The Sun.
London, England, 1849-05-30 00:00:00

(COURT CIRCULAR.

OSBORNE, MAY 29.
The Queen and Prince and the younger branches of
the Royal Family, walked and rode in the Park and
grounds at Osbot ne at an early hour this morning.
terhere was no addition to the Royal dinner party yes-
day.

eler Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent isited her
(IcliYal Highness the Duchess of Gloucester yesterday at
oucester House.
vllia Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge dined
s;Atn the members of the Nulli Secundus Club yesterday
at the Clarendon Hotel.
bv—V. Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent, attended
JitMY Augusta Bruce, Sir George Cooper, and Lord
ioa'
Murray, honoured the performance of the Royal
/ilia Opera House with her presence yesterday evening.
.d
thcpe,Royal Ilik;bness the Duchess of Gloucester
. vishe
the Hi finesses the Duchess of Cambridge
and
).ette ''reditary Grand Duchess of ISlecklenburgh Strelitz
-Prinerthly at Cambridge House. His Serene Highness
1/igh_o Lrnest Ilesse Philippsthal visited their Royal
tem:sues thd Duke and Duchess of Cambridge yes-
i
110b.,,mr,e service was performed yesterday in the Chapel
thejs'at bt. James's. The Rev. Dr. Wesley administered
sernioerent. The Rev. Dr. Honk will preach the
lathe Chapel Royal on Sunday next.

„. ROYAL MATERNITY CHARITY.—Yes'
yt
down
oily of the foremost friends of this institt:teirocniasa abouto
eto an excellent dinner at the London Tavern, given to
"Innemorate its anniversary• Lord Robert Grosvenor
Presided, and in a very feeling manner advocated the
.
claims 01 the charity, which, he said, had now been in
existence for nearly 100 years, and had during that period
administered relief to more an 400,000 poor married
eases'
theT past year presented an increase of 231
ares, and was clear that the usefulness of the institu-
tion had not yet reached its limit, though the births at
which it assisted now exceeded one in every two hours.
The Noble Chairman dwelt upon the hem fits which the
charity conferred in attendino•
own homes, and in training for that purpose a large
destitute women at their
number ot' midwives, whose services, under ordinary
nu midwives,
were more acceptable and beneficial to
.he poorer classes than those of surgeons. He concluded
by enForcing the claims of distress generally upon the
advan
4Ymplles of the wealthy, and by pointing out the
tage as well as the propriety of attending to the
wants of those w:.om Providence has left exposed to the
visitations of poverty and sickness. A number of appro.-
iate toasts were proposed, and duly responded to
during the evening, among which the services of the
cal and other officers connected with the charity
Were not forgotten. The amount of subscriptions an-
zeuneed was about 2501. The musical arrangements were
,u_nder the direction of Mr. Ransford, and were excellent.
atri •-.4* Harker was toastmaster.

LITETIA T I:11.E.

EVEL EV; or a Journry from Stockholm to Rome
in 1847, 48. By Mess BunLury. 2 Vols.

These two very delightful volumes combine the
attractions of a book of travels and a novel, and the
combination produces a happy effeet. We dwell on
the peculiarities of the countries through which we
pass ss itheut being condemned to the formal routine
of a voyage of discovery, and we become, incidentally
as it were, acquainted with the characters an 1 his-
tories of our companions without for a moment being
led to suppose that the relation of their histories is
the object of our journey. Truth and fiction are so
admirably interwoven, that it is impossible to define
where the "actual" ends and the "ideal" begins.
These volumes would seem to be a journal of Miss
Bunbury's tour in 1847 and 1848, and the de-
scriptions of many of the scenes and incidents
are evidently truthful. But the " journey," as we
see from the title-page, is only a secondary conside-
ration ; the fortunes of Evelyn are our chief subject of
interest. Evelyn is in every way fitted for a heroine
of romance, she has bright golden hair, she is always
dressed in white, and :tie do not remember that her
surname is ever cnce mentioned. She is wandering
alone throughout the world, in possession of a
" secret" which she may reveal to no one. Such is
Evelyn when our authoress finds her; she takes pity
on her unprotected state, and the authoress and the
heroine journey together from Stockholm to Rome.
Romantic (in the novel reader's sense of the term)
and improbable as is the situation of Evelyn, it is
simply described, and her own character is so beautiful
and so natural that we forget the unnaturalness of her
pc sition, and onlysee and appreciate the tinge of romance
which her presence infuses into the narrative. What
we like best in this work is the unaffected easy style in
which it is written. No matter what the subject
may be, and the subjects touched upon are most
various, whether a love story—and there are no less
than three such interesting episodes in the two
volumes ; or a political discussion—and there are not
a few such naturally occasioned by the state of
Europe, then on the eve of revolution (for the fol-
lowing sentence might have been applied to a wider
field than Venice, which was the spot so apostro-
phised :—" The strong heel of a vast consolidated
power is pressed upon thy heart ; but that heart is
now heaving beneath it ; its life is returning, and at
this moment who can tell what may not be on the
morrow ?")—whether it be some amusing traveller's
adventure or a prnphie description of some town or
village, or sketches of various conzpognons de voyage,
it is all one to Miss Bunbury's pen—it runs on in the
same natural and delightful manner that makes the
reader quite at home with the authoress and the
heroes and heroines, and the scenes which she de-
scribes. Having said enough of the mysterious
Evelyn to enlist for her the sympathy of all lovers
of the marvellous, and having spoken of the charming
manner in which her story is narrated, we pass over
the remainder of the dramatis persona—the good-
hearted, good-humoured uncle aid aunt Patrick, and
their gifted nephew Albert, travelling far cad wide
in search of health and life even, while the best elixir
is by his side, but withheld from his grasp; the
noble baron, Oscar, the hopeless lover of Evelyn, and
the gentle Lille, who would fain be in her place.
We pass over these and many ether remarkable per-
sonages, and with a few specimens of the various at-
tractions we have enumerated, wa will take leave of
Miss Bunbury till " next time," which we hope will
not be very far distant. Here is a travelling adven-
ture more amusing, doubtless, to the reader than to
the actors. ThPir guide-book had told the travellers
that "at Mrs. Todd's hotel, at Gottenburg, all the
household speaks English," this being a great desi-
deratum to persons ueacquaieted with Swedish—to
Mrs. Todd's they went. A young woman was sum-
moned to attend them.

" The young woman regarded to with all the quiet
gravity of her nation, when in repose; I saw sbe was
made over to us, and with a smik, I
You speak English, min flika?'
" ' Yes.' she answered.
" I nodded both to her and Evelyn, and feeling quite
at home now, vie entered the inn.

" As they all speak English hero, we can get any-
thing; shall I order cutlets and tea, Eve!yni'
" Very ‘vell.'
" Can you give us tea?' I asked of the tall ills.
" Yes,' she replied, very gravely.
And some mutton cutlets?'
6: 6 yes.,
." Be so good as to g,t them directly, with fresh
bread acd butter, and some boiled milk.'

" Yes.' She stood as if waiting fora more luxuriant
order; but as I turned awa:•, she did so too.
" Evelyn lay d.)wn on her bed, I took possession of
the red sofa. Being accustomed to Austrian, Tyrolese,
and German waiters, we were naturally patient, and let
our Swedes take their time; but when a whole hour had
passed, my longing for tea became irresistible.
" ' Will it never come?' I criel

" I wish you would call fur it,' said Evelyn's languid
voice, from the inner room. Fortunately there was a
bell, and a In answer to its summons came
a different flika, who was an exception to the English-
speaking household of Mrs. Todd.
She poured forth a flood of soft words, not one of
which I understood; and finding I did not respond to
her eloquence, the non-English-speaking Swede came
nearer, and repeeed the same at my ear.
" She means,' said Evelyn, to tell you that the
flika who speaks English will come presently.'
" Oh, then, we will wait,' 1 answered, thinking she
might as well understand my language as I hers; but in
addition I nodded my head, and uttered the word, which
in Swedish signifies good, but looks irreverent in our
eye—'god:
" She went away, and we waited.
" very ridiculous,' I said, it is to come to a
country without understanding the language, though no
one thinks of learning that 01 Sweden.' "

" ' But, Evelyn, is this " tea and chops " to come
at all?'

. Pray ring ag'lin; perhaps our good English genius
is now at hand.'

" < Ent I thought all the household spoke English
well;' so with a heavy sigh I rose off the sofa and rang
again.

" In, to our joy, came the English-speaking flika.
" ' Have you gut the tea and cutlets ready ?'
" ' Will you bring them, then, directly ?'
i 4
" We waited again.

" It is necessary to have patience,' said Evelyn;
you know in Sweden it is hard to get anything after
Lur o'clock.'
" Yes; but I would not eat a morsel in the boat to-
day, because I knew that here, where all the household
spoke English, we could have even what they thought
were our national whims satisfied.'

4" Try to sleep,' said Evelyn, still in her dormitory.
" I cannot, lam so hungry.'
" I got up and rang again; in came the grave tall
Swede.

" We are tired waiting for this tea and cutlets.'
" Yes.'
" ycs the only word of English you can say ?'

" A heavy burst of laughter, much .as I dislike the
words, followed the last ' yes' we extracted from the
English speaking member of this English•speaking
household. Our tea and cutlets, alas! were somewhere,
I suppose, in the kingdom of Utopia."
From a very interesting conversation on the relative
peculiarities of England and Denmark, we extract one
very significant passage

" Poor little Denmark, which you have heard Ger-
mans a hundred times say'ought not to be a separate
kingdom, allots twenty thousand two hundred and
twenty pounds to the advancement of science and litera-
ture; and one thousand six hundred and sixty-six
pounds to paying the travelling expenses of young artists
and men of genius, like Thorwaldsen and Andersen, both
of whom were sent to Rome; where you know the
former, after a long atruggle, was brought into notice by
an Englishman: thus Denmark gives her literary and
scientific sons their first push, launches them on the sea
of life with an oar to begin the struggle; and if, bite
Thorwaldsen, they mount its waves triumphantly, wel-
comes them back with open arms."
To which it is bitterly, but alas ! too truthfully,
rejoined--" Denmark gave her lowly son a pension,
and lent him wings to climb ; in England it would
have been more politic or patriotic to have let him
die, and to have pensioned his widow or his child."
The following very beautiful definition of the intel-
lectual happiness of life is given to Albert (the in-
valid genius of whom we have spoken) on his de-
parture for his momentous journey
" Is such the end, then, 1 said with bitterness, ' for
which you would prolong ray life ? '
" 'lt is ; but if it were attained, I do not say I should
desire to prolong it no further. Oh nu! I believe that
the intellects and faculties, powers or principles, which
God has given us, can be trained and cultivated in this
life, so us to lead to a proportionate development in that •
which is to succeed it ; and that as their measure
of their
easureis
reached here will be the fulness or scantiness
measure her mifter. Ther.c.tomrea,dau loneeu iapipe neappearsrentceshiptotomse
a great blessing, when it is t
hpiieguhstrstate of being.
oafs nought,som some
most.
this
ts
aththinikag,
people do,that wcoarnldnoi
that ha resigning it we can fee
fouthep
life a boon that is almost better
rwitehadereawisnm,
Ifdreovvidiethd
R deemer. That
God through the atonement o
blesseduu r
immortalsaer j: e waspe woeffrier,edtutourreeustot rue.
ut
sol'tuhse theeu t
r Exerciseance tto
of
cloosdedwh; ibohuttbtheisfatlilmoef-sttnaatue
ife'roemulyhitshehi
gshchoeusltatoef hadth e
spirit,aenxdistteLnieseln;° al tsali tbg"roatwbsbiuietrteheit germ
gorfuwan im-
mortal
here-
after ; and I believe that, according to the culture
nature
of stowed upon it, will be its expansion in a state, the
of which is as yet to us unknown.
" would wish you to live, Albert, and not only to
lenguish out a precarious existence, but, if God's will
might so be done, t,) lire in the full exercise of your in-
tellectual powers, and in the full enjoyment of those
large capacities with which you arc endowed ; to live so
that such genius as God hers given you might be raised
and purifi, d ,• yet such talents as you possess aspire to
more than all that even three-more years and ten,' at
their best estate, can achieyo.'
" Beatrice ceased, y et I was silent; but even then a new
light broke in on a darkened soul,"

FIGHTEE 2V HUNDRED AND TWELVE.
Translated front the G:rthan. By Mary .Norman

3 Vols.

At the Literary Fund anniversary dinner, the other
day, the historian Alinon very modestly disclaimed
any praise on the ground of the popularity of his his-
tory of Europe, by ohs: ruing that he had been fortu-
nate in the selection of his theme. He had written,
he said, " concereit g a period when truth had become
romance, when courage had merged into heroism,
and la hen, to be interesting, the historian had only
to be faithful." Whethar in all respects the speaker
himself possessed that necessary qualification of
" fAithfulncss" we will not now stop to consider, but
the passage we have just quoted may be indeed
applied to the theme of the novel above-mentioned.
Wes nut the year eighteen hundred and twelve the
year of all others during that momentous period when
truth and romance, courage and heroism, hi=storical
and interesting became synonymous terms ? In
penning any narrative of the events of the Russian
campaign it might have been supposed that the ima-
gination of the romancist would be little taxed, but
the author of this, in all respects most interesting
work, thought otherwise.; He has endeavoured in this
instance to make fiction as strange as truth. The
historical and the imaginary contents of " 1812" are
both marvellous and enthralling. The only fault we
could find with the work as a whole is that it gives us
too much an emisarras de richesses. Its heroes and
heroines are of all nations, Russian, German, French,
&c. Europe is the field of action, and the
terrible retreat of the French army one of its most
important incidents. To give a resume of such a
work would be almost a matter of impossibility. As
an evidence of its historical attractions, let us say that
the account here given of the retreat is in many re-
spects a counterpart of the heart-thrilling, but, as
Gourgaud has triumphantly proved, the very exag-
gerated narrative of Count ts7egur. The incidents of
that terrible journey are many of them too painful
to peruse. They are described with a naturalness
and minuteness which of course heightens their
gloomy interest. The battle scenes are painted in a
vivid, dashing manner ; the author is a soldier
we are told, and that is enough to assure us
they are depicted con amore. One of the
heroines of the tale is the daughter, or
rather the supposed daughter of a Russian noble of
harsh and arbitrary character. The Russian house-
hold scenes thus introduced give an idea of the hor-
rors of the serf system. One of the most marvellous
fictitious incidents is rendered peculiarly startling
from the fact of its being (though the most improbable
thing in the world) not actually improbable. A
French soldier renders some important service one
dark night to two travellers, a young maiden and her
father ; in order to know them again he changes
rings with the lady, and, to his dismay, finds, after
her departure, that he has not changed the rings after
all, but in the mansion has put his own
back on his finger. So he thinks; but some time
after, when his ring is examined (as it is the only
clue he possesses to the discovery of a lost sister), it
uppshrs that it is not the same—the young stranger
was his sister, and they had changed rings without
knowing it—the rings being almost alike. This little
incident loses much in the abbrevistion. In the
novel its e&ct is startling., from the fact, as we have
already said, of its being morally, but not actually
impossible. With wonderful incidents of all kinds
" Eighteen Hundred and Twelve " abounds The
boat definition we can give of its character is ex-
presssd in the word interesting. It is interesting
in matter, both fictitious and re if, and it is interesting
in manner, for it is well written and full of animation
and energy.

ROCKINGHAM; or the Younger Brother.
3 Vols. Colburn, 1849.

The author of "Rockingham" is, we believe, a
new candidate for literary honours, and he has
no reason to be displeased with the fate of this, his
first venture. lle has produced not only the novel
of the season, but a book that will outlive the season
and become a standard work. We consider
"Rockingham" as the new " Waverley" of a series of
fictions destined to expose the social evils of which
the higher classes of society in this country are
the victims, and we look forward to the day
when the Rockingham Novels will take their
place on the bookshelf by the side of the
Waverley series. The object of " Rockingham"
is to expose the misery inflicted by the law of primo-
geniture upon those very. families for whose benefit
that most unnatural law is supposed to be enacted ;
and after the perusal of this most interesting tale, we
believe that the firmest upholder of that law will be
inclined to admit that the sacrifices made to maintain
it are greater than its maintenance is worth, and that
for the sake of the aristocracy themselves it would be
well that it should be, if not repealed, at least greatly
modified. The hero of the story, Lord Edward
Rockingham, is the younger son of the Marquis
of Arlingford, and as all the attention of the
family is devoted to the nurturing of the eldest
son Lord Elmswater, the heir to the title and estates,
Rockingham is left to follow the bent of his own
inclinations until the time arrives for his being sent
to school. And in the description of Rockingham's
school life our author exposes another social evil for
which it will be more easy to provide a remedy
than for the evils arising from the law of pri-
mogeniture. JIG is sent to a public school, in
which (as in all great public schools to this hour)
the beastly, the degrading, the shame-destroying
punishment of flogging seems to be the only means
adopted for preserving discipline. The effects
of this punishment are most vividly pour-
trayed by our author the boy who has
never been subjected to it maintains his self-respect,
and leaves no effort untried to endeavour to avoid
this chastisement ; but once flogged he feels him-
self degraded, and he invariably becomes subject to
the lash again and again until the sense of shame
is deadened, that which he had formerly shrunk
from he now almost courts as affording him an
opportunity of showing his superiority to physical
pain, that which had been a degradation has become
a martyrdom, and that which had been dreaded as a
disgrace is gloried in as a triumph. The effects pro-
ciaced by this school discipline upon the man in after
life are admirably pourtrayed by our author. •

" The child is lather to the man,"
and so long as those classes from whom our army
and navy are officered, our legislators taken, our
iests ordained, our magistrates appointed, shall be
subjected in their boyhood to these disgraceful,
debasing, soul-hardening punishments, so long
must every attempt to improve the mor.d
condition of our soldiers and our sailors, to
reform the inmates of our goals, or to give a higher
moral tone to social legislation be abortive. The men to
whom the carrying out of these reformatory measures
is entrusted are incompetent to do so; they were in
their younger days slaves governed solely by the lash,
they can appeal to no higher motive of conduct than
fear, they know of no other. Can we he surprised
that the slave emancipated becomes a tyrant ? Talk
to him of exciting feelings of shame in the mind of
an evildoer as a means of reformation, he understands
you not, the feeling of shame is dead within him—he
has acquired at school a habit of degradation. " I
was devilishly w ell flogged at school tn 3 self," said
Colonel 'White, at the inquest on the soldier who was
flogged to death at Hounslow. The Colonel was
evidently not aware at the time of the importance of
the admission. From school Rockingham enters the
navy, and is at the battle of St. Vincent, end at the
attack on Teneriffe with Nelson, and nothing can exceed
the vigour and spirit of the descriptions of those
actions, they are quite equal to the be,t of the nau-
tical descriptions of Cooper. lie is wounded at
Teneriffe, end is nursed and tendered by Donna
Dolores, a young and lovely Spaniard, who possesses
all the warmth of affection and romance which are so
characteristic of her countrywomen. The character
of Dolores is admirably drawn. From Teneriffe he
takes passage in a merchant ship for Lisbon, is
wrecked, escapes alone on a reek, forms a raft, puts
to sea, and is picked up by a French frigate. Ulti-
metely he returns to England, when all had
considered him dead, save and except his
cousin, Sopl,ia Waldcgrave, between whom
and himself the most tender affection had subsisted
from childhood. During his absence the Mar-
quistl
familyhade
dibecomedignity,
tueeylnmd,
teybs:atxr
apr
naes sdnosodeedd,
his
Lheoesrtdahtaeid ,
enormousto maintainsums
i n
contestingsuorting
thhei s 2.cilmeespeelryatemr,nritn.
gaged before, becomes still more heavily incuin-
bered. In order to relieve the estate, the Mar-
quis and his son had previously to the return of
Rockingham endeavoured to bring about a marriage
between Elmswater and Sophia Waldegrave, whose
fortune would pay off all the incumbrences. Not-
withstanding the cordial affection subsistineig.rieribdceeitnat,i•alueidnr
theit oc
loverskingh a n
arel and
separatelySoph i t hes
appealedc h em e itsop
tenr ssess,n•
affections in order to maintain the dignity of the an-
cient house of Arlingford. They agree to wait for
two years, which Rockingham is to spend at sea. We
will not detail his adventures in the Mediterranean,
which constitute one of the most interesting portions
of the book, but hasten to the conclusion. His letters
to Sophia are in:ercepted—reports reach England of
his misconduct, of his arrest, amid of his being about
to ne tried by court-martial; and Sophia at length,
wearied out by the importunities of her relations,
consents to become the wife of Elmswater. Rock-
ingham, wearied of life, seeks danger where-
ever it is to be found, and is killed at the
battle of Trafalgar, and Sophia lives a life
of misery.eh of We have merely in this outline given so
til;utale as is necessary to point out the
moral ieslthe
which
the author seeks to inculcate, but the
novel is replete with portraits, each of which is so
individualised that w e at once become acquainted with
the individual, with all his idosyncracies. "They are
sketcheserhereve, lu agonfanc classes ! s
spuonrhtranirtes
• high-souled Charles Thornton, of Mrs. Went-
tohfeinpdeirvitrdeuiatels,efnotthme