The Sun.
London, England, 1863-06-09 00:00:00

LLOYDS' UNDERWRITERS.

The chief room now is exceedingly commodious, well
lighted by several skylights, nobly set among very fine
mouldings, while the walls are as pure-looking as paint can
make them. The space, perhaps 80 feet by 70, is set out in
ranges of double-seated boxes, with centre tables, the whole
having a wide avenue in the middle. These tables are
fully occupied, during business hours, by the members,
either expecting calls to, or actually engaged in, profes-
sional duties. Of course, the rates of assurance on ship-
ping and cargo vary. Is the vessel sound, new, Al, or old
and in doubtful repair? Is it about to track a winter or
a summer sea ? Then, what is your commodity—brim-
stone or flour, wine or sulphuric acid ? On such, or similar
accounts the per centage required varies from fifteen t,
forty, and, in extremely hazardous cases, to fifty, or even
more. Nor must you expect a single underwriter to take
the whole risk. You wish to insure, say £1,500 against
risks at sea. Well, Mr. A. will take £lOO, Mr. B. £1.50,
Mr. C. 300, and so on, till your venture is safe—a plan ob-
viously wise, and satisfactory to all parties; for thus, while
the risk diminishes en one side, the security increases on
the other. Losses from the inefficiency of underwriters are
exceedingly rare, nor are there many actions at law on
such subjects—much fewer, indeed, than the vast interests
represented would make probable, Wonderful London I
.11ustrious merchant princes I who thus make commerce safe
when it seems most dangerous, and interpose the im-
penetrable eagis oi credit between the perils of the great
deep,' and the costly freights embarked upon it."
And here, by way of contrast, is a delightful peep
into a far more " comfortable" region—

GLRRAAVAT'S COFFEE HOUSE.
Most persons believe that the best time to ask a favour of
a millionaire is at his dessert, when the generous food and
the good wine have made him, perhaps, a little somnolent,
by opening all the flood-gates of his benevolence reality ac-
cessible to every kindly emotion. Some wine merchant of
the olden times, considering this well-ascertained fact, and
having rich cargoes to dispose of, thought within himself,
Why should a sale be such a dry affair? A pleasant bowl
of punch, a glass of old wine, or even coffee and muffins,
would make any auction far more popular. A sale by inch of
candle—good, for it gives time, but not too much time, for
the buyers to deliberate; but why not a sale with friendly
nods of recognition, whispered health-drinking, and
queries as to children and womankind ?" The thought
was a happy oue, and it soon became a fact at Garra-
way's. Sales of wood—especially of hard wood, such as
mahogany, Spanish and Honduras—were, at the period I
refer to, the staple there; and it was really a cheerful sight,
entering the coffee-room from the fog and cold of a Novem-
ber afternoon, to find all so genial; a capital sea-coal fire,
red and blazing (in really cold weather there is nothit g
pleasanter to the outward man than a bright conglomerate
of gasy coals) ; a curious arrangement of dwarf spits, or
rather poly form forks, all armed with muffins, twirling
round and round most temptingly, and implying, with
dumb eloquence, "Come eat us ;" guests imbibing wine,
sipping coffee, or munching toast, and casting at intervals
a satisfied look over the catalogues of the sales just due.
The warmth and the good cheer have smoothed the wrinkle
from every man's face. These intending buyers are no
longer in a hard-bargaining mood. Oh, no 1 H the ma-
hogany suits theta, why should they fidget so much as
to price? The punch is undenzably excellent, and they
cannot fail to realise a large profit on their ventures.

Sir Thomas Gresham, the Mayor of Garrett, the Vicar
of Bray, and other notabilities are introduced to na
in these pages. The pauper grave of Chatterton is
very impressively described. London Stone,Newgate
(" the filth chief entrance in the city wall, so called,
being !atelier built than the rest") Lombard-street,
Moor fields, with its array of old upholsterers' stores,
each in its turn, with many others, affords matter
of interesting comment. When we come to Barber-
Surgeon's Hall, we are reminded that "the pole,
which even now, in country places, projects over
the shaver's shop door, indicated at first that per-
sons might be bled there, as the patient, when phle-
botomy was performed, grasped a tall rod, to keep
the arm steady." We take leave of the volume,
heartily responding to the hope expressed in the
introduction by the publisher that Aieph may long
coctione to instruct and amuse the citizens of Lon
don with his vivid sketches of their Scenes and
People.

Sir Aberdour ; or, the Sceptic. By Walter Purcell.
Cantos 111. and IV. Pp. 137. Pickering.
Mr. Purcell's muse appears to us rather too stately
a dame for that light, delicate, ornate skiff of the
Spencerian stanza. In herself she seems to bring
too much ballast on board, sinking the craft so
low that the level of the current is almost up to
the boat's edge—sailing heavily in consequence,
and making but little headway. The tw o cantos
of the poem here published present us with but a
fragmentary portion of the writer's imaginings.
Few though the pages are, however, they contain,
nevertheless, several passages of more or less merit.
Here is one thoughtful stanza, worthy, if only in
the moral of it, of quotation :
" there is a God who immaterial is;
If immaterial why should there exist
Nought else than bodies ? None can answer this,
All Lodies have extent, so must consist
The substance Thought of the materialist.
Extent is indispensable to thought ?
Not so, God is. True, no anatomist
Has ever found a soul ; but who has sought
And found a grief or joy ? or a reflection caught ?"
In the same reverential strain the author of " Sir
Aberdour" continues :
"He who created can, if He so will,
Annihilate ; but why should cease to be,
Ere yet its destiny it could fulfil,
My soul, when from its prison-house set free ?
I feel within that which assures to me
A life hereafter; whence arises this?
Am I deceived by a just Deity ?
Am I deluded by self-artifice ?
God guides and not misleads, and I shall cross th'
abyss."

Here, again, is a rather fine antithetical illustration
of the accuracy of a metaphor—a twofold illustra-
tion in reference, now to the blindness of Milton,
now to the deafness of Beethoven :
" The eyes are but our prison-windows, closed
Were Milton's, still it was for him to view
The awful splendours that o'er Heaven reposed,
The beauties mild which on the poor earth grew.
Beethoven had no ears to hear, yet who
Could sounds of harmony arrange so well ?
Oh, what could not the soul of genius do,
It 'twere encased in a less earthly shell
Than this debasing form, wherein • tis doomed to dwell
Our citations will—(we are perteccly satisfied of
this)—while effirdieg excellent proof of the quality
of Mr. Purcell's muse, tend to justify completely
what we have said as to the weight the lady carries.

Strange Thzngs Among Us. By H. Spicer. 1 vol.,

pp. 233. Chapman and Hill.

A book to thrill the marrow of one's bones, and
make " each particular hair to stand on end !" Let
no nervous, sensitive, highly imaginative reader
venture a glance upon ts pages. No one in a lonely
house, or in the gloom of twilight, or thinking of
absent friends, should dare to open it. It is a book
to produce ghosts ! It is not only a chronicle of the
various appearances of "spirits" from the " vasty
deep" of the unknown, but a work of magic some•
what akin to that ponderous volume of the " mighty
wizard," Michael Scott, fraught with danger to un-
skilled eyes. The author's object, he tells 114, is
" to inquire, not dogmatise; to suggest, rather than
demonstrate"—" the book is, in fact, but a sketch—
a study—a ballon perdu flung up experimentally
among the currents which have of late set some-
what:
steadily in a direction of much promise."
Beginning with a short ghost-story--" Perhaps the
very shortest ghost-story on record, communicated
to the writer by a friend now occupying a dis•
tinguished post in the Federal army of America--
'My brother George, who was residing n England,
tooked into tey tent one night in India,' said Colonel
J., to tell me he was dead' "—the death having,
of course, taken place simultaneously with the
apparition ! Beginning with this brief narrative,
we pursue an " inexhaustible subject"—mesmerism,
table-turning, spirit-writings, omens, appearances,
warnings, Lord Lyttleton's ghost, the passing bell,

visions, incantations, dreams and presentments,
until we shudder at the creaking of a door or turn
pale at the flickering of a shadow ! Mr. Spicer is,
however, no credulous believer in all the incredible
mysteries of which he treats, and we gladly tran-
scribe the following very truthful reflections from
the chapter relating to the spiritual manifestations
at the seances of the Mediums ;

" Supposing that these presumed intelligencers were in-
deed, as they profess, the souls of friends departed, what con-
ceivable element of rational comfort could be deduced from
such a renewal of intercourse ? To believe that the desire
of our eyes,' taken from our tender love and care, should be
summonable from its hallowed rest to put half-a-crown into
a showman's pocket; to receive and answer questions fil-
tered through coarse and vulgar minds, perhaps (if the
result be not satisfactory) to be dismissed with scorn and
ridicule. is an insult to the Deity, and revolting to huma-
nity. Far better than the trite phrase and dubious answer
familiar to spirit-seekers, is the comfort of believing that
the departed, having, indeed, no longer a portion for ever
in anything that is done under the sun, are forbidden to
witness the struggle and the strife—the folly and the guilt
—the temptation and the snare—the warring passions—the
disappointment—the despair of this bitter, bitter world.
Let us rather bless from our inmost hearts the God of
peace, who, in breathing into the parting spirit the life
divine, hath released it, for eternity, from the troubled
dream of this."

With which beautiful sentiment, in which we very
heartily concur, we take leave of the " Strange
Things" which Mr. Spicer has presented to us.

The Nullity of Metaphysics set forth in Six Dia-
logues. Pp. 104. Longman and Co.
No author's name appears upon the title.page to
this little volume. The Dialogues are there tempt-
ingly spoken of as Brief. Metaphysics are there
mentioned, moreover, as considered by the inter-
locutors throughout as " A Science among the
Sciences." Though our doing so may be only too
suggestive of the presentation to view by the
" Skolastikos" of Heriocies of the specimen
brick of the house that said Skolastikos announced
as " on sale"—we are tempted, nevertheless, to give
here, as a sampie of the whimsical voluthe before
at leas: one little fragmentary excerpt, ex. gr

" When a speech consists of grammatical parts, the im-
mediate parts out of which logic derives meaning can never
be more than two—as ' Stop, Thomas,' or ' Stop directly.'
If the speech is made up of more than two parts, then one
or both of the parts must also be mt.de up of parts—so
' Stop-directly, fearful-Thomas:' here stop• directly is one
part of speech, and fearful• 1 lamas is another. But the
former of these is a constructed verb, and the latter ts
constructed noun, and out of these two as premises the one
sense of the whole construction immediately flows as the
conclusion."

What the author precisely proposes to his reader
c.n alone be learnt by that reader upon an atten'
five and consecutive perusal of his six dialogues•
But—whether they are likely to be worth the
trouble of the reading thus from first to last--
anyone who cons the foregoing extract, brief
though it is, may very readily conjecture.

A Popular Treatise on Photography. Translated
from the French of D. Van Monckhoven by W.
H. Thornthwai:e, Pp. 137. Virtue Brother

and Co.

Beyond any question the little eighteen-penny
pamphlet here presented to notice, is far and away
the best popular treatise upon the art of photography
that we have anywhere yet seen published. It
illustrated throughout, almost we had said profusely'
certainly copiously, with apropos engravings oil
wood, wonderfully useful' several of them, for inoe'
much as• they render comprehensible upon
the instant some of the more complex de-
scriptions in the letterpress. The original
work, as penned by that manifestly Dutch-French
man (that Frenchman, that is to say, of Dutch
extraction), has long been well known among con-
tinental photographers as the " Traite Populaire
de Photographie our Collodion." It has been, here,
very faithfully rendered into English by that other
skilled student in the art of photography, Mr.
Thornthwaite. We doubt not but that among the
masters of the craft, but more especially among the
beginners who are now aspiring to become
masters of it, the little book will be more
than merely acceptable, that it will, indeed, be very
heartily welcomed. "It is not in mortals to
command success, but we'll do more, Sempro-
nious," says Addison's Roman redivivus [and with
him apparently the conscientious translator of this
little treatise on Photography], " we'll deserve it r
Besides the treatise itself, making up the balk 0f
the volume, there will be found in these well 7:1;
picted pages an excellent description of, "le
with inciden( al remarks upon, the Stereosco• e and
Photographic Optics, and other varied mattersPOt
undeserving of consideration by the practical, ot'
even, we would say, the mere theoretical, Plow
grapher.

Winkworth's Chorale. Containing 200 Tunes.
Gold-
Edited by Sterndale Bennett and Otto

schmidt. Longman and Co.
A beautiful little volume is the one here jointly
edited by Jenny Lind's accomplished husband ena
by the gifted Professor of Music to the University of
Cambridge—the latter being, as everyone knows by
this time who knows anything at all about the
progress of the divine art here in this
couLtry, one of the very first of living Eng'
lish composers. As a musical collection the work
is not unworthy of the combined labours of the two
eminent musicians whose names are thus intimately
associated upon its title-page.

CaBsell's Publications.
Among a whole bundle of wonderfully cheap
illustrated periodicals, issued, as usual, this month
from the establishment of Messrs. Cassell, Fetter,
and thdpin, we would here particularise, as especi-
ally deserving commendatiun—the thirtieth sixpenny
part of the " Illustrated History of England," the
eighteenth of the illustrated new edition of the
" Popular Educator," published at eightpence-
halfpenny, and the latest instalment of "Cassell's
Illustrated Family Paper," a decorous and there-
fore a most deserving rival of very many among the
less carefully conducted cheap periodicals.

ST. THOMAS'S HOSPITAL AND THE SURREY
GARDENS.—A new scandal has arisen in regard to
the " Grand Committee," in whom the recommendation
(for the future choice of the Governors) of the site of tha
Hospital building is vested. Mr. T. B. Simpson, the pro-
prietor of the Surrey Gardens,where the hospital has found*
during the past year, a refuge in its self-created emergency'
and a lease of which the committee have secured for five
years in addition, charges the report of the grand CO'r'
mittee with overstating, by £lO,OOO, the price fixed for these
gardens; and not only with omitting any mention that the
amount had been fixed inclusive of all other interests 0,114
charges, but also stating that there was cause for apprehe'
sion "of great delay and considerable ex?enses, occasioned
by reason of the number of persons whose interest would
have to be purchased " when, in fact, an agreement be
twten Mr. Simpson and Mr. Baggalley (on the part of the
hospital) clamed, on the 19th March last, all arrangement
and interests, and a guarantee had been provided, at the
Treasurer's solicitation, on the 2d of June, to be placed be'
tore the committe4preparatory to their report on the 4th
inst. There are, therefore, is is asserted, no legal diffintll-
- there is no room for apprehensions, and there need be
no delay. No Act of Parliament and no compulsory powers
being required, the architect of the hospital may corameue°
operations in the Surrey Gardens to-morrow morning".
should the governors so resolve. Concealment and want el
candour are chargeable against this rerort, not in this 10'
stance only, as, accoi ding to Mr Simpson, in mentioning
the other sites the report omits all reference to the expense
of levelling, laying out, draining, &c , works of no trilling
character, the many thousands already expended on wbicil
in the Surrey Gardens are included in the purchase money;
The disparaging allusion in the report, as to the level °''
the Surrey Gardens in comparison with that of Betheleor
has already received its answer in the report of the architect
of the hospital (to which, inadvertently, of course, ne re.'
ference is made, although the report of the committee t°
supposed to be founded upon it)—viz , that the soil is naocl
and gravel, the level being practically the same as 111.°
sites of Beth,ehem, of Buckingham Palace, the barracks 111
Birdcage-walk, and nearly, it not quite, the whole of Bel-
gravia. That there have been fewer patients brought to the
Surrey Gardens than to St. Thomas's has been due to De
care having been used to spread sufficiently wide, by the
ordinary channels of publiciry, a knowledge of the change
in the hospital's locality. How well adapted that locality .1.
to the requirements of she South London districts i 8 tri
deuced by the fact, as stated by Mr. Pigeon at the meeting!
that in the month of February 1,300 more out-patients had
_
been attended to in the Surrey Gardens than during
same month in the previous year at the old hospital, and
this increase is progressing. But no mention of this Wn:
made in the speech of the treasurer or the report of the corn
mittee, though it must in fairness be statedthaht it
os doe
itast
mention a fact which proves very stronglytha2ls that
Lei'
is well situated where it stands—v'z'' that
places south,
the the
and 9°
dents brought there, 118 werefromp
la
from places north of the Surrey Gardens,