The Sun.
London, England, 1841-07-30 00:00:00

COURT CIRCULAR.

Her Majesty and Prince Albert, attended by the Royal
Suite, left Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire, at eleven
o'clock yesterday morning, escorted by a party of Hus-
sars, for Pan sanger, Her ts, to honour the Earl and Countess
Cowper with a visit. The Duke of Wellington, and
,some of the visitors at Woburn Abbey, took their de-
parture for town. Viscount Melbourne and other visi-
tori at the Abbey proceeded to Pansanger.
Their• Royal Highnesses the Duchess of Cambridge,
Prince George, and the Princesses Augusta and Mary
of Cambridge, returned to Cambridge House onWednes-
day evening froln their residence at Kew.
The Duchess of Cambridge honoured the Haymarket
Theatre with her presence last evening.
Major-General Sir John Harvey transacted business at
the Colonial-office on Wednesday.
Despatches from the Governor of the Mauritius were
received yesterday at the Colonial-office.

LITERATURE.

THE OLD EARL AND HIS YOUNG WIFE.

3 Vols. Bentley, London. 1841.
The period to which the leading events of this
story refers, is the commencement of the seven-
teenth century, when the Catholic, though still
the proscribed, religion, was making desperate
struggles in England and Ireland to recover the
supremacy, and its agents were generally diffused
throughout the kingdom, despite the dangers
that beset them. The attempts of a high-
minded Catholic priest (Hugh Talbot) to escape
from the persecutions of the Legislature and its
emissaries, who, as is well known, were all on
the alert after the discovery of the Gunpowder
Plot, form no inconsiderable portion of the nar-
rative; which, however, derives its main in-
terest front the heroine, Eveline Mac Orr, the
beautiful daughter of art Irish Chieftain, who, in
order to assist her father and her friends, reduced
almost to destitution by the oppressive exactions
of the English Government in Ireland, accepts
the hand of a rich old Earl, Lord Carthwaite,
on whose death she retires into a French convent,
where she remains nearly fifty years, her last
moments cheered by the sight of the friend and
lover of her youthful days, Phelin-O'Neill, who
has accidently discovered her in her retreat, and
expires nearly at the same time with herself.
The character of this high-minded heroine is de-
lineated with very passable ability;tat first, there
appears something cold, and heartless, and ambi-
tious in her nature, but these unfavourable im-
pressions wear away as we become better ac-
quainted with her, and ultimately she succeeds
in rivetting herself strongly on our attention.
Her vain, uxorious, old husband is also ably
sketched ; but we could have dispensed with the
dialogue that takes place between them, when
in bed together on the bridal night—for, in the
first place, it is in exceeding bad taste—and,
secondly, it is in direct violation of probability.
It is not often that matters of business are dis-
cussed on such delicate occasions. The thrifty,
worldly-minded Scotch Peer, Lord Thurso,
whose wife and daughters live by letting out lodg-
ings at Edinburgh, is rather too much in carica-
ture, though the outline is by no means amiss;
and the disputatious propensities of the old Scotch
Nobleman, are in places developed with much of
that fine tact which we admire in Smollet's in-
comparable sketch of Lismahago.