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

LONDON TO THE RICH.

" To be the idol of every circle ; to drivel like a fool,
yet to be pronounced a sage ; to be 'a gentleman,' when
it is manifest you are his antipodes ; to see woman's eye
light up at your approach, and the fat porter at the
great man's gate bustle forward at the hazard of his neck
to usher you into the great man's presence ; to be the
Sir Oracle' of ton, and the hero of a fashionable novel ;
to be painted by Lawrence, and engraved by Finden ;
and when put to death by a licensed physician, to be
followed to your long home by some dozen agonised ac-
quaintances, while the parson prays his best above your
gilt coffin, and a splendid mausoleum records your
worth to all posterity : this it is to be wealthy and well
connected in London."

It were idle, however, to enter more minutely
into these " Adventures of a Bashful Irishman,"
or to draw upon them more copiously for wise and
witty quotations. The book itselt is now within
the reach of every one who lists—of all who love
a genuine laugh, or an hour or two of harmless and
delightful amusement. Either from Book 1., " The
Adventures;" or from Book 11. " The Politician ;"
or from Book 111., " The Village Doctor ;" or from
Book IV., " The Patriot"—this innocent and
agreeable relaxation may be drawn by all win so
please (literally) at pleasure. And after turning
over the last page of the Irishman's Adventures,
the reader may find to his surprise yet more as a
means of after entertainment—a brief and simple
story, in which " The Magic of Love" is very
charmingly illustrated.

The Hero of our Days. From the Russian of Michael
Lermontoff. By Theresa Pulszky. Hodgson.
It cannot but be peculiarly interesting just now
for every intelligent Englishman to peruse this
remarkable novel of the "Hero of our Days"—re-
markable as among the most happily-timed and as
about the most gracefully executed of all Madame
Theresa Pulszky's very charming translations—re-
markable as incomparably the best of the literary
productions of the accomplished and unfortunate
Lcrinontoff—especially remarkable as an object of
attraction, at the present juncture, in England, as the
Russian romance most successful among the higher
circles of Moscow and St. Petersburg-. " Let me
write the Ballads, and you may make the Laws."
" Tell me your companions, and I will describe your
character." They are old sayings, and wise sayings
—sayings that every one remembers. And as Com-
panions are always with regard to individuals, and
as Ballads were formerly in regard to the multitude,
so are Novels nowadays in reference to an entire
population.
Indicators of character ! Influences
of mighty and scarcely to be exaggerated importance !
It is in this way that Charles Dickens and Bulwer
Lytton must be viewed by those who judge things
correctly in this country—as important movers of the
spirit of the times, and at the same time as repre-
sentatives through their works of the genius
and the tendencies of their generation. It is
in this way that the same age has been both
appreciably affected and vividly reflected in the
" Ten Thousand a Year" of Mr. Warren and in the
"Vanity Fair" of Mr. Thackeray. Madame Pulszky
has here very justly observed in her Preface—" It
is in literature as well as in art and in politics that
the moral and intellectual life of a nation is ex-
pressed"—adding very gracefully—" From the lite-
rary fruits and flowers IVO are like wise able to judge
of the tree of national life ; should they even be
withered or rotten, they still remain interesting
and instructive to the analytic research of the phi-
losophic mind." And impressed with this belief
she has ventured to translate " The Hero of our
Days" from the Russian of Lermontoff, convinced,
as she tells us, that " at the present crisis, sketches
of Russian life, drawn by a distinguished Russian
author, cannot fail to fix the attention of the Eng-
lish public." That they cannot fail to do so we
also rest assured, under the circumstances. Exa-
mining this particular story of " The Hero of our
Days," for this object and with this interest, it is
worthy of remembrance that its author was the off-
spring of an aristocratic Russian family, and be-
longing to the higher classes of society, wrote verses
which were distributed amongst his friends, which
verses, however, for some considerable time were
altogether overlooked by the public of St. Pe-
tersburg. They were so overlooked, indeed, un-
til 1837, when the great Russian poet, Pushkin,
was unhappily killed in a duel by his own brother-
in-law, a Frenchman, Danthes d'Heckeren.
Whereupon Lermontoff, inspired by the supreme
grief excited in his heart by the death of his friend,
wrote an impassioned ode upon the subject—an ode
which at once secured to the young poet his
literary reputation. In effecting this good, how-
ever, the poem written by Lermontoff on the death
of Pushkin brought to the former the penalty of
banishment, Di-regarding the fact that Pushkin
had made himself peculiarly obnoxious to the court
by his well-known liberal ideas, Lermontoff ventured
through his ode to appeal directly to the Czar to
avenge the popular poet of the Russians. The
answer vouchsafed to this appeal by his Imperial
Majesty was the sentence of banishment to the
Caucasus pronounced on the unlucky Lermontoff.
There it was—in the Caucasus—that he wrote his

novel of " The Hero of our Days," and there it
was, moreover, strange to tell, that he also, like
his illustrious comrade and compatriot, the poet
Pushkin, perished in a duel, in 1841, when scarcely
thirty ! So much for the author of the popular
Russian romance hero given to the English public
in the form of an accurate and timely trans-
lation. Forming the 112th volume of the
well-known " Parlour Library," it is accessible
to all ranks of the community. It will be none
the less welcome to the mass of readers in this
country, seeing that it is to the lingual skill and
to the literary abilities of Theresa Pulszky that they
are indebted for this introduction to the master-
piece of the unhappy, but gifted, Michael Lermon-
toff.

History of the Byzantilte and Greek Empires, from
MLVII. to MCCCOLII. By George Finlay.

Blackwood.
A brilliant conclusion is here given of the
learned and in many respects very masterly
in regard to
Greek Governments.
historythe
e first volume
The ample promise of th has
neßdyzabnytinMe ar.ndFGinlay
here, in the second, been t _o the full
com-
pleted. i
Now that the work is at length substan-
tially before the world, we may be permitted to
proffer
to its laborious author our earnest and un-
lations.
affected congratuHis researches could
scarcely have been mor.e happily repaid than by the
appropriately interestmg conjuncture of circum-
stances under which the second l vo ume appears,
the concluding volume contai • mng as their fruits
the crowning chapters of Mr. i
Fnlay's historical
masterpiece. Under no other combination of events
could the record here
decline and fall of the given by our annalist of the
Byzantine governments and
of the Greek em • •
empires of Niccea and Constantinople
have come forth invested with a more peculiar in-
terest, we might fascination. _
is
even say with a more singular
It at a juncture in the world's his-
tory when the .
continued existence of the Turkish
empir©, having its centre at what to the ancients
was Byzantium and to the
moderns is Constanti-
nople, is the question at issue in a great war be-
tween Russia on the one hand, and England and
France on the other, the latter as the champions at
once of Turkey, of Christendom, and of Civilisation
—it is at this momentous epoch in the progress of
ev outs i ii Europe that our scholar has been enabled, in
reward for his past industry, to add to the treasury-
of the world of letters the completion of his lumi-
nous annals of the imperial governments of Byzan-
tium, Niccea, and Constantinople. In the previous
instalment of his history of these empires(empires at
onceAsiaticand European)Mr. Finlay had recounted
the occurrences ranging between 716 and 1057.
In his present volume, volume the second, the
volume, as we have already observed, which brings
the Whole of his remarkable undertaking to a con-

elusion, he comprises the incidents which marked
the growth and decay of those oriental em-
pires between 1057 and 1453—from the reigns
of Isaac (I.) Comnenus and the tenth Constantine
down to the permanent establishment (four hun-
dred years ago) of the Ottoman rule at Constanti-
nople. Volume I. contained Book the First and
Book the Second. Volume 11. comprises within
its ample chapters and prolific pages Book the
Third and Book the Fourth. Book Three, recouta.
ing the narrative of the decline and fall of they
Byzantine Government ; and Book Four, the rise
and duration of the Greek empires of Niccea and
Constantinople. Here we listen to that tale of
blood and glory, that magnificent and sanguinary
history which has been often told before, btit
never with more enthralling eloquence or more
satisfactory exactitude than by Mr. Finlay—
the record of the dynasty of Comnenus and
the annals of the fall of Imperial Byzantium.
Here again the reader follows with breathless
interest the course of the narrative which tells him
now of the empire of Niccea, and now of the Greek
empire of Constantinople under the dynasty of
Paleologos. As the work draws towards its con-
clusion, the lucidity of the narrative becomes only
the more obviously commendable. The account
furnished by our author of the formation of the
Ottoman power is among the most reliable which
has yet fallen under our observation. It will be
read at this notable juncture with peculiar eager-
ness, and we doubt not also with complete satisd
faction. Besides a variety cf important " additions
and corrections" to Volume I.—Volume 11. con-
tains a most ample and a very laboriously compiled
"Index"—a circumstance of no small importance,
and an advantage of no mean value in a historical
work like the present, a work of classic authority,
a masterpiece of minute research, a history worthy
of more than one perusal and of very frequent con-
sultation.

The Americans at Home. Edited by the author of
" Sam Slick." 3 vols. Hurst and Blackett.
We have become of late so well acquainted with
American city life and manners from the medium.
, of works of fiction or even the descriptions of tra-
vellers, that the real characteristic life of the back-
woods has been comparatively forgotten. It is ob-
served in the preface, that " travellers, on account
of the facility, safety, and comfort of transit, con-
fine themselves to the great public thoroughfares,
whereby they add but little to the stock of infor-
mation they previously possessed. The peculiarities
of the people, their modes of thinking, living, and
acting are principally to be sought for in the rural
districts, where unrestrained 'freedom of action, and
the incidents and requirements of a forest life, ea-
courage and give room for the development of cha-
racter in its fullest extent." The present volumes
are devoted to descriptive narratives of " Byeways,
Backwoods, and Prairies," with all their wild ro-
mance and fierce excitement. It is like another
world, from the quiet details of domestic scenes to
the midnight murders, the burning prairies, the
struggles with wild beasts, and the vengeance of
the terrible " Lynchers." The peculiarities of a
backwoodsman are generally those of the whole
class. They are bold, hardy, generous, and hospit-
able, but at the same time violent and vindictive,
improvident and reckless. The life is one of wild
daring and hairbreadth escapes. With neither law
nor justice, their vengeance is sharp and sure. A
thief knows his doom is instant death if discovered,
and the certainty of narrow chances which they
run from so many various causes, the knowledge that
they may be in imminent danger from revenge,or
from being unwelcome witnesses, besides the
myriad accidents of travelling and trading
in such an uncultivated laud, gives them a
kind of recklessness of death, and indifference
to danger, which is very peculiar. There are
many sketches of the equally characteristic traits
of humour and mischief making scattered among
more serious exploits, that are very ludicrous.
The work certainly presents its reader with
striking novelty, and those who are wearied of
the order and indolence of civilised life may find
excitement and interest in the annals of the life ed
the wild backwoods. The following is a description
of an escape from a burning prairie
TIIE PRAIRIE ON FIRE.
" Oh how sublime, how awfully sublime this spectacle
on which we rivet our fascinated eyes, while our heart*
leap to our throats, and our lips are compressed with an
indescribable fear. Now listen to these apparently mi.
earthly sounds. The prairie is alive with millions of
voices, which fancy would give to the fiery tongues of
this rushing monster, as the cheering song of his death-
dealing advance—but which stern reality tells us are the
frantic cries of droves and herds of wild animals of all
species, mad with affright, all pressing forward together,
pen mei', to escape one common but ever-conquering
enemy. Look yonder, there goes a stampede of buffalo;
yonder—another of wild horses. How they tear ahead,
with foaming mouths, expanded nostrils, dilated eyes,
and a tread that makes the very earth tremble beneath
them. Look closer, nearer—here they come, above ns,
before us, behind us, beneath us, on all and every side,
sir's, beasts, reptiles, and insects. How they dart past
us now, with lolling tongues, and fiery eyes, half starting
from their sockets, entangling the very legs of our
horses, and causing them to rearjand pluuge, and amort,
and shriek with appalling terror. Here are wolves And
wolverines, and rabbits, and boars, and serpents, each
and all howling, shrieking, and hissing their fears.
God of Heaven ! What a scene ! "
The following is a specimen of an examination at
a female college related by an astonished visitor
" COLLEGE EXAMINATION.
" Bimeby the bell rang, and the zamination commenced,
and sich larnin' as we had thar don't grow in the pine
woods, I tell you. The master, after axin' them a heap
of questions 'bout 'rithmetic and grammar, and the like,
ses he, What's mathew matix ?' My hart began to kick
when he mentioned that feller's name. I ris up and
looked over a tall feller's shoulder so I could see him if
he was thar. Just then I caught Miss Mary's eye.
' Mathew matix,' ses she, 'is the science of quantity,
magnitude, number ;' and she went on with a heap of
larnin', but I could'nt hear no more.
" Go to the board,' said the master, and she walked
up to a grate black board and tuck bold of a piece of
chawk. S'pose a canon ball is fired at the moon,' see
the master, how long would it take it to go that?' I
reckon it would done you good to see her chawk slide
over that board. She made figers faster than I could
count, and the chawk rattled on a board like a flock of
chickens pickin' corn of a clap board. Bimeby' ses she,
one thousand one hundred and seventy-eight years,
five months, three weeks, four days, sixteen hours,
twenty-three minutes, and forty-two seconds and a half.'
My Lord, thinks I, how could she tell so zactly to half a
second."

RACING FIXTI
JU
Newmarket
Worcester 4
Barnstaple
Lancaster 6
Odiham 7
Harrogate 10
Mansfield ll
Liverpool l2
Abingdon 13
Ipswich 13

AII(
Brighton
Airdrie .. 3
Durham 3
Brighton Club
Ripon.. . ....................
Yarmouth 6
North Staffordshire 8
Reading
Lewes 10
‘NNV,:sltveerrnhalliPe
ethtinn
RLWioca:rhflw:i :lc ke
hatham 7
Doncaster 12
Pontefract 18
Bedford 19

RES FOR 1854.

IA Y.
Stourhridge l7
Stamford 18
Newtou
Knutsford... ............ 19
Nottingham ............20.
Great Grimsby ............ 4
Goodwood .................. 25
Radcliffe ............. 31
Deritend P001...311
Ripon

OCTI
Chester Autumn 3
Kelso 3
Yorkshire Union Hunt 5
Wrexham 5
Newmarket S 0 9

Egham l5
Folkestone, Hythe, and
Sandgate l7
York ....
Hereford .24
Eccles 2B
Chelmsford 2l,
Derby 2O
Plymouth 30
Lincoln 81
I'IIBER.

"Leicester 2O
Manchester Autumn 2l
Lanark 25
Newmarket F 0 26
Walsall
Northallerton 26

IBER.
Caledonian Hunt...—. —ll
War wick Autuma l7
Richmond 18
Newmarket H... 123
Worcester Autumn 31

YORK AUGUST RACES.—FIRST DAY.
The CHESTERFIELD HANDICAP. One mile.
Yrs st lb 1 Yrs et lb
Rataplan
Nabob
Typee 4 8 9 :Ammonia 5 7 0
Snowdon Dunhill... 4 8 0 , Domino 3 7
Hunca Munca
Prime Minister 67 12 Calamus 3;6 10
3 6 6
The Deformed 4 7 7 Quince
_-• ........... 3
Evadne
6 4
Manta-lore Lass 4 7 71Middlesborongii ..... 36 4
The Early Bird 37 7 , Hermitage ... . ........ 36 4
Comfit 4 7 6 'Maude M 9 ......... 3 5 12
The General
Catherine Parr 47 4 i Nelly .. . .... . ......... 35 11
Catspaw 4 7 4 f by - Ch.antieleer—
Mare Anthony 37 2 Ellordah3 25 A
William Rufus 4 7_ 2
__.-------

-----
The Earl of Wilton's eldest son, Lord Grey de Wil-
ton, who has entered the Ist Life Guards, in which his
lordship's relative, the lion. Captain de Ros, commands
a troop, will attain his majority in November next, when
the event will be !celebrated with the customary re-
joicings.
TILE ATTENDANCE OF WITNESSES.-011 Saturday the
bill amended by the Lords was issued, to compel the
attendance of witnesses in the United Kingdom—fro=
Ireland to England vice versa. The parties need not
attend unless they have their expenses defrayed in com-
ing and returning from tha place where they reside.
LETTERS PATENT FOR INVENTIONS.— On Saturday a
bill before the Commons was issued, to enable the Lord
Chancellor in certain cases to extend the timr for seal.
ing Letters Patent for Inventions, and filing specifica-
tthioenLmfror aof fismporroeeix9tnezded period from the expiration of
protection.

acr..„, •
'Tfilltrb 4110a:on+

SUN OFFICE, Seven o'clock.

TATTERSALL'S.

(THIS EVENING.)

JULY STAKES (NEWMARKET).
sto 2 on Bonnie Morn.
WORCESTERSHIRE STAKES.
stolon the field.

6to 1 agst Knight of St. George (taken).
LIVERPOOL CUP.
4to 1 agst Hungerford (5 to 1 taken).
sto 1 agst Heapy (taken).
7to 1 agst Dr. O'Toole
12 to 1 agst Uumbriel (taken).
15 to 1 agst Lady Bird (taken).
20 to 1 agst Talfourd (taken).
GOODWOOD STAKES.
'8 to 1 agst Diana (taken).
10 to I agst Heapy (taken).
12 to 1 agst Tros (taken.)
20 to 1 agst Nancy (taken.)
• ST. LEGER.
3to 1 agst Dervish (taken to 2001.)
7 to 2 agst King Toni (4 to 1 taken).
6to 1 agst The Trapper (taken).
DERBY.
15 to 1 agst Oulston (taken).
33 to 1 agst Dr. Cooke (taken).
40 to 1 agst Moonbeam colt (taken).

ARRIVALS AT WORCESTER.

(THIS DAY.)

( BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAP IT.)

Titters tone, Kiteflyer, Can dlewiek, Waterfall, Sampson,
Master Slender, Monimia, Ruse, Bessie, Domino, Catha-
rine Hays, Liberty, Butterfly, Volunteer, Vestige, Gossip,
Li.tle Fawn, Morning Star, Arribas, Whalebone, Gay-
lad, Patience, Nelly Hill, Calot, Hazlenut, Maid of
Golborne, Filly by California, out of Miss Kitty Cockle.

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

HOUSE OF LORDS.—(THIS EVENING.)
Their lordships assembled at half-past 4 o'clock.
ROYAL COMMISSION.
The Royal assent was given by commission to the
following bills :—Excise Duties, Customs Duties, High
Treason (Ireland), Cry stal Palace Company, Exhibition
of 1851 Commissioners.
A number of private bills also received the Royal
assent.

The Lords Commissioners were the Lord Chancellor,
Earl Delawarr, 4.nd Lord Stanley of Alderley.
The following bills were read a second time :—Stock-
port, Disley and Whaley Bridge Railway ; Dublin and
Wieklow, and Dublin and Kingston Railways ; West
London Railway ; Bangor and Carnarvon Railway ;
Selkirk and GalAshiels Railwap.
The following bills were read a third time and passed:
—North and South Western Junction Railway ; Tralee
and Killarney Railway ; Horncastle and Kirkstead
Junction Railway, Leominster and Kingston Railway.
On the motion Of Lord STANLEY of ALDERLEY, the
Customs Duties (Sugar and Spirits) Bill and the
Excise Duties (Sugar) Bill were read a second time.

OFFICE OF THE MINISTER OF WAR.
The Earl of MALMESBURY asked the intentions
of her Majesty's Government respecting the public
buildings intended for the department of the Minis-
ter for War and the Secretary for Foreign Affairs.
He said there was a rumour that the war department,
with all its plant, was about to be removed to the office
now occupied by the Enclosure Commissioners, in
Whitehall-gardens, and he complained that such an
arrangement wuuld be a great sacrifice of the public in-
terests, as an immense mass of valuable maps and docu-
ments, which could be seen by the public on the pay-
ment of a small fee, had been collected at this office,
over several years at very great expense. He understood
the papers of the Enclosure Commissioners, which
amounted to no less than 50,000, were to be removed
to a house in St. James's-square ; and as this would in-
volve the stoppage of the business in the office for a con-
siderable period, he hoped the Government would con-
sider whether some other arrangement could be made for
the accommodation of the Secretary of War, without
interfering with one of the most useful offices in London.
The noble earl also complained of the disgraceful state
of the Foreign-office, and the inadequate accommodation
it provided for the business of that department.
The Earl of ABERDEEN said, when it was deter-
mined to separate the War and the Colonial departments,
it was found necessary to have the new War-office in the
immediate neighbourhood of Downing-street and the
Horse Guards, and the only two buildings belonging to
the Government there were Gwyder House and the
house occupied by the Enclosure Commissioners.
(Hear, hear.) As the former was occupied by the
Poor Law Board, which was in constant commu-
nication with the Home-office, and the chairman of
which had to attend to his duties in the House of
Commons, it could not be given the Secretary-of-War, but
the enclosure commissioners were not in the same situa-
tion, and it was found that they could be removed with-
out any material inconvenience to the house in St.
James's-square, which they themselves suggested would
be peculiarly suited for them. Of course, however, if the
inconvenience mentioned by the noble earl was found
to arise from their removal, which he did not anticipate,
the proposed arrangement of the 3overnment would not
be persevered in. As to the foreign office, he quite agreed
with the noble earl that it was in a disgraceful and even
a dangerous state, and though a plan was in prepa-
ration for a new building, the Government were not
prepared at present to propose a grant to Parliament
for erecting one, but he hoped when the noble earl again
became a tenant of the Foreign-offia) it would be quite
St for his accommodation.