The Sun.
London, England, 1834-06-26 00:00:00

LITERATTIRt,

DA VID CROCKETT S Lll'E.—London,lt334.
A work evidently per Med in a con amore
spirit, and with a high zest fof feal and adven-
ture. It is the autobiography of a Xeutucky
man, who answers to the name—a fictitious
one, we presume—of David Crockett, and is
made up of stirring incidents and fresh un-
varnished pictures of savage life in the back
woods of America. A few of the writer's ad-
ventures border a little on the marvellous, espe-
cially those with the Creek Indians, but he
tells them-with such an earnest air,. and such an
utter absence of effect, that we should not be
doing him justice, were we to say more than
that we have just a slight suspicion of their
authenticity. The book is •an exceedingly
amusing one, and the style, which is abOut as
rough as the edge of a sailor's razor, is by no
means the least amusing part of it.

THE BOOK OF APHORISMS.
Glasgow, 1834.

There is much clevern- es, but more shallowness and
assumption in this little book, which is nevertheless
amusing, if it be not edifying. .The author lays down
his dogmas with an air of self-sufficiency, as though
he combined the thoughtful sagacity of a Roche-
foucault with the literary weight and authority of a
Johnson. He plays the " Sir Oracle" in every
page ; tosses off his " Aphorisms" with an air ; and
challenges the world's admiration of his cunning. In
a brief, pithy preface, he modestly hints a "if any of
my ideas are taken from others." Now we can assure
him that scarce more than a dozen, out of his six hun-
dred and seventy-five aphorisms, have the slightest
pretensions to originality ; he has clothed himself
from head to foot in borrowed garments ; and if the
rightful owners were ever to step forward and claim
them, he would be stripped as stark naked as unfig-
leafed Adam. The well-known O'Doherty of Black-
wood is a writer whom he has laid under the most
grievous contributions. Not content, however, with
pillaging his ideas, he imitates also his manner ; but
that which is in excellent keeping with the off-hand,
reckless character of the Irishman's humour, is
very much out of place when proceeding from a
flippant and somewhat pedantic Scotchman. We
say flippant, because we can scarcely find a single
page in which the words " puppy," " ass," " block-
head," " bore," " liar," &c., are not introduced—
just as if the author, embodying the perfection of
humanity in his own person, were justified in " cast-
ing the stone" at others ! In one of his aphorisms
he has so happily defined the character of his pre-
sent publication, that we feel that any lengthened or
elaborate criticism is superfluous. " A great deal
of what is called wit," says he, " comes under the
head of impertinence." In common fairness, how-
ever, to him, we subjoin a few of his shrewdest and
most striking remarks. There is great truth, and
so far as we can say to the contrary, novelty, in
this aphorism :
" Girls have a naughty custom of caressing and kissing
children in the presence of young men. I say naughty,
not for the thing itself, but for the reason which makes
the cunning young creatures do it." _

• •

" Never lend umbrellas."

This is sound advice, and from the pithy and un-
ceremonious way in which it is put, is, we doubt
not, the result of painful experience. To lend an
umbrella io an acquaintance is like lending money
to a poet. It is never returned. There arc cases,
however, in which it is next to impossible to refuse
the loan of one's umbrella, and when such occur,
the best way is to lend a cotton one, and go instantly
and borrow a silk, by which means you obtain an
indemnity for whatever casualties may occur.

" I never knew a person with a badly developed head
who was a believer in Phrenology."

Our limits prevent us from going further into
detail.

PARTY SPIRIT.—Those who remember him
cannot fail to recollect that the celebrated John Wilks
was one of the ugliest men imaginable. Once upon
a time, as Wilks was speaking from the Middlesex
hustings, a supporter was so transported by his elo-
quence, as to exclaim—" What a beautiful man he
is !" " Beautiful !" exclaimed a bystander, " why he
squints confoundedly." " Not a bit more," rejoined
the other, " than a gentleman ought to squint."
In the workhouse of Epsom there were only
nine deaths during the last year, and the aggregate
ages of the deceased persons amounted to 710 years.
Gloucester Lodge, the house at Old Bromp-
ton, formerly occupied by Mr. Canning, has been taken
for Don Carlos and his suite, who are, we understand,
expected in town in a day or two.
THE APPROACHING SESSIONS.—The
Westminster Sessions commence this day, the Mid-
dlesex on Monday, the London on Wednesday, the
Old Bailey on Thursday, and the Surrey on Monday
week.
A SCENE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
—CHARLOTTE CORDAY.—AS the cart in which she
was seated proceeded towards the place of execution,
. a crowd of wretches in the street, ever ready to insult
the unfortunate, and glut their eyes withthe sight of
blood, called out, " To the guillotine with her !"—" I
am on my way thither," she mildly replied, turning
towards them. She was a striking figure as she sat in
the cart. The extraordinary beauty of her features,
and the mildness of her look, strongly contrasted with
the murderer's red garment which she wore. She
smiled at the spectators whenever she perceived marks
of sympathy rather than of curiosity, and this smile
gave a truly Raphaelic expression to her countenance.
Adam Lux, a deputy of Mayence, having met the
cart, shortly after it left the Conciergerie, gazed with
wonder at this beautiful apparition—for he had never
before seen Charlotte—and a passion, as singular as it
was deep, immediately took possession of his mind.
" Oh !" cried he, " this woman is surely greater than
Brutus !" Anxious once more to behold her, he ran
at full speed towards the Palais Royal, which he
reached before the cart arrived in front of it. An-
other look which he cast upon Charlotte Corday com-
pletely unsettled his reason. The world to him had
suddenly become a void, and he resolved to quit it.
Rushing like a madman to his own house, he wrote a
letter to the revolutionary tribunal, in which he re-
peated the words he bad already uttered at the sight
of Charlotte Corday, and concluded by asking to be
condemned to death, in order that he might join
her in a better world. His request was granted,
and he was executed soon after. Before he
died, he begged the executioner to bind him
with the very cords that had before encircled the
delicate limbs of Charlotte upon the same scaf-
fold, and his head fell as he was pronouncing her
name. Charlotte Corday, wholly absorbed by the
solemnity of her last moments, had not perceived the
effect she had produced upon Adam Lux, and died in
ignorance of it. Having reached the foot of the guil-
lotine, she ascended the platform with a firm step, but
with the greatest modesty of demeanour. " Her
countenance," says an eye-witnes3, " evinced only the
calmness of a soul at peace with itself." The executioner
having removed the handkerchief which covered her
shoulders and bosom, her face and neck became suffused
with a deep blush. Death had no terrors for her, but her
innate feelings of modesty were deeply wounded at
being thus exposed to public gaze. Her being fas-
tened to the fatal plank seemed a relief to her ; and
she eargerly rushed to death as a refuge against this
violation of female delicacy. When her head fell, the
executioner took it up, and bestowed a buffet upon one
of the cheeks. The eyes, which were already closed,
again opened and cast a look of indignation upon the
brute, as if consciousness had survived the separation
of the head from the body. This fact, extraordinary
as it may seem, has been averred by hundreds of eye-
witnesses; it has been accounted for in various ways,
and no one has ever questioned its truth.—Memoirs
iby the Duchess ql Abruntes.