The Sun.
London, England, 1846-11-04 00:00:00

MAGAZINES.—(CONTINUED.)
THE DUBLIN UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE,
Two admirable biographical papers are conspieu-
ous -in the present number : the one on Adolphe
Thiers, who in 1821 lived with M. Mignet, in a
miserable garret in the Passage Montesquieu, Palais
.Royale, Paris, and who now resides in his superb
mansion in the Place St. George, after having been
Prime Minister of France, and after acquiring an
European celebrity, as the historian of the Revolu-
tion, the Consulate, and the Empire ; the other on
Laman Blanchard, who somewhere about 1824, stood
on the parapet of Westminster-bridge with the in-
tention of drowning himself in the Thames, and who,
after nearly twenty years more of toil and anxiety,
'died the death of a suicide. The memoirs of Thiers
closes so abruptly that we are inclined to hope it may
be continued. As an example of how much may be
achieved from little, how distinction may be won
from obscurity, how affluence may be acquired from
•destitution, this paper is most valuable. Born at
3tlarseilles on the 15th of April, 1797, the son of an
industrious locksmith, Thiers commenced life
-without any promise of distinction, without
many apparent means of elevating himself to
anything above mere respectability, without
patronage, money, or even expectations.
Nevertheless, by the aid of his own genius alone, of
lb own perseverance, ofhis own quickness of percep-
tion he has rendered his name illustrious, not merely
in France but throughout the civilised world. With
a diminutive body, features of a common caste, figure
ungainly, slovenly and vulgar ; with a voice intole-
rable for its nasal twang and provincialism, restless
and fidgetty in his movements, and remarkable for a
grotesque habit of swinging his body from side to
side ; this unpatronised, penniless, neglected man
insinuated his way from the garret to the editorial
office, from the editorial office to the fashionable
salons, from the salons to the palace, from
the palace to the Ministerial Cabine. From being
engaged as a writer upon the Constitutionnel, and ori-
ginating and editing the National newspaper, he ul-
timately became one of the principal instigators of the
revolution of 1830, and subsequently directed the
affairs of the French Government. It must
have been a startling alternation for Thiers—
his journey from Aix in the banquette of a diligence
to seek his fortune in the metropolis, and his entering
the Cabinet of Louis Philippe, when the King sa-
luted him with the interrogation—" M. Thiers,
are you ambitious ?" and immediately after-
wards tendered him the portfolio of finance. Before
we close our notice of this contribution, we would
transcribe one paragraph which occurs in the outline
of the revolution of the three days. It is this :
"Among the most conspicuous of the journalists of
that day, was an individual of tall and lank figure,
abrupt but noble impulses, and serious aspect. At the
first report of the fire-arms, he shook his head mourn-
fully, Then he went, unarmed, except with a walking
cane, through the town, indifferent to the balls which
were whizzing around him, and braving death without
seeking for victory. This individual, destined after-
wards to play a sad but illustrious part, was then little
known: his name was Armand Carrel. Have you even
a single battalion?' said he incessantly to his more san-
guine friends. On the morning of the 28th, meeting
M. Etienne Arago (the brother of the astronomer of
that name) who evinced much ardour, be said to him,
Stop !' and pointing to one of the populace, who was
gicasing his shoes with the oil of a broken lamp, he
said, • Behold the people I—such is Paris !—ever the
same levity—indifference--the appropriation of the re-
sults of great and important actions to the most trifling
uses.' "

Two accusations have been mede against Thiers
during the course of his political career—one of pecu-
lation in office, the other of poltroonery during the
et/mutes of '3O. Of bath these he is tolerably well
cleared by the writer ; but of his ingratitude to his
,unfortunate worshipper Schubart, too much can
scarcely he said in reprobation. The history of poor
Lair un Blanchard is an extraordinary contrast to the
auccessea and renown of the histaria.n•statesman. The
circumstances of that melancholy career are too
fresh in the public recollection to require
any particular enumeration. From his birth, in Great
Yarmouth, the 15th of May, 1803, to his entrance
into the Proctor's office, to his casual appearance as
an actor on the stage at Margate, down to the miser-
able 15th of•Febreery, 1845, when he cut his throat
with a razor, all the incidents of his gentle life, and of
his violent death, have been already eloquently and
pathetically detailed by the pen of Sir Edward Bul-
aver Lytton. We have ourselves paid a tribute to
that beautiful and moving composition. flood dying
of a broken heart, Hayden shooting himself in a mo-
ment of despair, Meginn perishing in misery,
Tilaachard driven to madness and suicide by the
ceaseless labour of his mind, have successively and
recently afforded us testimonies of the neglected con-
dition of literary and artistic intellect. We need not
recur to Ota-ay and Chattel ton, we have had in our
own days spectacles as appalling and instructive.
We cannot, w ith a vivid remembrance of these
things, hut participate with the writer in
his expression of astonishment at "genius starving,
end blockheadism and blackguardism revelling in
turtle and champagne." We cannot hut feel amazed
and indignant, as he is, in thinking that " Sheridan
Knowles, the honest, the kin& the generouQ, is
struggling with the difficulties of existence." We
,cannot ourselves but sympathise, es he does, with
those neglected beings, who are " working, working,
working, not by the sweat of their brows,—for that
toil is light and wholesome—but by the sweat of their
minds, and memories, and souls, and hearts." This
article is admirably corroborative of the noble and
winning character given of Blanchard by Sir Edward.
The writer emphatically say6,that Laman Blanchard's
soul was " like a divine and noble temple, where truth
and candour, and white-robed virtue sat eternally
enthroned." He describes Blanchard as a guileless,
honest, kindly-tempered creature, and declares, as
Sir Bulwer Lytton had already declared, that, to his
knowledge, Blanchard never made an enemy through-
out his life. Here is a description of his disposition,
and it is one the memory of which all good men must
love :
" There was about him an exuberant good nature—a
tone of graceful charitableness for the errors and weak-
nesses of ethers—a distaste for satirical comment or
bitter observation, or just, though perhaps severe, criti-
cism on the minds and manners of his contemporaries—
a sweet and beaming benevolence of voice and gesture,
which to one who bad known and tried what mankind
really are, and in the bitter sc.hool of expel ience, learned
to despise, to pity, or to loathe them, appeared to be at
first a mere affectation—assumed, like a robe, for the
occasion—and intended by its wearer as a dress for cer-
tain times and seasons and cotupor;ons, rather than for
ordinary use. But this mistaken idPa gradually faded
away as Blanchard became better known. There was
evidently, in his case, no hypociaical assumption of a
virtue which he did not really pocscsr If his kindness
were fanatical, it was at all events sincere."
Here is an account of the personal appearance of that
aacomplished and unfaktunate author :

" In figure he was slight and small; but fairly propor-
tioned. His features were dark ; but it was that soil
eastern darkness

Like the night
Of Orient climes and stawy skies,'
which is, perhaps, more agreeable to the eye in a man,
than the blended red and white which belongs to our
northern races. Intelligence shone out of every line in
his countenance like a light ; and there was a flash in
his eye, which at times made him look absolutely beau-
tiful. His hair, like bis eyes and features, was also dark,
and was as fine as silk, with a natural curl ; and his
entire appearance was characterised by a delicacy, a gen-
tleness, a thoroughbridness of manner which one looks
for and finds in-an Arabian steed— ill lightness, ele-
gance, and ease. His hands and feet too ware small ;
and his whole appearance was so entirely prepossessing,
that the sternest critic might well p
use before hein-
flicted pain on one whose entire imitate seemed as soft
and gentle as a woman's ; but who, nevertheless, was as
perfectly icee Crom any effeminacy of look, or tone, or
manner, as man pcseibly could be."
Of ?the paper upon the " British Theatre," we shell
abstain from speaking in its preFent state of incom-
pletion. Carleton's tale of " The Black Prophet" is,
continued
with undiminished ability. A capitll
series is commenced called " A Scamper in the Long
Vacation," as r'so another upon " Guernsey," -by-
gone and
.prospective The entire number of the
magazine is the most excellent that bas been pub-
lished for many months.

DOMBEY and SON. No. 11. By Charles Dickens.
If possible, the present are superior to the preceding
chapters. We are introduced again to Son, other-
wise the infant Dombey, in bis morning ablutions end
in his evening gymnastics preparatory to
bed, when
he took "a short walk uphill over Bicbards's gown, in
.a short and airy linen jacket." In his account of
Miss Nipper's smothered indignation in the nursery,
" Boz" writes a little grotesque sentence that reads
like a quotation from Fielding:—
" As the knight-errants of old relieved their minds by,
carving, their mistress's names in deserts, and wilder-
nesses, and other savage .places where there was no pro-
bability of there ever being anybody to read them, so did
3liss Susan Nipper curl her snub rose into drawers and
wardrobes, put away winks of disparagement in cup-
boards, shed derisive squints into stone pitchers, and
contradict and call names out in the passage."
The description of the christening party in the
ti.i ,Iles,s.parlour, with the leaves " coming down sorrow-
fully-
,!ti the garden, and Mr. Pitt "turning up his
!lose at. A cold collation" . torn the top of the hook4ielf,
is admirAle. The chrhtening itself is drawn with f;
dismal ife,.ver. Of the various eilyentures crowded
into the after payee it would be-s'carcely fair to ab-
stract from their interest by speaking in epitome. We
,cannot do better than transpriltwo of those descrif.)-
tiow of London locality for
a which Mr.
r. Dickens is
already s()famous. Meree
minute and truthful
picture of Camden Town before the rail road was com_ 1
pleted, and also of Staggs's-gardens •
The forst shock of a giant eatth;ivake had, just at
that period', rent the whole neighhcurbood to its center.
"..Traces of its course were visible on every side.uasnes
cl
wre knocked down f. streets brokpn through
stooped ; deep pits and trenches dug in the ground ;
viloriuous heaps of earth and clay thrown up ; buildings

that were undermined and shaking, propped by great
beams c.,!- :vood. Here, a chaos cf cavts, overthrown
and ;ambled together, lay topsy. turvy at the bottom of
a steep unnatural hill ; there, confused treasures of iron
soaked and rusted in something that had accidentally
become a pond. Everywhere were bridges that led no-
where ; thoroughfares that were wholly impassable ;
Bable towers of chimneys, wanting half their height ;
temporary wooden houses and enclosures, in the most
unlikely situations ; carcases of ragged tenements and
fragments of unfinished walls and arches, and piles of
scaffolding, and wildernesses of bricks, and giant forms
of cranes, and tripods straddling above nothing. There
were a hundred thousand shapes and substances of in-
completeness, wildly mingled out of their places, upside
down, burrowing in the earth, aspiring in the air, moul-
dering in the water, and unintelligible as any dream.
Hot springs and fiery eruptions, the usual attendants
upon earthquakes, lent their contributions of confusion
to the scene. Boiling water hissed and heaved within
dilapidated walls ; whence, also, the glare and roar of
flames came issuing forth ' • and mounds of ashes blocked
up rights of way, and wholly changed the law and cus-
tom of the neighbourhood.
"In short, the yet unfinished and unopened railroad
was in progress ; and, from the very core of all this dire
disorder, trailed smoothly away, upon its mighty course
of civilisation and improvement.
" But as yet the neighbourhood was shy to own the
railroad. One or two bold speculators had projected
streets ; and one had built a little, but had stopped
among the mud and ashes to consider further of it. A
bran-new tavern, redolent of fresh mortar and size, and
fronting nothing at all, had taken for its sign The Rail.
way Arms ; but that might be rash enterprise—and then
it hoped to sell drink to the workmen. So, the Exca-
-1 vators' House of Call had sprung up from a beer shop ;
and the old-established Ham and Beef Shop had become
The Railway Eating House, with a roast leg of pork
daily, through interested motives of a similar, imme-
diate and popular description. Lodging-house keepers
were favourable in like manner ; and for the like reasons
were not to be trusted. The general belief was very
slow. There were frowzy fields and cowhouses, and
dunghills, and dustheaps, and ditches, and gardens, and
summer-houses, and carpet-beating grounds, at the very
door of the railway. Little tumuli of oyster shells in the
oyster season, and of lobster shells in the lobster season,
and of broken crokery and faded cabbage leaves in all
seasons, encroached upon its high places. Posts, and
rails, and old cautions to trespassers, and backs of mean
houses, and patches of wretched vegetation, stared it out
of countenance. Nothing was the better for it, or
thought of being so. If the miserable waste ground lying
near it could have laughed, it would have laughed it to
scorn, like many of the miserable neighbours.
" S taggs's-gard en s are uncommonly incredulous. It was
a little row of houses, with little squalid patches of ground
before them, fenced off with old doors, barrel staves,
scraps of tarpaulin, and dead bushes ; with bottomless
tin kettles and exausted iron fenders, thrust into the
gaps. Here the Staggs's Gardeners trained scarlet
beans, kept fowls and rabbits, erected rotten summer
houses (one was an old boat), dried clothes, and smoked
pipes.: Some were of opinion that Staggs's Gardens
derived its name from a deceased capatilist, one Mr.
Staggs, who had built it for his delectation. Others,
who had a natural taste for the country, held that it
dated from those rural times when the antlered herd,
under the familiar denomination of Staggses, had re-
sorted to its shady precincts. Be this as it may, Staggs's
Gardens was regarded by its population as a sacred
grove not to be withered by railroads ; and so confident
were they generally of its outliving any such ridiculous
inventions, that the master chimney sweeper at the
corner, who was understood to-take the lead in the local
politics of the Girders, had publicly declared that on
the occasion of the railroad opening., if it ever did open,
two of his boys should ascend the flues of his dwelling,
with instructions to hail the failure with derisive jeers
from the chimney pots.
As a companion piece of topographical portraiture,
here is an account of Princess's- place, West-end :
" Miss. Tox inhabited a dark little*heuse that had been
squeezed, at some i emote period of English history, into a
fashionable Leighbouihood at the west end of the town,
where it stood in the shade like a poor relation of the
*eat street round the cot eer, coldly looked down upon
by mighty triansion•-. It was not exactly in a court, and
it was not exactly in a yard ; but it was in the dullest

of icc-ThoroughtaieF, rendered anxious and haggard by
distant d, chic knocks. The name of this retirement,
where grals grew between the chinks in the stone pave-
ment, was Princess's-place ; and in r, ine es s's- pl tice wa;
Princess's Chapel, with a Cnkling bell, where srmetimes
as many as five-and-twenty people attended service on a
Suedly. The P,:neess's Arms was also there, and much
rescued to by splendid footmen. A sedan chair was
klat inr;ide the railing before the Princess's Arms,
but it lead never cane out within the memory of
man ; and on fine mot pings, the top of every rail (there
were eight-end forty-, as Mss Tox had often counted)
was d cordt- 1 with a pew ear pot. •
" There was another private house besides Miss Tox's
Princess's-p!lco ; and nut to mention an immense pair
of gates, with as immense p,,:r of lion headed knockers
on them, which were never opened by any chance, end
were suppo-n.l to I or stitute a disused entrance to some
body's stables. Indeed, there was a smack of stabling

in the P-7r of Princess's. place ; and Miss Tox's bedroom
(which was at the back) commanded a vista of MeA s,
where hostlers; at whatever sof t of work engaged, were
vont'nuf•ily.accompan3ing themselves with effervescent

noises ; and where domestic end confidentia
g-aments of coachmen sad their 14;ves and families

u~•uully hung,

bla3beth'3 barncre, on the outward

"At this other private house it Princess's-plac
pint,rl by a retired butler who had married a hous(

keeper, apt Tr. inents were let furnished, to a single
; to wit, a wooden-featured, blue-faced, Mnj,ir,
hii eyes Etrcting out of his head, in whom
Miss Tox i-eogniseil,,as she herself expressed it, some
thing so trail/ military,' and between whom and herself,
an occasional int Tel-Nage of newspapers and Pamphlets,
and such plat i&c &Want e, was effected through the
medium of a drrk sersant of the Major's, whom Miss
Tox was quite content to classify as a" native," without
connecting him with any geographical idea whatever.
" Perhaps there never was a smaller entry and stair-
case, than the entry and staircase of Miss Tox's house.
Perhaps, taken altogether,f,com top to bottom, it was tee
most inconvevient little house in England, and the
crookedest ; but then, Miss Tox said, what a situation !
There Wf3 very little daylight to be got there in the
winter ; no sun at the best of times ; air was out of the
question, and traffic was walled out, Still Miss Tox
said, think of the situation ; so said the blue-faced
Major, whose eyes were starting out of his head ; who
gloried inPrincess's-place; and who delighted to turn the
conversation at his club, whenever he could, to some-
thing connect•A with some of the great people in the
great street round the corner, that he might have the
satisfaction of sa3ing they were his neighbours.
"The dingy tenement inhabited by Miss Tox was
her own, having lat'en devised and bequeathed to her by
the deceased owner of the fishey eye in the locket, of
whom a minis. are porirait with a powdered head and a
pig-tail balanced the kettle-holder on opposite sides of
the parlour fire-plP3e. The greater part of the furni-
ture was of the powdered-head and pig-tail period, com-
prising a plate-warmer, always languishing and sprawl-
ing its four attenuated bow legs in somebody's way ; and
an obsolete harpsichord, illuminated round the maker's
name with a painted garland of sweet peas."
Several new characters are introduced, as the mys-
terious Mr. Carker, and a fellow of infinite humour,
called Major Bagstock, who styles himself indis-
criminately Joe Bagstock, Joey Bagstock, J. Bag-
stock, Josh. Bagstoek, and even sometimes J. 8., " it
being, as it were, the Major's stronghold and donjon-
keep of light humor- to be on the most familiar terms
with his own name." We might, did we list, cull a
number of ludicrous and touching fragments from
this single number, as the account of Miss Nipper
administering a lecture upon moral conduct to
Florence, and " punclaqting it with thumps," or Miss
Nipper softening under the deferential behaviour of
Mrs. Richards's sister, insomuch that " she caught up
little Miss Toodle, who was running by, and took her
to Banbitry Cross immediately." Miss Nipper indeed
is a triumph. The Marchioness is eclipsed—Miss
Miggs i 9 not entitled to any comparison—Tilly Slow-
boy is altogether superseded.

1„,
/1E TBRRIBLE STEAM-FRIGATE.—We have re-
ceived the most gratifying accounts of the petrol mances
of the Teirible steam-frigate, Captain Ramsay, which
surpass all the expectations we have formed of her im-
merse capaPit-s. Some **me after she joined Sir W.
Parker's fleet she was orderrd to take in tow the fiber-
pi.. 104, the fl'g-ship, and try her powers. She accord-
ingly uncle fdst, and, with a stiff wind abeam and a
b9avi sea, she towed the old ship at the rate of 61 knots
an hour. She afterwards towed her directly against a
11E34 wind and much swell, when she atteined a speed of
seven knots, Subsequently she towed the Hibernia sight
before the wind, and run away with her with great ease
at the rate of above 10 knots an hour. Comment is un-
nrressary ; but is it not monstrous to class such a vessel
with that broken-down abortion of the Navy-office, the
Retribution?

A CATHOLIC PRIEST CHARGED Wllll FELONY.-.-
Stafford Swain, an elderly man of respectable appear-
ance, and who was formerly a priest of the Roman
Catholic Church, was charged at the Liverpool police-
office on Fliday, with having stolen a sheet, a pillow,
and some towel., from the house of Robeit Smitn, the
peison at whose house he lodged. The prisoner, who
had been in custody several times for obtaining money
under false pretences, said he had given the things to
his wife to prime, on the condition that she would re-
deem them A pawnbroker, with whom some of the
things had been pledged, said they were brought by a
man. Fined sixpence, and twenty shillings; or in de-
fault fourteen days' imprisonment.
ATTEMPTED SUICIDE.—On Sunday, the Ist inst.,
Captain David Thomar, of the smack Alalpas, of Swan-
sea. attempted to destroy himself in the cabin of that
vessel, then at anchor in Catwater, Plymouth. The Mal-
pa., which burdens about 50 tons, had delivered a cargo
of stone coal at Southampton, and came in ballast to
Plymouth to take copper ore to Wales. While at
...)uthampton the captain had indulged too freely in in-
t :xicating liqunr, and suffering severely from its effects,
left that port for Plymouth. During the passage he be-
c:3nce deiarged, anti on Saturday night has confined in
the Plymouth police ststior. On Sunday morning, he
upaared recovered, and joined his ship. When on bard
be armed hiniqelf with the pump breast, and. imagining
there were strange persons below, paraded the deck,
threatening deo.truction to any one hat should approach
him. The mate cor.ct,aled the razors and went ashore
for a.sistance. On returning, the wretched man was
discovered hleed;ng and insensible on the cabin floor.
Ile had inflicted a dangerous wound in his neck by
probing it with the chart dividers, and had afterwards
'l.:jitmemelpytesdurtgoicd:lstariodyhla)ivrninsgelbf eweinthohmisi pockn i stereet
dc,
he
sk nn iof%ev.
in a fair way of recovery.