The Sun.
London, England, 1846-08-19 00:00:00

THE ECLECTIC REVIEW. No. 11. New

Series.

A prosperous course seems to lie before this periodi-
cal; and its contents, for excellence of writing, for
variety of contributions, and for uncynical morality,
justify the success which they promise. " Methodism as
it is," though of anything but general interest, is a paper
so agreeably compiled, that it will be perused with at-
tention, especially as it relates to a very large and in-
fluential body of our countrymen. Some of its ani-
madversions are not altogether undeserved ; many of
them are richly merited. " The HiAtory of the Dog" is
a capital collection of memorabilia relating to that- ,most
sagacious of animals ; but we marvel' that the writer,
while referring to Youatt and Martin, as authoritits,
entirely overlooked the recent and excentric narrative of
Jesse. There is likewise an elegant little dissertation
on the last twenty years of the reign of George I 11., evoked
by the concluding volume of Mr. Knight's "Pictorial His-
tory of England." Never was any similar fragna-nt of time
in the records of England, or possibly of Europe; so
fraught with wonderful occurrences, or so remarkable
for an array of extraordinary personages. Parlia-
mentary oratory was then at its parehellion; Pitt, Fox,
Burke, and Sheridan, were as habitual haranguers
of the House at that period, as Russell, Hume,
Duncombe and Wakley are now-a-days.
Poetry was
only, second in excellence to the Shaksperianand
Mil-
tonian eras ; Coleridge, Shelley, Campbell, and Byron
issued their couplets as irregularly as Bulwer, Tenny-
son, .Elliott, and the author of the " New Tim‘m," do
in our generation. The startling news of an Aus-
terlipt or a Trafalgar are now replaced by intel-
ligence of a division upon some, free-trade ques-
tion, or (according to the ;nal adroit fascetiousness
of Lord Brougham) the latest bulletin of the
potato disease, Hallam and Lingardi n
inop
historyphilos;llhayz
litt and Gifford in oritiaisal ;Bentham
Erskine in forensic and Hall in pulpit eloquence; Mack-
intosh as a biographer ; Foster as an essayist, then
occupied posts which are now almbst vacant. Sydney
Smith was to his day what Punch is to ours. The
Waverley Novels were then devoured with avidity, like
that evinced by the public for Martin Chuzzlewit and
the like. Brougham and Jeffrey were then reviewers ;
their present representatives we cannot enumerate.
Miss Mitford has been succeeded by Miss Martineau ;
in lieu of Miss Edgeworth we have Mrs. Gore or the
Countess of Blessington. The parallel might be con-
tinued almost ad infinitum, and we fancy would not
be altogether uninstructive. The closing years of
George 111. are among the most memorable lessons
of humanity ; and it is singular enough to
reflect how at that great epoch the imaginations of men
were filled Iv the names of two extraordinary charac-
ters, Napoleon and Byron—the one the hero of the
sword and of the sceptre, the other the hero of mis-
anthropy and the pen. With other contributions upon
Thomas Cartwright, the Argentine Republic, &c., the
Eclectic Review is readable and instructive.

BORDEAUX AND ITS WINES. By C. Coca
Those who relish that most flavolirous of all beverages,
claret, will relish this very agreeable volume. And who,
we should like to know. does npt relish claret? If there
actually be, any individual with a palate so callous us not
to be tickled by the vine juice of Medoc, we should be
uncommonly glad of an introduction to him, and should
prize his friendship as that of an unique specimen of hu-
masa', Bverybody at all worthy at being considered as
anybody has std Aired the ingenuity with which Sinbad
the
got rid of the Old Man of the Sea, by present-
ing with a calabash of wine ; and we could scarcely
to,Ue upon
i ourselves to blame the old gentleman, supposing
y bhoidm Sailor y
Haut-Brion. The book, now
the wine n qaestiolwr eresucahzßine.asLafite, or ChAleaux-
Margaux, or Lett , or Hu
masearakinudbried ripeness with the fruit-
ageorative ; the descriptions con-
wad as ple4sautly from
lyingtlunesll,ll
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