The Sun.
London, England, 1854-07-03 00:00:00

THE MAGAZINES.

Blackwood. —lt is difficult to open the July
number of Blackwood without exulting in the
approaching issue of the spasmodic tragedy of
" Firmilian," and of Dr. Warren's " Miscellanies,"
there announced through the medium of somewhat
conspicuous advertisements. In the one we recog-
nise the promise of rare fun from the humorous
author of " Bon Gaultier," and in the other the
readers of Maga cannot fail. to discover reason for
no inconsiderable interest in the announced collec-
tion of miscellanies—" critical, imaginative, and
juridical"—contributed from time to time to the
pages of Blackwood's Magazine, by the author of
" Ten Thousand a Year," and the memorable
Passages from the Diary of a late Physician."
Whenever issued from the press, both works will,
we rest assured, command at once a cordial wel-
come—these "Miscellanies" and this "Firmillian,"
—for reflection but convinces us the more that
Mr. T. Percy Jones is only another name for
Professor William Edmonstone Aytoun, the
gifted author of the " Lays of the Scottish
Cavaliers." Turning to Maga herself, we
find the contents for July rather more than
usually varied, and some of them rather
more than usually interesting. The number
abounds in poetical contributions. One of these,
by "J. S. 8.," reports (metrically) " Tho Words
of Schamyl, the Prophet"—Schamyl, the renowned
warrior-prophet of the Caucasus. Whatever may
be the merit of that wonderful man as an orator,
we cannot at all recognise from these Words, as here
(metrically) reported by J. S. 8., any justification
whateverfor the ridiculous extravagance of the eulo-
gium prefixed to them in parenthesis, to the effect
that, "compared with this address, the best of
Napoleon's speeches to his French soldiers are mere
theatrical displays." Pshaw ! we never can, for the
life of us, comprehend the utility of trying to raise
one man's reputation by endeavouring to pull down
that of another—especially when that other is
wholly out of the reach of emulation, and, there-
fore, altogether beyond the limits essential to
comparison. Extraordinary though Schamyl, the
warrior-prophet of the Circassians, undoubt-
edly is as an historical character, assuredly no
one would seriously attempt to bring him in any
rospeet into comparison with Charlemagne. And
how, does another contributor to this same num-
ber of Blackwood speak of Napoleon The
writer is evidently less of a blind, unthinking,
merely impulsive hero-worshipper than J. S. B.
For, while the latter has spoken as we have re-
marked, the former observes :
"One thousand years after the great Charlemagne
foresaw the decay of his empire from the irruptions of
the barbarians of the north, another mighty potentate,
whose ambition was not less vast, and whose genius was
not less lofty, predicted danger to civilised Europe from
the hordes of Russia. He, too, was in the sunset of life,
and had survived power. From the rock of St. Helena
the imperial captive beheld the cold shadow which pre-
ceded the march of the giant. When the fate of Europe
was hanging in the balance during the conference of
Tilsit, even at that moment Napoleon refused to accede
to the prayer of Alexander, and lie thought Constanti-
nople far too precious a gift to be bestowed on the
Czar."

The passage occurs in an able article on " The
European Alliance and Russia." Three other
poetical contributions appear in Maga—being the
effusions of H. G. K., whose collected " Poems,
chiefly written in India," we observe under the
title of "Ex Exemo : by Henry G. Keene,"
announced for publication. Of these fugitive
pieces one relates to " God in Nature,"
another is headed " The Lesson," and another is
descriptive of " Clive's Dream before the Battle of
Plassey." Another contributor, half in verse half
in prose, hiding his identity under the transparent
mask of initials—A.Q.S.--amuses the readers of
Maga with 30 poetical " Riddles," sending them in
a " Letter to Eusebius." Some of them are pretty
and graceful enough, and most of them are suffi-
ciently ingenious. There is a rather elaborate
essay delineative of " The Growth and Prospects
of British America," with which, by the way, the
number leads off—heavily but instructively. We
find later on in the number for July, a second in-
stalment of " The Secret of Stoke Manor," a
minute account of "The Battle of Lepanto," and
a charming criticism on " Evelyn and Pepys,"
those most amusing of garrulous autobiographers.

Fraser.—There is so tempting an array of papers
in Fraser for the new month, that one scarcely
knows which contribution to " have at" in prefe-
rence. " Etchings from the Euxine" gives pro-
mise of proving a serial worthy of particular exa-
mination. The initial specimen before us relates
(only too briefly) to the " Flitting at Kostendje."
Another short and timely paper—a mere fragment,
but ono both attractive and instructive—refers to
the " Prophecy of the Russians at Constantinople."
The closing article for July, and yet at the same
time in a manner the " leading article," too, takes
into account the whole momentous problem of
" War and its Obligations before Peace." As a
matter of course, Fraser contains another instal-
ment of " General Bounce ; or, The Lady and the
Locusts," by the author of " Digby Grand"—and
almost equally as a matter of course the additional
chapters comprised therein are fraught with mate-
rials for entertainment. The story of the month
is a simple story called " Cousin William." The
essay of the month is a brilliant essay or treatise
entitled " The Astronomy of Comets." The criti-
cism of the month is an ingenious and most eulo-
gistic review of " Balder"—in regard to which work
the poetical reviewer of Fraser's Magazine ob-
serves :

" Genius is so unmistakably present in every page of
the strange book before us, that to give examples from
one, without injustice to the others, we find to be be-
yond possibility in the limits of a magazine review. 'We
cannot, however, resist a passing allusion to the absence
of all melodrama in those scenes which nevertheless reach
the very bounds of the dramatic, and to the instinctive
avoidance of the horrible and attainment of the terrible,
under circumstances of the highest tragedy. These ge-
neral facts infer a fact of intuition in the author, which
only the true critic can properly estimate ; and in such
passages as the portrait of Amy, in scene 2S, and the
iiooc of scene 37 or scene 24, he will recognise the same
wonderful truth of instinct at work, in the calmest nooks
and most pastoral quietudes of the many-coloured land-
scape of life."

Again, the critic observes later on :--
"Having pointed out, for the enjoyment of kindred
tastes and congenial powers, these' specimens of those
numerous passages which this poem offers to their en-
joyment, we can hardly do better, perhaps, than con-
clude a necessariiy unworthy exposition of so remarkable
a work, with that grand invocation in the final scene to
which—each according to the measure of his experience
—the heart of every artist will respond. And this be-
cause it speaks not only for poet, painter, sculptor, or
musician, but from the core of that great central form of
Nature of which these arc but the varying manifesta-
tions. This is a rare and great quality in the main inci-
dents of the poem before us. They are all, in different
degrees, representative. Thus, Balder soliloquises his
ambition ; but there are ten thousand young minds in
Europe to-day, who could adopt every one of his words
as the fit utterance of that which is dumbly seething
within them. Balder's child it is that dies, but his pang
of uncertainty and despair, when he buries it, finds an
answer in the secret consciousness of many a childless
bosom. His agony over Amy's hopeless suffering is
coloured by his own idiosyncrasy; but the general truth
that makes it terrible, sits at this moment by how ninny
bedsides in how many lands ? Once recognise the fact
that the sufferer before us is of the most highly organised
class of humanity, the genus irritabile, the race

--- to madness
So near allied,
and infer also from that fact that the proportionate inten-
sity in the manifestation of suffering, and possibilities of
excitement from causes which the more callous tempera-
ment meets with impunity—even as the skin of the negro
resists the sun that blasts the white—once take these
items into consideration, and we shall find in this voluine,
beneath all its apparently exceptional and individual fea-
tures, only another evidence of how truly the nature of
the poet is at harmony, though in other keys, with that.
of the whole world of civilised man."

Whereupon follows a rather lengthy quotation.
Without mentioning all of the remaining contribu-
tions to the present number of Regina, we may par-
ticularise as among the more commendable an article
on " Phases of Music in Russia," and a fourth paper
on the curious " Researches in Dutch Literature."

Colburn' s United Service.—'The Secret Societies-
of Europe" is the first subject in this number. It,
is remarked that tyranny and secret societies have
always existed at the same periods. It is asserted
that " the two secret societies that have been of
most importance during the last sixty years are the
Carbonari and the Freemasons. The first, which
has spread through all Europe, numbered among
its members the most educated and distinguished
personages of which the last century can boast, and
contributed especially to the great French Revolu-
tion of 1789, which gave the death-blow to the old
political institutions of Europe. The second called
to life the smouldering patriotism of Italy in the
present century, and the spirit of national inde-
pendence." A very ancient origin is claimed for
the Freemasons, as it is affirmed that they derive
their descent from Train of Tirus, who was charged.
by King Solomon to build the Temple of Jerusa-
lem. Their reasons for this are not given. In a
paper on " Austria, Italy, and the War," it is
thought that Austria would fear to join Russia,
lest Lombardy and Hungary should rise, and
therefore we may expect her assistance. " Tom
Cox's Traverse" is a sailor's story, written in a
characteristic style. An article, on the gradual
increase of Russia, traces the acquisitions of the
Czars down to Peter the Great. It is to be con-
. firmed.. The "Fortunate Islands" i 8 a narrative
of excursions in the Canaries, which, it appears,