The Sun.
London, England, 1847-03-15 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

es see? si.,l Y s ep; r es r ILB
f%o. X Shttc;les ,g- 111 Life. Tran.Niatcd
by Sir A. Gordon, Bait. Part I.
A mere compact, cheap, purtaile, and generally ex- I
cellent sEriai publication is nut i-sued than this Library
of Literieu e for all climes. From le hat has already I I
appeared. we may perceive that the pie spectus origi-
nally issued from Albemarle-street is in a fair way of
being realised. In the forty-cne numb( rs which kid
been produced before the presk nt one had passed through
the printing press, we have selections from the
writings of many distinguished authors ; among
others may be mentioned Washington Irving, Heber,
Southey, Borrow, Borrow, Drinkwater, and Darwin.
And several of the most accomplished aristocrats
have embellished its pages with their abilities : in proof
whereof we may enumerate Lady Duff Gordon, Lord
Mahon, Sir Freueis Head, Sir Jobu Malcolm, and the
Earl ce Ellesmere. Nor have the monthly volumes been
restricted to works whose merit had been long acknow-
hdged Others have appeared in the Home and Colonial
Library. whose powers of thought, and picturesqueness
of description wi re previously unknown : ex. gr. the
inimitable Hermann Melville's Visit to the Marquesas
Islands. With scarcely a single exception, we have
found the utmost discrimination apparent in the selection
of the various compositions comprised in the perio-
dcal. For almost the first time since that pe-
riodical was undertaken, we have found a total '
absence of discrimination in the work now lying under
consideration, translated from the German original by
the facile and accurate pen of Sir A. Gordon. We re-
gret this the more, as it is calculated to warp the minds
of those readers who are so far unfamiliar with the more
truthful narratives of the events therein recorded, as to i
be liable to be the victims of a bold and shameless decep-
tion. These "Sketches of German Life" purport to
afford glimpses of the war of liberation in Germany.
They are, however, glimpses as unreal, but not quite as
fraught with a mystic wisdom, as the phantasms
and tableau vivans beheld on Christmas Eve in
the orgies of the subterranean goblins by
Gabriel Grub, of whom most readers wot in the Posthu-
mous Papers of the Pickwick Club. " Scenes" they
are called " from the war of liberation in Germany."
It is needless to ask the translator if he has corrected
the statements containedn his descriptions by the ac-
counts given by lomini ."Traites de Grandes 016
rations Militaires ;" by Bignon, in his " Ilistoire de
France ;" by Bout tourlin, in his " Campagnes de 1812
et 1813 ;" by Capefigue, by Matthieu Dumas, by Baron
Fain, by Lebaume, and a multitude of other his-
torians. It is needless, we repeat it, to ask whe-
ther this emendation has ever been at'empted, for the
work possesses internal evidence that the neces
city of such an emendation has probably never
crossed the imagination of Sir A. Gordon. As nothing
of the kind is visible in the production before us, so very
naturally is it replete with misstatements and misrepre-
sentations enough to render Colonel Mitchell happy for
the rest of his valuable days- Nevertheless the Sketches
are sparkling enough in their manut r, and on topics in
which the writer's patriotic prejudices Lre not concerned,
he affords us much interesting inf inflation. At
one time be tells us how the people of Dusseldorf
" tore their hair, and scratched their fecee, and called
down execrations on the murderers," when the in-
telligence arrived, of the execution of Louis XVI.
At another moment he gives us a very lively
description of the conflagration at the Prince Schwart-
zenbureh's, immediately after the marriage of the Em•
peror Napoleon and Marie Louise. Although a thousand
accounts of this appalling catastrophe have already been
published in histories, memoirs, journals, autobio-
graphies, and so forth, the present narrative is not with-
out an interest of its own, as the writer was among the
eye-witnesses, and as his account differs considerably,
from the accounts previously given. Judging from the
general inaccuracy of the book, however, we are dis-
posed to place but little reliance upon the altera-
tions introduced. Vs hat shall we think of
man who can have the folly, not to say the
turpitude to garble history like this? Speaking of the
dead Cmear of France, he observes:—" The impression
left by his memory on the present generation is far
stronger than that which he miide on his own. It sounds
strange, but it is nevertheless true, that neither the loser
nor the upper classes in Paris—not even his own imme-
diate adherents—had any real reverence for him, or con-
sidered him a man of the highest order." Was it so, in
truth? Why, if the descriptions of this scribe be
correct, most we not rate the Czar Alexander as
little above an idi it to swear eternal friendship
for such an one at Erfurt and Tilsit; must we not
regard Pius the Seventh as au imbecile in viewing him
with affection; must we not look upon Francis of Austria
with unmitigated contempt when we call to mind hie
interview in the highway? Was it so, we ask? Wes
this great warrior despised by " his own adherents?"
Answer it shades et Duroc, of Lavalette, of Ney, of
Murat, of Labedoyere! Answer it Gourgaud, Rovigo,
Las Cases, Bertrand, An tommarchi, Montholon, Cipriani!
Was he contemned by the "upper classes?" when the
ancient aristocrats numbered themselves among his most
obsequious parasites, when M. de Coblentzel said to him
after the victories cf Lutzen and Bautzen, "Sire,
some ssy that you are an angel, others that
you are a devil ; but all confess that you are
more than a man !" Was he scorned by the " lower
classes?" Answer it, the millions who welcomed his
banners in his triumphal march from Cannes upon the
capital. Answer it, the peasants who made pilgrimages
(as Thackeray tells us in his account of the exhumation)
to the Seine, to fall down on their knees and pray,
while they gazed on the sarcophagus as it floated on
towards Paris. Answer it, citizens of Paris, who hang
garlands on the rails round the column in the Place
Vendome. Answer it, Pierre Jean de Beranger, the
poet of the people—or, as this writer loves to term
them, of the lower classes.
" Or. parlera de sa gloire
Sous le chaume Lien longteznps
L'hunzble toit dans cinquante ens
Nertonnaitra plus d'autre histoire ;
Ld viendront les villageois
Dire alors a quelque vietlle
Par des 74cits d'autrefois,
Mere, abri:gez notre veille.
Bien dit-on qu' it nous ait nui
Le people en core le revere,
OUI, LE REVERE !"
Whatever may be the merits of this enthusiasm, there it
is, attesting its e also nee in a thousand eloquent voices.
'Fo pieeey it would be madness or downright idiotism.
And yet Colonel Mitchell would gainsay it, and the
author of these Sketches of German Lite" does gain-
say it!

HISTORY OF ROME. By Miss Corner.

Among the numerous volumes written by this lady
fur the instruction of children—and she has written his-
tories of this character embracing almost all times and
almost all nations—this is one of the most beautiful and
xcellent. The purity of the composition throughout
the writings of Miss Corner is singular and fascinating;
she loves the old Saxon tongue " which Shakspeare
spake," and not the mongrel diction which
has been long tending to the degeneration of the
language. But this is not the only advantage in the
school histories produced by Miss Corner—admirable as
that advantage is in tutoring the mind of childhood in
a phraseology the most elegant and chaste—it is, per-
haps, the least merit in the volumes. It is in the ar-
rangement and classification of her materials, in the
simplification of occurrences that would otherwise be
complicated and embarrassing ; in the explication of
ceremonies and creeds that would, but for that
explication, remain abstruse and impenetrable mys-
teries to children ; and in the preservation
of a direct chain of sequence in the events
of each particular history, that the excellences of
Miss Corner's writings are most conspicuous. In these
particulars she is unrivalled. From the skill with which
she has combined all these advantages, Miss Corner has
entitled herself to a consideration not inferior to that
with which the memory of Madame Chapone is re.
garded. Beyond all this, there is a delic,cy in the man-
ewe in which she treats subjects that in other works are
repulsive. She adapts herself to the purr and immacu
late sentience of the infant race. Thus in recounting how
the first barbarian citizens of Rome obtained wives
she heads it " Ihe fabulous account or the Sabine
maidens;" in mentioning the supposed parentage of
Romulus, she remarks that his father was "the god
Mars, who, it is said, had secretly espoused the princess ;"
stud even in recording how the infant twins were suckled
by the wolf near the Palatine-hill, she says that " the
wolf gave them nourishment, as though they had been
her own offspring." For simpicity of style, lucidity of
arrangement, accuracy of narrative, and clearness of
thought, this volume is deserving of all praise.

A TREATISE on the LAW RELATING to
PATENT Pi IVILEGES for the ,ole Use of IN-
VENTIONS, and the Practice of obtaining Letters
Pa tat for
s, Inventio..s : with an Appendix of Statutes,
Rules, forms, By W. M. Htndmarsh, Esq., Bar-
rister-at Law.
Ihe want of a treatise on the law of patents, which
should present a complete summary of the present state
of that law has been long felt. This want has been ad-
mirably supplied by Mr. Hindmarsh, who has produced
a work which, embodying, as it does, all that is valuable
in the works of his predecessors with much new and
original matter, and containing all the latest decisions,
must supersede all other books on this subject. In pre
paring those parts of the work which relate to practice,
Mr. Hindmarsh has obtained the assistance of the offi-
cers by whom the various proceedings ate conducted
or prepared, and the forms given in the appendix, have
the greater number of them been used in actual practice.