The Sun.
London, England, 1846-09-08 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

THE PARLOUR NOVELIST. Vol. IV.-111ans-
field Park.
This neat reprint, in one small volume, of Miss
Austen's chef d'ceuvre reflects great credit on the
typography of Messrs. Simms and M'lntyre, of Bel-
fast, the printers of this series of novels and romances.
The type, although small, is beautifully clear, and
the, book is got up in excellent style. As to the
work itself, it would not be one whit less a work of
supererogation to review " Mansfield Park" than it
would be to review " Waverley" itself.

THE KNIGHT OF G IVY IV E. No. IX. By

Charles Lever.

Decidedly the best chapters that have appeared of
this capital " Tale of the time of the Union," are
contained in number nine. Bagenal Daly is one of
the most felicitously conceived, and one of the most
spiritedly delineated of all the characters created by
Harry Lorrequer. The story has now reached its
central interest : ruin has fallen upon Maurice
Darcy, the noble hearted Knight of Gwynne : he is
bereft of his possessions by the perfidy of his soli-
citor, who has committed suicide through remorse
of conscience and dread of retribution. Gwynne
Abbey, and the lands attached thereto, have vir-
tually fallen into the hands of a miserable parvenu,
in the shape of Mr. Hickman O'Reilly : and the
feelings of the reader are fully aroused in behalf of
the bankrupt hero of the fiction. All the accessories
of this plot are very skilfully introduced, and the
varied dispositions of the personages in the story are
developed with a skill attributable, firstly, to the
intuitive powers of Mr. Lever, as a novelist,
and, secondly, to his long practice and expe-
rience as an author. Already is the "Knight of
Gwynne" superior as a whole to any of his previous
productions ; it is more characteristic of Ireland and
the Irish than " Harry Lorrequer"—it i 3 more com-
plete as a romance than "Charles O'Malley"—it pos-
sesses a more concentrated interest than " Jack
Ilintqn"—and is more fascinating, both in description
and incident, than " Tom Burke." Mr. Lever has
evidently buckled up for the composition of a book
more enduring and unique than any his lively ima-
gination had hitherto evoked. In this laudable en-
deavour he has—if he only proceed as he has com-
menced—succeeded. The account of Tate Sullivan's
farewell of the picture gallery in Gwynne Abbey is
admirable, and Phiz's illustrations of its denouement
inimitable. As the autumnal evenings close in, a
number of this serial would impart an exquisite zest
to a bottle of Madeira and a dish of walnuts.

TURLOGH O'BRIEN.

No. V.l.

The fortunes of Sir Hugh Willoughby are ap-
proaching nearer and nearer to the critical and
decisive,moment. Hence it is that•the story possesses
such a peculiar interest, and arouses so much
curiosity. The writer's descriptions of the streets,
customs, costumes, and tenements of old Dublin—
namely, Dublin towards the close of the seventeenth
century—are excessively clever. His brush has
somewhat of the manner of Rembrandt and Teniers
combined, though its painting is sometimes terribly
smudged and tarnished by the hurry of his fancy and
by the distressing abundance of his language. The
struggle between Tisdal and Deveril is described
with much power—the attention of the reader be-
comes literally breathless during its perusal.

THE ARGEA TIAN E REPUBLIC. By Col. T.
. Anthony King.
There is something so blunt, and honest, and even
chivalrous, in the character of Colonel King, as deve-
loped by this remarkable volume, that the reader can-
not fail to be interested in the narrative of his adven-
tures, and cannot but repose an implicit reliance
upon the authenticity of his statements. Little was
known respecting the merits of the intestine wars
which have so long ravaged the Argentine republic,
Bolivia, and Uruguay, before the appearance of this
important work ; and that little was piecemeal and
confused. To Englishmen, enjoying the blessings of
a free and liberal constitution, such vicissitudes as
those which have illustrated the History of the
Argentine Republic will ever be peculiarly
enthralling and attractive. The spectacle of
a nation struggling to maintain its integrity,
and to realise its independence, is the most
solemn and instructive that can well be conceived.
Such a spectacle is the one presented to us in these
four hundred and forty-two pages. The endeavours
of the citizens of that republic to relieve themselves of
the yoke of Spanish and Brazilian domination, are
recorded with circumstantial candour and explicit-
ness in its chapters ; and the writer is a man eminently
qualified for the duty of historian, both by the native
vigour of his intellect, and from the circumstance of
his having been personally implicated in these en-
deavours during a period of twenty-four years. The
narrative is one of bloodshed, and rapine, and cruelty; it
is penned with charming simplicity; and is rendered
vivid by the agreeable minuteness of its survey.
Colonel King informs us, that having forsaken his
home in the United States, for some unexplained rea-
son, in 11;l7,
17, and in the fourteenth year of his age,
he found himself unfriended, unknown, and penny-
less, cast among a people of whose language he was
altogether ignorant. After wandering about Va and
Baltimore in a state of extreme destitution, our ad-
venturer was received into a kind of piratical vessel,
but in a few weeks was again cast adrift in the har-
bour of Buenos Ayres. Here he appears to have
been hospitably received by a publican named
Flusk ; was subsequently engaged as a shop-boy by a
French perfumer called Coquelet ; and was ultimately
welcomed into the Republican army as bandero, Of
flag bearer, the mostsubordinate rank in the profession.
He afterwards obtained a commission as ensign in
the corps of General Ramarez, and by indomitable
perseverance and unflinching resolution raised himself
step by step to the honourable position which he at
present occupies. We admire the innate strength of
mind which these facts evince, and we admire still
more the beautiful simplicity with which they are
recorded. We must not foolishly consider Colonel
King in the light of a mere mercenary, although he
is a citizen of the United States fighting in the
Argentine'service. "1 wf.s born," says he, " upon
the soil of a free country, and reared under the pro-
tection of her flag; civil liberty is my heritage, and
for that I am ready to fight in any quarter of the
world I" Civil liberty is my heritage! That is a noble
expression, and it is the key to the character and
disposition of Colonel King. We do 9 not possess
the leisure to follow bim through the intricacies of
the startling and extraordinary occurrences which he
witnessed during his campaigns as an Argentine sol-
dier. We shall leave the author to describe the bloody
and dreadful scenes of which he was no indolent
spectator, confident that his volume will be enshrined
in many a library, and perused by many a lover of
the more eventful features of modern history. San-
guinary deeds have unhappily been repeatedly perpe-
trated in the territories of the Western hemisphere ;
those noble regions of the globe have been often dark-
ened by martial crime : but among the annals of those
iniquities a more direful picture is not presented than
the one here given of the civil conflicts by which the
Argentine Republic has been devastated.
a
CHRISTOPHER TADPOLE. By Albert Smith

Part I.

This is the first number of a new tale by Albert
Smith, and if this may be considered as a fair
specimen, " Christopher Tadpole" will be quite as
popular as his elder brother, " Titus Ledbury. ' The
tale opens with a prelude, the scene of which is laid
in the city of Chester, and most quaintly and graphi-
cally is that quaint and picturesque old city described.
We are introduced to the coffee-room of an inn,
where we find a certain Mr Gudge, a doer of dirty
work for noblemen and gentlemen, and who, if we
mistake not, is "cast" for one of the principal parts in
this story. He is joined by a gentleman and a young
lady ; the latter is taken suddenly ill and dies in
giving birth to a male child, which is committed to
the care of Dr. Aston, an apothecary, residing in a
town in the salt district of Cheshire.
" Dr. Aston was still a bachelor, but from having
brought the whole parish into the world, even to those
who now had great grown-up boys and girls of their own,
he might be looked upon, and indeed was so, as the head
of a very large family. And he was not only the medi-
cal attendant, but he had become the confidential friend
of nearly all his patients, who sent for him as often to
allay family irritation as to heal recognised corporeal
complaints. He lived in a small house, quite in the
centre of the town, opposite the great inn, and next the
bank ; and an old housekeeper, with an odd groom, or
footman, or, indeed, assistant upon a pinch, formed the
human portion of his establishment.
" He was very clever in his
.profession, from long ex-
perience ; but put no trust in new-fangled remedies
which from time to time we read of; for he had seen
so many things start up to cure everything, and quietly
tumble down again after a short noisy life—with names
that nobody but chemists who had written large books
and almost chrystallised or sublimed themselves in labo-
ratories by long study could understand—that he only
believed in the old-fashioned drugs whose virtues cen-
turies had tried. So that when a crack London physi-
cian once prescribed Terrosesquicyanuret of the cyanide
of potassium' upon being called in to a patient, Dr.
Aston waited until he was gone, and then said, he would
rather trust to rhubarb. And the patient got rapidly
well."
The first chapter opens with a grand scientific meet-
ing at the Parthenon of the town in which the doctor
resides and here the author indulges in his talent for
good-humoured quizzing. His sketches of " the
scientific gentlemen " are admirable. He also makes
this meeting the vehicle for introducing a charming

little romance, entitled the Story of the Pepur Gate.
The proceedings are interrupted by a messenger who
comes to fetch the doctor to a man on whom a lump
of rock has fallen in a salt mine. This man is
Fletcher, with whom the doctor had placed the child
to be taken caretof, and the child is in the mine with
him. In the next chapter we find Mr. and Mrs.
Gudge vulgarising in Hyde Park, Mr. Gudge fixing
himself upon Sir Frederick and Lady Arden, to their
great horror and annoyance, and Gudge actually
terrifying Sir Frederick into sending him an invitation
to his aristocratical fête. Whence comes the power
of Gudge over Sir Frederick ? The latter is " the
gentleman" of the prelude.

COURT CIRCULAR.

ROYAL VICTORIA AND ALBERT YACHT.

PENZANCE, SEPT. s.—Her Majesty and Prince Al-
bert, and the royal suite, left Falmouth at eight o'clock,
A.m., this morning, and proceeded in the royal yacht
round
,the Lizard Point, and on to the Land's End, pass-
ing round the " Long Ship Rocks" into Sennen Cove.
The yacht then retraced her steps into Mount's Bay,
and anchored off St. Michael's Mount, in Mount's Bay,
at half-past one o'clock.
In the afternoon her Majesty and the Prince went
round Penzance harbour, in the Fairy.
Prince Albert landed and inspected the tin smelting
works at Pensmee; and witnessed the whole process.
Afterwards his Royal Highness visited the Geological
Museum of Cornwall, and then proceeded in the Fairy
to inspect a copper mine on the eastern side of the Bay.
Mr. Richard Ta.)lor, mineral agent to his Royal High-
ness the Duke of Cornwall, was in attendance on his
Royal Highness.

Her Royal Highness the Princess of Prussia, attended
by the Countess Haack and Count Puckler, left
Cashiobury Park, Herts, the residence of her Majesty
the Queeu Dowager, yesterday morning, for the Wat-
ford station, and travelled to town by the London and
North-Western Railway, arriving at the Euston-square
terminus at eleven 'clock.

His Excellency the Chevalier Bunsen, Prussian Mi-
nister, the Earl of Denbigh, and Baron Witzleben, re-
ceived the Princess upon her arrival. The whole of the
royal party proceeded to the Tower of London, where
the Princesi was conducted through all the different
offices and departments.
Her Royal Highness and suite embarked from the
Tower on the Childe Harold, and passed down the river
to view the Thames Tunnel, Greenwich, and Wool-
wich. The royal party returned up the river as far as
the New Palace at Westminster and Lambeth Palace,
and then proceeded to Hungerford, where the Princess
and suite disembarked.

Her Royal Highness afterwards left the Euston-
square terminus at six o'clock, on her return to Cashio-
bury Park.
Teir Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of
Cambridge, accompanied by the Hereditary Grand
Duke and Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg Strelitz, left
their residence at Kew yesterday, on a visit to her
Majesty the Queen Dowager, at Cashiobury Park,
Herts.

Earl Grey returned to town yesterday, from a visit
to the Earl and Countess of Clarendon, at Grove Park,
Herts. Sir John Pelly had an interview with the Noble
Earl at the Colonial-office. A deputation, including
Mr. Young, Mr. Aglior by, and Mr. Harrington, had
also an interview with his Lordship yesterday.