The Sun.
London, England, 1849-09-03 00:00:00

SEPTEMBER 3, 1849.

THE M AGAZINES.
BLACKWOOD.
One of the most fascinating and scholarly contri-
butions we have ever read in Blackwood is contained in
the number for September. Apparently, from the
title, it might be deemed a mere criticism on the
famous book, D' Outre Tombe, of Chateaubriand.
But, on examination, it will be found to be immea-
surably more. It is not merely a review of those
particular memoirs, but it is a critical analysis of all
the most prominent of those masterly productions
coming within the ample scupe of autobiography. After
lamenting the irreparable loss of Hannibal's Life,
written by himself, and after casting a doubt upon
the authenticity of the authorship of the Commen-
taries, reputed to be those of Cxsar, the reviewer
passes under his scrutiny the autobiographies
of Gibbon, of Hume, of Scott, of Rous-
seau, of Alfieri, of Goethe, &c., &c. In
illustration of the pervading modesty of
our own autobiographers as contrasted with the
French, we have here reproduced for our perusal those
simple, eloquent, and touching passages in which
" the greatest historian of modern times" recounted
the origin and the completion of his Annals of the
Rise and Fall of Rome. In testimony of the
egregious vanity and contemptible egotism of the
French autobiographers as compared with the
English, reference is made to that absurd remark of
the Abbe de Pradt, that one man overturned Na-
poleon, and that he was that man. We observe that
the writer coincides in an opinion already expressed
by ourselves, that " Raphael" contains the events of
the youth of Lamartine. One of the most attrac-
tive, we may say at once the most attractive, excerpt
in the contribution is that in which Chateau-
briand describes his first and only inter-
view with the greatest of all great men,
the Emperor Napoleon. Bitterly as he hated
that new Sesostris, Chateaubriand confesses that the
appearance of Napoleon " struck him with an agree-
able surprise." "His smile was sweet," says he,
" and encouraging—his eye beautiful—he had no
charlatanism in his looks, nothing affected or theatri-
cal in his manner—he would not have been what he
was if the Muse had not been there—reason in him
worked out the ideas of a poet." After depicting
very vividly the incidents of the interview, and telling
us that Napoleon suddenly withdrew, then, says he—
" Like Job in the night, .1" felt as if a spirit had passed
before me ; the hairs of my flesh stood up !" These
were the emotions (remembered and recorded many
years afterwards) of Chateaubriand on the occasion
of his first and only interview with Napoleon.
" The Caxtons " still sway us with their fascination.
The present instalment of the fiction is descriptive of
the life, as bushmen in Australia, of Pisistratus,
Vivian, and Guy Bolding. After five years Vivian,
having accumulated 4,0001., enters the army by his
real name De Caxton, obtaining a commission in a re-
giment in India—where he soon distinguishes himself
and obtains promotion to a lieutenancy. The repro-
bate has been thoroughly reformed. Guy Bolding
marries and settles permanently in the New World—
but after ten years' absence from home, Pisistratus
having gained a comfortable competence, returns to
England. The hundredth chapter closes with his
departure homewards from Adelaide. Out in
Australia he has encountered once or twice
Uncle Jack, who by improved speculations, and
by returning part of the money out of which he had
swindled poor Austin, partially redeems his cha-
racter. Mr. Trevanion, wearied of statesmanship,
retires from public life, taking his seat in the Upper
House as Earl of LTlverstone. His daughter Fanny
has really married Lord Castleton, and her second
child is heir to her father's title. In one part of the
present instalment of the " Caxtons" it is most feli-
citously said that " the sense of property is the core of
social morals." " The Green Hand" still remains in-
complete, and proves only in that respect its right to
the title of a " Short Yarn." " The Scottish Mar-
riage and Registration Bills" will secure to itself a
perusal of which it is peculiarly worthy—seeing that
it is a lucid and succinct epitome of a question
affecting the social condition and domestic relations
of a large portion of the community. A painful
chapter is the one on the " Moral and Social Condi-

tion of Wales," and an entertaining one,the
criticism on " The Stray Reveller." " New Light on
the Story of Lady Grange " furnishes another page to
the curiosities of history and literature. " The Royal
Progress " we take to be a leaf of our contemporary
annals, from the eloquent and loyal pen of
Alison. When he speaks of " the mind-quake of
1848," we cannot but recognise the voice of the
eminent historian. " Christopher under Canvass" is
as garrulous and as wise as heretofore—his criticism,
too, is more than ever keen, ruthless, and even
sometimes, notwithstanding its subtlety, absolutely
barbaric. He takes a famous passage from " Childe
Harold," and rends the beauty from it as pitilessly as
a Red Indian would have pealed the scalp from the
head of Alcibiades.

IThis essay on Shakspere's character of Cleo-
patra is a masterpiece of criticism, and we hope
to have the pleasure of again meeting
this writer on Shaksperian ground. The
magazine opens with a review of the works of several
recent travellers, in the course of which that excellent
work by Mr. Alexander Mackay, entitled the
" Western World," is the subject of most deserved
enlogium,: and Mr. Colman's "European Life and
Manners," is as deservedly smashed. In a paper on
" Fagging," that detestable system, by which boys
are treated as slaves, and consequently when emanci-
pated from its thraldom become tyrants, is upheld
and defended as a portion of " the wisdom of our
ancestors"—it is needless for us to add that we differ
Coto ccelo from the views of this writer. Michael
South continues the very amusing "Peace Campaigns
of Ensign Faunce," and Morgan Rattler gives us
a metrical version of the first ode of Horace, which
he hopes some scholars may in some sort fancy for
its fidelity to the Horatian original. Had Morgan
Rattler read Mr. Robinson's elegant translation of
the same ode we are inclined to think he would not
have published this version. Mr. Robinsan's transla-
tion is even more faithful to the original, and infinitely
more graceful and flowing. We have, besides, a well
written biography of Madame Reeamier, and several
other papers of interest.

DAVID COPP.EI?FIELD. No. V. By Charles
Dickens.
Two out of the five instalments already published
of "David Copperfield " have been conceived and
written in the very happiest style of its illustrious
author, those numbers are the second and the fifth,
the number for June and the number for this present
September. Little David, it will be remembered,
was left at the end of the twelfth chapter in a
deplorable plight, bereft of his half-sovereign, of his
box, and almost, we might say, of his senses. Chapter
the Thirteenth gives an enthralling and touching
narrative of the poor child's misadventures on the
road to Dover, and recounts the vicissitudes of hope
and fear, fatigue and starvation, through which be at
last reached the cottage of his aunt, Betsey Trotwood.
Mr. Dolloby—Salem House, again—one of the.
cannon at Chatham--the maniac marine store-shop-
keeper—the orchards and hop-grounds in plea-
sant Kent the tramps and hop-pickers— the
sunny streets of Canterbury, and the bare
downs of Dover—the boatmen and fly-drivers, all
lend their several aids to the completion of the
picture. The old madman who is always
screeching out " Oh, my eyes and limbs, what
do you want ? Oh, my lungs and liver, what do you
want ? Oh, goroo, goroo 1" is no caricature, but a
marvellously truthful sketch, which presents to us a
specimen of a gents unhappily rather numerous. But
for her sex we should be disposed, in our enthusiasm,
to call Miss Betsey Trotwood a decided trump. As it is,
we must term her, most respectfully, a good, eccentric
tidy, warm-hearted, strong-minded, gentle, resolute,
lady, capable of any deed of heroism or generosity,
from befriending poor little Davy, up to the infliction
of summary punishment upon donkies and donkey-
drivers. Her emotion on first seeing her nephew,
when she sat down and ejaculated at intervals,
" Mercy on us ! letting those exclamations off
like minute guns," is characteristically described.
The household of Miss Trotwood consists of
that admirable lady herself; of one Mr. Richard
Babley, otherwise Mr. Dick, a kind of natural or half
idiot (what you call "cracked"), who is alternately
flying immense kites, and penning memorials, in
which he perpetually introduces King Charles the
First; and a blooming serving-maid, named
Janet—" one of a series of protegees whom my
aunt had taken into her service expressly to educate
in a renouncement of mankind, and who had gene-
rally completed their abjuration by marrying the
baker." " Phiz" has illustrated the scenes enacted at
Miss Tretwood's with two of his inimitable etchings,
in which, as usual, he has quite caught the spirit of
" Boz." The sketch of David in Mr. Dick's trousers
and shirt, tied up besides in two or three shawls
of Aunt Betsey's, is wonderfully ridiculous.
" I don't know," says he, very innocently,
" what sort of a bundle I looked, but I
know I felt a very hot one." Droll, as most parts of
the chapter are,' its conclusion is singularly beautiful.
It is when little David describes his going up to bed
for the first time in Aunt Betsey's cottage :
" The room was a pleasant one, at the top of the
house, overlooking the sea, on which the moon was
shining brilliantly. After I had said my prayers, and the
candle had burnt out, I remember how I still sat looking
at the moonlight on the water, as if I could hope to read
my fortune in it, as in a bright book; or to see my
mother with her child, coming from heaven, along that
shining path, to lor,k upon me as she had looked when I
last saw her sweet face. I remember how the solemn
feeling with which at length I turned my eyes away
yielded to the sensation of gratitude and rest which the
sight of the white-curtained bed—and how mueh more
the lying softly down upon it, nestling in the snow- white
sheets!—inspired. I remember how I thought of all
the solitary places under the night sky where I had
slept, and how I prayed that I never might be houseless
any more, and never might forget the houseless. I re-
member how I seemed to float, then, down the melan-
choly glory of that track upon the sea, away into the
world of dreams."
A capital: scene takes place between Miss Trotwood
and Mr. Dick on the one side, and Mr. and Miss
Murdstone on the other—in which interview the two
latter wash their hands of David Copperfield, and
the responsibility of his fortune and education is
definitively assumed by aunt Betsey. By the way,
that lady's reference to' the supposititious sister of
David, the baby that was to have been born—Betsey
Trotwood Copperfield, has an effect exquisitely absurd.
Assuredly this is the very Mrs. Harris of infants.
Chapter the Fifteenth records hnw David makes
another beginning—being taken to Canterbury,
where he is to go to school, and where he boards at
the house of one Mr. Wickfield. Mr. Wickfield's
house and Mr. Wickfield's little daughter Agnes are
charmingly depicted, and we make the acquaintance
of a personage named Uriah Heep, who, we fancy,
will be no subordinate character.