The Sun.
London, England, 1846-04-30 00:00:00

, speak) solid and picturesque. Witness that passage
uttered by the secretary:—

Here I sit your scribe,
And in and out goes Luria, days and nights;
This Paccio conies; the Moor his other friend,
Husain • they talk—all that's feigned easily;
lie speaks would not listen if I could),
Reads, orders, counsels; but he rests sometimes
I see him stand and eat, sleep stretched an hour
On the lynx-skins yonder; hold his bared black arms
Into the sun from the tent-opening; 1 'ugh
When his horse drops the forage from his teeth
And neighs to hear him hum las Moorish songs :
That man b, lieves in Florence, as the saint
Tied to the wheel believes in God!"
One who can write such spontaneous music is surely
capable of better things than this jumble of bells and
pomegranates ; the keen limning of that single incident
is in itself eminently beautiful—the tawny barbarian
holding his " bared arms into the sun," through the
cool doorway of the tent, laughing when his horse
starts from its meal upon the sward, and neighs to hear
its master humming some well-remembered " Moorish
song," is most happily grouped—grouped as a poet alone
could group it. Besides which it is suffased with a
tender air of melancholy, clearly felt, but indefinable
withal. " Bells and Pomegranates" are finished and
have failed—we would 'fain cry with Sir Hugh Evans,
" There be pippins and cheese to come yet," trustful that
Robert Browning will in the end afford us some sterling
English poetry.

THE CONFESSIONS OF A PRETTY WOMAN.
By Miss Pardoe. 3 Vols.
The title of this novel is no doubt an attractive one,
but the contents are most unsatisfactory. It is brilliant,
effective, certainly clever, but there is a want of truth
the characters so admirably delineated—of reality in
the incidents so graphically described. Truth is as es-
sential to a novel as to a history; the one is a record of
events, and facts, and dates—of the outward deeds and
doings of men ; the other should lay bare their secret
thoughts and feelings—should give a faithful picture of
life —a veritable history of the human heart. These
volumes may do this, but we can hardly think it. They
certainly convey a moral lesson; they tend to expose
the fatal influence of a worldly spirit and a perverted
education; on every page is stamped all, all is vanity."
The confessions are supposed to be written by
one whose youth was blighted, whosew hole hope and
happiness withered by the moral contagion to which she
was exposed ; one endowed with " the fatal gift of
beauty;" a woman, and a woman of fashion, even from
her cradle, panting for admiration, yet dreaming of
better things without the courage to pursue or the hap-
piness to obtain them. Every hope vanished, every
prospect destroyed, in seclusion and solitude she mourns
over her sorrows and the sins which caused them. So
far a lesson, and a good lesson, may be learned; and
yet we cannot lay aside these really interesting and at-
tractive volumes without feeling considerable doubt as to
the truth of their representations, or having our good
opinion of human nature greatly lowered—and the
former alternative we should most certainly prefer. We
cannot, we will not, believe, that the brilliant and fan-
tastic heroes and heroines of the tale are faithful
transcripts, of real men and women. We cannot be-
lieve that a Lady Madeleine ever existed—a woman
whose vanity and w Jose passion for adulation cast a
blight upon all who approached her—friends, admirers,
husband, children ; neither will we believe Sir James
Dornton ever to have had a living prototype. His cha-
racter is revolting, for it is unnatural. Many things
have been done for the sae° of gaining money, yet it
will hardly be credited that a man—not a hardened, des-
perate character, but an easy, spoiled man of fashion—
anxious to retrieve his fortune, after proposing to the
rich widow, and being refused, enters into an engage-
ment with her daughter, who loves him devotedly, and
to whom he is also attached, and then, at the capricious
desire of the mother, becomes the husband of the sister
of his promised bride. The forsaken one dies of a broken
heart; while the wretched wife, hating her husband,
flies for happiness to society and finds only despair. We
trust that Miss Pardee will in future devote her powerful
pen to a more pleasing theme; there are flowers as well
weeds in the human garden, and we trust to receive a
bouquet of sweets from her hand. In the meanwhile
these volumes may interest and amuse ; they will do no
harm, for they carry their own antidote.