The Sun.
London, England, 1839-12-02 00:00:00

MAGAZANE DAY

Ct OD' .6 MAGAZINE.
The Spanish eir_Arriatic poet " Calderon"—por-
tious of whose plays Shelley has translated—forms
the subject 0( the first Paper in this Number. The
crltici.sm is ?penned. in an earnest and learned spirit,
as
be fits tlve therm!. Though scarcely known, ex-
ce); by name, to the majority of English readers,
Cal deg.( Jai was one of the most popular dramatists
that ,c,f,ain ever produced. His fertility, too, was
extrr
oruirary. He wrote not less than 6' one hon-
dre
./ mil twenty plays," and continued writing with
ir ACRE-mired powers of fancy up to the period of his
dmtl-:, which took plaCe in his eighty-sixth year.
here is another striking proof that imagination does
not necessarily decline with the progress of age, as
Is so generally supposed. For our own part, we
believe that, if carefully tended to, it. burns bright to
the last. Sophocles wrote one of his best tragedies
--the CEdipus Coloneus—when he was near eighty
years old ; Rabelais was past seventy when he
pennel his immortal " Voyageto the Holy Bottle;"
Defoe was about the same age when he published
his ilea work of fiction, Robinson Crusoe ; ditto,
Voltaire, when he conceived the idea of his
" L'itgenu ;" Burke's most imaginative pro-
ductior, his " Letter to two Noble Lords," was
his lag, written but a year or two before his
death ; Johnson was in his seventy-third year when
he so Ably criticised the English Poets ; and we all
know ;hat Dryden and Cowper were both far ad-
vaneec in the autumn of life, before they gave
token of the poetic vigour that was in them. On
mature reflection, we dare say we could add greatly to
this Ist ; but the above, which have occurred torus
on tie spur of the moment—and to which we may
nowadd Calderon—are quite sufficient to prove
that fie powers of the imagination do not necessa-
rily &cline with the advance of age, but, on the
contras, arc independent of it. Speaking inci-
dentals of some of our English playwrights' im-
proboilities, the writer observes, " a marriage in
a Inas:, which is a result not uncommon in Shad-
viteli, and we rather think in Dryden, is a pitch of
imP%-rhability surpassing any of the dramatic pos-
lulttes of the Spanish stage." We know nothing
of Shadwell, and therefore cannot say whether or
he brings about his denouements by the means
of . mask ; but we rather think that the writer's
veollection has misled him, and that he means
Ccigreve, instead of Shadwell, the plot of whose
" teld Bachelor" is brought about by a double
ma.riage in masks, in the instances of Sir Joseph
W ttol and Captain :13Itiffe. "On Agriculture"
somewhat dry, and even repulsive, title, but
thearticle itself is fuli of fun and arch drollery. A
eattious old gentleman thus expostulates with his
I%lio has suddenly taken it into his head to
tun farmer :

You cannot surely have been deluded by poetry—
by your reading Virgil and Theocritus and Hesiod.
To] don't imagine either would have hr,ndled a plough,
i but in verse. Eclogues and G,!orgivs indeed! In the
I tomer the very shepherds are mice' cables, all lamenta-
tiot and regrets, and richly deserve the stick they con-
teal for ; and in the latter the P. oet does not even colo-
-114! his Australia with respecta'ole people. The pastor
Arstseus would disgrace any man's parish, running after
etot her man's wife, and bair,g the death of her. Here
*to a pretty fellow to pop. his nose into a bee-hive, and
(se've him right) fio'..i his colony defunct. But
tile poet was sick of his !Apprenticeship to ploughmakiug,
eac was glad to plunge into episode and fable. And, in
toith, the fabulous part of ancient rusticity is pleasant
eomgh, when there w !as a sort of golden age, and no
tases, and shepherds had nothing to do but pipe, and
e3mphs to dance—tog now we must " pay the piper"—
!Al who now-a-days. eve: sees Chawbacon like Alphesi-
kits (lancing the " satyrs ?" The only tune the Farmer
!delighteth to dance to, is " Money in both pockets"—
wish he may got it !--for "he danceth well to whom
Fortune pipeth.' The country pipes now-a-days are
terribly fusticated with tobacco, not the bacca, hederm,
Iltd Awe. And can my friend—my classical, my taste-
ful friend—jog 'Nall bumpkins to fairs ? Can he bear
to fumigate awr ay all his better ideas in the Cacus dens
of " entertd.r.ment for man and horse, his damp clothes
Seeking
.1 of stall, stable, wool, and the weed." You
1,0 bee" reading about "the Divine Swineherd," and
want to ...go the whole hog." It won't do—it is alto-
tether
a mistake—you are not " natural born and bred
1° ii_t:' 'lou will be cheated by your servants, laughed
kt 'I y our neighbours, and, worst of all, detested by
Norselif, before you have been initiated—if initiated
You ever are. Your sheep will die of the rot, and your
hay w ill be burned in the making—you have no Pan as
the " ovium custos," and so you will be out of the frying-
-I!ell'into the fire. Your cattle will go astray, and your
'tit hbours bring actions of trespass against you.
p''' Lector on Lay Quibbling" is just a passable
N4Per. We cannot say more for it. " Colonial
,„eglect, and Foreign Propitiation," is a statistic
C„,4,Y strongly tainted with the usual political pre-
'',4l ces of -Maga. " Queen Argenis" shows a
." dy power of versification—" Milton," thought,
4P.d no slight book-knowledge. The writer, how_
! ver, we think, overrates Lucan, whose " Pharsalia"
t % not—so far as our memory serves us— remark-
: ble for " an exhibition of the moral sublime."
'lie fully agree with the observation that " Para-
Ilse Lost" is " sublime by its prevailing character;"
'l3llt not that it is " continuou,ly sublime." The
11:'alogues in Heaven where " God, the Father,
Rums a school divine," and the descriptions of the
tattles there between the angelic and infernal
-Cowers, are daring and elaborate, but they are not
!sublime, because, instead of fillin-, or exalting the
'imagination. they impress it with a sense of the
li bet's failure. It is a thousand pities that Milton's
1 'erse has eclipsed the ,plendour of his prose. Few
i, 40w read the latter works, yet the personification of
ileal, and the glowing description of the Long Par-
alrient, in the " Apology for amectyil muus ;"
Ililie noble prayer which concludes, the treatise on
the Reformation ; and the lofty sarcastic allusion to
king Charles's " Prayers 'and Tears," in the
Ikonoclastes," are, in their way, fully equal to
tIY tiling in " Paradise Lost." " Ten thousand a
I ear" gives a spirited sketch of character in the
I,:erson of Mts. Squ.allop, an unpaid landlady— a
e -N4llB remarkabl,e for its ferocious properties.
111;jinP,er, Rer.l and Reputed," blends learning with
nine in a, very relishing style.

IN NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE,
pri net, is an excellent half-length portrait of
N. 'lc'.: Albert of Saxe Cobourg-Gotha in this
r 4rnber, whose countenance evinces much intelli-
ce combined with good nature. He weals no
Eskers, we
.perceive ; and we hope his example
."I have the effect of curtailing those preposterous
masses of hair with which our would-be fine gen-
ineTen garnish their faces, in order that they may
,-„,
4n" fashionable. A moderate whisker is well
R-:,"gh, but an acre of hair, such as is now worn,
- a man the exact appearance of a middle-aged
Vt, "
Foreign Morality" is a sprightly story,
lth rather a doleful denouement, introduced by
8
"le comments on the English character, made by
IYrench writer in the year 1742, and which Mr.
&'ook quotes, for the purpose of showing how
Completely our domestic habits differ from those of
our ancestors a century ago. We quote one or two
of these curious comments :—" The English
people," says M. Murat, "are not imbued with
any blind respect for the aristocracy. Wine,
women, and gaming, constitute their pleasures.
Wine they love, and women—but not such women
as are worthiest to be loved. They consider the
Power of drinking to excess a great merit, in-
asmuch as it enables them to continue their
excesses the longer; and when they have carried
them to their full extent, they sally forth with a
determination to kill the first man they meet in the
streets, and they kill accordingly. The English
women are remarkably susceptible, and when they
fall.. in love, it is a very serious matter." Love
,
'Y have been " a very serious matter" a hundred
/ears ago, but it is a mere joke now—or rather, a
Then4nsiess affair of pounds, shillings, and pence.
sentiment of the passion is extinct among us,
Or exists only in love tales, which, by the bye, are
goingt fast out of date. For this we may thank the
‘.Be,"oo:master, and the heavy pressure of taxation,
""ieh leaves us no time for the cultivation of senti-
Ilent. " A Charade" is a graceful piece of versifi-
atint,, 1 We quote it accordingly :
There kneels in holy St. Cuthbert's aisles,
I'lo 3olier father than Father Giles;
Matins or vespers, it matters not which,
,vile
S ever there, like a saint in his niche ;
'll°'ning and midnight, his missal he reads,
Mitnight and morning he tells his beads!
,soile spread the fame of the holy man,
,v..ioerful his blessing, and potent his ban,
OA the marvels his piety works,
;-,14 unbelieving heathens, and infidel Turks ;
.I,u: strangest of all is the power he is given,
-tonne maidens' hearts to the service of heaven !
St. Llmla's prioress comes to-day,
tt holy St. Cuthbert's shrine to
pray ;
,oh- comes with an offering—she comes with a prayer—
• she leads to the sitar the Lady Clare.
--tttv, mitbrr ! lv,,w &lir a rp-i,,'
To
leave the world to; a clulAer's shade I
1111.—

'-he yields to. morrow her gold and lands,
For the church's use—to the church's bands.
She quits the world with its pleasures and wiles,
And to-day she confesses to Father Giles;
Slight is the penance, I ween, may atone,
• For all of sin she hath ever known I
Daughter ! since last thou bast kneeled for grace,
Heth peace in thy heart found a dwelling-place?
Frem thy heart hest thou banished each worldly thought,
Save thy spirit's weal, hast thou pined tor nought ?"
Moist is her kerchief, and drooped her head,
But " my first" is all poor Clara said.
Daughter ! thy cheek bath grown pale and thin,‘,
Is thy spirit chastened and pure within?
Gone from thy glance is its ancient mirth,
Are thy sighs for heaven, or thy tears for earth ?"
For earth are her sighs—yet pane Clara knows
" My second," no more than the Spring's first rose.
Why doth he tremble that holy man,
At eye so sunk, and at cheek so wan ?
Less bitter the tears—less burning the sighs,
Heaven asks from her willing votaries ;
Alas; when "my all " weeps as Clara weeps,
Holy Church gaineth more than she ofttimes keeps
St. Ursula's altar was dressed that day,
The maiden was there, but the monk was away;
St. Ursula's altar was lighted that night,
There wore murmurs of sacrilege—wh spers of flight,
And legends tell us that Father Giles,
Was never seen more in St. Cuthbert's aisles I

" Christmas" is a well-timed essay, full of social
allusions to the tire-side, and the festive habits of
the season. But, alas, Christmas too, like love, is
going out of fashion, and the only convincing proofs
we have of its arrival, are to be found in the prodi-
gious masses of fat yellow beef that hang up in
the butchers shops. The writer discourses of the
twelfth-cake, the mistletoe, and the wassail bowl,
in a very lively manner ; but Washington
Irving has already said all that is to be said
on this' tempting theme. " Madelina" is an
agreeable prose tale from the prolific pen of the
Countess of Blessington. In the biographical
sketch of the Author of " Douglas," we find
some entertaining anecdotes of Prince Charles Ed-
ward—the hero of so many favourite Scottish bal-
lads--extracted from Home's H story of the Re-
bellion of Forty-five. Mrs. Trollope's " Widow
Married" brings out Mrs. O'Donaghough's daugh-
ter Patty in very capital style. That precocious young
lady is just about commencing her first decided
flirtation, and we feel assured that her mode of con-
ducting it will do no discredit to her mother. We

have, however, rather too much of the Widow Bar-
naby. She is thrust into the foreground on every
occasion. " Nothing Certain in Life" is a smart,
knowing, desultory essay, by Mr. Latnan
Blanchard, who writes pointed prose with great ap-
parent readiness. The '' Life and Times of Peter
Prigains" contains an amusing sketch of an absent
man, who, of course, is always committing outrage-
ous blunders. The most absent man we ever read
of, was the celebrated Dr. Adam Smith, who once
took off his hat to a cow, mistaking her for a Chris-
tian. The stDry of Sir Isaac Newton, who seized
his " sweet-heart's" hand, and instead of fervently
pressing it to his lips, as she no doubt expected,
thrust her fore-finger into his pipe by way of a
tobacco-stopper, is well known. "An Oddity of
the Seventeenth Century" is a bit of very diverting
gossip. The " Story of a Dun" is light and
sprightly in its tone, hut the subject is one very
apt to suggest embarrassing reminiscences to the
reader. The idea that a particular individual of
whom the Author is speaking, " was born the heir
to an old debt, and had been a Dun from his
cradle," reminds us of Sidney Smith's arch style
of banter.