The Sun.
London, England, 1851-06-27 00:00:00

EVENING, JUNE 27, 1851.

LITERATURE.

THE WANDERER AND HIS HOME. By
A. de Lamartine.—Parlour Library,rol.LV. Simms
and Atintyre.
Occupied as he is continually in watching the pro-
gress of political events in his fatherland, M. de
Lamartine is still not altogether inattentive to those
faculties which empower him to adorn the records of
European literature. Another work from his hand
lies before us, and in it we recognise an additional
chapter of his Autobigraphy. Never to our know-
ledge has there been witnessed a more brilliant illus-
tration, than is dhoti werable in these memorials, of the
undying enthusiasm and eternal adolescence of a
poetic temperament. But that the author is one
whose celebrity is as widely extended as that of any
individual in Christendom, it might have been
conjectured by a chance peruser that the volume
was
the effusion of a writer young in years
asinexhaustible in earnestness. Every page is
radiant with the passion of a nature untarnished
by sufferings and unvanquished by disappointment.
Every sentence is the utterance of a heart burning
with the ardour of boyhood, though filled with
the wisdom of experience. Every word throbs
with fervour and reveals withal the gentleness
of the sympathies and the sweetness of the disposi-
tion from which they have all alike emanated. Those
who have already devoured the first fragments of the
Autobiography of Lamartine ; those who remember
the love of Graziella, the goodness of the Abbe Du-
mont, the affectionate faithfulness of Martha, the
simple story he has since then told of her, under the
name of " Genevieve ;" those especially who have
found their sensibilities stirred up their very depths
by the mingled agonies and raptures of " Raphael,"
as he beholds the object of his devotion sinking into
a grave strangely, and even, under the circumstances,
awfully premature, will require no inducement to
enter upon the examination of the present book,which
is but a continuation of the same enthralling nar-
rative. In the " Wanderer and his Home" Lamar-
tine depicts the aspect of his tranquil life, on his re-
turn to his family immediately after the youthful
calamities which had befallen . him in France and
Italy, calamities which, it will be remembered,
have already been recounted. Aided by the luminous
pencil with which the whole of these chapter's have
been traced, we can to the full appreciate the fascina-
tions which surrounded his footsteps even in the
monotonous routine of life, as it was about the com-
mencement of the present century, at Macon. As-
sisted by the tender recollections of his filial and fra-
ternal love, he has sketched in vivid colours the ap-
pearance as well as the character of the principal
members of the patriarchal household. His saintlike
mother, whose every breath was an orison, and whose
nature united the purity of the recluse with the dis-
charge of all the worldly duties devolving upon her
as a wife and as guardian of her children. His
father, of whom he says, " his years seemed to balance
him upright and firm upon the strong stem of life
which God had given him," so stalwart was
the old soldier and the country gentleman
in the progress of his career to its conclusion.
His five sisters, Cecilia, the one whose beauty was the
most popular ; Eugenie, handsome but not admired ;
Susanna, the pious and lovely, whose face was like
a Madonna of Raphael, and whose form was like a
Psyche of Phidias ; Cesarine, with that voice of rich and
deep vibrations which seemed as though it breathed
the language of Dante with the accent of Sienna er
Florence ; and last of all the little Sophie, with eyes
of blue, and hair soft and light, and features radiant
with the innocence of childhood. Then there was
the uncle, elder brother to the father, and the only
one then bearing the family name as M. de Lamartine,
together with his sisters Mdlle. de Lamartine and La
Comtesse de Villars. In recounting the quiet and
plodding existence which he had to endure among
these relations and their acquaintances, the author
contrives to throw an interest over matters which re-
counted by others might be contemptible as the
veriest puerilities. Among these little revelations of
feeling there are some that would be inexplicable in a
poet,if unaccompanied by some explanatory statement,
as where, describing the bold and flaunting mistresses
of the barracks near Macon, who used to meet him on
afternoons in the meadows, pulling as they sauntered
on, the blossoms of the violet and the hawthorn, he
observes—" since that time I have held violets and
hawthorns in abhorrence." Pleasant society was to
be encountered early in the nineteenth century even
amidst the monotony of Macon, and therefore it is
that we rejoice in the account here given by the auto-
biographer of such visitors in the drawing-room of his
uncle as the Abbe Sigorgne, and the Abbe Bourdon,
and the mysterious and dilapidated M. deValmont, and
the colossal and loud-voiced M. de Larnaud, whose
sympathies went with the Girondins, seeing that they
were devoured by the Revolution because they dared
to denounce its crimes; and with them, too,
were the Marquis Doria, and M. de Saint
L— (his name being suppressed because he
is still living), and M. de Davoy 6, and M. de
Seveigny. Who can pass over unremarked, moreover
the old bedridden Chevelier de Sennecey, who wiled
away the evening of his life by making watches and
other niclsnackeries; or yet more, have no thought of
fondness for the memory of Blondel ? There is an
interest likewise in the youthful friendship of La-
martine for M. Ronot, a young advocate of the Jura,
then settled at Mason. Notwithstanding the plea-
sure derived by the former from the particulars just
enumerated, we cannot feel any surprise whatever to
find the passionate delight with which he records the
retura of his family from the town of Macon to the
village of Milly, holding as he does so heartily with
Cowper, that
" God made the country, but man made the town!"
A visit paid by the future poet and statesman
to his other uncle, the Abbe de Lamartine, then
resident in the Chateau d'Urcy, in Upper Bur-
gundy, closes the first portion of the pre-
sent volume, being adorned, moreover, by some
graceful verses addressed to " The Fountain of the
Forest," a favourite retreat often haunted by his
footsteps. The second division of the production
before us recounts the tender and beautiful story of the
love of Saluce and Regina.—Saluce, the friend of La-
martine, and Regina, a Roman Princess. The inci-
dents comprised in this narrative are as picturesque
and enthralling as any romance born entirely of the
imagination. As strikingly contrasted examples
of the power with which these pages of his auto-
biography have been penned by Lamartine, we sub-
join the following quotations: the first depicting the
young poet's life in the bosom of a landscape of Bur-
gundy
" To watch the sun rising above the summit of the
great oaks in the park, to open the window for the swal-
lows to circle round my ceiling, to porn over the old
books of the castle library in my bed to the music of
tinkling sheep-bells and the busy murmurs of an
awakening household; to rise and breakfast with my
uncle on the delicious cream of his cows and the liquid
gold of his bee-hives ; to wander with him from the
parlour to the library, from the stables to the garden;
to return to shelter and quietness during the burning
hours of noon; then when the sun declined a little, to
wander forth again with my gun, or a book under my
arm, or to spring upon my wild mountain horse, with
his long, thick, silky mane flowing down his shoulders
and nearly veiling the eyes; to plunge him at a gallop
through the flowery meads, or rush down the gorges of
the hills, through woods where I had to fling myself
prostrate upon his neck to pass beneath the branches;
to wander wildly and recklessly wherever fancy or
chance led me, discovering some new glade, some
hitherto unknown spring, disturbing the leverets, or
startling the door from their lair ; to lose myself thus
for whole hours till I found that I had wandered many
leagues from the castle; to return listlessly homeward in
the cool of the evening; to dine, talk, read, listen to the
adventures of an abbe of the old regime at Paris or Ver-
sailles; to gently doze over the recital, and when sleep
had fairly mastered me, to ascend the grand staircase,
traverse the long echoing corridors that led to my apart-
ment, fall asleep over the pages of some philosopher or
poet, and rise again next day to commence the same
life of liberty, idleness, and dreamy reverie—such was
my existence at the chateau, and no days of my youth
flew more rapidly than those passed in this wild solitude,
this monastery of freedom and friendship. The shadows
of the trees, which are still flourishing, have carpeted the
garden for my footsteps; the music of the fountains have
lulled me to repose ; but yet I was forced by eireara-
stances after the death of my uncle to sell the trees that
had shadowed me and the streams that had lulled me
to rest. May their influence be as beneficent and soothing
to other generations as they have been to me l"

The following passage describes, after a very different
fashion, the aspect of the Roman street in which
stood the religious edifice that sheltered the heads of
Clotilda, the sister of Saluce, and of Regina, long af-
terwards his beloved :
" The convent was situated in the vast deserted quarter
of La Longara, which extends from Transtevera along
the back of the colonnade of St. Peter's. It is a long,
interminable street, presenting every variety of building,
alternating with each other, or side by side—palaces,
monasteries, and mean, wretched habitations, formerly
occupied by the numerous poor families attached by
their functions to the altars, the sacristies, or the ser-
vice of the great Basilica, the Capital of Catholicism.
"At the time of which I speak, these houses were
either entirely deserted or inhabited only by a few indi-
gent old men and women. But the antique splendour of
the street was still visible in the architectural remains of
some of the grand pal'ices, and the sculptured porticoes
of the churches. An irresistible feeling of melancholy,
unknown to the north. seizes hold of the imagination at
the aspect of such a street in Italy. An oriental sad-
ness, a gloom within the light, a coruscation of mourn-
ful surprise oppresses the heart, one knows not why.
Perhaps from the contrast between the clear bright azure
heaven, blue as the lapis lazuli, pouring dowr. its streams
of light upon the burning pavements and deserted pa-
laces, and the silence and solitude that gives to noon
something of the vague immensity and terror of mid-
night. I have often passed from one extremity to the
other of this long avenue of burning walls, in the mid-
dle of the day, without meeting a single being through-
out its whole extent, or hearing a single footstep re-echo
on the pavement.
"A solitary cat crossing the leads, and gliding through
a dormer window; an ass loaded with paniers cropping

the herbage between the broken steps of some marb!e
palace; a blind drawn back tor an instant by the bare
arm of some invisible woman, thtia closed again as ra-
pidly and silently upon emptiness or sleep; long cords
stretching from window to window, on which the laun-
dresses hang their clothes, or the poor their rags, to dry
in the sun; at the extremity the long shadows cast by--
the colonnade of St. Peter's, like the obscure recesses of
a mysterious forest of stone; and above, in the sky it-
self, the mighty dome deEned clearly against the blue
firmament, with its globe, its aerial galleries, and its top-
most balustrade beneath the cross, like the balcony to
the palace of a God—such is the sombre physiognomy
of Rome in this quarter of the city.
"If a door should open by chance, and give a view of
the interior of the dwellings, you sea large courts where
the sun is glaring upon the flags, the marble basics of
the fountains, and the marble statues in the niches; and
beyond a flight of marble steps leading down t) a gar-
den, planted regularly with tall cypress trees, and ex-
tending like the pontifical garden of the Vatican, to the
old, broken, ivy-wreathed brick walls of the ramparts of
Rome. Such was La Longara."
The close of the love story above alluded to, is but
a melancholy peroration to our present instalment of
the autobiography. Id. de Lamartine, however, in so
arranging his narrative, has contrived to whet the cu-
riosity of his readers as to his other revelations, reve •
lations which cannot fail to be always interesting,
coming from a pen so eloquent and a heart so im-
passioned.

THAT'S WHERE IT IS!
(From Eliza Cook's Journal)
" What's all this outcry about the taxes?' said my
uncle Dick one day, layinff down the Times, and tiling
up his pipe. "We talk a deal about taxes—a very deal."
" Why, uncle," said I, " there's that odious tax on
light—the window-tax, and the carriage-tax, and the
soap-tax, and the paper-tax, and the attorneys'-tax.''
"Hold there," said my uncle, " and stop a bit till I
have got this pipe lit."
My uncle deliberately and seriously put the match to
his pipe, as if he was about to fire a mine; then he took
a few strong puffs, until he had made a dense thick
cloud about him ; then he threw aside the match,
and set himself back in his elbow chair, with
" P—oh—h.

" Now, then, about that lawyer's-tax" said he.
But first let me paint my uncle's portrait. Board could
do it better with his daguerreotype; but I will try my
hand nevertheless! First, a solid body, well set into his
chair, which was covered with red damask, furnishing a
warm background to his portly figure, and he fitted into
it as if he were a fixture. His nether man was clothed
in kerseymere breeches, buckled at the knee, and hi s
white stockings showed a wonderfully plump calf, for so
old a man. He was about seventy, but looked ten years
younger—thanks to his equable good-humour. He wore
ruffles on his shirt-front; round his neck a white neck-
cloth; and a bunch of gold seals dangled at his fob. In
short, ho was a gentleman of the old school, a class fast
growing out of date now-a-days.
But I have not mentioned his face yet. It was the
index of the man, and his inner light shone through it.
Broad and massive, a large square chin, with a deep
angle under his ear—usually the sign of strength
in men—a full, prominent nose, slightly rubicund—some
would call it " jolly," and a bright, clear, grey eye,
twinkling with humour and shrewdness; a broad, but
not very high forehead, strongly marked, surmounted
these penetrating eyes, and the whole was covered by an
abundant crop of silver-white hair. Ido not know whe-
ther I have succeeded in placing my uncle before the
reader's eye, as ho is before my own; but I cannot do
better: you must learn more of him from his talk.
" Now, then, about that lawyers'-tax," said he.
" Well, uncle, it is very hard, indeed. Here have I,
for instance, had a long professional education to un-
dergo; then, before I can practise, I have an immense
sum to pay in stamps; then a large annual tax to pay
by way of license to practise."
" Well," said my unce, "and why not ? You have
your run of the public, and you must pay for it. That's
where it is!"

What do you mean, uncle?"
" Why this; that one can turn no way in life, can't
be married, or die, or buy a bit of land, or enter into a
partnership, or make a bargain, without a lawyer
springing up and crying, stand and deliver.' I would
tax 'em all, and no mistake; if I did not do as Czar
Peter did."
" And what did he do, uncle?"

" Why, when ho was walking through Westminster
Hall, ho saw a lot of fellows in horse-hair wigs, pow-
dered with flour, strutting about in long black gowns,
and he asked, Who's them fellows?' Lawyers,' was
the answer. ' Lawyers!' said Peter; why, I've only
two in all my dominions, and immediately on my return,
I intend to hang one of them!'"
" Ay, that's where it is, sir, (to use your own phrase).
Peter was a despot, and could not brook lawyers. No
lawyers no freedom—no rights, sirl"
" Rights, sir! The right of being waylaid by every
pettifogger, and robbed. That's what it is! Freedom,
sir? I know them,—from the petty justices up to Chan-
cery,—and the higher you go the worse you fare. I
was a ward for a girl, whose property was all swallowed
up by the lawyers, in the quarrel they got up among
themselves, and she never fingered a penny to this day.
Look at that newspaper, and see what a solicitor says of
our highest court. The Court of Chancery, I hesitate
not to say, is a disgrace to a civilized country, causing in
many cases an absolute denial of justice, and in all much
hardship, anxiety, vexation, and delay.' 13nt they don't
speak of the cost, sir; it is ruinous to all who are so
foolish or so infatuated as to sue for ' justice.' There is
no other way of dealing with these courts than to do as
Noll Cromwell did,—abolish them at once. I'd blow
them up forthwith!"
" You aro too hard upon us, sir!"
"Not a bit, sir! My experience of law is this,—if
lawyer threatens you, lie down at once and be robhcd
quietly; but don't go to law."
" But you can be defended, sir!"
The cure's worse than the disease. ' The justice'
costs more than the injustice. I have myself spent five-
and thirty pounds in recovering five; and I won my
cause! And the beauty of it was, that while the one
lawyer was stripping me, there were always a dozen look-
ing on laughing. While one robbed, the others quietly
looked over the hedge. That's where it is, sir!"
The lead squeaking of a pig here interrupted our con-
versation, and, looking out of the low parlour window,
we saw across the street a butcher and his two lads trying

to drive a pig into the passage leading to his slaughter-
house.

" he lawyers are on him," said my uncle.
The pig was a well-fed brute, and as comely as a pig
can be. There are indeed pig-fanciers now-a-days, who
can point out to you features of beauty in these animals;
and there are judges of the animals at the Smithfield
Shows, who award prizes accordingly. This pig in
question came forward quite critically, with its nose
down and its ears cocked, slowly picking every footstep,
seeming to be intent only on the firmness of the ground
under it, but with a cunning, sidelong look turned upon
the butcher and his two lady. They wore very cautious,
and set about their work like persons experienced in the
art of pig-driving. They gently insinuated the pig on-
wards, encouraging him, hovering about him, and keeping
his head pointed towards the way he was to go in. The
pig grunted querulously, as if making objections, and
now that be is close upon the entrance to the slaughter-
house, and when the butcher and his lads aro putting
forth their energies in a grand shout, and strive to force
him within the narrow way,—now, on a sudden, he
smells something in the wind that he does not like—for,
all pigs have some instinctive horror of slaughter-houses,
—and setting his ears back, and making a sudden wheel
he bolt 9, dashes between the legs of the heavy butcher'
who is on his back in an instant.
" There's where it is!" I exclaimed, sympathizing
cordially with the pig.
" It's of no use," said my uncle, " they'll have him
yet."
A terrific squeal here arose up the narrow street, and,
though we could not see the source, we knew it must
be the caught pig. The butcher was up, and on his way
to the scene of action.

"Tim Philistines are on him," said my uncle.

The squealing became more appalling, and drew
nearer. It was one, long, loud screech, with a short
emphatic grunt at intervals. The butcher and his two
lads approached, carrying the struggling pig among
them. As they approached the narrow entry, the pig's
struggles became desperate, and his squealing incessant.
He made one desperate effort; a foot escaped; the two
lads are down; but the butcher holds on firmly by the
two hind legs.
" It is all over with him," said my uncle, turning to-
wards the fire; "why couldn't he have spared himself
all this trouble, and laid down to be killed quietly, like
an obedient pig, at once?"
He set himself again into his elbow-chair, and knocked
the ashes out of his pipe into the grate. " It's just the
way of the world," said he, " once let ill-lack catch a
man, and woo for him; once he's fairly down, there's no
getting him right on end again. Ho may struggle away,
but it's of no use; he's sure to be made mince-meat of
at last. We were talking of taxes, sir. What does a
man care about taxes, if the world's against him?"
" But that isn't the case with the majority, sir; and
the public will think of taxes, and ought to think of
taxes. What do you think about the window-tax, sir?"
"Oh! take all your taxes off,
if you can do without
them, but don't give up taxing the lawyers, that's 514
don't lot 'em off! Soap? surely I You insult the 'great
unwashed' by calling them to untax
their soap." so, and refusing
My uncle blew along cloud, and was silent a few seconds.
" A thought strikes me," said be, "I
fancy we tag
t
ourselves daily, to a greater extent than any Government
durst tax us,'
" How do you mean, uncle?"
" Why, look at this pipe here! It costs me a
.shilling
a week, at least. Now, think of
the Government laying
upon us a smoking-tax
fiftyshillings a year! What
an outcry it would caus°ef.
But look at our drink! I ELT
working folks of this country spend, of
it said, that the , fifty millions a year on drink,
their own
Governmentfree-
t's putting on a direct tax on
Just fancy the Witpart of this amount! what a
these classes of one-tozh
terrible agitation would come of 1 .
a why, there's so me truth in what you say, sir; but
then youremember that this self-taxation is all
will,
VOLUNTARY!
that's where it is,"
Ay, answered my uncle • "it is
"
' our vices and our appetites that we are voluntarily feed-
ing, and never count the cost of them. But when there
is a tax on lawyers licences, or on house-windows, or
on soap, or on paper, though it does not touch us to a
thousandth part of the extent, we call it ' oppression,
and so on. The taxes must be raised."
" But how?" I asked.
"Tax wealth—tax property—tax land; that is what
always gets the chief share of Government attention,
and it ought fairly to pay its own costs. Why ask a
poor man to pay, out of the wages of his daily labour,
the cost of protecting the rich man's property? 13ut I

see how it is," said my uncle, again filling the pipe,
"once a man's fairly down, and can't defend hims ••It,
everybody's on to him—Government, landlords, latkyers,
and all. They lay taxes on him without asking his con-
sent, and send their emissaries into his tea-pot ariahis
sugar-basin: others of them, because they have great
estates, think they are also entitled to cut a slice off the
poor man's loaf, and to get a penny extra out of it to
' protect' them. Talk of thefts and burglaries! Why,
there is one in every poor man's cupboard, and there is
not a Chubb yet discovered that can keep them out!
The biggest thieves are not those that break in at nights
through our window shutters, but those that march in
at the open door, and sit by us at our hearths!"
" But you would surely tax luxuries!"
" I would tax dirty faces and dirty skins, sir, not be-
cause they are luxuries though; and I would tax bache-
lors after a certain age, because then they become con-
firmed fogies, and I would tax 4 imperials," tufts,' and
mustaches; I would tax all husband, that sit drinking in
public houses, while their wives are left lonely at home;
and I would tax all low-bosomed frocks and short petti-
coats in women, as well as rouge and wasp-waists.
Kisses might be taxed (are they iu your list of 'luxu-
ries?'), but the difficulty would be in finding supervisors
and excisemen for the department!" `• Bet, without
joking," he continued, "I'll tell you what it is, sir. You
will never get the taxes paid cheerfully, until you allow
the people who are called upon to pay the taxes to have
something to do with the laying of them on; that's
where it is, sir. If the Government is to be an efficient
' taxing machine.' you must let those who are taxed
get a fair' hold of the handle; otherwise they will be
dealt with like that pig over there; you understand!
That's just where it is;—the long and the short cf the
matter."
My uncle always tried to get at the gist of a matter,
and when he did, his eyes lit up, as thry did now, and,
with his pipe-tube extended, he triumphantly wound up
with his "that's where it is !" It was the Q. E. D.—the
thing to be demonstrated—the crowning summary of his
argument. _ . .

1 could furnish some further illustrations of my
uncle's mode of clenching his arguments, and may pro:
bably do so on some other occasion.

THE GREAT EXHIBITION.

Yesterday the receipts and the number of visitors
again suffered a slight decline, the former being 2,7221.
los. and the latter 57,781. The heat of the weather,grea as it was outside of the building, was still more
oppressive within, and, in consequence of. the inconveni-
ence experienced, we understand that it is determined to
remove the inside glazing at the eastern and western
entrances, and to endeavour in this way to secure a re-
freshing and thorough draught from end to end of the
interior. This will be an immense relief to visitors if
successfully carried out.
The Queen and the royal party at the Palace were
again in the building yesterday morning, and commenced
their survey by an examination of the Milan gallery.
From this they proceeded to our own sculpture court,
after which they went into the Indian collection, and
then, ascending to the sections of glass and pot-
tery, they were advantageously seen by the crowds
who had by that time assembled. Some new arrivals of
an interesting character were received yesterday. They
consist of contributions of various kinds, including arms,
dresses, trappings, and ivory from Abyssynia, and a
large round table from the Sandwich Islands. Among
the dresses are " three fine cotton cloths worn by Abys.
synians of rank," and two sheepskins worn over the
cloths, each the skin of ono sheep. There are among
the arms two double-edged sabres, with handles of
Rhinoceros horn; and the contributions, which are pre-
sents to her Majesty, also include two silver coronets.
The fisg decoration in progress in the British half of
the nave would be rendered much more effective, if car-
ried out in the same manner as it has been by the diffe-
rent foreign countries. We hang out our banners at
right angles, while their spear points are placed at an
angle of 45 degrees.