The Sun.
London, England, 1838-05-01 00:00:00

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

" Notes on Early French Actors"—though the Memoirs
are neatly written—will, we suspect, be interesting to few,
save those of the profession. The Author gives biographi-
cal sketches of the most celebrated Harlequins in France,
and among others of the famous Antonio Vicentini, who
flourished under the auspices of the Regent Orleans, in
1716. "In the hands of this artist," we are told—
" Harlequin achieved a higher reputation, and put in claims to greater
distinction, than any of his predecessors. He was endowed by nature
with capabilities which elevated him to the first rank of comedians. His
versatility, his indomitable gaiety, his irresistible grace, his sudden pa-
thos, even amidst the peals of laughter excited by his tine buffoonery, a
trait, a single touch, which he heightened into a positive sentiment by
the magic of his genius, would draw tears from his audience, and
astound his author by an unexpected and unintended excellence; and
all this he woold effect, despite a mask, formed, it would have seemed,
as much to excite terror as laughter. Often when he had surprised the
audience into bursts of merriment by the exquisite humour of his grief,
he would stop short in his burlesque, and charm them into tenderness,
into sympathy, by the mastery and cunning of his passion."
An actor who could produce all these exciting effects,
without opening his mouth, and with a Harlequin's mask
on his face, must certainly have been a prodigious genius—
in short, quite a miracle! The " Compact" is a horrible
account of a novel duel, the terms of which were, that the
two parties should draw lots, and that lie who lost, "should
kill himself, just one year from the day on which they had
quarrelled." This story is of a very maudlin, exaggerated
character, and is evidently of French manufacture. The .
" Great Western Jungle," is a clever sportsmanlike sketch,
worthy to have been illustrated by Daniel. '• Lunacy in
France," is from the pen of Mr. Carne. It furnishes us
with some affecting details of insanity. The " Manager's
Note Book," is a sketch of that hearty old Comedian, Jack
Fawcett, who slipped into eternity the other day, quite in a
hurry, and with scarcely a week's notice. The " Great-
Non-suited," is a well told anecdote of an English Cabinet
Minister, who was convicted of smuggling the materials of
a new Court suit from France.

FRASER' S MAGAZINE.
There is an interesting article in " Regina" for this
month on the " Newspaper Press of Scotland," which
we shall leave our sturdy friends north of the Tweed to
decide upon after their own fashion. The " Anatomy of
Gaining," Dissection V., is an expose of the transactions
which nightly take place at Crockford's—the regularly es-
tablished " Hell of hells." There is a great deal of
very forcible reasoning in the article, on what would
be the effect of abolishing all laws relating to debtor and
creditor. The subject is a most important one, and, we
are persuaded, one which, notwithstanding its; general
importance, is very little understood. The " Yellowplusi►
Correspondence" is continued in this Number, and sustains
the favourable impression which the first chapters made
upon us. " Our Club at Paris" is very dull, though there
are here aiid there some specimens of very amusing wag_
gery. Altogether the May Number of Fraser is more
than usually heavy.

TAIt'S MAGAZINE.
Tait opens this month with a powerful tale, from the
pen of John I3anim, called the " Irish Reaper." The
character of Davy Ryan is a master-piece of vigourous
painting. The incidents are few, but they are feelingly
and eloquently worked up ; and the whole is equal to any
production of the same length by the author of the
" O'Hara Family"—even in his best days. The " May
Meeting of the Society of Friends," by William
Howitt, contains several passages which we regret
we have not space to transfer to our columns.
It is the fullest exposition that we ever met with,
of the religious government of the Quakers, male
and female ; and it contains so much that is entirely new
to us, that we imagine it cannot fail to excite a good deal
of general interest. The review of the last volume of
" Lockhart's Life of Scott," is interesting from the fund of
anecdote which the writer has at command, independently
of its great literary merit. Among
the
un-
important details we are informed t'letamt cbouttt notiia davery narrow head for a man of his size, and required
a smaller hat than even little men. His head with
great elevation—which, however, the busts rather exagge-
rate—had not corresponding breadth." The conclusion
of the Review ascends from these interesting trivialties to
the dignity of lofty criticism :__
" Differing so far from the biographer in many debatable points, and
disapproving of the spirit hi which he has written much of these .Me_
molt's, we have the more satisfaction in cordially subscribing to his ge-
neral criticism, and just and delicate appreciation of the literary merits
of Sir 'Walter Scott. In Scott's voluminous itnaginative works, while
we can conceive something loftier to desire, we find nothing to condemn,
cave indeed latterly vast surplusage—which is a thing apart—unwin_
nowed wheat, so sent to market on calculations of pounds, shillings,
and pence—nothing to condemn; and how much to approve, admire,
love, enjoy, feed upon, and grow with what we feed on ! Yet there
seems a tendency at present to depreciate Scott's genius for which it
battles us to find a good cause. There is but one Shakspeare, and we

leave him alone, enshrined—unwilling either to hear his name profaned,
or to see other men lessened by idle comparisons. The growing dispo-
sition to undervalue Scott tempts us to proclaim the belief, that he
not merely the first of prose fictionists, but equal to them all taken to-
gether—nat in him we find combined the elevation and delicate imagi-
nation of Cervantes, the sagacity of Le Sage, the pathos of Richard-
son, the inim table truthfulness and humour of Fielding, the shrewd-
ness a7ul comic power of .Smohen, the exquisite simplicity and tender-
of Goldsmith, and even the. will and luxuriant fancy of Radcliffe.
There remain' IRA Godwin, in his Caleb Williams,' and Mrs. Inch-
bald in Nature an„ .Art; to carry off a laurel which S,:ott did not
seek to gather. There may I.)e other fictoni,ts who, with equalop wens
of imagination, liveliness of fancy, fertility of invention, maglic faci-
lity of touch, and all.embracing sympathies, ,hall bring a higher °ln.
losophy to the sphere of iomance ; but they have not yet
peared, and we know not where to look for them—
not, certainly, in the modern intense School. If we ever
there chance on any indication of more expanded thought and loftier
aspiration in works of fiction, we miss the thousand other charms
and graces of Scott's pen ; and arc constrained to take to his men and
women as they are, in preference to the freezing or extravagant Wall--
ties of those whose aims may be hi:;her, but who lack power to strike
Want of intensity is often objected to Scott—and systematic intensit
of high moral purpose, may be wanting ; but his critics would, we}'
apprehend, express themselves more accurately if they described the
defect of which they coMplain, as want of abandonment. If passion b
meant, we know not where, lathe entire scope of prose fiction, to 100
for that highly sublimated and concentrated intensity of feeling, which_
supeelor to the weakness of abandonment, ' dies, and makes no sign,' it
not in his 10,,Sionate pages. No, pathos, no exaltation, no exquisite
n intensity of sentinit and of imagination, in the last chapters o(
Waverley'—in Kenilwoft/l'—in ' The Bride of Lammermoor'--0
Rebecca the Jewess—in Minna Troil—in Clara Mowbray—in k
Deans, her father, and her sister—in Old Mortality ?' carr y
literary heresy so far as to be fervent admirers of Scott's inferior works—.
his metrical romances. If Chaucer was a great poet, then there Inns'
be a niche for Scott by the side of the Father of English Poetry. There
is close resemblance in the distinctive features of their genius ; the,
same freshness, heartiness, sagacity, humour, clearness, and unrivallcu
command over the picturesque."
The " Glimpses of the Western Corner of Fairy Land,"
remind us a good deal of Leigh Hunt's style. It has served
to recall many. a fair vision of our childhood—for whets
young, we were a devout believer in the existence and the
dominion of Fairies. There is no lack of poetry
Number, and what is better still, of poetry worth reading'
Tait, we see, has joined the rest of the booksellers in cry:
in;.; out against Serjeant Talfourd's Copyright Bill ; but his
article on the subject is the only poor affair in the May
Number of his Magazine. in this

MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
The best portion of Mr. Reynold's imitation of the
Pickwick Papers this month, is his story entitled the
" Public Accuser," which is told in an earnest and spirited
style without any attempt at exaggeration. He had far
better, however, rely on his own powers, and leave " Pick-
wick" in the hands of his original creator. The contro-
versy upon the " Devil's Walk," is now brought to a close,
and we are glad of it, for Mr. Barker has made far toe
much of what is scarcely worth discussing. What matters
it whether Southey or Coleridge had the greatest share in
the compositiGn of this half-forgotten jeu d'esprit?
" Portraits from the Peerage" is a temperately written
memoir of Lord Lansdowne.

THE iIioNTYLYTAT MA GAZINE.
Maxwell.
This periodical is conducted in a mostf otopffcicnssitc,,Trro,
e-
br
spirit. An article on that least exciting
a
Law of Primogeniture," commences as follol•;'s "At
time when the rude licentious hand of wild den;"ral is
at work to undermine our national liberties," Sc. -
and the writer waxing wrother, as his imagination colOc
more heated, thus proceeds, in

" A louder still and a wilder strain."
One of the acts of the desperate and unworthy faction•
now absolutely swaying the destinies of the empire, 11.35
been to raise a cry against the laws which regulate the 11"
heritance of landed property. For this species of property
being in its nature the firm base of every staple Govero-
ment, they have thought that these laws, once abrogated,
a general dissolution of the several orders in the Stat?,
would be readily effected, and their purposes answered.
A stranger might be led to suppose from this passq°
that the majority of the House of Commons, the Whls-
Nobility of England, and four-fifths of the intelligent in-
habitants of the British empire, were so many younger sons,
alike envious of, and dependant upon, Conservative bonetY'
This would be making a sad blunder. The Liberals t°
have a `° stake in the country," sufficiently important ~a°
render them by no means indifferent to the stability of its
best institutions. " Philosophical Radicals," and the
" House of Commons," are articles quite as preposter h:
in argument, and nearly as intemperate in language. ,;v•
is not a Law, but an Ultra Tory Magazine, valuable the
for its abridgment of the Statutes, and its summary 0' -
Bills before Parliament.

MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
We have only just received this Magazine, and faits
been able, therefore, to glance but very cursorily
t
contents. The two ablest articles in the Number-530 far,
at least, as we may venture on a judgment front a hast Y.
perusal—appear to be those on Scott and Lord Brougham,
the last of which is a vigorous portrait, drawn in no un-
friendly spirit, but at the same time without any attempt
at undue flattery. The writer very justly accedes to his
Lordship a rank foremost among the most eminent
statesmen of the age, and glances at one or two
of his peculiarities frankly and temperately. The cha-
racter of Scott is pourtrayed with equal manliGess
but the writer is in error when he says that the grOt
novelist had little or no command over the pathetic.
Never had English author more of tenderness—though he
was not always making a parade of it—in his compositions,
The Essay entitled " Manners," is a sprightly sketch,
from the life ; and that on the " Irish Church," is s°un
and temperate in politics.