The Sun.
London, England, 1846-12-07 00:00:00

MAGAZINES—(CONTINUED).
HOOD'S 'MAGAZINE,
An Elegiac Ode to Thomas Hood is prefixed to the
December number: it has some merit. The tragedy
of "The Avenger" is continued, as is likewise the
story of " Blanche Neville." Beyond these contribu-
tions the magazine is an olla podrida of miscellaneous
scraps in prose and poetry, some of them good, and
others execrably bad. One of them is entitled, " A
Thought," to this effect—
" Cease to murmur, hapless whiner,
Throw that sigh away,
Think if caring much won't win her,
Caring little may 1"
Surely the editor has forgotten the most inimitable
of the delicious songs of old Sir John Suckling;
direfuls rely he
parody h
as
notuponobserved
this b
ex
ciueifosirtee tahnadt tnhae7
raebdoivtety a
a
ditty none the less beautiful for being familiar to
many—

" Why so pale and wan, fond lover ?
Prythee, why so pale ?
Will, when looking well can't move her,
Looking ill prevail?
Prythee, why so pale ?
Why so dull and mute, young sinner?
Pry thee, why so mute?
Will, when speaking well can't win her,
Speaking nothing do't?
Prythee, why so mute ?"
The imitation from this is most manifest. Mr. J.
Jones manages, again, very adroitly to ruin his
noble sonnet to December, by the most ill-judged
alterations.

DOU

rGLAS JERROLD'S SHILLING MAGA.

ZINE.

Where tarries the cab driver ? We have missed
him from the stand for months past, and we almost
despair of ever meeting with him again. Can it be
that Juniper Hedgehog hath resigned the whip for
the razor, and turned from cab-driver to barber, giving
oralinstead of epistolatory information to his fellow
creatures ? But although Juniper Hedgehog no
longer enlightens us, we have still the history of St.
Giles and St. James. The 34th chapter of which
commences the present number. Capstick, who
through the remonstrances of Bright Jem, begins to
have an inkling that Snipeton has made a tool of him
in the affair of the representation of Liquorish, goes up
to the cottage at Hampstead to satisfy his doubts ; be
arrives there just as St. Giles has returned with the
account of the abduction of Clarissa by Willis and
Tom Blast, and is present when on first learning the in-
telligence, Snipeton grinds his teeth, howls his curses,
and, in very impotence, works his hands like a demon
balked of his revenge :
" And now is Snipeton widowed. Yes : with a living
wife, damned to worst widowhood. It would have worn
and tortured the spirit within him sometimes to wander
from the desk to the churchyard, and there look down
upon Clarissa's grave. To have read, and read with
dreamy, vacant eyes, the few tombstone syllables that
sum up—solemnly brief—the hopes, and fears, and
wrongF, and wretchedness ; the pleasant thoughts and
aching weariness that breath begins and ends. Cla-
rissa, wife of Ebenezer Snipeton, died —2 Words to
dim a husband's eyes ; to carry heaviness to the heart ;
to numb the soul ; and for a time to make the lone man,
with his foot at the treasure-holding grave, feel the
whole world drifted from him, and he left landed on the
little spot he looks on. And then breaks small, mourn-
ful music from those words : pleasant, hopeful sounds,
that will mingle her name with his ; that will make him
own the dear, the still incorporate dead. The flesh of
his flesh, the bone of his bone, is lapsed into the dis-
grace of death: it is becoming the nourishment of grass;
and still his heart yearns to the changing form: still it
is a part of him; and his tender thoughts may, with the
coffined dead, love to renew the bridal vow the dead ab-
solves him of. And Snipeton, his wife in her winding-
sheet, might so have solemnised a second wedlock. For
surely there are such nuptials. Yes; second marriages
of the grave between the quick and the dead, with God
and his angels the sole witnesses.
" And Snipeton was denied such consolation. His
widowhood permitted no such second troth. Living to
the world, his wife was dead to him; yet though dead,
not severed. There was the horror: there, the foul con-
dition of disgraced wedlock : the flesh was still of his
flesh, cancerous, ulcerous ; with a life in it to torture
him. By day, that flesh of his flesh would wear him ;
by night, with time and darkness lying like a weight
upon him, would be to him as a fiend that would cling
to him; that would touch his lips; that would murmur
in his ear. And let him writhe, and struggle, and with
a strong man's strong will determine to put away that
close tormentor, it would not be. The flesh was still of
his flesh, alike incorporate in guilt and truth."
" St. Giles and St. James" is followed by a graphic
description of the Night Fair in Alexandria, evi-
dently from the pen of one who has been long resi-
dent in Egypt. "Fables for Foolish Fellows," and
" Pearls for Popish Places," are continued. Angus
Reach contributes a paper on " Our Statues and their
Wardrobes," which commences thus :
" There is one dress for the people of the nineteenth
century, and another dress for the statues of the people
of the nineteenth century. Flesh and blood wear Eng-
lish costumes—stone and bronze, Roman. Coats and
trowsers are quite good enough for actual breathing
humanity—togas and buskins must be employed to set
off its more valuable and honoured effigies. A man is
not felt to be degraded by a waistcoat and a standing
shirt collar—a statue is. The statue being the more
exalted thing of the two, claims the greatest cares of the .
costumier. Anything good enough for an existing
original—hardly anything good enough for a metallic
portraiture. The tailor is thought to be sufficient to
clothe the man—the artist must drape the statue. Happy
statues—miserable men ! Who would not be bronze rather
than human—sculptured by man rather than formed by
Nature?"

He suggests, and very properly suggests, that we
should dress the statues of Englishmen as English-
men. Of course there will be a great outcry among
the " hi▪
gh art " people against this sacrilege, but we
value truth above high art, and if high artists cannot
sculpture statues in modern costume, doubtless low
artists will be found who can and will do so, and
willwho do it tastefully, picturesquely, artistically,
and dri▪
ve from the field the herd of mere imitators,
who, to hide their want of original genius, cant of
"classical taste," and drivel oceans of nonsense about
" high art." We have also in this number some
passable poetry, and some good reviews of new
books.