The Sun.
London, England, 1856-11-01 00:00:00

A PRAYER GRANTED.

" Why, Dick, what's the matter r I never saw
such deep despair, such wordless hopelessness, such a
foretaste of doom, io any human face before. He shook,
his teeth chattered, and I saw the heavy dews of night
had penetrated his very bones. A fatal illness seemed
stealing over him.

" Matter !' be answered with a sob, stretching forth
his arms, and turning his sad sunken eyes to the sky ;
"I'm wearied to death. I'm sick, sick to death, and r
wish to God that I was dead, and all was ended ! '
"Now, Dick was neither a skulker nor a grumbler.
Indeed I rarely have known a blither, cheerier fellow.
But the deadly illness, and much privation—besides
that, he bad a wife and child at home—had broken poor
Dick's spirits fairly down, and he spoke with all the
sincerity of a man that had left off hoping.
" ' Come, cheer up !' I began but did not finish.'
" Before the words were out of my mouth he lay a
horrible spectacle several feet away from me. sang
smash ! and a ball struck him full on the forehead,
pashing the skull into a hideous pulp, and rolliog over
and over my poor comrade, found the rest he sought for.
I certainly thought it an awful manner in which hia
prayer was granted."
Awful indeed, but furnishing a moral even more
applicable to our rulers than private individuals.
Death to him would appear a release from into-
lerable suffering. " Reminiscences of the War in
the East, by a Military Chaplain" are continued
and " A Few more words offered on the Euphra
tes Railway ;" beside which there are a number
of professional articles. The " Retirement of Sir
Charles Yorke," and the expected advent of Col.
Forster as his successor, are to the Editor's taste,
as his remarks on " The F'oet at Maples" are to
ours.

Frazer.—A lengthened dullness, long drawn out,
is this seasonably-dreary November number of
Frazer—" Regina," as the old " Town and Country
Magazine" before us loves to call herself—Regi.ti%
this while, at least, of all the magazines born out
of the month of Fogs and Suicides ! For
"Poetry," we have palmed off upon us a pre-poste-
rous littleprosy quip in rhyme called " In Ric:ha-loud
Park"—eight lines in all ! very newly comparing
fern, oak, ivy and holly to Youth, and Manhood,
and Age, decorated with Love and Endurance.
While a little further on, "The Brothers " are cele-
brated by N.N.S.—in stanzas that would be irre-
deemably inane, were they not occasionally gal-
vanised by a passing conceit into the contortions of
the spasmodic. Fancy a " monthly," the con-
spicuous attractions of which are papers as alluring
in subject as—" Glasgow down the Water, as the
" Memoirs of Frederick Perthes," as the second
and (fortunately) concluding part of the "Journal
of a Tour in the Crimea," as " Communication
with the Far East," as " Mansfield's Paraguay,"
and as " Sketches on the North Coast" by a
Natural—no, by a Naturalist ! The lapidary at
least may discover something of interest for him. in
the second chapter upon " Ancient Gems "—a
paper relating especially to lapis lazuli, to agates,
to the onyx, the sardonyx, the malachite, and the
cornelian. "Meg of Elibank " is the name of
the " light article " in the number—pleasant
reading enough in its way, were it not occasionally
incoherent. The criticism of the month is the one
relating to "Jami, the Persian Poet." And the
" political article " of Frazer for November is a ra-
ther tedious reply to the inquiry—" What are the
United States Coming To ?" The real and actual
reply to which interrogatory will be given through
the ballot-box by the aggregated voters of those
same States upon Tuesday next, the 4th of this
ppresentortportion
o
momentous otmn
iesn tous
concludingmont h
contribution
November.
to The
o"Re-
gina,"ut. whichf referring
cameto ftohreththe
thirteengran
d Englishao d
powColonies,erful
democracy at present known by the collective title
of the -United. States—the New England Colonies,
Georgia, the two Carolinas, Virginia, and Mary-
land, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Penn-
sylvania—might have proved sufficiently interest•
ing in its way, but that the manner of its composi-
tion is, in truth, so insufferably dull and common-
place.