The Sun.
London, England, 1853-04-07 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

The New Quarterly Review. No. VI.

Appended to each number of this new periodical
will be found a comprehensive list of the principal
publications of the last past quarter. A glance at
that given in the current instalment, followed by
an examination of the contents, will sufficiently
prove how very complete is the review here given
of the progress made in contemporary literature.
Scarcely a single work of any importance is passed
over without some consideration. Several of the
more important productions are criticised, more-
over, with a dash and vigour indicative of the
fact, that if the " organ " be new, the con-
tributors to it are, some of them, at least,
practised hands, men gifted with ample capa-
city, and armed with a ripe scholarship. Con-
spicuous among these effusions this quarter, wo
take the article entitled " India—The Anarchy of
Thraldom," as affording a very fair illustration.
Elsewhere, we shall find occasion to refer to this
paper more directly, but, at the present moment,
we may be permitted to observe that the argument
is throughout almost as broad as it is searching and
elaborate. Another contribution is especially de-
serving of notice as of peculiar interest just now,
the review of " The Two Coalition Cabinets"—
namely, those of 1783 and 1853, suggested by the two
volumes recently edited by the Duke of Bucking-
ham. Very happily timed, too, is the article about
.!` Gold : Its Past, its Present, its Future,"—rela-
ting, of course, more especially to the discoveries of
the precious metal in California and Australia.
Speaking of "My Novel" in the course of a criti-
cism headed " The Bulwer Novels," one of the most
intelligent writers in the New Quarterly remarks
with perfect justice that this is, in truth, " the
model novel of our language." He speaks of it, in-
deed, thus earnestly :
_ _

" 'My Novel' is the best, and must become the moat
standard novel in our language. Four thick closely.
printed volumes, containing more than half as much
matter as Gibbon's Decline and Fall, are enough to
startle the most intrepid novel reader. Yet do we know
many a family who are acquiring most dissipated habits
of late sitting up, simply because the husband, wife, or
daughter has undertaken to read this book aloud.
literally long for the evening,' said a bride of not very
long standing, to us the other day, when, my
husband at home, and dinner hurried over, we eagerly
return to the book, and read alternately chapter
after chapter, until the lamp goes out, and we
are shocked to find how late it is.' We are not
addicted to hero worship ; and if we were speaking
of Sir Bulwer Lytton as a politician or a poet,
we should have many hard and bitter things to say of
him. It is, then, with no blind partiality, that, al-
though remembering there are such works as the
Vicar of Wakefield' written in English, and that there
are such names as Fielding, Sterne, and Scott in our
literature, we return to our judgment that this is the
model,novel of our language. It is so full of thought,
so full of reading, so full of exquisite life-like drawing,
so rich in illustration, so carefully wrought with philo-
sophy, so toned into unity, that we recognise it at once
as the magnum, opus of the author—the work in which,
without repeating anything he has done before, he has
concentrated the reading, reflection, and observation
of a life."

It is almost needless to add in this place that we
do not in any way regard this high praise as exag-
gerated. Having ourselves not less cordially of-
fered to this noble effusion of the genius of Bulwer
Lytton the tribute of our most unaffected admira-

tio n, we need scarcely remark that the praise
lavished upon it by the New Quarterly appears to
us deserved as it is undoubtedly enthusiastic.
Earl Grey's two ponderous volumes elicit from an-
other contributor a sneering allusion to " The Co-
lonial policy of Lord John Russell's Administra-
tion." Another scoffs at the ignorance dis-
played by the various biographers of Mahomet
—here most horridly spelt Mohammad. An-
other pronounces Mr. W. B. Barker, author of
" Lares and Penates," to be a mere " smatterer in.
Orientalism." An interesting though rather super-
ficial review is given of Layard's " Nineveh and
Babylon ;" and another of a similar character both in
its merits and'defects, of Mrs. Jameson's " Legends
of the Madonna." Besides the papers already
enumerated, there are numerous others well merit-
ing perusal by those who like a guide among the
rubbish and treasures heaped confusedly together
by the cultivators of modern literature.

Narrative of a Journey Round the World. By
F. Gerstaeeker. 3 vols. Hurst and Blackett.

These travels consisted in a " winter passage
across the Andes to Chili, with a visit to the gold
regions of California and Australia, the South Sea
Islands, Java, &c." In the present state of things
and position of affairs, no more desirable book can
be imagined. It carries us at once to the centre of
attractions—it conveys us to the goal of so many
desires, the land of promise to expectant thousands.
We behold, face to face, the mighty regions where
so many of our countrymen bave gone, that it seems
almost a second home. We are informed, in minute
details, of the life that is led there. There is no
false glitter thrown over the accounts ; the author
evidently strives to raise no false hopes and excite
no unreasonable expectations. The aspiring emi-
grant is told at once, in plain terms, that there is
no royal road to wealth in those parts ; he must
work, and that in right earnest, if he wishes for
success. The accounts given of California are par-
ticularly explicit. It seems that washing shirts
is six dollars a dozen, and purchasing new ones is
only seven or eight dollars ; consequently the dig-
gers frequently cast away those only once worn,
and buy new. The old are collected by the
dealers, washed, and sold again. Some of
the merchants send their clothes to China to be
washed there for a trifle. The description of Sydney
during the excitement prevailing on the discovery
of new mines is very interesting. It appears that
the author returned to Sydney after an absence of
three months. He had left it perfectly quiet—he
found it on his return in a state of violent com-
motion :

" People walked no more ; they ran. Before almost
every house at the landing some drays were standing
loading, and round each vehicle a crowd pressed, looking
at the things, and 'the happy coves' who were about to
start with them. The Robinsmeau lump, or I had
better say nugget, had just been discovered. It was as
if that piece of gold had been a door, which, rolling
away, suddenly opened to the astonished multitude an
illuminated paradise. Such as had been irresolute what
to do,
to be or not to be' one of the diggers, now
'shook off every doubt, bought a pickaxe, and the other
instruments necessary for their future misery, and it
was a settled thing. In one word, Sydney was mad ;
you could not converse with any man in town except on
that one topic—gold. You wenfto a doctor and told
him you were ill ; he would feel your pulse, and ask
you if you had heard the last accounts from the mines.
You met a friend in the street, shook hands with him,
and asked him how he was. They found another
nugget,' would be his answer.

How do you sell those oranges, old fellow I ' you
inquire of a man who is running up the street at five
knots an hour with a wheelbarrow. 'Any price, eir,
any,' is his reply ; `it's the last load, God be thanked.'
Why, you are not for —?" For the mines, sir, •
God bless you!" Iron !—who has said iron was the
world's magnet ? Gold is the charm now darting its
burning rays over the world—gold is the magnet to
which the needles of Christianity and Judaism turn with
obedient veneration ; even the heathens have caught the
fever, leaving home and friends merely to see the
elephant,' as the Americans used to say."
From these passages the reader may judge of
the excellent descriptions given in the pages of this
work. The writer seems to have entered heart
and soul into his enterprise of discovery : he
gleaned from other lands wherewith to enrich the
knowledge of his' own. The memory of his
country never deserted him in the climes of the
tropics or in the golden valleys of the New World,
and he concludes the long account of wanderings
in far-off districts by an acknowledgment that,
although there " are rich stores of beauty out
in
that fair world, treasures heaped up in the wilder-
ness," the traveller must ever find out " that, be
it ever so humble, there is no place like home."

FATAL BOILER ExmosioN.—A terrible boiler explo-
sion, attended with fatal results, occurred on Monday-
under
stand, evening at the forge in Thornhill Lees, on the Lanea-
ssthainred,ant(il ielrpoiricoislheirrteyßofaimlwr. ay.iosThhuea flhonrgeaims, we
of Blake
Hall, near Mirfield, and has been occupied by Mr.
eGindelrarberesulted ingArmitagethfeersaceinimficee tonlif e. The, bute e
also x
ap
pl
po sd i
earsod n
et no
ht
ona t-
s ledianage property in the locality. From the
information we have been able ?) gather, it
about ten o'clock in the evening the workmen left to
go to supper, leaving a young
m
native of Staffordshire in chargean onfatmheed enAraginemonTslae
fimroesmtainrorahaeddiaaltseolygoanfte:roffthdeuwty tok Intkehhadis
lseuftptehre..
platle-
a terrible explosion took place, by which the boiler was
almost blown to atoms, and houses in the neighbourhood
much dilapidated. ;After the steam had partly cleared off,
and the workmen could obtain some idea of the extent
of the mischief, an examination of the debris was made.
The unfortunate young man, John Ammons, was found
at a short distance from the engine, his body much
mangled and scalded, and quite dead. Fortunately the
night hands, as we have before stated, had not commenced
working, otherwise the sacrifice of human life must have
been great. There has as yet been no scientific examina-
tion of the engine, but popular rumour ascribes a very
faulty condition to this mighty agent. It has been
popuiarly current that the plates of the boiler were so
worn by long usage as to be accessible to the thrust of a
common penknife. Of course this will be a question for
the jury to determine.
SAILORS' WAGES IN THE NORTH OF ENGLAND.—Sea-
men sailing out of the Tyne, Wear, and adjacent poFtt.
to London are now earning 4/. 10s. per voyage Loana 1;
the British American and Baltic trades 31. 1.. f.
month, and small stores. Never since the war
seamen. Higher wages than these w.
en
were
always
such a uniformly high rate of wages beeerno
tain periods of the war, but seaazineg. then
placed in jeopardy of the presag ee
°rn abtyctehre.