The Sun.
London, England, 1851-11-01 00:00:00

MAGAZINE-DAY.
BLACK WOOD.

Pisistratus gives us an instalment of his " Novel,"
somewhat darkened this month by the pressure of
that evil genius of the narrative, Randal Leslie. His
character is altogether so detestable of its kind, that
we cannot acknowledge to any very profound interest
in the prospect of his success in regard to the renova-
tion of Rood Hall. The account of its dilapidated
condition, and of the miserable and slovenly abase-
ment of his family,is amusing enough as a delineation
of a class unhappily too numerous. Oliver, degraded
into the butt of tAs boorish playmates, Juliet, dege-
nerating into a most slatternly reader of novels, with
her hair about her ears, the mother rating everyone
around her with a querulous and intermiable series of
complaints, and the poor weak-minded, do-nothing
father, maundering among his pigs and chickens
with only energy enough left to express a wish
for better fortunes,—are all of them life-like
portraitures, so life-like as to be even painfully depres-
sing. Frank Hazledean seems to be on the fair road
to what Mr. Mantellini called "the demnition bow-
wows." Of Leonard we hear nothing; neither have
we a glimpse of Helen, or of her patron and our espe-
cial favourite Harley rEstrange. Besides which,
Audley Egerton appears no longer on the stage, and
the Squire, and his Harry, and Parson Dale, and
Richard Avenel, and Burley, and the tinker, and his
donkey, are all of them left for the time, tin sporting
phrase, nowhere. Riecabocca only speaks a sentence
at the close of the few chapters lying before us, but
the circumstances under which we again listen to his
voice are such as invest even those few words with a
peculiar interest. A threatening cloud seems to have
suddenly passed over the sunshine of his secluded life,
and danger impends also over the head of Violante, his
daughter. Randal is of course the immediate cause
of this danger—instigated to a plot against the peace
of the poor exile by information conveyed to him in-
directly through Giulio Franzini, Count di Peschiera,
the brother of Beatrice, the beautiful and rather
unfortunate than reprehensible Marchesa di Negra.
The preliminary chapter, in which our gifted author
analyses his present composition, is perhaps the most
interesting portion of the present instalment of these
" Varieties of English Life." The plot of the whole
story has by this time become so strangely entangled
that we look with curiosity for its unravelment. We
arerejoiced to see in the first contribution to Ebony for
November a most eulogistic, and deservedly eulogistic
criticism on " The Dramas of Henry Taylor."
Speaking of Philip Van Artevelde, the reviewer says
decisively, " there have been greater poems,
but in modern times we do not think
there has appeared any dramatic composi-
tion which can be pronounced superior to the
masterpiece of Henry Taylor." In uttering this opi-
nion, the writer of course does not mean to gainsay
the genius displayed in Lord Byron's Sardanapalus,
in Coleridge's Remorse, or in Shelley's wonderful
tragedy of The Cenci—but he yields the preference to
Philip Van Artevelde, by reason of its being "a more
complete dramatic work." As magazine stories, we
have here in Blackwood, " A Legend of Gibraltar,"
and a Norse tale, entitled the " Master Thief," both
of which will be read with satisfaction. A masterly
paper is also furnished on " The Submarine Tele-
graph," with some very agreeable and gossipping
"German Letters from Paris," in which the antecedents
of the President are, we conceive, rather shamefully
and unfairly underrated. Besides these are articles
headed " Autumn Politics," throughout which Maga
rings the changes again and again on the old lac-
quered sophisms of Protection. The writer, while
endeavouring, doubtless, to render his onslaught upon
free trade worthy itself of the title, unluckily makes
himself liable by these means to be assailed as—a Po-
litical Smasher.