The Sun.
London, England, 1838-08-01 00:00:00

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

" Wine and Water" is by Theodore Hook. It is
an anecdote told with much
_point and humour ; and

we fancy we can discern in it the materials for some
future farce. The scene where the distracted lover
imagines that he has been on the eve of taking poison,
when it was simply red wine negus, is broad enough, es-
pecially in the matter of dialogue, to have been written
by Colman. The " Parrot" is a small poem, by no
means in Campbell's most fortunate or polished style.
" Paddy in Search of a Son" is a travelling remi-
niscence, recorded by the author of " Highways and
Byeways." The sketch of Tim Conoily, who is the
hero of the narrative, is genuine Irish, and brought
out with much skill. " The' Lesson of Life" is one
of the most spirited tales we have yet met with from
the pen of Jerrold. Some of the dialogue portion is
written with great energy. In the article entitled
" Steam Voyage from London to Paris"—for which
we are indebted to Mr. Quin—there are some good
descriptive passages, especially of the river scenery of
the Seine, which is a yet unhacknied subject. . " The
Admiral's Daughter" is an ingenious quiz by Mr.
Poole, who in this good-humoured style of irony has
no superior among the humorists of the day. " An
Essay on Oysters" is by no means so light of
digestion as its subject. It is, in truth, some-
what prosy and long-winded. The author is Mr.
Smith, of " Rejected Addresses" celebrity. The
Manager's Note- Book" furnishes us with a bio-
graphical sketch of the late comedian Emery, whose
Fixture, in Morton's farce of a Roland for an Oliver,
we well remember as one of the most striking—indeed
perfect—performances of the day. From this Memoir
we quote an anecdote which we do not remember to
have met with before :

" Emery visited a medical gentleman in Charlotte-street,
Portland-place, who, independent of his great professional
skill, was an amateur artist of considerable talent, and greatly
attached to the stage and its professors. Emery went to the
Doctor's first dinner invitation in his usual dress—drab frock
coat, striped waistcoat, corduroys, and topped boots, with
about an inch and a half of dark speckled worsted stockings
peeping between the knees of his breeches and the tops of his
boots. At rather an early hour the guests were summoned to
the drawing-room—for it was the Doctor's practice to kill—
not his patients, but to kill two birds with one stone,' and
invariably invited a large evening party on.the same day with
his dinner friends. By this arrangement he made the plea-
sures of the evening bear the reflections of the morning,' and
not, as the old song has it—
To cure the headaches of last night,
The peaceable king's subjects fight.
It certainly prevented those excesses, too frequently caused by
sittings after dinner, and benefited his wine-cellar. It was
Emery's lot to be placed on a white sofa, between two young
ladies, elegantly attired. All eyes were upon him, it having
been previously a hi,pered that he was coming. The singu-
larity cf Lis dress, IA hieh was certainly more suited to Tatter-
sall's than the tea-table, did not escape their observation,
which he perceiving, was (net a very common thing with him)
put to the blush. Ile hid his legs, as well as he could, under
the sofa, spread a large Barcelona pocket-handerchief over
his knees, and looked neither right nor left. His counte-
nance pourtraycd anything but tranquillity ; and he remained
in the same position for full half an hour, uttering not a word.
All at once he started up, made for 0 e !oor, which was at
the farther end of a very large room, and bolted out of the
house. A few weeks alter he received a second invitation ;
upon which occasion he went dressed—white smalls, silk stock-
ings, shoes, buckles (which were then indispensable in dress)
cocked hat, &c. &c. When at dinner lie seemed uncomfort-
able and encumbered. lie appeared to sigh for that lie had
left behind'—his frock and corduroys. In the drawing-room
he was still more embarrassed than on his first visit, though
from a different cause. No words can express the awkward
figure he cut : dress did not become him.' And, to add to
his comfort, he was pressed to sing by a young lady, who vo-
lunteered to accompany him. Singing, above all things, he
disliked, even on the slse: however, sing he must; and a
song of his own writing was particularly solicited. lie sung
Madam Fig's Gala,' lie a Yorkshireman just come to
town,' &c. At the Doctor's future dinners he contrived to
depart when tea MIS announced, and never made a third ap-
pearance at the evening parties."

FRASERS MAGAZINE.
The essay on " Greek Comedy" on which so many
able papers have appeared from time to time in the
Quarterly, and more especially in the Edinburgh Re-
view, displays, if not profound erudition, at least much
elegant scholarship. The character of Aristophanes,
as a dramatist, is shrewdly delineated ; and the cur-
sory remarks on Shakspeare that are interspersed
throughout the article, pierce far below the mere sur-
face of criticism. But why does the author hazard
such an assertion as that " it is difficult to understand
why the earlier writers of Greece and Rome mention
the nightingale so rarely. Virgil briefly alludes to
her in the fourth Georgic ; and Horace in his beautiful
ode to that poet, mentions her song among the delights
of the season." This is said hastily, from an imper-
fect recollection. Virgil makes more than one allusion

to the nightingale,—in his sixth Eclogue, for instance;
Tibullus speaks of her ; so, if we remember rightly,
does Propertius ; and she forms the subject of one of
Ovid's finest tales i❑ the Metamorphoses. The Greeks
have still more frequent allusions to her ; indeed there
is no bird whose mere name recalls so many classical
reminiscences. " Ensign O'Donoghue's Packet from
Belgium" is penned in a lively, ;dashing style, more
Hibernico. The accounts of some of the minor Ger-
man watering-places, may vie in cleverness with those
naive sketches entitled " Bubbles from the Brunens of
Nassau." There is, however, here and there, a little too
much exaggeration in the way of jocularity. " Our
Club at Paris" give a most satirical portrait of Talley-
rand :

" Talleyrand always appeared to me in the light of an im-
mense political dandy. He was the combined and condensed
essence of a thousand Beau Brummels. He astonished the
ignorant by his impudence, and even the impudent by his in-
solence. He was a great political mountebank—the ablest
legerdemain trickster of the age. He hocus-pocused in poli-
tics; no fair play ; no honesty ; no science ; no knowledge.
He never had one friend ; he never shed a tear ; he never
heaved a sigh ; he was at heart an unbeliever. He believed
ri!)t in woman's love—in genuine frienchhip—in truth, prin-
ciple, virtue, or religion. He died as he lived—at least a
practical atheist."

This is smartly enough said, but it errs widely from
the truth. The man, who occupyin,° the prominent
position Talleyrand did—Bishop, Aristocrat, and
Statesman—could keep his head on his shoulders
during the ferment of the French Revolution, could
have been no mere " political dandy ;" of his principles
we will not say much, for we believe, he did nut by
any means abound in them ; but he must have been a
Statesman of the very highest order of intellect, who
could have foreseen, when no one else even so much
as dreamed of it, the destruction of Napoleon in the
invasion of Spain, previous to the march to Moscow ;
and provided himself—obnoxious as he must have been
to the Bourbons—with a secure shelter, when the storm
at length burst on the empire. The Edinburgh Re-
view In its last number, is nearer the truth than Fra-
ser, though that praises Talleyrand in terms far too
encomiastic. " The Yellow,:lush Correspondence,''
is mere vulgar twaddle ; the " Scottish Press," full of
useful practical details ; and i.he " English Officers in
the Carlist Camp," a very amusing collection of per-
sonal anecdotes. " Homeric Ballads," by Dr. Ma-
ginn are clever, but they want simplicity, and above
all, terseness. He calls them translations ; they are
rather paraphrases. The line for instance,
" Ta) CV .',"%'7LIC7Ti% £7.- EL E*,,
which means simply, " she could never persuade his
mind," the Doctor renders in this vague, redundant

manner,

" But all her promise, all her art
Made no iin;-ireshitin on his heart,
Nor shook his steadfast truth."
We might adduce many other instances of this na-
ture, where the original thought, expressed perhaps,
in half a line, is diluted into three or four vapid cou-
plets ; but the above must suffice. " O'Connell's Plea
for a Peerage," also, we presume, by Maginn, is a
laughable extravaganza, which Dan himself will be the
first to read with pleasure.