The Sun.
London, England, 1856-04-18 00:00:00

LITERAT UitE.

Putnam's Monthly Magazine. Sampson Low,
Son, and Co.
The number for this month contains several
fresh and vigorous papers. The opening. article
s a very temperate and sensible one ou "'Religious
Freedom in America." There is a "fast and
furious" tendency to theological disputations in
the young country, but vindictive argument and
declamatory assertion are no very edifying substi-
tutes for Christian toleration and truth, and tin
following remark is worthy of consideration in its
most universal acceptation :

"A sectional spirit in politics is bad enough, but the
attempt to carry it, into literature and history—and that,
too, under cover of sentimental liberality and a specia
regard for jestice—deserves to be at once exposed an.l
rebuked."

• The paper headed " Have 'Animals Soule
repay the perusal. It mingles fact and speculation_
in a very suggestive tone, and has much of novelty
to recommend it. The " Poetry of Robert Brown
ing" is fully disclissed, aid we as fully subscribe
to the accuracy of the opening sentence, "Robert
Browning's poetry is very hard reading." In "A-
-' Talk about Popular Songs " the writer says :
' "As to Moore's songs, the Irisli in general do not,
sing them. The peop!eof the cities and towns, in thei
singing moments, usually choose others of a more rac,
order, and many which express the old airs in words di'
'erent from Moore's. There, and everywhere else,
'Rory O'More,' the 'Bold Soldier Boy,' ,Wldow Macl;
tee,' and the Low-hacked Car,' are heard twice as (Ste('
A 8 Go where glory waits thee,' the 'Meeting, of th,
Waters, or the Harp of Tara.' The marole balls .;
;he English aristocracy were bad places fir
anythin
:ike Irish inspiration, apparently ; and Moore seems t,
have taken' his old'airs to . make melodies fur Angl,
iaxondors, as other took the stones Of the old castle. t
uake elegant modern houses—thinking they put then,
1 a very good use, too, His songs have toe much re
inement, and too little pathos and simple heartiness, t,
_')e popularly cherished among his countrymen. Tiv-
frish.speaking portien of them do not know his songs, o! •
' lauree. Some time ago an attempt was made ,to turn
these into the Irish ;,but the experiment, with his pointed
And figurative stanza., was a failure.
The "Political" articles are broad and gerie-
rous in spirit, and the " carving " of "new works,"
both Transatlantic and European, is done in rb
competent and just style.

A Month at Malvern. By R. J. Lane, A.E,R.A.
Spirits and Prater. By It. J. L.
Mitchell, Old Bond-street.
The first of these works was published some ten
years since, giving a pleasant diary of a few weeks
pent by Mr. Lane and his son at Dr. Wilson's.
Water-cure Establishment, Great Malvern. Thug
book has run through several editions, and may l'.
pronounced pleasing and interesting. It gives a
minute account of "Packing," "Doucheing,"
Sitzing, and exercising—interspersing the detail
of the daily duties,of Hydropa,thy with episodes of
pit-nits to Camp Hill, sketches of eccentric patients,
practical cheats pit upon the Doctor, and gossip
mg anecdotes of various:kinds, calculated to allure
Any tolerably well-to-do invalids to undergo the
process of being washed clean from their physical
evils._ Mr.. Lane derived such immense benefit
from the treatment that he would indeed be a most
„ungrateful. patient net to speak as enthusiastically
as he noes ofit. We only hope that every sufferer
who tries the same system may be equally fortu
nate in the resnits arising from it.
Spirits and Prater is a-cheerful little book, not
mixing alcoholic fire with the pure element, but
infusing instead, a strong dash of that mental exhi-
laration which is derived from the original vintage
of Health and'Strnngth; It yields the particulars
of two walking tours through South Wales and the
:Isle of Wight ; telling us, among innumerable
points of information, the most useful fittings for
A travelling knapsack and the medical appliance for
.a ;blistered. toe.: 'Altogether, the volume is very
readable, and concludes with some specimens of
poetry, which, though reminding us of Words-
worth and lIDOd,, cannot be considered, in Mir
candid criticism, as likely to extinguish either.

rorder Lands of France and Spain. 1 vol.
Chapman and Hall.
it is such an agreeable variety to meet with
book of travels not relation to either Turkey-or
Russia, that the:author's: apology for publishing
the record of a Visit to the mountains of South-
western Europe at the present epoch is rendered
unnecessary. In explaining his reasons for issuing
a work on the Peninsula,,at a time when he sup-
poses the sympathies of the public to be wholly
directed to the frontiers of Asia, he tells us tha.t it
was commenced with no other view than that of
occupying some idle time, but that it gives a
faithful pictuie of what he saw in his expeditiou,
and portrays the social ppeculiaritie.: of a district
unvisited by moet:travelfers. In, the first part of
his work he give's a view of the Basque PrevlUces,
aud the narratiV* of a visit to,the romantic district 1
ofirearu, a &pot esegiaited with the me oozy of WI

Irish Quarterly 'Review. Sinspkin, Marshall, and
- • Co.
This Review admirably maintains its sterling
and liberal principles. The current number .con-
tains ten, distinct articles on important and interest-
ing subjects, the first being a most ably-written
digest of the Poems lately given to the world by
Longfellow, Bailey, and Browning. The writer
expresses the same wonder which is elicited in every
intelligent and impartially-critical mind, viz., how
authors who can create such natural beauties can
perpetrate such literary atrocities; and regrets that
the love of mystification and inane scribbling should
invest the sunny slopes of Parnassus with the at-
mosphere of Bedlam. We do earnestly hope that
the obscure and meaningless poetic productions so
awfully predominant at present will come under the
severe dennaciation of all honest critics, until the
mistaken'anthors are convinced that "divine. in-
spiration" is by no means synonymous with dis-
cordant nonsense or turgid bombast. It is high
time some of our modern bards discovered that the
People's taste and judgment will not accept spas-
modic syllables as immortal breathings, and not all
that toadying cliqueism can effect, will transmute
erratic quicksilver, or heavy leal, into Apollonian
gold.

There is a charming, continuation of the bio-
graphy of the Irish novelist, John Banim, replete
with curious and i,nteresting matter ; and there is
a lengthy paper headed " War and Peace," which
claims especial eulogy, and cannot be too widely
read. It deals sternly, but discretionally, with the
unfortunate systems of management and series of
incidents which have inflicted no small share of
discredit—to use the gentlest word—on our na
rional glory. The naval, military, and general
iinancial ,tatistics in this article are copious and
explicit beyond the average of such statements,
and deserve attention. We conclude our notice cf
this healthy periodical with the following extract
from the last-meationed paper :
" We bad hoped ere concluding this article to have
been able to announce and comment upon the final terms
sf peace. But up to this moment nothing further is
'inown, at least by the general public, than was known
-hree or four weeks ago. It is still left to conjecture
whether there is, or is not, more sincerity in the Russian
teeeptation of bases' this year than when they excited
and disappointed our hopes, this time twelve months.
We know not what concession or surrender of ill
Acquired territory Russia is prepared to make, or what
guarantee will be exacted from her against future ag-
zreasions. Judging from the past, she will, unless ef-
`actively bound down and restrained by some permanent
And well-guaranteed arrangements, only bide her time.
Inds wait for some period of European distractions to
resume her course of rapine and unjust acquisitive.
"She took advantage of the beginnings of the Ameri
can Revolution to secure a lion's share in the first parti
time of unhappy Poland, and subsequently advanced her
southern armies till they occupied the northern shores 01
the Sea of Azof, and secured the course of the Dnieper
When England and France were alike nearly exhausted
by war in 1783, she annexed the territory of the Dolt
Cossacks to the shores of the Caspian, and entered the
Crimea. In 1792, in the first wild throes of the French
Revolution, she seized the country between the Doieste-
and the Boug and completed the second partition of
land. In 1795, the war of the French Revolution beine
then hot in Europe and all attention engaged by it, ,ht
effected the third and final partition of Poland. In 1802
she seized upon Minkrelia. In 1803 she invaded
Georgia. In 1805 she seized the territories of Ksrabagh
and Mongatchon, and in 1806 Sharnaki, on the Caepial,
tea. In 1807, and the subsequent years till the conclu-
ion of the war, Russia continued her advances in the
East, taking advantage- of the distractions of Eur spe.
and marking each =successive year with a fresh achiev,-
4ent of rapine. These her unjust acquisitions received
t tacit sanction ficim the Holy Alliance' in 1815, am;
le active addition to them in permitting her to abso: h
-he Duchy of Warsaw, and finally shut Sweden out from
tier plundered province of Finland.
" Reluctantly She now found herself compelled to holy'
ler hand, the other powers of Europe having at lengt3
:line to look around them, and beginning to manifest n,
little wonder and anxiety at what she had been doing
Nhile their attention was engaged in their own struggle
for existence. And it was not till 1829 that her state,-
men ventured to more forward again, when euspici,
had been lulled to sleep, and France and Eaglane, for
purposes of their own, were courting Russia, and hat]
but a year or two before; in conjunction with Russia,
annihilated for the time the naval power of Turkey, and
lismembered her territory. The treaty of Adrianople
and of Unkiar-Skelesi attest that Russia, and Russia
alone, profited in the end by the alliance.
"It is to be hoped that in the Conference now about
to meet at Paris, if it be judged impossible to insist upo,
giving up of many of these ill-gotten acquisitions and
advantages, adequate guarantees will at any rate be in
-isted upon as to desieting..from future aggression, are;
•ach arrangements made for the Danubian provinces amp.
.siatic Turkey, as will make those countries bulwarks
ss it were, against Russia, should she attempt hereafter
.o violate her engagements."