowl is a species of historical novel, whose s:ene is
laid in Maryland, during the reign of the Second Charles ;
and in part, details, and with singular knowledge of the
times, the squabbles, serious and diverting, of the rival
parties of Papists and Puritans located in Maryland, the
greater portion of which was colonized by Lord Baltimore
and his dependents. The descriptions in this tale are all
clever, but they are much too frequent—so much so indeed,
as greatly to impede the progress of the narrative, espe-
cially the earlier portions of it. The characters are amus-
ingly sketched, but more might have been made of some of
them—such for instance as Garrett Weasel, the hen-
pecked publican, in whom, " there was au air of assenta-
tion and reverence which perhaps grew out of the domestic
discipline of his spouse, a buxom dame, and with the heart
of a lioness ;" and in whose " worst outbreak of convivia-
lity there was a glimmering of deference and respect, rising
up to a ricketty laugh, and a song sometimes, yet without
violent clamor"—more, we say, should have been made of
this character, whose opening is full of promise. Cockles-
craft, the half smuggler, half pirate, is a much more fully
developed character, and exhibits no little vigor of drawing.
The•language of the tale is forcible and unaffected, and
sometimes rises to the poetical.
;•,.

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44

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