The Sun.
London, England, 1838-09-01 00:00:00

BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY.

The first article in the present Number is from the pen of
Boz, and is headed " Full Report of the Second Meeting
of the Mudfog Association for the Advancement of Every-
thing." It is a clever quiz upon some of the most pedantic
of our scientific societies, but we would rather have had
some more chapters of " Oliver Twist," for which the
Mudfog Association is but an indifferent substitute. A
" Chapter on Gourmanderie" treats an important subject
with all the staid and learned gravity due to its importance.
If there be truth in old Sam Johnson's remark that " people
love to read about eating and drinking," this chapter, re-
plete as it is with useful knowledge, should be highly popu-
lar. " A Cambridge Row in the year 1632" introduces us
to the young Cantabs, Milton, and Oliver Cromwell, who
are represented as getting up—or rather as aiding and
abetting—in a glorious academical skrimmage. There is
some spirit in the article, but we doubt whether Cromwell
ever graduated at the University. " Paper-money Lyrics"
is lightly and gracefully versified. We subjoin it accord-
ingly :

" PAPER MONEY LYRICS,
CHORUS OF BUBBLE BUYERS."

`" When these practisers come to the last decoction, blow, blow,
puff, puff, and all flies infunzo. Poor wretches! I rather pity their
folly and indiscretion than their loss of time and money : for these may
be restored by industry : but to be a fool born is a disease incurable.' "
Berg Johnson's rolpone.

" Oh ! where are the hopes we have met in a morning,
As we hustled and bustled around Capel Court ?
When we laugh'd at the croakers that bade us take warning,
Who once were our scorn, and now make us their sport.
Oh ! where are the regions where well-paid inspectors
Found metals omnigenous, streak'd, and emboss'd ?
So kindly bought for us by honest directors,
Who charged us but three times as much as they cost.

Oh! where are the riches that bubbled like fountains,
In places we neither could utter nor spell,
A thoufand miles inland 'mid untrodden mountains,
Where silver and gold grew like heath and blue bell?
Oh! where are the lakes overflowing with treasure ?
The gold.dust that roll'd in each torrent and stream?
The mines that held water by cubic-mile measure,
So easily pump'd up by portable steam ?

That water our prospects a damp could not throw on ;
We had only a million horse power to prepare,
Make a thousand mile road for the engine to go on,
And sends coals from Newcastle to boil it when there,

Oh ! where are the bridges to span the Atlantic ?
Oh ! where is the gas to illumine the poles ?
They came to our visions—that makes us half frantic
They came to our pockets; that touches our souls.
Oh ! there is the seat of most exquisite f, cling :
The first pair of nerves to the pocket doth dive :
A wound in our hearts would be no time in healing,
But a wound in our pockets how can we survive ?

Now Guest be the projects, and curst the projectors,
And curst be the bubbles before us that roll'd,
Which, bursting, have left us like desolate spectres,
Bewailing our bodies of paper and gold.

For what is a man but his coat and his breeches,
His plate snd his linen, his land and his house?
Oh ! we had been men had we won our mock riches ;
But now we arc ghosts, each as poor as a mouse.

But shades as we are, we, with shadowy bubbles,
When the midnight bell tolls will through Capel-court glide,
And the dream of the Jew shall be turmoils and troubles,
When he secs each pale ghost on its bubble astride.
And the lecturing Scots that upheld the delusion,
By prating of paper, and wealth, and free tra,le,
Shall see us by night to their awe and confusion,
Grim phantoms of wrath that shall never be laid."
The " Legend of Walter Childe" is continued with un-
abated spirit this month. Some of the versification is singu-
larly felicitous, but though the poem affects occasionally to
be witty, it never rises above smartness. As an imitation
of Freer's manner, it is the best we have yet met with.
" Uncle Sam's Peculiarities" possess much of the quaint,
worldly good sense that characterises the remarks of that
stringer by wholesale of practical aphorisms—Samuel
Slick, the Yankee clock-maker. " A Night on the En-
chanted Mountains" is a wild, imaginative dream, that in
places reminds us of Washington Irving's famous legend of
Rip Van Winkle.

FRASER' S MAGA LINE.
The " Life of Wilberforce" professes to be a review of
the biography of that eminent man, lately published by his
sons, but is, in truth, a vehement attack on Whigs, Catho-
lics, and, in fact, on all:men and all parties who exhibit a pre-
dilection for Liberal and conciliatory measures. The Re-
viewer, of course, exhibits a strong partiality for Wilber-
force, who, however, was by no means the great and mag-
nanimous Statesman that his admirers—and no man ever
had more—would fain persuade the world he was. If he
had much of the wisdom, he had also no little of the cun-
ning of the serpent, as his conduct on the memorable occa-
sion of Queen Caroline's trial, proved beyond the possibi-
lity of refutation. Except on the single question of Negro
Slavery, which, greatly to his credit, he followed up Session
after Session with remarkable pertinacity, Wilberforce
wanted energy and decision of character. He was apt to
be apprehensive, and take fright at shadows—a great draw-
back on the character of a Statesman, especially in such
unprecedented times as those in which Wilberforce
lived. On the whole, we may safely pronounce him to be
a good, but not a great. man, who will descend to poste-
rity, not as the enlightened or far-sighted English Senator,
but as the eloquent and well-intentioned Author of the
" Evidences of Christianity?' The Article entitled " Jack
among the Lawyers" is, we presume, meant to be a political
allegory, but the satire and point are not sufficiently ob-
vious. " Remarks on Napoleon Bonaparte" is an Essay,
suggested by Dr. Channing's thoughts on that prolific
theme. The Reviewer does no more than justice to the
Doctor, who is unquestionrbly one of the finest spirits that
America ever produeet!. He has just estimated the rapt.
rial Despot at his fitting worth, " nothing extenuating, nor
setting down aught in malice." If his Essay have a de-

feet, it is, that the style is too curiously and elaborately po;
lished, and wants variety of cadence. " Whigs and Tories
is a rabid diatribe on the former party, professing, how-
ever, to be an impartial notice of Mr. Cooke's " History,
of Parties." In the notice of the " Birds of Aristophanes
we find much ingenious criticism expressed in a lively, fa'
miliar manner. The " Autobiography of the Hammer-
smith Ghost" is a passable trifle. From the Essay on
" Greek Comedy" we quote some pleasant extracts on the
English system of cookery :
" Nor, if we turn to Devonshire or Holland House, is the
improvement commensurate with the expectations excited by
the talents of the famous artists, who, in those Arcadian bowers
of gastronomy, devote their days and nights to the service of
the palate and dyspepsia. It is true that oysters, and Bur-
gundy, and herrings, procured through an ambassador, and
truffles from Goodwood, impart a pleasing sensation to the eye
and the palate ' • but what we call the poetry of the dinner is
wanting : the Muse of eating does not hover over the table,
like Spring in the Seasons, in a cloud of odour and roses ;
they are confined to the Epergne. We behold no imagination'
no graceful innovations upon obsolete customs, no delicate
allurements of fancy. The abolition of taking wine' is a
wholesome specimen of reform, but nothing more. We re-
gard the paraphernalia of twenty servants, heavy with crimson,
gold, and white gloves, in the light of a most useless encum-
brance. How different from the Attic repasts of ancient fes-
tivity ! Then, maidens, selected we suppose for their beauty
and grace, wafted the dishes to table, in airy and delightful
movements, to the sound of music. The picture of a girl
bearing a plate in her hand, which was discovered in Hercu-
laneum, is supposed to represent one of these attendants.
Ilere is an opening for genius and fortune ! Here is a glimpse
of Elysium I Here is an invention worthy of Victoria 1 A faint
approach to it was attempted by Ugo Foscolo, at his Digamo°
Cottage ; but the " three graces," though sufficient for the
menage of a bachelor, were quite incompetent to conduct the
experiment. Let M. Laporte educate his corps de ballet for
the employment : we promise them abun4ant and triumphant
patronage. Riches would be worth the possession, if we
might hope to eat a dish of nightingales' tongues, presented
to our hand in the mazy motion of Taglioni ; or the liver of a
peacock, offered by the finger of Duvernay. Brocard might
bring in the pastry ; and the Elslers would find employment
at the dessert. Before this delicious innovation can be intro-
duced, we must learn to handle a knife with a more accom-
plished dexterity. In Rome, seminaries for instruction in
carving were very fashionable and well attended. They are
noticed by Martial, Juvenal, and Petronius Arbiter ; Juvenal
mentions a certain Tryphernus as a celebrated professor of the
art. In these establishments, wooden figures of birds, ani-
mals, and fishes, such as the boar, the hare, the flamingo, the
Scythian pheasant, the white antelope, &c., were provided
for the practice of the pupils. Nor was this preliminary edu-
cation unnecessary, when we remember that the duties of the
table were regulated by music. Here is another opportunity
for the opulent to confer a dezp and lasting benefit upon so-
ciety, and distinction upon themselves; we hope to see the
evening when the merry-thought of a capon will be disengaged
to a tune from Don Juan ; and the majestic bosom of a turkey
sliced to the graver harmony of the Siege of Belgrade."

THE MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
Longman and Co.
With an abundance of talent and a cordial sympathy
with the feelings and wishes of the many there is a want of
variety in this periodical, which must tend to limit its cir-
culation among the middling classes. Seven articles, two
of them Reviews, and two more continuations of others
not upon the most important subjects, are not enough to
vary the pages of a Magazine which is expected to afford
subject-matter for political and literary gossip for at least fa
whole month. The opening article on Lord Durban's
mission may be regarded as a Ministerial defence of the
official acts of the Noble Earl; and a very able
as well as conclusive defence it is. But there ar°
some portions of the article in which very unjust reflec-
tions are obliquely glanced at Lord Brougham, and others,
in which the writer seems to be groping his way in the
dark, in ignorance of the light which history has shed upon
his path. Of the latter we shall quote a passage :
" It is not in any rancorous or vindictive spirit towards the
defeated party that we address these observations to their
apologists here. We only recur to the past to find some clue
to the future. We ascribe to the original framers of the
Lower Canadian Constitution, rather than to the popular
.as-
sembly which threw it over, the principal blame of its jarring_
and imperfect working. Perhaps it may be pronounced !o
have been impolitic, in the first instance, to have fostered In
the French province the feeling of a distinct nationality--,
nationality of a very tenacious, litigious, and intractible sort:
unable to stand alone in an Anglo- Saxonised continent, and
.
unable to rest quiet under external administration. It v°9:
one thing to confer local and municipal franchises throughott;
the province (which has not been done yet), and another t.
array them apart, as Mr. Pitt's Constitution did, into Frew!
and English political divisions, which may be thought to bay'
been the very way to encourage the dream of a nation Cano,
dienne, and nurse the germs of disturbance to our colonial
empire. Without deciding whether the tenures and titaF_ca;
of old France or o f England are the more.beneficial, or ,
whe-
ther something better might not be found for a new Co
wta
than either, we may confine ourselves to pointing outlonial
•
looks like ignorance of the fundamental principles of
government exhibited in investing a small population °t
foreigners, in a newly-acquired province, with a separate 5Ys;
tens of self-government. They did not want it; they did
An
i ask for t ; they did not know at first what to do with it.
when they. did begin to use it, the prediction might have ue.-1,
made. with certainty, that they would use it in accordance wt.
distinct and peculiar views and objects, inconsistent (in unc
troled action) with any fragment of English sway. We erected,
in truth, on the shores of the St. Lawrence, with British arras
and policy—with the constant and costly vigilance of
protection—a foreign republie—too small and feeble to ha,...
had a moment's independent existence—too compact in sere
rate organisation not to embarrass our future course. If la
had not thought fit to isolate the nation Canadienne, Thereu
not have had to struggle with its separate claims.
,„would, as in other colonies, have been grievances to reme"Ji;
and reforms to effect, but the contest would not have taken
the type we have recently witnessed. We may be said,
therefore, to owe one source of that contest to an excess -
Liberalism. Briton()
" As the artificial erection of a petty foreign political powbeer
was et variance with one great point of Colonial policy, 8° t
equally artifical attempted counterpoise of a mock aristocrof
was equally inconsistent with another, and absurd in itse.
To these two sources, that is to say, to the neglect of the Vire
ciples of Colonial policy, both as. t
regards the interest of the
mother country, and the elements of social progress in ,
colony, may, we think, be traced the whole of the embarrass"
ments which now surround us. To surmount a French ure;
public with an aristocracy on the English model, was
Pitt's double Utopia in the Lower Canadian Constitutloo,
Never surely did one Minister's brain engender two such Ines
sters together."
The reason why Pitt conceded to the Canadians the el
j-
oyment of a Constitution framed upon a French Inedeiv;
was simply to perpetuate a jealousy between them and utt
people of the United States. Subsequent events proved tra
the Minister of that day was not mistaken in his nietqc
of obtaining a result, which he regarded as a master-s!r° 0t
of policy. To say that the Canadians themselves did.%
wish for the preservation of their old form of administrattov;
is notoriously incorrect. It is true that they might h,%b
gained by the early establishment among them of
institutions, but we are convinced that it is equally certe,o
that, in such a case, Lower Canada would long since P%
formed one of the states of the American Federal V°'°';',
The article on " Modern Engraving" is well worthy the a
tention of artists and critics generally, being evidently the Pr°..
duction of one to whom the labours f the engrayer'are feint,
liar. A review of Mr. Hogarth's musical Memoirs introduces
a clever, well-written essay on the present state of Enol
musical literature. There is likewise a very good articlet
on the Drama, as exhibited in the success of' the different
metropolitan theatres during the last season. The literati-1;i
notices are very numerous, and the Notes of the Mc'n
carefully selected and condensed.

THE DUBLIN UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE'
Holdszvorth. don
The " puny and gentlemanlike Conservatism of nioh.
.days" is not the stuff to supply Anthony Poplar with 5„-ir•
ject-matter for congratulation at the close of a Parlio%J.
tarp Session ; and therefore we are not surprised to find
our Irish Monthly Contemporary in anything but g° fp,
humour at the continued exclusion of Peel, Wellingt°6l
and Lyndhurst from the, to Tory Constitutions, glor
atmosphere of Downing-street. The " alias" has tionl
the Tories what it is presumed to do for more /11 fed
rogues. It has converted a pack of daring, unprinoillet,
place-hunters, who, aiming only at being feared, we13,..01,
dom unsuccessful, into a gang of whining, hyrerl"*ith
petty knaves who would unite an honest reputation e-
the pursuits of a suspected pilferer. The Tories deg ith.
rated when they grew ashamed of Toryism, wrrni-
out daring to be honest. As Tories they were f°tori,
dable to the last—they stood forth the his rin-
cally recognized defenders of the divine right ,P,ical
ciple ; whereas, as Conservatives, they arc mere Pr'self.
mushrooms—the bastard offspring of a self-convict
n0:1
annihilated faction. So much for the opening
the " Last Session of Parliament." The two °rcigt final
letters of Swift will be read with great interest—for c:l,. after
authenticity it would be ungenerous to express a dour ;rvtv
the Editor's grave declaration to that effect. The °us- ful
tions by which they are followed may supply food for ose
reflection :
is lathe
which a peculiarity in the character of Swift's , the
which is worthy of observation ; he did not censure on'Yd, or
follies and the vices which education may have cngencieriratiog
custom superinduced his was a mournful and a hula' attire
task—it was to expose, to decry, to ridicule human the
motleyitse vOestthe;rs had lauhed at the pompous trappings hand,
anatomized thebu
but
Herren he, withand s
sinewsar ch i eye
laayri
and exposed whatever was base or feeble in hurnan'tis' gad
laughed at, as matter of scorn, the evidences of weakness bdeunneaPtharrd,getecatneda
of corruption, which should be to mankind a subjectty_.
derment and sorrow. No doubt his predilection for
..o!kadost
cies of satire which is peculiarly his, must have been 02 gads u;
growth ; attracted to it by the same curiosity whiell,,a us 01
to explore the secrets of the charnel-house, and "1"
our mina
from oue spectacle of corruption to another, until
and
we carbecomes filled with images of death and of decay, bleed
behold nothing goodly in the comeliness of flesh and

le toiled in the noisome and unnatural vocation to which he
had devoted himself, until he could see nothing but what was
despicable or revolting in human nature; and thus was created
lxl is mind that bleak want, which is discernible throughout
Its melancholy history, and which of necessity begot those
feelings of bitter isolation, those mysterious repinings, which
!'e the allotted punishment of him who has looked too far into
the secret things of nature, and thus in a measure unfitted
himself for the state in which he lives. For there is a feeling
Which should be regarded, because God has given it largely to
here,
which should be valued because it is necessary to our living
„'re, as God would have us live, which should be cherished,
because resistance or even neglect may for ever kill it, and
That is a certain feeling of respect for human nature—the
power of seeing it, not as an unvaried mass of what is sordid,
despicable, and base, but as it is, the strange combination of
°Pnosites, the melancholy and mysterious union of strength
weakness, beauty and deformity, glory and shame—the
Wish' among all the jarring elements of our constellation, to
see, to acknowledge, and to honour the fragments of a grander
and angelic nature; but in the mind of Swift that feeling was
twithered and gone, almost before the mind itself had attained
5 maturity.
It is a melancholy spectacle to behold the alternate yearn-
Pgs and recoilings of a mind thus self-divested of sympathy, the
incompleteness of all its friendships, the conflicting struggles
°I the double nature, the ever-wakeful repinings, the ever-
recurring bitterness, the taint which mass the sweetness of
everything, ~putidurn latet alerts in ore." But although Swift
that of seeing and making others see whatever was imperfect
and mean within it, he was not a misanthrope ; he was capable
fe;, !
warm and tender attachments, and of affections and emo-
tions, which would have appeared too soft and too delicate for
a mind like his. The anecdotes related, I think in Sheridan's,
certainly in Scott's Life of Swift, strongly illustrate this.
When Sheridan was breaking up his establishment and leaving
Dublin, Swift paid him a last visit, and having sat for a long
lime sullenly silent in the midst of the friends who were just
about to depart, he suddenly arose and rushed into an inner
room, where they found him in floods of tears—he wept long
and bitterly. There is something touching, almost beautiful,
in this spectacle. The stoic, the satiric, the sarcastic Swift,
forgetting his stoicism, his coldness, and his pride, and weep-
rag' with the unreserved abandonment and bitterness of a
child—for neither the habitual labours of satire and of sarcastic
thought, nor all the efforts of contemptuous philosophy, have
e'er yet availed to annihilate the beautiful and generous weak-
nesses of our nature, or even successfully to smother their ex-
PFessions—nor has man achieved over himself even this poor
story
and though the last page in the history of Swift
ords, in
the utter, abject, irrecoverable prostration of a
grand and noble intellect, a memorable warning to those who
could envy the lot of genius, or take pride in the devices and
le °f man ; vet the same instruction, if not as forcibly, at
rl as unequivocally, is conveyed in the life of almost every
'tncorded genius ; for it is most true that we have never fully
t4eown the history of a great intellect, without being therefrom
is Chet ,the solemn and abasing lesson—that the mind, which
ther '°rY. is also the punishment of 'hunger ossessor. For either
thine are the vague aspirations, the and thirst after
things
which the world never will have to give—the unuttered,
abimeLterable sufferings, the unsatisfied cravings, the unappease-
shr:Piaings which are unresting weariness and bitterness.
e re are the fearful misgivings, the dreadful doubts, the
rtnsunedneetrstatiiinety of its own permanence and security, which ter-
rain& dogging it like a spectre through the soli_
ar,in: and meeting it at every turn ; the awful feeling which
swiftttted the prayers of Johnson
and darkened the life of
ruin, b nd was the horror of insanity or of idiotcy, of mental
ebri etr Aayed by th great men, but a weakness ? The
stsonstian will say yes ;e but never yet was there found faith so
ieto tq, as without a shudder helplessly to surrender the mind
is it hands of the living God; and yet of what consequence
latter ether the mind and body die together, or whether the
shert',Ple poor physical structure, shall, like Swift's, for a
dri,ei`l.me survive the period of mental death, to mope and
world ??1, idiotcy a lesson of humility and fear to the gazing
" 1 , depth
eP Itha s Vow," by John Fraser, is a poem in which
they f feeling and strength of passion are as happily as
and hi, beautifully blended. The characters of Jephtha
The ns
u titerconceptions of a high dramatic order.
but Royal Confession" is a tale of considerable power,
s general effect is marred by its extreme improba-
.bilit.7B: is the manner of developing the incidents of
poet s
°l at all happy. With the article on " Turkish
deli,l7'' every lover of Oriental Literature will be greatly
tqueh tea. We did not think it possible to preserve so
as we f the spirit of Turkish poetry in an English dress,
article "adin some of the verses here introduced. This
" bub,ad Mr. Fraser's poem are the best things in the
Whole 'ln M s
brilliant than agazine" for this month, which, taken as a
)18 les.
13'/CT.

lONARY OF ARTS, MANUFACTURES,
AND lIIINES.—PART I.
laroo_oo
se
°ter
tore is the editor of this periodical, which it is
pietPe
it d
,issue in Monthly Parts, ten. of which will
corn • oct plan is to give justdescriptions cf
and 111-° di ties which usually form the staple of commerce,
fil_,asise to instruct capitalists as to how they may turn then..
funds ito a rational and profitable account. He has " more-
clear en view'
to give to Members of Parliament, such a
then.,
frloPosition of
our staple manufactures as may prevent
enterpriselll 4.arnincr regulations, the end of which is to check
havenWe and industry. Such a work was much wanted ;
o hesitation, therefore, in giving our cordial ap-
probationw. to this periodical, which appears to be conducted
Lth considerable ability.