The Sun.
London, England, 1863-08-18 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Opposite Neighbours. A Novel, in 2 vols. Bentley.
This work opens very attractively with two con-
trasting glimpses of the domestic life of the Win-
chesters and the Waylies, the Opposite Neighbours,
who give its title to the book. Contrasted although
the scenes revealed to us are in many respects, in
both there is one sad similarity. The Waylies are
in absolute penury, while the Winchesters are i❑
.pparent prosperity, but both are in a different
degree in reduced circumstances; and life is a
struggle on both sides of the street. Poor Blanche
Waylie looks out from her bare and comfortless
apartment and sees, with a sigh of envy, Captain
WindiestEr, well dressed, issue from the opposite
house, quite unconscious that he too is in dire per-
plexity, and that " his coat buttoned over, and so
well fitting, hid from view two or three long bills
which he felt hopeless as to being able to pay !"
Half of the world, as the saying is, being uncon-
scious of the troubles of the other half. The
Winchesters and the Waylies are two very
charming families. Blanche Waylie and Mary
Winchester are two natural and delightful
heroines, and the home groups, of which they
are the centres, are in their several ways sin-
gularly attractive. As the story advances, how-
ever, the stage becomes inconveniently crowded.
The Henleigh family monopolise our attention, but
we cannot say that they divert our interest from
our more pleasant companions of the first volume.
Mr. Henleigh is odious and repulsive to a superla-
live degree, and the history of his iniquities is most
improbable. The whole episode regarding the mys-
terious Rose and her very mysterious father, and
her yet more mysterious husband, had been far
better omitted. The author, with a mistaken in-
tention of increasing the interest of the tale, has
had recourse to these melo•dramatic " spiritings
away" and startling reappearances, but quite unne-
cessarily_ The real interest of the work consists i❑
its charming domestic scenes. The attractive cha-
racters of the Opposite Neighbours individually will
make them welcome guests with many readers, not-
withstanding the uninteresting companions that fol-
low in their train.

' Enshrined Hearts of Warriors and illustrious
People. By Emily Sophia Hartshorne. Oae vol.,
pp. 452. Hard wicke.
A meditation over this book is like a reverie in
an old churchyard—soothing and edifying in its
effects. For a time the busy hum of everyday life
is silent—the insignificant cares and yet more in-
significant aspirations of our work-a-day liver, are
forgotten, and for the time we spiritually repose in
consecrated ground. A sentiment of this nature
has evidently inspired the compiler of this interest-
ing work—a very monument of patience and per-
.everance. In the few graceful remarks with which
she introduces her labours she reminds us that " It
is very good for us to go out of our own times
and live :n the past; perhaps we all do so
unconsciously, and without knowing it. The
imaginative past may have caused us as many
pleasant thoughts, as the realisation of our hopes
has done when granted to us in the fature.'' To
the authoress this compilation of most curious and
isolated facts has evidently been a labour of love—
her heart has been in her work, and she has in con-
sequence done full justice to her subject, and pre-
sented us with a work that is at once a valuable
relic of mediaeval antiquity, and a new curiosity of
literature. A brief history of " The Sacred Enter-
prise"—the Crusades—is very appropriately pre..
fixed to these records of enshrined hearts, many of
which once beat beneath the red cross or the scollop
shell. The first of the enshrined hearts which is
recorded in chronological order is that of Stephen,
Earl of Brittany, who died in 1104, and whose
heart is enshrined in the Abbey of St. Martin's at
York, and the last heart mentioned is that of the
late King William IV. of Prussia. About t-wo
hundred and fifty enshrined hearts are altogether
enumerated in this volume. Many romantic tales
and legends are very happily introduced in the
course of these records, many new evidences of how
much Truth is stranger than Fiction. It is a book that
will be read with thoughtful interest by many, and
turned to again and again with new pleasure. In
the comments made by the authoress upon the
enclosure of Napoleon's heart in a silver vase shortly
after his death on the sth of May, 1821, at St.
Helena, the writer observes that she knows not
what has become of that silver vase with
its precious enclosure. Is she not aware that it
was interred with the body of the Great Emperor
—being placed there (at the time of the first sepul-
ture under the willows) in the innermost coffin, be-
tween the legs, close to the little three-cornered
hat ! That there it was found to be in 1840 at the
time of the disinterment ! And that, consequently,
the heart of Napoleon in that silver vase reposes
now, together with the body of the Great Emperor
and King, in his more than regal tomb under the
dome of the Invalides.

Young Life ; its Chances and Changes. By the
Author of " )hidden Links," Three vols. Skeet.
Chances and Changes indeed beset the lives of
the two heroines of this history, mother and
daughter. The mother, the daughter of a clergy-
man, is, in the first chapter of the first volume,
privately married to a young nobleman, who shortly
afterwards disclaims the marriage, and publicly
espouses a lady of title. The real wife, although
"possessed of every proof and sign" to establish
her rights, with a quixotic self-sacrifice allows her
place to be given to another, and dies in obscurity
abroad, leaving a little daughter to encounter perils
and persecutions unnumbered. A very benevolent
and charming old lady, Madame de Consterdine,
wishes to adopt the orphan, but she is prevented from
so doing by the evil genius of the tare, a cruel uncle,
who is aware of the real parentage of the mother-
less girl, and who makes use of the secret to exer-
cise a potent influence over her noble father. From
this glimpse it will be seen that the story possesses
an extravagant interest.
i Tile unsuitable marriage
into which the heroine s persuaded is singularly
improbable and very repulsive. The third volume,
however, brings a happier turn of affairs, and
all's well that ends well,'

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lar

HER MAJESTY.

The Queen in Germany.
On the arrival at Cologne, on Friday evening, of
the train conveying her Majesty, the princes and
princesses, Earl Granville, and the suite in attend-
ance on the royal party, no halt was made, and the
journey to Rosenau was continued.
Oa reaching Rolandseck, at eight o'clock, bar
Majesty and the members of the royal family
alighted, and partook of dinner in a room at the
station which had been specially prepared for the
accommodation of the royal party. The journey
was resumed at half-past nine, when the route
taken was by way of Mayence, over the Hessian
Lud w ig's Railway to Darmstadt, and thence by way
of Aschaffenburg.

The English residents on the Lower Rhine in-
tended to assemble, and to offer a demonstration of
loyalty to the Queen, but this idea was reluctantly
abandoned, as it was ascertained that a desire had
been expressed that nothing of the kind should
take place.

The Count of Flanders has arrived at Abergeldie
on a visit to the Prince and Princess of Wales.
The Prince and Princess William of Baden have
returned to Claridge's Hotel, from Cowes, Isle of Wight.
The Marquis of Londonderry continues in a very
weak condition, and but faint hopes are now entertained of
his ultimate restoration to health.

The Earl of Coventry joined the circle visiting
the Duke and Duchess of Richmond, at Gordon Castle,
Fochabers, N. 8., on Wednesday last.
The Earl and Countess of Chesterfield have left
town, on a tour of visits in the north.
The Earl de Grey and Ripon, as Secretary of
State for War, has been on a tour of inspection of the for-
tifications in progress and in contemplation at the various
points on the south-w, st and western coast ; also the Chan-
ncl Islands. The noble earl will leave Plymouth to-day for
the westward, and is not expected to return to town until
after visiting Milford Haven.

The Count and Countess Chrapowieky have left
Claridge's Hotel for Tunbridge-wells.
__.

Viscountess Jocelyn and the Hon. Misses Jocelyn
have arrived in town from St. Leonard's-on-Sea,

Lord Broughton left town yesterday for Tidworth
Park to piss the autumn.

THE EMPEROR, it is expected, will shortly visit
Cherbourg.

DEATH OF ADMIRAL 0. V. HARCOURT.—We
(Leeds Mercury) have the melancholy duty of
chronicling the death of this estimable gentleman, which
took place at the residence, Swinton Park, near Masham,
on Friday last. He was a younger son of Dr. Edward
Vernon, late Archbishop of York (who took the surname of
Harcourt by royal sign manual, in January, 1831, on his
coming to the estate of the late Earl Harcourt). The
gallant admiral was born on the 26th of December,
1793, and was consequently in his 70th year. He has ever
been a great benefactor to ,he church. He built, at his own
expense, a very handsome church and parsonage, at Healey,
near Masham, which he amply endowed ; also another
church at Brent Tor, in Eevanshire, the endowment of
which he considerably augmented. He also restored at his
own cost, in a most efficient manner, the parish church at
Masham, besides contributing very largely to the funds for
the restoration of several other churches, not only in this
but in other counties. He contributed with princely muni-
icence to the Riddell Memorial Mechanicss' Institute, in
Masham, the Masham Grammar School, at Kelbank. near
Masham, as well as to the funds of all the local charities.
He was also a kind and liberal landlord, and as such his
memory will ever be held dear to a numerous and devoted
tenantry.

MR. JOHN THOMAS'S Cantata for the " Eisted-
vod," which is to take place at Swansea in the earliest days
of September, bears the title of " Llewellyn."
A PARODY or the "Dame aux Camerias " is nosy►
says the Reader, being performed at the Theatre
Dejazet in Paris. It is entitled "Madame Camelia before
Sebastopol," and represents the French soldiers before
Sebastopol playing the younger Dumas's piece, then at
vogue at Paris, without a book, and entirely ex tempore.
A corporal plays "Armand Duval," the father is a tam-
hour-major, and a full-grown vivandiere is the consumptive
heroine.

PRINCESS MATHILDE is still absent from Paris,
and will remain away a month longer.
MDLLE. TITIENS will make her debut before the
end of the month at the French "Grand Opera" in the cha-
racter of Valentine in the " Huguenots,"
MR. VINCENT WALLACE has a new work ready
for the coining winter season of Miss Pyne's opera com-
pany.

THE EMPEROR'S short journey to Normandy i°
to be commemorated by a medal being struck.
MRS. STIRLING, long absent from the London
stage, will reappear very shortly at the Adelphi in a new
comic drama.

GENERAL FLEURY id to be made a General of
Division and Master of the Hunt to the Emperor—the
latter appointment having remained vacant ever since the
death of Marshal St. Arnaud.

" OLD CRITICS' NOT TO BE CAUGHT WITEE
CHAFF.—The Athenceum thus begins one of its
last notices of a little book of—Poetry I—We are told that
Zoilus was presented by Apollo with a sack of wheat that
had not been winnowed, and told to pick out all the chaff
in return for his very querulous and fault 'finding review.
Nowadays, Apollo too often presents the critic with a sack
of chaff, through which we seek in vain for a single grain
of wheat.

THE PRECISE VALUE OF A LIFE !—A boatman
at Worthing, a few days ago, was presented with the mag-
nificent sum of 6d. by a person whose life he had saved
when attacked with cramp whilst bathing.
THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON is said to have sent
a Parisian engineer, M. Dan; to Tunis, in order to make
some topographical researches, for the purpose of gaining
certain knowledge relative to the life of Cram.

CRINOLINE, occasionally, makes some slight
amends for the disasters it caused. At one of the
Paris theatres, for example, last week, a stage trap-dour
was left open, through which a favourite actress would
have been precipitated had not the abundant size of her
crinoline filled up the vacancy and suspended her fair frame
between the world above and the realms below until assist-
ance came to her.

A DISTINCTION WITH A DIFFERENCE !—OOlOl2Ol
Stirling declares that all the motley collection of donkey'
drivers, of many languages, collected at Alexandria, agree
in calling Pompey's Pillar "Bumbay's Billows."
THE NATURE OF ETIDENCE.—AII the facts with
which we are acquainted, visible or invisible,
internal or external, are connected together in a vast series
of sequences which we call cause and effect, and the consti-
tution of things is such, that men are able to infer from one
fact the existence, either past or future, of other facts. For
instance, we infer from a footmark on soft ground that a
foot has been impressed upon it. From the fact that a man
is planting his foot on soft ground, we infer that if he com-
pletes that motion a footmark will appear. Any specific
fact, or set of facts, employed for the purpose of inferring
therefrom the existence of any other fact, is said to be
evidence of that fact. Suppose the question is whether
John Smith is living or dead ; A says, " I knew John
Smith, and I saw him die." B says, " I knew John Smith.
I saw him in bed ; he looked very ill. I shortly afterwards
heard he was dead, and saw a funeral procession, which I
attended, and which every one said was his funeral,
leave his house and go to the churchyard, where I saw
a coffin buried with his name on it." C says, Z told ins
that he heard from X that John Smith was dead." D
says, " I had a dream that John Smith was dead." Each
of these facts, if used for the purpose of supporting the in-
ference that John Smith was really dead, would be evidence
of his death. The assertions of A and-B would. under or-
dinary circumstances, be b convincing; that of C far from
satisfactory, and that of D altogether idle, except to a very
superstitious person. This would be usually expressed by
saying that the assertions of A and B would be good evi-
dence, that of C weak evidence, and that of I) no evidence
at all of the fact of death. But this is not quite a correct
way of speaking; whether one fact is evidence of another
depends on the way in which it is used. If people usually
believed in dreams, the assertion that a man had dreamt of
John Smith's death would be evidence of his death, whe-
ther or not it would be wise to allow it to be evidenc3 of his
death, would depend on the further question, whether in
point of fact the practice of inferring the truth of the dream
from the f4ct of its occurrence, usually produced true be'
lief.--Stephens' General View on the Criminal Law of
_England.

The annual public sitting of the five Academies
took
place yesterday at the palace of the Institute,
M. Paulin-Paris, President of the Academy of Inscriptions
and Belles-Lettres, in the chair. Near him were seated
MM. Villemain, Gnig,not, Velpeau, Jouffrcy, and Naudet,
delegates of the several academies. The sitting was opened
by an address from the president, and the proclamation of the
biennial prize of 20,000 fr. awarded to M. Oppert. A report
was afterwards read on the competition of 1863 for the
prize founded by M. do Volnary. That of 1,200 fr. for a
work of comparative Philology was given to M. Adolphe
Pictet, of Geneva. M. Wallon read a paper on The
Fall of Richard IL ;" M. Couder one on " The Character
of Art in General ;" and General Morin one "On the im-
provement in the dwelling-houses of the poor." The sitting
was closed by M. Viennet reading some of his fables.

Maliww.-