The Sun.
London, England, 1838-02-01 00:00:00

BLACK WOOD'S MA GA ZINE.

There is an ingeniously conceived tale in this number,
which would make a very graceful and sprightly burletta
for the St. James's or the Olympic. It is entitled " New
Year's Night," and professes to be from the German,
though we suspect it is of home growth. It turns upon
the nocturnal adventures of a young watchman, who meet-
ing in his rounds with a Prince, something eclipsed by
strong waters—for accidents will happen in the most ex-
alted families—is prevailed on by the young and reckless
sprig of Royalty to change dresses with him. Thus dis-
guised, with a mask before his face, the watchman goes to
a large Court party, where, on the supposition that he is
the actual Prince, he is made privy to divers secrets of a
more amusing than moral character ; while his Royal
Highness, in his capacity of a watchman, gets himself into
an infinite variety of scrapes, from his very noisy and un-
official mode of conducting business. These incidents are
slight enough, you will say ; but they are worked up with
considerable tact, in an airy and sportive spirit. We do
not know when we hare travelled over twenty-two pages—
of which the tale consists—with so much ease and gratifi-
cation. " Legendary Lore" displays occasional eloquence
and feeling, but is rather too fantastic in its character. A
Skeleton and a Suit of Armour are represented as conversing
together—lively gossips !—at midnight in the interior of a

ime-worn chapel. Both are moralists, and both, as might
be expected, are addicted to trope and metaphor ; but their
speeches are too long, and of that mystical character which
in the House of Commons is apt to afflict Hon. Members
with a violent catarrhal affection. " One Heart for Two
Loves" is a just and caustic notice of one of those maudlin
extravagant romances which are just now so popular in
" Young France," and which prove that, in literature at
least, she has not yet come to years of discretion. From
the article 'ycleped " A Sketch of the Canadas," we quote
an account of the winter pastimes of the Colonists :
" Every man prepares his sleigh or eairole ; all business is at an end
and amusement, or rather amusements of every kind, become the great
business of life. Friends who have not seen each other for the half..
year before, now renew their intercourse. Balls and dinners follow
in rapid succession. Picnic parties are given in all directions. The
snow-storm may block them up, but it renews the face of the country
with a fresh covering, and those sons and daughters of gaiety fly at full
speed over an unobstructed landscape, with a delight actually enhanced
by the severity of the season. But travelling over the rivers and lakes
is sometimes hazardous. Even in the severest frost, there are weak
places to be occasionally found in the ice, which the moment they are
touched by the sleigh give way and carry down the horse, the vehicle,
and all that it contains. In general, however, those weak places are of
small size, and if a moment is allowed, the driver jumps on the strong
ice, seizes the rope, which, in contemplation of such accidents, is round
every horse's neck, and drags him from the water. It is a curious
fact, that the established way of escape on those occasions, is
to begin by strangling the horse. As soon as the noose is drawn tight
and his windpipe thus stepped, the horse becomes motionless, floats on
his side, and is easily dragged to the solid ice, where, on the noose being
opened, respiration soon returns, and the horse in a few minutes is gal-
loping away as spiritedly as ever, while if he had been suffered to strug-
gle, he would only have exhausted himself and finally sunk. This acci-
dent and this recovery has been known to occur so much as three times
a day to the same horse. But travelling on the frozen lakes is more
dangerous still, from vast rifts which run from side to side, from one to
six feet broad. The drivers, when they see no other mode of passing,
sometimes make the desperate attempt to bring up the horse at full gal-
lop, and leap across, sleigh and all. A slip here is all but inevitable
ruin. A still more formidable danger, however, arises from the snow-
storm. A snowfall is often accompanied by a furious gale of wind,
which, while the sir is filled with the snow, covers all tracks, oblite-
rates all land-marks, and leaves the traveller helpless and bewildered in
the midst of a new formed desert."

" Loss of our Goldea Key" is from the pen of that ve-
nerable sage, Christopher North. It alternates between
the mirthful and the mournful—the sweet and the bitter.
In one page it is critical ;in another metaphysical. Here
it learnedly discusses the culinary science ; there, the most
inspired portions of Homer's Odyssey. In some of the most
rambling passages, we think we recognise the inspiration of
a genial tumbler of whiskey-toddy—especially in those
which discuss the long disputed question of what consti-
tutes a good dinner. The writer is very emphatic on this
point.He
fish, which, lie adds, should be eaten with a fork, as in the
good old times. This is sound doctrine, and the modern
fashion of eating it with a bit of bread, a " damnable he-
resy" which cannot be too resolutely eschewed. Besides,
it requires a long apprenticeship, and is apt to be attended
with the most humiliating results to the unpractised, who
after chasing a slippery bit of salmon about their plate,
with a wedge of bread an inch thick, not unfrequently fiad
the fishy fragment swim off en the table-cloth, or into their
next neighbour's lap, infinitely to the delight of an admiring
company whose countenances are, of course, refulgent with
smiles at the spectacle of such a ridiculous mishap ! " Mi-
nisterial Policy in the Canadas" is a most vicious diatribe,
and kicks, like a dray-horse, at the Melbourne Cabinet.
Hard words, however, are not arguments, and this article
has little but its ferocious expletives, to recommend it. We
subjoin a ballad by Mr. Symeions, which, for vigor and
dramatic effect, is one of the most striking poems that
ever appeared in Blackwood.
Sweet solemn Venice I o'er thee fade
Eve's latest hues of glory,
While by yon shadowy colonnade
Near Balbi's palace hoary,
A youth with passion-kindled lip,
And Taste's harmonious hand,
Must still devoted vigil keep
Invoking Beauty bland.
Appear, my ladye-love, appear--
Look from thy latticed bower,
And bless his sight wh• watches hero
The livelong twilight hour.
The stars are out and why shouldst thou,
My peerless One, delay
To flash upon me from thy brow
A far diviner ray ?
But others gaze upon thee now,
And drink thy glorious smile,
And make thy spirit mindless how;
gracious gate
Hine maddens here the while.
fsoercg t
and hou
With
ictohn:Tiluen
ge ?
LoacAh, truant, why should their dull praise
Myok
Make gladness of my gloom !
Lo I jealous eye and ear are far--
And fast the evening flies ;
Then loiter not, thou lovely star,
Young moon of beauty rise
Or is thy faith, like flower spray, broke,
And" --
God I that leaping start I
Keen, sudden, home—the poinard's stroke
Has split his very heart
While on the air his song yet gushes,
Life's stifled fountain stops ;
Dead on the rebeck. that he crushes,
The young Battista drops.
And ere his murderer's skulking shade
Has left the moonbeam bare,
Damp in the soiling dust are laid
Those curls of chesnut hair.
Forth from her bower the maiden wended,
At love's victorious call,
Where broad the marble steps descended,
Upon the blue canal :
A sudden brightness with her bringing,
As though from out the main
Its light the vanished day was flinging
Through sunset's gate again.
" By yonder shaft be leans to hide,
The proud impatient boy__
I'll steal upon his sone. I" she cried,
In girlhood's rosy joy.
And glancing on like cushat fleet,
She gained the sad moonshine •
By Heaven, she stumbles ! and her feet
Are plashing—not in wine.
One 100k—but come---We'll leave her there,
To madness and the moon •
A sweet lute shriver'd by Despair,'
With every string in tune.
A glorious bud from vernal earth,
Snapt as its bloom was blown—,
A grace in beauty's bounding mirth,
Struck instantly to stone.

PICKWICK ABROAD, OR, THE TOUR IN

FRANCE.

It is very vexatious to be obliged to praise what one does
not like. If " Pickwick Abroad" were not a work " built
upon another man's foundation," we should say it was one
of the cleverest and most original production of the modern
British press. The mannerism of " Boz" is copied with a
servility which could only be redeemed by the humour with
which his wit is imitated ; and we rise from the First /slum-
ber with only the regret that Charles Dickens himself had
not written it ; and, to the actual author, we must say
Va' imitatores, servum yecus."

NEW MONTHLY.
The " Diving Beli"—the second part of which appears
in this month's Number—is a good idea, the nature of
which is sufficiently explained by the motto—" to visit the
wrecks of literature, and bring to the light what is rich and
rare iu their cargoes, is the service to which we devote our
diving-bell." The article is indeed a sort of Retrospective
Review, which will, we suppose, be continued monthly,
until the materials are exhausted. The one before us is a
notice of Captain Falconer's Advent

,Ures

a work which