The Sun.
London, England, 1851-01-02 00:00:00

THE SUN,

.MAGAZINES.
NEW MONTHLY.
Almost the oldest of the magazines, the .I!'"ew
Monthly promises to be one of the most brilliant fa-
vourites among the list of our popular periodicals. It
commences the second half of the nineteenth century
with unusual spirit—insomuch that the current nuns- '
ber for January promises very largely for the deve-
lopment of the powers of its contributors. These
contributors possess the advantage, moreover, in ad-
dition to their own innate abilities, of being marshalled
under the experienced and indefatigable editorship of
'William Harrison Ainsworth, himself one of the moat
successful romancists in our literature. Foremost of
course, for a variety of reasons, among the contents of
the New Monthly are the concluding chapters of the
biography of Sir Robert Pee), by the Very Reverend
the Dean of York—chapters abounding in egreeeble
anecdote, and yielding shrewd annotations on the
career of that great and lamented statesman. The
motives attributed to Sir Robert in his advocacy of
free-trade doctrines are deserving of espsciel con-
sideration. Interest will be felt likewise
in the memorial incidentally introduced of the first
baronet of the family. The allusion made after vvarda
to the rebuilding of Drayton Manor House assumes an
air of attraction, when it is remembered that the illus-
trious departed reposes in the little country church of
Drayton Bassett. Admirably and justly does the
Dean of York, in the eleventh chapter of the biogra-
phy, designate the late Sir Robert " the Meemnas of
his age." The subjoined paragraph comprises an ex-
c,.llent epitome of the more prominent features in
this great man's character. Now that he has been
taken from us his memory possesses a mournful as-
pect of fascination. Responding to this sentiment of
public regard for his illustrious relative, the Dean of
York observes :
" Sir Robert Peel was a pious Christian, a firm be-
liever in revealed religion, scrupulously attending public
worship and encouraging private prayer. He was ex-
emplary in all domestic duties, u dulful son, a kind
husband, an indulgent father; bravo, gentle, pls.eable,
honourable, true; and all these in the highest degree.
Had he, then, no faults? Nothing in this world is per-
fect; but the faults of Sir R. Peel wet e the almost ne-
cessary consequence of his position in the world. He was
cold, unfriendly, proud (no wonder !). lie was se:fish—
no, not selfish, as coveting the blot sings of others, but he
seemed doomed to live by himself and for himself. His
great talents, his extensive learninw, his immense wealth,
his high station, raised him above V,s3 common rite. of
mortal,. He stood like a statue on the top of a lofty
c•domn, for men to gaze at but not approach."
An anecdote about " Bishop Tomline and the Boiled
Hare" is delicious. " The Boiled Hare" is the sou-
briquet of a sermon, so called from its text, " The
slothful man roasteth not that which he tea
in hunting !" With reference to the subsequent
paper entitled " The Russians in Wallachia," we may
remark that it condenses into the compass of some two
dozen pages a lucid and masterly narrative of recent
proceedings in the Danubian Principalities--uncloak-
ing the evil policy of the Czar and doing full justice
to the course pursued throughout the transactions by
the Ottoman Government. The writer is evidently
possessed of full and accurate information, and his
familiarity with his subject enables him to convey in
a few sentences a fund of valuable information. After
the terrible books of Sir Francis Head and of Sir
Charles Napier, revealing beyond the possibility of a
doubt the fact that England is but inadequately
guarded from the accidents of invasion—it becomes
somewhat refreshing to listen to Mr. Jolly Green's
" Gallant Appeal to the Ladies," in which " the
fun of the thing" is exhausted by this facetious pen-
, and. ink caricaturist. Other justifications of the
second title of the New Monthly—namely, " the
Humorist"—are given in the current number for
January. Besides the " Gallant Appeal to the La-
dies," by Mr. Jolly Green, we have a Cornish legend,
entitled " Tregagle," by Father Poodles, P.P.—a
trifle of the most ludicrous description ; a droll con-
tinuation of Soapey Sponge's interminable " Sport-
ing Tour ;" and a very ludicrous conceit, called " The
Norman Dentist," by the practised hand of Dudley
Costello. Reviews of more thartusuall.ypretentious cha-
racter are numbered4asisongst.tet*prindpal-articles of
-ttie Neu: Monthly for' January: Tastid, ' :being the
iiirstrhalf of a clever. biographical and critical effusion
on the great celebrant of- Jertisalern, is the chief of
these reviews, and bears out the reputation of the Mae
kazine for discriminating judgMent and -refined scho-
larship. The Rev. Milman oe,e,ives from the hand
•
of the reviewer anythingbut. sebyssesn'ef• laurels, the
erieed of panegyric being yielad- exclusively to the-
=American biographer of the peat (Richard Henry
Wilde), for his work on the " Love end Madness. of
Torquato Tasso," a theme and title reminding
us of the Rev. Sir Herbert Croft's book,
also called " Love and Madness," and re-
lating to a different poet, Thomas Chatterton. Another
work excellently well reviewed is the exquisite vo-
lume recently published by the Messrs. Longman—
" The Lyrics of the Heart," by Alaric A. Watts.
To all magazine readers we commend "The Spectt'e
Haunted," an enthralling contribution by Cornelius
Colville ; and to all historical students we commend
as earnestly the paper on " Don John of Austria
end the Duke of Guise at Naples." Besides these
articles we might enumerate others, but we content
ourselves with the foregoing as sudcient to show the
veracity of our remark at the outset of the present
notice, that the New Monthly affords additional pro-
mise of maintaining its high position amongst the
most estimable of our periodicals.

FRASER.
There is wailing in the Protectionist camp, and a
furbishing op cf the old abusive epithets, even as there
was in 1846 ; but Fraser, not Peel, is now the
cause of the lamentation, and the object of the hue and
cry, for Fraser, the heretofore high Tory Fraser, high
Church Fraser, high Aristocracy Fraser, high Protec-
tionist Fraser, bath quitted the Protectionist camp, and
inaugurates the commencement of the second half of
the nineteenth century by a declaration, clear, distinct,
and explicit, of his belief in the truth of the doctrines
taught by political economists, more especially yin
that of free trade, and, like all new converts, he carries
out his principles to their utmost possible extent,
denounces the Poor-law as a " pernicious protec-
tion to British idleness," and calls for its
destruction. At the close of a retrospect
of the " First llalf of the Nineteenth Century,"
Fraser makes his new profession of faith in the fol-
lowing terms :
" In the belief that much of the misery which we all
bewail is duo more to individual misconduct than to
systematic attempts at oppression-:-due partly to the
mistaken kindness of the rich, partly to the depraved
he bits of the poor—we were the first to raise our voices
against the sin of indiscriminate almsgiving and the crime
of begging, and we have stood almost alone in our oppo-
sition to a poor-law, and yet we have not formally en-
rolled ourselves amongst the political economists, nor
given in our adhesion to the doctrines of free trade. The
time, however, seems to us to have arrived when every
honest man, and every honest organ of public opinion,
should make its confession of faith. Accordingly we now
announce our own acceptance of the ho'd measure of the
late Sir Robert Peel as a fait aceorepti, and devote our-
selves to the advocacy of such reforms as that new s ytem
shall seem to have rendered necessary. The repeal of the
so-called protection to British industry ought, we are
convinced, to be followed by the destruction of the far
more pernicious protection to British idleness."
Thus doth the cause of Protection, alias of wholesale
robbery, lose advocate after advocate_
"Friend after friend departs,"
and the most talented always go the first. The Pro-
tectionists may already be considersd a party without
leaders, they will soon be a party without or
with no liberte, little fraternite, but egalita of
ignorance the most crass, with Mr. G. F. Young as
Lord High Everything.
" That deep-mouthed Bo3otian, Savage Landor,"
bath vindicated his right to the epithet, by
publishing in this month's Fraser, five soenes
on the subject of the " Cenci," which ne-
cessarily provoke a comparison with Shelley ;
and for poets of the Landor calibre, such compari-
sons cannot but be dangerous. An article (the first
of a series) on the " Commerce of Africetis well
worthy the study of our manufacturers, merchants,
and commercial diplomatists ; the wi iter proves that
' there is a large market for our manufactures in the
interior of Africa, that the natives are anxious to
procure them, and have the means of giving us in
return commodities which are most valuable in the
European market, and of which they are willing to
dispose; that thus alltbe elements of an extensive
commerce exist, but that the commerce has never
been developed in consequence of our own errors—
errors which may, and we trust will, be
speedily corrected. Another paper of great com-
mercial interest is the article on " Railway Companies
and Railway Law," which we commend to the at-
tentive perusal of every railway shareholder, and of
every Member of Parlamcnt. Slovenly as
all our legislation has been, unjust as
too much of it is, the Railway code
may be considered as uniting in itself the maximum
of slovenliness to the maximum of injustice. In ad-
dition to these articles we have a pleasant gossiping
memoir of the Able de Voisenon and his times
(those times "so pleasant yet so wrong," those
wicked, witty times " when Louis XV. was King,"
and Voltaire, and Pana:d, and Piron were the wor-
shipped of French society), a gossip about Christmas
Books, notices of the Works of Thackeray and of
Robert Bell, besides sundry tales and divers poetical
contributions.

CUEAP RE-IBPSUB or PEPTS' DIARY.—The first
monthly volume of the cheap re-ittue of Pepys' celebrated
" Diary and Correspondence" has just aKeared. Thp pub-
lication is to be completed in five volumes, at 6s. each, and
there can belittle doubt, that in this copular for in, tLe work will
meet with an entirely new class of purchasers. "We un-
hesitatingly characterize this Journal (says the Edinburgh
Review) as the most remarkable production of its kind which
has ever been given to the world. Pepys' Diary makes us
comprehend the great historical events of the age and the
1 people who bore a part in them, and gives us more clear
glimpses into the true English life of the times than all the
other memorials of them that have come down to our own."