The Sun.
London, England, 1849-05-08 00:00:00

P, r*-44 MAY 8, 1849.

MILGAZINES, &c.—(CONTINUED.)

NEW MONTHLY.

The New ]Monthly Magazine for May is greatly
superior to many of its predecessors. Seldom (since
the days of its great celebrity) have we met with a
better number. It opens with a beautiful tale beau-
tifully written by the author of R Azeth the Egyp-
tian," and " Amymone ;" but the most interesting
article in this magazine is an abstract of Prosper
Meriirke's romantic " History of Pedro the Cruel."
The " Falkland Islands," " Legends of Breslau,"
Mr. Jolly Green's account of the " Great Paris Ex-
cursion," the " Sporting Tour," " Denmark, its
People and its Faith," " The lonian 'lsles in 1849,"
" Lorenzo. da Ponte," by Dudley Costello, some ad-
mirable remarks on the " Phenomena of Sleep," &c.,
&c., fill up the remaining pages of this very excellent
number of the New Monthly.

ELIZA COOK'S JOURNAL. No. I.
There are but few who will fail to welcome this
new publication ; none, certainly, who, on welcoming
it, will throw the initial number aside without having
derived from it—what it undertakes to impart—both
amusement and instruction. We greet an old friend
with a new face in Eliza Cook's Journal—one en-
deared to us by the recollection of so many common
joys and sorrows blent together, of so many conge-
nial thoughts and sympathies shared between the
poetess of Melaia and her readers. Eliza Cook is as-
sociated with the holy memories of our child-
hood. The simple strains she has sung so
musically in her "unpremeditated verse," call
to the mind of each of us those thousand and one re-
membrances of youth which, trivial as they may ap-
pear in themselves, are beautiful from the fact of their
preservation—the flies of memory.embalmed in the
amber of song! Her melodious voice has summoned
up again to our vision the old brim, and the
green meadow, and the cowslips, and the pet dog,
and the " story books," once dear to us as fairyland,
and prized as though they had been sacred,
" Beloved as fable, yet believed as truth."
We take a volume of " Eliza Cook" with us when
we stroll between the hedgerows, as naturally as we
take Falconer in a cruise, or Thomson in a fruit-
garden,weopen or Herrick
Wallerilerrick in a drawing-room, after
dawing-rn
merrymaking,ntn,
or
Somerville
snaturally
as
in a park, or Day in a sugar plantation, or Walton
when we go an-angling. We mark her pages—
accordingly as it may be summer or autumn—with a
dead leaf or a pansy ; in spring a crocus leaf ; in
winter a leaf of holly. The charm of her ballads
is like the air sung by Scrooge's niece, " a
thing you coull whistle in t a.° minutes,"
yet with a tone so sweet and plaintive that it revives
in fancy "the merry days when we were young," as
if with the sound of an enchantment. Eliza Cook's
poetry will live—live in the hearts of "the people,"
for ste has ever ministered to nature, truth, and
love—while, to use the comical traveatie of one of
those old minor poets of England who are too little
borne in remembrance (Sir John Henry Moore)—

Full many an elegy has mourned its fate,
Beneath some pasty, cabin's', cribb'd, confined;
Full many an ode has soared in lofty state,
Fix'd to a kite, and quivering in the wind."

And not only has she sung in tender breathings of "fa-
miliar song ;" she has poured forth stern and inspiring
numbers, calculated to help the work of legitimate le-
gislation, and lead a people to right and noble feeling.
Familiar as we are with the powers of :Eliza Cook
as a poetess, we rejoice to greet her in her new
character as a literary journalist. Her career in
editing the new periodical here under consideration
opens favourably with the auspices derived fr,m her
past reputation. She has before her not a cold and
scrutinizing public, but a public whose old friendship
renders her reception only remarkable for its cordi-
ality. We like the plain, honest, home-speaking in
her prefatory remarks, " A Word to my Readers."
But we like still better her musical retrospect of
" Ten Years Ago." Listen to her carolling of all that
has passed during that interval between herself and
those acquainted with her compositions :
" Since then we've mingled cheerfully within our ' House-
hold Room,'
Ye'vo heard me sing ' Old Dobbin's' worth, and tell
' Old Pincher's' doom,
Ye hailed me in my ' Murray Plaid,' and listened to my
strain,
When like a baby in a field I wove my ' Daisy' chain;
Ye took my simple ' Old Arm Chair,' ye knew it was a

part
Ot Love's rich cedar tree, that Death bad cut down in
my heart:
Ye ,smiled to see my Old Straw Hat' laid by with
earnest rhyme,
And chorused when a People's Song' awoke your spirit
chime;
Oh! many a changeful carol lilt has knitted us I trow,
Since first my Christmas Holly' flourished, ten years
ago

"Knitted" thus together by those "changeful carol-
lilts," we doubt not but that the poetess and her
readers will be still snore amicably blended in sym-
',Why through the medium of her new Journal.
Among her contributors we already recognise " Sil-
verpen," known to us so long in the rages edited by
Douglas Jerrold. The present contribution is a
story, suggested by a very beautiful conceit, and
called, somewhat eccentrically, " The Three Ilya-
cinths before Heaven." The narrative is calculated to
render every one who peruses it happier. " Proteus"
descants admirably upon the advantages of " Cheap
Reading," and good old Peter Parley, more garrulous
than ever, prattles to his dear little children in " Les-
sons" which we are satisfied will prove very far from
disagreeable. Silverpen has another contribution, most
'sensible in argument, on the "Early Closing Ques•
tion." Eliza Cook herself bids us, in prose w Mich almost
rivals her poetry, " Make the best of it;" and, among
the other papers, we must not forget to mention the
charming and epigrammatic column of " Diamond
Dust." Such is the opening number of Eliza Co3les
Journal.

AINSWORTIL
" Crichton" continues with unflagging spirit; the
close of this instalment leaves Blount and his famous
Druid in a very unpleasant, and, indeed, perilous
position. A little allegory entitled " Ethnos ' is suf-
ficiently appropriate for the times we live in. I
shows how Ethnos (and who Ethnos is will be readily
understood by calling to mind the new science of eth-
nology, or the study of races) is imprisoned, and how
Force and Cunning and Fraud in vain endeavour to
extricate him, till Hope, " who could bear this no
longer, ran off and fetched Virtue, who brought
Freedom and Faith. Knowledge accompanied them,
carrying a good handsome lantern to show the way."
With such assistance it is not to be doubted that the
emancipation of Ethnos was very speedily effected.
" Cambrian Isles," No. 111., contains a graceful
eulogium upon those impersonations of gracefulness—
the fairy people.