The Sun.
London, England, 1839-01-14 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN REVIEW. No. XV.
Taylor, London, 1830.
.-. _ .

The British and Foreign Review deserves praise for the
good sense and moderation of its political and other views ;
but it seldom or never contains any article, of which we may
say with justice, that it is first-rate of its kind. The num-
ber before us is no exception to this rule. The utmost we
can say of its various essays is, that they are temperately
written, and the matter contained in them well digested.
The first, which is devoted to a consideration of the " Pro
gross of Papal Power," enters at some length into the origin,
history, and present condition of the body of Cardinals, the
Papal Congregations, and:the judicial tribunals of the Vati-
can, observing—by way of wind up—that in spite of all
adversity, these institutions have retained a hold upon the
majority of the Christian world which, by their alliance with
new secular elements, may destine them to act no unim-
portant part in the changes of the time—an hypothesis the
soundness of which we must take leave to doubt, being con-
fidently of opinion that the Papal power with all its various
subtle ramifications, its means, open and secret, its influ-
ences, direct and indirect, is just now, and has been for
some years past, in that state of decrepitude from which it
can never recover. " Manners and Society in St. Peters-
burgh" is a notice of Mr. Raikes's and Lord Londonderry's
lately published volumes of Travels in Russia. The Noble
Marquis's deserts as a traveller are touched off in a pointed
and humourous style, but without ill-nature. Speaking of
the military tastes that prevail throughout Russian society,
and are artfully countenanced by the Government, the Re-
viewer says :
" We recollect in the curious collection of drawings belong-
ing to the famous ventriloquist, M. Alexandre, to have seen a
sketch by no less a personage than the Emperor Nicholas I
And what was the graceful subject that employed the Imperial
pencil ? The reader may guess without much trouble—a gre-
nadier! The Emperor draws grenadiers—thinks grenadiers—
has a grenadier government—and has created a grenadier
society. Alexander's coachman is pensioned off with the rank
of colonel ; the clerks in the government offices are ensigns,
and the employes captains, colonels, generals, according to
their grade. A lady in good society, of whom you were to
ask, for what profession she intended ber son, would laugh in
your face. She is the mother of a future grenadier; her ideas
have no further range ; and beyond a pair of epaulets does not
mount her highest ambition. It is easy to imagine how such
a system as this will operate while it lasts; how much unity of
purpose, and concentration of strength will result from it ;
how much bravery and loyalty it will inspire. These are the
grenadier virtues; and Nicholas is a grenadier god for his
time, the master of hope and fear, disgrace and honour, wor-
shipped as many such a despotic divinity has been before him."
A military system like this cannot, it is clear, be perma-
nent, and though the present generation may not live to
witness it, yet the period is not far distant, when the
Russian empire, as at present consolidated—or supposed to
be consolidated—will fall with a tremendous crash, and be
split up into as many fragments as ever was ancient Rome.
But it will not be the march of barbarian power—as was
the case with old Rome—that will effect this overthrow ;
but its triumphant antagonist, civilization, which already
we see working its gradual, but resistless way, even among
the wild mountain tribes of the Caucasus, the recent
manly, spirited, and intelligent appeal of whose chiefs to
Europe, is a blow that Russia has felt to her heart's core.
—After some sensible remarks upon the subject of the
education of the St. Petersburgh ladies, the Reviewer re-
lates the following characteristic anecdote :
" A gentleman now in England who was for some time
employed as an instructor in a famous Russian establishment
for noble ladies, was in Russia at the period of Lord Dur-
ham's residence and travels, in the court and empire. Our
informant describes the establishment as ill-arranged and
neglected; the habitations set apart for the noble young
ladies dirty and ruinous; the young ladies themselves ill-
clothed, ill-cared for, and discontented. Repairs were so infre-
quent in the college of the noble ladies, and visitors so rare,
that the teacher was surprised on one occasion at the ex-
treme activity which all at once pervaded the establishment,
the cleaning of rooms, the white-washing of walls, and the ge-
neral adornment of a place on which so little care had been
bestowed before. lie went to give a lesson to a favourite
pupil, and to learn from her what was the cause of the sudden
reformation and improvement which had taken place ; but he
found the young lady in a part of the building where no repairs
had been commenced, away from her companions who were
many of them in gay new dresses—in tears, and in old clothes.
The poor girl explained the cause of her woe- She was not
considered handsome enough to have a suit of new clothes,
and to appear, along with many others of her comrades, be-
fore Lord Durham, who was about to visit the establishment I
His Excellency was to feast his eyes upon the whitewashed
walls, the new frocks, and the pretty ladies, as he did, and
pronounced all good; he was not to see ugliness dressed in
rags and dwelling in ruins, as he might, could he but have
peeped on the other side of the wall."
In the " Language and Literature of the Moriscos" we
have some interesting, though scarcely novel, details re-
specting Arabian literature, especially its poetry, which
from the earliest periods of their history the Arabians cul-
tivated, remarks the Reviewer, " with enthusiam, and not
without success." It is to be lamented that we know so

little of the literary productions of this once mighty nation,
who were basking in the light of learning and science at
a time when the major portion of Europe was immersed
in Cimmerian darkness ; but there are many valuable
MSS. locked up in the old Spanish conventual libraries,
especially in the Royal Library at the Escurial, which
are calculated to throw much light on the Arabian lite-
rary history, and these, we trust, will some day or other,
be given to the world. Of the elaborate article entitled
" Austrian Commercial Treaty" we have already spoken at
some length in The Sun ; we need, therefore, merely say
on the present occasion, that the article recommends the
continuance of a good understanding between England
and Austria ; insists with much pertinacity on the dan-
gerous designs of the all-grasping Cabinet of St. Peters-
burgh ; and, returning to the question of the Austrian
treaty of commerce with this country, states that it has
already led to results more speedy, and quite as satisfac-
tory, as the warmest friends of such a political and social
bond of union could hope tor. " Mrs. Jameson's Winter
Studies and Summer Rambles" notices in a favourable, but
not too laudatory, spirit, this lady's account of her recent
tour through the Canadas, and among the tribes of the
red Indians on the frontiers. " The Native Princes of
India and the East India Company" is a well-timed essay,
which just at the present crisis will be read with much
interest.

THE WIDOW BARNABY. Three Vols.
Bentley, London, 1839.

We should have bad not the slightest hesitation in attri.
buting this tale to the pen of Mrs. T. ollope, even though
her name had not appeared on the title-page, for we know
no other novelist of the day—we will not even except
Theodore Hook—who could have written so consummately
worldly a fiction. In every page of the " Widow Barnaby"
we detect traces of that cool, wary sagacity, and power of
probing ordinary human character to the quick, which are
only to be acquired by a long and intimate acquaintance
with society. The main incidents of this most amusing
story will at once give the reader an idea of its character,
and we will therefore attempt a brief, rapid summary of
them. The Widow Barnaby is the eldest daughter of a
poor clergyman who lives in a provincial town in Devon-
shire, where there are always one or two regiments
quartered. She is a fine, bouncing, black-eyed,
black-haired young woman, shrewd and worldly in
her nature, and haunted with a passionate desire
to raise herself above her sphere. With this view she en-
gages in incessant flirtations with the different officers whom
she meets at balls, concerts, &c., but cannot persuade any
one of them to make her an offer. Disgusted with such
repeated matrimonial disappointments, she at length, at the
ripe and considerate age of thirty, resolves to espouse the
apothecary of the town—a gentleman who is in the posses-
sion of a small but secure independence, and who being some
years her senior, she had hitherto been in the habit of look-
ing up to as a father, rather than as a husband. Mr. Bar-
naby—such is the apothecary's name—dies soon after his
marriage, leaving his widow in the uncontrolled possession
of six hundred a-year, which she determines on spending at
different watering places, in the hope that it may be the
means of helping her to a second husband of a higher
standing in society than her first. Accordingly, she
removes first to Exeter, where her manceuvres are
all unavailing ; and next to Clifton, in which town
she meets some relations of her " dear deceased
Barnaby," through whose influence she manages to obtain
an introduction into some of the best society of the place.
Among other acquaintances she picks up a certain Major
Allen—a fellow who is little better than a cow:non sharper
—who persuades her that he is a man of large fortune and
superior connexions, and is induced to believe that she
also is blessed with the same worldly advantages. The
way in which this pair of worthies set to work to deceive
each other, their billing and cooing, and the final arrange-
ments for their marriage, are detailed with the driest and
most caustic humour. Previously, however, to their nup-
tials the Widow Barnaby discovers the Major's real charac-
ter, and with infinite address manages to get back from him
a promise of marriage,
which some few days before she had
given him in writing. HaViDg thus failed at Clifton in her
attempt to hook a husband, she next proceeds to Chelten-
ham, and directs the powerful battery of her black eyes
against a certain Lord Mueklehury, who, seeing through
her schemes, humours it for his own amusement, and sends
her various amorous notes, on which, when be suddenly
quits Cheltenham, she endeavours to found a case for a
breach of promise. With this view she hurries after the
Peer to London, but, on consulting an attorney, and show-
ing him the letters, he pronounces her case hopeless,
when of course sba abandons the idea. After a
few days' residence iP LQlidui;, she is surprized by the
sight of certain officers of justice who
have f9llowed hy.
from Cheltenham, which she had left so suddenly, that in
the hurry of the moment she had forgotten to pay her
jebtl• Di these PM she d Arreged and taken to prison.,