The Sun.
London, England, 1851-12-08 00:00:00

LITERATURE,

FIVE TO TWO. A Comedy in Three Acts. By
the Author of " Three to One." London : John
_Hearne, Strand.

Such is the title of a smartly written piece, which
) contains abundant matter of amusement, at the same
time avoiding all vulgarity. The plot is simple, but
clever ; the time but a day ; the place an hotel ; and
the author is not encumbered by too many actors.
Yet, with slight materials, he has constructed an
agreeable whole. The story runs thus :—Two mar-
ried ladies, with husbands in India, stay a few days
at an hotel in \Vales, where they allow themselves
to be taken for widows, and as such Mrs. Hill Coo-
lies and Mrs. M‘Tiffin are courted by five gentlemen,
who contrive to fall in love with a precipitancy that
is really quite alarming, and certainly dizsipate all
ideas we had furmed as to the slowness with
which such affairs are regulated now-a - days.
Considering that Sir Hugh Jobbins, a retired trades-
man, Mr. Sergeant Flummery, a briefless lawyer,
Mr. A'Cute, a gentleman and widower, and Major
Semple, with his young sub, Cornet-a-Piston, are
all ready to pop the question after six days' acquaint-
ance. The characters of Jobbins and Flummery
are well worked out ; both appear eager to get a
wife like Clara APTiffin, who will do them credit
and replenish their coffers ; for they have not
only slain the husbands, but imagine their widows
to be wealthy. The Cornet is a fair sample of
a dragoon sub. The Major is wonderfully well up
in his Latin, after six-and-thirty years' absence from
Sandhurst. Mr. A'Cute, who is very sharp, is made a
go-between by Jobbins and Flummery, and, in fact, if
the Lady Clara had been single, ho would have eirac..
tually played his part, seeing he neutralizes the
attempts of the other two towards gaining her affec-
tions, very cleverly. The ladies at length agree to
give themselves away by lot. Just as the first lots
are drawn, their husbands arrive; the gentlemen are
dismayed at seeing themselves hoaxed, but A'Cute
saves his credit by pretending to have been in the
secret. Such is the outline of this agreeable jest
(1' esprit, which may serve to wile away an hour very
pleasantly.

THE MAGAZINES.
FRASER.

" Gastronomy and Civilization," with which Fraser
opens this month, proves that the writer of it must be
" a fellow of infinite wit," an antiquarian, a scholar,
and in every sense of the word " a man of taste :"
we hope soon to meet him again, and would suggest
to him as a subject a Biography of Petronius ; such
a work, as illustrative of the social manners of the
Romans under the empire, is much needed. In the
next article we have, in the shape of review of the
recently published edition of " Sebastian Bach's Six
Motetts in Score," a history of the progress of choral
music in England within the last fifteen years.
Captain Digby Grand continues his " Autobio-
graphy ;" and the series of " Papers on Edmund
Burke" is concluded. The second chapter of the
" History of the Hungarian War" brings down the
narrative of events to the 11th September, the day
on which the Ban Jellachich, at the head of 40,000,
crossed the Drave and invaded Hungary, devastat-
ing the country along the whole line of his march.
The historian describes the perfidy of the Austrian
Camarilla throughout the whole of the negotiations
with Hungary, but we are surprised that no allusion
is made to the very particular and intimate relations
which were known to have for years existed between
Baron Joseph Jellachich and the Camarilla, and which
showed to all those who were at all conversant with
these relations that the appointment of Baron Joseph
Jellachich as Ban of Croatia was but the first overt
act of the intrigue which ended in the forced abdica-
tion of the Emperor Ferdinand and the elevation to
the throne of the son of the Archduchess Sophia.
The treason of Latour is clearly proved; he through-
out kept up communications with the rebel Ban, and
in his capacity of Secretarylat War issued such orders
as would, if acted on, have secured the defeat of that cause
of which he was the sworn servant and minister; and
yet this man, whose base treachery merited the most
severe punishment, who was at once a spy and a
traitor, is now represented by the reactionaries as a
martyr;forsooth—ex uno !Luce omnes—none of the so-
called martyrs of obscurantism have any more claim
to the title than has Latour. We have also several
reviews in this month's Fraser.