The Sun.
London, England, 1841-11-02 00:00:00

NETT' MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

The late Mr. Macnish's tale of " Metempsy-
chosis," which was published many years ago in
Blackwood's Magazine, has been closely, indeed,
servilely, imitated by the author of " A Strange
Passage in th e life of Charles Welford"—a story
which appears in the presents N umber of this
periodical, and which turns on the sudden trans-
formation of the hero into a certain noble Mar-
quis, whose wealth and rank he had long coveted.
In the original narrative the scene of the trans-
formation of one man into another, by super-
natural influence, was laid in Germany, where
such a wild incident was appropriately enough
located; but the present imitator, with the bad
taste that usually characterises imitations, lays
his scene in a Square at the West-end of London ;
where, doubtless, many singular metamorphoses
occur in the course of the season—(such, for in-
stance, as the change of a rich man into a beggar
by the conjuring powers of a pack of cards ; of
a Prime Minister into a quack doctor; or of a
club-haunting husband into a stag, through the
diabolical agency of some handsome young officer
in the Guards, standing six feet two in his shoes,
and measuring three feet across the shoulders)—
but where a transformation, such as the author
of " Charles Welford," adopts as the ground-
work of his fiction, becomes the sheerest absur-
dity, from the circumstance of its forming no
part of the past or present faith of a worldly,
incredulous W est-end Square? The locale makes
all the difference between sense and nonsense in
works of imagination. Pan frisking in the woods
of Arcadia, is a highly poetical personage; but
when he is made to cut capers in the
Regent's Park, he becomes not only an ab-
surd, incongruous creation, but a very suspicious
character, worthy of the special notice of
the policemen. " A Test of Equanimity "is
archly and whimsically put. " Take a quart
bottle of ink," says the writer, " break it, and
try if you can say 'it's all for the best,' while it's
spoiling your best pantaloons !" This is certainly
a good test of equanimity, but we subjoin a far
surer one ;—take the Rev. Mr. Dillon's narrative
of the Lord Mayor's Voyage to Oxford ; read
through six pages; and try if you can refrain
from flinging this printed prodigy of dullness and
ineptitude into the coal-scuttle. He who can so
command himself, can bear the griefs of Job
without a murmur. " Phineas Quiddy," con-
tains some smart hits at the sordid money-scrap-
ing propensities of the day. In the article headed
" A French Pic-nic," we find several descriptive
touches of more than ordinary vigor. The
" Outlaw " is a pretty ballad of the Haynes-Bayley
school. We quote it, for the amusement of our
younger readers :

They knew him in his Gladness,
In his Summer's brightest day ;
Ere Penury and Sadness
lied dimm'd its latest ray.
Who can admire the sunbeams
When hid in transient gloom ?
Or who can love the rose-tree,
When its roses cease to bloom ?
They left him in his Sorrow,
When his heart was sad and lone
When he rose upon the morrow
But to wish it past and gone !
Oh ! who can love the winter,
When its sky with tempest lowers ?
'Tis the Spring alone finds friends
• For its Sunbeams and its Flowers.
Of the concluding chapters of the " Life and
Adventures of Charles Chesterfield," we need
say nothing, as the work has been already re-
published in three volumes, and passed the
ordeal of criticism. The " Advantages of Be-
longing to a Club" is by the author of Paul Pry.
It is a capital quiz on those mean, restless, fid-
getty busy-bodies, who have a passion for re-
forming every thing and every body but them-
selves. Mr. Poole lays on the lash without
mercy. Lord Cardigan himself could not order
a man to be flogged on Sunday with more seve-
rity. "Graduates and Undergraduates" exhibits
yromise ; but it is early yet to form a decided
opinion of a work which has only reached its
second chapter. "Bajazet Gag ; or the Manager
in Search of a Star," is continued by Mr. Jerrold
with his usual dry, grave, caustic humour. The
scene at the police-office where the pompous
Lessee—and who more pompous than such a per-
sonage ?—is charged with stealing the dog of a
rival manager, is admirable. With what infinite
dignity the greet man resigns himself to circum-
stances ! With what an eye of condescending
pity he regards his prompter, who is also his
partner in affliction ! Adversity tames the
proudest natures; and the despotic Gag almost
descends to the level of his fellow-sufferer, and
allows him to be his equal ! How many a would-
be Magnifico may derive a useful lesson from
Mr. Jerrold's irony ! As this scene is unfortu-
nately too long to quote, we give, instead, a
sketch of a veteran actor, who has been dis-
missed by the imperious Bajazet, for laying an
undue emphasis on the letter B :
Old Smoakly—for so was the prophet known to his
brethren—was an actor of forty years' standing, and some
titi,6oll3 Since 44 been quelled in Elie troof of Gag. To

use the well-known phrase, he was always " perfect as
an angel in his part"—could play one character quite as
well as another—was never too late at a rehearsal—was
quite an authority in character wigs—acted duinmy ba-
ronets and virtuous broken-hearted fathers with all the
legendary proprieties,—and, indeed, cast an unusual re-
spectability about that very equivocal theatrical abstrac-
tion—general utility. Yet, with all these advantages,
Smoakly was discharged—ay, ignominiously thrust
forth from the boards oeGag. We hope that the reader
will have curiosity sufficient to seek the wherefore. We
will tell him. Smoakly, with all these excellencies, fell
a victim to the letter b. In one of Gag's hardware, do-
mestic tragedies—one of those touching dramas written
with the juice of onions, which the manager had fami-
liarized to the sensibilities of the town, Smoakly had
one of those important characters, the very importance
of which very often consists in saying next to nothing ;
the less that there is to be said of course requiring the
greater condensation of genius to make the little striking.
Smoakly acted upon this obvious principle. The part
was lead, but there was one line in it, which the actor
by the very alchemy of emphasis was determined to
transmute into virgin gold. The incident was briefly as
follows :—The scoundrel of the drama was about to kid-
nap the rightful heir of some very extensive Hungarian
estates, when the bold, good man, intrusted to Smoakly,
opportunely enters, and in energetic speech addresses
the culprit,—
" Villain—deliver up the baby !"
was the powerful line intrusted to Smoakly, who had
merely to utter it, draw his sword, stamp with his right
foot, and fixing himself in an attitude, wait for the ap-
plause. Smoakly, however, was not content with the
simple energy of " baby" as spelt by Johnson, but striv-
ing to wreak the intensest passion on the word, exclaimed
" Villain—deliver up the bobby !
Upon ordinary occasions Smoakly's improvement of the
syllables might have passed off unnoticed by Gag's audi-
ence ; but, unfortunately, it was Saturday night, and
there being present a number of gentlemen of the Hebrew
persuasion, the auditory were correspondingly critical ;
hence Smoakly's bobby was received with a burst of
laughter altogether destructive of the intended pathos of
the scene. Smoakly was on the instant discharged,
Mr. Bajazet Gag not condescending to listen to the high
authority of Shakspeare himself, which Smoakly sought
to wrest to his own extenuation. " Doesn't Shakspeare
make Marc Antony say,
"This was the most unkindest cut of all ?'_

and doesn't Shakspeare there mean to show that the
passion of the part is too great, too swelling, to be con-
fined to the vulgar bounds of grammar ? Did yo❑ ever
hear a man in a rage care about talking grammar ? Do
you think if you saw a ruffian running away with your
child, you'd pause to pick out baby from tabby ? No,
Sir, the more wrong you were, the more you'd show
yourself in earnest. What's pronunciation to feelings ?'

THE SUN, LONDON,