The Sun.
London, England, 1833-12-25 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

LIVER SE GE' S WORKS, PA It r VII.
LONDON, 1833.
The present number of this popular work
consists of three engravings, of which the most
carefully finished is the one entitled " Popping
the Question." The picture of Lucy Ashton
by the Fairy's Well, the idea of which is taken
from Scott's favourite romance, the " Bride of
Lammermoor," is cleverly engraved in portions,
but here and there betrays evidences of haste.

STORIES OF THE STUDY. 3 VOLS.
LONDON,'IB33.
The most ambitious of these stories is by
no means the most successful. Mr. Galt is no
enchanter, no Scott, to recal the dead to life ;
Elishah, to clothe in flesh and blood the
dry bones of history or legend ; he can only
deal with the temper of the age in which he
lives, and pourtray such characters as he him-
self has been in close communion with. For
this reason his story of the Lutherans is
failure. It is accurate enough in conception of
character and incident ; but as regards execu-
tion, is sadly deficient in spirit. The breath of
life is wanting. We would advise those among
our readers who meditate a perusal of " Stories
of the Study," to skip the Lutherans, and come at
once to the Jaunt and the Dean of Guild. Both
these sketches are in Galt's most characteristic
manner, reading just like realities. The
latter is perhaps the best, and when we say
that, in force and truth, and that dry, shrewd
humour in which Galt excels all the writers of
his day, it is equal to his inimitable " Leddy
Grippy," we pronounce the highest possible
eulogium on it. The incidents of this sketch
are slight to a degree ; it is the artful working
them out that shows the artist's skill. The Dean
of a remote Scotch Guild comes to London to as-
certain the state of the public mind on the subject
of reform ; in order that his Guild and himself
may come to some fitting and profitable deter-
mination. In pursuance of this object, he takes
an opportunity of introducing himself to the
Duke of Wellington, Earl Grey, and the Lord
Chancellor; and it is his opinion on these illus •
trions individuals, together with his mode of
conversing with, and sly endeavours to sound,
them on the political topics of the day, that
gives its chief interest to the sketch. Previously
to waiting on the Duke, the Dean consults a
friend of his, an attorney, observing, " What's
your opinion anent my waiting on the Duke,
for don't you think he'll take it very kind to
hear that we are standing by him in his ad-
versity ; for the which, no doubt, he'll have a
consideration when he comes again to his king_
dom, which, from what you say, Mr. Prosper,
surely cannot be far off?" This is an admirable
trait of discreet Scotch character. The Dean
ultimately makes up his mind to visit the Duke,
when the following scene takes place :
" My walk up the Park to the Duke's yett was very
sober : I pondered well of what I ought to say, and the
more I pondered, I grew the snore perplext. At last I
came to the house, and being counselled anent the rap-
ping, I gave a knock on the brazen gate, a, if I had been
ca'ing a nail in with a hammer; at the which & fat gasy
flunky opened it.
" Does the Duke live here?' quo' I.
" What Duke?' said he, looking at see saucily, front

top to toe.
" ' The great Duke,' was my dry answer.
" What's your wife's name?' said he.
" Ah, ah !' quo' 1, ye want to ken mine ?—but ye
look two ways for Sunday before I'm explicit ;—but is
this the Duke of Pumpington's? I kent it was.'
" It is,' said the man, a little cowed from his audacity.
" Then, my man,' said 1, ' ye'll just let him know
that the Lord Dean o' Guild of a borough that he knows
right well, has come all the way from Scotland to speak
with him concerning an extraordinary come•to•pass.'
" I would not have been just so peremptory, but I saw
by the looks of the man that he needed a dauntoning. So
when I said this, he took off his gold laced hat, and called
me my Lord,' saying, ' 1 did not recollect your Lord-
ship ; for ashen I was in Edinburgh, with the Earl of
Clawb ick, at the King's visit, my Lord Dean of Guild
was, I tl.ought, a different sort of looking man.'
" ' Very well,' said I; but let the Duke ken that I'm
at the door.'
" After some fraca with another flunky, I was taken
in by him, and shown into a room, where, as sure as
death, there was the Duke hims lf, at that early hour,
sitting on a❑ elbow-chair, with his legs dangling over
the arm of it, in a festoon-like manner, reading a
pamphlet.
" He rose up, and having requested me, with the height
of discretion, to take a chair, said—
" ' I did not, my Lord Dungael, at first recollect your
Lordship's title ; but I perceive you do not come often to
town.'
" How could the Duke know this? I told him, then,
that this was my first jaunt of the kind.
" Then he inquired, really just like a plain other man,
on what particular business I had come—which caused
me to reply without trepidation, that in our borough we
were in great straits, not knowing how to comport our-
selves in the hobble-show of the Reform, and would be glad
of his advice.
" Why,' said he, that's soon given : do what you
think's right.'
" Ay, my Lord Duke,' quo' I, what would your
Grace advise, if we were to turn Reformers?'
" If you are so inclined, you have no need of my
advice.'
" But we're not yet so inclined, please your Grace;
for until it is settled that the Whigs are to keep the
power, we have resolved to make no change in our prin-
ciples.'
" Api udent policy !' replied the Duke ; and I thought
I could discern a downward crook in the corners of his
mouth, which was not to the purpose; but, before I
had time to make an answer, he again said,—' But your
business, my Lord Dungael ?'
" Now, what I had to do was not a matter that could
be settled by such short questions ; and so I said, in
answer, very sedately—
" We are not sure among ourselves what is to come
out of this Reform ; and being intent to keep a calm
sough, we would rather follow your Grace, if we saw that
it would be for our advantage ; hut if there was no hope
of your restoration, it behoves us to consider about siding
with the Eat I.
"'lt is impossible,' replied his Grace, that I can
be otherwise than delighted to think that there are many
like you in the country !'
" The❑ your Grace does not yet despair of being
taken into the King's Council?—because, if you be
certain of that, we will be true to the back-bone.'
" I don't doubt it ;'_and rising from his seat and
pulling the bell, he inquired of the servant who answered
it if the Times newspaper had come; which I saw was
a signification to me to take my departal, and I did it
with all manner of courtesy, walking straight to Mr.
Glut's, to take my breakfast with him, as I had pro-
mised ; but, in going along, I chewed the cud of my
pasturing with the Duke, and really it was not pleasant

fodder that I had been eating. It was not of a sort that
I could say exactly in what it was not good ; but it did
not lie so well on my stomach, as I had some thoughts
it would have done, had he condescended to let me crack
a little longer in my free way•"'

Having failed in his efforts to pump the
Duke, the Dean next attacks Earl Grey ; but by
the advice of his friend, Mr. Gaut, who observes
to him, with amusing archness, " Don't let it be
known to a single soul that you intend to wait
on the Earl, for if you do, people will think it a
very extraordinary thing, and it may have an
effect on the funds, which are just now very
nervous," he resolves to keep his visit a profound
secret, and if questioned on the subject, to pre-
serve " a judicious suspension of intcgrity,"—
how much character is comprised in these few
words !—" which," adds the Dean, " should
sometimes be practised even when the heart is
fullest." But before he goes to the Earl, he pays a
visit to the House of Lords, where the Premier is
pointed out to him, and where he sees the Lord
Chancellor, sitting full-fledged on the woolsack,
of whom says our canny Scotch time-server, in his
own dry, quiet vein of mixed shrewdness and
simplicity, " Oh, but the Chancellor is a clever
man ; he looked from side to side in a manifest
affliction, because of the corruption around
him." On quitting the House the Dean hastens
at once to Earl Grey, by whom he is politely,
but somewhat stiffly, received, and in the lapse
of a few minutes, bowed out. He then, not
yet discouraged by his two repulses, calls upon

the Lord Chancellor, who, so far from being
pumped", as the Dean hoped, is himself the
pumper, sucks. the Scotchman's brains, and
then leaves him to bewail the ill-success of his

political experiment. The Jaunt is a sketch
in the same style as the Dean of Guild, though

a little more caricatured. It is a history of his
own travels in Greece, penned by a Scotch
baillie, who saw only one remarkable thing in
Paris, viz., the " Jordan of Plants, in which
there is an elephant that has the sagacity of a

provost !" Whoever desires to get an insight
into Mr. Galt's best and most peculiar style,
cannot do better than peruse these two naive

sketches.

GOLDENTHAL. A TALE.

This is a translation from a tale by Zschokke,
which few villagers of Germany and Switzer-
land are not acquainted with; either in a German
or French dress. It is in those countries what
Miss Martineau's tales have been to England,
only, if' any thing, still more popular, or rather
extending its popularity into a lower grade of
society than we fear usually read Miss Mar-
tineau's tales. Perhaps this may be accounted
for by the difference in the plans of the two
writers. Although domestic matters are mix-
ed up in some of Miss Martineau's most
beautiful passages, yet there is almost in
all her tales a dominant desire to remedy poli-
tical grievances. Now Zschokke has not once
touched upon the unhappiness of which
poli-
tical government may be the cause, but has de-
voted his pages entirely to descriptions of do-
mestic mismanagement, its evil effects upon a
community, and how much it is in the power of
a single individual to do towards the restoration
of the social happiness of his fellow citizens.
That the " Goldenthal" will be as popular in
England as it has been in Germany and Swit-
zerland, we cannot doubt, for in spite of an
occasional stiffness in the language, perhaps
unavoidable in the translation of such a work,
the whole tale is one unbroken chain of inte-
rest, full of descriptions of the most affecting
nature. We had marked several passages for
extracts, but upon consideration we perceive that
so much of their beauty depends upon a full
understanding of the character and objects of
the hero, that it would be an injustice to the
work to dislocate a single scene, whilst for more
we have not space.