The Sun.
London, England, 1851-06-10 00:00:00

MAGAZINES, &c.—(CONTINUED.)
DUB LIIV UNIVERSITY.
The best article in the number for the present
month—indeed one of the best magazine articles we
have read for many a day—is that entitled "Glean-
ings after the Spanish Arabs." It is written in a
spirit of masculine joyousness worthy of poor Llaginn
in his best days. The versions of the Spanish ballads,
especially that of " The Saxon Lord and the Moorish
Lady," are excellent, and the entire paper is thickly
strewn with shrewd and sparkling mortels of obser-
vation and description. We cordially concur with
the writer of the pages on " The United States and
Cubs," on the desirableness of the attainment .of in-
dependence by that magnificent gem of the sea, rather
than that she should become a province or colony of
either England or America. Let her be delivered
from Spain by an honourable compromise, and
placed on her own merits, under the joint
protection of the two great maritime and
commercial powers, and we are much mistaken
if all parties are not benefited by the arrangement.
The other papers are, a continuation of " Maurice
Tierney ;" the conclusion of " A Yarn about our
Forefathers ;" on Eliot Warburton's " Memoirs of
Horace Walpole and his Contemporaries ;" on Oxen-
ford's translation of the " Conversations of Goethe
with Eckermann and Soret," with copious interest-
ing extracts; on that tale of tinkerdom, Borrow's
" Lavengro ;" a poetic collection entitled "Our Gar-
land for June," in which we find some noble effusions
from the late Eliza Mary Hamilton, especially the
sonnets suggested by reading the "Lyra Aposto-
lica," and the fine stanzas on the greatest reformer
the world ever saw—Martin Luther, giving as the
reviewer well remarks, "such vivid pictures of the
life of the poor miner's son of Eisleben—the little
shivering boy, who went forth at night to sing for
food—the ardent student of Erfurt—the fiery dis-
putant who tore the Bible from the iron chains that
bound it in the house of God, to hurl it in thunder
at those who made it a sealed book ;" and " Leaves
from the Portfolio of a Manager," full, as usual, of
pleasant reading. The following passage is from the
writer's observations on theatrical criticisms :
" Among the principal features of dramatic criticism
may be observed a disposition to indiscriminate praise,
where private partiality or personal influence has super-
seded judgment, with occasionally an ambitious desire
to write something brilliant, without any distinct notion
how the aspiration is to be carried into effect. There is
yet another remarkable ingredient of more modern
growth, the affectation of interlarding French words and
idioms to such an extent, that the whole composition
becomes an ill-assorted hybrid, neither French nor
English, but an unnatural jumble of bitb, in the midst
of which the honest vernacular is bewildered, loses all
sense of identity, and wonders what has become of itself,
or how it has got mixed up in such a masquerade.
Acting a part is now interpreting a idle ; songs are not
sung, bat rendered; a play is no longer got up, but
mounted; the dresses and decorations are mystified into
the mist en scene; and the entire operation is called the
tout ensemble. But these are simple obscurities com-
pared with the idiosyncracies, cesthetics, syncretics,
transcendentalisms, and other incomprehensible
modernisnis, which, as Junius says of Sir William
Draper's figures of speech, dance through' some of
these articles in all the mazes of metaphorical con-
fusion.' These hard compounds, so frequently dragged
in, remind us of the poet's lines—
" "The words themselves are neither rich nor rare;
The wonder's how the devil they got there.' "
We should not omit mentioning a Greek version of
that renowned ballad " Arrah, Mrs. Magrath, the
Sergeant said," to which is appended a convincing
argument of " the sergeant" being Agamemnon,
" 'fadv" Diomed Tydides, and " Mrs. Magrath"
herself Madame Tydeus, veuve.

851 ; or, The Adventures of Mr. and Mrs. Sandboys.

Part V.

A glorious etching by George Cruikshank, repre-
senting the first shilling day—going in, and coming
out—is the frontispiece to the present instalment. A
glance at the sketch will repay even those who have
the faintest appreciation of the ludicrous with a
hearty outbreak of laughter.

PHELPS'S SHAKSPERE.
A reprint of the fourth portion of this exceedingly
compact, cheap, and cleverly arranged edition has
recently been given to the public, with a portrait and
biography of Macready—the latter by Fox, the
former by Thorburn. In the eleventh part, just is-
sued, is comprised the whole of the noble historical
drama of Cymbeline.

LITERATURE.
AN EXCURSION TO CALIFORNIA, tc.
By William Kelly, J.P.
It were difficult to say with what kind of feeling
we regard a book purporting to take us, no matter
which way, to that mighty region the world now
turns to with such variety of emotion, the land of
gold and hardships, of rapid fortunes and lasting
misery, of great expectations realised, and sad disap-
pointments encountered—California, the very name of
which might have induced us, nay, did induce us, to
pause awhile before entering upon our proposed task,
when, partly from prudential reasons, partly from a
desire to be fairly introduced to it, we read the
author's preface, and all at once we were relieved of
much anxiety on finding, is a few words therein
contained, ample evidence that the manner in which
the writer intended to treat his subject would go far
to invest it with that kind of interest we like to feel
in a book—in short, that we had before us a readable
book ; and right gladly do we now bear testimony to
the fact that our surmise was fully correct, and that
the work we now recommend to our readers is not
only readable but highly entertaining, well written,
full of information, and judiciously relieved by a vein
of humour which, without detracting from its interest
and ability, renders its perusal rather a pleasure than
a labour, and lastly, that it bears much internal evi-
dence stamping it with the seal of truth. But let it
speak for itself. At the very outset we find the writer
as independent in his narrative as in his preface ; no con-
fidential communication as to what induced him
to write or start, he assumes that he has a clear right
to do both, and he does accordingly leap, in
medias res. We are at sea, and, as a foretaste of ad-
venture, we have a touch of sea-sickness, and we, in
spite of ourselves, smile at the dire effects of the
monster, though not at the startling intelligence for
the first time imparted to us, that no less a body than
the British Association have hit upon no less a di-
covery than that of a cure for it. But the thing is
said to be as yet a profound mystery, and with
volumes of thanks ready to pour forth to that learned
body, we await their fiat, and proceed rapidly across
the Atlantic to New York, Boston, Albany, Buffalo,
(where we take a lesson upon the way to manage
matters in a strange country), the Falls of
Niagara, ultimately reaching St. Louis. We re-
sist the temptation of introducing here, as a sample
of the writer's humorous style, the narrative of an
event which precedes his departure from St. Louis,
nd proceed with him to Jefferson City, on our way
from which we find a spirited description of a boat
race. At length we approach and enter the Prairie ;
but here all attempts at following the writer and his
companions in their progress across the mighty desert
of the west, save in the pages of the fescinating book
before us, must be unavailing ; a fearful task it were
to analyse the dense mass of anecdotes, discriptions,
adventures, records of impressions, hair-breadth
escapes, melancholy losses, startling incidents, fatal
catastrophes, which crowd upon our attention and
command our interest, and all this, and more, only to
bring the reader to the scene of action, to the pro-
mised El Dorado, to the far-famed California, where,
one arrived, we start afresh, to follow them through
a life richly coloured with the strong contrast of
light and shadow, through an endless variety of the
vicissitudes of fortune ; but to do this with any de-
gree of justice or effect we must expose ourselves to
the accusation of wholesale piracy, for, unless we
quoted the whole, we could hardly deal fairly with
any part, so well has the author contrived to make a
harmonious whole of the constituent parts of his work,
and, in a literary point of view at least, we must con-
gratulate him upon having drawn from us, perhaps
unwittingly, as he admits authors frequently do, the
admission that his work contains a fine moral—thus
defying the scalpel and the lancet, and proving
that union is force ; and to convince him and our
readers of the correctness of this, our view of the
matter, we echo his farewell sentiments, as an earnest
of our wish to see him again a free citizen of the
republic of letters, only appending the word Amen. to
the expression of his valedictory conclusion.

HOSPITAL FOE CONSUMPTION.-STRAND MUSICAL
FESTIVAL AT TITS ROYAL HOSPITAL, CHELSEA.— The en-
sning festival, which is to be held in the gardens of the
Royal Hospital, Chelsea, on the l'ith and 18th inst., in aid of
the funds of the above hospital, under the patronage of her
Majesty, will be got up on the grandest scale, and in addition
to the extensive musical and other arrangements, a monster
tent, to be planed in the grounds, bas just been completed by
Nr. Benjamin Edgington, of the extraordinary dimensions of
200 feet in length and 100 feet in width.
ROYAL ARTILLERY.--WOOLWICH, JUNE 7,
Captain Maude's company, 9th battalion; Captain Sand-
ham's company, Ist battalion; and Captain C. J. Dalton's
company, Ist battalion, from Canada; and Captain F. Dick's
company, Ist battalion, from Halifax, Nova Scotia, assem-
bled in heavy marching order on the barrack-field on
Thursday last, at half-past ten o'clock, and were inspected
by the commanding officers of the Ist and 9th battalions
and Brigade- Major Bingham. After a minute inspection of
the men and their appointments, the officers expressed
themselves highly pleased with the clean and soldierlike
appearance of the whole of the men of these companies.
The men appear in more than ordinary good spirits and
health, which they attribute to the unexampled short
passage they had, having been only .131 days from Halifax
to Woolwich. Twenty-six fine young men, recruits from
Lisburn, Ireland, joined bead-quarters at Woolwich, in charge
of Sergeant Mason,
and have been entered to the 4th bat-
talion.

THE DEGREE Or CosarAnisorT.—" Gentlemen,"
exclaimed a Chartist at a public meeting, during a foaming
speech about the " five points" and the charter, " is cot
one man as good as another ?" "Uv coorse he is,"
shouted
an excited Irishman in the crowd, "and a good deal
betther."