The Sun.
London, England, 1846-09-25 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF MAGIC. 2 VoL. By

Anthony Todd Thomson.
That thousands of the extraordinary performances
mentioned in ancient literature respecting the so-
called magicians of Egypt and Asia and Greece were
mere illusions, and were explicable on scientific
principles, had long been conjectured. That such is
not merely probable, but almost a matter of certainty,
has been demonstrated in a very learned and curious
work by Eusebe Salvarete. Among the Egyptian
priests knowledge was wonderfully in advance of the
age ; and, as the Druids were bound by solemn vows
to preserve the secrets of their craft from the multi-
tude, so were the Egyptian priests precluded, under
mortal penalties, from revealing the mysteries of their
religion, of their ceremonies, and of their temples,
from the common• herd of worshippers. Hence it was
that they were enabled to acquire such a marvellous
supremacy over the popular mind, and, by the su-
periority of their own intellectual cultivation, to
delude the ignorant by a variety of astonishing
devices. Salvarete penetrated into the very core of
this abstruse subject. He showed that those oc-
currences which appalled the hearts of the vulgar in
olden days, and which were apparently caused by
supernatural agency, are in reality attributable to
the contrivances of the Heathen ecclesiastics. Ac-
cording to this elucidation it would appear that the
oracles of Delphi and elsewhere, the musical bust of
Memnon, and the voices which floated in the atmo-
sphere on remarkable occasions, were merely the
results of ventriloquism and the adaptation of the
knowledge which had been acquired by the initiated
few in acoustics. In like manner, the earthquakes
which were occasionally excited by the Oriental
magicians, were simply the undulations of certain
movable platforms; the terrific spectacles which pre-
sented themselves in the temples were only the phe-
nomena produced by chemical and mechanical instru-
ments ; and the transformations which sometimes
amazed the credulous population nothing more than
the offecta of legerdemain. These explanations have
cast quite a novel light upon antiquity, and serve to
reduce to actuality what otherwise might appear
fabulous. For unveiling to us the ingenuity, the
deceptions, and the credulity of Heathenism, we are
indebted to M. Salverte ; and for affording the Eng-
lish public a version of the writings produced by that
French bibliographer we are indebted to Dr. Thomson.
Not only has the latter author afforded us a pure and
precise translation of his predecessor, but he has ac-
companied the original text by so many valuable notes
as to render the work almost his own. Those notes
evinced very singular research, and while they charm
the reader by their agreeable manner, they render
ostensible what was previously dubious, and crowd
the pages with the most delightful and apposite
details. As the motto selected from the famous
Roger Bacon intimates, this work is an evidence that
we need not resort to the employment of magical
illusions since philosophy has endowed us with such
prodigious and astonishing powers—non igitur oportet
nos znagicis illusionibus uti, cum potestas philosophica
doceat operari quod sufficit. These volumes are there-
fore not merely curiosities, but of eminent utility.
While they elucidate one of the darkest chapters of
antiquity they fill the mind of the reader with a new
reverence for that truthful philosophical knowledge
which can benefit mankind as well as deceive
ignorance.

SILENT LOVE. A Poem. By James Wilson.
Here is the fifth edition of a little poem, written in
the deepest dejection, and under rather mysterious
circumstances, by an apothecary, named James Wil-
son, born at Paisley in 1749, and buried at Glasgow
in 1807. He died of consumption, wrote poetry, and
was an apothecary. So far, there is a resemblance to
poor John Keats, but no further. Although " Silent
Love" has been likened to Tasso and Pope by a very
estimable authority, and although we were charmed
during a perusal of the verses, into an exceeding pen-
siveness, we cannot but feel that there are so many and
such great deficiencies in the composition that it cannot
survive its author long. It has a faint and even deli-
cious perfume, if we may so speak, but that perfume
will evaporate. It is delicately and even charmingly
coloured, but those colours will fade. It is daintily
constructed, but its very skeleton is fragility. The
most beautiful effect throughout is the constant repe-
tition of those simple words—

" No man e'er loved liko me !"

It is surprising the effect that ejaculation has through-
out the poem—that one thought is pursued, or, we
should say, preserved, with such a constancy as to be
admirably typical of that most affecting phase of the
master-passion—silent love. Sometimes the imagina-
tion of Wilson rises above the ordinary altitude, as
where he describes the Creation, when

" A misty globe seemed rolling down the sky,
And on its disc two spec-like forms did move—
The earliest pair wed to devoted love."
Generally, however, his language is pure and his
fancy mediocre.

INDIAN RAILWAY. By an Old Indian Postmaster.
The absolute necessity for the introduction of the
railway system into India, in order adequately to
develop its resources, is now universally admitted.
The importance of railways, in a military point of
view, it is impossible to exaggerate. This is strik-
ingly illustrated by the following extract from the
brochure now under consideration :
" In the annual relief, infantry regiments aro often
moved from one end of India to the other, at an average
of ten and a half miles per day, halting six days iii the
month, so that it takes about six weeks to move from
this presidency (Calcutta) to Benares. Hence arises
the necessity of the concentration at all times of a large
force in the neighbourhood of an enemy. There are not
the means existing of concentrating troops on a sudden
emergency. This was strikingly exemplified in various
ways, on occasion of the recent war on the north-west
frontier. 'When it broke out, all officers, whose regi-
ments were in the field, were ordered to join the army.
About one hundred, we believe, in the different servicce
—engineers, artillery, infantry, and medical—required
to go from this presidency. They were sent at the
public expense, and with the greatest dispatch. How
many do our reader suppose the Postmaster-General
was able to send daily ? Three !—and as the journey
took sixteen days travelling, night and day, few arrived
before the war was over. Even this could not have been
accomplished at any other period of the year."
Had railway communication been established between
Calcutta and the north-west frontier, the whole of
these officers might have been transported by one
train in from two to three days. The Indian Postmaster
clearly shows that a large and amply remunerating
passenger and goods traffic may be expected on Indian
lines if they are judiciously constructed. He passes
in the review the various Indian railway schemes
which have been proposed, and his opinions, being
those of one practically acquainted with his subject,
are entitled to the most attentive consideration.

PROSE FROM THE SOUTH. By John Edmund
Reade. Author of "Italy." In Two Volumes.
What Forsyth and Chetwode Eustace were to the
Italy of a quarter of a century since, Mr. John
Edmund Reade is to the Italy of the present day ;
and no one who may for the next quarter of a cen-
tury undertake " the grand tour" can consider his
outfit complete unless he has " Prose from the
South" in his travelling bag, ready to be referred to
on every occasion. Although every object of
interest on the grand route from Paris through
Switzerland to the Simplon, from Milan and the
northern parts of Italy to Florence, Rome, Naples,
and Pompeii, on to the temples of Paestum, has been
already noted ; yet, as Mr. Reade observes, "each
half century demands a new expounder to harmonise
the theories of his age, however crude or imperfect,
with the grand simplicity of the ancients. The pre-
sent half-century is most fortunate in having found
such an expounder in Mr. Reade. By nature a poet,
he looks at nature with a poet's eye, and describes her
beauties and her sublimities with a poet's enthusiasm.
A critic, in the true sense of the term—at once a
judge and an admirer of art, he teaches others how to
admire, not blindly, but judiciously. His knowledge
prevents his being led away by the vulgar cant of
critical admiration, and his sense of justice forbids his
pandering to prejudice, even where his refusal to
pander to prejudice may militate against his popu-
larity—witness his chapter on Voltaire. His observa-
tions on France at the present day—literary,
artistical, and musical—are severe, yet just. No
man of ordinarily cultivated taste, or having
any ordinary respect for the common decencies of life,
can refuse to admit the justice of Mr. Reade's stric-
lures on modern French art and modern French
titerature. From Paris he takes us to Switzerland,
and revels amidst the sublitnities of that land of
mountain, cloud, and torrent, and from thence to
Italy; and whether we climb the mountain top or
admire the sunny landscape, or sit delighted
listening to the soft music which can be heard alone
in Italy, or wander through the galleries of Florence
or of Rome, or contemplate Venice in her decay,
Pompeii in her resurrection, or Pmstutn in her
absolute isolation, the mighty monument of a
bygone world, stil shall we find Mr. Reade
an able expounder of those li'gh thoughts and
imaginings w ith which our minds must necessarily
be inspired by such scenes. "It has been my
hope to aim in these volumes," says the author,
" to become, as it were, identified with the tourist on
his journey, and with him who has returned from his
pilgrimage." As one of the latter we have no hesita-
tion in awarding to Mr. Reade the portion of com-
plete success. We have travelled a-foot over the
greater portion of the route he di scribes, and the
perusal of his delightful work has recalled to our
memories, not only the external images of Nature,
" but those moral impressions which her mountain
altar-places force on the hearts of her worshippers."

DISEASED TURNIPS. Several paragraphs have
appeared in the newspapers stating that the turnips are
going in all directions. We beg leave to say that we
have got a tremendous turnip—a large metal watch—
whose disease consist* in
a detcratjaatlo4 not to go at
alle.fund,