The Sun.
London, England, 1853-03-10 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Life and Campaigns of the Duke of Wellington.
D. M. Aird. '
A really splendid and beautiful contribution has
here been added to our cheap illustrated literature.
Its subject, as indicated on the title-page, is one
eminently calculated to command for it immediate
popularity—though many will naturally be dis-
posed to conjecture that it is a subject by this time
tolerably well exhausted. For ourselves we can-
not but acknowledge that we have had quite
enough, in the shape of portraits and memoirs, at
least for a little while yet to come, of his Grace the
late Duke of Wellington. Every conceivable, and
sometimes one might/fancy it almost inconceivable,
term of eulogium has been employed in reference to
that remarkable man by the " thousand and one"
commemorators on his extraordinary career, who,
instead Of recounting a history, have seemed lite-
rally to have been celebrating an apotheosis. It has
been said of the great Napoleon by one who has
failed to appreciate his character, we mean by no
less a writer than M. de Lamartine, that, since
the period of his demise at St. Helena,his features
have been flattered in stone, and bronze, and
marble—by the brush of the artist, and the needle of
the engraver, and the chisel of the sculptor. But
whether or no this be the case (which we don't at
all conjecture, seeing that the countenance of the
Conqueror of Europe has been described as emi-
nently beautiful in every feature, and in the whols
contour of that majestic head, by the unanimous
opinion of his contemporaries), there can be very
little doubt but that the memory of the vic-
tor of Waterloo has been hugely flattered
since the hour of his memorable departure. The
great qualities observable in that remarkable cha-
racter we have always recognised, but we never
could induce ourselves to believe that in it were to
be found what has never yet been .discovered
in mortal—perfection. Hence we have shrunk
with sentiments not very unlike those pro-
duced by disgust from the over-laying of
panegyric in so many recently published bio-
graphies. Among these we rejoice to believe
that the memoir before us cannot be enumerated.
Nevertheless, it gives all due honour to the fame of
the illustrious hero. Besides the letterpress,
which is stated to be from the hand of a popular
author, the book is adorned with a profusion of
spirited and most attractive embellishments. Among
these embellishments are pictures of battles, sketches
of notable incidents, and a variety of equestrian
portraits—comprising amongst the latter, engraved
likenesses of Marshal Junot, and of Lord Paget,
and of Marshal Massena, and of Lord Gough, and
others—conspicuous on the title-page, of course,
being the effigy of the Duke of Wellington. The
publication altogether is a marvel of cheapness, and
the fruit of no inconsiderable enterprise.

The London Clubs : Their Anecdotes and History.
One volume. Henry Adams.
By a curious coincidence, the little volume before
us came into our hands a very few days before the
appearance of that pleasant introductory article on.
" Clubs and Clubbists " in the current March num-
ber of Blackwood's Magazine. By a curious coin-
cidence, we say, because the writer of that paper
laments at the very outset of his gossippmg lucubra-
tions, the non-existence of any work of the very
character by which the book here under notice is
actually distinguished. It must be confessed, that
a publication of this character had really for a long
time been required, as the writer in Maga has re-
marked with some show of interest in the charm of
its ultimate production. As a preliminary to a
work somewhat larger and more elaborated, the
volume issued from the press by Mr. Adams must
be regarded as welcome to more than the
contributor to Blackwood. It will be hailed,
we doubt not, with satisfaction by the vast
majority of those town men—whose name
is legion—having a personal interest in the
origin and doings of such establishments as
those conspicuous by their architecture among the
shops or private dwelling-houses of Pall-mall and
Piccadilly. Whoever has compiled the agreeable
narrative here presented to the public, must be
allowed to have acquitted himself delightfully
enough, even if his pages be submitted to the hy-
percritic, or (which is pretty much the same) the
curmudgeon. A glorious jumble of chit-chat in-
troduces the reader to the general history of the
Clubs of London a history rendered probable
throughout by the circumstance of its being pro-
fusely intermingled with appropriate and illustra-
tive anecdotes. First of all, in this amiable gossip,
we have mention of the famous " Mermaid,
in Friday Street, founded by Sir Walter
Raleigh, who then introduced to the English the
extraordinary and delightful novelties of—the po-
tato and tobacco ! Delightful, we say, with all
submission to those who regard the former as
having proved the bane 'of Ireland, and with all
respect for the enthusiastic horror entertained for
the latter by our excellent and merry George
Cruiksbank—himseif, once upon a time, according
to his own acknowledgment, a habitual dallier with
the meerschaum. Another club of the same match-
less ago of poetry and good fellowship was—Ben
Jonson's own—the 4‘ Devil Tavern," near Temple
Bar. Here it was that, assisted by the learning of
Selden, that rare humorist penned his celebrated
Leges Convivales. Overleaping a considerable in-
terval in our national history, we come to the clubs
of the days of Dryden—clubs with such whiMsical
titles as the " Club of Kings," and the " Club of
Ugly Faces." Contemporary with these was the
" King's Head, or Green Ribbon Club," described
amusingly by Roger North in his " Examiner."
Subsequently, towards the middle of the last cen-
tury, was established the " Beefsteak Club," a
resort of some celebrity. Another club, founded,
about the same time, and of if similar character,
though described by the writer of the present
volume as perhaps of a " more refined order," was
the " King of Clubs," the members of which as-
sembled at the Crown and Anchor, in the Strand,
every Saturday. Having duly mentioned the fore-
going, and some few others of lesser importance,
our anonymous author arrives at last at the more
magnificent system of MODERN aims—the subject
more immediately under consideration. Speci-
mens of this system—such as the Albion, and
the Clarence, and the Cocoa Tree, and Graham's,
and Watier's—although of comparatively recent
origin have already become extinct, and most of
them nearly forgotten. Not so those which are
found afterwards enumerated. Twenty-four of
these are sufficiently remarkable to be particu-
larised :

White's. Reform.
Boodle's. Conservative.
Brookes's. Athenaeum.
The Union. Senior University.
Alfred. Oxford and Cambridge.
Arthur's. Wyndham.
Senior United Service. Parthenon.
Junior United Service. Arectheum.
The Arm 7 and Navy. Garrick.
Traveller s. The Law.
Oriental. City and Gresham.
Carlton. Whittington.
Several of the anecdotes related in connection
with some of these clubs are highly amusing,
but the so-called " witticisms " of Selwyn are,
to our thinking, in the very last degree abor-
tive and abominable. If these be examples
of his wit, surely the man must have been
the most intolerable of bores ' • and when we
remember that he was not of our time, we
can only be grateful for being spared such an
infliction. What a melancholy notion of wit
they must have had in those days, if Selwyn
was ranked foremost among their Dii 'Majores I
Besides these twenty-four clubs above enumerated,
there is another the name of which does not appear
in the catalogue, and which is only mentioned at
the close of the volume quite incidentally—the
" Coventry" in Piccadilly. As an appendix are
given the rules and regulations of four of these
great establishments—the Army and Navy, the
Oxford and Cambridge, the Conservative, and the
Athenaeum—selected for that purpose by the writer,
because they may reasonably be said to represent
the four orders making up the entire system,
namely the Military, the University, the Political,
and the Literary. Altogether the little volume is
quite a repertory of entertaining anecdotes. Giving
the history of clubs—it is the vade mecum of
clubbists.

Villette. By Currer Bell. 3 vols.
Smith and Elder.

The fame of " Jane Eyre" has placed its author
in the somewhat hazardous position of those from
whom great things aro expected—whose writings
are anticipated with anxious curiosity, and are sub-
jected to the test of severest scrutiny. In many
respects " Villette" will not disappoint the ad-
mirers of " Jane Eyre," but the general feelings in-
spired by the perusal of this book will be those of
surprise rather than interest, and' of admiration
rather than pleasure—surprise and admiration at
the power which it reveals rather than interest or
pleasure in the story or the sentiments. "Jane
Eyre" was a book that one could hardly lay down
until it was finished, so breathless and absorbing
was the interest which it excited ; and " Shirley,"
though less powerful, arrested our warm sympa-
thies in behalf of the gentle Caroline and the fitful
heroine, but in " Villette" the peculiar tempera-
ment of the narrator and heroine (for they are one)
ei t
exerts its influence over the reader. All manifes-
tation of feeling is kept down with rigid determi-
nation. There is, however, an under current of,
interest excited by the strong emotions,
guessed
rather than revealed, which smoulder beneath
Lucy
u the
at
placid manner of the quiet and ins •o• •
Snowe. Never was heroine so unceremoniously