The Sun.
London, England, 1848-11-25 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 25, 1848.

EXCHEQUER.-(THIS DAY.)
(Sittings in Banco.)
CASTILL V. PococK.7
The CIIIEF BARON gave the judgment of the
Court in this case on the Learn rd Barons taking
their seats. The case was tried, he said, before his
brother Erie. But one point, namely, that the
verdict was against the evidence, was touch relied upon
in the arguments. The Court had consulted the
Learned Judge, and he was of opinion that the evi-
dence justified the verdict, and that the case was fairly
put to the jury. his (the Chief Baron's) own impres-
sion was that the case was properly placed before the
jury by his Learned Brother, nay more, that he took a
much too favourable view.—Application for a new trial
refused.

IN RE CATHERINE PARKINSON.

The CUIEF BARON said a female of this name had pc-
Ltioned the Court. 'The Court could take no step in
,he matter to which the petition had reference. It ap-
peared the late Mr. Swaipe had reported that she had a
good ground of action, and recommended that she should
be permitted to sue in forma pauperis. He, however,
saw reason to change his mind. Ile (the Chief Baron)
merely mentioned the case in order that some gentle-
men of the bar would be good enough to enter into tke
matter and make a report upon it.

CRIM. CuN.—I'RATT V. FLETCHER.
'This case will doabtless be fresh in the recollection of
our readess. The plaintiff is a clerk in the Custom-
house, and the defendant a surgeon. The action was
brought to recover compensation in damages for criminal
conversation with the plaintiff's wife. The jury found
for the plaintiff, damages 8001.
Mr. I.luniFnEv this afternoon moved for a rule calling
upon the plaintiff to show cause why the verdict should
not be set aside, on the ground that the wife was not a
person of good chttract-r :before her marriage. The
Learned Counsel supported his motion by the affidavits
of a hairdresser, who set forth certain matters tending
to favour that impression.
The Court granted the application.
MR. BARBER'S CASE.—It is understood that Mr.
Barber will not apply to be allowed to practise as an
attorney until next term.

COMMON PLEAS.-(THIS DAY.)
(Sittings i❑ Banco.)
The CHIEF JUSTICE intimated that during the ad-
journed sittings the Court would take the new trials
paper just in the order in which they stand ; this would
not preclude the Court from hearing any special cases
in which both sides were ready.
DUNCAN V. TOPHAM.
This was an action for a new trial, on the ground that
the verdict was against the evidence.
Mr. Justice CIIESSWELL was not dissatisfied with the
verdict, but the Court considered there should be a rule
on other grounds.

sick list, sent to hospitals, have been subjected either at
expense or deprivation from not receiving any hospital
supplies. They have either been compelled to go with-
out food or any kind of nourishment from noon to the
next morn;ng, or have been obliged to send cut of the
establishment for food most unfit fur them to partake of
in their then state of health.
WARLICH'S PATENT FUEL—We have heard from
good authority that this fuel, which is now so much
used in the navy, is being most satisfactorily tested
before it is received into store. The company,
to keep up the good sample, have lately de-
tertnined to pay a larger price at the Welsh mines,
and to use no coals in manufacturing the patent fuel,
which are not examined carefully, and warranted good at
the pit's mouth.
Mr. Hay, the Admiralty chemist at Portsmouth Dock-
yard, has submitted to the Admiralty an invention for
the protection of iron steam-boilers.

Aberdeen .. • • • • ..

Amiens and Boulogne . • • •• •• • • •. • • • •
Belfast and Ballymena • • • • • • •• • • • • ••
Birkenhead, Lancashire, and Cheshire
Caledonian._ ... .• • • • • • • • • • •

Chester and Holyhead. • • .. • • .... . • • .
Cockermouth and Workington... . • • • •
Dublin and Drogheda• .•• .. .• • •• • • • •
Dublin and Kingstown • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Dundee, Perth, and Aberdeen .• • • • • • .
East Anglian... . • • •. • • . • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Edinburgh and Glasgow . •• • ........
Edinburgh and Northern .• • • . • . • • • • •
Eastern Counties and North Eastern..
East Lancashire .• • • • • • • • • • •
Eastern Union • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • . • • • • • •

Glasgow, Kilmarnock, and Ayr • •
Glasgow and Greenock • • • .....
Great Southern and Western ........
Great Western, &e. .
Kendal and Windermere• • .... • • • • • •
Lancashire and Yorkshire.. • • • • • • • • • •
Lancaster and Car1i51e..............
Liverpool, Crosby, and Southport—
Londonderry and Enniskillen. • • • .. • •
London and North Western, &c.... • •
London and B lack wall • • • • ..
London and Brighton •• • • ..........
London and South Western . • • •• •• ••
Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire
Maryport and Carlisle • • ••••• • •• ••
Midland, Bristol, and Birmingham....
Midland Great Western (Irish) ......
Monklands . • • • • • • • • • - • • • •• • • • • • •

Newcastle and Carlisle •• •• •• • • •• •

North British
Paris and Bourn •• •• •• •• ••

Rouen and Havre .. • • •• • • • • •

Scottish Central •L. • •:, • •

Shrewsbury and Chester • • ..........
South Eastern and Branches •• • • • • ••
South Devon...• • ..............

Taff Vale • • •• •.....

Ulster . • . •• •• •

Waterford and Limerick—. ..•• ..
Whitchaven Junction ..... •.•.•• ••

Wishaw and Coltness .•• • • • • • • • •

York and Newcastle

York and North Midland. •• •••• ••

UNIVERSITY INTELLI

1,534

686
4,629
1,125
178
673
654

716
3,402
2,002
13,125
1,522
1,227
2,407

-S S 4
3,136
17,625

113
10,128
2,179

136
38,216

564
7,682
2,739

19,690
1,302
836

2,576
115,334
2,128

917
1,1c43
7.414
1,325
767
311
204

019

3,383

614
12,350

857
1,191
2,123
1,003
1,820
16,808

S 739
1,364

113
38,203

6t,r,
7,469
7,11,0
2,105

18,489
841

2,065
6,863
2,739

515
7,820
704
1,822
739

224

13,472
7,016

10,224
7,142

GENCE.

OXFORD, Nov. 24.—At a meeting of the Vice-Chan-
cellor, heads of houses, and proctors, in the delegates'
room, Nov. 22, 1848, it was resolved that publicity be
given to the following:—
" Whereas, there is reason to believe that induce-
ments have been recently held out to some of the junior
members of the University, to have dealings with money-
lenders, whereby they may not only be subjected to
great loss through usurious and fraudulent conditions,
but incur heavy academical penalties.
" Now these are to caution all bachelor and undergra-
duate members of the University against having deal-
ings with money-lenders, or their agents, under any
pretence whatsoever, as they will answer for the same at
their peril.

"F. C. PLUMPTRE, Vice Chancellor."
Dr. Greenhill proposes (with the permission of the
Vice-Chancellor) to deliver, in the Clarendon, early in
the ensuing month, a short course of lectures on the
diseases mentioned i❑ Holy Scripture, with illustrations
from the ancient Greek and Arabic medical writers.

Those gentlemen who may be desirous of attending are
regnested to call on Dr. Greenhill on Friday or Saturday
next, before eleven A.m., when the days and hour of the
lectures will be fixed on.

CAMBRIDGE.—In the University Intelligence, inserted
in this journal on Thursday last, the name of Mr. J. H.
Wilson, of Queen's College, was omitted in the list of
Bachelors of Arts created on the preceding day.

BRISTOL SUGAR MARKET, Nov. 24.—About 200
hhds. of West Indian have been disposed of since our
list report, at former prices, but the market is very dull.
Refined goods are rather easier to buy. Rum still much
neglected.—Bristol Mercury.
UNION ASSURANCE SOCIETY.—This old .established
company for the assurance of life and fire held their an-
niversary yesterday, at the Albion, Aldersgate-street.
William Nuttidge, Esq., the chairman of the company,
presided, supported by Mr. Hardcastle, the Member for
Colchester; Mr. Disney, the chairman of the quarter
sessions in Essex; Mr. Charrington,; the High-bailiff of
Southwark; and the treasurers of the Royal Hospitals of
Christ, St. Bartholomew, and Bridewell. This was the
134th anniversary of this honourable society, which,
since its first year, has been steadily progressing in in-
fluence, connexion, and wealth; and the occasion was ren-
dered the more interesting by the circumstance of the
2Egis Life Directorate, who had just established their
society upon new principles, appearing for the first time
in connexion with the Union. The greatest cordiality

and unanimity was exhibited, and the strongest assu-
rances held out of success and prosperity to the now
united companies.
CHURCH &TENSION IN ST. PAl4CRlS.—Another
beautiful church has been erected in the parish of St.
Pancras, and will be ready for consecration in the course
of a few weeks. Within the last eighteen months five
new ecclesiastical districts have been formed in the
parish, comprising an aggregate population of 50,000
souls. Seven clergymen have been appointed, with six
scripture readers ; five temporary churches or places of
worship have been opened, accommodating 3,000 persons;
sites have been obtained for four permanent churches,
and the ancient parish church has been rebuilt and en-
larged to hold 750 persons, instead of 150, as heretofore.
Towards the erection of the new church (St. Paul's) the
Queen Dowager has subscribed 2001., the Earl of Dart-
mouth 501., the New River Company 50/., &c., but a sum
of 1,000/., is still required before the consecration can
take place.
RELAXATION OF THE GAME-LAWS.—Captain For-
dyce, M.P., with the kindness and liberality that charac-
terises him in all tho private relations of life, is deter-
mined that the Act for permitting tenants to shoot hares
shall not, so far as his property is concerned, remain a
dead letter. Without waiting for applications, he has
given, or is about to give, notice to the farmers on his
estates, both in Aberdeen and Kincardine shires, that
they may use the privilege forthwith. And, in the
north, where the holdings are small, he grants the per-
mission without reservation as to amount of rent. His
conduct in this matter is highly appreciated by the
spirited and independent agriculturists of the Mearns,
who have suffered much from the ravages of game, and
few of whom have, as yet, much prospect of obtaining
the relief which the Gallant Captain's tenantry are about
to enjoy.—Aberdeen Herald.
A brewer at Llanfachreth, last week, sustained a
loss of four valuable milch cows, which died in cense-
pence of eating too much of fresh grains from the

brewery.
Ills INDIAN ARMY.—A correspondent states that
the Government of India has decided on augmenting the
force of the Bengal army by increasing the number of
the men without any addition to the number of officers.
This can only have been done on the supposition that
the amount of officers is more than sufficient for their
present duties. Whether this supposition be well-
founded or not may appear from the fact that the 51st
Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry, now serving before
Moultan in the army of General Whish, has not a single
captain present with the regiment, and the two senior
lieutenants are absent on staff duty.
[ADTERTISEMENT.]—MANSION-HOUSE AND CITY
TDELTRES.—Captain Ackerley waited this day upon the
Lord Mayor to request he would instantly suggest to
Government the rescinding of the order at the Horse
Guards for allowing the 200 men composing the
Guards' Bands of music, being by night employed at
Drury-lane Theatre, under flattering unction to
their military talents for shilling enticement of 3,000
persons to the pit of that house, and thereby lending
themselves for a surreptitious profit of 1,600/+ weekly, to
the manifest ruin of our Legitimate Drama, the com-
mercial lesees, our self-supporting actor, and other em-
ployees at the minor theatres.
CHILD MURDER.—Yesterday, a woman named
Waters, wife of the coachman of a gentleman residing at
Canterbury, was committed by Mr. Coroner Bedford,
charged with the wilful murder of her infant. Prisoner
was confined on Tuesday, at her lodgings, in the Com-
mercial-road; on the following day she went out, taking
the child with her. On Wednesday night the lifeless
body of the infant was found on a dung-heap in Bel-
grave-mews West, Grosvenor-place. The woman went
home and said she had taken the child out to nurse.
The Gazette of last night contains an order in
Council for the equalisation of duties payable on wines,
&c., admitted into the city, garrison, and territory of
Gibraltar. The inequality hitherto existing had the
effect of exempting altogether from the payment those
classes of the community which are best able to bear
such charge; and whereas, moreover, in consequence of
such inequality, numerous frauds are committed with
the object of evading the payment of the said duties, to
the great prejudice of the local revenue, and with detri-
ment to the lair trading licensed dealers; in order, there-
fore, that relief may be afforded to the inhabitants of
Gibralter generally; that the revenue may bo protected
by removal of the temptations to fraud; and that the ex-
pense attending the present system of partial imposition
of duties, may be reduced by establishing a just equality
in the payment of the duties on wines to be consumed
within this garrison • it is expedient to rescind a certain
order of his late garrison;
King William IV„ which is
consequently rescinded, and in lieu thereof to promul-
gate the present order.
The London line of packet ship, York Town,
Captain Sebar, arrived at Gravesend yesterday, from
New York, which place she left on the 2d instant. She
has brought over a full general cargo.
A SMUGGLER'S EPITAPH —A sailor, engaged in
the contraband trade, having been shot by an exciseman,
his epitaph was thus written :
Here I lies,
Kilt by the X.l'e.!

LITERATURE.

AMY MONE. A Romance of the Days of Pericles.
3 Vols. By Eliza Lynn.
Although the writer of this remarkable fiction bad,
in a great measure, prepared us for the development
of an ambition but seldom found in the heart of even
the most daring authoress, we must nevertheless ac-
knowledge that the character of her present effort has
filled us with no little astonishment. " Azeth" has
been generally regarded as a bold attempt from the
hand of a female, but the Egyptian story is as nothing
when contrasted with the Grecian story of " Amy-
mone." Miss Lynn has evinced so much genius in
the conception, if not in the composition, of this
classic romance, that we would fain see those
blemishes corrected which have glared upon us
during the perusal of " Amymone,' and which have
marred a work that must, otherwise, have been
nothing less than a literary phenomenon. With a
stricter adherence to historical accuracy; with a
more perfected command over an imagination liable
when uncurbed to wander into vagaries ; with a
more vigilant attention to the consistencies of a plot ;
with a more subtle appreciation of the mysteries of
the human heart, an appreciation which may be cul-
tivated to almost any extent of excellence where the
mind displays the keen perceptive faculties possessed
by cur romancist ; with a more exacting system of
morality, and a more careful avoidance of that great
fault of novelists which may be termed dogmatism of
sentiment—Miss Eliza Lynn may become one of the
foremost female writers in a literature which already
numbers among its brightest ornaments the names of
Anne Radcliffe, Letitia Landon, Charlotte Smith,
Maria Edgeworth, Jane Porter, Mary Mitford, Feli-
cia Hemans, and Elizabeth Barrett. It is because
we have recognised so much genius in the opening
chapters of " Amymone,"-and because we would not
see that genius destroyed by the indulgence of ble-
mishes, such as have ruined the conclusion of the ro-
mance of the days of Pericles, that we are the more
solicitous to enumerate those blemishes, and to point
out what appear to us to be the causes of the ill suc-
cess of "Amymone" as a whole. The first volume
is altogether beautiful—the idea of the narrative
being exquisitely graceful, the tone elevated, the ar-
rangement ingenious, and the general treatment mas-
terly to a degree. With the close of the eleventh
chapter, however, when Alcamenes is left standing in
the garden of the Cerameicos, gazing in rapture
on a tress ravished from the perfumed
locks of Chrysanthe, the excellence of the story as a
work of art terminates. The continuation of the nar-
rative is as inferior to the commencement as a chain
of cockle-shells tagged on to the end of a necklace of
diamonds, or as one of the noisiest pot pourris of
Roche Albert after a symphony of Beethoven, or as a
display of Bengal lights after the glories of the aurora
borealis. The key was " pitched " in a lofty and
ambitious strain at the outset, but the energies of the
authoress evidently failed her in the endeavour to
sustain her enthusiasm to the same sublime elevation
throughout. Nor is this surprising when we reflect
upon the daring of a literary adventure which aimed
at the portraiture of Grecian history and Athenian
society in the golden age when Pericles reigned in
Attica ; when Pheidias laboured amidst the marble
splendours of the Parthenon; when Anaxagoras
taught philosophy in the Lyceion, and Socrates
morality under the porch ; when Euripides and
Sophocles vied with each other in the tragic
representations of the Dionysiac Theatre ;
when Lysias breathed forth his eloquence in the
Gymnasium; when Alcibiades displayed the beauty
of his boyhood among the violet sellers in the Agora ;
when Crates and Hermippos bandied witticisms across
the tables of the symposium; when the victors in the
pancratium were crowned in the supreme hall of the
Pnyx ; when the hetairai flaunted their seductive
loveliness in the Cerameicos; and when the genius
of Aspasia was paramount in the city of the Acro-
polis. The principal tendency of the work, as
is avowed, indeed, in the " Preface," is a vindication
of the character of Aspasia. Hitherto that extra-
ordinary woman has been considered solely as one
of the Milesian hetairai, as the mistress or concubine
of Pericles ; and almost every one who has written
upon Grecian history, from Plutarch and Quintillian
downwards, has reviled the famous daughter of
Axiochus as the corrupter of the morals of the
Athenians, as the enervater of the councils of
Pericles, and as the cause of disgrace to the Violet-
Crowned capital through her lasciviousness and
dissipation. Whether Aspasia was really the mistress
or the wife of the great ruler to whom she
was, at least to all appearance, wedded, may remain
for ever a matter of uncertainty ; yet we cannot but
coincide with Miss Lynn in her estimate of Aspasia's
character from a dispassionate consideration of the
effects produced by her union with the immortal
Pericles. If the following axiom enunciated by our
authoress is to be regarded as correct, (and who shall
gainsay its accuracy ?) the assertion that Aspasia's
influence undermined the sentiments of true religion
in Attica falls to the ground:—" Make a nation irre-
ligious, the poet, and the painter, and the statuary,
are no more 1 "—(Vol. 1., p. 90.) Now it was under
the fostering patronage of the Milesian that the glory
of Alcamenes, of Euripides, of Sophocles, and of
Pheidias, were developed! Beyond this Socrates, the
noblest of all the Pagan moralists, the philosopher
who, like Seneca, recognised, as it were instictively,
some of the holiest principles which were subsequently
proclaimed by our Saviour, was the friend of Aspasia.
Nor is this circumstance without its significance, that
that beautiful and most accomplished woman numbered
amongst her adherents, all the worth, and virtue, and
heroism, and wisdom of Athens ; while her enemies
consisted of the most villanous, the most profligate,
and the most unprincipled persons to be found in the
rabble of Attica. On these accounts we are satisfied
of the correctness of the novel estimate here formed
of the intellect and temperament of Aspasia. In
having dared to pen this vindication, Miss Lynn has
acted nobly, and she will certainly be rewarded by
the sympathy of her more educated readers, a sympa-
thy, full, earnest; and enthusiastic. We have alluded,
however, to the occasional evidence of historical in-
accuracy in the romance of " Amymone." These
perversions of the truth, for we cannot regard them
as mere blunders, are the more surprising from their
being generally of such a palpably fallacious kind.
They consist sometimes of anachronisms so gross as
to amaze the student who has read merely
half a-dozen of the biographies of the Chce-
ronean. For example—Lysias, the son of
Cephalos, is described as a young man of twenty-six
years of age at the period of his return from
Thurium, when his return from that colony did not
occur until his forty-seventh year ! if we are to be-
lieve the following authorities—Plut. de Orat.—Cic.
do Brut.—Diog. 2. Quintil. 3, &c. Again Pheidias
is described as having been accused of abstracting a
portion of the gold from the chryselephantine statue of
Minerva after his return from Ells' when it was in
consequence of that accusation that he was banished
to Ells, where he mitigated the sorrows of his exile
by fabricating his wonderful colossal figure of Jupiter
Olympius ! according to the declarations of Paus. 9.
c. B.—Plut. in Per., &C. It is not, how-
ever, in these direct violations of historical exactitude
that the chief blemish of Amymone "as an
historical romance consists. It is the feeble
delineation of some of the most glorious beings
of that heroic time. Socrates, according to Miss
Lynn's portraiture of him, is a mere prosaic driveller,
wrapped up in a blanket, standing by like the veriest
dullard when everybody else is talking, and being
the very antithesis of the noble sage, such as he is
depicted by his contemporaries. Alcibiades, more-
over, whether as a child or as an epheboi, is generally
described throughout the three volumes as a precocious
little voluptuary, chattering about love when he
ought to have been thinking about sweetmeats, and
acting as a spoilt darling when tie ought to have been
rising to the dignity of manhood. Some of the
historical characters introduced into the fiction are,
in fact, mere dummies decked out in_ appropriate cos-
a power analogous to that of
turves, and moved by
he originals as the
galvanism—as much resembling,
wax figures at Madame Tussard sbear_ the appearance
if Miss
.L.ynn has failed
of vitality. Nevertheless,
in her delineations of Socrates, Alcibiades, Pheidias,
and some others of their contemporaries, she has
been marvellously happy in her sketches of
Pericles, Aspasia, Crates, Hermippos, Euripides,
Sophocles, Lysias, and Alcamenes. Still better,
moreover, are her limnings of the minor historical, or
purely fictitious characters—Arnymone, the slave-
born heroine ; Methion, the Persian alien ; Crethon,
the old eupatrid; Clem), the tanners son ; Antiphon,
the soothsayer; Eudora,
the virgin ; Chrysanthe, the
love-sick maiden ; Chelone, the slave ;
Pamphos, the
the debauchee ; Lysiades,
gate-keeper; Zanthippos,
the fop ; Glaphyra, the coquette; Zeuxo, the Thessa-
lien witch ; Pentheus, the dnark ; Lysicles, the
cattle-dealer; Eucrates, the flax-seller; and Hyper-
bolos, the lamp-maker. They are all inimitable
creations, and, with one exception, of peculiar
freshness and originality. That exception is the
heroine Amymone the very double of Bulwer
Lytton's Lucretia. Although clad in the robes, and
speaking the language of Greece, Amymone has
throughout more of the nature of Lucretia than of
Clytemnestra. Her very name, like that of
Lucretia, smells of blood. The are alike
of distracting beauty, of sublime intellect, of
reternatural viciousness.
inordinate ambition, and of p
Amymone is rendered to the reader doubly repulsive
and abhorrent from the circumstance that she is
almost invariably spoken ref by the authoress in a
tone absolutely reverential—as if there were anything
noble in her atrocity, dignified in her hypocrisy, or
bewitching in her pride ! The story opens (I. 93)
in "the first year of the eighty-fifth Olympiad, four
hundred and forty years' before our era, when Cris-
son of Himeria was, for the third time victor in the
foot-race of the Olympia, and when Myrrichides was
archon." The whole plot may be explained in a few
sentences. Crethon, the patron of Methion, invites
his client to his farm-house near Athens on he occa-
sion of his marriage with Amymone. While feasting

in the house of the generous eupatrid, Methion, at
the instigation of Cleon, forges a will in the name of
Crethon, and Amymone poisons the wine•cup of her
benefactor. The poison not being sufficiently expe-
ditious, Amymone strangles Crethon by grasping his
throat with her own hands, and the close of
this tragic incident, where Amymone ap-
pears at a window of the farm-house, clad
in flowing white, her hair dishevelled, and a
ghastly streak of blood across her forehead, is one of
the most powerful descriptions in the whole of the
romance. Crethon dead, his murderer and her hus-
band live in luxury for eight years, the idols of
Athens and the avowed antagonists of Pericles and
Aspasia. The interest of the narrative arises from
the antagonism of Amymone to Aspasia ; and the
underplots consist of the profligacy of Zanthippos
and Glaphyra, the love passages between Lysias and
Eudora, the passion of Chrysanthe for Pheidias, and the
conspiracy of the comic poets and the demagogues.
As specimens of the skill of our authoress in painting
the different personages comprised in her narrative,
we give the following:—

we may afford some notion by transcribing one of ,
those passionate outbursts of emotion by which the
first volume is beautified. Aspasia has just spoken.
" Pericles held her to his heart; but save the thick
breath and panting breast, nothing:told how deeply her
words had moved him. And nought was needed.
Speech would have been harsh, caresses cold; for earth
has no meals which shall worthily interpret of heaven,
none save silence. In worship, love, and joy—that joy
which springs from honour and from love—keep silence,
stilly, solemnly. Break not the whispered words of
heaven by earth's cold voice; dull not its glory
.by
earth's dim shade; let heart breathe out to heart by in-
fluence, not by speech, and the soul interpret of its love
by knowledge, not by word.
" Keep silence before the Throne of God; keep silence
before the altar of nature; flutter not the wings of love
by the rud breath; startle not the reverent soul by the
rough voice; keep silence in the sky; keep silence in the
grove; still, for one instant, the loud echo of the world;
still! still! and list what God proclaims through his
messenger of love. Keep silence, oh keep silence!"
Occasionally thoughts as exquisitely emotional as this,
but of a more peculiar brevity, are articulated in the
dialogues or descriptive passages. As when it is said
—" The Ideal is above the Actual as far as heaven is
above earth, the Deity beyond humanity."—l. 85.
Or when the authoress exclaims from the depths of
her heart, " God bless that sacred power of love Vi—
la. 55. Or where Pericles, after asking
Panainos if he have sacrificed recently to the
Gods, observes —" For thy talents are the
offering, their exercise the sacrifice, and their aim
Heaven's triumph set up in man !"—I. 78. Or yet
again, when th e:eupatrid felicitates the alien on his
marriage, saying—" Women, my Methion are like
the flowers round thy brow ; in the spring of life
they are beautiful and gladdening, the fairest orna-
ment that love can wed to honour ; in autumn they
are still sweet, though withered, and are the herbs
which give us health."—l. 29. Such are among the
most remarkable features of this remarkable romance

—a story of fine imaginativeness, although of un-
equal excellence. It is th'e augury rather than the
perfected emanation of genius, for genius alone could
have produced " Amymone."

DEATH OF LORD MELI3OURNE.

We received at a late hour last night, by electric
telegraph, the intelligence of Lord Melbourne's deatb.
For more than seven years the deceased Peer was First
Lord of the Treasury—a tenure of office much beyond
the average duration of Ministries in the 19th century;
for the Addington, the Grenville, the Portland, the Per-

ceval, the Canning, the Goderich, the Wellington, the

Grey, and the i"e;il Government—though ap—parently
based on broad] foundations—were, in fact, composed of
has durable materials than was that of Viscount Mel-

b )urne. Apart,,however, from the fact that he was at
the head of the- Administration• during a certain num-
ber of years, there are connected-with his name and cha-
racter a vast variety of traitsiincidents, and occurrences
greatly calculated to diversify that which may be called
—without any great violation of propriety—the " life
and adventures" of William Lamb—a man who, in spite
of grave failings, will now be remembered with approba-
tion for many estimable qualities; whose mirthful sallies
excited the applause of every circle that he entered, and
whose reputed indolence, carelessness, and procrastit,a-
tion rendered him one of the most tempting objects of
banter that the whole range of political society pre-

sented.
Ile was born at Melbourne House, London, on the
15th of March, 1779, and was therefore at the time of
his death in the 70th year of his age. His university
education he received, first, at Trinity College, Cam-
bridge, and secondly, at Glasgow, where he studied ju-
risprudence and politics in the class of an eminent
teacher. Professor Millar. In a debating society at-
tached to the class, Mr. Lamb was distinguished amongst
his contemporaries for historical knowledge, consider-
able classical attainments, strong common sense, and
great pleasantry. At that period of his life he, like
most young men brought up among the Whigs, was a
prodigious admirer of Mr. Fox, and an acknowledged
disciple of his political school. In return Mr. Fox
warmly patronized Mr. Lamb even before he left Cam-
bridge. He entered as a student at Lincoln's Inn on
the 21st of July, 1797, and was called to the bar on the
23d of November, 1604. Within seven months
from that time he married the Lady Caroline Pon-
sonby. This event took place at the house of the third
Lord Bosborough, in Cavendish-square, on the 3d of
June, 1805, the Noble Viscount being in the 28th year
of his age, and his consort in her 21st. The Ponsonbys
are not only a more ancient, but a more dignified, house
than that from which Lord Melbourne was descended,
and the history of his family may be set forth within a

very narrow compass.
Matthew Lamb, of Brocket Hall, in the county of
Hertford, was nephew and joint-heir of Peniston Lamb,
of Lincoln's Inn, and was created a baronet on the 17th
of January, 1755. This worthy personage married
Charlotte, daughter of the Right Hon. Thomas Cuke, of
Melbourne, in Derbyshire; the eldest son springing from
this marriage was Sir Peniston Lamb, who married the
only daughter of Sir Ralph Milbanke; and those were
the parents of the Peer to whose memoirs these columns
have been assigned. Sir Peniston was elevated to
the Peerage of Ireland' on the Bth of June, 1770, as
Baron Melbourne, and created a Viscount on the
11th of January, 1781. His Lordship received a peerage
of the United Kingdom on the 11th of August, 1813,
and having died on the 22d of July, 1828, he was suc-
ceeded in his title and estates by the Noble Lord whose
sayings and doings now more immediately engage our
attention.
The matrimcniel alliance which Mr. Lamb formed
with Lady Caroline Ponsonby bore every appearance of
an union likely to be crowned with permanent happi-
ness; but in the course of a few years differences of a
very painful kind arose, which ended in a separation.
Lady Carolina Lamb died on the 25th of January, 1828;
and her son, the lion. G. A. F. Lamb, followed her to
the grave on the 27th of November, 1836.
In the year 1805 Mr. Lamb entered the House of
Commons and joined the Whig party, which then car-
ried on the trade of Opposition under the leadership
of the celebrated Charles Fox. He came into Parlia
meat with very little reputation, and ho never acquired
much fame in the Lower House. Reputed to be indo-

lot, he rarely took any trouble to disprove common
rumour; the appreciation of his talents was therefore
left to " the discerning few," who when he became
Prime Minister, but not until then—proclaimed that he
had been a great man from his,youth upwards. In justice
to the Whig party, as it existed in 1805, it is only fair
to say that they showed no indisposition to bring for-
ward Mr. Lamb. In 1806 they permitted him to move
the address in answer to the King's Speech ; but
throughout the quarter of a century that followed that
occurrence they never once enjoyed a similar opportunity
of obliging any of their young friends. During this
thee, it may be inquired, what was Mr. Lamb about?
He lived a life of fashionable gaiety, yet he found
some time for politics and reading, but the re-
sults of his labours are not very conspicuous, for
he made no remarkable speeches, nor did he display any
peculiar aptitude for the business of legislation. He re-
presented first the borough of Leominster, in 1805, then
the Haddingion district of burghs in 1806, Portarling-
ton in the Parliament of 1807, Peterborough in 1816
and 1818, Hertfordshire in 1819, and again in 1820;
thus, in the short space of 15 years, he found it neces-
sary to seek the suffrages of five different electoral
bodies. He was a sort of semi-liberal, and showed a
decided leaning towards the political views of Mr. Can-
ning, with the single exception of Parliamentary Reform;
they were fully agreed on free trade, the South Ameri-
can Republics, and the government of Ireland; therefore
Mr. Lamb, though remaining in opposition, frequently
gave the benefit of his vote to Lord Liverpool's Ministry.
Hence it was to have been expected that when Mr.
Canning was commissioned to form a Cabinet, be should
have made overtures to Mr. Lamb, and other Whigs of
the same stamp. Under Mr. Canning, accordingly, he
accepted the office of Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieu-
tenant of Ireland, and in that country the Roman Ca-
tholic party hailed the' advent of sueh a man as William
Lamb with a degree of triumph which was almost ab-
surd. The sort of temporary alienation from the ex-
treme which Mr. Lamb underwent during the years
1827, 1828, and 1829, appears to have reconciled him to
a still closer intercourse with the Tories; and ho not only
accepted office under Mr. Canning, but did not desert
Lord Goderich, nay, even remained with the Duke of
Wellington himself. He had the sagacity to conjec-
ture that the Duke would soon be under a neces-
sity of treating the Dissenters with " liberality,"
and the Roman li
Catholics with " conciliation ;" Mr.
Lamb, therefore, perceived that he might not only retain
his office, but act upon his professed principles, thus ac-
complishing the difficult task of reconciling duty with
inclination, and at the same time of securing to himself
the negative enjoyment, which he vastly prized, of
avoiding trouble. But about this period the movement
party both in France and England showed symptoms of
approaching insubordination, and the well-remembered
proposition for disfranchising East Retford came before
the House of Commons. Lord Palmerston, Mr. Grant
(now Lord Glenelg), Mr. lluskisson, and Mr. Lamb
could not, with any show of consistency, refuse to sup-
port this first step in Parliamentary reform; and as the
military Premier never tolerated mutiny Mr. Lamb is
found once more a member of his Majesty's Opposition,
and about the same time he ceased to be a Member of
the House of Commons.
As a speaker, nothing could be more unfortunate than
his early efforts. He was, therefore, formany years
P
flung aside into the mob of inea ables, and pronounced
by ordinary observers to be a young man
whose case
was hopeless. But the few who knew him intimately
contended that he was one of those who never task their
faculties to the work of dealing with matters of small
moment. It was said by his admirers—" Place the club
in his hand, and he will become a Hercules; give him
the distaff, and he makes sad work. Let William Lamb
only be called to a great undertaking, and he will be-
come a great man.' Neither adverse critics ncr partial
friends appear to have anticipated the true character of
his career.
But it was not until he had obtained a beat in the
Upper House that lie ascended to the runk of a polities.]
chieftain. The death of his father and that of his wife
occurring in the course of the same year rendered neces-
sary a more than ordinary degree of attention to his pri-
vate interests, but a new aspect of public affats speedily
revived his ancient habits, and awoke his slumbering
ambition. The Duke of Wellington having in 1830 de-
clared war against the Reformers, and having expressed
himself unable to comprehend how the King's Govern-
ment was to be carried on if the representative branch of
the Legislature titul,,rwent any alteration whatever, he
threw up offiee, ar d Lord Grey reigned in his stead.
Thereupon Lord Melbourne accepted the seals of the
Home Departmcnt, but, fortunately for that department,
Isis administration of its affairs did not continue much
beyond three years.
During the session of 1834 the King sent for Viscount