The Sun.
London, England, 1839-06-10 00:00:00

LITERATI U RE.

DIARY OF THE TIMES OF GEORGE
THE FOURTH.
Colburii, London, 1339.
The third and fourth volumes of this piquant work
arc now lying before us. They ait not occasion so great
a stir-as their predecessors, because they are less defaced
by obnoxious personalities ; still there is quite enough
personality in them, to cause them to be sought after
by that large and increasing class of readers, who
are al:vays eager to be made acquainted with a gossip-
ing anecdote, or a pert bit of scandal, provided it bear
reference to people of " mark and likelihood." The first
volume of the present series is the best, because. it con-
tains more variety of subject ; the second is in a great
measure a make-up, consisting of meagre, feebly drawn
sketches, of some of the great literary and political
characters of the last thirty years and upwards. Cob-
bett, Coleridge, and Wordsworth, occupy a prominent
place in these sketches, but the writer gives us no
opinions respecting them that have not been given a
hundred times already, with the single exception of
Coleridge, whom he thinks was an over-rated man. Tuis
is not in accordance with the taste of the day, which
seems very much disposed to regard him as an imagina-
tive genius of the first water, but, ne.vertheless, it is per-
fectly just. " What has he done," asks the writer,
" that we should be so deafened with him ? Never did
I hear so many words in the same given space of time,
uttered with so little sense, or knew rid then the mean-
ing of the phrase, chaff of thought. Towards Coleridge
I have no feeling, but a sort of wonder at the prodi-
gality of words which he squandered ; but I should
be surprised to hear that he ver attempted or did ene
useful thing." Speaking of Wordsworth, we are told
that he should be placed on the " same shelf with
Shakspeare." Capital ! Wordsworth, the egotistical,
the sectarian in poetry, who can see no genius without
the pale of his own school, to be placed on the same
level with Shakspeare, the tolerant—the universal !
Verily, this is partizanship with a vengeance. In the
first volume we find many interesting anecdotes. Here
is one respecting Whitbread :
" The very day before his death, I saw and spoke to
him, driving in Park-lane. He had been at times in a
dreadful state of depression during the three previous
weeks; and the state of his skull when opened, Dr.
Baillie told me, more than accounted for any acts of
violence; the bone was enlarged, and certain little spe-
cula) at the edge of it pressed immediately on the brain; a
disease, he says, which invariably occasioned the most
violent irritation cf mind. He had sworn Lady Elizabeth
to trke no notice of his altered state, either to her mother
or Lord Grey ; which hung so heavily on her mind after-
wards, that she several times saw the Bishop of London on
the subject."
The subjoined anecdote is,. if true, which we take
leave to doubt, the most extraordinary instance of good
luck that we ever heard or read of, and verifies the
adage—Truth is strange, stranger than fiction :
" Lady Frances Wilson was a lady of very plain per•
sonal appearance ; yet one gentleman, for several seasons,
perseveringly gazed at her from the pit in the Opera
House, so as to cause her considerable annoyance ; well at
length one day she was informed that Mce had left,
her all his fortune; and prompted by curiosity to ascer-
tain if it was the same person who had admired her at the
theatre, she requested to see the deceased, and identified
the corpse as being that of Mr. --. t was said Lady
Frances owed this piece of good fortune to a mistake, as it
was a very beautiful women who, occupied the next box' to
her's, to whom the gentleman had intended to leave his
property, and that he was misinformed as to the name of
the object of his bilk passion." .
We quote an amusing remiaiscence. of Dr. Johnson
and Savage, as related by the celebrated Adam Smith,
for it is highly characteristic of both parties :
" One anecdote, I remember, he told me of Dr. John-
son, of whom Smith entertained a very contemptuous
I have seen that creature,' said he, bolt up in
the midst of a mixed company, and without any previous
notice, fall upon his knees behind • a chair, repeat the
Lord's Prayer, and then resume his scat at the table. He
has played this freak over and over, perhaps five or six
times in the course of an evening. It was not,' Smith ob-
served, hypocrisy, but madness. Though an honest man
himself, he was always patronizing scoundrels. Savage,
for instance, whom he so loudly praises, was a wortlif;s3
fellow. His pension of fifty pounds never lasted him
longer than a few days. As a sample of his economy, you
may take a circumstance that Johnson himself once told
Adam Smith. It was, at that period, fashionable to wear
scarlet cloaks, trimmed with gold lace, and the Doctor met
him one day, just after he had received his pension, with
one of these cloaks upon his back, while, at the same time,
his naked toes were breaking through his shoes.'"
Several pieces of poetry are interspersed throughout
the first volume, and among them are some lines by
Monk Lewis, Walter Scott, and the present Lord Mel-
bourne. These last were written in the year 1797.
They are amiable and well-intentioned—not to say
affectionate—but possess no other recommendations.
We extract the best passage :
" We find that those who every transport know,
In full proportion taste.of every woe;
That every moment new misfortune rears,
That, somewhere, every hour's an hour of tears :
The work of wretchedness is never done,
And misery's sigh extends with every sun."
This is good home-Spun sense, but the language, it
will be seen, is decidedly that of prose. We have,
hotvmr, seen far worse samples of aristocratic poesy in
the " Keepsake." In closing our notice of these volumes
we cannot refrain from stating that it places great Lords
and Ladies before us in a very unatniable light. They are
exhibited throughout, partly in the anecdotes related of
them, and partly in their own correspondence, as beings
made up almost exclusively of narrow-mindedness, arro-
gance, and conventional etiquette. When they write
to each other, it is generally to propagate some scandal ;
when they meet with artists or authors in their inter-
course with society, they look down upon them with
contempt, as though they were a species of upper-ser-
vant. Lady Caroline Lamb writing to invite an aristo-
cratic friend to mew. some literati at her house, assures
her that " these sort of people are not always agreeable
but vulgar, quaint, affected, and formal," and then pro-
ceeds to enumerate her guests, and give their ages by
way of a brilliant joke! In another place an account
is given of a literary party et a Lord's table, where
two ladies of high fashion " did nothing but yawn the
whole evening, and looked with evident contempt upon
the surrounding company !" .We do not wonder at this
supercilious behaviour on the part of our West-end ex-
clusives, for it is the sycophant that makes the bully,
and so long as there are found authors, or artists, or ac-
tors ready to fawn and crouch, there will always be
found aristocratic Noodles quite as ready to insult and
domineer.

RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN of 1814 in FRANCE.
Smith and Elder, London, 1839.
The author of this work, which is a translation from
the Russian, is a military gentleman with the exceed
ingly melodious name of Milallailofsky-Danilefsky, who
himself took a share in that memorable campaign, which
ended in the occupation of Paris by the All es, and of
which he here gives the account in detail. His narra-
tive is interesting, if only from the stirring nature
of the events it describes ; but it is ia many
' places much too partial ; for, in the first place,
the author will not allow that Napoleon displayed any
very superior sagacity in this, his most hazadous cam-
paign, though we have abundance of indisputable
evidence to the contrary ; and, secondly, he will insist
on it that it was the Russians who chiefly signalized
themselves by their skill and bravery, the Austrians and
Prussians being mere subordinate auxiliaries. As regards
the Emperor Alexander, ho is never weary of cbaunt-
ing the praises of this uerival:ed hero ; to whose coun-
cils alone he attributes the triumphant results of the
earepaign.• We were duly prepared for all this exces-
sive partiality, when we read these words in the trans-
lator's advertisement which mast be quite sufficient to
satisfy all unbiassed readers that the work can by no means
be regarded as'an unprejudiced statement offacts :—" The
original work from which the present volume has been
translated, was published in St. Petersburg, during the
latter part of the year 1836. The author, a well-known
Russian General, is now a member of the Imperial
Senate." Truth was scarcely to be expected on
a subject like the present, from a Member of
the Russian Imperial Senate. The most acceptable
portions of the volume—we care nothing for the per-
sonal sketches of that Calmuck coxcomb Alexander—
are those which refer to Napoleon, of whose influence
over his troops we have this striking example :
" '"rhey who never .witnessed a combat which Napoleon
personally commanded and directed, can have but a faint
idea of the magical effect produced by his presence on
the spirit of a fight. The moment he appeared, the ca•
valry attacked with greater boldness and rapi-
dity ; the skirmishers fell back, and gave place to
deep columns of infantry ; the batteries were reinforced,
and the fire became heavier ; Aid-de-Camps galloped
about in all directions ; and the air resounded with the
cries of En avant I Vive L'Empereur !'"

TILE INIQUITIES OF THE OPIUM TRADE
WITH CHINA.
By the Rev. A. S. TIKELTVALL, M.A.
London, Allen and Co., 1839.
The object of this little work is to make the Christian
community of Great Britain acquainted with the de-
plorable evils which the Opium trade inflicts upon the
health and morals of the inhabitants of China, with a
view to discourage the *English traffic in that poisonous
drug. It very feelingly depicts the miseries which the
use of Opium has brought upon the Chinese popula-
tion ; it sets forth the parental solicitude of the
Emperor to prevent the importation and sale of
Opium ; it shows that the English are the principal
dealers in this drug, which is almost wholly supplied from
our possessions in the East Indies ; and it appeals to
the Christian and moral character of the country against
the continuance of a smuggling traffic, disgraceful and
criminal on the part of all engaged in, or countenancing,
it, and irreparably injurious to the health and morals of
the people of China. Such an appeal will hardly be
heard at first amid the din of mercantile interests • but
the time is not distant when its influence will be
felt from London to Calcutta. Let any merchant
not dead to every moral and religious sentiment
read this little volume in the quietude of his

EVENING EDITION

closet, and we will ans•,A er for it that he will not selcc
the opium trade as the highway to wealth, no matter
how inviting it may have previously appeared. We
thank the wrier, in the name of humanity, for a tract
which to have written is to Lave perfoinsed one of the
noblest duties of a Christian pastor—the guiding of a
nation in the path of charity.

THE IL LUS7RATED SHAKSPERE FOR
THE PEO P LE—Par tv I. and 11.
London, Ro'iert
There was a time when ail that was humanizing in
literature, and exquisite in art was regarded as the pro-
perty of the studious and the wealthy, and when a poor
man's aspirations after books were about as hopeless as
the realization of his dreams of treasures hidden in
fairy caves at the bottom of the sea. That time lies
for ever passed away ; and the working man now, with
the small pittance of a few shillings weekly rewarding his
industry, may, by the outlay of a few pence, leave a le-
gacy of books to his children, such as would have formed
a goodly library fur a convent at the beginning of the
fifteenth century. And next to that book, which, as a
Christian, forms at once the standard, the depository,
and the expounder of his faith, what volume can he
begin with so instructive, so humanizing, se suited by
its almost infinite variety to every phase of mind
and change of circumstance, end humour, as that which
contains the works of the world-teaching Shakspere?
But, matchless as are the productions of the world's
greatest poet and truest philosopher, they are not alone
here offered to enrich and adorn the libraries of the
opulent, and the hanging shelves of horny-handed
artizens. In Kenny Meadows, the publisher has
found the only artist who has vet embodied to the
visual sense the ever-during creations of Shakspere
genius. Mr. Meadows's " Heads of the People" have
been generally and deservedly admired, and we remem-
ber being greatly struck with the stern power displayed
in his illustrations to Charles Whitehead's " Jack
Ketch ;" but none of them manifest the fine play of
poetic fancy, the rich luxuriant foliage of imagination,
if we may so speak, which beautify the pages of
the
" People's Shakspere." The versatility which he has
shown in his illustrations of the Tenzpest, and the Two
Gentlemen of Verona embraces all that is brighest and
darkest in the range of poetic fiction. His elves are
perfect art impersonations of all that childhood ha
fancied of that mysterious tiny race, while his Caliban is
altogether the " half man, half-demon" of the poet.
Landseer's dogs are the admiration of the world, end
yet, look at our old acquaintance Launce's dog, as he slily
looks at you, resting on his fore paws, from a page in the
Two Gentlemen qf Verona, and tell us, do you aot re-
cognise in an instant, the pilferer of Mistress Silvia's
capon's leg—the inodorous transgressor against the rules
of " gentlemanlike" dog decorum, under the Duke's
table ? This is not so much the portrait of a dog, as the
very cur himself—the educated protege of the immortal
Launce. Mr. Meadows has still much to accom-
plish before he travel over the whole of the
ground which all after Shakeepere must tread
with unsandelled feet ; but the lighter creations of
his fancy abound in successful promise. While a re'
membrance of the vivid and appalling reality exhibited
in the illustrations of Mr. I,Viiitehead's fiction already
mentioned, particularly the " Dead Bird," the " Disco-
very of the Knife," and the " Death Scene," in de
tragic tale of James Wilson, is to us an earnest of what
he will achieve in illustrating ILimlet, Othello, and
Lear. Mr. Meadow's designs are well engraved by
Orrin Smith—a young artist of great promise. It only
remains for us to notice that the work is published 1°
weekly numbers at twopence, and in monthly parts
.as..
ninepence ! Surely this is rendering Shakspere,
all the accessories that art can accomplish, accessible to
the multitude ! with

PAST AND PRESENT STATE OF TIM

D Ril itIA TIC ART.
Such is the title of a pamphlet which has just mad':
its appearance, and is appropriately enough addresse"•
to the " admirers of the cid English drama." Who th
author may be, we know not, for there is no nante O'
the tale-page ; but be he who he may, he has no cause'
to be ashamed Of his work, for it is written throughout
in an easy, familiar style, and with remarkable shrova-
ness and good humour. Above all, there is an evident
relish for, and understanding of his subject, which lends
emphasis and animation to all the author's remarks.
Alluding cursorily to the lessees of the patent theatres,
he says with much truth that their history (with some
few honourable exceptions, and particularly Mr. ?lac'
ready) is the history of a succession of improsido4
i profligates, most of whose careers commence with nr
pudent quackery, and conclude with insolvency and
obscurity. Sometimes they quarrelled with the actors,
sometimes with the Lord Chamberlain ; now they made
the stage the organ of political faction, now of private
slander ; at one time they appealed against a puppet-
show, at another were furious against fine music; and
'proved constant to nothing but their meanness, and want
of suecess."