The Sun.
London, England, 1851-10-09 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

LE MOTS DE MAI A LONDRES. Par Jules
Janin. J. Michell.

Feuilletonists are always lively, but the most ani-
mated among the whole of that remarkable body of
writers in France, is unquestionably M. Jules Janin
--the author of this charming record of a foreigner's
visit to the Great Exhibition. From first to last his
abounding animal spirits hold him in good stead, and
impart] a most exhilarating pleasantry to each of his
very agreeable descriptions. Like the opinion pro-
nounced upon the breakfast at Amiens by a certain
matter-of-fact gentleman connected with the moneyed
interests, and recently mentioned in Dickens's House-
hold Words, our estimate of the work lying before us
is somewhat to the effect that every page of it is
"decidedly" French ; not, however, speaking alone
ith a literal reference to the language. The entire
narrative is the result of a scrutiny of our manners,
and more particularly of our metropolis, viewed
through the medium of French habits and predilec-
tions. Hence it comes to us most welcomely. We
accept it as the genuine exprestion of the feelings
with which London has been regarded by a most
important section of the foreign visitors to the Crystal
Palace. Aware that that extraordinary structure is
just now on the eve of being closed against further
inTection, the public cannot fail to observe with
additional curiosity the estimate formed of it by a
spectator so singularly intelligent as M. Jules Janin.
The volume, therefore, we feel assured will at once
command for itself a popularity to which a perusal of
it satisfies us that it is eminently entitled. At the

very outset of his excursion we recognise the verve
and enthusiasm of temperament peculiar to the most
celebrated of all the feuilletonists. Ho passes under
review the visitors flocking from all parts of the
world towards the now memorable scene of the world's

exhibition. As each representative of his race passes
before his imagination he criticises them with that
voluble rhetoric which irresistibly carries you onward
with the satirist. As an example of our meaning we
may refer to his allusions to the Turk. " A quoi lui
pout servir la vapeur ?" he asks. "Ila le soleil !
Le yin ? II a l'oplum ! Le journal ? Il ale rove !
La po6sie ? Il ale tabac !" Then be continues with
a humorous picture of commiseration :
" betas! le digne homme it est price, en co mo-
ment, de la fe e 6:ernelle de ea pen et de sa vie!
L'etiquette et I'usago ont arrache de see mains sa
cotnpagne fide!e, sa machine e'egante b l'odorante vapeur,
sa conseil:e:e et son nrnie hospitaliere, sa pipe!... On ne
fume pas ici : telle est ht loi de ce caravanserail de l'in-
dustrie humaine; et afin que cheque nation soit la Bien
avertie, on a 4;rit en touter les langues: On ne fume pas
icil—.lVo smoking allowed !—.Non e permitlo difumare ! et
ainei jusqu'a la fin, et—le pauvre Turc!—il a ete force
d'otes! Dieu le vent! l'Anglais le veutl Si !'Expo-
sition de l'industrie a ses martyrs, en voila un!"
Referring soon afterwards to the circumstance of the
inauguration taking place in May, Jules Janin, it
appears to us, facetiously observes :
" Oa aime ici le mois de mai comme nous salmons ces
beautei de l'esprit et do la jeunesse quo nous n'avons
jantais Tiles et qui nous sourient dana le lointain des
Aglae, la plus jeune des paces; Lai4, Las-
th enie, Tyndarido, et ces trois giams printanieres quo le
puete Horace, au printemps, voyait danser sous lea
douces clar e i de la lune de mai, et que le pate Thackeray
chantait dana to Times, ce maiin meme:

' Gratis cum Nymphis, gemiuisque sororibus, audet

Ducere nude cloros' —
Having himself witnessed the well-known interview
on the day of inauguration between Cobden and
Wellington, our author thus commemorates the cir-
cumstance—saying :
" N'oublions pas aussi (j'ai vu la scale) l'illustre
Cobden, l'apo.,re triomphant, du Libre ezlarsege, pr,esen'6
aujourd'hui 11 a no, par lo Marquis d'Aeglesey, a S. G.
to Dec de Wellington! C'6.ait le premiere fois que cos
deux hommes se recontraient, colui-ci, qui s'est battu
pour la gloire de l'Angleterre, et eelui-la, pour sa fortune!
Rencontre solennelle, et qui ne pouvait pas est 6:er un
plus Taste, un plus digne, un plus grand tteatre que Ic
palais de cristall"
Humorous enough is the reference to the gloom of
the London Sunday, where the writer exclaims,
" Ou n'entende pas un bruit, ou ne voit pas une Awe
dans tout la ville !" His visit to Claremont brought
him into immediate contact with the exile family of
Orleans. Here is his touching and beautiful descrip-
tion of the good and unfortunate Queen Amelia as
she appeared to him again in the little Catholic chapel
of the locality :
" La reine priait, avec cote fervour qui appartient aux
passions memo du cieL Elle est vetue a la fawn des
venires FraLgaises, et dans toute la rigueur de ce cos-
tume austere, eit la laine noire prend la forme d'un
lineeul. qu'elle est belle, de cette beautd qui vient
de Fame! Et nous qui l'avons vue, hedge! dans toutes
les splendeurs de la majesty royale, heureuse et fie -e de
tour les bonheurs, de tousles orgueils, jamais nous
l'avons vue, a ce point grand° et superbe! Elle est
semblable a cos totes touchantes do reeole Italienne, a
raurore de la Renaissance, et I'on voit du premier coup
d'cel, que cette mere, cette femme et cote reine,
tiprouvei et frap; 6 a taut do reprises, West relevire sous
la main de Dieu qut I'a fropp6 4, et qu'elle n'a pas perdu
resrerancc! Elle a voulu demeurer forte en ces ad-
versites surnaturelles, afin de jeter sur toutes les forces
et sur toutes les graces qui rentourent. cette mnjestd
unie au malheur, qui brille d'un eclat ite6.istible 1",
One sentence having reference to another and very
different place of worship must not be overlooked : it is
that in which M. Jules Janin alludes thus admi-
rably to the exclusion of the bust of Lord Byron
from Westminster Abbey.
"Lord Byron," says be, "eat absent de co temple
fur at,re appe'Cr Westminster... Il L'est pas une pEre
qui ne conduise a la plus belle place, les restes du pciice
absent; it brine a Westminster, commo brillaient par
leur absence, aux grandes fun6railles romaines, les
images de Brutus et de Cassius."
He might have added also that it is somewhat
ludicrous to observe the exclusion of the bust of
Byron from a building in which are placed the re-
mains of Lord Castlereagh—a fact rather bewildering,
it must be acknowledged, when we remember that
suicides of old were wont to be buried in cross-roads
with stakes driven through them, as an evidence .of
the horror in which self-murder was held by our
ancestors. The Thames Tunnel seems as much as
anything in the metropolis to have excited the astonish •
went of our traveller, and this less in regard to its
architectural curiosty than in reference to its useless-
ness, a uselessness the more lamentable from the fact

Jules
nuliets
Janie its
Coof
nisttsrhuacvtiionng. lik,e,wvirsaeibineeennt csoustaly.
q
t
b esanui cno uwpithwasragrcenasttica
p e simplicity,rdre n iuees , llal
u'elle
ces deux grands puits, que
se mettait creusf r de chaque cOrteelidee
en; passage
souterrain" Upon visiting the Tower of London he
expatiates, with characteristic gusto, over the ass
in
connected with that ancient edifice, n.
'eribing on his tablets the name, now of " le grand
Shakspeare," and now again of Thomas Morns,. l'auteur
ratif d'un reve aussi beau que Montague." It is
gying to find that the general impression formed
both of the English capital and of the. English
population, by an intelligent observer like 111. Jules
Janin, was
soot decidedly agreeable character. For
many reans, therefore we regard the present
volume as among not the' least satisfactory results of
the Great Industrial Exhibition. It will help very
both
materially
Franc® to remove the few prejudices still existing,
trangement. n and England) to their mutual es-

M Al7narke d thattbe Eng-
. RiI:I2,S.E. By
wiffhetvbery day,
MOSSES
N athaniel Hawthorn.
Latterly it must have beewnirne6l)
e more successful
lish public have been gro
this circumstance
imperceptibly, more familiar almost
writers of the United States ; and
true source, namely
recentlyappeared
must in justice be ascribed to its
the many rival series which have
periodical re-issues
in London of cheap and well selected re blications.
Through the medium of these
the community has been enabled to
purchase,
charge altogether insignificant, the mi scellane at a
writings of Washington Irving, and the ousnautical
mances of Fennimore Cooper. They have obtained
in the the same way also capital editions, at a very cheap
rate, of the essays of Waldo Emerson and of the
of Cullen Bryant, together with the sketchie ofa
Parker Willis, and the metrical beauties of Henry
Longfellow. Among the minor favourites of brother
Jonathan must now be classed the charming fictions
of Nathaniel Hawthorn. His " Scarlet Letter" has
already acquired for itself a certain degree of ce_
lebrity, and the readers of the " Scarlet Letter" cannot
fail to turn with some curiosity to the first work Which
brought its writer into any sort of notice, we mean the
work here submitted to the criticism of the English
multitude. Aware of this circumstance, we ere gra-
tified to observe the publication of "Mosses from an
Old Manse," as an additional volume of the Popular
Library, now well and honourably known as the series
issued from the press of Mr. Rcutledge.

Tof such
THE GREAT EXHIBITION.-- midst
popular demonstrations of interest and curiosity it is now
d
believed impossible that the Crystal Palace can be doomed
to destruction, and the impression gains strength that it will
be preserved as an ornament to the metropolis, and a worthy
memorial of the Great Exhibition. The concern felt about
its fate certainly gathers strength within the last few days,
and on all hands expressions of regret are heard that an
edifice so unique and wonderful in its character should be
ruthlessly pulled down. The first overt act of preparation
for the removal of goods from the Crystal Palace took place
yesterday, in the erection of a stage for loading waggons at
the first exit door west of the transept entrance.
LONDON, BRIGHTON, AND SOUTH COAST RAILWAY.
—A passenger, at the instance of the directors of this com-
pany, has been sentenced to six weeks' imprisonment in the
Steyning House of Correction for defrauding the company by
using a non -transferable ticket issued to another person.
THE LATE RAILWAY COLLISION AT HORNSEY.
The Rev.' W. Snell, of Fleet, Lincolnshire, who, it will be
remembered, sustained a concussion of the spine, by the re-
cent collision at the Hornsey station, on the Great Northern
Railway, still lies at the Railway Hotel, adjoining the station,
in a most precarious condition, having been unable to leave
his bed since' the unfortunate occurrence. The injury to the
spine appears to be 'proceeding favourably, but up to the
present time the Rev. Gentleman has not been able to move
his lower limbs, which cue perfectly destitute of teeliUg.