The Sun.
London, England, 1846-05-25 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

SCRIPTURE HISTORY.

Finch.

What we partic'alarly adinTr in this work is tbt'd'oject
with which it has been undertaken, and th'e singular suc-
cess with which that objeet :;.v? been developed. An
accurate knowledge 7' f!:iie book of boobs has hitherto been
precluded f" ;in childhood, both by the fragmentary
wanner in which its records have been inculted, and
by the diffuse style so peculiarly the characteristic of the
inspired writings. To obviate this, our authoress has
compiled an inductive narrative founded upon the great
records of scripture ; and her compilation is so remark-
able for its simplicity both of diction and arrangement
as entirely to dispel those obstacles. Besides adhering
to the original purity of the text, wherever it did net
interfere with her purpose, she has elaborated the volume
with geographical explanaticns, such as must tend very
mwerially to facilitate the acquisition of the History in
childhood. Availing herself of the labouri of Josepbus,
and Calnict, and the Abbe Fleury, the writer has so
judiciously interpolated their elucidations upon many
obscure points of the narration as not to interfere with
the integrity of the original, while they render the
details more vivid and appreciable. The lady who has at-
tempted thus much for the advantage of the young
generation, has in an elegantly written preface dilated
upon the benefits which must accrue from the successful
completion of a task like the present ; nor has she over-
estimated its importance. Whether we regard an
accurate knowledge of Scripture as likely to
elevated the more spiritual attributes of the human
intellect, or to mellow and strengthen its tone
by imbuing it with an account of the occur-
rences which transpired in the earliest ages of the
globe whereon we are sojourners for a time, that
knowledge is necessarily most requisite ; arid as far as
the embryo powers of a child will permit information of
such vastness to be instilled, the attempt is both the
human and the divine duty of the parent. Many ob-
structions have hitherto rendered the fulfilment of this
duty most difficult, if not generally impossible ; but the
present volume promises to smooth the pathway, and to
strew it with flowers—to make these great truths of re-
vealed religion easy of attainment and doubly attractive
in form, as far as the immature and plastic capacities of
infancy are concerned. No parents proud of numbering
themselves under the insignia of Christianity should dis-
regard the publication of the book under notice. We
say ti,is in all honesty and earnestness of feeling, as we
conceive the " Scripture History by Catherine Irene
Finch" as a boon to all classes. From the clear and
perspicuous arrangemi nt of the facts, they will be readily
understood, and lastingly stamped upon the memory.
We hope before long to see the continuation of the un-
dertaking, until it has reached what the authoress pro-
poses in a postscript, namely, the commencement of the
Christian era. It must in time become an elementary
book to the Scriptures.

IMAGINATIONS AND IJIITATIO.VS.
By five.
The " Hyperion," printed on tea-paper and stitched
up in pasteboard, is, in our estimation, a more costly
work, than the choicest piece of rhythmical insipidity
ever publishei in etnblaz ,ned silk, with leaves of vellum
and letters of gold. Nevertheless we must not bring a
very fastidious taste to the perusal of those annual out-
scourings of rhyme with which the minds of our poetas-
ters are relieved every successive year, or they become
annihilated. Let them float off with their pretty butter-
fly decorations upon the waters of Lethe, until they be-
come happily lost in perspective. Some books are of
such a dull and ponderous nature in their stupidity that
they drop down plomb! into oblivion; not all the sys-
tem of good Martinus Scriblerus could teach them the
"art of sinking" more inimitably than they do themselves.
Others are of such an exceeding flimsiness as scarcely
to wrinkle the surface of Lethe while they are being
swept off into its abyss—like the
" —little wanton boys that swim on bladders."
But to be serious, if possible, to be honest, to be good
natured—let us turn to the volume upon our table and
receive it as it is offered, namely in all simplicity. Among
the eastern people, during remote ages, when, accordie
to the old legal phrase, " the memory of man runneth
not to the contrary," it was (and we believe is) a fine
custom among the orientals to tender each other pre-
sents, habitually. With the wealthy trinkets are usually
given, but whenever a man's poverty precludes any gift
of a more solid character, a mere handful of barley
ears or of fruit are presented, and there are
received with a like good grace. The intentions of the
donor are looked to—not the emolument of the donee.
We reverence this system much. For one thing, it
breeds good blood, good fellowship, and good encourage.
ment. And revering it, we will endeavour to follow it
as a pattern, wherever injury can be inflicted upon no-
body by the imitation. Looking at the effusions of
Hope then in this pleasant spirit, we can cordially admire
the binding, the satin paper, and the symetrical manner
in which " the rivulet of rhyme " runs through its
" meadow of margin," to quote the famous sarcasm and
alliteration of Sheridan not for the first time within
this half century. Of the compositions contained
in the volume we cannot, however, bring ourselves to
speak in a similar strain of panegyric. If all the albums
of our fair countrywomen had been filtered down into a
book, leaving out everything of vigour, of nerve, or of
novelty, and if the residue had been diluted very care-
fully afterwards, the result would, undoubtedly, have
been some such a work as these " Imaginations and Imi-
tations." What shall we say, for instance, of a poem,
ostentatiously commencing and terminating thus—
" Bright genius hover round me,
Association ;
How oft thy spell hath bound me,
Association !"
We cannot, however, induce ourselves to imagine that
this collection of metrical effusions is seriously issued
from the press with any ambitious views : we are
inclined, on the contrary, to regard it as a rich joke level-
led at Parnassus. And if such really be the case, though
we cannot precisely discover the point of the thing, we
are impressed with a conviction that the joke is emi-
nently succeFsful. One little syllable of advice we would,
however, whisper to the writer, if the compositions are
dictated in all earnestness; and our advice is, to abstain
henceforth from committing to public criticism verses
only fit to be crow-quilled upon gilt-edged note paper,
delicately tinged with pink, and delicately perfumed
with flour d'orange.

PICTURES FROM ITALY. By Charles Dickens.
Ever welcome, no matter under 'what appearance,
whether as transatlantic notes, or goblin stories, or serial
novels, or even casual letters upon jurisprudence, are
the writings of Mr. Dickens to us ! He has cast such
gleams of sunlight upon our pathway, he has so glad-
dened our heart with his wit, and moved it with his
pathos, he has spoken out with so much eloquence and
daring in the cause of those who most required an ad-
vocate, and has done all this with such unaffected kindli-
ness and power that the mere superscription of his
name upon a titlepage becomes a guarantee that there is
excellence of some sort in the after pages. We must
acknowlege ourselves as not numbering amongst those
captious individuals who expressed their disappointment
at the character of his "American Notes." We anti-
cipated none of that impertinent gossip in which travel-
ling authors too frequently indulge ; nor were our ex-
pectations aroused in favour of philosophical commenta-
ries or political disquisitions upon the government, or
the scientific progression of the United States. The
book was precisely the description of book one might
rationally have looked for from "Boz." It was a trans-
parent medium through which we might gaze across the
intervening ocean upon scenes, and characters, and land-
scapes, such as are actually visible in that quarter of the
New odd ; there was a healthiness, moreover, in
the tone, a simplicity .in the diction, a truth-
fulness about the descriptions, and an alterna-
tion of facetious details and solemn supplications
for the greater diffusion of liberality and
brotherly-love among mankind, which accorded well
with the peculiar kind of celebrity which Dickens had
already acquired. In speaking thus, however, it must
not be supposed that we are ready to regard any thing
and everything which this author may issue from the
press as faultless, or as deserving of unconditional com-
mendation. Not so. We could enumerate a diversity
of blemishes in the fictions of Charles Dickens, faults of
composition, faults of grouping, and especially the most
glaring and intolerable faults of punctuation. But,
perceiving the infinite preponderance of his excellencies,
recognising his extraordinaryoriginality,and loving from
our heart the noble spirit by which •his works are ac-
tuated, we should deem such an enumeration as ungrateful,
and invidious, and hypercritical to the very last degree.
Just, to a proportionate extent, as we should consider
any indiscriminating censure of the " Winter's Tale,"
for its anachronisms, or Shelley for the occasional halt-
ing of his metre, or Byron, for plagiarism, or the
" Seasons" for grandiloquence. Looking in each of
these instances at the immeasurable predominance
of the beauty over the flaw, we confess our-
selves ready to lose all recollection of those subor-
dinate failings, and to accord praise and honour,
in their different ways, to Shakspere, Shelly, Byron,
Thomson, and Dickens. Any carping at the eccentri-
cities (for such in reality the major :portion of these
blemishes may be termed), for which those
who adorn our literature are remarkable, we
conceive to be a petty and contemptible display
of fastidiousness: it is quarrelling with the nightingale
for its russet hue, and the peacock for its discordant
voice. In this manner, whenever there is a manifestation
of genius in a writer, our literary taste is cosmopolite.
We admire the amber none the less because of the fly
imbedded in it. And that our author has, of a truth, a
certain genius, and that of a very unusual order, his pen
has sufficiently demonstrated of itself for the fact to
require any elaborate exposition. Of this, however,
enough. Our attention must confine itself for the pre-
sent to a consideration of the "Pictures from Italy"
—a blue book, somewhat less dry, somewhat
less monotonous, and somewhat less unpalatable
than those produced by our parliamentary wisdom.
The pictures contained in it are necessarily Cabinet
representation of Italian life, ful though miniature
pictures ;"nevertheless, they afford the reader a faith-
ful
is, it is the faith-
fulness of exaggeration ; no one paints a scene more
Ita-
lian scenery, Italian character,
.and Italian customs.
Faithful, however, as the portraiture
some preposterously
which possible distortion—some wimsical conceit—
vividly, more accurately, or more minutely than " Bo.am;':
but it is always accompanied by
h
con-
veys to the mind the most piquante sense of theumourous, while, at the same time, it tends to
imprint the description upon the memory. Take
as an example of this the account of the Colos-
seum at Rome, which, as viewed from above, re-
minded Dickens of a gigantic straw hat, the circular
during
rows of benches being the plaits, and the arena the
crown. Or again, his mention of the vines by the road-
sidepro
which,!pectwhdeo spring "so many walking sticks;" or the
then to dice;" ic erp orst the w
white houses of Naples, "dwindling, in the great extent of
mld
oinvgedi
,n
and St. Pa cut e
ther's,
framework left, "lookedle lir" exploded
c an
.cracker;" or
.
lastly, and especially,that
scaffolding
ffre°
description ot the !lotion In