The Sun.
London, England, 1846-05-21 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

GUIDE TO THE TURF,andPOCKET RACING
COMPANION for 1846. By W. Ruff.
This is the authority on all matters relating to the
turf, and it deserves to be so, for nothing can exceed
the accuracy and extent of the information which it con-
tains, or the admirably clear and succinct manner in
which the information is arranged. Any one referring
to the Guide can in a moment lay his finger on the in-
formation which he may require, whether that infor-
mation relate to the nominations—which are all alpha-
betically arranged and indexed—to the length of the
courses, the laws of racing, the names of the jockeys,
their lowest weights, the " lots," the names of the
trainers, or the colours of the riders. It contains,
moreover, an accurate Racing Calendar for 1845, and is,
in fact, a complete mirror of the racing world of the
United Kingdom.

A DISPLAY OF HERALDRY. By Win. New on.
The author of this work states his object in publishing
it to have been " to revive the knowledge of an obsolet!.
.
science, of which he became enamoured in his youth,'
and certainly the handsome volume before us, with its
various illustrations, historical and pictorial, is well
calculated to attain that object. The author, it appears,
has been engaged for the last thirty years in collecting
the materials for this publication, which may be con-
sidered as a modernised Guillim. But it is
not by
this work alone, which has evi-
dently been a labour of love, that Mr. Newton
has vindicated his right to the title of Champion of
Heraldry. He
ho
delivexed a course of interesting lec-
tures on science Wore the members of a literary
and scientific society in the City of London, and the
substance of thesislectures will be found in the present
publication. The style in which the work is written is
concise and clear, and the author has made his subject
really quite interesting. The book,
.which is beautifully
printed and is altogether " got up "is a very superior
style, will no doubt be a great favourite in the old halls
and castles of our country squires, while every Young
Englander will think a library incomplete that does not
boast one copy, at least, of the display of heraldry.

THE TRUE GRANDEUR OF NATIONS.

By Charles Sumner.

Much learning, no little philosophy, and a great
benevolence of spirit are comprised in this oration. It
contains in itself an indication of the sentiments which
are fast gaining ground among the civilised portions of
extinction of of warfare and the establishment of a general
peace. If only as bodying forth these new and very
noble views of the human end for which men were
created, the little publication before us possesses a most
peculiar attraction. Hitherto, that is to say until
within a very recent period, the applause of the populace
has been chiefly lavished upon those who have con-
ducted nations to victory: in ancient times mere animal
valour was esteemed a virtue : the aggrandizement of
their territories was formerly regarded as the principal
duty of a legislature ; and the appurtenances of battle
were considered as the most glorious insignia of a
citizen. History is indeed mainly composed of the
contest of states, the slaughter of armies, the glory of
conquerors, and the enumeration of victories. During
the days in which the Heathen mythology formed the
religion of Europe, heroes were apotheosized, were pro-
claimed to be, and worshipped as, gods. Generation
after generation, even subsequent to the establishment
of Christianity, the people were instructed to regard
these things as natural, and laudable, and worthy of
imitation ; the children of the people drank in with
their rudimental education a reverence for martial enter-
prise, a reverence for the soldiers of antiquity, a
reverence for prowess when displayed under a military
guise. Novel lights are now, however, springing up in
the popular intellect • national conflicts are beginning
to be contemned as derogatory to an enlightend race ;
the implements of war are considered by many
as nothing more than the instruments of crime;
helmets and gold-laced jackets are looked upon
as baubles ; a mortal struggle has commenced between
" Captain Sword and Captain Pen." It is not difficult
to perceive to what all this agitation of opinion is tend-
ing ; and we may readily conjecture that in the sub-
version of ideas which have hitherto been (if we may so
employ the verb) sanctified by the acquiescence of our
forefathers, a mighty change must ultimately come upon
society. The question is, therefore, will that change be
productive of good or evil ? When war is brought into
utter contempt with the multitude, it will not be re-
sorted to very readily - that is a proposition very easy
of comprehension. And that such feelings are rapidly
penetrating the mind of the population, every one who
has at all investigated the intellectual progress of his
contemporaries must acknowledge. Nevertheless, this is
not the only circumstance to be taken into considera-
tion when reviewing this momentous subject ; we must
discover whether those incitements to battle, which
have hitherto goaded our ancestors to bloodshed, will
still continue in existence. Now it is impossible to
form an adequate estimate of the consequences which
must result from the acceptance of free trade among
the governments of the earth, and at the same moment
to maintain the continuance of those incitements.
Reason teaches us that such must naturally and by
necessity be the ulterior effect of an unrestricted com-
merce. Richard Cobden has ulready pronounced this fact
in his harangues to the people of England. With the
suppression of agricultural monopoly warfare will be
virtually suppressed ; with the proclamation of an uni-
versal free trade a general peace will be virtually pro-
claimed. The interests of mankind will be become then
so intimately linked, together ; the prosperity of one
nation will be so materially dependent upon the pros-
perity of another, that, notwithstanding their dissimi-
larity of language, of manners, or of creed, the king-
doms of the world will gradually become massed into
one indivisible family. Russ and Frank, Belgian and
Spaniard, Britisher and American, will meet as brothers
yet more than they are accustomed to do now-a-days ;
the opportunities for international contention will never
occur ; the possibility of warfare in Christendom will
never exist. Such is the consummation of these
glorious principles as prefigured in their very nature, as
announced by the representative of Stockport, as anti-
cipated and believed in by ourselves. But the develop-
ment of this consummation is wholly dependent upon the
universality of the system by which it can be alone pro-
duced. Upon this particular, however, we can rest
patiently with a conviction of its fulfilment. The Com-
mons of Great Britain have already accepted the policy
in question; we may, therefore, upon the most mature
deliberation, consider its incorporation in the English
constitution as a matter of absolute certainty. England
is the greatest commercial empire on the face of the
globe; her mercantile transactions influence every mar-
ket in the " four quarters;" her sister states will con-
sequently be driven into an adoption of the same policy
—though when that adoption will be completed it is im-
possible to conjecture. Still it must come ultimately,
and the result must be an universality and a permanence
of peace. For the promotion of the same cause, the
antipathy to warfare, which we have formerly notified as
having already become, to a considerable extent, so
popular, will undoubtedly prove efficacious. The bles-
sing of a general tranquillity among nations is still alto-
gether prospective; this fact must never be so far for-
gotten as to distemper our benevolence; and we must
each and all of us continue to act upon a knowledge that
it is prospective. We have been seduced into this long
digression both lay the ineffable importance of the sub-
ject, and because the oration under notice is an embodi-
ment of that antagonism to the battle-field and the
soldiery to which we have alluded. Mr. Sumner, in
delivering it before the municipal authorities of the city
of Boston, has given an eloquent voice to that spirit of
antagonism, and has embellished those views with very
extraordinary marks of erudition. He has proved him-
self an original thinker, an adventurous speaker, and a
lover of his fellow-men. Still there is a certain amount
of Quixotism in his anxiety to obliterate the
butvery h
irnek-
membrance of war forthwith ; and
tice to a
he has generalised his condemnation of
werciants cannot
withploathing at
most reprehensible extent. He
its records ; the great captains of
the past are, without
any distinction, monsters and miscreants in his eyes.
Patriotism, and all the nobler characteristics of those
deeds of battle, are all forgotten in his loathing for the
military art ; every other sentiment gives place to the
one predominant feeling of disgust at a system. This
is a most diseased and mock philanthropy; it is false and
extravagant to the very last degree. Whatever may be our
opinions as Christians, and as dwellers in the nineteenth
century, we must reverence thousands of those battles,
of those vanquishers, and of those warlike persons
generally, remembering that in many cases bloodshed
was forced upon them—escape from it was unavoidable
—that, in short, they performed their parts, and per-
formed them gloriously. We could fill books upon
books with the mere catalogue of these facts, hundreds
of which will recur spontaneously to the memory of
historical students. Nay, we could adduce, did space
enable us, the career of the most wonderful man this
earth ever beheld as an instance of defensive wars from
the first hour of his political life to the very last, ren-
dering him, on that account, as well as from the admir-
able qualities of his head and heart, an object of our
veneration and love—not as Mr. Sumner would regard
him, a wholesale murderer and a curse to humanity.
Our comments have extended to such an unexpected
length that we can only recommend this oration, in a
few words, to those who are curious as to the thoughts
by which their contemporaries are animated. We can,
moreover, bating its vein of prejudice (a vein which
would raise the indignation of the hero-worshipper,
Carlyle), recommend it with cordiality. It is a fine
specimen of American oratory, and it shows, not only
the rhetorician, but the philanthropist, the scholar, and
the independent thinker.

THE BLACK-GOWN PAPERS. 2 Vols.
By L. Mariotti.

Seldom is a work submitted to our criticism endued
with such peculiar characteristics as the present. In
these two volumes are a series of novelettes, written in
the purest and most elegant English, by an Italian gen-
tleman named Mariotti, one whose abilities are already
familiar to magazine readers. We observe that the
style of composition for which the author is so remark-
able has received the commendation of one of our most
facile and fastidious writers. Sir Bulwer Lytton has
observed of the productions of Mr. Mariotti, that " the
English is wonderful;" and wonderful it undoubtedly is
in more than one particular. Perhaps a foreigner has
never before displayed such a fecundity of expression,
such a command of diction, such a knowledge of syntax,
such symmetry of construction, and such a power of
rhetoric, as the individual we have already mentioned.
In his former work Mr. Mariotti gave us an insight,
through the lens of his own opinions, of the political,
historical, literary, ecclesiastical, and artistic pectliari-
ties of his native land—
" Italia! 0 Italia! thou who Nast
The fatal gift 9f beauty."

Now, however, he draws the curtain of distance from hid
country, and enables us to form some conception of the
social phases of his countrymen. He carries the reader
from sober disquisitions to attractive fictions ; he for-
sakes the currule chair of commentary for the abandon-
ment of familiar life. From a consideration of the gene-
ralities of his birth-place he descends to the portraiture
of its individualities ; he paints the Italian in the carni-
val, in the basillica, in the vineyard, on the highway, in
the cottage ; he depicts town society and the society of
the country ; the borgeois, and the gran' signor. A
native description of a remote people (that is to say, of a
people separated from ourselves as well by a difference
language as a difference of costume, of customs, or lon-
gitude) is always the most acceptable species of descrip-
tion ; but, generally speaking, the faithfulness of the
narrative is filtered away through the carelessness or in-
capacity of a translator, and the scenes become distorted
from their original significance. Here, howbeit, we re-
ceive the account pure and unalloyed from the lips of the
foreigner himself—he becomes, as it were, his own trans-
lator. Such things have, without doubt, occurred re-
peatedly before this ; philosophy was formerly written
only in the Latin tongue, and as recently as the last
generation Mr. Beckford first produced his " Vathek "
in a charming French version. With Mr. Mariotti, how-
ever, the selection of an acquired idiom originates,
not so much in eccentricity as in a naturalised bias.
This very fact is, nevertheless, conducive to the greatest
blemish in the effusion of this Anglo-Italian ; he is so
ostensibly a deserter from his native land in its social,
and even its religious partialities, that we absolutely
mourn over the alteration. A red Indian, bedizened in
the foppery of an European dress, twirling a rattan in
his brawny hands, and displaying in his bronzed visage
the inroads made by unwonted potations of alcohol, is,
to our thinking, the most sad and mournful spectacle
that can be witnessed. And it is thus sad and thus
mournful because it is in defiance of his nature ; it
is, so to speak, a desertion of his birthright.
Precisely with a similar feeling do we regard
any member of a civilised nation abandoning the habits,
the mode, the idiosyncrasy of his fellow-countrymen, to
turn the fribble of some antagonistic race. That is a
lugubrious sight enough, but how much more sombre
and- regretful is the impression conveyed to the mind,
When, in addition to these acquisitions the person in
question becomes the scoffer of the most cherished, the
most revered, the most idolised of the sentiments of his
countrymen. Such is the position of Mr. Mariotti ;
and much as we respect his extraordinary talents, we
regret theirs ery sorry degradation. The various pecu-
liarities of the Italians—peculiarities which possibly he
himself formerly possessed—only afford him an oppor-
tunity for derision ; their very religion is made the
unceasing and unseemly object of a jest. This is
;rani; wa ropaat it with a gonuine :sadness of heart
it is painful. For whatever may be our partialities for
mother Church, we cannot but confess that ridicule is
derogatory to the very genius of Christianity, when that
ridicule is coupled with anything, like piety—however
much that piety may be distorted. Vulgar gibes are not
conducive to the suppression of any faith, they rather
tend to consolidate the holders of that faith into a con-
crete and embodied love for their religion. Sarcasm is
not the due helpmate of revelation; scurrilous jokes are
not the most appropriate polemical weapons. With this
fault, however, we believe we have mentioned the only
glaring failure in these volumes; and, consequently,
with a protest against such an unnatural display of
recklessness to the feelings of so considerable a portion
of Christendom, we can cordially commend the work to
the lovers of romance, of legend, of travel, of adventure.
It is a palateable mélange of tragic interest and comic
interest, as instance the two very first stories, " Cate-
rina" and " Orazia." The " Organ-Boy's Progress" is,
we fear, " an ower true tale," and one likely to generate
emotions of philanthropy. The " Black-gown Papers
are clever, sparkling, life-like, original.

THE THAMES YACHT CLUB.
The first match for the season by the boats of the members
of this club took place yesterday. The match was for three
pieces of plate—two silver cups and a claret ewer; and was
for yachts of two classes, one prize for each class, and the
third prize open to both classes. The match was from Erith
to the Chapman-head, and back to Greenwich. At ten
o'clock, the company invited to be spectators, the members of
the club, and the officers, &c., embarked on board the Star
steamer, at the Adelaide-wharf, London-bridge, and pro-
ceeded at once down the river, stopping a short time at
Blackwell to take more visitors, &c., on board. Lord Alfred
Paget, the new commodore, was on board, and directed the
proceedings, &c. The band of Mr. Adams was in attend-
ance, and enlivened the company with waltzes and other
cheering music, and notwithstanding the boisterous state of
the weather the numerous ladies and gentlemen on board en-
joyed themselves very pleasantly, and expressed the highest
gratification at the arrangements. On arriving at Erith the
scene was very exciting, all the yachts about to sail for the
prizes were at their posts anxiously awaiting the signal for
starting. The wind was blowing in squalls from the south-
west, and a strong tide running down. They were arranged
in the following order :
I. Prima Donna, 25 tons—Mr. T. Harvey, owner.
2. Vixen, 25 tons—Messrs. Heighington.
3. Belvidere, 25 tons—Lord A. Paget.
4. Ino, 25 tons—Mr. 11. Gibson.
5. Fleur de Marie, 25 tons—Mr. Twisdenllodges.
6. Jilt, 19 tons—Mr. E. J. Maude.
7. Secret, 25 tons—Mr. J. W. smith.