The Sun.
London, England, 1849-03-17 00:00:00

l ~.

MARCH r7l 1849.

LITERATURE.
THE HISTORY OF PFNDENNIS. No.' V.

By W. 11. Thackeray.
There is a complete break up of the dramatis
persome assembled at Chatteris and its neighbourhood
in the present number. Pen and his friend Foker
leave for Oxford, and consequently the poor curate,
Smirke, who' has ventured to hint to Pen his love for
Helen, Pen's mother, and has been awfully snubbed
therefor, has no longer the excuse of being Pen's
tutor, for bis visits to Fairoaks. The Major departs
to spend the shooting season with some of his aristo-
cratic friends, and Miss Fotheringay, having procured
a metropolitan engagement, sets off with her father for
London. This number is replete with sarcastic wit,
and ever and anon the hypocrisies of society are
"shown up" in a vein not unworthy of Rochefou-
cauld himself. Take the following as an example :
" How lonely are we in the world; how selfish and
secret, everybody! You and your wife have pressed the
same pillow for forty years, and fancy yourselves
united. Psha, does she cry out when you have the
g"011t, or do you lie awake when she has the tooth-ache?
Your artless daughter, seemingly all innocence and de-
voted to her mamma and her piano-lesson, is thinking of
neither, but with the young Lieutenant with whom she
danced at the last ball—the honest frank boy just re.
turned from school is secretly speculating upon the mo-
ney you will give him, and the debt he ewes the tart-
man. The old grandmother crooning in the corner and
bound to another world within a few months, has some
business or cares which are quite private and her own.
Very likely she is thinking of fifty years back, and that
night when she made such an impression, and danced a
cotillon with the Captain before your father proposed
for her; or, what a silly little over-rated creature your
wife is, and how absurdly you are infatuated about her
—and, as for your wife-0 philosophic reader, answer
and say—Do you tell her all? Ah, sir—a distinct uni-
verse walks about under your hat and under mine—all
things in nature are different to each—the woman we
look at has not the same features, the dish we eat from
has not the same taste to the one and the other—you
and I are but a pair of infinite isolations, with some
fellow-islands a little more or less near to us."

MACPHAIL' S EDINBURGH ECCLESI-
ASTICAL JOURNAL.
Although we can seldom find an opportunity of
noticing this small but deserving periodical—pub-
lished monthly in the city of Edinburgh—we cannot
refrain from noticing the contents of the current
number for March ; if only to transcribe the follow-
ing passage in reference to Macaulay, the historian:—
" Beyond almost any Member of Parliament whose
services have benefited a constituency, Mr. Macaulay
bas upheld the genuine character of a representative of
the best intellect, the best morality, and the deliberate
judgment of his constituency, as distinguished from the
degraded position of a mere delegate sent to the House of
Legislature to vote according to the directions given to
him by the party whose influence put him there. As a
Member of Parliament, the position held by Mr. Ma-
caulay was honourable to himself and the city of Edin-
burgh, as the position held by his successor, the present
Member, is discreditable to him and to the faction who
elected him. Above all, Mr. Macaulay is a man of that
class, the rarity of which is one of the most unhappy and
threatening signs of the times—to whom in the discharge
of his duty, the hissings and hootings of the people
whose interests he desires to serve, are more agreeable
than their applause' would be, if that applause were
gained by any base pandering to their passions, or any
deceitful flattering of their ignorance, His desire has
been with Cato, rather to be, than appear to be a good
man. It was the manly sincerity of his character, his
high sense of what the honour of a gentleman ought to
be, and his bold assertion of the independence of the
office of a representative, that lost for him his seat in Par-
liament at the late election, and lost to the city of Edin-
burgh the honour and advantages of his services. There
was at that time, over the country, a run against talent,
and independence, and honour, and a thirst after servi-
lity and ignorance—and the spirit of the season drove
Mr. Macaulay into retirement, and made a senator of
Mr. Charles Cowan. The choice was fortunate for Mr.
Macaulay's fame, which the publication of this great his
torical work will go far to increase, and fortunate for
the world, which we trust is destined to reap the most
solid advantages from his literary leisure."
This eulogium—so eminently well deserved, and
so forceful in coming from the city which has repu-
diated her great representative—occurs in the course
of a rather highflown and even hyperbolical panegyric
upon Mr. Macaulay's " History of England." Be.
sides this review, there are other criticisms of a
somewhat more discriminating character in refer-
ence to the poetry of Aird and to the biography of
Campbell.

THE ETHNOLOGICAL JOURNAL.
What we have already commended so repeatedly
in this new organ of a new science, we still
find in abundance. The numbers of the Ethno-
logical Journal continue to be replete with
sound, pertinent, and practical information. What is
of yet greater advantage, this information is conveyed
in an agreeable, and even fascinating manner, re-
lating as it does to so many and such remote quar-
ters of the globe—a circumstance which invariably
throws a film of romance over the most arid reality.

THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SELECT
LITERATURE. Parts I. and 11. By Charles
_Knight.
Another serial publication, from Charles Knight,
the author, the critic, and the publisher. The
National Library, as far as we can-estimate, from
merely two introductory portions, is eminently
worthy of the originator of the Penny Magazine, of
Old England, of the Weekly Volumes, and of the
new edition and the new commentaries of Shakspere.
Shakspere proves to be the inspiration of the work
here commenced, the two first parts being critical
observations, written by the accomplished editor, on
Pageants and Mysteries, on Titus Andronicus,
the Hamlet of 1603, on Timon of Athens, on Arden
of Feversham, the Two Gentlemen of Verona,
the Comedy of Errors, Love's Labour Lost,
All's IVell that Ends Well, the Taming of
the Shrew, and Richard 11. The work, when
completed will form a companion to the Ara-
tional Cyclopedia lately issued from the same adven-
turous establishment; the National Library being in
reference to literature what the National Cyclopedia'
was in reference to general knowledge.

STOKERS AND POKERS. By the Author of
"Bubbles from the Brunnen of Nassau."
As the sixty-sixth number of Murray's Home and
Colonial Library, the masterly article about rail-
ways, which very recently appeared in th',.! Quaatvrly,
and which at the time of its anonymous appearance
was generally understood to be from the lively pen
of Sir Francis Head, has been republished. With
considerable additions, a few emendations, and a
copious index, the paper has swollen into a goodly
volume of 208 pages, constituting the only work ever
printed descriptive of the working and the arrange-
ments of a great railway establishment. Al-
together, as a composition, the book is one of
the pleasantest books we can recollect reading.
It possesses the extraordinary and unusual merits of
rendering the dullest subjects the most agreeable, the
most common-place incidents the most enthralling,
and of doing all this in a light, jocular, sparkling,
and thoroughly unaffected manner—a manner abso-
lutely provocative of good humour, and brilliant
throughout. The author, without' restricting his
sketches to any individual line, has culled the ma-
jority of his facts from the London and North-
Western Railway—starting from the grand station,
or rather terminus, at Euston-square. In a series of
vivid chapters he unfolds to us a succession of myste-
ries—the mysteries being in connexion with scenes fa-
miliar to almost every reader, such as—The Trains,
Euston—The Railway Carriages—Lost Luggage-
office—Parcel Delivery-office—The Locomotive En-
gine, Camden—Goods Department. Wolverton--
Letters' and Newspapers—Crewe--A Railway Town
—The Electric Telegraph—The Railway Clearing-
house.] Besides an account of the difficulties en-
countered and conquered in the construction of a
Railway, and a chapter on the maintenance of the
Permanent Way, the volume opens with a facetious
" Introduction, and closes with a suggestive
" Moral." In the Appendix are a multiplicity of
Rules and Regulations. No one who has not
chuckled over the bubbles blown by the
old valetudinarian, from the effervescent springs,
or Brunnen of Nassau, can form an adequate conjec-
ture of the bonhommie which casts a mellow atmo-
sphere over the lucubrations of Sir Francis Head.
His pleasantries are enough to busy up whole pages
of statistics, and to render an account of the railroads ,
of Great Britain amusing to those who have been sa-
tiated with the pictorial writings of the romancist.
Almost every leaf has its anecdote, and the anecdotes
are no Joe Millerisms, but such as could only be re-
counted in this go-a-head generation. Several of the
observations or calculations made by Sir Franciss
when Head
contests
are worthy of being printed in gold blazonry —as
he says that 10,000,0001. wereexpended
in n Parlia-
mentaryinquiries and Parliamentary te
1845, 1846, and 1847, and tha.tthat money " would,
at the rate of 20,0001. per mt.le, have constructed a
national railway
500 miles in length—say from
London to Aberdeen." We are satisfied that the
volume will have the enormous circulation of which
it is eminently deserving.

(CON CREGAN, THE IRISH GIL BLAS.
Parts 1., 11, 111.
Con Cregan is the most amusing of scamps. lie
has more wit and devilry than his Spanish prototype,
whom he resembles in his cynicism and his fund of
worldly wisdom. Con Cregan will achieve a great
success.

KING DOBBS' SKETCHES IN ULTRA-
MARINE. By James Hannay, Author of
"Biscuits and Grog ;" "A Claret Cup," 6-c. Parts
1., 11., and 111. -
The mantle of Captain Marryat has fallen on
James Hannay, and "King Dobbs" is worthy to take
his place by the side of "Peter Simple." But it is not
as a nautical novelist merely that Mr. Hannay shines;
his descriptions of scenery are beautiful. He has

managed to invest with new interest the oft-described
scenery of the Bay of Naples, and in the lonian
Iklands he occupies ground which has hitherto been
almost untrudden. His descriptions of the scenery of
Corfu and of Patras are perfect pictures.

THE RiVkii.
SOUTHAMPTON, Menert.ls.—The Hamburgh barque'
Capella, Captain Decker, arrived off Cowes this morning
in 64 days from Buenos Ayres. She landed mails from
the Rio la Plata to the 6th of January, and.proceeded_on her voyage to Antwerp. We have accounts 12 days
later than had yet been received.
On the Ist of January the 26th Legislature of the
province was installed with the customary solemnities,
and the annual message of the Executive was presented
by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, representing his Ex-
cellency the Governor. The document was extremely
lengthy, embracing a vast variety of details, and alluded
very particularly to the state of relations existing be.
tween Great Britain and France and Buenos Ayres.
The following is a translation of the paragraph:—
" The Government solicitously cultivates the good re-
lations of the Confederation with friendly Powers.
Those which it felt pleasure in maintaining with the
Governments of Great Britain and Prange have not yet
been restored to their former footing. Thatuf her Bri-
tannic Majesty appears in a much less difficult position
to re-establish than that of France. That of the Confe-
deration does not cease to entertain sincen viishes for -
peace, without prejudice to the rights of • the Republic and of its ally, the President of the Oriental State, Bri-
gadier Don Manuel Oribe."
In reference to the demands of Lord Palmerston for
the settlement of British claims, the Mesiage declares
that the Argentine Confederation had been prevented
from discharging them by the unjustiGable attacks
which Great Britain, in concert with France, had
directed against it, and that "up to the present day
that Government persisted in the detention of the Mal-
vine Islands, and other portions of territory belonging to
the Argentine Confederation; the rules of international
justice, and the stipulations of the treaty of the 2d of
February, 1825, between the Confederation and Great
Britain, having been broken in all these serious respects
by the Government of her Majesty, without its being
possible for the Republic, in such a state of things, to
take into consideration the affairs of the loan of the sub-
jects of a Government which thus attacks it, and deranges
its system of finance."
The Message further announced that Sir Thomas
Herbert, the British Commander-in-Chief, had given up
the five pieces of brass ordnance taken in the combat of
Obliged°, and which had been remitted to him by the
British Government for that purpose.
In reference to the refusal of the Government to re-
ceive the Hoe. Mr. Southern, the British Plenipotentiary,
the Message gare the following explanation:—
" Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain accredited
a Consul in the Confederation. The Government ac-
quainted the Consul named of the serious inconveniences
that prevented it from granting the exequatur to his
commission, existing as still were the differences between
the Republics of the Plate and England and France,
arising out of the unjust Anglo-French intervention,
without satisfaction and redress having been given to the
former for the unmerited offences that had been com-
mitted against them.
" The Government informed the Argentine Minister
in London of the powerful motives that in accordance
with the exigencies of the national dignity and honour
had impelled it to adopt that resolution; and it ordered
him to communicate to the Government of her Majesty
the observations upon which that of the Confederation
founded the postponement of the recognition of the Con-
sul named by her Majesty, which it had been its painful
but indispensable duty to make."
The British Packet says, that the Message indicates a
speedy settlement of the vexatious question arising out
of the intervention so far as England is concerned, but
that the position with France was not quite so satisfactory.
In mercantile matters there was little change since
last advices.

Horsehair was quoted 45 to 48 for short, 58 to 62 for
mixed, and 100 to 110 for long.
Salted ox hides, 42 to 46; cow, 33 to 35; horse, salted,
27 to 29; dry, 17 to 19; Matadero, 52 to 54. Ox horns,
800, and cow, 250 to 300. Calf skins, 46 to 50.
Melted tallow, 36 to 40 ; second class ditto, 32 to 35.
Wool—Fine washed, 40 to 55 ; dirty, 20 to 25.
Exchanges on England had risen and were thus
marked :-655. per ounce. France, 83 to 45 francs ; on
Montevideo, to 1 per cent. premium ; Rio Janeiro, 1t
to 2 per cent. premium ; United States, 2 per cent. dis-
count. Spanish doubloons, 352 to 3.521 ; patriot ditto,
347 k to 348. Spanish dollars, 22 to 22i ; patriot dol-
lars, 214 to 22.
Six per Cent. Stock, 105 ; Four per Cents. in pro.
portion.
Freights had advanced and were quoted as follow:—.
To Great Britain, 41. ss. per 2,2401 b. dry hides, 455. for
salted; 50s. per ton, tallow; bales, 30s. to 355. To the
Continent, 51. per 240:b. dry hides. To France, 90f. for
dry hides, and 451. for salted; 60f. for tallow. To the
United States, 15 dolls. per 2,0001 b. dry hides.
The Hamburgh brig Friederich Ernest arrived at
Buenos Ayres from New York on the Ist of January,
having picked up, on the 23d of IX cember, about 40 miles
south•east of Cape St. Mary, the crew, 18 in number, of
the British barque Nina, Captain Brewer,ffrom Liverpool,
bound to Coquimbo, with a cargo of patent fuel, which
vessel was burnt at sea on the 24th of December, from
the spontaneous combustion of her cargo.
There were 114 merchant ships at Buenos Ayres on
the 6th of January, of which 33 were British. . The
Fortuna arrived from Liverpool on the 4th, and the
Napoleon on the sth. The Adam Smith sailed on the
4th for. Liverpool. and the Arab for London on the same
day. The Ann Dingwell on the sth for F.lmouth.
The British steam-sloop Alecto, Commander Massing.
berg, the American sloop of war St. Louis, 20, and the
Brazilian sloop Bertioga, 16, were the only vesscla of
war at Buenos Ayres.

NA VAL INTELLIGENCE.
PORTSMOUTH, FRIDAY.—The Fairy went to Osborne
at an early hour this morning, anti embarked General
Sir C. J. Napier at the pier, at a quarter before ten
o'clock. She landed him about twenty mintites past
ten at the Victoria pier.
Stromboli steam-sloop, Captain Lord, A. W•
Beauclerk, is hourly expected here on her way to Ply.
mouth. She is to embark supernumeraries here for the
Caledonia, if she arrives in time. If not, they are to be
sent in the Myrtle steam-tender, Second-Master Com-
mander Scarlett (acting).

IN PORT AND FITTING.
In Commission—Victory, 22, Port Admiral's flag-
ship; Illustrious, 10, flag-ship of Admiral Superinten-
dent; Victoria and Albert, Royal yacht; Excellent, gun
gery exercise ship; Blenheim, 56, steam-block ship, and
guardship of steamers; Arrogant, 46, steam-frigate;
and Rolla, 6, exercise brig for naval apprentices. Rifle-
man, screw steam-schooner; Fairy, Fire Queen, and
Myrtle, steam. tenders; Bee, steam exercise vessel for
Naval College; Echo, steam tug vessel; Portsmouth,
Admiral Superintendent's yacht; and Fanny, Cowman.
der-in-Chief's yacht.
At Spithead—Superb, 80.
In Dock—Princess Charlotte, 104; Blenheim, 56,
steeavmastgautioarnlsshtiepa;m
sip.
Vindictive,oo 50; Flying Fish, 12; and
Devastation,
In the Ship Basin—Collingwood, 80 ; Pembroke,
72 ; Defence, convict hulk; and Sparrow, snrTeying
ketch.
In the Steam Basin—Ajax, 56, steam guardship;
Retribution and Termagant, steam-frigates; Cormorant,
steam .sloop; Bloodhound, Urgent, and Sprightly, steam-
packets.
__

Wind, N. by E.; light breezes and hazy weather.

MANSION-HOUSE.—We are glad to see that the
Lord Mayor is keeping up the ancient hospitalities of the
( i y, having this week entertained several large parties,
aryl a numerous Company of his own ward have received
invitations for Monday. His Lordship has issued cards to
a party of Members of the House of Commons for &arm.
day, and we hear the entertainment on Easter Monday
will be attended by the French and other Ambassadors
and many of the nobility.
- ENTERTAINMENTS AT THE MANSION-HOUSE.—The
Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress entertain. d at dinner
a large party of the principal members of the Coal Ex-
change on Wednesday last. The annual dinner to the
officers of the household was also given, according to
ancient custom of the City. On Monday next the Lord
Mayor will entertain a large party of the gentlemen con.
nected with Farringdon Ward.
THE GAS QUESTlON.—Thursday evening a Public'
meeting of the gas consumers resident in the city
held at the London Tavern, Bishopsgate
purpose of receiving the report of a.comm
z of appointedcommittee
emost on the 21st ult., by
chair,e terrn
as
nodf
a public meeting
the purpose of
in-
terested in the question, and -street, for watt
gtoonthteh
the report. Mr. J. Dillon was
proceedings by calling upon the honorary
opened the
taking the determination of the
cmaelleedtin
deputationsa of the committee appointed on the 21st ult.
cretary to read the report.. That document stated that
had waited on the different gas companies for the pur-
pose of endeavouring to effect a satisfactory arrange-
ment with them before proceeding to adopt other mea-
sures. A correspondence had followed those interviews,
which had termieated in each of the companies declining
for the present to communicate their intentions with, re •
spent to a reduction in the price of gas. The report
then adverted to the measures which were being taken
for the formation of new gas companies. It stated that
from the great improvements recently introduced in its
manufacture, gas could be produced at a price to the
consumer of 4s. per 1,000 cubic feet. The reportoon-
eluded by an expression of opinion that the only plan
whereby the citizens of London were likely to ensure a
supply of
gas at a fair price was by the encouragement
of competition, through the promotion of a new com-
pany. The report having been adopted, Mr. Boville, a
gas engineer, said he was pre pared to prove that gas
manufactured in the coal district could be supplied to
the metropolis at a cost of 3s. per 1,000 cubic feet. The
pSrtainicoirpd, and was approved by the late Mr. Stephenson,le had been adopted between Birmingham and
Mr. Brunel, M. Arago, and other eminent engineers. '
On the suggestion of Mr. C. Pearson, Vi.p.,
ft resolution
was carried to this effect:—That the meeting approve of
the plan proposed by the Great Central Gas Consumers .
Company, by which they seek to unite the interests of
gas buyers and gas sellers by requiring a certain num-
ber of shares to be taken by consumers. That this
committee do not deem it to be within their province to
influence individuals to take upon themselves the pecu-
niary responsibilities in respect of shares, but recommend
such gas consumers of the city as donot take shares to enter
into an agreement with the Greaf.Central City Consumers
Cciotymipvaitnhy,gauspoonf theirsupe r bindingior
quality themselves a
ta
price not exceed-
ing 4s. per 1,000 cubic feet The meeting then tcrini-
nated .

•
Dispatches were sent off yesterday evening from the
Colonial-office for the Governor of the West Indira
Colonies.