The Sun.
London, England, 1847-10-07 00:00:00

THE SUN,

TO THE RIGHT HON. LORD

JOHN RUSSELL, M.P.

MY LORD,-It is impossible not to suppose but
that your Lordship must regard with anxiety, not
unmixed with consternation, the dreadful and un-
exampled pressure which at present exists in the
commercial world.

The aspect of affairs in the City becomes daily
more alarming ; and while I can sympathise in the
dilemma in which your Lordship is placed between
adherence to the Currency Bill of 1844 on the one
hand, and the stern necessity of giving relief to the
commerce of the country, by the relaxation of its re-
strictive clauses, on the other, I believe that the time
has now arrived when your Lordship can no longer
hesitate as to the course to be pursued.
Nothing, my Lord, can stay the panic which now
exists, and enable the Bank to afford the relief abso-
lutely required in the present emergency, unless that
institution is at once authorised to issue to the extent
of three millions on securities beyond its present
limits.

If you adopt this course, my Lord, you will be
readily indemnified by a grateful Parliament, and
you will save the credit of the country, which is now
tottering to its foundation.
I have the honour to be, your Lordship's obedient,
humble servant,
Oct. 6, 1847.

A COUNTRY BANKER.

THE CRISIS.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

SlR,—Your correspondent, " A Merchant," of
Hull, proposes the most extraordinary process for
curing a formidable disease which I ever heard of.
He justly censures, for not repealing Peers monstrous
Currency Bill, the present Ministers, and then
suggests restoring the author of all our sufferings to
power !
__ _

A quack, A., administers to 8., as medicine, a
deadly poison ; C. is called in ; the friends of B.
deem his practice not sufficiently vigorous, and,
therefore, one of them vehemently urges that they
should send for A., the poisoner !
Instead of such absurdities (almost as monstrous
as Peel's Bill), let a meeting of merchants, bankers,
and (emphatically) tradesmen, be called immediately,
and an address to Ministers, signed by ten or fifteen
thousand persons, requiring the instant suspension and
early repeal of the giant trade destroyer, be pre-
sented by deputation.—Always yours,
BEIRNIARD.

MAGAZINES-(CONTINUED.)
TAI T.

An important argument.on " Direct Taxation and
the Suffrage," is the suitable commencement of the
October number of our liberal Edinburgh contem-
porary. Sir Thomas Dick Lauder continues with
an incomparable industry, and with a very agreeable
enthusiasm, his Papers upon the river Tweed ; and
De Quincey, besides completing his flagellation of
Schlosser by an extra dozen, gives an additional dis-
sertation upon " Secret Societies." Mr. Percy B. St.
John contributes the first instalment of a story of the
French Revolution, entitled " Miranda." As a spe-
cimen of natural versification, the lines addressed to
Paul Delaroche, the great French painter, being a series
of thoughts suggested by his noble sketch of the
Emperor Napoleon at Fontainbleau, March 31, 1814,
are good. The painting was exhibited during the
season of the present year at the Royal Academy.
There are several other political and literary articles in
this number of Tait, but few demanding any especial
praise, and none admitting of any lengthened quota-
tion.

DUBLIN UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE.
Another excellent number of the Dublin University
greets us, containing the usual varied assortment
suited to all tastes and to all classes of readers. " The
Comic Alpenstock " is really what it professes to be,
a right merry guide to the Alpine regions. The re-
commendations, if strictly attended to, will make the
journey a delightful one. You are to travel laughing*
in good humour, which we are assured is the lightest
and easiest travelling carriage, and to take with you
health, spirits, and a strong pair of shoes. The
" Comic Alpenstock," and the three M's, viz., Mur-
ray, Mackintosh, and Money—the latter quite indis-
pensable, the old proverb, " Point d'argent, point de
Suisse," really meaning "No money, no Switzer-
land." The money should also be your own, for if
you take that of any one else, it may probably delay
your journey for seven years, although you may
have an opportunity during the period of seeing
Australia, and if you miss the chamois, you will have
the pleasure of making the acquaintance of the kangaroo.
The present chapter treats of " Passports," " Swiss
Currency," " Luggage," and " The Suite." On the
first we shall let the author speak for himself as to the
real value of the system :
" For my part, without passports, custom-house regu-
lations, and railway tickets, affording as they do such
unlimited scope for blunders and cross purposes, I do not
know in what the amusement of travelling would consist.
I am thankful for everything that promotes anarchy and
confusion, and their legitimate issue,—fun and frolic.
The grand diversion on the Belgian and German rail-
roads consists in the guards continally asking for the
passengers' tickets. lam satisfied it is done for mere
pastime, and a most agreeable and exciting one it cer-
tainly is. The directors deserve all praise for invent-
ing it—
" Votre billet, monsieur!'

" The following scene took place in my presence last
year on one of the Belgian lines:—
"' Votre billet, monsieur!'

" The guard was addressing the cockney father of a
family, who knew little more French than I do of
Japanese. He thought the officer alluded to one of his
children, whose familiar appellation happened to be Billy,
and he pushed the boy towards the window to answer
for himself. • t

" Votre billet,' repettiied the guard, laughing; the
Belgians are the best-humoured people in the world.
" This is mon Billy.'
" Non, non,' said the good-humoured guard.
"' I say, yes, yes,' said the father, and his wife corro-
borated the statement, putting her hand on Master
Billy's shoulder, shaking her head, and repeating—
' Notre Billy notre Billy half•price—demi-prix
notre Billy—under ten—dix annees,' pronouncing the
dix honestly, every letter of it.
" It was excellent fun, and all owing to the ticket-
system on the Belgian railways. I fell in with the same
worthy family frequently afterwards, and used to call
the father Cockneius Magnus, for he was certainly the
finest bird of his species that famous London town' ever
produced."
At the conclusion we have a programme of our bill of
fare for the ensuing month.
" When we start again, we shall speak of language
and costume, of the characteristics of Switzerland,
physical, moral, and political; we shall instruct the
pedestrian how to walk, and the climber how to climb;
we shall be zoological, geological, gastronomical, and
economical; we shall run some of the Alps up, and run
others down—exhibit their passes, their lasses, and their
asses; not forgetting the two-footed variety of the
donkey race—the Asinus Johannis, or common jackass
of the British islands."

" Leaves from the Life of Prince Talleyrand " con-
cludes the history of this extraordinary man; it relates
from the time of his appointment to the British Em-
bassy, in 1830, to that of his death. The interest of
the former parts is fully maintained. As usual there
are many admirable notices of new works • the pre-
sent number contains four, viz., " Leigh Ilunea
Men, Women, and Books," " Eastlake's History of
Oil Painting," " Touching Father Prout's last book,"
by Morgan Rattler, and " Sir George Simpson's
Overland Journey Round the World." " The Lays
of Many Lands" give us translations from the Ger-
man, French, Irish, and Romaic. We regret much
that we are unable, from the length of the pieces, to
transfer any of them to our columns. The first,
" Love after Death," is that upon which Lewis
founded his romance of the " Bleeding Nun," which
has so often thrilled with horror the youthful readers.
The second, " Napoleon," is from the French
of, M. Lamartine. We greatly prefer, however, the
third, " Moreen a Love Lament," from the Irish
of Charles Boy it'Quillan, to any. It contains some
exquisitely beautiful and pathetic sentiments. The
fourth, " Alexander Ypsilanti," is much shorter than
any of the others, and, we confess, not so much to
our taste, The only other article in rhyme in the
number, " The Marvellous Bell," might have very
properly been joined with the others under the former
head, for it is a translation from the Bohemian, and
by the same author, each bearing the now well-known
initials " J. C. M.," which every reader of the Dub-
lin University is so delighted to see attached to the
poetical contributions, " Narayun Bawa " gives an
account of that extraordinary child, " the pseudo-
Messiah of the Mahrattas," who, during the brief
space he, was before the public, attracted so much
attention by the singular faculty of catching and
controlling the most venemous serpents, and his
pretended power of working miracles, which led to
his being worshipped as a god, and to the belief
that he was a new incarnation of " Indrajit," who,
according to the prophecy of the poet Toolsee Das,
was to re-appear about the year 1832 or 183, to over-
throw the British rule in the Deccan, and _to reign at
Delhi for 80 years—a golden age of uninterrupted
prosperity and happiness. These hopes, however,
which induced ten thousand pilgrims—many of them
men of wealth and rank—to prostrate themselves at
hisll frustrated by his
feet, in the course
sudden o f twoan dourn e threexpeet
unexpected
months,death from were
a
the bite of a venemous serpent, the first he was unable
to manage and control. It was for some time im-
plicitly believed that he would reappear, but the pro-
mised resurrection not having taken place, his name
and history are now almost forgotten, within the brief
space of seventeen years. "Erotion ; a Tale of
Ancient Greece," is really a beautiful story. The
heroine, ' a priestess of the Temple of Diana at
Taurica, is the offspring of a stranger and a former
priestess, who had been punished by death for the
breach of her vows, while her child had been brought
up from her earliest infancy in the Temple. The lot
falls to her, in her fourteenth year, to keep
the awful vigil, after which she is to be
received as a priestess, or else banished and
never more seen by human eye. The goddess
visits her and she is wafted past the ocean of death to
the land of immortality, where, in a sort of Elysium,
amongst those who have erred, suffered, and repented
on earth, she sees her mother who, although happy,
cannot be perfectly so, until every sorrow which her
error caused to others on earth shall have passed away.
After the trial night, Erotion is looked upon as the
chosen of Diana. " She was not sad, but none ever
heard from her lips the lighthearted laughter of girl-
hood. Her eyes were of a dreamy depth, and had a
strange mysterious look as if her soul saw without the
aid of mere bodily organs." She wanders on the
green plains and in the woody recesses, but still more
by the sea-shore. There, after a fearful storm, con-
cealed in a cave, she discovers a shipwrecked stranger,
a greyhaired man, in whom she finds her father. She
brings him food, is found with him, and but for
the interposition of the high priestess " Iphiginia,"
would have been sentenced to death. The father is
doomed, but Erotion wins from the fears of King Thoas
the pardon which would not be accorded to
her prayers and entreaties, and her father is to
be placed in a boat and committed to the
mercy of the waves. She hoy)ever learns from
the Prince, who has fallen deeply in love with her,
that poison is to be administered before he is set at
liberty, and, as the guards are sworn not to restore him
to freedom until the cup is drained, Erotion, as the
only means of saving him, drinks it, and dies in the
boat in which she had embarked with him, in his
presence and that of Alcinous, who, unable to bear
her absence, had plunged into the sea in pursuit of
their little vessel. The political article, the last in
the number, is " Irish Landlords and the Land Com-
mission Report." On many, very many points, we
differ from the writer, but we admit the ability with
which he urges what we conceive to be his erroneous
views. He attempts to show that "the freedom of
the north from agrarian outrage," which is in the
digest (as we believe correctly) mainly ascribed to
the acknowledgment of " the tenant right in Ulster,"
is owing to far different causes, and that the custom
is rather a proof than a cause of the tranquillity
which it is unable to disturb. On the whole, we
worthy of perusal.
can truly recommend the present number as well