The Sun.
London, England, 1838-05-09 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

LONDON AND WE. REVIEW,

No. LX.
London, Ilooper, 1838.
There is one review in this Number wlrich will be read
with great interest—we allude to the " Poets of the MeL
bourne Ministry," which is a notice of some of the early
productions, in prose and verse, of Lords Palmerston,
Howick, Glenelg, Melbourne, John Russell, and Messrs.
Spring Rice and Hobhouse. Of the last named gentle-
man's poems, but two or three couplets are given, which
we consider fortunate, for certes they are' more like the
cacklings of the goose than the melodies of the swan. Lord
Howick's poesy is better ; the lines trundle on smoothly,
and the thoughts are as amiable and innocent as sucking.
doves. In Mr. Spring Rice's stanzas on revisisting Cam-
bridge " after an Absence of Twenty Years," we recog-
nize much genuine, unaffected feeling, expressed io a style
that agreeably reminds us of Cowper in his " Task." Of
Lord John Russell's tragic capabilities we cannot say much ;
the extracts from his Don Carlos are, in truth, very so so,
and would be apt to create a strong shudder in one not
inured to the inflictions of bad verse. His Lordship, how-
ever shows to advantage in his more lively effusions, and
accordingly we quote with pleasure his rhymes entitled
" London in September," which possess much of that point
and observation which we admire in Swift's description of a
" City Shower :"

" Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow,
A single horseman paces Rctton Row ;
In Brookes's sits one quidnunc to peruse
The broad, doll sheet, whiCh tells the lack of news;
At White's a lonely Brummell lifts his glass
To see two Empty hackney-coaches pass ;
The timid housemaid, issuing forth, can dare
To take her lover's arm in Grosvenor-square;
From shop deserted hastes the 'prentice dandy,
And seeks—oh bliss 1 the molly—a tempora fandi :
Meantime the batter'd pavement is at rest,
And waiters wait in vain to spy a guest;.
Thomas himself, Cook, Warren, Fenton, Long,
Have all left town to join the Margate throng ;
The wealthy tailor on the Sussex shore
Displays and drives his blue barouche and four;
The peer, who made him rich, with dog and gun
Toils o'er a Scottish moor, and braves a scorching sun."
Few, we suspect, arc aware that Lord Melbourne once
wrote a comedy 'yclept " Fashionable Friends," which was
damned with such incredible expedition by a benighted
audience, and quizzed so severely by a set of London jour-
nalists equally obnubilated, that the publication of it became
an act of self-defence. We have read the Reviewer's ex-,
tracts from this calumniated comedy, and find some wit, and
considerable worldly shrewdness in them. The dialogues
however, are far too much spun out, and had they all been
of equal length with those here quoted, few of the perfor-
mers would have survived the first rehearsal, but would
have gone off in that sort of quiet apoplexy which is induced
by listening to a long story. Lord Glonelg's Cambridge
Prize Poem, judging from the extracts before us, is smoothly
versified, and reminds us by its " dormant strength," of Sir
Robert Peel's favourite yeomanry, which that illustrious
statesman is so unwilling to disband, because, as he himself
has assured us, the country has not the slightest occasion
for their services. We take for granted that as there are
so many poets in our present Cabinet—so many, indeed, that
Downing-street may be fairly called a nest of nightingales
—Mr. Sergeant Talfourd's Copyright Bill will find in them
its most strenuous supporters. They arc indeed vitally in-
terested in this measure, for consider what an additional
value it will impart to the copyright of Lord John Rus-
sell's tragedy and Lord Melbourne's comedy ! " Poems
and Romances of Alfred de Vigny" is a pains-taking,
and apparently impartial, notice of the works of one of the
most successful authors of young France. We must
eonfesss, however, that we have perused it With'but little
interest ; for the horrid depravities of taste—the sprawling
monsters—and the exaggerated sensibilities—of which the
imaginative literature of la jeune France is almost wholly
made up, to the diligent exclusion of al that is sound and
healthy in intellect, have given us a strong dislike to it.
The " Philosophy of Fiction" shows no ordinary powers of
thought, but its tone of sentiment is in places a little too
enthusiastic. " Hood's Own,"—an extract from which we
gave in The Sun of last week—does justice, and no more
than justice, to the merits of one of the most original
humourists that have appeared among us since the days of
Peter Pinder. Hood's wit is not, as is too often supposed,
the wit of mere expression, but has a substance about it
—something that the fancy may feed upon at its leisure—it
is in fact, the wit of thought, and as such, resembles But-
ler's " Hudibras." We do not, however, agree with the
Reviewer, that Mr. Hood's serious productions are
as able as his humourous ones. With the single excep-
tion of " Eugene Aram's Dream," his grave, descrip-
tive, impassioned poems are little better than elaborate
failures—witness, his " Plea of the Midsummer Fu-
ries," which, instead of being imaginative, is purely gro-
tesque, for it turns upon the circumstance of the poet
having, on one fine summer evening, put up a covey of
fairies, near the Horse-and-Groom, at Lea-bridge ! Of the
remaining articles in the Number we Lave neither time nor
space to speak as we could wish ; we must content our-
selves, therefore, with saying in brief, general terms, that
all of them are well-selected, and many of them well dis-
cussed.

PETER PLYMLEY'S LETTERS.
London, Longman, 1838.
The republication of these Letters, after the interest of
the subject which called them forth has ceased, is a striking
proof of their great merit. They were written for the
purpose of forwarding the cause of Catholic Emancipation ;
and as their author, Mr. Sidney Smith, was well aware
that the opponents of such a cause were not to be con-
vinced by any reasoning, however sound and practical, he
wisely resolved to have recourse to ridicule, and laugh therii
into common-sense. And most efficiently has he exe.
cuted his purpose. The Letters of Peter Plymley—under
which disguise he launches his keen and dazzling jests--
abound in the most exquisite specimens of mingled satire
and humour. In one place, we arc reminded of the refined
facetiousness of Addison ; in another, of the stern and
earnest sarcasm of Swift ; and in a third, of the broad and
riotous drollery of Smollett. We can imagine the sensation
that Mr. Plymley's first appearance in print must have
produced among the opponents of the Catholics. How
they must have twisted and writhed beneath the hardy
grasp of his logic ; and shrunk with dismay from the
piercing lightnings of his satire ! We have no doubt that
that it was to these admirable letters, that much of that
public spirit was owing, which enabled the Duke of Wel-
lington in 1829 to strike the fetters from the Catholic,
without a national convulsion.

ODDITIES OF LONDO.N LIFE.-2 Vols.
Bentley, London, IS3B.
Those who desire to acquaint themselves with the native
humour of the lower classes in and about the metropolis,
cannot do better than read these volumes ; for they have
no fanciful garniture or rhetorical embellishments : but are
in truth, what they profess to be, the most exact and literal
transcripts of low, perhaps the lowest, London life. The
dialogues, in particular, are admirable, rich, racy—replete
with coarse, but expressive, drollery—and with such uni-
form truth of character, that one might almost fancy they
had been taken down word for word from the life. The
embellishments are not less characteristic. They are by
various artists, so that there is no monotony of humour.
Country readers, imperfectly acquainted with the odd say-
ings and doings of the low Cockney will derive much
amusement from this laughable work.