The Sun.
London, England, 1838-04-23 00:00:00

THE GREAT METROPOLIS. FIRST SERIES.

In Two Vol,.
ES' TIPS AUTIPOR OF " EANDOM RICOLLRCTIONS OF TRIP
HOUSE OF COMMONS," ,S'C.
London, Saunders and Otley, 1838.

This work has reached a third edition—the best possi-
ble proof of its adaptation t• the public taste. We have
pleasure in observing that it has undergone a careful and
judicious revision—that many errors of fact have been
corrected—that authorized statements have been sub-
stituted for loose surmises—and that, in short, the
author has done all that it was in his power to do, to
make it reflect fairly the surface of the Modern Babylon.
This is really no easy task, for London is a world in itself,
and to comprehend fully the details of the social system
by which it is governed, must be the result of years of close
observation and minute inquiry. Nor is it to be supposed
that perfection, even with the closest inquiry and best
means of information, is attainable. Every day heralds in
some change fatal to the veracity of any book-statement
made in the present tense. The best vehicle, therefore, for
facts, under a perpetual process of re-modification, is a
newspaper, which purports to be true but for the instant,
and is re-produced contemporaneously with every change,
whether of men, of things, or of circumstances. We urge
this by way of apology for such mistakes as our readers
may yet discover in these volumes, provided they delay but a
week to look into them. Still they contain so much valuable
information of a more permanent description, that there
are few men in public life who may not at any time profit
by a reference to their pages.

THE MERCHANT'S MANUAL.
BT FRANCIS ROBBER, JUIY., .ITTORYIST-AT-LiTr.
London, Longman and Co., 1838.
_ _

.
A little volume—just what it purports to be—a con-
cise and practical Treatise on Bills of Exchange ; the
customs of merchants with respect to such bills in London
and Paris ; followed by an interpretation of the dates,
sights, and usances of bills drawn in the French, Spanish,
Italian, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Swedish, and Danish
languages. The utility of such a manual to the merchant,
the shopkeeper, the money-broker, and the general trader,
is too obvious to escape the observation of a body of men
at once so intelligent and so attentive to their own interests.

THE MAN WITHOUT SOUL.
fir FHB JUTIIOII OP T 1171" WAIT) 2141e3 GX4rz."
In Two Volumes.

London, Richard Bentley, 1838.
This novel can scarcely fail to make its author, Mr.
Harrison Rankin!, favourably known to tho reading:public.
The characters introduced are not numerous, nor arc the
incidents extraordinary ; but the former are well drawn,
and the latter are very skilfully made to occur at the fitting
moment. " The Man Without Soul" is a young divine of
the Church of England, who, by the refinement of his man-
ners and the semblance of an exalted piety, wins the
affections of a beautiful girl, his cousin, only to barter them
for gold ; and while he is seeking to seduce the wife of
an humble peasant, instills into the husband's heart a
jealousy amounting to phrenzy of that cousin's only bro-
ther, out of revenge for the watchfulness of his fraternal
guardianship. However, divine justice is made to overtake
the villain in the midst of his career of iniquity, and just
as he is on the eve of marriage with the daughter of a
rich parvenu in the neighbourhood. The peasant discovers
his treachery ; meet him by an appointment intended for his
wife ; upbraids him with his guilt, and in a deadly struggle
that ensues, provoked by the rev. hypocrite, the footing of
the latter fails, and he plunges into a torrent to rise no
more alive. These incidents, though simple, and apparently
common-place, are exceedingly well and dramatically deve-
loped. The dialogues, where they occur, are conducted
with tact and spirit, and the descriptive portions are
written with care and a watchful regard to probability. The
characters of Lady Windermere, Mrs. Auget, and Old
Lord Dumbledore are hit off with a masterly hand. For
Albert Grey we could ourselves supply an original, parti-
cularly if we only regard him as the author presents him
to us when shrinking from a hostile collision with the co-re-
ligionists of his youth. The innate delicacy of his mind,
and the real goodness of his heart, could not be more
touchingly manifested than in this act of charitable self-
denial—this sacrifice of interest to principle. Lords
Percy and John Huron are every-day sort of people, and
Alice Windermere is but a sample of hundreds of young
ladies in the same rank of life. With a little management
this novel might have very well extended to three volumes.

The Dinner given by the President of the Chamber
of Deputies to Lord Brougham on Tuesday, was worthy of
the host of the Noble guest. The guests included some of
the most distinguished Members of the Chamber of.a2puties ;
among them were Messrs. Arago, Thiers, Mangum, Guizot,
Odillou Barrot, De Lamartine, Jacques Laffitte, George La-
fayette, Berryer, Etienne, Mignct, Calmon, Passy, Duchatel,
and, among the sarans, Messrs. Cousin, Villemain, Poison,
Magendie, Gay Lusac, Flourens, Vatout, and Pages de
l'Ariege. Lord Brougham, accompanied by the Hon. Col.
Caradoc, left Paris yesterday evening to pay a visit to the
chateau his Lordship is building at t?annes, on the Mediter-
ranean.—Galignani, of Thursday.
Having examined and used the various kinds of
Metallic Pens, we are come to the opinion that with the ex-
ception of the Perryan Pens, they will prove to be very inju-
rious to all those who use them, by spoiling their hands. Any
pen which does not possess the natural softness of the quill,
accustoms the writer to bear on the paper so hard, as rapidly
and irreparably to spoil his hand. From this general censure
we have excepted the Patent Perryan Pens, as they do pos-
sess the flexibility of the quill pen, and all its natural softness.
It were to be wished that the endless attempts at imitation, to
which the Perryan Pen has given rise, had been more success-
ful, or that they had never been made.
The authorities of Toulon and Marseilles have
adopted measures to insure the safety of travellers between
those two cities. The diligences are escorted during the night
by detachments of Gendarmerie, and troops of the line have
been set from Aix and Marseilles to make a Letitia in the
Wood of iTaillades, where four diligences had been lately
stopped in the same night. The police of Aix arrested
three individuals, supposed to be concerned in a robbery com-
mitted on the high road between that town and Avignon, and
who are believed to form a part of anumerousgang.—Coninteree.
We perceive that the public mind in the three great
metropolises of England, Scotland and Ireland, is at this mo-
ment directed to the same subject—how best to do honour
to the memories of three of the greatest men in different
walks of public utility that they have respectively pro-
duced. In London we are raising subscriptions to the memory
of Nelson ; and from the rank and position of the parties who
have taken a prominent part in the undertaking, there can be
11D doubt that a monument worthy of the fame of the hero of
a hundred naval fights will be the result. In Edinburgh,
Scott is the deserving object to whom honour is about to b.e
paid by a national edifice (for such it will almost be); and in
Dublin all parties arc willing to do similar honours to one of
the best Irishmen known since Swift—John Philpot Curran.
It is stated that the long dormant title of Earl of
Derwentwater, so intimately connected with the county of
Northumberland, is to be revived in the person of the Roman
Catholic Peer, Lord Petre.
M. P. FOR NOTTINGFIAM.—If one of our mem-
bers should, as it is rumoured he will, be included in the batch
of Coronation Peers, it will necessarily occasion a vacancy in
the representation of Nottingham. We therefore call upon
our fellow-townsmen to be loOking around them ; they will
probably soon have the opportunity of choosing a Representa-
tive, and we counsel them not to be taken unawares. Let
not a Tory creep in by supineness on the part of the Refor-
mers of Nottingham ; and ,‘ see that ye fall not out by the
way," for this will inevitably open the d or to the enemy-
We
should like to see a full length Radical elected for Notting-
ham, one that will vote and act for the people, and not for the
interests of party, or the aggrandisement of the aristocracy-
Cannot such a man be found?—Nottingham Review.