The Sun.
London, England, 1846-04-15 00:00:00

ity law
APRIL 15, 1846.
all 9 PRICE SD,

LITERATURE.
THE PEOPLE. By M. 'Michelet. Translated from
the French by C. Cocks.
Paris appears to be a kind of literary volcano ; it is in-
cessantly disgorging some strange monstrocity of letters.
Its books are intended to startle, to amaze, to paralyse
the public into admiration. M. Michelet is the last
wonder of this particular species : he is evidently de-
sirous of imitating the classic fable by fixing the atten-
tion of his readers, but, on a rigid examination, his
" Gorgon's shield" proves a very wooden one indeed, and
its spies dour turns out in the end to be mere tinsel.
We are perfectly conscious that our ideas are the very
converse of those entertained by a vast multitude of
individuals ; we are conscious that the productions of
this author are bought up with avidity, that they have
been lauded with extraordinary panegyrics, that his
name is bruited about as a marvel of intellectual vigour ;
we are conscious that a mere inuendo as to his being a
charlatan in authoreraft will be received just now with
more than astonishment by thousands. But how is
this ? M. Michelet has the courage (or whatever else it
may be called) to advocate principles which have long
lurked in a large section of the popular mind, and the
open declaration of which has been hitherto suppressed
by the trepidation of individuals. To speak more defi-
nitely some portions of the people, composed of men
half-educated, men of ardent fancies and of little
rationality, have long cherished a kind of libertine in
difference to many of the laws which regulate the social
system. Their passions have rebelled against the in-
fluence of these laws, but secretly and silently ; the
awful majesty of antiquity pervading that social juris-
prudence together with the reverence still conceded to
it by millions, deterring them from an announcement of
their antagonism. M. Michelet has stepped forward as
the exponent of these covert views, he has possessed the
audacity to declare himself the enemy of things which
have received the accordant voice of ages ; to brand as
infamous classes who have been revered by immemorial
generations ; to point, steadily and scornfully, with an
untrembling finger and an unblushing cheek, at a policy
sanctified by the wisdom of all past and present times.
hi this lies the whole secret of M. Michelet's popularity.
A consummate daring is the trumpet through which his
fame (or shall we term it, his notoriety ?) has been
blown over a large segment of Christendom ; a daring
which has not hesitated to assail the purest, noblest,
holiest, and most revered tenets of the social system ; a
daring which has revealed what was hitherto latent,
and ridiculed what was hitherto only obeyed. By so
doing he has rallied round him a mighty battalion of
free-thinkers ; his first declaration in their favour,
under the title of " Priests, Women, and Families," has
gone very rapidly through many editions, it has been
translated into more than one language, its dogmas have
been denounced as impious, as irreligious, as subver-
sive of all order ; the panegyrists of M. Michelet have
waxed warm in their retaliation, and thus have his
doctrines become bruited about from mouth to mouth,
and himself put forward as a contemned patriot, as a re-
generator of his racy, who has been repaid only with ec-
clesiastical vituperation. The sympathies of the indis-
criminating have in this specious manner been aroused in
his behalf, and the popularity of the French scribe ex-
tended more and more. To adapt himself adroitly to
this position of affairs, to insinuate himself as it were into
a yet more Catholic celebrity, and to instil in the most
subtle manner possible, his new clerico-political, or
politico-clerical creed into the mind of the multitude,
M. Michelet has issued another production of a similar
character, but entitled by a more showy and seductive
name, " The People." This book is really a curiosity :
it is a beautiful deformity, incongruous to a wonderful
extent. So much pure and lofty thoughtfulness, so much
dangerous and demoralising rhetoric; such excellence in
one part and such insidious promptings in another, were
possibly never before compressed into so small a compass.
The weeds, however, infinitelyoutnumber the blossoms.
What a mass of egotism alone is the introductory
chapter ! What a cumulation of modest self-sufficiency
and vain-glorious bashfulness ! Nor does this intolerable
spirit of complacency restrict itself to the person, it
enlarges to the bulk of the gigantic nation of which the
writer's person is a nectional part. Let us see if this
declaration of ours be not correct. And in the quota-
tion we are about to make let the reader especially
observe the melodramatic flashiness of the composition ;
let him note the mock solemnity of manner gradually
swelling out into hyperbole as the climax of egotism is
attained ! At page 14 M. Michelet speaks as follow:
" Who does not see that from cast to west a shadow of
death is pressing upon Europe, and that every day there
is less sun ; that Italy has perished, that Ireland has
perished, that Poland has perished, and that Germany is
bent on destruction ? 0 Germany, Germany !
" If France were dying a natural death, if her hour had
come, I should perhaps be resigned ; and, like a pas-
senger on board a sinking ship, cover up my head, and
commend myself to God. But her situation is nothing
like that ; and hence I am indignant ; the idea of our
ruin is absurd, ridiculous ; it proceeds only from our-
selves. Who has a literature ? Who still sways the
mind of Europe ? We, weak as we are. Who has an
army ? We alone.
"England and Russia, two feeble, bloated giants, im-
poseq.an illusion on Europe. Great empires, weak
people ! Let France be united for an instant ; she is
strong as the world."
Parolles all over again—this ! A most delicate
morsel of vain-glory ; so meekly done too : it is just the
thing to tickle the vanity of our Gallic neighbours. That
is a most gloomy, a most baseless, and (we cannot but
declare it) a most base notion, that a moral darkness is
settling over Europe. In the principles which are
now gaining ground among the populace, and be-
coming engrafted on the constitutions of the
earth, we recognise a promise of brighter,
loftier, happier days than the Earth has ever witnessed
since the expulsion. Our politics should be hopeful,
buoyant, reliant—those of this French pseudo philosopher
are, on the contrary, darksome, mournful, woe-begone.
Which is the wiser? Has Italy perished? Has Ireland
perished? Has Poland perished? He must be arrogant
forsooth! who shall answer "Yea" thrice. And France
it appears, according to M. Michelet, is the only coun-
try with what can really be designated a literature ! A
very marvellous discovery truly! That sublime litera-
ture, no doubt, being marshalled by M. Michelet himself,
and Eugene Sue, and Paul de Kock. Has England then
no literature, or Scotland, or America, or Germany,
or Ireland? Is Wordsworth no poet, Hallam no histo-
rian, Macaulay no Essayist, Wilson no monarch of the
pen and of the heart, Dickens no wit? Are Whewell,
and Brougham, and Buckland, and Lingard, and Jeffrey,
and De Quincy nothing? But the catalogue would be
almost interminable. Then France being the only power
with an army! Sobraon of course will not alter such a
notion of the incapacity of foreign soldiers. There is
no mention whatever of a navy, bit observed! As to
the remainder of the paragraph, it is mere balderdash,
unworthy of further notice. We are unwilling to tarry
any longer over this eccentric publication, we believe
the shallowness of the arguments are, in its instance at
least, their own preventative against the propagation of
evil. " The People" are in this book reflected as in a
flawed mirror: the dissimilarity of the two, and the in-
congruity of the last-mentioned is fortunately too evi-
dent to innoculate the popular mind with its fallacies.
TH

rE FORTUNES OF TURLOGII O'BRIEN,

No. I.
Another of those pink-covered serial romances, with
a grotesque woodcut by Hablot Brown, which some
three years since obtained such an extraordinary,circu-
lation under the prestige of " Harry Lorrequer. ' No
author's name is attached to " Turlogh O'Brien," and,h
we think, judiciously enough. The conception of the
scenes depicted is clear and smart in itself, but the
ssa
com-
position is defective beyond measure. To
.expre
the writing a loads the description. This blemish gives
character most wretchedly jcleune and crude. The.
ss
ci nagplee,
at thought, or
unconscionableo.r to define
ap-
petite for richness, whether literary or gastronomic, be-
un ad
a n ce solitary
o ffi. n pointel n gin
gae olavnedr-
comes cloyed by a superfluity. The author of this novel
should bear that wholesome truth in his recollection.
He leaves nothing, or scarcely anything, to the reader's
imagination; every leaf is carefully particularised;
sometimes every fibre upon its surface; and by this
means, what might otherwise be brilliant, is marred be-
yond all redemption. To imitate those who have
rendered themselves remarkable for an actual te-
nuity of style is preferable to that turgid passion for
a kind of effervescence in language which has occasionally
all the pomp of Johnson, without his solidity or sym-
metry of construction. Saving, however, this blemish
in the manner, the matter is pleasant and readable; with
a little less of the ostentation of the lexicographer, the
story may developo itself into a very stirring narrative.
The period in which the incidents are supposed to trans-
pire is an excellent one for romance, namely, the time of
the wars of James the Second. What with the Irish
adventures of that unhappy monarch, whom Miss Aikin
designates, very beautifully and very appropriately, as
" the modern Lear," what with Sarsfield, and the other
celebrated men of that epoch, much interest may be
thrown over the fiction. The title-page, by "Phis" is
most appropriately and elegantly designed ; on one side
is the last regnant of the Stuarts embarking from his old
kingdom, on the other is the first regnant of the Bruns-
wicks disembarking in his new kingdom. Let the
writer prune, and he may succeed.

7HE MISCELLANEOUS WORKS OF
ROBERT HALL.
In publishing this noble effort of rhetorical genius
at a charge of such comparative insignificance, Mr. Bohn
has at once benefited the public and beautified his
"Standard Library." Robert Hall has unquestionably no
parallel in the language : his sentences have all the re-
sonance of Tully, though at times they lack that divine
furor which burst from the Latin rostrum like lightning-
flashes. But in all the essential elements of his art,
llall was infinitely more than a proficient. With Irving
there was no deficiency of the " thoughts that breathe
and words that burn," but his extraordinary intellect was
too effete and shapeless ; his imagination had a para-
mount tendency to rhapsody, Robert Hall, on the con-
trary, was equally teeming with lofty images
and subtle thoughts, while his sentences were perfect
specimens of rhetorical symmetry. Besides this, he was
a logician ; his tenets were suffused moreover with an
atmosphere of the most transparent metaphysics, en •
hancing their sweetness by a solemn grandeur. He is
the Canning of the pulpit, without his natural advantages,
but with more than his succinctness of exposition.
Great ai the Orasones Funiires of Donut are, uoble

and pathetic as they are individually, and incomparable
as they are collectively, ire would venture to classify
with them, for its deep and earnest beauty, its mournful-
, ness of decoration and impressive train of inferences,
the funeral sermon preached by Hobart Hall, on the
" Princess Charlotte of Wales.' Were we to dilate
upon each constituent portion of the volume before
us our writing materials would be exhausted long
before we arrived at the conclusion, so lofty, so
enticing, so pure, so suggestive, so brilliant are the
oratorical displays contained in its pages. Well
may the Dissenters of this country pride them-
wives in the memory of this renowned man, who
delivered front their pulpits words stamped with the
lustre of genius, the sanctity of conviction, and the
lambent splendour of immortality. To listen to those
ravishing torrents of eloquence, the loftiest and most
fastidious of the contemporaryintellects numbered them-
selves among the auditors of Hall; to linger over, the
record of that eloquence, to drink in the silent but visible
voice of the great Orator, the students of many ages to
come will dwell over the volumes in which they are
.transcribed. Such a volume is the one at our elbow: it
IS replete with solid wisdom and with superb rhetoric.
We need not as in other cases commend this book to the
public: it is its own advertisement and eulogium.

THE TOPIC.—No. I. The Indian War. No. 11.
The Tarfft. No. 111. The Oregon Question.
obj These are the first numbers of a new periodical, the
ect of which, as stated by the projector, is " to fur-
nish an article each week of the same kind that the es-
tablished Reviews do quarterly," and, as far as the two
numbers before us are concerned, that object has been
successfully achieved. The first number opens with a
geographical description of the Punjaub, followed by-e--
sketch of its history up to the present time, and con-
cludes with reflections on the consequences of the recent
English victories, in the course of which the writer
strongly urges the policy of immediate annexation, in
preference to that proposed by Sir 11. II trdinge. The
second number is a complete history of the progress of
the sound principles of political economy from the days
of their first announcement brAdam Smith up to the days
of Sir Robert Peel, to whose glory it will be recorded by
the future historian, that he converted the abstract
truths of political economy into the great fact of prac-
tical free trade. The writer, who is a sound political
economist, thus speaks of the future prospects of Eng-
land.

" It cannot be concealed that it is a condition of her ex-
isting state that she possesses a vast productive power, for
whose healthy and regular action a commensurate range
of employment is indispensable. Her creative energies are
extraordinary, and have a tendency to accumulate faster
than the objects upon which they can be fixed and occupied.
The increase of capital, population, and machinery, does, in
their present extent of development, require to be provided,
to avert mercantile reactions constantly occurring, with a cor-
responding increase in the outlets and demands upon which
they can be remuneratively employed. Free trade is likely
to afford this relief and opening to our rapidly expanding
resources. The earth, in truth, is only beginning to be
civilised and reclaimed in earnest. At home and abroad
there is wide scope for extended consumption, for that con-
sumption which multiplies the material comforts and enjoy-
ments of mankind. Even in our own island there are nu-
merous classes whose condition would be elevated by more
and better food, by superior clothing and more wholesome
habitations. Foreigners ►n the main exist under still greater
privations. Hardly anywhere has the condition of the la-
bouring classes been essentially ameliorated, in food, personal
or domestic conveniences. In the north-east of Europe many
provinces are desolate, thinly-peopled, and their inhabitants
destitute. In Egypt and Syria, in India and China, and in
America, North and South, the range is boundless for the
beneficial interchange of commodities. It is the mission of
England to effect this desirable consummation, to supply the
wants of nations, and to bring them together by the recipro-
cation of benefits, and thus complete the cycle of her glories
by realising the poet's vision of the future world of London :
' The time shall come when, free as seas or wind,
Unbounded Thames shall flow for all mankind;
Whole nations enter with each swelling tide,
And seas but join the regions they divide;
Earth's distant ends our glory shall behold,
And the new world launch forth to meet the old."
The Third Number consists of an interesting article
on the Oregon Question.

THE PROTECTIONISTS.
The Augsburgh Gazette, just received, says:—" In
consequence of the anxiety of the public for news from
the East Indies, the Oregon question is in the meantime
almost forgotten. At all events, no one takes it ill of
the Ministry, except the protectionist organs, for making
no answer to the swaggering of the Americans, and con-
tinuing to offer its hand for an equitable adjustment.
Lord George Bentiack, who is all of a sudden, as if by a
magic stroke, transformed into a great statesman, and
delivers his judgment, in a single speech, on all points
of internal and external policy, upon trade, finance,
and national education, spoke very freely last week,
in the Bramarbas style, of the destruction of all the
American seaports. I assure you, however, that John
Bull infinitely prefers buying from his brother Jona-
than cotton, corn, salt meat, and cheese, to destroying
his towns with cannon balls; and if Jonathan has not
entirely lost his senses, he will not thwart old Bull in
his peacea,,le humour. The Opposition (behind the
Treasury benches) contest Peel's plan step by step ; and
seem to derive fresh courage from Lord Stanley's decla-
ration that he hopes the House of Peers will throw it
out ; and yet the result of all their divisions on each
individual point of the tariff which they thought proper
to oppose ought to have rendered them more discreet ;
for they were not only beaten every time, but on every
division the Ministerial majority was larger, and in the
sequel the House of Commons adopted the tout ensemble
of the tariff without the slightest alteration. At this
moment all the articles therein included are already
either free of duty or admitted at the newly-reduced
rates. What, however, they should take still more to heart
is the almost total silence of the manufacturers and artisans
affected by the alterations ; even those orators who at
first cried out so loudly had partly withdrawn their
complaints against the intended alteration in the timber
duties (since adopted), and partly ceased to complain at
all. Yes, the prevailing silence of the farmers, and even
of the landed proprietors, should serve them as a warn.
ing that, as these have attained conviction, it would be
better to bring the affair to a termination at once, than
any longer to depend upon an apparent, but, on account
of its uncertainty, a useless protection. All this, however,
does not restrain the landlords from continuing to struggle.
On the 23d ult. Peel proposed the second reading of the
new Corn Bill, and a long debate ensued. The result is
known. Unfortunately, the Government finds itself com-
pelled to press forward the Irish Coercion Bill, and on
this account the business on the Corn Bill and the tariff
must be postponed. There is, moreover, no hope enter-
tained, in spite of all the prayers and complaints ofmthe
commercial world, that this affair will be entirely brought
to a close before the end of May. What is intended by this
delay it is difficult to ascertain, as even amongst the Op-
position ranks it appears to be deemed a matter of cer-
tainty that a majority is gained in the House of Peers.
It suits their purpose, however, to impute to Peel every
possible act of treachery in the world ; and thus their
organs declare, with all the appearance of conviction,
that he has already concerted with the Whigs, Radicals,
and Repealers, the sacrifice of the church in Ireland
and the granting of repeal to O'Connell, as soon
as the Corn-law battle has been won ; and that
consequently every bishop who may vote for the
repeal of the corn-laws will really vote for the down-
fall of the church. I fear, however, that this mingling
of „corn and church will not much avail either the corn-
producing aristocracy or the aristocratical church
the
es-
tablished by law. From the very circumstance that
rLeecategduebeiysoncdoncsotarantlaynadeaciumseedd tahtattheitschianrtcehn,titoi;
lattsdei;
might easily be enabled to direct its powerll
as
against an
institution, the clergy of which are on all
pressed upon it as adversaries."

THE SQUIRES V. POACHING.—The squires are a terrible
race, harmless enough, indeed, in all other matters, but a
terrible race when the majesty of the game laws is attacked.
We. heard of one of them a week or two ago, who, like
Robinson Crnsoe, " monarch of all he surveyed," was walking
about his dominions with, like the same Robinson, his gun
Ili on his sh3ulder ready for action, should he fall in with any
invaders of his territory. And he did. In one of his fields,
bordering upon the turnpike road, he espied, not a yard from
the road, a very small, wee wee dog. In short, it was a
lady's lap-dog. Visions of pheasants, hares, and partridges
destroyed by this horrid four-legged poacher instantly arose
before the mind of the angry squire, who, cocking both
barrels of his gun, advanced, like Sir H. Gough upon the
Seikhs, bravely towards the terrible aggressor. The little
dog made no efforts to retreat, but having been taught all
kinds of tricks, stood up upon his hind legs and put out
its paw to shake hands with the new acquaintance who
was approaching. In this position the cruel wretch shot
it dead. Hardly had he effected this noble deed, when he
learned from one of his servants who came up, that the
poor creature was the property of a neighbouring gentleman,
who, upon hearing of his feat, would make no scruple about
elongating his nose to the greatest mathematical proportions
of which it was capable. Upon this he proceeded to bury
the animal, as the best way of putting it out of sight and
preventing all discovery. But he had been seen. Within
an hour came a note inquiring after the poor dog. The cow-
ardly assassin of the canine innocent equivocated. Then
came the stern rejoinder :—" You shot it yourself, were seen
to bury it under such a tree, and my servant has orders to
see the body disinterred and bring it home with him." And
there the matter rests, but only rests for the present, as the
falsehood of the dog-killer is putting him out of the pale of
all society in his neighbourhood. But what a picture of the
effects of game preserving upon civilization does this incident
set before us! and it is only one out of a thousand examples
which might be adduced to show how the happiness and
harmony of society are interrupted and destroyed by the
hateful laws which make the birds and beasts of the field the.
property of one man in preference to another.—Liverpool
Chronicle.
SINGULAR DEATH OF A WATCHMAN.T:YwheSatrerdnearaY,
James Russell, night-watchman at the Ironga
_eales
of flax,
the Tower, was found suffocated between two bales
under very singular circumstances. The
about fifty years of age, is supposed
during the night, on the flax, to bal7ce"faslelet asleep, who
is
deda tiinp
an
ngainst
opening,the
wall, and must have
attempting to get out was
between two of the bales,
fallen head wh cohwinswpa.irl
greatmuch effortsdiscolout
er discoloured ndsuffocated. His face andannetdlcklmwaedree
swollen, and lie had evidently made
n igh t-watch man, named
extri-
cate himself. There
who missed his colleague
Gerrard, employed on premisestliaes
about two o'clock, but did not make any search for him, and
it was not until eight o'clock, when the labourers came to the
wharf, that the body of the deceased was found in the situ-
atim dtecribed!