The Sun.
London, England, 1830-10-01 00:00:00

MAGAZINE-DAY.

BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.

" The Moors," which opens (as it should
do) the present number, is one of those bril-
liant versatile productions, which there is but
one, man alive who can write—of course we
wean Professor Wilson. We despair of doing
justice to the exquisite snatches of poetry—the
sly peculiar turns of humour—the bold dashing
descriptions—the vehement declamation—the
fine moral pathos—and (strange to say) the
sound metaphysical reasoning, in which this
brilliant paper abounds. There is nothing we
can compare it to, for we know of nothing like
it. It is essentially original, and to be original
in days like the present, when every stream of
novelty—no matter how recondite—has been
tracked to its source, and laid open to the
garish eye of day, argues genius of the very
highest order. As a specimen of Professor
Wilson's happy eloquence, we give his opinion
of Sir James Mackintosh. With the justice of
his remarks we have nothing to do, we profess
not to decide whether he be right or wrong, we
regard only their eloquence, and on this there
cannot be two opinions. Burke himself might
envy the richness and fertility of this passage :
." Sir James, somewhere or other, touches on the con-
nexion between Genius and Virtue—and as we have often
requi►ed of ourselves a comparison between these divinities,
we glowered on his page with all our faculties of soul and
sense, but could see nothing. Sir James had to draw
upon his own stores for any thing he might say on that
subject, for none of the wise-men or wiseacres, who are
among the number of his familiars, have, we believe, more
than touched it—but the meanness and misery of his lean
lucubrations, betray the scantiness and bareness of the
I►astures on which they have been fed. It is always so
with Sir James. He has built some large hay-stacks, and
filled some large barns with wheat-sheaves, but all the pro-
vender and victual has been bought or borrowed ; and on
walking through his farm we are pained to see the state
bath of meadow and arable—the one brown in spite of
much irrigation, and the other in vain all lying in summer
fallow ; nor can we hope that in any future autumn it will
ever produce a crop."

We bad marked a variety of other passages
for extract, but find, unluckily, that we must re-
strict their number. One, however, we cannot
forbear giving. It is a description of the
mountain scenery at the head of Loch-Etive,
anti assuredly none but a poet whose every
faculty of imagination is keenly awake, could
have written it :

" What a prospect ! Our cloud-castle rests upon a
foundation of granite precipices ; and down along their
thous and chasms, from which the eye recoils, we look on
Loch-Etive, ' Deeply, darkly, beautifully blue,' and hear-
ing on its bosom, stationary—so it seems in the sunshine
—one snow-white sail ! , What brings the creature there
—and on what errand may she be voyaging up the uninha-
bited sea-arm that stretches away into the uninhabited
mountains ? Same poet, perhaps, steers hersitting at
the helm in a dream, and allowing her to dance her own
way, at hqr own will, up and down the green glens and
hills of the foam-crested waves—•a swell rolling in the
beauty of light of music for ever attendant on her, as the
sea-mew--fur so we choose to name her—pursues her
voyage—now on water, and now, as the breezes drop, in
the air—elements at times undistinguishable, as the sha-
dows of the clouds and of the mountains mingle their
imagery in the sea. Oh ! that our head, like that of a
spider, were all studded with eyes—that our imagination,
sitting in the ' palace of the soul,' (a noble expression,
borrowed or stolen by Byron from Waller), might see all
at once all the sights from centre to circumference, as if all
rallying around her fur her own delight, and oppressing
her with the poetry of nature—a lyrical, an elegiac, an
epic, and a tragic strain ! Now the bright blue water
gleams enchain her vision, and are felt to constitute the
vital, the essential spirit of the whole—Loch Awe land-
serpent, large as serpent of the sea, lying sleeping in the
sun, with his burnished skin all bedropt with scales of sil-
ver and of gold—the lands of Lorn, mottled and speckled
with in 'numerous Melds, where fancy sees millions of
water-lilies riding at anchor in bays where the breezes have
all fallen asleep—Oban, splendid among the splendours of
that now almost motionless Mediterranean, the mountain-
loving Liunhe Loch--Jura, lola, and nameless other
islands, floating far and wide away on,--on to Coll and
Tires', beneath the faint horizon drowned in the sea ! But
now all the eyes in our spider-head are lost in one blaze of
undistinguisheble glory—for the whole Highlands of Scot-
land arc up in their power against us—rivers, lochs, seas,
islands, cliffs, clouds, and mountains—the pen drops from
our hand, and here we are—not on the battlements of the
air-palace on the summit of Cruachan—but sitting on a
tripod or three-legged stool at the mouth of our Tent, with
our article before us, anti at our right hand a quech of
Glenlivet, fresh drawn from yonder ten-gallon cask—and
here's to the health of Honest men and bonny lasses all
over the globe !' "

" Passages from the Diary of a Noted Phy-
sician," though clever, are not equal to the last
series. " The Broken Heart," despite the easy
natural power with which it is told, is so intole-
rably trite, that nothing short of inspiration can
reconcile us to it. " The Novel, a Satire,"
is passable. " Expiation" is a talc told with sur-
prising energy. The denouement, however, is too
easily foreseen. " Life of Richard Bentley,"
from the pen of De Quincy, is replete with
classical knowledge, but ill adapted to the present
day. Bentley and his school are past and gone
for ever. The old times of classical criticism
arc already with the days beyond the Flood, for
Mr. Hamilton and his system have clapped their
extinguisher upon them. We shall have no
more scholars of the sound, sterling school—no
more Salmasius's—Ehnsleys, and Porsons—
show has taken the place of substance—assump-
tion of reality—cc and the glory of the com-
mentators," as Burke said of chivalry, " is ex-
tinguished for ever." The remaining articles are
of the average order of ability.

MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

This is One of the most capital numbers that

c editor or proprietor--•aul quocunque alio

nomine gaudet—has ever yet put forth. It has
considerable liveliness and vivacity ; is not defi-
cient in information ; in politics is less acrimo-
nous and ultra than usual, consequently less
generally offensive ; and in variety has as strong
claims to notice as any periodical of the month.
The opening article, under the' title of " The
King of the French, France, Wellington, and
Europe," is a spirited, but by no means violent
article, there is hardly a point in it with the
strict justice of which we do not coincide.

" The Golden City" is a tale well wrought up,
and one which will richly reward perusal. " The
Irish Priest anti hiv Niece" is sprightly, and we
doubt not characteristic ; and " Satan and his
Satellites" an arch, brilliant, good-humoured
squib on Mr. it. Montgomery's religious poem
of Satan, apparently from the pen of Mr.
Croly. " Aphorisms on Man," like all the late
Mr. litulitt's productions, arc replete with para-
dox but full of power, ingenuity, and (perhaps)
truth. ft was the fault of this eminent writer—
for eminent he is and ever will be, in spite of a
hundred faults—to be cursed with a perpetual,
uneasy hankering after effect. This, we sup.

pose, he derived from his original profession of
a painter. He was not satisfied with merely con-
vincing, he must also startle and electrify his rea-
ders—produce a sensation in short—else he ima-
gined that he had done nothing. Hence his works
abound in displays, of energy badly directed.
Sometimes, however, when he condescended to
drop this affectation, and let nature have Air
play, no one could yield more instruction and
entertainment than Mr. Hazlitt. He had hu-
mour, if not wit, a fine vein of pathos, which
went straight to the heart as from the heart it
came, an exquisite relish for poetry, an acute
unerring critical discernment, considerable meta-
physical subtlety, and as genuine a relish for the
Fine Arts as any author or artist that ever
existed. As a writer, however, -more especially
as a politician, his passions too often got the
better of his judgment, and, in fact, had no
slight share in engendering that lingering mor-
bid disease of which he died. " Ballad a-la-
Bayley" is a lively imitation of this trifling song
writer, en voici. In closing our notice of the
" Monthly," we should not omit to notice the
very able engraving of " Louis Philippe" which
heads the number. It does credit to the pro-
prietor's enterprise and liberality :
" I have not laughed nor smiled for years,
Since first I learnt to know
That smiles are channels for our tears,
That very watery woe—
That odd compound of sodas, salts,
Which forms the home-made rain,
With which we mourn our friends or faults,
Our penury or pain.
Age steals on all—dolts, dustmen, dukes,
Rakes, men who say their prayers,
And men who keep their youthful looks
The longest—even on players !
Grimaldi's star too soon has set ;
That satellite, his son,
May round his orbit pirouette,
But not reflect his fun.
Dick Jones, as frisky as a fly,
Mercutio of the day,
(Time writes his truths too legibly I)
May yet grow grave and grey.
Poor Liston's a wet-Baptist grown,
Some say he has been dipped ;
Joe Munden's laugh is now a groan,
And even Harley'. hypped.
Yes—five-and-twenty years will make
A change in mortal things :
I've seen it some strange freedoms take
With very decent kings.
A quarter-century, when o'er,
Appears by no means recent;
It made a saint of naughty Moore,
And Broad-Grin Colman decent.
Ye nine-and-twenty years ! I could
Apostrophize your flight
In strain, would make great Matthew Wood
Put out his little light.
But ye are gone—and where's the use
Of metrical regret ?
Or tears, to render my dry muse
Uncomfortably wet ?
The pump which now at Aldgate stands
Had the same handle Men ;
'Ti, handled now by other hands,
Another race of men !
Phil. Potts was then a serving-lad,
A big-boy sort of man ;
" The boy is father to the dad"
He's now a publican!
Jack Shrimshaw kept his horse and chaise
And rolled in port and pelf
Now Jack, in these degenerate days,
Lin barely keep himself!
Wilke, Wilkins, Wilkinson, and Wicks,
Brown, Buggies, Biggs, and Bate,
Hogg, Huggins, Higgins, Higgs, and Hicks,
Are all in the same state !
There's Thrift, who lent his thousands out,
And dined on two poloniest
Now phaetonizet town about
With two black-spotted ponies ;
And Grasp, who ground the poor to dust,
Hard-hearted as a target,
Has left Bread-Ward his marble bust,
And feeds the world at Margate!
The Dobbses, who then cut a dash,
And led the ion of Aldgate,
Grew out of vogue when out of cash,
And sank to Norton-Falgate;
The Ilobbses, Once in Dobbs's+t/Ise,
Proud when a Dobbs would lighten
The darkness of their dwelling-place,
Now cut them dead at Brighton.
Thus runs the world, thus ran the world,
And thus it still shall run,
Till into atoms it is hurled,
And quenched are moon and sun I
Who shall recount the ups and downs,
The laughter and the tears,
The kicks and cuffs, the smiles and frowns,
Of five.and-twenty year. !"

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
The " English Election" is a temperately
written political article, from which we extract

the following observations on Mr. Brougham's
late glorious and triumphant election for York-
shire. They are full of matter worthy consi-
deration

" But the greatest event in the county elections—per-
haps the greatest in the whole history of elections—is the
return of Mr. Brougham for Yorkshire. It is, indeed, a
new and glorious sign of the times, that a man without
birth, high connexion, office, er estate, should be elected
almost by acclamation as the representative of the greatest
county of England, with which he was wholly unconnected,
except by the exercise of his profession at its assizes, simply
because its thousands of reflecting minds regard him as the
most powerful advocate of humanity and freedom. It is
idle to contend that the last position which Mr. Brougham
has chanced to take, as the leader of a miscellaneous oppo-
sition to the Duke of Wellington, has influenced this
choice ; for, whatever the opinion of the county may be
on this low personal question, it could never excite such
enthusiasm or impel to such an issue ; but his constituents
have looked back on those efforts whirl' appear as so many
watch-fires along the course of knowledge and liberty, ap.
palling their enemies, and lighting their friends upon their
onward path. They see, or think they see in him, an
earnest and practical reformer of the laws ; an opponent of
monopoly in the East Indies, and of slavery in the West;
and the most zealous and active friend of every plan for
diffusing knowledge ; and, believing in his constancy to
these objects, which influence the great prospects of our
species, they care but little how he may choose his part
within the smaller circle of political intrigue. It is foreign
to our purpose to speculate on his future course as a
tici an ; it is enough to know that the impulses which he
has given to society cannot be chilled, nor the debt which
it owes to him paid. It may he regarded as the most sin-
gular coincidence in the history of human affairs, that the
person whose intellect philosophers would consider as
among the moat remarkable of his time, should thus have
been elevated to the greatest of those stations for which
wealth and mediocrity have been the immemorial requi-
sites—or rather let us call it one of the most signal evi-
dences of the progress of that silent and peaceful revolution,
which, without breaking up the surface of society, is ani-
mating its forms with a new expression, and
working in
its dull antiquities till they become the symbols of living
and influential truths."

" Travels in Greece and Albania" is a to-
lerable enough review of Mr. Hughes's travels
in those countries. It is not abode, neither is it
below, mediocrity. The account of the famous (or
rather infamous) Ali Paella is interesting, anti
in some degree novel. " Byron and Shelley on
the character of Hamlet" (a good idea) is a
conversation between these two celebrated poets,
on the subject of the effects produced on their
iby the perusal of Shakspeare's master-
piece. Shelley cie. Shelley has evidently the best of the