The Sun.
London, England, 1849-12-05 00:00:00

WEDNESDAY EVENING, DECEMWE

IY4AGAZINES, &c.—(CONTINUED.)
BENTLEY.
Mr. Robert Bell having already attained one of the
highest literary positions as a dramatist, as a tourist,
and as an historian, now enters the field as a novelist,
and bids fair—if we may judge from the, opening
chi piers of his novel, which appear in the present
number of Bentley—to achieve as great a literary
triumph in the " Ladder of Gold" as he has already
achieved in " Marriage," " Wayside Pictures," or
the " History of the Times of Sir Thomas Fairfax."
The " Ladder of Gold" is an English story, the scene
of which is laid in an English country village in our
own times. Richard Rawlings, who is, we imagine,
the intended hero of the tale, is a serving man in a
village shop, who cannot but contrast his own
abject condition, the slave, the unhappy slave, of a
harsh master and a foolish mistress, with that of
those who keep him under, and who, as the result of
the contrast, perceives that in wealth, and wealth
alone, consists their superiority, and therefore deter-
mines to devote himself, body and soul, to the acqui-
bition of wealth as the only road to the acquisition of
liberty and power. The characters of the shopkeeper
Raggles and_his wife are admirably drawn. Raggles,
who has been a scapegrace spendthrift in his youth,
becomes a miser in his old age; during his career of
dissipation he had avoided marriage as a clog; during
his career of avarice he would fain avoid it as an cx •
pence. The old nun, however, is at length fascinated
by the charms of a certain Barbara Flight, a simpl,
minded girl, whose implicit obedience to her mother
has won him, and one fine evening he makes a pro-
posal to Mrs. Flight for her daughter's hand. The
following description of his feelings on the succeeding
day is admirable : e
" The next day he didn't believe a word of it. lie
was like a man getting up out of a dream, and the day-
light and its occupations put it all out of his thoughts;
and when he set out in the evening to visit Mrs.
Flight as usual, he had a feeling of buoyancy, and a gay
sort of giddiness in his step, which was new to him, and
which was the only token he could detect in himself of
any change that had been wrought in him. But when
he arrived at the house he suddenly felt himself very
sick and tremulous ; and when Mrs. Elight asked him
what was the matter, he felt as if his head would fly
off, and as if his ears were burning and cracking
down to the roots. He supposed that he was ex-
pected to say something about the evening before, and
that the best thing he could say would be something
jocose, to turn it all off into a laugh; but the more he
tried to think of a joke, the more be couldn't think of
anything but a dismal mist that was before his eyes,
dancing up and down like a phantasmagoria. As for
Barbara, she was nursing her cat as unconcernedly as if
nothing had happened, a spectacle of guileless simplicity
which smote him to the heart, and made him feel
wretchedly guilty, although ho could not tell why or
wherefore.
He at length marries the gentle Barbara, and a change
takes place in the household of the old miser
When Mr. Raggles brought home his wife, he found
that he did not exactly know what to do with her. lie
had made no calculation of the extensive changes which
are produced by the appearance of a mistress in the
menage of an old bachelor. While the place was new to
her, Mrs. Raggles was perpetually running in and out of
the rooms, and up and down the stairs, and flirting into
the shop, and ringing the bolls, and ordering the maid-
of-all-work about, and sending out the shopman on
trivial messages and creating a hubbub and disturbance
all day long, that effectually broke up the clock-work
routine of the house. Mr. gaggles was fairly taken
aback by the extraordinary sprightliness of motion she
exhibited ; nor could he comprehend how that quiet
girl, who purred about her mother's little parlour
so noiselessly, could have become so troublesome all of
a sudden. But Raggles was not a profound man on
some subjects, and, least of all, on the philosophy of
female character."
Raggles resists, and after one quarrel completely
conquers his young wife, who from that time forth
becomes a nonentity in the establishment. After a lapse
of three years, old Raggles dies, communicating on his
death-bed some important secret to Rawlings which
all his life long he had kept carefully concealed from
all the world, and which places the whole of the
worldy possessions of the Raggles family in the power
of Richard, who thus mounts the first step of the
ladder of gold. Sylvanus continues his " Bye-lanes
and Downs of England," and in his present contribu-
tion gives us several amusing anecdotes of those by-
gone heroes of the turf, Frank Buckle, the
Chifneys, and William Scott, with some plea-
sant gossip anent Templeman, Nat, and other
first-rate jockies of the present day. The
"Note-book of a Coroner's Clerk" is continued,
and we have a most powerfully written and thrilling
description of the proceedings in is commission de lune-
tico inquirendo, in which the insufferable arrogance
(arrogance, the child of ignorance and pretension,) of
the mad doctors, of whom Dr.. Quoddums may be
considered as the representative, is admirably shown
up, and in which the motives of " those kind rela-
tives," who are so particularly anxious to shut up
their relatives in mad-houses, lest they should dissi-
pate their property, are laid bare. "This investigation
has probably come upon you by surprise," asks the
Commissioner to the alleged lunatic. Hie reply is a
conclusive answer to all the twaddle which the Com-
missioners of Lunacy have published about the care
and affection of relatives, &c.
"No : I was satisfied it would commence the mo-
nsent I ceased to honour tha Count's drafts. I have my
banker's book with me. My last and final remittance
to my kinsman was made, I see, late in May. Early in
June following the first step to deprive me of income
and liberty was taken. No, sir,—no; lam not sur-
prised. It is only carrying out into action a motto dear
to the: grasping and the desperate—' Give cheerfully
and readily; or else I take. '"
Paul Pindar, on whom the mantle of Isaac Walton
seems to have fallen, gives us in his present Piscatory
Dialogue an admirable West Country Ballad, " Old
Grumbleton," on which the farce of Domestic Economy,
now performing at the Adelphi, is founded. Alfred
Crowquill gives us some delightful gossip about
Loudon and Mrs. Ward a pleasant prolusion anent
Porchester Castle. We have divers other papers of
more than average merit, in addition to the " Review
of the Literature of the Month," in this, the best
number of Bentley that has appeared for some
months.

THE RT. JAMES'S. Edited by J. Bernard

Burke, Esq.
In the present number Mr. John Hay brings to a
conclusion his pleasant "History „pf Boscobel."
Among the most interesting articles in the present
number are the report of the trial for murder of
Don Pantaleon.Sa, the brother of the Portuguese Am-
bassador to the Commonwealth, and the following
LINES WRITTEN EY SIR TOURLOUGH O'BRIEN, WHILE
ABSENT FROM HIS LADY LOVE.—A.D. 1560.
(Never before published.)
".I would that I were a voiceless sigh,
Floating through air,
When thy spirit draws nigh
Unperceived I would steal o'er thy cheek of down,
And kiss thy soft lips,
Unchecked by a frown.
"I would I could pass from this living tomb
Into the violet's sweetest perfume ;
On the wings of the morning to thee I would fly,
And mingle my breath
With thy sweetest sigh I
" I would that I were a dying tone,
To dwell on thy ear,
When the music is gone :
I would cheer thy heart with my latest breath,
And yield thee pleasure,
E'en in my death
":11y heart is bound with a viewless chain :
I see no wound but I feel its pain
Loose my fetters and set me free 1—
Bondage, tho' sweet, has no charms for me.
Yet e'en in fetters, my fond heart must dwell
Since thy Spirit flits o'er it,
And hallows my cell I"

NEW MONTHLY.
The New Monthly opens with a very interesting
article, " Eighteen Months Political Life in Italy,"
by Merlotti, author of " Italy, Past and Present."
Although we do not entirely agree with the senti-
ments expressed by this writer, our opinions on the
subject are, it is unnecessary to say, widely different
from those of the editor of the New Monthly, who,
in introducing the article in question, observes—" We
have no faith in Young Italy, no hope in the possible
regeneration of that fallen country. We entertain
no animosity against our ancient ally, Austria; but,
on the contrary, heartily rejoice in its successes,
both in Piedmont and rebellious Hungary. Charles
Albert, in our opinion, deserved his losses, and the
victorious achievements of gallant old Radetzky were
matter of triumph to us." While he entertains such
sentiments as these, the insertion of Mariotti's article
by the editor of the New Monthly is an instance of
singular liberality. " Our political bias," ha says,
"is widely different from that of M. Ma-
riotti. But this shall not prevent him from
having a fair hearing. An Italian, he is
qualified to discuss Italian questions. A sincere man,
he is entitled to respectful consideration. Fearless,
earnest, eloquent, he is certain to command attention,
even from those who, like ourselves, differ from him
altogether in opinion." The article thus commended
is written with much spirit. The various vicissitudes
of the Italian peninsula during the last eighteen
months are described with vivid and startling effect,
while the patriotism with which the whole is suffused
gives it a double interest. "No man," says this
Italian writer, " who was.not born in Italy or Poland,
or in any other country fallen to the same depth of
misery, can form an idea of the bitter humilia-
tion the subjection of his country bears with
it. It deadens a man's heart to all other political
considerations." And in another place, alluding
to the submission of the Italians to Austrian arms, it
is remarked, with a mournful emphasis, " Too truly !
there is something in the tramp of Austrian batta-
lions that sounds like Fate in Italian ears." Never-
theless, the article concludes with an earnest exhor-
tation against despair for Italy. "It de Regatta" is
an amusing tale of " yachting freaks." " The Cor-
delier of Sisteron," by Dudley Costello, is horrible