The Sun.
London, England, 1849-08-06 00:00:00

MAGAZINES, &c.—(CONTINUED).
BLACKWOOD.
Charles Lamb is recognised in befitting words of
commendation by Ebony, as one whose pedestal is
erected within " a quiet, quaint niche, apart to him-
self, in an oda nook or corner in the great temple of
English literature." As a criticism, the first contri-
bution in the August number of Blackwood is a ge-
nerous recognition of the genius of Elia as an essayist,
and a well-natured sarcasm on Mr. Sergeant—we beg
his pardon—Mr. Justice Talfourd, as the biographer
of Charles Lamb. Having ourselves examined the
" Final Memorials" on the occasion of their first ap-
pearance, and examined their merits and defects, too,
with considerable minuteness, it is unnecessary for us
to say more of the present analysis of these two
volumes than that it is throughout characterised by a
genial temperament, and yet at the same time by
an ever•present tendency to depreciate the London
men of letters of the last generation—Haalitt, God-
win, Lamb, Lloyd, Dyer, Barnes, and their contem-
poraries. At page 140 there is a particularly savage
attack upon Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, and one too which
we cannot help regarding as rather unamiably gratuit-
ous. Turn we now to our favourites "The Caxtons :
Vivian, under the gentle guidance of Austin, becomes
in truth and in deep repentant—being in fact ulti-
mately reconciled to his father Captain Roland, and
even in the end permitted to accompany "the
Anachronism" to Australia. The present instalment
of this charming fiction closes with the departure of
the cousins on their pilgrimage across the ocean to
their southern destination. We must not omit some
slight passing allusion to the incident of the callow
bird in the meadow—" Come,' said I, ye have
found each other at last, settle it between you' ''—is
exquisitely said and conceived in the best and kind-
liest vein of Sterne. It reminds us of the poor ass
munching the bitter stalk of the artichoke, of the pet
dog of Maria, or of the imprisoned starling. The
story of Vivian's childhood and youth is recounted
by Sir Bulwer Lytton in his happiest style; and it is
easy to recognise in it a creation kindred to that of
Dalibard. It is nobly remarked by Pisistratus, in a
burst of indignation at the conduct of Vivian towards
Fanny Trevanion, that " true love is as sublime as
honour and as meek as is religion." Even feeling
thus enthusiastically as to the master passion, Pisis-
tratus cannot but think as follows :
" I know that in youth, and the superstition of first
love, we are credulously inclined to believe that love, and
the possession of the beloved, are the only happiness
But when my uncle folded me in his arms, and called me
the hope of his age, and stay of his house—the music of
my father's praise still ringing on my heart—l do affirm
that I knew a greater and a prouder bliss than if Tre-
vanion had placed Fanny's hand in mine, and said—
She is yours.' "
One other exclamation we cannot but transcribe,

it is uttered by Pisistratus when lamenting over the
untoward tuition of his cousin, by the Gitana, when
contrasted with his own fortunes in childhood :
" 0 mother mine! that the boy had stood by thy knee,
and heard from thy lips, why life was given us, in what
life shall end, and how heaven stands open to us night
and dAy 1 0 father mine! that thou hadst been his pre-
ceptor, not in book-learning, but the heart's simple wis-
dom! Oh! that he had learned from thee, iu parables
closed with practico, the Jiappines of self-sacrifice, and
how good deeds should repair the bad!' "
Those last words remind us of the first touch of
genius which we recognised in " The Caxtons," that
first incident which assured us that the contribution
was from no unrenowned hand—the graceful and
beautiful incident of the flower-pot and the box of
clonal:et s. " Jonathan in Africa," being a satirical
review of Dr. May's " Kaloolah," opens with a
severe, but not undeserved, condemnation of the elo-
quent nonsense jumbled into the three volumes of
" Mardi," by Mr. Herman Melville. " The
Green Hand" being anything rather than what it
pretends to be, viz., " a short yarn," has long since
become to us unendurably tedious. " Verses for the
last page of our album" are pretty, but their pretti-
ness is rather a weak and diluted prettiness. " The
Insurrection in Baden" will be perused with curiosity,
affording a succinct narrative of a movement
which has been too generally overlooked in this
country in consequence of the superior attractions of
the events transpiring in Hungary. The next article
is a fair criticism of " Latnartine's Revolution of
1848." After the extraordinary blunder made by
Blackwood a few months since in swallowing as
authentic the " Previsions of Orval "—prophecies
since proved, by Louis, Bishop of Verdun, to be sheer
humbug—we are surprised to find in the paper
before us (page 227) an intimation that
the late revolutions ore the continent are to be re-
garded as " that general tendency to evil which is so
clearly foretold in prophecy, and indications of the
advent of those disastrous times which are to be closed
by the second coming of the Messiah." As Renault
exclaims, in Otway's Venice Preserved, " I like not
these buggers ! " We cannot help exclaiming too,
" I like not these prophets ! " Dies Boreales are
growing more and more discursive. The little tifs
between Buller and Christopher North are positively
delightful. One minute the former is told, "Buller,
you're a blockhead," and the next, "Buller, you're
a fellow of fine taste "—according as he has the
temerity to ridicule, or to eulogise the remarks of
King Christopher. Every additional chapter confirms
us more and more in the opinion that Professor Wil-
son has studied with equal assiduity the volumes of
erudition and the book of nature.

John Oliver Hanson, Esq., is the gentleman re-
commended by the Court of Directors of the Bank of
England to fill the vacancy occasioned by the decease of
James Pattison, Esq.
LEAMINGTON SPA, AUGUST 4.—The fashionable
popularity of the town is satisfactorily attested by the
following distinguished arrivals during the present
week :—Earl of Beverley and Lady Louisa Percy, the
Earl and Countess of Harrowby and Lady F. &Auden,
the Princess Sherbikoff and suite, Hon. W. and Mrs.
Gardner, Hon. Mr. Essex, Lady Robert and Hon. Miss
Kerr, Very Rev. the Dean of Hereford, Sir J. Brymer,
Sir Francis Shuckburgh, Bart., Sir Charles Burton,
Bart., Sir Andrew and Lady Corbet, Admiral Sir
Charles Ekins, &c. &c. The aristocratic meeting of the
Zingari Cricketers, on Monday and Tuesday next, will,
it is confidently expected, prove an all attractive source
of enjoyment to our visitors, whose numbers aro daily
increasing with unusual rapidity. A grand archery
meeting on the demesne of a distinguished county
family, resident in the immediate neighbourhood of the
Spa, will divide public interest with the " wandering

cricketers" on Ttisday.
[ADVERTISEMENT.]—The Observer, Sunday, Aug.
5, gave three folio columns of the Pro4ress of the Royal
Squadron, from Cowes to the Cove of C,rk, where her
Majesty arrived at ten o'clock on Thursday night, and
which safe arrival was announced in the Observer, pub-
lished at four o'clock on Sunday morning. The exten-
sive publication of the Observer commences at four o'clock
Sunday mornings; the Monday's Edition, which is best
for the country and abroad, at four o'clock Mond iy
afternoons. Price of the Observer, 40 folio columns,
Sixpence. _ _

[ADVERTISEMENT.]—CONTENTS OF " BELL'S LIFE
IN LONDON," AUG s.—Saven folio columns of Good-

wood Races, including a column of Remarks by Pegasus,
and engraved Sketches of the Prize Cups, valued at 3001.
each—seven columns of Cricket—two columns of Aqua-
tics—one column Salmon Fishing in Sutherland, by
EpbetnEra—two columns of Pedestrianism—eight co-
lumns of useful Advertisements, chiefly sporting—and
13 columns of miscellaneous news. The weekly sale of
Belt's Life averaged in the past twelve months nearly
28,000 copies. Bell's Life is regularly published in time
for Agents to send off by all the Saturday mid-day rail
roads. Price of Bell's Life Sixpence.
[ADVERTISEMENT.] " SPECTEMUR AGENDO."

On the 10th of December last, the Observer completed
its 50th anniversary (halt a century), during which long
period the Observer has maintained the highest character
for early and exllusive foreign and domestic news, to
obtain which no expense whatever was spared. The
same two gentlemen who have so successfully conducted
the Observer for the past thirty-five years still continue
at the helm. The establishment of the Observer alone
engages the services (besides the editors) of ten talented
reporters, upwards of twenty correspondents, thirty com-
positors, two engineers, ten machine hands, and about
thirty other persons in minor capacities, thus giving
engagements to more than 100 persons, at an outlay of
about 3001. per week, independent_of excise on the paper,
advertisement duty, and stamps. Every effort will be
made to render the Observer the most complete family
journal published, equally acceptable to the gentleman and
the scholar. The weekly record of about 300 Births,
Marriages, and Deaths, with their respective dates, will
be continued; also the column of advertisements (under
the bead of "Public Amusements) of theatres, exhibi-
tions, concerts, &e. Gratuitous supplements will also
occasionally be published. There is scarcely a club-
house, institution, library, or newsroom in England,
Scotland, and Ireland, or on the Continent, or in the
East and West Indies, in which the Observer is not taken
in, and frequently duplicate copies. Thewhich i
extensives
bestpub-
pub-
lication of the Observer c mmences at four o'clock on
Sunday mornings. Monday's Edition
adapted for the country and abroad, is published on
Monday afterneoi, at 4 o'clock.
EFFECTS PRODUCED BY THE OpEzuNG OF THE
MANCHESTER, SHEFFIELD, AND LINCOLNSHIRE RAIL
WAY.—We aro hearing continually of remarkable in-
quantities of malt
i
stances of the development of traffic in Lincolnshire and
elsewhere consequent upon the opening of the above
railway.are n gui
arWiye
sentumi erbsytarnadatih.raotmlaGansborough to rg
Man-
chester at two shillings per ton below the rate of water.
carriage. The following is a striking example of the
improved transit :—A cattle salesman at Sheffield re-
cently purchased in North Lincolnshire twenty fat oxen,
twelve of which were immediately sent to North Thorsby
station, thence to Grimsby, and dispatched westward by
the 9 A.N. train, arriving in Sheffield at six minutes past
twelve. Thus was accomplished in little more than
competitor.
three hours a journey that would have occupied three
days in driving. The cattle were delivered in perfectly
unimpaired condition. The coachinginterest spears to
tutor
irse pthoew,
onlyer ful
satnadge" feaoslitc"h
remaining
bme i
Ev i
lligs ns •
"on the road between Ma station and Gainsborough.
3yPe to
l hi tas
The turnpike road between the latter town and Bawtry
is assuming quite a deserted appearance.—Sheffield

Tines. Good nature, like a bee, collects honey from every
herb. 111-nature, bka a slider, sucks poison from the
sweetest flower.—kliza Cooh's Journa4

LONDON UNIVERSITY COLLEGE.
DISTRIBUTION OF PRIZES.
(From the Weekly Chronicle.)
Yesterday (Saturday) the half •yearly distribution of
prizes to the pupils of this institution took place in the
Hall of Studies. At three o'clock the various professors
entered the hall and took their seats at the table. Shortly
afterwards Mr. Justice Talfourd, amid the most enthu-
siastic acclamations, took the chair, and called on the
head master (the Rev. Dr. Key) to proclaim the names
of the successful competitors, and as each answered to
his name he was presented to the Learned Judge, from
whose hands he received the prize. The following is the
list of prizes:—
Upper Fifth Class—First prize, Henry Manning.
Fifth Greek Class—First prize, Arthur Harding; se-
cond prize, Ebenezer Charles.
Upper Greek Class—First prize, Thomas Austin;
second prize, Augustus Prevot.
Low r Fourth Greek Class—First prize, Henry Alder.
Sixth Lower Greek Class—First prize, John Marti•
nesu; second, Lumley Smith.
Greek Exercise, Lower Division—Prizes, R. Roscoe
and J. Martineau.
Sixth Latin Class—First prize, W. Romilly; second,
R. Roscoe.
Fifth Latin—First prizs, H. Manning.
Latin Exercise, Division E—First prize, Kempson.
Fifth Latin Exercises, Divisions B and C—First
prize, Henry Manning.
Fourth Lower Latin Class—First prize, Isaac Josephs;
second, Oliver Annesley.
Third Lower Latin Class—A. Briggs.
Upper Third Latin Class—First, Thomas Hood; se-
cond, Sidney Bell.
Third Latin—First, Edward Chevalier; second,
Danniel Littler.
Upper Second Latin Class—First prize, E. Lawrence;
second, Grosvenor Talbot.
Lower Second Latin Class—First prize, H. Datton;
second prize, Henry Goldsmith.
Upper First Class—First prize, Henry Long; second,
Percy Bellamy. W. I. Bellamy entitled to honourable
mention.
Upper First Latin Class—First prize, Benjamin Hem-
pige; second, F. Moberly.
Lower First Class—Prize, Charles James.
Upper Class of Latin Grammar—Prize, Augustine
Woolastone.
Lower Class do—Prize, W. Lewis.
Sixth Class of French—Lumley Smith and John Ver-
nable, equal.
Upper Fourth (Exercises)—Prize, A. Briggs.
Fourth Class—Prize, E. Stone; second, 0. Annesley.
First Lower Fourth French—Prizes, Martin Lee, E.
Chevalier, and Percy Bellamy.
Second Lower French Class—Prize, Henry Buxton,
Theodore Ganeron, entitled to honourable mention.
Lower Second French—Prize, J. Higgins.
Hebrew prize—Charles Steephill.
German—First prize, Nun Key; second, E. Levy.
Mi Idle German class prize—l. A. Joseph.
Lower German Class—T. Austin, H. Browne, and
F. H. Lewis, equal.
Geography and History (in various classes)—Prizes,
R. Kirk, P. Whitehead, J. Martineau, G. Wood, J.
Cliff, Joseph Isaacs, A. Briggs, and G. Kirk.
Natural Philosophy prize—L. Smith.
Upper Fifth Class, Natural Philosophy—R. Kirk, G.
Windermer, and F. Chaplin.
Experimental Philosophy (various classes)—H.
Brown and J. Kirk.
Chemistry—First prize, R. Kirk; second, E. Heywood.
Junior Class—First prize, H. Gibbons.
Geometry Prizes—C. Smith and E. Kempson.
Algebra—George Grey and Ebenezer Charles.
Book-keeping—M. Lee and G. B. Fletcher.
Arithmetic—A. Herries and H. Dutton ; Theodore
Gavenon entitled to honourable mention.
Writing—Sidney Vyse and Sidney Bell.
Drawing—J. Troop and E. C. Buxton.
Prizes having been also awarded for fencing and gym-
nastics, the Head Master announced that vacation would
commence that day, and terminate on Tuesday, 25th
September.
Mr. Justice T&LFOURD then rose, amidst the mcst
enthusiastic plaudits, to address the assembly. He said
that it was an old maxim that there was no good in
this world without eoine alloy, and he found him-
self at that time no exception to the general rule.
It had been to him a source of unaffected
gratification to have been selected to be the medium
for presenting so many symbols of merit which had
evoked such feelings of delight, not only from the
young hearts of those who were entitled to them, but
also to the hearts of those who felt the interest of love,
friendship, or relationship with the successful competi-
tors; but it was some alloy to the satisfaction he other-
wise should have experienced to be called upon to give
expression to feelings to which he was sensible ho could
not do adequate justice. No one could have witnessed
the distribution of prizes that day, from the first prize-
man in Greek to the last victor in fencing, who must not
have been persuaded that abundant attestation had been
given of the skill and erudition of the preceptors, and of
the diligence and good conduct of the pupils. It was
impossible to be a spectator of the gratifying scene
which had just terminated without being convinced that
the London University College was an institution
where the greatest possible attention had been paid by
the masters, with the happiest possible results on
the minds of the students. To the pupils who now lis-
tened to him, and to the brilliant company who were
then assembled, the near and dear relatives of those
pupils, it was unnecessary that he should say anything
in commendation of such an institution; but, in address-
ing others, who were not, perhaps, so well acquainted
with its merits, be might be permitted to observe that the
advantages of such an establishment were great and nu-
merous. The boy who was educated at that school bad
not to undergo the hard condition of being separated
from the paternal roof. The great—the inconceivably
great—advantages which belong to a public school, as
affording opportunities of emulation and competition,
might be enjoyed by the boys who were educated in
that establishment, at the same time that they were not
deprived of a father's unceasing vigilance, and a mother's
tender solicitude. Of all earthly blessings, he thought
the last the most valuable to the youthful mind, for he
entirely concurred with Coleridge, in the sentiment that—
" A mother is a mother still,
The loveliest thing alive !"
Those who were educated in that admirable institution
enjoyed the inestimable advantage of maternal care at
home, and of the most enlarged and liberal education
abroad. In estimating the true value and interest of the
scene of that day, particular regard should be paid to this
fact, that boys were not permitted to remain in the school
after the age of sixteen. At that age they passed into
another branch of the establishment—a different system
of discipline—that happy period which intervened be-
tween mere boyhood and the cares, turmoils, and anx-
ieties of adult life. He merely mentioned this to show
that it would be scarcely fair to compare what had been
done in that school with the scholastic achievements ac-
complished in other institutions, where the pupils
were allowed to remain until they had attained the
age of eighteen or nineteen. And yet it was, per-
haps, unnecessary that he should have claimed
any indulgence on account of the restriction as
to age in that institution, fur young though all its mem-
bers were, he found that the higher classes of them wer
engaged in the study of the Greek tragedians, and in
the most abstruse branches of the mathematics.—
(Applause.) In the examination for matriculation at
the London University the success which had attended
the students was very remarkable; and amongst the
former students who had most honourably distinguished
themselves he had much pleasure in making honourable
mention of the names of Messrs. R. H. Smith and H.
Hicks. Of the boys who had distinguished themselves
that clay, and to whom be had had the happiness of
awarding prizes, there were four to whose names he
might be permitted to make a passing allusion, because
of the peculiar interest with which parental associa-
tions surrounded them. It was impossible to witness
the opening career of the boys who bore the names
of Martineau, Roscoe, Romilly, and Hood—names which
were watchwords to our feelings, and which called up
thoughts as dear as the memories of home, without
experiencing an emotion of delight at observing that
those who now possessed those names were resolved to
uphold their ancestral honour, and to shed new lustre on
families already ennobled in the records of national and
literary greatness.—(Applause.) He confessed that his
own emotions of joy at the success of Hood were such as
he found it difficult to express ; for he could not forget
that that gifted boy was the son of that accomplished
author whose genius was of that happy character that
he could with equal ease move to laughter or melt to
tears ; and that, more perhaps than any modern author,
he possessed the power of arousing the sympathies of
the rich and great on behalf of the poor and humble,
without inducing that dissatisfaction which it was such
a wickedness to create in the breasts of the lowly
against their more favoured brethren.—(Applause.)
He had witnessed in the proceedings of that day many
things which were calculated to excite in his heart
the most cordial emotions of gratification, but he con-
fessed that nothing which he had witnessed had caused
him greater delight than to observe the generous and
high-minded manner in which the announcement of the
names of the various competitors had been received
even by those of the pupils who had not been fortunate
enough to carry away prizes themselves. It had been said
that—

" Envy doth merit like its shade pursue,
Aud like the shade it proves the substance true."
But to that sentiment he was not prepared to give an
unqualified assent. It might be true if its application
were limited merely to the narrow-minded and dis-
ingenuous; but certain he was that envy was the very
last passion that was likely to take up its abode in
an honest heart, or an educated mind.—(Loud ap•
plause.) Important though it was to educate the hu-
man mind, it was infinitely more so to educate the
human heart. His young friends, when they studied
the Greek and Roman classics, would bear in mind that
the object they should propose to themselves was not
so much the acquisition of a language, now spoken so
more, as the training of the mind to an aptitude of
' thought, and to the appreciation of the most deli-
cate shade of moral beauty. It was for this that they
should seek to become acquainted with those early
glories of the antique world, which looked more like a
vision disclosed through the parting clouds of time than
anything which actually appertained to the practical
history of wars, and the changes of dynasties. So, too,
in the study of mathematics, they should apply them-
selves not only to lines, curves, and circles, but to
atal t_J!ce
acquisition of a habit of thought which utigi?etl en_
them to apply severity of reasoning to the no, b 1 pre
.suit in which the human mind could be
the
gsaagm b
rule
pursuit of truth.—(Applause.) And t
might be applied with equal advantage. to the study
01 Hebrew—the object of the student being..not simply
to disinter from the grave of years
language, but rather itn imur,nurial
to become familiar with the
I thoughts of those who wrote in that language, and to
uecome acquainted with the noblest literature in the
I world—our own alone
.excepted. They should