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

MAGAZINE DAY

MAGAZINE.
Sketcher,"
are here a choice variety of sonnets by the
etcher," not one of which but evidences a keen
and
heart-felt sense of the poetical. That entitled
The Sick Dream" is most felicitous in the flow of
its
melody, and reminds us, in the impassioned eha-
acter of its imagination of Coleridge's fine sonnet on
ending Schiller 's Robbers. " Casimir Perier" is a
inondtinuation of a biographical memoir which appeared
str the last Number of Matza. It is strange—very
.afonrgece....to see the staunch Tory, Christopher North
believe he rejects the more discreet title of
Conservative—praising such a statesman as Perier.
n7hat ! hold up, as worthy of all possible laud, the
icahnaries who was an ultra-liberal throughout the reign of
the Tenth ; who opposed every measure
tnrcsught forward by the Bourbons and their subal-
tern!' and to whose vigorous, unceasing opposition,
rhalking, deep as it did into the heart of young France,
e expulsion of the old, legitimate dynasty was in a
great measure owing ;—wriat, praise this staunch
Liberal,., and even hold him up as the apostle of
xor ! our -de) Christopher, where is your consistency ?
own part,' however, we must confess that
:e rejoice in this change of sentiment on the part of
live to see the day when he will be shouting " Io
ivr:an.x" at Ambrose's in honour of a Melbourne
i"elstry. " On the Food of the Herring and
alinon" is a paper teeming with curious facts.
"Thong hts and Images," by Archwus, contain grace-
111 and singular, if not profound, reflections. The
authoralit is One who evidently thinks for himself, and
, opinions of such a man, set off as they are by the
,tiarins of an elegant style, studded with appropriate
rnagery, are always worthy of respectful attention.
" The Avenger" is an impressive story, founded on
the old passio% of revenge, but treated in a manner far
from tame or hacknied. Interest is awakened at the
eery first aae,. and does not once flag till the talc is
brought toP :close. We could wish, however, that the
author had adopted the dramatic, rather than the nar-
rative form, which is the only style suited to a stirring
fiction, " An Introduction to the Philosophy of
'"Consciousness" is a subtle, metaphysical essay, evi-
dently the production of a master-spirit. Such papers
seldom make their appearance in monthly periodicals,
and are valuable, therefore, in proportion to their
rarity. " The Lace Merchant of Namur" is a lively
story, in which love and diablerie are mixed up toge-
ther, in a very relishing, hodge-podge sort of manner.
In " Christopher in his Cave" we meet with some
deep, quiet touches of pathos, which, springing from
the writer's heart, make their way to that of the reader.
We find also in this gem some delightful scraps of
criticism. From the sonnets by the Sketcher, we
4elect the " Sick Man's Dream :"

A wintry night :—my casement with the blast
Shook; the thin smoke from the dim hearth uperept,
Like dew of slumber. on my slept.
..Me thought my Spirit, to the whirlwind cast,
'Wos hurl'd to vapoury caverns, thick and vast,
Throu3h which the scourged ghosts, all howling, swept,
And fork!'d lightnings pierced them as they pass'd ;
And there were angels hid their eyes, and wept.
I woke, and op'd my casement, as if there
Some Spirit escaped for pity moaned loud.
No fierce blast enter'd, but a gentle air;
And wrathful mutterings ran from cloud to cloud.
If well I did, or ill, He knoweth best
Who made my after-slumbers calm and blest.

11-ENTLEY'S MISCELLANY.
toz returns to the old Jew's " boozing-ken" this
month in " Oliver Twist," and gives us one or two
I,lThogh, strew.
pictures, worthy o f ,s Jonathan
wild. The portrait of Nancy is admirably conceived,
and the brief touches of pathos in it, makewhich is
theifrulslvaoyf
to the heart. We subjoin a scene
life in every sentence :
The housebreaker was lying on the bed wrappsd in his
White
great coat, by
way of dressing-gown, and dis laying a
37 of features in no degree improved by the cadaverous hue
stiff,
bla
lines' and the addition of a soiled nightcap, and a
beard of a week's growth. The dog sat at the bedside,
in.! eying his master with a wistful look, and now pricking his
-4(3, and uttering a low growl as some noise in the street, or
IC /he lower part of the house, attracted his attention. Seated
by the window, i,llsily engaged in patching an old waistcoat
Ivhfeh formed a portion of the rubber's ordinary dress, was a
female, so pale and reduced with watching and privation, that
there would have been consderable difficulty in recognizing
her as the same Nancy who has already figured in this tale,
but for the voice in which she replied to Mr. Sikes's question.
" Not long gone seven," said the girl. " How do you feel
to-night, Bill ?"
t'
, As we,sk as water," replied Mr. Sikes, with an impreca-
ou on his eyes and limbs. " Here ; lend us a hand, and let
'lle get off this thundering bed, anyhow."
Illness had not improved Mr. Sikes's temper, for, as the
girl raised him up, arid led him to a chair, he muttered various
curses upon her awkwardness, and struck her.
" Whining, are you ?" said Sikes. " Come ; don't stand
snivellingsn there. If you can't do anything better than that, "
off altogether. D'ye hear me ?"
f hear you," replied the girl, turning her face aside, and
now ? form a laugh. " What fancy have you got in your head
sik f you've thought better of it, have you ?" growled
the better
Rutr making the tear which trembled in her eye. " All
for you, you have."
"WhY, you don't mean to say you'd be hard upon me to-
" .No Bill
!" ?" said the girl, laying her hand upon his shoulder.
cried Mr. Sikes. " Why not ?"
sy: Such a number of nights," said the girl, with a touch of
zw_lntu's tenderness, which communicated something like
zli6_einettsness of tone even to her voice—" such a number of
you as
I've been patient with you, nursing and caring for
You had been a child, and this the first that I've seen
jun your-1r ;
.eu you wouldn't have served me as you did
s now, if you'd thou ht of that, would you? Come, come;
8-T You wouldn't." g
dasnill Well, then," rejoined Mr. Sikes, ,c I wouldn't. Why,
Ise, now, the girl's whining again I"
4, )21"
,31:t's nothing," said the girl, throwing herself into a chair.
l't You seem to mind me, and it'll soon be over."
yoi"eeWhat'll be over ?" demanded Mr. Sikes in a savage
4.214
jiast;: What foolery are you up to now again ? Get tip,
~onsense.,about, and don't come over me with your woman's
it
~/it any other time this remonstrance, and the tone in which
"as delivered, would have had the desired effect - but the
girl •
,tbe being really weak and exhausted, dropped her head; over
back of the chair, and fainted.
We hope Boz will soon return with Oliver to the
greou leaves and fields of the country, for he has really
tiveir 31s quite enough of low London flash life, which
,as scarcely one redeeming merit. Yet we should
sorr v wholly to lose sight of the old Jew, for his
'8 a character painted with all the force and breadth of
tiTect of a It„lrnbrandt. " Walter Childe," which is a
.tole most gracefully versified in Frere's best manner,
contains a pleasi.ng and affecting ballad, which, on
sc 'more leisure day we may be tempted to extract.
Uncle Sam's Pecu:iarities" are as piquant and hu-
111,ourous, as any of the oddities recorded by Sam
81j"k--that most original and puzzling of clock-
tnakers, Nights at Sea" are capital, and worthily
iilalttitsitin tagted by Cruikshank. " Nonsense" is a lively,
chapter on love, from the pen of the Editor of
'the Literary Gazette. " A Parisian Sabbath" exhibits
Berne descriptive talent, but the article is too much
Vim out. "Mr. Robert Bolton" is a sketch of a
p enny-a-liner for the newspapers. The sketch wants
o welt}, And does not make up for this defect by live-
;ll' tss• It may, however, pass muster. " Barney
wires Account of the Coronation," is an inge-
niouis parody on t die " Groves of Blarney." In the
Latv;.n translation of i‘ Napoleon's Midnight Review,"
the author shows a desperote ignorance of the hexameter
and pentameter metre—by far the easiest of all the
telassie metres. Not only is his Latinity bad, but it
is full of false quantities. In not less than two in-
:stanc,-?s he makes the first syllable in is dueem" long,
'whereas it is short, as the following well-known line
list Virgil ri,:;glit have told him
..‘ Te, duce, si qua manent sceleris vestigia no.stri."
Again, he makes the two last syllables in " Borea" a
slbondee, whereas it forms an iamb, in proof of which
lere again adduce Virgile--,-
" Ecce autem Boreas augtota at sede Pelori."
• I3esides these metrical blunders, he Latinity through-
*:?ut is bad and prosaic, and such as a fourth-form
boy at Eton or Reading would be ashamed to ta
to his master on Monday morning. We ay
lay
Idle more stress on this would-be
atin poet's defects,
because the composition of Latin L
verse is little better
t fan
.a mere mechanical operation, and should there-
fore' be .scrupulously correct. When we say tt mc,.„
than:cal," we do not mean the term to apply to such
writers AS Vida Buchanan—whose " Ode on May" is
as heauti!ul th: ode on the " Blandusian Fountain"
of Horace with the exception of one prosaic peri-
phrasis—or Milton, Grey, Vincent Bourne, Cowper,
and other writers of Latin poe,try that we could men-
tion; but simply to those who, like the inditer of the
poem before us, imagine that because they can con-
strue, parse, and scan an hexameter of ViTil or Ovid,

they are fully equal to the composition of one. We
should be heartily glad, for the sake of the rising ge-
neration, when this scholastic pedantry is done away
with. It is a sad waste of time, and lea3s to no
useful result. " The Dead Clearing" is a stirring
anecdote, told in an impressive manner. " The
Diamond Company" is a whimsical sketch by an
author who signs himself " Johns."