The Sun.
London, England, 1847-12-23 00:00:00

THE ANNUALS.

THE KEEPSAKE FOR 1848. Edited by the
Countess of Blessinyton.

It is said that the days of `‘ The Annuals" are
over, and their occupation is gone. If so,:they share the
• fate of many a popular beauty, whose charma once
surrounded her with countless admirers, but whom
the hand of time has deprived both of the one and
of the other. Such is ever the case with superficial
attractions—either the external beauty itself passes
away and with it the admiration which it elicited, or,
if it remains unfaded, e,
" Shining on, shining on, by no shadow made tender
Love falls asleep in its silence of splendour,"
and admiration grows weary of admiring. Under
such a calamity, the only chance left the forsaken
favourite for retaining popularity, is to have recourse
to such means as shall make a lasting interest and
esteem more than compensate for the loss of a tran-
sient admiration. Such a prudent line of conduct
has been adopted by the Annuals. In the "Keepsake"
for 1848 we remark a slight alteration, which, on
examination, we find to be an improvement. A
similar change has taken place in its external and inter-
nal arrangement—in lieu of the silken binding of
former times, it now appears in a more durable,
though not less gorgeous covering ; 'and in place of a
whole contents of silken sentimentalities, its articles
present a very pleasing variety, and are many of.
them worthy of being treasured up and again referred
to. The names of the contributors are indeed suffi-
cient to prove the variety and excellence of the
materials. Among them are the fair editress, Lady
Blessington, Sir E. Bulwer Lytton, Albert Smith,
Monckton Milnes, Barry Cornwall, Eugene Sue, Mrs.
S. C. Hall, Camilla Toulmin,. Mrs. Romer, Lord J.
Manners, and many others. The first article is by
Sir E. Bulwer Lytton—" The Lawyer who Coat his
Client Nothing." It is taken, we are informed in a
note, from the " Thresor d'Histuires Admirables et
3femorables," published in 1620, * a rare book (adds
the note) from which Sterne borrowed with his usual
hardihood and felicity." This tale, narrated in
Bulwer Lytton's invariably attractive style, is
isuf-
ficiently
interesting; but the subject is 'not a pleasing
one, being a repetition of that often-repeated theme
of the arch-enemy tempting some unhappy wretch
to barter his soul for some temporary benefit. One
passage, however, is very suggestive, and contains a
moral lesson worthy of being remembered. Before
the hesitating. soldier (the hero. of .the tale) will Stinv!,_
sent to the proposal of the tempter, he insists that he
must behold his far-distant child. His compianion
reluctantly agrees, but the vision 'is' only to laSt for
the hundredth part of a moment, while a nail 'drops
from his hand to the floor. Accordingly;he conjures
it up for that brief period :
" The soldier looked; Bettine was before him; the
_. _

little room at the forge; the small bed at the corner; the
crucifix hung at the bed's head. Bettine's sweet faol
was pale and disturbed; some dream scared or disturbed
her; and her lips plainly syllabled the words—' Father,
God save thee!' Then the soldier's soul seemed to'make

itself palpable, and felt within him, it seemed to flutter
and writhe in agony—to appeal to heaven against the
base fears of the body, by which its divine essence was
so mercilessly endangered. Its voice became audible;
as a frightened child at the breast of its mother it wailed
for succour and deliverance. Suddenly—as the form of
a giant angel, its feet on the earth, its brow encircled by
the glory of the loftiest stars—rose Hope. ' Son,' said
the angel, whom I have reared from the cradle, wilt
thou desert me at the gates of the tomb? Not till the
tomb is closed canst thou know me as I am! All
my beauty—all my power—are never shown but in
the land beyond the grave. Do thy sins dismay thee?
I was created to rescue men from sin. Nor guilt, nor
demon has lasting authority on the soul, while it clings
to the garments of Hope.' The voice died—the dream
faded. Before the soldier stood the tempter, and the
nail had not yet reached the floor. Fiend,' said the
man delivered, if in the hundredth part of a moment
the soul, escaped from the body, can feel as mine has
felt, what must be eternity ? Avaunt, and let me die 1' "

This same tale also contains another passage, of a
totally different character, which, although somewhat
ludicrous, is interesting, as showing its author's
strong belief in the efficacy of the " Cold Water
Cure." A sick man, at the point of death, deserted by
his attendant, being attacked with thirst, so great as
to give him the strength of desperation, " contrived,
though with difficulty, to crawl down stairs, open the
kitchen door, and find his way to the trough in the
yard, at which the horses were watered. Of
this unpalateable beverage he drank heartily,
and found himself refreshed, when, in totter-
ing back, he fell unawares into a large cistern." Now,
whether the shock of the immersion, or the previous
draughts of cold water, wrought a change in the
complaint, or that the disease of itself had taken a
favourable turn, the historian saith not, but the con-
sequence was the patient's complete restoration to
health ! Next follows " A Tale that was Told to
Me," by Camilla Toulmin, a tale of a sea voyage and
shipwreck, rendered peculiarly interesting by the
beautiful character of the heroine, who fully deserved
her epitaph of " a most noble woman:' It is not
fair, we know, to disclose the denouement of a story,
but in this instance the closing incident is so inte-
resting and so affecting, that an acquaintance with it
would rather excite a desire to know the whole. After
the shipwreck, when the vessel was momentarily
expected to go down, one boat put off
to the not far distant shore, and then
a second, the last one, was prepared, but it was found
that it could not contain all who remained. There
was a general cry that all the women should be saved.
One young wife clung in passionate agony to her
husband. " My love, my life," she exclaimed, " swear
to me that we shall not be parted—swear that you
will not urge me to enter the boat, if there be not
room for both !" His only answer was a last em-
brace, as he handed her fainting to the sailors in the
already full boat. Helen (the heroine), the last
woman on board, about to leave the vessel, wit-
nessed this scene and drew back. " I yield my place to
James Lawson," she said, " let not two loving hearts
be parted." And before the husband had time to
hesitate or refuse, his wife had drawn him after her and
the boat put off. Helen remained: A beautiful
engraving—" The Last Moment"—represents her
clinging to the broken mast as the ship went down.
This picture, whether intentionally or not, effectually
illustrates the final conflict of soul and body—one
hand of the dying girl clings tenaciously to
the broken mast with the strong instinct of' self-
preservation, the other is stretched almost ex-
ultingly towards heaven—her eyes are cast up-
wards in faith and hope, while the rest of
her countenance is convulsed with the last agony 01
nature. Yet there is nothing gloomy in the picture
or in the tale it illustrates, which is one of the most
beautiful and most interesting we have yet seen from
Miss Toulmin's pen. We have neither time nor
space sufficient to analyse each separate ar-
ticle, but must content ourselves with enume-
rating some of the most striking. " Red Rose Villa "
acquires additional interest from its being the compo-
sition of the late Grace Aguilar. There is something
inexpressibly affecting in thus perusing thoughts,
coming, as it were, from the grave. The story in
itself is a very pleasing one. " Regniaud's Ven-
geance," is by Albert Smith, who des6ribes it as "a
theft from Boccaccio ; being a free translation of, but
not so free, as the original." It is written with his
accustomed humour, in a mock heroic, or rather mock
sentimental style, yet we could wish that he had
somewhat modified the concluding portion—it would
have been better had it been even a less " free" trans-

lation than it is. Among the rather ridiculous, yet
not inappropriate, similes to be met with in this tale,
here is a novel description of the effects of love :
" Regniaud's heart had fairly got into his head, and
occupied all the space that his brains ought to
have done. Practical anatomists may deny the pos-
sibility of so curious a displacement, but there are no
limits to the power of love. From that time Reg-
niaud's books went out of favour. He tried to study,
but he read the same lines over dozens of times, and
even then could not tell what they were about.
His fanciful thoughts of Elena half obliterated the
letters, as the varied patterns of the lining qf a
trunk overcome by their intensity the modest literature
they blot out." " Bataillon," by Eugene Sue, has the
somewhat novel attraction of being in French. And
a very great attraction it is, for much as any work
loses by passing from one language to another, none
suffer so greatly as the favourite fictions of France.
In the writings of Eugene Sue, Alexandre Dumas,
and others, the greatest charm consists in a peculiar
fascination of style, and even of idiom, which is
utterly untranslatable. This "Bataillon "is an amus-
ing sketch, with a somewhat tragical catastrophe.
liataillon is a stray dog, picked up by one Capitaine
David, who adopts him 115 his comrade; this Capi
tame, and his domineering rnenagere, Madame Tolibois,
remind us greatly of Captain Cuttle and his obliging
landlady, Mrs. M‘Stinger. Those who love romantic
tales will be gratified with Miss Isabella Munro's
" Tale of the Past,"—" Louisa de Montemar," and
Mrs. homer's " Romance of Ronda." The latter tale,
notwithstanding its romantic character, very effec-
tually illustrates the true policy of the Christian doc-
trine of forgiveness of injuries—it is a sermon on the
proverb, " A soft answer turneth away wrath."
Among the lighter c.)ntributions are some sketches
about " Scandal," by Lady blessington, Mrs. S. C.
hall, in the " Little Hop-picker's Dream, gives us one
of her delightfully natural glimpses of humble

life. One of the most interesting articles in the
whole volume is a brief tale by Elizabeth Youatt—
" The Blind Nan and the Child." This tale, attractive
in itself, is rendered peculiarly fascinating from the
belief that it is to a certain extent founded on truth.
A skilful artificer had constructed a clock of wonder-
ful mechanism for the town of Dantzic, when some
of the citizens, justl V proud of possessing such a mas-
terpiece, became alarmed at a report that he was
about to construct a similar one for the rival town of
ilamburgh. Consequently, with relentless cruelty,
they caused the eyes of the unfortunate man to be
put out, thus for ever destroying his mechanical
powers, and, to conceal 1.4 eir to bible act, transported
him to a distant country:4Thrs afterward 3" the blind