The Sun.
London, England, 1851-03-03 00:00:00

DIORAMA OF THE CAPE OF GOOD

HOPE AND NATAL.
A series of Diorainic Views from drawings by Messrs.
Angas, Bowler, Griffiths, and the Rev. Thornley Smith,
illustrative of the scenery of the Cape of Good Hope and Port
Natal are now on view at the Western Institution, Leicester-
square. Among the views are those of Table Bay, Cape of
Good Hope, Cape Town, the Villages Wynberg snd Somerset
West, the Islet of Santa Cruz, Algoa Bay (Moonlight), Port
Elizabeth, Graham's Town, Mouth of the Umvoti, Natal
(Sunset), Umnonoti River (Even-ing), Haunts of the Hippo-
potamus, Inanda Kraal Natal (Moonlight), Falls of the
Taitsa, Farm in New Germany, Cultivation of the Cotton
Plant, D'ljrban, Port Natal, &c. These views are ad-
mirably painted, and cannot but be most interesting to per-
sons having friends in those colonies, or to intending emi-
grants.

JOANNA BAILLIE.—" If ever," says the Leader,
there was a peaceful, honourable career, modest amidst its
aurels, and dignified in its seclusion, surely the career of
Joanna Baillie, now closed in its eighty-ninth year, deserves
that praise. From her seclusion she sent forth anonymously,
while yet a girl, works in the highest class of composition,
which took at once a lofty place among the works of her
contemporaries—those contemporaries having names that
" bear an emphasis"—and, although she gained a poet's
name, a renown "not loud, but deep," not the blatant,
placarded, noisy renown, which is noisy from its very
emptiness—but genuine, quiet, enduring admiration felt by
competent admirers ;—although her name came to
be associated with those of our literary giants,
Joanna Baillie preserved the same unobtrusive dig-
nity, and to the last kept aloof from lionizing
circles and literary cliques. That quiet Scotch girl, reared
iu a Manse near Glasgow, was not to have her head turned
by the incense of a world she divined rather than saw. And
yet—strange contradiction !—this sequestered mind did not
choose for the sphere of its creations pastoral scenes of idyllic
quiet, but plunged into the great tumultuous world of Pas-
sion as agitated in the intenser forms of tragedy ! She has
now passed away. Honourable and honoured has been her
career, its placid uniformity untroubled by the distractions of
feverish popularity, untroubled by the jars and discords of
literary life, mixed up in no cliques living like an English
gentlewoman, and dying as she lived. One cannot deplore
her loss as an event. She has lived her time. But if the news
of her death falls not like a calamity,
it will yet bring a shade
of sadness over many minds, recalling their first acquaintance
with " De Montfort" and " Henriquez.”
MONUMENT TO JOHN BROOKS, OE MANCHESTER.—
Very recently we have had the gratification of inspecting, in
the studio of Mr. John Thomas, at No. 9, Old Church-street,
Paddington, an exquisite marble mausoleum lately completed
by him in memory of Mr. John Brooks, of Manchester. The
monument is a rather novel, and certainly a very graceful,
combination of the excellences of both sculpture and archi-
tecture. Its four sides contain, each in its respective niche,
statues of Integrity, Industry, Charity, and Commerce—ideal
figures, fraught with many suggestive beauties. Integrity
is represented with a book, inscribed " Truth," in one hand,
and in the other a branch of oak. Charity is cherishing in
her arms a naked infant. Industry bears the spindle in her
grasp, and at her feet lies a cogged-wheel of the power-loom.
Commerce has on her head a crown of Indian corn, and is
surrounded with symbols of merchandize and navigation.
The various details of the monument, moreover, are very
ingeniously introduced, round each of the niches being carved
—here a bough of the cotton plant, here a stalk of lilies, in
this part an oak branch, and in that a tall blade of wheat—
the niches being each aarmounted by a blossom of the poppy,
the symbol of eternal sleep. Altogether the work reflect:,
the highest credit upon the skill and imagination of the
sculptor, while it forms a noble memorial of one of the most
distinguished merchants of Manchester. In the same studio
we had also the pleasure of observing two noble figures,
hereafter to be erected in the Palace at Westminster—statues
of Cardinal Langton, and of Salisbury, the famous "Lone
Sword," among the barons of Runnymede. Not far from the
Earl of Salisbury, it was interesting to notice a representa-
tion of his beautiful but unfortunate mother, Fair Rosamond,
famous as the paramour of Henry 11. in the labyrinth at
Woodstock. Other productions of a not dissimilar character
were actively in progress at the time of our visit to this in-
teresting establishment.