The Sun.
London, England, 1839-02-18 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

HOOD'S COMIC ANNUAL.
Baily, London, 1839.
Whoever loves a broad grin, and would rather laugh
and grow fat, than sigh and grow le in, let him hasten
to acquaint himself with the contents of this delightful
little volume, whose very title-page is a joke of the
broadest and most grotesque quality. If it be true, as
Peter Pindar has said, that
" Care to our coffin adds a nail, no doubt,
But every jest so merry draws one out,"
then the Comic Annual, acting the reverse way of
Morison's Pills, will operate as an invaluable " Life
Preserver." To read it is like inhaling the " lata4hing
gas." Your risible muscles are called vehemently into
action every instant. Nor are the plates less provocative of
inextinguishable merriment. They are not less than
fifty in number, and not one but overflows with true
humour. We will just briefly describe a few of them.
" Poplar and Wapping" is illustrated by two elderly
females, one of whom—short, and squat, and round to
a degree approaching the supernatural—looks just like
a fillet of veal upon castors ; while the other is as thin as
a skewer, as tall as a May-pole, and as straight and
s•iff as a ram-rod. The countenances of these be-
witching creatures are admirably contrasted. One looks
as if she were holiday making ; the other as if she were
doing penance for an act of meditated suicide. "If you
are not engaged for the next sat" is capital. Conceive
a great brown Norway bear, with his right paw placed,
dandy-fashion, on his heart, sidling up to a young lady
in a ball-room, and with a smile of the most engaging
suavity, requesting the honour of her hand for the next
quadrille! The lady, as might be expected, looks the
very picture of astonishment ; though why, we cannot,
for the life of us, imagine, for bears are by no means un
common in London ball-rooms. Indeed, they are as often
to be met with there as lions. "A Detachment of Infantry"
is a touching domestic incident that cannot but come
home to the hearts of all parents, illustrating, as it
does, the old proverb, that " accidents will happen in
the best regulated families." A discreet father and mo-
ther are walking out with their children, whom Papa is
dragging along in a little chaise, utterly unconscious—
for his back, as also his wife's, is turned towards the
helpless innocents—that they have all three pitched out
of the tiny vehicle, and are sprawling, one over the
other, on the ground ! " Hound drawing Cover" re-
presents another domestic catastrophe. An officious
dog has just made a snap at the breakfast cloth, awl
pulled cups and saucers, eggs and tea-pot, all -
.); the
table. The servant-maid in attendance to ;,Ks horrified,
and you can read in her eye that `'...1.1e anticipates " a
a month's warning." " FlyingFish"—this plate ex-
hibits an old Billingsgate fisv.i.,,x:man, who, stumbling up,
against a loose brick deranges her perpendicular, and
,
showers the co
"...cents of her fish-basket on the unshel-
a little boy who is passing by. Her face
tered head. of
evinc:-..4 much ludicrous perturbation. The verse and
arose in illustration of these and other plates are full of
those quips and cranks in which Mr. Hood so much
delights. The best—and perhaps the best its author
ever wrote, so far as blended whim and fancy are con-
cerned—is the poem entitled the " Flying Visit," in
which the visit to Earth of the Man in the Moon is re-
lated with all due emphasis.

EXCURSIONS IN THE INTERIOR OF
RUSSIA. 2 Vols.
Colburn, London, 1839.

It is a striking proof of the great and increasing in-
terest which the people of this country take in Russia,
that scarcely a month passes without public attention
being drawn to the subject, either by volumes of travels,
statistic pamphlets, or elaborate essays in the periodi-
cals. Within the last quarter of a year we have been
called on to notice not less than four distinct publica
tions on this popular theme, all of which, however they
may have differed in other respects, yet agree in repre-
senting the resources, and more especially the policy, of
Russia, as likely, at no remote date, to prove detrimental
to the best interests of Great Britain. The volumes now,
lying before us are almost the first we have yet met with,
which, take a different view of the question—that-is to say
regard Russia not as a sort of bugbear, whose very
name is a word of ill-omen in English ears, but simply
as a thriving and industrious Power, whose naval
movements, which the majority of recent travellers lay_
such particular stress on, need not inspire the slightest
apprehension, provided only they be watched with due
vigilance. " While we refuse to adopt the exaggera-
tions in which some have indulged on this subject," ob-
serves the author, "we cannot coaceal the fact that
Russia now possesses a navy which ought to make us
look searchingly at the state of our. own. It never was
before in such high condition as it now is. Ships and
men, even the worst in the service, are far superior to
any she ever before could boast of. We saw nothing in
Russia,however,that need make any Englishman seriously
afraid of her power. England, if she be once fairly aware
of the danger, may smile at the Emperor, and his thirty
mile of ships." This flourishing navy which just now
appears to be Nicholas's hobby, is almost entirely his
on n creation—a fact which impresses us, knowing the
difficulties he must have had to contend against in rais-
ing it to its present high state of discipline, with the most
favourable idea of his energy and perseverance. The
author, who inquired much, and had many excellent
opportunities of gaining information, relates many in-
teresting anecdotes of Nicholas, all of which prove that
he is a man of dauntless determination, ready sagacity,
and desperate ambition. By the lower classes of his
subjects he is adored—indeed looked up to as a sort of
god ; but with the Noblesse he is by no means so popu-
lar, for he holds a tight reign over them, exacting the
most implicit, we might almost say slavish, obedience
from them. Here is a deeply interesting sketch of the
Emperor, which is worth whole volumes of Lord Lon-
donderry's tauday, exaggerated description :
" On land it is part of Nicholas's policy to surprize the
people by encountering difficulties of any kind ; flying
here and flying there in the face of danger ; accomplish-
ing journies by doing all kind of things that nobody else
would do. The peasant holds up his hands at the nara-
tion. Eto Stranno. It is strange. Nicholas is a wonder
and the Emperor knows well what he is about. By his acti-
vity and energy he has brought the people to look on
him as a God. His very name strikes them with awe—not
with terror, for let the admission from an Englishmen be
viewed in England with what prejudice it may, the Empe-
ror is most enthusiastically beloved by the great mass of
the people. To surprize—to impress with an idea of
his intrepidity, coolness, and decision,—is what he lives
for. He has taken another Emperor, who long filled the
eye of Europe, for his model, in this, as in some other
things. The end is not yet ! Will there be any resemblance
in their closing destinies? Nicholas has a strange trick of
being caught in storms. He never comes to sea without
raising a riot. No state of the elements ever daunts him,
and the Russians say, that no degree of labour from ex-
posure in this, or any other way; can kill him. As yet, he
has shown no tendency to disease of any kind. His iron
frame looks as if nothing could wear it out."
The author's account of the naval and commercial
resources of Russia, on which he expatiates at consi-
derable length, and apparently with much impartiality;
of the habits and peculiarities of her Indigetes, as they
are found in full perfection, in the neighbourhood of
Moscow ; of the discipline of the army ; and the
domestic condition of those adscripti gkbre—the
serfs ;—these various particulars are full of deep in-
tere -t, and will insure the success of the author's
vo!ti rues.

INTarriag,es were never so many as this Shrovetide
among,t the peasantry in the south of Ireland —Limerick Chronicle.
The new ro..!ulation of the General Post-office,
as respects mail-coach guards, took effect on the London and Car-
lisle mail on the 10th ult. This has done away with the custom of
passengers paying the guards; they are now paid full wages of 1301.
per year, and not allowed, under any excuse, to take any fee what-
even—Lancaster Guardian.

Ayr race ground is now in process of being
I!‘g 1. ••r !mg, rxr,. 71,e
oxen are harnessed M tem usual fashion, and obey the :alit with
the utmost docility.—Ayr Observer.