The Sun.
London, England, 1849-05-09 00:00:00

/THE QUARTERLIES.

THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. No. C.
The celebrated quarterly originally stamped with
the effigy of Bentham, in the same way that Black-
wood is adorned with the features of Buchanan, has
performed the first great cycle in its career. The
IVestrninster Review, the quarterly organ of social
itnprovenient, political reform, religious tolerance, and
modern philosophy, has numbered a hundred. It has
grown from a stripling periodical into a publication
venerable for its age, its intelligence, and its prin-
ciples. We greet it as an old and familiar favourite,
a favourite whose importance has in some measure
been enhanced by its incorporation, a year or so back,
with the Foreign Quarterly. As a champion of the
new science of political economy—the science created
by Adam Smith, advanced by Huskisson, and ripened
by. Macgregor—we always greet our contemporary
with sympathetic cordiality. As a strennous upholder
of the sacred cause of democracy, we regard it with
kindred sentiments. It is consequently with peculiar
gratification that we have perused the very able and
elaborated vindication of the French Revolution of
February from the insinuations and imputations of
its assailants. Since the very commencement of the
reactionary movement, which followed hard upon the
bloody days of June, it has been a labour of love
with us at intervals to write in our leading
columns arguments with precisely the same tendency
as those which are comprised in this clever and ear-
nest contribution. One by one we have exposed the
frivolity of the aspersions thrown upon the illustrious
Republicans who have striven to elevate the character
of the French Government, and to improve the pros-
pects of the French multitude. Speaking of the
charge that has been so repeatedly levelled at
the Provisional Ministers, the Westminster Reviewer
admirably remarks that the droit au travail is nothing
more nor less than the poor- law of Elizabeth. Of
the impudent lies which have been uttered against
the heroic statesmen who saved France, Europe, the
world, from an awful catastrophe of bloodshed in Feb-
ruary, he speaks in the following manner in reference
especially to two very remarkable men MM. de
Latuartine and Ledru Rollin :
" It the verdict of history were gathered from the as.
sertions of cotemporaries, what contempt would it in-
spire fur the judgment of posterity on eminent characters,
when we find that these men have been charged in-
dividually with embe.zzling money from the treasury;
that even M. Lansurtine has thought it necessary to lay
before the public the details of his private fortune and
pecuniary transactions, in order to extinguish the
slander beyond possibility of revival! Not without
cause ; for though malignity itself is not shameless
enough any longer to repeat the charge against him
personally, his exculpation has not liberated his col-
leagues ; and there have appeared within these few
weeks, in more than one English newspaper, articles in
which the financial admini,tration of the Provisional
Government has been spoken of as one mass of profligate
malversation. There is nothing which the spirit that
pursues these men would not dare to assert, when it can
venture on this. One member of the Provisional Go-
vernment has been made a mark for greater inveteracy
of assault than the rest—M. Ledru Rollin. Everbody
has heard scandalous stories concerning him; and.in his
case, some of these were specific, and accompanied with
names and circumstances. If those which did not enter
into particulars had no better foundation than those
which did, M. Ledru Rollin, as to pecuniary integrity, is
the statesman of most unimpeachable character in
Europe; for every accusation of the kind that we are
acquainted with, which had any tangible character, was
investigated by the Commission d'EnqOte, and disproved
by the evidence of the persons alleged to have been con-
nected with it. In England, his assailants, end those of
his colleagues, seized the opportunity of the appearance
of a mass of evidence which they knew nobody would
read, to affirm (it must in charity be supposed, without
having read it themselves) that it substantiated all the
floating rumours of misconduct, and covered the members
of the Government with indelible disgrace. In France,
it was felt even by their enemies to have entirely failed of
eliciting the disclosures which had been expected from it.
M. Ledru Rollin instantly rose many degrees in publics
estimation, and has occupied, since those documents ap-
peared, a position of greater political importance than
before."
Alluding to the crime imputed to M. de Lamartine
of having countenanced the system of foreign pro-
pagandism in his renowned manifesto, it is correctly
observed, that that eminent man only claimed for his
country " the right, according to its own discretion
and judgment, to assist any nation which might
be struggling to free itself from the yoke of foreign
conquerors." As we have already intimated in our
previous notice of is contemporary, there is a review
of " Mary Barton," the tale of life in Manchester.
From the essay on " English Spelling Reform," we
extract the subjoined most amusing and laughable
illustration of the difficulties presented by our mother
tongue to foreigners:—
" The New York Home Journal gives the following
dialogue between a Frenchman studying English and
his tutor:—

Frenchman—Ha, my good friend, I have met with
one difficulty—one very strange word. How you call
h-o-u-g-h? Tutor—Huff. Fr.—Tres Lien, huff ; and
snuff you spell s-n-o.u.g-h, ha! Tutor-0, no, snu(r is
s•n.o double f. The fact is, words ending in ough are a
little irregular. Fr.—A h, very good; 'tis beautiful lan-
guage. 11-o-u• g- his huff; I will remember; and c•o-u• g-h
cup,: I have one bad cuff; ha! Tutor—No, that is
wrong. We say kauff; not cuff. Fr.—Kauft; eh Lien.
Huff and hdulf. and, pardonnez-moi, how you call
d-o u•g-h? Duff; ha! Tutor —No, not duff. Fr.—Not
duff ; oh! oui ; I understand—is dauff, hey ? Tutor—
No, d-o-u-g-h spells doe. Fr.—Doe ! It is very Soo;
wonderful language, it is doe: and t-o•u-g-h is toe cur-
tainement. My beefsteak was very toe. Tutor—O, no,
no; you should say tujf. Fr.-7u.y? And the thing
farmer uses ; how you call him p•l-o-u-g-h,p/uff ? ha!
you smile; I see lam wrong, it plauf ? No? ah, then,
it is ploe, like doe: it is a beautiful language, ver' fiue—
Ploe ? Tutor—You are still wrong, my friend. It is
plow. Fr.—Plow! Wonderful language. I shall un-
derstand ver' soon. Plow, doe, haulf: and one more—
r-o-u-g-h, what you call General Taylor; rauff and
ready? Tu:or—No; r-o u•g-h spells ruff. Fr.—Ruff,
ha! Let me not forget. 11-o-u-g-h is ruff, and b-o-u-g-h
is buff, ha! Tutor—No, bow. Fr.—Ab! very simple,
wonderful language ; but I have had what you call
e-n- o-u• g-h ; ha! what you call him?'"
"Illustrative Art" is an agreeable comment on some
books embellished by the Etching Club and other-
wise. An article on " The Adaptation of Iron" in
architecture is a curiosity which will be found not
unworthy of examination. Every advocate for the
ballot should read the paper on " Corruption
at Elections." One of the most practical and
practicable suggestions we have seen for a consider-
able time for the improvement of the metropolis is
the one contained in the brief but pregnant chapter
on the "Neglect of the Public Records." We
should rejoice to see such a scheme as the one
)•poken of taken up by the Government, namely, the
construction of a spacious and fitting building
for the preservation of our national records,
between the angle formed by the meeting of Fleet-
street and Chancery-lane. The final contribution to
the Westminster is of a prospective character on " Po-
litics and Politicians," suggested by the "Opening of
the Session." Out of one of the amusing criticisms in
the Foreign Quarterly Supplement, we take the follow-
ing comical lines by MM. Clairville and Jules Cordier
on the President Louis Napoleon at the end of his four
years' reign in 1852. The lines are exquisitely French ;
and although we sympathize not one jot in their
scoffing spirit, but, on the contrary, regard the policy
of the Prince President with respect and admiration,
we cannot resist a laugh at every line in this
humourous and capital feu desprit :
" Pendant quatre ans 11 piesiiait la France,
C'e:ait un grand—un grand?--emit•il grand?
Qu'importe! on connait sa
So vaillant?
Qu'importe! on counait son talent.
Mais quel talent avait cette ame forte?
Wimporte encore! ce grand brun nous guidait.
Etait-il brun? C:tait-il blond? qu'importe !
Ce que je sais, c'est qu'il nous pte,idait.
Je ne sais plus ce qu'il bait, qu' imports!
Ce que je sais, e'en qu'il nous presidait."
Besides those already mentioned, there are a variety
of miscellaneous criticisms, written in a mood at once
discriminating and generous.

The excavations on the site of the Abbot's House,
has been uncovered since the first novice
A great space
papers , Mid the rubbish that
had accumulated, at Fountains Abbey are proceeding very satisatisfactorily.,
of the discolvaetreyd
ianll athroeurid, in consequence of the ex--
c aeva
nowhoa
house has
been rapidly
ba
irl et mc
oovveerd .
the T hroi
river for
oe s
on r
ythree ,
hundred feet ; but how tar the building
nearly
whichn s
the
has extended north and south it is, at present, impossible
to say, for it appears that the hill to the south has
been cut away to a considerable extent, and there arv,
shelving
obwfatathkthine Ttahbhebeolmtiaa(tist interesting
very likely, many curious remains now deeply buried in its
n :ay
re e
tkh
eo r
easternt wo, ;is
rt ht
ieo
nprivate
a
apartment brought
oratorto l i g hyt
remains. It has been an elegant little chapel of
a style of architecture different from any hitherto
noticed at Fountains, viz., the enriched dog-toothed
Early-English; and has been, ,no doubt, as Mr. Wal-
bran of Ripon informs us, the work of an imme-
diate successor of the Three Johns, sometime between
1245 and 1290. The stone altar is nearly perfect; and
there remains the lower part of a small mysterious stone
staircase in the north-east angle—the approach, very'
probably, of the officiating priest. The encaustic tiles
that are continually turned up are both numerous and
curious. We are glad to learn that Mr. Walbran is
preparing a very full account of the remains of this in-
teresting building, which, we understand, will be pub-
lished in some forthcoming number of the Journal of
the Archmological Institute, illustrated with necessary
cuts and ground-plans. The greatest praise is dueN.
Captain S. Smith, of Green Royd, Ripon, for the pains'
and interest he has taken in the excavations; as well as
to Mr. W. Mason, the steward of the Abbey Grounds,
who has lost no opportunity
of fully developing the
hitherto buried domicile of the old Lords of Fountains.

---
ST. JOHN'S, NEWFOUNDLAND —A Bill has been
brought from the Lords, confirming certain Acts of the
local Legislature respecting the rebuilding of the town
of St. John's, Newfoundland, and enabling the said
Legislature to make other provisions for the setae
purpose.