The Sun.
London, England, 1839-06-01 00:00:00

FRASER'S MAGAZINE.

In the article headed the " Modern Pythagorean,"
we have a critical notice of the prose fictions of the late
Dr. Macnish, in the justice of much of which we agree,
though there are portions of it written in a style of such
extravagant panegyric, as to wear almost the aspect of
irony. Thus, speaking of one of Macnish's tales
which was inserted in Blackwood's Magazine about
ten or a dozen years since—we mean the " Man-
Mountain" the Reviewer says, " Some passages
of it are worthy to be learned by heart. Witness the
vision of the Mtn-Mountain through the window-blind.
Milton's Satan is scarcely more tremendous." Now
this is supremely ridiculous, and none would have
laughed more heartily at it than the object of the
eulogy, who was a modest, discreet man, and had no
taste for extravagance, whether in the way of praise
or blame. " Catherine, a Story," is here and there
enlivened by a gleam of humour, and in its dia-
logues is easy and natural. The engraving illus-
trative of the tale is a very grotesque production.
" Paris Pastimes for the Month of May," gives an
amusing account of the late enzeute in the French ca-
pital. The description, in particular, of the manner in
which a barricade is formed in Paris, is exceedingly
comic, and we have no doubt—from all we have heard
and read upon the subject—correct in all the essential
points. " Anatomy of the Chess Automaton" is an ex-
planation of that clever juggle which some years ago oc-
casioned such a sensation in England, and puzzled so many
of our most scientific men. Croker's " Popular Songs
of Ireland" is a review, much too long, of a dull, twad-
dling piece of book-making. " Familiar Epistle to the
Hereditary Grand Duke of Russia" is in O'Doherty's
most marked and broadest style of humour. In the
essay on " Greek Comedy" the introductory portion is the
best. We quote some of the writer's remarks on the
perishable character of wit :--
To preserve the perfect savour of wit, is almost as difficult
as to define it. Nothing, says the most fam .us humourist in
English literature, is so very tender as a modern piece of wit,
or so apt to suffer in the carriage. Wit has its walks and pur-
bees, out of which it may not stray the breadth of a hair, upon
peril of being lost. The moderns have artfully fixed this mer-
cury, and reduced it to the circumstances of time, place, and
person. Such a jest there is, that will not pass out of Covent-
garden ; and such a one, that is nowhere intelligible beyond
Hyde-park. These are the words of Swift, whose own inimi-
table satires have long ago begun to feel the changes of fashion
and of time ; and whose luxuriant imagination loses half of its
richness and verdure, in the uncongenial atmosphere of modern
habits and education. The same remark applies with equal
force to the pleasantry of Lucian, the buffoonery of Rabelais,
the malignity of Martial, and the urbane gaiety of Horace. In
proportion to the personality of the wit, seems to be the rapidity
of its evaporation. The brilliant portraits of Dryden—the
poetical Rembrandt of his age—and the more delicately finished
miniatures of Pope, require the reviving hand of the accom-
plished annotator. They must be hung in the light of criti-
cism, before the character or the individuality of the picture can
be ascertained. So it is with the sparkling dramatists of the
reign of Charles the Second, those fire-flies, whose airy evolu-
tions and glancing plumage emit an unhealthy lustre in that
night of all that is noble and inspiring in our literature. The
leprosy of vice has, indeed, eaten into and corroded the richest
colours of their pencil ; but this disease, venomous and deadly
as it is, would not alone have obscured the vividness of their
wit, or benumbed the vivacity of their invention. Their cos-
tume and conversation, their puns and their paintings, their
sallies and their scandal—all wear a faded look ; and the Pel-
ham, of the nineteenth century, scarcely recognises the Sir
Fopling Flutter of the seventeeth.

HEADS OF THE PEOPLE.
This lively little periodical " runs on its course re-
joicing." The present Number is one of the smartest
we have yet seen, and contains a continuation of
" Tavern Heads," the " Old Housekeeper'' and the
Postman," which last is by Douglas Jerrold, and in
his most successful manner.

LIFE OF THE DUAE OF WELLINGTON.

The present part, which is the third of this biography,
comes down to the year of the memorable siege of Sa.
ragossa, where Palafox acquired such glory. His
character is justly and impartially drawn by the writer,
who strips him of one or two of his laurels.