The Sun.
London, England, 1856-02-12 00:00:00

AUSTRIA.

A letter from Vienna of the 7th, in the Augsburg
Gazette, says :—" Austria continues disarming her
frontiers nearest Russia. On the sth, two special
trains brought here from Cracow a number of siege
pieces • yesterday the pontoon materiel arrived.
The reduction of the army is being effected without
interruption, and at the market of Malzleinsdorf
yesterday a considerable number of artillery and
cavalry horses were sold." Another letter from
the 'same city and of the same date, in the Post
Gazette of Frankfort, says The Hungarian
officer Turr, who has been so much talked about
lately, did not obtain his pardon until after he had '
been tried by the court-martial of Carlsburg, and
condemned to death: Immediately on his pardon
being granted, he was set at liberty."

The Memorial des Pyrenees states that Queen
Isabella has named General Bosquet grandee of
Spain of the first class.

L ITERATURE.

Noctes .Ambrosiance. Vol. 111, By Professor
Wilson. Blackwood and Sons.
Eight more Noctes are comprised in this addi-
tional instalment of the selected writings of Pro-
fessor Wilson—a volume bringing us down from the
June of 1830 to thoNoVember of 1832. And over-
whelming us as we advance in its perusal with the
usual avalanche of wit, and wisdom, and poetry,
and humour, and satire, and philosophy. The
daring of the Professor's slashing, lashing, crash-
ing, dashing criticism upon everything and every-
body, just as themes happened at the time
t• come within reach of his tremendous crutch,
is rendered by this new volume of the collective
reprint of these IST octes, if that be possible, more than
ever apparent. Fancy nowadays,--only just fancy
for a moment—while the third and fourth volumes
of his great History have just passed through a
first edition of some thirty thousand copies (to
begin with !), while almost everyone is lamenting
his recent withdrawal from the representation of
Edinburgh as a calamity to the House of Commons,
while his Essays are constantly selling in three si-
multaneous editions, and while his "Lays of Ancient
Rome " are among the' household words of every
lettered Englishman—fancy, we say, North and.
Tickler, and the Shepherd, jeering, sneering, and
fleering at Thomas'Babington Macaulay—under
what epithets ? As "the creature 1" As "a
small malignant 1" As " a prig !" As "dishonest r
As "a bairn I" As "a sumph !" As "a prick-
ma-dainty reviewer 1". Pelting him boldly with
the like dead cats, brick-bats, and rotten eggs of
rhetoric. So trenchant, rash, and audacious were
the thrusts made of old by the knights-errant of
Blackwood—the terrible triumvirate of the re-
nowned and formidable Noctes Ambrosiancs. A
more brilliant example of their exquisite and subtle
appreciativeness of whatever is either sublime or
beautiful, for which appreciativeness the genius of
Professor Wison was pre-eminently distinguished
among the more illustrious critics of his generation,
could hardly be instanced than the following' mas-
terly illustration by Tickler of Milton's matchless
description of Death, at the gates of Pandemonium.
Here is the renowned passage, itself transcribed ver-
batim from the celestial epic. We all know
it by heart—but here it is (for the clearer demon-
stration of the aptness of Tickler's commentaries)
nevertheless. -

"The other Shape,
If Shape it might be called, that shape had none
Distinguishable in momber, joint or limb ;
Or substance might be called that shadow seemed,
For each seemed either ; black it stood as Night,
Fierce as ten Furies, terrible as Hell,
And shook d dreadful dart; what seemed its head
The likeness of a kingly crown had on.
Satan was now at hand-"
And here follows the inimitable comnasntary placed
ley Jo'in Wilson in the mouth of—

"Tickler (taking North's crutch under his arm and imi-
tating the voice, gesture, and manner of the ' old man chi-
ortent').—ln this sublime passage the power of Imagina-
tion is at its height. This Being, who, at the gates of
hell, offers combat to Satan, has not even yet been named,
as if the poet were so lost in the emotion accompanying
the sight of the phantom he had himself conjured up, that
even a very name had not risen yet for what was so unsub-
stantial. He scarcely dares to call it by the vague term
Shape ' but as soon as he does so, qualifies even that ap-
proach to substantiality, by saying, ' if Shape it might be
called, which shape had none distinguishable,' or sub-
co might be called that shadow seemed.' Then he adds
that still farther feeling of unreality each seemed
either,' that is, substance seemed shadow, shadow seemed
substance. Thus uncertain in its horror to his eyes,
black it seemed as night ;' not utter darkness, but some-
thing black and grim, darkness visible'— fierce—not as a
Fury—for that would be something too definite, since the
image of a fury is of something conceived to exist—but
fierce as ten furies, an expression in which all individua-
lity is lost, and nothing conveyed to the mind but an idea
of aggregated and accumulated fierceness. Terrible as
hell' is still more vague, and purposely so, or rather so
under the power of the emotion ; yet in all this obscurity,
unsubstantiality, and shadowiness, it shook a dreadful
dart (observe how much effect is is that word it), some-
thing not described by any quality, as of size or shape, but
merely dreadful '—how, why, or in what dreadful, we
know not; while this motion of its weapon directs the
mind to look on the Shape that brandishes it, and le that
which seemed its head—not its head, but that which in
that fury-haunted and infernal darkness seemed its head--
the likeness—not the reality—but the likeness of a kingly
crown had on ! Poetry alone could give such an Imagina-
tion as this--for painting would at once of necessity give
outlines, features, realities, which, however enveloped in
obscurity, would be fatal to the fearful effect, and embody
too sensibly the here almost unembodied attributes of this
seeming, shadowy, threatening, scarcely-existing, yet most
terrific Impersonation !"
Enough, After that single extract from the Noctes
it were idle to disoant upon their manifold graces
whether of critical acumen or of conversational elo-
quence. The collective work is in itself a perfect
repertory of wit and wisdom abounding in tokens
of the most delicate sensibility and of the most
•
boisterous exhilaration.- •Af masterpiece in truth
to be read alternately with tears of tenderness aid
shouts of laughter. The miraculous evidence, in
short, of animal spirits the most hilarious and of
intellectual powers the most vigorous and the most
comprehensive.

The Martins. No. XV. By Charles Lever.
Young Nelligan so wins glory with his fir,t brief
that he astonishes the big-wigs and becomes all at
once the pride of Oughterard. Probably we shall
have him M.P. for the borough after all in the room
of Jack Massingbred. Meanwhile poor Mary Mar-
tin is threatened by Lady Dorothy with exclusion
from her old home in the great house of Cro'
Martin. Her uncle still lying paralysed in Paris,
and her father (evidently) turning up in the person
of the mysterious stranger named Barry, lingering
about the family place doing deeds of benevolence.
Mr. Herman Merl, after looking with eyes of
rapine upon the estate on which he has so formi-
dable a lien, is scared from the west of Ireland by
one or two startling occurrences—frightened by &
pistol-shot fired by Mary Martin, and threatened
with a duel thrust upon him by Tom Magennis.
These occurrences grow, by the way, out of
perhaps the only animated incident yet re-
counted in the history of " The Martins," that
namely of the incursion into Cro' Martin of the
said Magennis in quest of Joan who has run away
from him on the demise of her old grandfather !
Mr. Lever enlivens the present number of his new
serial story, moreover, with a humorous description
of Siminy Crowe's discomfiture when Herman
Merl depreciates one after another the vaunted
treasures of art decorating the walls of the great
drawing-room of Cro' Martin. "Oh dear, oh
dear ! Did I ever hear the like of this !" cries the
poor painter as he finds a Both dwindling into
a Woeffe], and a Mieres collapsing into a Jansens
and a Saivator Rosa dropping down into a Haem-
lens. A little more and we saould have had SimmY
introducing his bootmaker to the tailor of Mr. Her-
man Merl—but for the opportune interruption of
Magenuis's housebreaking invasion of Cro' Martin-
With the ignominious flight of the Jew gambler
fora Galway thg ;maim letfoie torasiagerrir

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