The Sun.
London, England, 1848-06-08 00:00:00

BENTLEY.

Bentley of this month opens with a well written
biography of Gaetano Donizetti, illustrated with a
portrait. Our friend the Flaneur in Paris, furnishes
ome amusing sketches of " Parisian Republican
Manners ;" the revolution in the ordinary habits and
manners of the people appears to have been as com-
plete as that in their form of government.
" Of the change that has taken place in general man-
ners, one of the most striking is the habit—which was
adopted in the first days of the revolution, the days when
all was doubt, confusion, and alarm, and when all indi-
vidual as well as general interests were involved in the
rapidly running and uncertain course of events, when all,
in fact, had one thought, tho thought of the poli-
tics of the moment, if not their hopes and fears,
in common—the habit of mingling and speaking pell-
mell. Everybody speaks to everybody; unknown indi-
viduals accost each other; friends:or enemies, who never
met before, are sudden enemies or friends, according as
their sentiments concur or differ. Is there the least com-
motion in the streets, a good friend, with a face you
never saw before, will ask you, with a hail-fellow-well-
met' air, what is going on, and enter into a discussion,
if you are inclined to listen to him, upon the movement,
whatever it may be, or whether it may have or have not
an importance: if, eager to know the last news, you are
reading a newspaper under a gas light at a street corner,
or at a well-lighted shop window, a workman will touch
his hat, and ask you the result of the last topic of in-
terest. There is a • free and easy,' but certainly
neither insolent or unpleasant manner in all this, which
Parisians dreamed not off three months ago. In the
knots and crowds that form along the Boulevards or on
the principal public places, by night as well as day, the
politicizing disputants in the midst have no knowledge
of each other. Your neighbour turns to speak to you
upon the subject under discussion, and perhaps you find
yourself unexpectedly in the centre of a new group of
listeners or argufiers. If the topic of the day is
ono of peculiar interest or excitement, the voices
raised in the improvises, al fresco clubs, may be louder
and more animated than usual; but, generally speaking,
the friends or enemies of the moment, whatever the
sympathy or dispute, will touch their ghats to one an-
other as they go asunder, and a collision or a movement
is rare among the disputants, although in a few instances
angry passions have come to hustlings. The homme du
peuple talks with the elegant, the workman with the ex-
clusive of the Faubourg St. Germain or the Chaussee
d'Antin, the blouse with the redingote, as the modern
dictionary phrase goes, the legitimist with the republican
of old date, the noble, the bourgeois, and the proleta ire
all mixed together. This state of things is perfectly
new to Paris, and it has a curious and not an unamusing
look."

We have two other articles relating to France, one,
" The Career of Louis Philippe as a Sovereign"—a
just appreciation of the corrupt and selfish courses of
le Harpagon des Rois; the other, " France and her
National Assemblies"—the commencement, we pre-
sume, of a series of articles on this subject, by James
'Ward. The present paper is little more than a re-
sume of the career of Ilirabeau, with whose portrait
it is illustrated. Maxwell continues his history of
the career of the unfortunate Robert Emmett, and
Professor Creasy his dissertation on the " Decisive
Battles of the World." The battle of Palmy is the
subject of the present paper. Greensleeves furnishes
a capital joke of some ten pages, entitled " She's
gone to Bath ;" and Alfred Crowquill a quaint fancy
entitled " The Fairy Cup." We have besides these
papers several reviews of books, records of travels,
and poetry. There is something to suit the taste of
every reader in this month's Bentley.

THE PATRICIAN. Edited By John Bernard Burke,

Esq.

The trial of the Rev. Mr. Hackman for the mur-
der of Miss Reay is the trial reported in the Patrician
of this month. It is more interesting than the most
interesting romance. The letters of Hackman given
in this notice are superior even to those of Rousseau
for tenderness and sentiment. There is also the
usual amount of heraldic and antiquarian information
in the present number of the Patrician.