The Sun.
London, England, 1849-01-13 00:00:00

i 9 /" j'

LITTR
TlMirSoN's POET 11

WO.
"This," said the critic ty
he pizke,l up a volume of
the window seat of a roads:

true fame !" He was righ
poets,-not even excepting
and the Drama, not one

more beautiful or a more imperishable celebrity than
James Thomson. His very name is identified; with
Nature; it is associated inextricably`,With her' per-
petual fluctuations and her endless reViviiCense; it
lives in unfading immortality with the seasons ever
passing before us like a magnificent and interminable
panorama. And the sublimity of this weaving to-
gether of the names of Thomson and the Seasons can
be comprehended in all its fulness when we hear the
poet himself speaking thus of the latter—
" These, as they change, Almighty Father, these

Are but the varied God .
Prom the establishment of Mr. Tegg has recently
been issued a new edition of the inimitable writings
of Thomson, in a thick duodecimo volume of 676
pages, embellished with several very graceful plates,
engraved from the original drawings of J. Gilbert.
The book comprises, besides the " Seasons," the pa-
triotic poem of "Britannia," a poem which possesses
a deep interest, as corning from the same
pen that wrote our national chorus, "Rule
Britannia;" the superb apostrophe to the me-
mory of " Sir Isaac Newton," that apostrophe
which carried our imagination even in boyhood to the
abysses of the stellar universe ; the fine but unequal
poem of " Liberty;" the voluptuous and matchless
"Castle of Indolence," and, besides the five tragedies
of Sophonisba, Agamemnon, Edward and Eleonora,
Tancred and Sigismund, and Coriolanus, all the
miscellaneous pieces called " Poems on Several Occa-
sions." The volume is more golden than the dreams
of the emigrants to California; it is a rich and incon-
sumeable banquet of poetry.

MARTIN TOUTROND ; or, a Frenchman in

London in 1831.

Famed as the French are for the agremens de la
toilette, never did Frenchman appear in more elegant
attire than " Martin Toutrond." lie appears in
ultramarine of so brilliant a hue as to dazzle the eyes
of all beholders. Owing to its splendid livery
" Martin Toutrond" is, we presume, to be considered
as a Christmas book, and differing as it does in most
particulars from all other Christmas books, its novelty
will render it doubly attractive. We are told that
this veracious history of a Frenchman's adventures is
translated from a French manuscript. So says the
title-page, but every other page asserts
the contrary, every other page proclaims
its English author. Nevertheless, if the
faulty peculiarities of our continental neighbours be
prominently exposed, our own short-comings are not
quite overlooked. Martin Toutrond's adventures
constitute a good-humoured satire on the faults of
both sides. Martin Toutrond, be it known, is the
son of a celebrated epicier in the Rue du Bac, Paris,
who visits London, for the purpose of finding a wife.
His adventures are most amusing : he has quite an
Hibernian talent for getting into scrapes, but, unfor-
tunately for himself, he has not a similar talent for
getting out of them. Martin is tolerably well ac-
quainted with the English language, but its
idiomatic expressions give him much pain-
ful embarrassment. On .one occasion he in-
quires as to the fortune of a certain lady, and the
person interrogated, guessing the purpose of the
inquiry, tells him "she knows what's what, and is
not to be diddled." This is an unknown tongue to
Martin. He ponders over it, but can make nothing
of it. " What " he knows is comment, " she knows
the comment of the comment !" He cannot make it
out. And diddled !—he has never heard of such a word.
He returns home and eagerly turns to his dictionary
—no such word is to be found. The manner in
which these amusing adventures are detailed adds
considerably to their effect. We are hardlysatisfied with
the conclusion of the tale. Martin experiences rough
treatment not only at the hands of some of his English
acquaintances, but also from one from whom he has
a right to expect better—namely, the inditer of his
history. The author of this work, whoever he may
be, has been a little too hard upon the French, never-
theless, the Frenchman's adventures contain an abun-
dant fund of interest and amusement. Martin
Toutrond will enliven many a fireside at his own
expense.

By Fredrika Bremer,

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