The Sun.
London, England, 1833-05-02 00:00:00

THE MAGAZINES.

BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.

Christopher is napping in this number—
bonus dorrnitat Honzerzrs—but these are acci-
dents that occasionally occur, even with the best
and most vigilant editor. The most readable
article is the " Twaddle on Tweedside," and
even this is far from being one of Professor
Wilson's most fortunate specimens of gossipry.
It is too much an imitation of past papers of the
same desultory character. " The Letter to the
King on the Irish Church Bill," is sad twaddle.
It is an attempt to sound the trumpet of alarm—
to "beat the drum ecclesiastic"—so as to scare the
isle from its propriety. It will scarcely have this
effect, for it is full of the most obvious sophis-
tries and misrepresentations. " Tom Cringie's
Log" is rough and racy, but somewhat deficient
in incident. " The Chief," by John Galt,
though meant to be sprightly and sarcastic, is
as dry as a ship-biscuit. " The East India
Question" argues on the wrong side of the
question with considerable ingenuity. It is an
adroit bit of special pleading. We have ro
space for extracts.

FRASER'S MAGAZINE.

There is more talent in this month's magazine

than in all the others put together. The com-
parison between Mirabeau and Byron in the fir:t
article, is drawn with a world of spirit and in-
genuity. The superioiqty in point of intellect is
accorded to the French demagogue. Why cr
wherefore we know not. Mirabeau was a mast( r
of clap traps ; and none of his speeches, and
few of his sayings, will reach posterity. They
are forgotten already. Surely this is not the
case with the author of " Don Juan." We
extract the following. It will amuse, if it do
not convince:—

"Mirabeau and Byron, toe, were both exceedingly vain
of their declamation, of their persons, and of their profi-
ciency and excellence in athletic exercises ; and both were
fond of carrying arms, and partial to the buccaneer wea•
pon. They were both men of a disposition singularly
affectionate; yet they really had, neither through life nor
at their death, a single friend. Byron's nearest approxi-
mation at the last to a friend, it would appear, was Moore
—and a very distant approximation he himself gives us to
understand it was. Miraheau's was Talleyrand—on the
possibility of any good quality in whom, in relation with
his fellow-creatures, it would be idle to offer a comment.
Both were at heart of a melancholy temperament, yet
both possessed singular elasticity of spirits, and revelled in
occasional fits of unbridled merriment; and both indeed
existed only in a succession of excitements, physical and
mental. Both, like the many of high genius, apprehended
madness—dreaded, in the words of swift, " dying at
top ;" and both had moods of mind in which they actually
doubted their own sanity. Both, too, exhibited a touch
of monomania, in the feeling which was ever inducing
them to exaggerate their proper offences in the eye of the
world, and darkly to insinuate, as it were, in a confession
wrung from the agonized heart, that they were the per-
petrators of some all-nameless crime, which, however, had
not a local existence even in their own imaginations. Ay,
both were eternally arraigning themselves as the worst of
sinners ; albeit, from all that could be ever ascertained,
they actually were not a whit worse than their neighbours,
and differed from the multitude only in the morbid feeling
which led them to proclaim what others would anxiously
conceal; and in the circumstances which kept them du-
ring the gre it portion of their lives exposed to the inquisi-
tion of a thousand eyes. Bath, too, affected to believe, or
perhaps truly fancied, that there was an eradicable taint
of fierceness—of savageness—in their blood and race."
" Ilaywood's Translation of Goethe's Faust,"