The Sun.
London, England, 1839-01-26 00:00:00

LIT Eit.,ATUitE

THE QUARTERLY REVIEW AND MR.
LIFTER
Most readers havc by this time forgotten the ill -nature
spiteful article which appeared in No. CXXIV. of tlee
Quirterly Review on Mr. Lister's Life of Clarendon.
Because it was ill-natured and spiteful the reading world
had no difficulty wLtever in assigning its autlhorship to
Mr. Croker, and as Mr. Lstcr is a i dative of Lord John
Russe!l, the Mond immediately said t.`'at political hostility
was the motive for the literary injustict'. Such mi ;oppiTd
malice might safely have been left in the oblivion in to which
it had sunk, but Mr. Lister has been induced by the opi-
nions of some whom lie respects to recal it into notice by a
pamphlet he has just published in answer to it. We can-
not go into the minutiae of the dispute; but that the author
of the article in the Review, supposing him to be Mr.
Croker, has endeavoured most unworthily to depreciate and
misrepresent Mr. Lister, by garbling quotations, will be
readily believed. The Reviewer undertook to exalt Prince
Rupert, and he has sunk him deeper than eve r in the mire-
He wished to ennoble the character of ClarenLion, and like
all over-zealous partizans lie only made the faults of his hero
more conspicuous. We own that we have no gi Tat liking
for such controversies, but they serve to place tl,,e minute
facts of history in hold relief, and also to illustrate the cha
ratter of the controversialists. The party tool of a Re..
viewer receives a well-merited castigation from Mr. Lister,
which will not hinder hint, however, from again cot omitting
the offence for which he has now been chastised, on the first
opportunity.

PICTORIAL EDITION OF SHAKSPEARE.
Part 11.
London, C. Knight, 1839.
If ever work deserved encouragement, this Pictorial
Edition of Shakspeare is that one. The text has been col-
lected with scrupulous care, all the best suggestions of the
ablest commentators having been allowed their due weight
explanatory notes, tersely and succinctly penned, have been
appended, at the end of each act, wherever explanation
was necessary ; and almost every page is embellished with
a choice wood-cut, wherein the different characters of the
play—the one before us is Romeo and Juliet—are attire
in the proper costume of the time. But what renders th‘
work still more valuable is the fact that nrany of the most
splendid passages are given in hl-; first, as Shakspeare ori-
ginally wrote them, and afterwarcio as he revised them
from which we draw too useful inferences, one of which is
that he was by no means so careless an' authov, and so in-
different to the praises of posterity—what really great na-
ture ever was, or ever will be ?—as he is general!) supposed
to have been ; and the other, that his revisions have not
always been for the better, though they may be the more
elaborate. As a curious illustration of what Hazlitt satiri-
cally, but not perhaps unjustly, calls " the ignorance of the
learned," we quote the Editor's note upon that well knc'i
passage in Romeo and Juliet, beginning with
"'_Spread thy close curtain, love-performing Night!
That run-away's eyes may wink; and Romeo
Leap to these arms, untalked of, and' unseen.'
" This passage has been a perpetual source. ,of contention to
the commentators. Their difficulties are well represented
by Warburton's question---' What run-aways are these,
whose eyes Juliet is wishing to have stopped Warburton
says Phoebus is the run-away. Stevens proves that Night is
the run-away. Douce thinks that Juliet is tbe run-away.
Monck Mason is confident that the passage ought to be, that
Renomy's eyes may wink,' Renomy being a new personage
created out of the French Ronommee, and answer ing, we sup-
pose, to the Rumour' of Spenser. After all t his learning.
there comes an unlearned compositor, Zachary Jackoc.n, and sets
the matter straight. Run-aways is a misprint for una wares ; the
word unawares in the old orthography, is unawayres, and the r
having been misplaced, produced this word of puzzle rw.n-aways-
We have not the least hesitation in adopting Jackson's read-,
ing ; and we have the authority of a very clever article in
131,•ickvvood's Magazine (July, 1819) for a general testimony
to the value of J.ckson's book : and the equally valuable au-
thority of a most accomplished friend, who called our atten-
t,..-n to this particular reading, as settled by the cornmeal-
sense C.f. the printer."

ZORACE VERNON. 3 Vols.
lburn, London, 839.

Horace Vernon, wLich professes to be, as the title page
informs us, a series of sketchis illustrative of " Life in the
West," is a n ork showing about as much acquaintance
with fashionable society as would be shown were some at-
torney's clerk or smart city apprentice to take the pen in
hand. Indeed even the usages of the middle classes are
but imperfectly understood by the author, or he would not
make two of his most gentlemanlike characters go nut to
settle an affair of honour over two glasses of brandy and
water at a provincial pot-house. No people who move la
what is called good society ever think of settling hostile
matters in this way ; and still less are rich, elderly, mar-
ried folks who live but a short distance from London, and
move in the best circles in their respective neighbourhoods•
in the habit of nightly drinking and gossiping with their
own tradesmen in public-houses. It may also be doubted
whether a Nobleman's butler, even although he has married
a dashing female of equivocal reputation, is the sort of per-
son likely to have Dukes, and Earls, and Marquises as his
guests, as we find duly recorded towards the close of the
first volume. But indeed in no one portion of his tale does
the author understand the art of groupim his personages
with propriety, if we except that worthy couple, Messrs•
Hunsusan and Jeffries—one of whom being a knavish at-
torney's still more knavish clerk, and the other a superan
nuated sheriff's officer, are brought constanOy into each
each other's company with remarkable adherence to—what
Square would call—" the fitness of things." In his next
work, should he be adventurous enough to attempt another,
we would advise the author to lower his tone of pretension,
and not presume to sketch characters of whom it is clear be
knows nothing.

THE CHILD'S LIBRARY.
London, Thomas, 1839.
A curious little work, in which some of our favourite
nursery fairy tales are versified with a sprightliness and ele-
gance by no means of an ordinary character. We subjoin
four lines, which exhibit to uncommon advantage the au-
thor's simple and graceful powers of poetic composition :--
" So glad was poor Reynard
To get out of prison,
If he was soon caught,
It was no fault of his'n."

GENIUS AND WISDOM OF SCOTT.
London, Orr, 1839.
.. . _

A compilation from the various works, in prose as
well as verse, of Sir W. Scott, made with skill and judg-
ment.

NEELE ON ENGLISH POETRY.
London, Thomas, 1839.
Those who are partial to smooth, safe, common-place
criticism which exacts no labour in the way of thinking,
suggests no ideas, and disturbs no popular opinions ; and
which is, moreover, penned in a pleasant, unembarrassed
style, tricked out here and there with simile and metaphor,
as if to supply the place of reasoning—those, we say, who ;
like this sort of criticism will be delighted with this re- ;9?
publication of Neele's Lectures on English Poetry," the:-;,,,11
substance of v,i,ich was, it seems. delivered some years
since at the Russell Institution. The author was a small
poet, and a still smaller critic, who wrote a few graceful
rhymes, in the shape of lyrics, which in their day were
much admired by the readers of those Annuals in which '!''
the best of them appeared. •

HIND'S ENGLISH STAGE,—Nos. 1, 2. 9
Simphin and Marshall, London, 1839.
An extract from the Editor's preface will better explain
the nature of this work, than any remarks we may make
on it ; we therefore subjoin a sentence or two :—" Under
the title of Hind's English Stage' will be published all the
principal plays acted in the London theatres. All neces-
sary stage directions, with a description of the costume
worn by the different characters, and everything which can
possibly make the play valuable to the actor, will be given.
In the plays of Shakspear', the amendments of those mo-
dern editors who have used liberties with his text altogether
unpardonable, have been rejected, and the text of the copies
generally admitted to be most correct, adhered to." In
the two Numbers before us, the Editor's intention:, alluded
to in the above extract, are fulfilled to the lettt•r. We
may add that the work is printed in a neat and distinct
type, and is remarkably cheap.

WILD SCENES IN THE FOREST AND
PRAIRIE, 2 VoLs.
Bentley, London, 1839.
Some of these sketches have already appeared in Bent—
ley's Miscellany ; and we should hardly have thought them
worthy of republication, for they are of the slightest and
most superficial character, occasionally enlivened by a petty
joke or sprightly bit of description. but, speaking of them
as a whole, little, if at all, elevated above the level flats
of common-place.

BOYS COUNTRY BOOK.
Longman, London, 1839.
A delightful little child's book, written by W. Howitt,
and embellished with some of the cleverest wood-cuts we
have seen for a long time.

STEPHEN'S INCIDENTS OF TRA VEL.
Curry, Dublin, 1839.
A republication, in one cheap, commodious volume, of
a work which we noticed, at some length, a few weeks since
in The Sun.

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STEPHENS' SO L TH AUSTRALIA.
London, Smith and Elder, 1839.
As this work, which is wholly of a practical character,
has roached a socond edition, any comment from n 5, in the
et:flier pHs, o• ,rtlisure, is ; gillice it,
therefore, to state that Mr. Stephens is a uniform panegy-
rist of the new Australian colony, and brings an immense --
mass of evidence to bear upon, and justify his good opinion.

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