The Sun.
London, England, 1846-03-02 00:00:00

TILE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY'

as a literary guide of public opinion, deprived of all social and
domestic enjoyments, his exquisite talents served only to
etlsure the shipwreck of his happiness and his fame. One
b.-ief gleam of sunshine appears in his dark career—his vice-,
ro raity in Ireland; but this owed its brightne-s to his tem-
p.;l %try abandonment of his system. In Ireland he was cora-
pall ed to grave affairs ; for the vices of Dublin were too
gross, and its dissipation too brutal to be enjoyed by a man
of refittement ; he was far from the gaming-tables of St.
James's, from the saloons of royal mistresses, from the levees
of heirs apparent, from the circle of Lady Yarmouth, and from
the intrigues of the royal closet. Thus circumstanced, he
laid aside frivolity to adopt utility, and thus eight months
of contradiction to his own principles form the redeeming
epoch of his life."
It is not often that we meet with a paper of such
sterling character. in the pages of Bentley. The " Out-
pourings" of D. Canter are continued, but the wine is
getting low and vapid. The present libation is an out-
pouring of twaddle. The nest paper, " The Last Days
of Riego," by Mrs. Romer, is a spirited contribution
to the romance of history, and affords another illuqra-
tion of the truth of, the aphorism—that truth is
stranger than fiction. In addition to the illus-
tration of " Brian O'Linn," we have a beau-
tiful engraving by Cook, from Sir Joshua Reynold's
portrait of the Countess of Cork, accompanied by an
amusing sketch of the life of that indefatigable Lion-
hunter. We have the Tipperary Hall (a by. no means
unsuccessful imitation of •the Noctes Ambrostanse) and
the " Zoology of the Gent.," by Albert Smith, an excel-
lent paper, full of genuine satire (as contradistinguished
from lampoon) sparkling with wit, and not wanting in
wisdom. We hope Mr. Albert Smith will continue his
popular zoology.

AINSWORTH.
Culled from the original of Alexander Dumas, the
chapters of the " Count of Monte Christo" are continued
with unabated, if not increased, spirit ; Mr.
Ainsworth's romance of " Old Saint Paul's" (the in.
judicious revival of which we commented upon last
month) is continued also; the "Life and Writings of
Nimrod," in like manner, reach another installment ;
while Dudley Costello obliges us with some additional
" Passages in the Private History of my Poodle." Al-
though we are desirous of not pursuing a wearisome re-
monatrance with the gentleman to whose editorship this
magazine is consigned, we would again entreat him, with
the utmost earnestness, to avoid any future re.usitation.
Harrison Ainsworth's imagination is too copious to com-
pel him to sustain his literary reputation by reprints.
Where, we may surely inquire, are the "Lancashire
Witches?" where is the conclusion of the "Revelations
of London?" If Mr. Forrest cannot manufacture any
effusion superior. to " The Goblin Steed," we would re-
commend him to appraise his escrutoire, and sell it at
a sacrifice. Never was there a more hacknied legend
than that respecting goblin steeds; we have been treated
over and over again to goblin steeds, to all appearance
shod in phosphoric smithies; goblin steeds perspiring
little rivulets of fire; goblin steeds with saddles, of course
of asbestos. These same goblin steeds have been de-
scribed again and again with the same break-neck
rhythm, the same invariable moonlight, the same con-
ventional " Away and away went the coal-black steed!"
May this unhappy repetition be the last ! We take leave
to assure Mr. Forrest, and the whole tribe of poetasters.
that goblin steeds are sadly at a discount—after Lord
Byron's " Mszeppa," nothing of the description is re-
quired. Charles 11,oton's " Immaterialities : or, Can
such Things be ?"- we conceive to .be s capital joke ; the
serieusness with which he pretends to wail the decay of
credence in ghosts is ethnical beyond measure. He hath
a sneaking kindmess for spectral illusions, and utters the
following lamentation upon the practical character of
this generation—the passage is rife with wholesome
truths :
" Our household gods are metal and paper, to whom we
sacrifice six days. . . Our very poetry is mixed up with
machinery—our inspiration springs from the breadbasket,
and our sympathies are sown upon poverty like a patch
with needle and thread.' The pity of the bard goes hand
in hand with a quartern loaf; and the shirts upon our
back: loudly reproach us with the pining misery of the
weary sempstress who fitted their parts together. The phan-
tom ship, the fat,: morgana, the giant of the Brecken, the
warriors and horsemen of the clouds, are all put to flight by
the science of optics; the kraken is destroyed—not by har-
poon or gunshot, but by the log books of voyagers who
never saw him; astrology is a lie, dreams are idle nonsense,
and spectres result only from a disturbance of the brain and
visual organs."
For this the writer is (or assumes to be) mournful :
for this we are right joyous. 'Those have but a maudlin
estimation for the invisible kingdom, who pine for the
flarksorne ages of credulity, who weep for the gnome, and
the pixy, and the hbbgoblins of our forefathers, and who
are filled with a sullen disgust of those divine sciences
by which these nothings have been scared away from the
general mind. With hydraulics, and mechanics, and
chemistry, and steam-power, and all those glorious
causes and effects of intellect, we are not, as some erro-
neeusly imagine, degraded either in our rationality or
our poetry. Nobly has Keats announced that "the
poetry of earth is never dead." Superstition and ignorance
are no increasers of our happiness, God knows ! and under
the category of superstition or of ignorance the absurdities
already mentioned can alone be classed. Our bards, it
is true, hold " a dear quartern loaf " in one band and
their lyre in the other— but are not their themes thus
san-tified with a purer and a holier greatness in pleading
for the woes and sufferings of their fellow-men? The
bay-leaves would sweeten custards for those that want
not.; the haff of bread would allay the pangs of famine
felt by thos4 that want ; which of these two aspirations
is the greater? The earth itself is fraught with such
subtle and exhaustless beauty, that we need no stimu-
lants from any bugbears of a diseased fancy. Viewing
things in this light, the world without is Lkut an index, is
bat a channel, is . but a golden passport, to the world
within. " How a Charade is solved by a Codicil "is
another of those pleasant, rattling, off-hand papers, in
penning which ohirley Brooks has so much facility.
"Lady Alice Kyteler " is also fully entitled to a perusal.
As a caterer for public taste, Mr. Ainsworth has again
shown himself this m-nth a proficient ; the minority of
the articles are frivolous, the majority are clever.