The Sun.
London, England, 1841-03-15 00:00:00

ships continue to arrive at Cuxhaven, where they find
sufficient room in the port.--Hantbargh Papers.
iiELtil AN I. IJ NDS—BetisraLa , MARCH 12,
Actual Debt, 2.4 per Cent.
Itothschild' Loan, 5 per Cvut. ...... :4)
Loan of Thirty Millions,; per Cent B9
3 per Cent

-----Thirty.seven------ 68%
(lit'4n) 98%
Loan of City, 1832, 4 per Cent BB
Society of Commerce, 4% per Cent lO2
Bank of Belgium, 5 per Cent... .............« B7
NationalSaciety, . . —
Exchange on London (short)
—Brussels Papers, March 12.
AUSTRIAN FUNDS.—Vienria, MARCH 3
Five per Ccnts. Metalliques
Fear per Cents...—. ............. ........... ...........
Three per Cents.
Bank Shares ... ........ . ....... .................. ........ « 162714
--411gemeine Zeitung, Mareh Et
HAMBURG BOBSENHALLE, MARCH 6

Bills. Money
Austrian 5 per Cents.
Bank Shares l6 0 1610
Anglo-Russian Loan 106% 106%
Russian 5 per Cent. Ist series, Certificate lo2x 102
Inscription, Ist Seies lOl 10.l}
Russian 5 per Cont. Hope and Co. 3d and 4th
Series a•-• •••• 96 % ...'
Ditto in Certificates
Dutch Actual Debt, 256 per Cent 4P 49
Ditto 5 per Cent
Polish Bondi
New ticket
Anglo-Danish Loan, 3 per Cent. 1'13% 733 j
Not wegian Loan, 1834, 4 per Ciin:.. ..... —
Sp_nish, New 5 per Cents. lE3s
EXCHANGES OK LONDON.
HAMBURG, MARCH 9.-13 s.—Two months, 13 3i
BREMEN, MARCH 5 —Two months, (115.
PETERSBURGH, FEB. iO. —Two months, 39 pence.
LEIPSIC, MARCH s.—Two mo .ths, 6. 183¢.

LITERATURE.

LECTURES ON HEROES.
Fraser, London, 1841.

" The accomplished and distinguished, the
beautiful, the wise, something of what is best in
England, have listened patiently to my rude
words," observes Mr. Carlyle, with modest pride,
alluding to the present series of Lectures which
were delivered some five or six months since, if
we mistake not, at one of our public institutions.
We are not surprised at the favourable reception
which the Lecturer's discourses met with, for they
are marked by a vein of strong original thinking,
on points of vital interest to the social commu-
nity, and are calculated to excite attention by
the very eccentricity of their style, possessing,
as it does—and this, we fear, is its chief recom-
mendation-41 the charm of novelty. Mr. Car-
lyle thinks weal, and thinks deeply too, on many
of the great questions that are now agitating so-
ciety, but he has such a strange, uncouth way of
expressing himself, and involves his thoughts at
times in such a cloud of quaint, hazy, half-
developed metaphors, that he becomes not merely
perplexing, but absolutely unintelligible. His
diamonds are of the first water, but the setting
is very inferior. He scorns to express things in
a plain manner, but seems purposely to hunt about
for the most startling and enigmatical•forms of
expression. There are hundreds, no doubt, who
think this a convincing proof of his genius, and
who frequent his Lectures for the sole purpose
of being excited by something—careless what
that something may be—that wears the aspect
of novelty; but we are not of this class of Mr.
Carlyle's admirers; and therefore while we pay
all due homage to his manly and original powers
of thought, we most earnestly protest against
the manner in which he enunciates those
thoughts. We are quite satisfied with our lan-
guage as it stands, and have no desire to see it
half-Germanized. Thus much by way of objec-
tion, we proceed now to a more pleasing theme.
If there be one thing more than another for
which Mr. Carlyle deserves praise, it is for the
earnestness and sincerity, and, above all, the
utter absence of cant, with which he discusses
questions which many people would handle with
timidity and hesitation. He sees and feels the
truth, and speaks out boldly, like a man. There
is no flinching—no shilly-shallying about him.
He_ gives no quarter to prejudice; laughs at the
common-place and conventional in thought and
sentiment; and, like Wordsworth, writes with
an apparent indifference to the world's opinion.
Though a stern and searching observer, yet his
worldly experience has not taught him to dis-
trust humanity; on the contrary, he is full
of fi►ith in its capabilities; and holds the
cheerful doctrine that it is fast advancing
—despite the stumbling-blocks that are con-
stantly thrown in its way—along the road
of social, moral, and political improvement.
To a certain extent, therefore, he is a Perfecta-
bility man, and derives hope from the very cir-
cumstances that would induce others, less san-
guine, to despair. He has many strange crot-
chets, however, which detract greatly from his
value as a moral teacher; and one of them is, an
admiration of Rousseau, whom he alludesdto as
one of the leading spirits of his age, ranking him
as such with Johnson and Burns. Was ever in-
fatuation greater than this The most heartless,
affected, and egotistical of men, placed by the
side of the most kindly, sincere, and unaffected !
Who but Mr. Carlyle, would ever dream of
coupling Johnson with Rousseau—the gaint with
the dwarf—the man of strong common sense,
with the crazy, maudlin, sentimentalist=the
grave, majestic teacher of moral wisdom, with
the advocate of licentiousness disguised under
the flimsy mask of philanthropy ? "We name
him here," says our author, " because, with all
his drawbacks, and they are many, he has the
first and chief characteristics of a hero—he is
heartily in earnest." In his admiration of ex-
ternal nature, Rousseau—as he shows throughout
his " Confessions"—was unquestionably in ear-
nest, but in no other instance. He had no faith
in his fellow-men ; and wanting this, he wanted
all the elements that constitute the true heroic
in the intellectual character.

THE ENGAGEMENT. 3 VoLs.
CoThum, London, 1841.
Like most novels, whose chief personages
move in the higher walks of society, the " En-
gagement" abounds in scenes of love and senti-
ment, admirably calculated to recommend it to
readers of the gentler and more susceptible sex.
The hero is Lord Halsingham—a tall, romantic,
mysterious Peer, who stalks through the three
volumes like a phantom, appearing arid disap-
pearing with all the formal gravity and signifi-
cance, of Mr. Cooper when playing the part of
the ghost in Hamlet. This remarkable aristo-
crat, who of course is as handsome as an Anti-
nous, encounters, on his return from Vienna, a
young girl by name Horatio Mornington, to
whom, with her father's permission, he pays his
addresses, and by whom he is favourably re-
ceived. He is soon, however, summoned back
to the Continent, hut previous to his departure,
he extorts from Horatio a promise that she will
marry him the instant he returns to England.
Unfor:unately, the girl repents her engage-
ment, avid scarcely has her affianced Lord
turned his back, when she meets with a
relation of his, one Captain Coningsby, at a
friend's house in the country, whom she falls
desperately in love with; and the passion being
duly reciprocated, a very pretty scene of embar-
rassment ensues; both parties become perf'ectly
miserable ; the Captain can think only of Horatia ;
Horatia can think only of the Captain, the ne-
cessary—indeed, inevitable consequence of
which is, that one fine morning the enamoured
couple are caught kissing each other at an awful
rate by an officious fellow, one Chadwick, who,
as a friend of Lord Halsingham, takes the ear-
liest opportunity of his Lordship's retna, to ac-
quaint him with his untoward discovotk. Mad-
dened with rage, the Peer vows vengeance
against Coningsby, but on an explanation taking
place between them, - previous to a resort to
arms, Lord Halsingham findS out that the Cap-
tain was after all not so much to blame, for he
had made every honourable effort to struggle
against his weakness, and had, besides, been in-
duced to believe that Horatia was not in heart
attached to his Lordship, but was anxious to
break the engagement between them. On further
explanation, it transpires that though Miss Morn-
ington has no great affection for him, a Miss Belle-
isle—h er friend and neighbour—has,which greatly
comforts the Peer, who had always suspected
that Coningsby had supplanted him in that quar-
ter, too. Ultimately, it turns out that the Cap-
min, so far from being his enemy, had always
been his best and most disinterested friend, and
that the cause of the estrangement which had
long existed between them, was owing to the
manoeuvres of Chadwick, whose projects of poli-
tical advancement Coningsby had on one occa-
sion been the means of thwarting. Of course,
after this explanation, a reconciliation takes
place between the parties, who are both, in the
fullness of time, made happy with their respec-
tive iDulcineas. Such is a slight, hasty sketch
of some of the chief incidents in the " Engage-
ment," which is a clever, animated story, though
there is no great novelty in its construction ;
forcibly, and even eloquently written, as regards
style; and not deficient in its delineation of cha-
racter.

BEL GI UM. 2 Voz.s.
Bentley, London, 1841.

One of the chief objects which Mr. Emerson
Tennent proposed to himself in writing these
volumes—as he has stated in his dedication to
Lord Stanley—was to show the injury that has
occurred to Belgium from the repeal of its
union with Holland, and thereby to convince
Ireland of the peril in which she would place her
best and dearest interests, were she to be infa-
tuated enough to follow the same example, as
regards her connexion with Great Britain. As
this is a political, rather than a literary question,
we shall hot discuss it in this place, but content
ourselves with remarking upon matters more ac-
ceptable to the general reader. As a traveller,