The Sun.
London, England, 1862-02-17 00:00:00

• 6.4

P zss.ant we would recommend the editor to be a
li ttlf more careful in his supervision of the foreign
al la: ges, quotations &c. We have several times en-
• ntered very sicglar specimens of the Gallic
t or tgue. After Easter most of the visitors quitted
1 .it ,me, three hundred horses being ordered for the
✓ ;ht of Easter Monday alone. The following
P acdote gives a ludicrous illustration of the profit
tde out of the Signori Inglesi.
" THE DOG AND THE SHADOW.
' " An amusing instance of the wish to keep the English
to. the last moment occurred on Monday. In the morning
it I vas reported in the Hotel des Isles Britanniques to the
is dlord, that his cellar of charcoal was on fire, owing to
the negligence of a servant, and was gaining such a head
the tit would be better to send for les pompiers. 'By no
niei .ns,' quoth the landlord ; 'throw as much water as The
an upon it ; shut the docr, and hold your tongue.
F,igt mri Inglesi will all go to-night after La Gira.nd.ole is
o ver, and when they are gone we will put out the fire , but
f th ey hear of it now they will quit here this morning, and
get their dinners elsewhere, and perhaps not come back to
tl• Le bons e next year.' In this spirit of calculation he acted,
at Id elo,:sed the cellar door. But the fire would be no party
to the landlord's saving project, and broke out before
dame r ; •so the dinners were all spoilt, the pompiers were
oblig ed to be called, the Signori Inglesi did leave the house,
and the landlord's kitchen was burned down."
The, fact of the state of affairs being now
so very different that the pictures of that
day are hardly recognisabla in the present, adds
considerably to the attractions of the volumes.
It is strange to read the familiar gossip and easy
narrative relating to a country as far removed from
the Italy of Victor Emmanuel and Garibaldi as if it
belonged to a byegone world. The artistic reflec-
tions are, however, as appropriate to-day as ever.
Pompeii rend Herculaneum are indifferent to the
conflicts o f peoples and dynasties ; the Coliseum has
seen toot nany ages to fear the steps of years ; and
the great masterpieces of painting and sculpture
receive srith unchanging beauty the homage of suc-
cessive generations. As combining in a rare degree
the at' tractions of politics, literature, science, and
art, ti' .0 work addresses itself to a large circle of
xeade ra who will feel for its author the interest in-
spire d by high rank and great misfortune, accom-
132;ni.eil by considerable talents and consistent
REILV
acyc of principle.

itich does she Love? By Colburn Mayne, author
)t " Madeline Clare. 3 vols. Hurst and
Slackett.
n these volumes the reader will find great
iety, and some of the leading personages are
eniously introduced to our notice. Ada is not
at, all an attractive heroine. She wants decision in
th, a first place, and self-control after she has at length
ads her choice. Her conduct towards Lionel was
Nte
rong in the extreme, and displayed recklessness
th at almost amounted to heartlessness. Happily
sdig h e married at last a man of sense, who was able to
sect her erratic course far better than the excit-
able and enthusiastic Lionel could have done. Some
CI the scenes in which she displayed her utter
igi fora eoufsian in
almost lgl prudence in money matters are
am
their absurdity. As it
that matters right themselves at
last, one can be allowed to smile at the
eta'a vagant notions of the young wife, which would
Ecttni have turned her paradise into a pandemonium
is n' at checked in time. Clara, the other heroine,
lso unsatisfying in her demeanour. She is
serer than Ada, and of more feeling ; but she
tiara the good qualities of her disposition by her
s4tation, and thus is as useless as Ada, not from
"want of reflection, but from a sort of morbid ner-
ofusti ess, which made her fail in the trying moment
44
1, d• auger. She should never have agreed. to let
atie Or father go to Paris without her, and afterwards
should have been resolute and decided, instead
;i trying to compromise with an arch-deceiver like
be.
aunt. This latter lady is an adept in crime of
all kinds. and certainly she possessed, in a forcible
earee, all those attributes of Energy which the
etll,,erla.dieslacked. Herfinal discomfiture and sigma.
dteat is a striking success in the narrative, and
18 a positive relief to the mind of the reader,
after having been so long indignant at her strata-
gems and plots succeeding so well. She was
all
ght in her own toils ; the villain she had bribed
turned round upon her, and circumvented her in
n.f
tr i
ibtu t
semis her hour of success. In this world so complete a
!•be
isTidoes not often overtake the criminals;
only right and fitting when we meet
with such an illustrative judgment in the pages of
Action. It is seldom indeed that a more effective
Passage is met with in a novel than the one which
relates the scene on the wedding morning. The
retribution was also for Philip Helmer, as he was
confronted by his first wife ; and thus she, whom
had neglected and maltreated in the morning of
his life, appeared in the evening of his days to
eomfront him and stay him in his reckless course
of crime. The author seems almost too lenient re-
garding this guilty pair ; but there is much truth
in the remarks made on the insufficiency of human
adjustments in matters of right and wrong, and thus
it is forcibly stated :—" Ah, reader, have you made
up your mind to follow always only justice in this
world ?—then think of what you have decided on.
As this world is constituted think of the many
hearts you must break, of the many hopes you
Must crush, of the many lives you must ruin ; and
then think again if justice may not safely be left in
the bands of the all-perfect God, and if mercy be
not better suited to the nature of erring man."
drniand Morton is a peculiar style of character,
Nrho reminds one of Wilfred in " Rokeby"—
:Nought of his sire's ungenerous part
Polluted Wilfred's gentle heart—
A heart too weak from early life
To hold with Fortune needful strife.
Mrs. Dorrington received another warning in the
realisation of her dreams as well as in their destruc-
tion, for her cherished idea was fulfilled of Clara
t11:71 Edmund being united, but it did her no good ;
mores'r clay of power was over, her reign of inquity no
fell All the sins of her lifetime hidden from her
Ut w-creatures were set down in the awful account
tO
hereafter and while her conscience recalled them
her mind, her judgment told her they were of
42°ail. She had perilled her soul for the posses
7:8 a.v1181" of gold that had turned to dross in the
twng, and for fruit that had become ashes in
ov "tng- Some portions of this work are marred by
regretted as
descriptions, which are the more to be
tailogl:eotftteedu as there abounds throughout these volumes
and much variety of incident, and the style is flowiug
vigorous in its tenor. It is to be trusted
ozatt on a future occasion the author may avoid such
hisreines, which deteriorate from the effect of
elliladmirable constructions. " Which does
t Love, " apart from such considerations,
much
much to attract, much 'to excite, and
sio.ca to interest. Some of the most potent pas-
's of human nature are here aptly described,
igand aPPropriately descanted upon. We meet with
ustrations of persons who in actual life, form the
adventurers who shake kingdoms by their machina.-
vaatuosiife and the bandits and bravos who convulse pia-
with their plots. Also some secondary people
areably treated of, as Miss Foster, afterwards
;°:ivs. Pinder. Mrs. Harwood is an apt representa-
llon of a soi-disunt good woman, who will work her
hen Purposes, and sees so many faults in others that
ar Own e.re rendered invisible. On the whole there
good reason to suppose that:this novel will gain
PlYroval from the readers of romances, and it de-
serves it in many parts, for while it evidences the
faults and follies of life in strong colours, it also
chows some instances of a better and brighter
eitate of things. Thus it can lay claim to the merit
of blending a romantic tale with some of the stern
lessons of reality that all who mix much in the
world must find inseparably interwoven with the
most fascinating events and the most alluring
prospects.
2'

Ae
•Pussians on the Amur. By E. G. Raven-
stein, F.R.G.S. Trubner and Co.
although a loading o tato and ono of vast
Power, is, in point of civilisation, as yet but partly
developed ; while other nations date back their his-
-1917 to before the Christian era, the history of
'Russia, until the end of the 17th century, was al-
most traditional and not to be relied on for parti-
culars. But notwithstanding their state of semi-
ihnnrtbhearism, the spirit of colonisation was inherent
swiaildweerxeabgrgeenrahtetdbstoriesof the wealth
of easterrancel
adven-
turers, and the Governtl:leegpnt of they
Czar wandering
determined
to take pOssession of
of
tahcei Pacific
Amur,coas t
rich
theh in conti-
nent. The rich valley
mine-
rals, and possessing a fine climate, gave promise of
an El Dorado to the new colonists.
osap
o.Butwwhenpower
f thereeem _
is not a directing spirit, where no
Maud is maintained, can
Bands of plundering marauders overrtumnathseucceeeendn!
try, and turned a friendly people into determined
enemies ; and, although the first advance of
the
Russians into the far East was as early as the end
of the 15th century, it was not until the time of
Peter the Great that any real progress was made
then, as if waking from a primeval trance, the
mighty power of Russia began to develop itself, and
far and wide the mighty power of the Czar ex-
tended itself. The Chinese found it convenient to
make terms with a power whose law is a word and
blow, and yield by treaty what they could not
1:1011d by force, thus the whole of Northern Tartary
71" surrendered to the north, and the vast area of
the valley of the Amur, containing upwards of
?)0,000 square miles, became the property of
~:
GEOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE RIVER AMUR.
The
. Amur, one of the largest rivers of Asia, drains with
i...,,tributaries a basin of 766,000 square miles. n
litin°unded on the south i,y the Shan-alin mountains andT a
ti'arPaing through Korchin and the Gobi desert. o-.
,a,,,(18 the west and north the Yablonoi and Stanovm
ocueges separate it from the rivers flowing to the Arctic
an and the sea of Okhotsk, and in the east the coast-
lei_o,from the rivulets entering the Channel of Tartary or
as the ?II geographers look upon the sources of the Kerlon
v", nead-waters of the Amur ; the Chinese, however,
ft take its rise in the Sfian-alin or White Mountains,