The Sun.
London, England, 1839-11-15 00:00:00

Ll TERA TUBE,

THE _EL YIIV GLUT CHMAN. 3 V oLs.
Colburn, London, 1839.

The incidents of this romance, though put to-
gether rather too loosely and hastily, are yet full of
interest, so much so, that he who once fairly corn-
mances the story, will, we are persuaded, not throw
it aside till he has completed the perusal. The
hero is a young ardent Scottish Lieutenant in the
Navy, by name Ramsay, who happens to fall in
love with Angela, the daughter of Captain Living-
stone, on board of whose frigate she is at the time
Ramsay first meets her. She returns his attach-
ment, but so ill conceals her feelings, that her
father becomes acquainted with them, and from that
moment resolves on the ruin of her presumptuous
suitor. At the opening of the narrative, we find the
young man under arrest for having struck his supe-
rior officer, the Captain's son, who entertains an
equal dislike of him. A court-martial is soon after-
wards held, when Ramsay is of course found guilty,
and dismissed the service ; but on being taken
ashore, is instantly seized by a press-gang, hired for
the purpose by the inexorable Captain Livingstone,
and brought back again to the frigate, there to serve
as a common sailor. While acting in this capacity,
he is subjected to the grossest indignities by his
tyrannical Commander, and is even threatened
with the cat-of-nine-tails; but the night be-
fore this punishment is to be inflicted, a
certain marine corporal Macpherson—a stern
mysterious man, whom Ramsay had shortly,
before saved from a watery death, enters the Cap-
tain's cabin, strangles him, and flings the body out
of the window into the sea. A few hours, how-
ever, previous to the discovery of this singular mur-
der, .Ramsay is conveyed by the Captain's orders,
who had suddenly changed his mind about the
flogging, to a desert island, where he is left to
perish or escape as may happen. Meanwhile the
sailors, on hearing of the strange disappearance of
their hated Commander, break out into open mutiny,
and appoint Macpherson their Captain, who in-
stantly turns pirate, and cruises for some months
in the South Seas, under the disguise of the well-
known phantom-ship, the Flying Dutchman. In
one of these expeditions he unexpectedly falls in
with Ramsay, who—after a long residence on the
island, where he had renewed his acquaintance
with Angela, whom he found one day in the
cabin of a stranded vessel, to which her father had
transferred :ier—has been taken off by a sloop of
war, together with his " lady love," whom he
had made his wife, after a true primitive fashion--
namely, by giving her a written agreement to
that effect, and reading with her the marriage
service from a Bible, which with other articles, he
had procured from the wreck. Great is the Pirate
Macpherson's joy on again meeting his young
friend ; and he endeavours to persuade him to
make one of his crew, but Ramsay resists all his
entreaties, and remains firm to his allegiance as a
British subject, and is therefore detained as a
prisoner, but on his parole. In the course of time
the pirates are all taken, and Ramsay is tried by a
court-martial for the murder of Captain Livingstone ;
the evidence is strong against him ; but just at the
crisis of his fate, the real Captain makes his ap-
pearance, and, still retaining his old animosity
against him, boldly asserts that he was the man who
had entered his cabin by night, strangled him, and
thrown him into the sea, where he was providen-
tially saved by coining in contact with a large frag
ment of a floating wreck. Scarcely has the Captain
concluded his evidence, when the Pirate, Macpher-
son, appears, avows himself to be the intended
assassin, and, by so doing, obtains the discharge of
Ramsay, who, on his whole sad story having been
related, is restored to his rank as Lieutenant, and
formally married to Angela. As for the Pirate, he
escapes, and is proved to be the father of Mrs.
Ramsay, by Captain Livingstone's sister, whom
he was compelled abruptly to quit on the
eve of her confinement, in consequence of having
been implicated in the rebellion of Forty-Five. From-
that period, the Captain wishing to conceal the
disgrace of his sister's connection with a Scottish
rebel, had brought up the child as his own, the mo-
ther having died in her travail. The reason of
Macpherson's having entered on board the Captain's
frigate, is therefore now made apparent. He was
anxious in that humble disguise to watch over the
interests of his darling daughter. We do not often
meet with a ro!nance fuller of wild, exciting incident
than the present. The adventures of the pirates and
their stern, reserved commander ; the accounts of
the mutiny ; of the attempted assassination Cap:
taro Livingstone ; of the subsequent tropical storm .;
and more especially of Ramsay's residence with
Angela on the deserted island ;—these various mat-
ters detailed with consummate skill and anima-
tion. " The Flying Dutchman" is by many degrees
the best of Mr. Neele's works of fiction.

LARDIVER'S CYCLOP/EDIA, No. CXVIII.
Longman, London, 1839.

The Number before us of this popular Miscel-
lany, forms the sect.-1 volume of a history of Den-
mark, Sweden, and Nt. the production of a
gentleman named Do.thhm. The most entertaining
portion of this history is that wherein an account is
given of the cosmogony and religion of Scandi-
navia ; and of the maritime expeditions of the north-
men during the Pagan times, in the Orkneys, the
Hebrides, and Iceland. The volume is embellished
with a sketch of the Quay at Copenhagen.

SOLITARY HOURS.
Blackwood, Edinburgh, 1839.

A very pleasing collection of poems from the pen
of Mrs. Southey, better known as Miss Caroline
Bowles. The lines entitled to a" Dying Infant,"
we think we have seen before ; they are in the au-
hoes best manner, and are full of pathos.

WONDERS OF GEOLOGY, VoL.
Relfe and Fletcher, London, 1839.
Dr. Mantel! is the author of this volume, which
displays much curious learning and research, and
is illustrated with several woodcuts explanatory of
the interesting and diversified theme on which the
Doctor descants.

ENCYCLOPiEDIA BRITANNICA.-VOL. 19,

PART 2.
Black, Edinburgh, 1839.
We have here a variety of well written articles
on subjects connected with biography, . history,
statistics, geography, and various other branches of
literature. Among them is a memoir of the late
Sir Walter Scott, for the principal facts in which
the author is of course indebted to Mr. Lockhatt's
" Life." There is also a biographical sketch of Rous-
seau, which, though correct and pains-taking
enough, so far as dates and facts are concerned, is
deficient in critical perspicacity. The remarks in
particular on the " New Eloisa," and on Rous-
seau's still more striking posthumous work, the
" Confessions," are very meagre and common-place,
" There needs," to quote Hamlet's language, "no
"host to rise from the grave to tell us" that the former
work " has its beauties as well as its faults," and
latter is " a very dangerous book." We
knew -11 this before. The soundest critical remark
e 4, with on the " Eloisa," is that made by
ced it to be a lumbering piece
we ever m
p:e:cstulia:ntry. The articles on " Scot-
land"are penned in a neat, con-
densed,Encyclo. pxdic. style, and,
of Scott,s
e n twi
Fnheon,tp,arit
and
holvyhat :estrieted limits, furnish
considerinagndatiletiorrsooumg
us with a vast amount ofusefut
mps.
knowledge.a The
Part contains several well-executed

-----,-----
Sir Charles and Lady Coote are entertaining
4 Party at Ballyfinn,
Queen's county.
The Hon. Captain Spencer entertains next
month at his seat Wiseton Hall, Yorkshire, a large party ;
among
whom
Stuart are named the Earl Spencer, the Hon.
Wortley, Colonel Burdett, and many members
of the Melton Hunt.
DOVER, Nov. 13.--The Firebrand Admiralty
steamer has arrived at Dover, to be in readiness to
Albert to
convey Prince t Calais ;he is expected hourly
to embark. The
his arrival at garrisonthe
York t are ready to salute him on
The Hon. Daniel
V
Senate, family and suite, as also Samuel Appleton, Esq.,
and lady, with a select party,
of the United States
fr
the packet-ship Mediator
inst., and not in the Liverpool Portsmouth, on the 29th
of the daily newspapers.
The amount of damage (Inn;
steamer, as stated in most
covered by the outbreak of
the reservoir on Earlsburn is estimated,
wouldrewith stones,
abeoubteliaenvea,craet
several thousand pounds. One field, of
w
v bel incurred
of the
in extent, has been so completely
that it is believed the expense which
by their removal would be more than the
field. A paper mill on the Carron has alsoawueeof
under-
stand, been injured to the value of upwards
The large trouts with which the reservoir was 4001.11
were left by the flood in the neighbouring Aii in 1
-e#!--0 such
immense quantities, that the people in the vicinity were
cogigad for some time in can') ing them away in baskets.
—Edinburgh Observer.