The Sun.
London, England, 1849-12-06 00:00:00

LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING,

, the masque of fragrant flower beds. Ten years before
we had stood upon that spot, and could then have
counted is graves of" mat k and likelihood;' now they
tie thick about one, and there is difficulty in recalling
not only the most striking of the monuments, but the
wanes of the once important personats who tenant
them. Then it was but a sepulchral suburb, sprinkled
with ornate tombs, the principal of which were
Ducrol,v's mausoleum, with its shattered garlands arid
broken pillar, beehive,. and sphinxes—then only
tenanted by his wife; that of St. John Long, with
its ten:plc crowns d summit, and drooping female
figure with the E-culapian serpent round her arm ;
Freeling pillar, with its capital commenced ; the
vault of the Ilygeist ; the simple grave of the mother
of the writer of "Rook wood; ' and a few others of
less well-known names. Now it has become a mono-
mental city; a little knot of aristocracy keep their
state in the catacombs, and a prince of the royal blood
has his granite place in the midst; judges, warriors,
and merchants, churchmen and simple citizens, wi:h
few others, whose epitaphs are written in the afl'ec
tions of their fellow men, not only of this generation,
but of those that are to co:ne, make up the eleniants
of which thii mixed society is composed,
.and type
themselves in marble alter death.

THE WELSH CHURCH.
LETTER V.
TO THE EDIIOR OF TILE SUN.

S►n,-1 have already exhibited various instances of
churches in the hincipali y which are wholly ahan.
doned as places of worship. Many more might Le
mentioned at which the attendance is so scanty, that
the diffused congregation would be insufficient to
afford one individual to each pew.
Let any.s.ranger go un a Sunday into almost any
rural church in Wales, aad he must immediately
reinlrk the smallness of the assemblage. On inquiry
he will generally Lind that there is only one service
in a day, the clergyman having duty to perform in
other churches. Let that stranger next visit the local
Welsh meeting houses, and be will find them inva-
riably thronged three or four times a day to the very
doors.

It would be superfluous for me to select instances,
for throughout all the rural districts of Wales the
churches are empty, and the Welsh Dissenting cha-
pals are full. Dlss.ent is evPryw here alive in energetic
activity, while Episcopal Christianity is dying. The
cause too is as obvious as the effect: the people love
religion, and desire spiritual instruction from men
who speak their own language, enter into their fiell rigs.
and share their predilection for poetry, singing, and
mu ic, and elevate their minds with earnest and
impassioned oratory. They will not attend upon
services which they cannot feel as well as understand.
They will not accept a mere form or ceremonial of
religion for a living reality. Had the Bishops of
the Welsh Church during the last hundred and forty
years provided it with native pastors as pious, as
zealous, and as diligent as the Dissenting teachers,
then would the Welsh people, fond as they are by
temperament of ail ancient and venerable usages,
have been found at this day rejoicing within its
precincts, a nation of stedfast Churchmen, instead of
a nation of Dissenters.

Things have now been urged to an extremity, and the
very existence of the Welsh Church apparently
depends upon the remodelling of her hierarchy.
ENGLISII Bishops have brought this Church to the
crumbling verge of ruin. For nine years, indeed,
Bishop Thirlwall has teen studiously endeavouring
to remedy an irremediable ill, by the palliating
expe_dient of acquiring the native language, yet he
remains a dry scholar still, and though an able
linguist he is an intflicient Welsh preacher, incapable
of carr3 ing out the reforms which he admits to be
necessary, unable to fit his visitation charges to the
requirements of his clergy, incapable of comprehend-
ing the full responsibillity of his own position, and
unwilling and incompetent to understand the character
of the Cy mry. lie offers a conspicuous example, a
beacon warning to Ministers of State against similar
appointments. His whole course of inconsistent
Episcopal management in the diocese of St. David's
emphatically proves, that if the Church of Wales can
even yet be saved, upheld and restored to vigorous
usefulness, it cannot be by the efforts of the most
learned of the English Prelates. The inference is
clear, the earthly hopes of the Welsh Church are all
concentrated in a native hierarchy. The whole
system of Ecclesiastical government in Wales is so
completely disorganized as to require the aid, not
merely of conscientious rulers, but of able reformers,
which I shall still further demonstrate in my next
letter. I am, Sir, &c.,
GORBONIAN.

THE « TIME" AND THE HUNGA-

RIAN EXILES.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.

Sir,—Your paper, of which only accumulated
numbers occasionally reach us, contains unfounded
imputations on the Hungarian refugees, and in par-
ticular cn the late President-Governor of Hungary.
As baying been during several months, and up to
the present time, attached to and never separated
from the person of M. Kossuth, and as being perhaps
as cognizant as himself of his private transactions and
affairs, 1 am enabled circumstantially to refute -the
charges to which you have attempted to give cur-
rency. Being the only person, beside Count Casimir
Batthyany, who accompanied him when he retired
from Arad, I consider myself so far implicated in
your general remarks, as to feel entitled to claim the
insertion in your columns of the facts which consti-
tute that refutation.

conOdnitiotnheallly3tdheloegf
atptettnhebcprowM. Kss
ersoofuth, having
government,
with which he had been invested by the Diet, to
Gorgey, quitted Arad. He had then 1,000 ducats
(less than 5001.) in his posiession. At Mariaradna
we were met by M. Dusehek, the Finance Minister,
who asked his instructions as to the disposal of 90
cwt. of gold and silver ingots, valued at 5,000,000
florins, nearly 500,0001. of your English money.
M. Kossuth had then due to him upwards of
33,000 florins, being two months' arrears of the salary
awarded to him by the Diet. The state was at the
same time indebted to Count Casimir Batthyany in
nearly the full amount of his salary since he had been
minister, besides 42,000 florins advanced to the Trea-
sury out of his private purse.
LI. Kossuth sent this treasure back untouched to
Arad for public purposes, ordering M. Duschek only
to pay over out of the arrears due to him as Pre-
sident Governor 5,000 florins to the account of his
mother.

The 1,000 ducats which M. Kossuth took with
him from Arad had been diminished by various ex-
penses, mostly of a public nature, to less than half
by the time he reached the Turkish frontier ; and
this sum, together with a small travelling bag, was
all the property with which the late President- Go-
vernor of Hungary entered Widdin. As to the
crown of Hungary, it was sealed up by a committee
of the Diet, and delivered into the charge of the
responsible Minister, who duly provided for its safety.
I can solemnly aver, to the best of my belief and
knowledge, that the President Governor never saw it
in his life.

These, Sir, are the facts to which, as a gentleman,
I pledge my word of honour. They will, I think,
dispose of the calumnies by which, wittingly or un-
wittingly, you have allowed your columns to lx-! so
disgraced. To the correspondent or correspondenta
—your authority—l cannot even extend the benefit
of this alternative indulgence. I cannot believe that
their calumnies were forged even at Pesth or Vienna,
because Kossuth's Austrian enemies would assuredly
have framed some scandal more plausible than a charge
of which his whole life had been a glaring refutation.
Everybody in llungary knows that M. Kossuth's
disregard of his personal interests induced several
proprietors and magnates to propose, even before he
was yet a limber of the Diet, endowing him
with considerable estates. Everybody knows that
M. Kossuth refused this honourable testimonial, as
well as on all otly.r occasions the frequent offers made
by his political admirers and friends to compensate
the injury to his private affairs occasioned by tha
exclusive dedication of his time and talents to the
public interests.
The Parliamentary transactions of a snore recent
period show with how much difficulty he was induced,
as President- Governor of Hungary, to accept the
salary of '200,000 florins voted to him by the Diet;
and the whole of Hungary is aware how large—how
inconsiderately large I may venture to remark—was
the proportion of this salary spent in charities.
I am a soldier, not a penman, Sir, and can there.
fore only call on your anonymous informant or in-
formants to conic forth, that I may fling by name the
falsehood in their teeth. 'At the same time you must
understand that, as I am yielding to a purely per.
sonal impulse, the publication of this letter can form
no impediment to such legal steps as the late Presi-
dent Governor, on his arrival in England, may think
fit, in vindication of his character, to take against
yourself', as the responsible circulator of such calum
nious aspersions.

I an, Sir, your obedient servant,
ALEXANDER ASI3OTII,
Lieutenant-Colonel, Adjutant General to the
x-President-Governor of Hungary.
Widdin, Nov. 1.

FASHIONS IN MOURNING.—bar. Landells, the
eminent artist and wood-engraver, has been enga'ed,
du+ing the week, in making elaborate drawings of the
mosi recherché examples of the novelties of fashion for
the approaching general mourning. These illustrations
will horn a large portion of the forthcoming number of
the Lady's Newspaper, being intended to serve us un-
erring guide sin the arrangement of the toilet. The
specimens selected are distinguished for unquestionable
taste end surpassing elegance, and a i.l prove of the
greatest service to those persons who, residing at a
distaLco, aro deprivtd of the advantages of seeing the
originals which have been chosen by the leaders of
n tore thnseleeti?Ls made by the Messrs. JayOgoketh
the ParLittn and English Mardands de Modes.lM

lIA.RRISON AINSWORTH'S WORKS.
WINDSOR CASTLE. Pp. 220, Conzplele in
One Volume.

Following the example of several of his eminent
con'emporartes who are endeavouring to popularize
sail further their already popular productions, 'Mr.
William Harris ;n Ainsworth is now republishing his
well known fictions is a form of extraordinary cheap.
ness. " Windsor Castle," formerly issued in a costly
shape, with illustrations by Cruikibank, is here
before us in a compact book, printed on excellent
paper and with the clearest type. Within the com-
pass of 220 pages are coliec:ed together the six
books of the famous chronicle of the national palace.
These who dt light in the marvellous adventures con-
nected with Herne, the goblin huntsman ; in the hu-
morous rencontres between Patch and ill SoinerF,
the jesters of Cardinal Wolsey and his royal master;
in the fortunes of Mabel, of Tristram, of
Surrey, of Wyatt, of Fen wolf, of Geral-
dine, of Catharine, of Anne Boleyn, and
especially of the right high and puissant King Henry
thy Eighth, will prize a volume which comprises the
whole narrative in rmrtahle ditnensiona. ALhough
not one of the most feliAtous of our romancer's his-
torical tales, this brilliant fiction is nevertheless
characterised by considerable power; and is more
particularly remarkable fur the vividness with which
it pourtrays a remote agt,, blending together moreover,
without any apptia-nt Hirt, much less any strikiug
anomaly, the generally incongruous materials of
diablerie and reality. The panorama unfolded to us
by Harrison Ainsworth in this (inantfestly his
favourite) fiction, is marked by its gorgeous colour-
ing and its judicious delineation of character. Several
of the historical personages, especially Henry himself,
are admirably' sketched, tallying in almost every
particular with our ideals drawn from the memorials
of contemporary scribes Remembning
the maudlin outcry raised a few years since against
Mr. Ainsworth as a novelist, we shall not be at all
surprised if this cheap re issue of his compositions be'
the theme of much prudish and preposterous repre-
hension. Of this, however, we are equally well satisfied,
that the jeers ef cint and the sarcasms of a stilted
morality, will hive no effect .upon the circulation of
works calculated iu no respect to lower the tone of
society, or to deprave the public imagination any
more than the works of some of the most celebrated
and lauded authors in our literature. What is a

subject to us of profound indignation—to 'us, tent)
and entire strangers to Mr. Harrison Ainsworth—is
that most absurd outcry raised against him as the
originator of that school of literature in which crime
is made the theme of fiction, and in which the hero
is the criminal. Harrison Ainsworth, the originator
' of this school of romance ! One might as
' readily accuse the blossom of being the cause
of the seed, the roots, the stalk, the branches,
and the bud from which it has emanated. Why, the
veriest blockhead in her Majesty's dominions is aware
that this species of fictitious composition was in vogue
in the days of 2Eschylus and Euripide., in the age of
Shakspere, and in the time of Boccaccio ; and that,
to come nearer our own era, it was the mode with,
some of the noblest and most eulogized intellects.
Fielding, we opine, has chosen one of the most vil-
lanous wretches that ever crawled upon God's earth
as the hero of one of his most renowned works, the
" History and Adventures of Jonathan Wild." God-
win, we presume, mutt be regarded as the author of
"Caleb Williams,"mnd "Caleb Williams," we believe,
is the celebration of the career of a murderer. Nay,
nearer still to a contemporary period—Sir
Bulwer Lytton had recounted the life and
death of Eugene Aram, together with
the vicissitudes of the highwayman Paul
Clifford, while. Charles Dickens had limned to the
very life the brutal ruffian, Mr. William Sykes, in
the narrative of " Oliver Twist," long before "Jack
Sheppard " Ns as published in the pages, of the very
same magazine which had immortalised the murderer
of Nancy. And yet Harrison Ainsworth—not
Dickens, or Bulwer, or Godwin, or Fielding, but
Harrison Ainsworth—is accused of having been the
originator, forsooth, of' this school of romantic litera-
ture. If to have followed in the wake of half a hun-
dred novelists, and to be the last in point of time, in-
stead of the first, be to be the originator of this
system of composition, then, but not otherwise, must
we regard Mr. Ainsworth as the originator of this
species of romance. The logic of his assailants is
amusing,—he is the predecessor because he is the
successor. It reminds us of Mrs. Malaprop in
Sheridan's comedy, " Come, sir, you're our envoy,
lead the way and will precede I" What we maintain in
regard to the cause of our indignation in this matter
is simply as follows :—lt strikes us as being rather
too bad to have applauded Fielding first, and then
Godwin, and then Bulwer-Lytton, and then Dickens,
and at last to have come down unexpectedly, pelf-
harutn-scarum, upon Harrison Ainsworth for
following exactly in the same track. First of all the
public foster the germs of a certain style, and then,
when those germs have blossomed, become outrage-
ous. Nay—every one had already lauded to the very
skies Mr. Ainsworth's previous romance of " Rook-
wood," in which Dick Turpin, the highwayman,
figures very conspicuously. But lo ! and behold,
after swallowing with a relish Fielding's " Jona.
than Wild," and Godwin's " Caleb Williams,"
tied Bulwer's " Eugene Aram," (a work which
elicited the panegyric of Sir Walter Scott), and his
"Paul Clifford," and Dickens's " Oliver Twist," and
even Mr. Ainsworth's own work of " Rookwood,"
the public suddenly became squeamish on the
appearance of "Jack Sheppard," and visit the
who!e of the bile of their spurious and pretended
morality on the unfortunate head of William llar-
rison Ainsworth. Pshaw we have no patience with
such wretched exhibitions of sanctimoniousness on the
part of those who have tolerated so much deserving
real reprehension. They call to our recollection
the disgusting assumption of sanctity visible on the
part of Joseph Surface at the very time when the
screen conceals the object of his adulterous intrigue.
If "Jack Sheppard' merits condemnation, then
most certainly does every one of the kindred
works already enumerated; and yet the vial of popular
wrath is poured out exclusively over the, former.
In spite of the abuse of an ungenerous hypocrisy, the
principal among the fictions of Harrison Ainsworth
have ;till preserved their popularity, for the intelli-
gent public of readers cannot fail to recognize their
peculiar, and in their way, their consummate ability.
Dick Turpin's Ride to York—one of the most
brilliant, and altogether one of the most
remarkable descriptive passages in the language—is
still fresh in the popular recollection. It cannot,
moreover, be forgotten how trany bygone personages
have been resuscitated by the magic wand of the
novelist :round the ancient buildings of o.d Saint
Paul's, Saint James's, the Tower of London, and
Windsor Castle. Versatility delineated in ‘• Crichton,"
fanaticism in " Guy Fawkes," a long past age
in the " Miser's Daughter," and another remote
period in the " Lancashire Witches," are still retained
in remembrance. Hence we can understand the
rapid sale of the first edition of this cheap re-iesue—
that sale having been completed on the first day of
publication. Tawdry and meretricious decorations
there undoubtedly are in the writings of Mr. Aina-
worth, but there are also blended v<ith these
others of a genuine excellence—vigorous por-
traitures of the passions (chiefly, it is true, the
darker passions,). of humanity, enthralling succe
sions of incident, ingenious complications of plot,
and through all a delicate and subt:e analysis of'
character. Those are bis titles—and they ore high
Ones—to our consideration. Ills position 'as a no-
velist is very far indeed from being unimportant, for
he occupies the place in the present, which Mrs
Radcliffe occupied in the past generation.