The Sun.
London, England, 1839-09-24 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

STANDARD NOVELS.—No. 76.
Bentley, London, 1839.
We have here Theodore Hook's " Jack Brag"
(0 Tit -ised in one volume. We have cast our eyes
again over this amusing novel, and feel strongly
inchned to pronounce it its author's best. True,
itis full to overflowing of grotesque improbabilities ;
and, in more than one instance, sacrifices truth
and accuracy of drawing to broad caricature ; but
Its chief personage, John Brag, Esq., who is never
long absent from the stage, is pourtrayed with a
vigour that never flags ; and a correctness—so far as
the leading features of character are concerned—
that all must recoenise who are acquainted with
London life. Some of the subordinates, too, are
admirably delineated. Such is Mr. Heneage Peck-
over, the jolly, good-natured, country squire,whose
boisterous nature has been thoroughly disciplined
and tamed down by his shrewish wife, who has
taught him to look on her as quite a prodigy of
intellect. Here, the author appears to have drawn
dieect from the life, for we recognize truth in every
lineament. The volume is embellished with two
engravings, which are just passable, and no more.

MANUAL FOR MECHANICS' INSTITU-
TIONS.
Longman, London, 1839.
There is much useful information in this little
"(Aurae, whose object is to facilitate the establish-
ment of Mechanics' Institutions, and to improve
and extend those already formed. With this view
a catalogue of books best suited for such societies
13 drawn up ; and also an outline of a course of
teetures•likely to refine the taste, and strengthen the
udgment of the operative classes. In the cata-
logue, some few works are inserted, which- it would
have
been as well to have omitted—" Defoe's
History of the Plague," for instance, which, though
Professing to have been written by an eye-witness
of this great pestilence, in tar l
truth-telling
spirit, is, from first to last, a mere fiction, penned
many years after the event. Again, "
Ancient His: ory" is a, bad choice, for every ordi-
nary scholar knows that it abounds in blunders ; that
the Most erroneous and superficial views are taken of
.6aracter ; and that the spirit that pervades the work
is ghat of anile twaddling. " Knox 's Essays," too, is
no means a good selection. The Doctor, to
say the best of him, was but a solemn flirt in litera-
ture,' who enunciated thread-bare common-places
with an air of the most ludicrous pretensions. His
Maudlin rhapsodies about Chatterton are quite
" Clarendon" is a capital choice, and
We are ;leaved with the liberality that dictated it.
`` Francis's Translation of Horace" may pass for
want of a better ; but the version is sadly tame
and prosaic. Of Cobbett's works we should have
been glad to have seen a larger collection, if only
for his healthy and vigorous style, which is drawn
" from the pure well of English undefiled," and
therefore admirably calculated to improve the tastes
of our mechanics. We urge these few hasty re-
marks in the best possible spirit ; for we have ever
beep foremost.iu advocating the utility, and assist-
ing the spread of Mechanics' Institutions. Well
ordered and regulated, they cannot fail to be of
essential benefit to the community. Yet a few
years, and a whole generation will have sprung up,
acted on by their generous and humanizing in-
fluence ; and when this shall have taken place,
what grand, comprehensive, national improvements,
social and political, may we not expect ? Poor
Toryism—which, by the bye, is but another word
for, ignorance and bigotry l—its ultimate destiny
was sealed when the first stone of the first Me-
elinics' Institution was laid in the metropolis.
MODERN FRENCH LITERATURE. 2 Vols.
.Henderson, London, 1839.
A shallow, vapid work got up in the most ap-
proved book-making spirit. There is little in the
fictitious literature of modern France worthy of
elaborate notice, yet these volumes are made up of
nothing else. We have specimens after specimens
of the absurd monstrosities of George Sand, Victor
Rug°, and the writers of that class—whose occa-
Venal flashes of genius only serve to shed a broader
en on their glaring moral deformities—and of
:thL6se specimens we have scarcely met with one
!twit is entitled to a better character than that of
exaggerated common-place.

TALES OF MANY LANDS.
Harvey and Darton, London, 1839.
This is a pleasantly written little volume, con-
taining a variety of short, interesting tales, well
tiuited to the tastes of young readers of both sexes.
It is ornamented with several wood-cuts, and is got
lip with much elegance.