The Sun.
London, England, 1847-03-15 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

MURRAY'S HOME and COLONIAL LIBRARY.
No. XL 11. Sketches of German Life. Translated
by Sir A. Gordon, Bart. Part I.
A more compact, cheap, portable, and generally ex-
cellent serial publication is not issued than this Library
of Literature for all classes. Frcm what has already
appeared, we may perceive that the prospectus origi-
nally issued from Albemarle-street is in a fair way of
being realised. In the forty-one numbers which had
been produced before the present one had passed through
the printing press, we have selections from the
writings of many distinguished authors ; among
others may be mentioned Washington Irving, Heber,
Southey, Barrow, Borrow, Drinkwater, and Darwin.
And several of the most accomplished aristocrats
have embellished its pages with their abilities : in proof
whereof we may enumerate Lady Duff Gordon, Lord
Mahon, Sir Francis Head, Sir John Malcolm, and the
Earl of Ellesmere. Nor have the monthly volumes ht en
restricted to works whose merit had been long acknow-
ledged Others have appeared in the Home and Colonial
Library. whose powers of thought, and picturesqueness
of description w. re previously unknown : ex. gr. the
inimitable Hermann Melville's Visit to the Marquesas
Islands. With scarcely a single exception, we have
found the utmost discrimination apparent in the selection
of the various compositions comprised in the perio-
dical. For almost the first time since that pe-
riodical was undertaken, we have found a total
absence of discrimination in the work now lying under
consideration, translated from the German original by
the facile and accurate pen of Sir A. Gordon. We re-
gret this the more, as it is calculated to warp the minds
of those readers who are so far unfamiliar with the more
truthful narratives of the events therein recorded, as to
be liable to be the victims of a bold and shameless decep-
tion. These "Sketches of German Life" purport to
-afford glimpses of the war of liberation in Germany.
They are, however, glimpses as unreal, but not quite as
fraught with a mystic wisdom, as the phantasms
and tableau ?limns beheld on Christmas Eve in
the orgies of the subterranean goblins by
Gabriel Grub, of whom most readers wot in the Posthu-
mous Papers of the Pickwick Club. " Scenes" they
are called " from the war of liberation in Germany."
It is needless to ask the translator if he has corrected
the statements contained in his descriptions by the ac-
counts given by lomini in his •"fraites de Grandes 014
rations Militaires ;" by Bignon, in his " Histoire de
Franco ;" by Bow tourlin, in his " Campagnes de 1812
et 1813 ;" by Capefigue, by Mstthieu Dumas, by Baron
Fain, by Lebaume, and a multitude of other his-
torians. It is needless, we repeat it, to ask whe-
ther this emendation has ever been attempted, for the
wcrk possesses internal evidence that the neces
sity of such an emendation has probably never
crossed the imagination of Sir A. Gordon. As nothing
of the kind is visible in the production before us, so very
naturally is it replete with misstatements and misrepre-
sentations enough to render Colonel Mitchell happy for
the rest of his valuable de) s. Nevertheless the Sketches
are sparkling enough in their manner, and on topics in
which the writer's patriotic prejudices are not concerned,
he affords us much interesting information. At
one time he tells us how the people of Dusseldorf
" tore their hair, and scratched their faces, and called
down execrations on the murderers," when the in-
telligence arrived of the execution of Louis XVI.
At another moment he gives us a very lively
description of the conflagration at the Prince Schwart-
zenburgh's, immediately after the marriage of the Em-
peror Napoleon and Marie Louise. Although a thousand
accounts of this appalling catastrophe have already been
published in histories, memoirs, journals, autobio-
graphies, and so forth, the present narrative is not with-
out an interest of its own, as the writer was among the
eye-witnesses, and as his account differs considerably
from the accounts previously given. Judging from the
general inaccuracy of the book, however, we are dis-
posed to place but little reliance upon the altera-
tions introduced. '4l hat shall we think of a
man who can have the folly, not to say the
turpitude to garble history like this? Speaking of the
dead Caesar of France, he observes:--"The impression
left by his memory on the present generation is far
stronger than that which he made on his own. It sounds
strange, but it is nevertheless true, that neither the lower
nor the upper classes in Paris—not even his own imme-
diate adherents—had any real reverence for him,
it or cori-
sidered him a man of the highest order." Wasi so, n
truth? Why, if the descriptions of this scribe be
correct, must we not rate the Czar Alexander as
little above an idiot to swear eternal friendship
for such an one at Erfurt and Tilsit; must we
not
regard Pius the Seventh as an imbecile in viewing him
with affection; must we not look upon Francis of Austria
with unmitigated contempt when we call to mind his
interview in the highway? Was it so, we ask? Was
this great warrior despised by " his own adherents?"
Answer it shades of Duroc, of Lavalette, of Ney, of
Murat, of Labedoyerel Answer it Gourgaud, Rovigo,
Las Casas, Bertrand, Antommarchi, Montholon, Cipriani !
Was he contemned by the " upper classes?" when the
ancient aristocrats numbered themselves among his most
obsequious parasites,es, when M. de Coblentzel said to him
after the victories of Lutzen and Bautzen, "Sire,
some say that you are an angel, others that
you are a devil ; but all confess that you are
more than a man !" Was he scorned by the " lower
classes?" Answer it, the millions who welcomed his
banners in his triumphal march from Cannes upon the
capital. Answer it, the peasants who made pilgrimages
(as Thackeray tells us in his account of the exhumation)
to the Seine, to fall down on their knees and pray,
while they gazed on the sarcophagus as it floated on
towards Paris. Answer it, citizens of Paris, who hang
garlands on the rails round the column in the Place
Vendome. Answer it, Pierre Jean de Beranger, the
poet of the people—or, as this writer loves to term
them, of the lower classes.
" On parlera de sa gloire
Sous le chaume Lien longtemps
L'hunitle toit dans cinguante ens
217 e eonnaitra plus d'autre histoire ;
Ld viendront les villageois
Dire alors a guelque :
Par des recitsd'autrefois,
Mere, abregez notre voile.
Bien dit-on qu' it nous ait nui
Le people encore le revere,
OUL LE REVERE !"
Whatever may be the merits of this enthusiasm, there it
is, attesting its existence in a thousand eloquent voices.
idiotism.
And gainsay it would be madness or downright
And yet Colonel Mitchell would gainsay it, and the
author of these Sketches of German Life does gain-
say I

HISTORY OF ROME. By Miss Corncr.
Among the numerous volumes written by this lady
for the instruction of children—arid she has written his-
tories of this character embracing almost all times and
_ _ _
a

most all nations—this is one of the most beautiful and
xcellent. The purity of the composition throughout
the writings of Miss Corner is singular and fascinating;
she loves the old Saxon tongue " which Shakspeare
spake," and not the mongrel diction which
has been long tending to the degeneration of the
language. But this is not the only advantage in the
school histories produced by Miss Corner—admirable as
that advantage is in tutoring the mind of childhood in
a phraseology the most elegant and chaste—it is, per-
haps, the least meritin the volumes. It is in the ar-
rangement and classification of her materials, in the
simplification of occurrences that would otherwise be
complicated and embarrassing ; in the explication of
ceremonies and creeds that would, but for that
explication, remain abstruse and impenetrable mys-
teries to children ; and in the preservation
of a direct chain of sequence in the events
of each particular history, that the excellences of
Miss Corner's writings are most conspicuous. In these
particulars she is unrivalled. From the skill with which
she has combined all these advantages, Miss Corner has
entitled herself to a consideration not inferior to that
with which the memory of Madame Chapone is re-
garded. Beyond all this, there is a delicacy in the man-
ner in which she treats subjects that in other works are
repulsive. She adapts herself to the pure and immacu-
late sentience of the infant race. Thus in recounting how
the first barbarian citizens of Rome obtained wives
she heads it "7 he fabulous account cf the Sabine
maidens;" in mentioning the supposed parentage of
Romulus, she remarks that his father was "the god
Mars, who, it is said, had secretly espoused the princess ;"
and even in recording how the infant twins were suckled
by the wolf near the Palatine-hill, she says that " the
wolf gave them nourishment, as though they had been
her own offspring." For simplicity of style, lucidity of
arrangement, accuracy of narrative, and clearness of
thought, this volume is deserving of all praise.

A TREATISE on the LAW RELATING to
PATENT PhIVILEGES for the dole Use of IN-
VENTIONS, and the Practice of obtaining Lettere
Patent for Inventions : with an Appendix of Statutes.
Rules, Forms, 6-c. By W. M. Hindmarsh, Esq., Bar-

ri.4er:at Law.
'1 he want of a treatise on the law of patents, which
should present a complete summary of the present state
of that law has been long felt. This want has been ad-
mirably supplied by Mr. Ilindmarsh, who has produced
a work which, embodying, as it does, all that is valuable
in the works of his predecessors with much new and
original matter, and containing all the latest decisions,
must supersede all other books on this subject. In pre.
paring those parts of the work which relate to practice,
Mr. llindmarsh has obtained the assistance of the offi-
cers by whom the various proceedings are conducted
or prepared, and the forms given in the appendix, have
the greater number of them been used in actual practice.