The Sun.
London, England, 1840-05-04 00:00:00

PRICE sd.

Poland and to England.—(Hear.) A German sta-
tuary at Munich had completed for him (Lord D. C.
Stuart) a bust of Prince Czarterywsky, which was much
praised for the accuracy of the likeness, the force of ex-
press;on, and the beauty of the execution. The Rus-
sian Ambassador compelled the authorities to seize the
bust and break it into pieces. so that the Autocrat bad
the pleasure of destroying Polish and English property
at the same time.--t Shame. shame.)
Thanks were subsequently voted with much enthu-
siasm to the Hon. Mrs. Singleton for her constant, per-
severing, and charitable exertions in behalf of the refu-
gees—to Lord Dudley Stuart for his eminent s,..rvices
to the Poles and to the Association—and to Mr. Szulc-
zewski for his lectures on Polish history, and his gene-
rous contribution of the entire proceeds ;—after which
the Meeting separated.

SIR SAMUEL ROMILLY'S EARLY

YEARS

We were brought tip principally by a very kind
and pious female relation of my *mother, a Mrs.
Margaret Facquier, who had lived in our family
ever since ray mother's marriage. Sheeaught us to
read, and to read with intelligence: though the
books in which we were taught we,e ill-suited to
our age. The Bible, the Spectator, and an Eno-
lish translation of Telemachus. are those which I
recollect our hating in most frequent use. But
this kind relation had too bad a state of health to
attend to us constantly. During the last forty
years of her life, it seldom happened that many
weeks passed without her being confined to her bed,
or at least to her room. The care of us; upon
these occasions, devolved on a female servant of
the name of Mary Evans, who was ill-qualified
to give us instruction, or to cultivate our
understandings ; but whose tender and affec-
tionate nature, whose sensibilitiv at the suffer-
ings of others, and earnest desire to relieve them
to the utmost extent of her little means, could hardly
fail to improve the hearts of those who were
under her care. Perhaps there hardly ever ex-
isted three persons more affectionate, more kind,
more compassionate, and whose sentiments and
whose example were better calculated to inspire
every soft and generous affection, than these two
excellent women and our most exedent father.
It was under the influence of these examples that
we passed our earliest years ; as for my mother.
she was incapable, from the bad state of her
• health, of taking any part in our education.
'The servant whom I have mentioned was to me in
the pig.ce of a mother. I loved her to adoration.
I remember, when quite a child, kissing, unperl.,
ceived by her, the clothes which she wore ; antil!
when she once entertained a design of quitting
our family, and going to live with her own rela-
tions, receiving the news as that of the greatest evil
that could befal inc ; and going up into my room
in an agony of affliction, and imploring God upon my
knees to avert so tetrib!e a calamity. It is com-
monly said to be the happy privilege of youth to
to feel no misfortunes but the present, to be care-
less of the future, and forgetful of the past.
That happy privilege I cannot recollect having ever
enjoyed. In my earliest infancy my imagination
was elarmed and my fears awakened by stories of
devils, witches, and apparitions; and they had a
much greater effect upon me than is even usual
with children ; at least I judge so from their effect
being of a more titan usual duration. The images
of terror with which those tales abound, infested
my imagination very long after I had discarded all
belief in the tales themselves and in the motions
on which they are built ; and even now, although
I hare been accustomed for many years to pas: my
evenings and my nights in solitude, and withoot
even a servant sleeping in my chambers, I must
with some shame confess that they are sometimes
very unwelcome intruders upon my thoughts. I
often recollect, and never without shuddtring, a
story which, in my earliest childhood (for my
memory hardly reaches beyond it), I overheard, as
I lay in bed, related by an old woman who was
employed about our house, of a servant mur-
dering his master ; and particularly that part
of it where the murderer, with a knife in his
hand, had crept, in the dead of night, to
the side of the bed in which his master lay
asleep, and when, as from a momentary com-
punction, he was hesitating be,
`.ore he executed
his bloody purpose, he on a sudden heard a deep
• hollow voice whispering close to his ear in a com-
manding tone, " that he should accomplish hi.: de-
sign !" But it was not merely such extravagant
stories that disturbed my peace ; as dreadful an
tm-
pression was made on me by relations of murders,
and acts of cruelty. The prints winch I found in
the Lives of the Martyrs and the Newgate Calen-
dar, have cost me many sleepless nights. My
dreams, too, were disturbed by the hideous images
which haunted my imagination by day. I thought
myself present at executions, murders, and scenes
of blood, and I have often lain in bed agitated
by my terrors, equally afraid of remaining awake
in the dark, and of falling asleep to encounter the
horrors of my dreams. Often have I in my even-
ing prayers to God besought him, with the utmost
fervour, to suffer me to pass the night undisturbed
by horrid dreams. I had other apprehensions,
and some of a kind which we comtnorly .reserved
for maturer years. I was oppressed with a con-
stant terror of death, not indeed for myself,
but for my father, whose life was certainly
much dearer to me than my own. I never
looked on his countenance, on which care and afle-
tion had deeply imprinted premature marks of old
age, without reflecting that there could not be many
years of his excellent life still to come. If he re-
turned home later than usual, though hut half an
hour, a thousand accidente presented themselves to
my mind ; and, when put to bed, I lay sleepless
and in the most tormenting anxiety till I heard
him knock. This state of mind became so habitual
to me that an uneasiness and a foreboding of some
misfortune came upon me regularly about half an
hour before the usual time of his return, and went on
increasing till the moment of his arrival. So, far,
indeed, was I from endeavouring to overcome this
weakness, that I willingly encouraged it, from a
strange idea which I had conceived, that by dread-
ilia misfortunes I prevented them ; and that the
calamity which I feared would, whenever it hap-
pened, come upon me quite unwares. I took a
pleasure, therefore, in Indulging my terrors, and
reproached myself if ever I felt a moment of
security.—The idea of my father's approach-
ing death pursued me even in the midst of
scenes which seemed most likely to dispel such
gloomy reflections. I remember once accompany-
ing him to the theatre on a night when Garrick
acted. The play was Zara, and' it was followed
by the farce of Ledie. The inimitable and various
powers of acting which were displayed by that ad-
mirable performer in both those pieces, could not
for a moment drive from my mind the dismal idea
which haunted me. In the aged Lusignan I saw
what my father in a few years would be, tottering
on the brink of the grave ; and when in the farce
the old man desires to drink the waters of Lethe,
that he msy forget how old he is, I thought that
the same idea must naturally present itself to my
father; that he must sec as clearly as I did, that his
death could not be at the distance of many years ;
and that, notwithstanding his apparent cheerful-
ness, that idea 'nest often prey upon his mind, and
poison his happiness more even than it did mine.
I looked at his countenance as he was sitting by
me—persuaded myself that I observed a change in
his features—conjectured that the same painful re-
flections had occurred to him as had to me—re-
pented of having entered the theatre—and returned
from it as sad and as dejected as I could have done
from a funeral.—Memoirs of Sir S. Romilly.

THE SPORTSMAN IN IRELAND AND Scor-
tarin.—A most well-informed, humourous, and altogether
agreeable travelling companion. The leading features are all
more or less of a sporting nature ; and in this point of view the
work has uncommon interest. The writer is not only a fly.
fisher of the first grade, but a master of the angle in all its
departments, and the details he gives of his various experiences
on the lakes and rivers of the beautiful lands which he passed
over cannot fail to send hosts of sportsmen thither who never
before contemplated such a visit, and many more. rho would
scarcely have ventured such an undertaking without the guide
here placed at their disposal. The work is embellished with
many very spirited and interesting sketches of remarkable lo-
calities. and is altogether one of the most readable and amusing
books of its kind that we have had for many a day.—New
Colonel Sir Henry Dalrymple Ross, K.C.8.,
has been appointed Deputy Adjutant-General of Artillery, in
place of the late Sir Alexander Dielisou.