The Sun.
London, England, 1833-10-14 00:00:00

LITERATURE,

THE HEADSMAN. 3 VoLs. LONDON, 1833.
The " author of the' Pilot' "—as he loves to
style himself—has, in the volumes before tiq,
sustained, if he have not increased, his reputation.
The " Headsman" is in every respect superior to
the " Bravo." It abounds more in the proper
elements of romance ; is fuller of mystery, cha-
racter, and description. The details also are
more carefully elaborated ; indeed, if Mr. Cooper
have one defect beyond another, it is that he is too
minute and pains-taking in many of his graphic
sketches. For instance, nearly one half of the
first volume of the " Headsman" is made up of
technical descriptions of the luggage and pas-
sengers of a Geneva packet-boat, which is on
the eve of sailing to Vevey, just as if the author
were an Excise officer, and had been appointed
to take an inventory of all the goods, chattels,
&c., of the craft. Such extreme minuteness
does not set off, it rather diminishes, the pic-
turesque of description. Again, Mr. Cooper
is a long time coming to the leading incidents
of his story. He does not fairly embark on it
till the commencement of the second volume ;
the whole of the previous chapters read just like
so much make-weight, consisting for the most
part of trite moral reflections and " passages that
lead to nothing." We must, however, except
from this censure the description of the sudden
night storm on the Lake of Geneva, which is as
full of wildness, vigour, terror, and sublimity, as
the sternest of Salvator Rosa's paintings. We
seem to hear the first rush of the wind through
the deep Alpine gullies, and to watch the con-
vulsive swaying to and fro of the over-laden
vessel as the hurricane whistles among its
shrouds, and bends the tall spars till they ap-
pear in act to crack. In descriptions such as
this, Mr. Cooper excels all living novelists. The
water is his proper element. His

" March is o'er the mountain-wave,
His home is on the deep."
Even Scott himself, unrivalled as he was, and is,
in various excellence, never equalled the author
of the " Pilot" in his sea-paintings. As re-
spects character, the " Headsman" is by no means
deficient. The reckless, profligate Maso,
with nevertheless a redeeming dash or two of
instinctive generosity, is well contrasted with
the high-spirited, chivalrous Sigismund, who is
yet devoid of the insipidity of most romance
heroes, by possessing strongly-marked traits of
individual character. The heroine Adelheid—
we have no great admiration of Mr. Cooper's
heroines—is a tolerably favourable specimen of
his powers of female portraiture ; that is to say,
she will amuse and interest to-day, and be
wholly forgotten to-morrow. The old Geneveve
and Genoese nobles are strictly orthodox, inso-
much as they are dismally prosing, as most old
nobles are apt to be. On the whole, we may
observe that the " Headsman " will be read and
admired for the season (for its plot is mysteriously
attractive, and artfully, though somewhat too
slowly, evolved), but it will not make a per-
manent impression on the public mind. It does
not make a sufficiently stirring appeal to human
sympathies. It is the production rather of a culti-
vated, intelligent mind, than of a quick ob-
server of human nature. Mr. Cooper, having
apparently exhausted his stock of worldly per-
sonal observation, is now content to rest upon
his literary tact for support. lie now draws
from books, where he once drew from nature.
The commencement of the night storm on the
lake is thus forcibly described :

" Maso shook his bead, but be made no answer. After
a brief pause, in which he seemed to study the heavens
still more closely, he went to the spot where the patron
yet lay lost in sleep, and shook him rudely....—' Ho ! Bap•
tista ! awake ! there is no need here of thy counsel and of
thy commands.'"
" The drowsy owner of the bark rubbed his eyes, and
slowly regained the use of his faculties.

" There is not a breath of wind,' be muttered ; why
didst awake me, Aliso ?-one that hath led thy life should
know that sleep is sweet to those who toil.'
" ' Ay, 'tis their advantage over the pampered and idle.
Look at the heavens, man, and let us know what thou
thinkest of their appearance. Is there the stuff in thy
Winkelried to ride out a storm like this we may have to
encounter ?'

" ' Thou talkest like a foolish quean, that has been
frightened by the fluttering of her own poultry. The lake
was never more calm, or the bark in greater safety.'
" ' Dost see yonder bright light ; here, over the tower of
thy Vevey church ?'
" ' Ay, 'tis a gallant star ! and a fair !,;gn for the ma-
riner.'

" Fool, 'tis a hot itiMe in Roger de Blonay's beacon.
They begin to see that we are iu danger on the shore, and
they cast out their signals to give us notice to be active.
They think us bestirring ourselves like stout men, and those
used to the water, while, in truth, we are as undisturbed
as if the hark were a rock that might laugh at the Leman
and its wave,. The man is benumbed,' continued Maso,
turning away towards the anxious listeners ; be will not
see that which is getting to be but too plain to all the
zithers in his vessel.'

4' Another idle and general laugh from the forecastle
came to contradict this opinion of Maso's, and to prove
bow easy it is for the ignorant to exist in security, even
on the brink of de•truction. This was the moment when
nature gave the first of those signals that were intelligible
to vulgar capacities.he e
xTeehpet
io
n whole
o of
tvhaeu I:pooft,t
soh
e heavensoften amwe das
now w d,
which lay nearly above the brawling torrents of the
vt
Rhone. This fiery opening resembled a window admitting
of fearful glimpses into the dread preparations that were
making up among the higher peaks of the Alps. A flash
of red quivering light was emitted, and a distant, rumbling
rush, that was not thunder, but rather resembled the
wheelings of a thousand squadrons into line, followed the
fl ish. The forecastle was deserted to a man, and the
hillock of freight was again darkly seen peopled with
crouching human forms. Just then the bark, which had
so long lain in a state of complete rest, slowly and heavily
raised its bows, as if labouring under its great and unusual
burthen, while a sluggish swell passed beneath its entire
length, lifting the whole mass, foot by foot, and passing
away by the stern, to cast itself on the shores of Vaud."

HE TO MEAN SHE.—By the new Act "to
amend the Law of Inheritance," it is enacted, " that
every word in it importing the singular number only shall
extend and be applied to several persons or things as well
as one person or thing; and by every word importing the
masculine gender only shall extend and be applied to a
female as well as a male."

ORDER, A FACULTY OF THE MIND.-
You may observe that there is in man a love of order or
arrangement commencing at the very dawn of reason:
indeed, even when the intellectual powers have scarcely
awoke, the child begins to select and arrange such mate-
rill objects as happen to be within its reach. He places
bodies together which are of the same form, and collects
into one place objects of the same colour or of the same
size. This faculty seems intended for the wisest pur.
poses, and though observed throughout the animal creation,
yet it is bestowed on man i❑ a pre-eminent degree. It is
this faculty which, when his intellect has advanced to
maturity, enables him to divide, methodise, and classify
the various objects around him ; whilst it is also one of
the most important of our mental powers in transacting
what is usually called " the business of life." It is,
indeed, of such importance in the operations of mind that
phrenologists have attributed to it a p articular organ.