The Sun.
London, England, 1851-10-22 00:00:00

LITERATURE.
O T LAND.
tl n; 4/TES OF THE (.4 rIE _E A' .6' OF
l'lll. 11. I3y Agnes ,Stric
,;tie Our antleiparnons in re g ,r, to tl:is very
he
e series
Mind. Blackwood a,nid_Son, i.
.4, of blograpb.es is being fully realized.
i graph`"
of the work demonstrates, in ' every chap-
, In, second
•.: , ter, the aptitude of the authoress for these
must be
,1:' chanting corn ilations. If yowl which, it in
'':.,a... 0 iserved that everyP additional
of
''' ulf .adaiiratio for the ever visible impartiality _
page confirms us _
. kiss Stricklaentas an historian. It was observed
„ Most admirably of Mr. Macaulay, by the reviewers
of bis aunals in of
dlagazine—a era
,!,.,,, nerally understood to be no lsss important a
• than his understood
contemporary, Mr. A isoh
0..
Ipernson
bth:at he was called to the bar and not to the bench "'story• Not thus, however, i 3 it with our
authoress, all whose opinions upon the charactPeuerspniatntdd
i'sents crowded together in the annals
of
the
well-considered
iiingdoin are expressed in terms as
1!rtIcl Unimpassioned as any summing up that everlfteills
. otti the lips of the most conscientious
usr
tended
Lye,
possession of this quality more conspicuously,
Perhaps, than any other which has
t.
18.
triaeh to elevate Miss Strickland's reputa ia,..
l't°-"h‘ the numerous evidences of impartiality
forded by her evidences
in reference to questions of
teilosiderabie delicacy and importance, a certain weightas
Ras at length become attached to whatever she h
so far
Pealled subsequently. Confidence has been
14°1)40 by her former effusions that those sseybakch.
aefeterwards are given to the world are at onlevhtle,
rem
-,
moreover
with are
feeling of alacrity and reliance.
she has
Alias Strickland has thus rendered herself
'mutable for her truthfulness as a narrator,
~eoutrived to render her narrative at all times attra.c-.
rave b ~_
tAhe
in. Yterwesetc4htairms of her very graceful style, and by
has, never
,were
that
, .sing out of her anecdotal illustrations.the.
le,e at Cho severe muse, she
Dal i.avolded the denger of rendering her severity file;
eaalive' No meritricious ornaments of rhetorich
are
thl4ered through her volumes, although they A s
she°ll,l.!thout brilliant with oratorical decorations.sin As
her
4,0'48; 8° frequently and truthfully
,ttotlhde
t ItrSte quotation from Beaumont,
listed ;',
the past she
:ifqtylci:Yylaid up in old historic scrolls"utrsehaesuhreass
hos j_._a , and frona these records of
succeeded in extra9ting. passages of
7to. forgotten merit and inciden. ts, sometimes,.,
volumecommend,
in
the stirprising beauty.
ssorrastit series eve took HoCcrasieoPneetoing
setiti.e.s
tfirst a the time
of it. °f no inconsiderable earnestness, at
for
the Ppearance. We augured
•s , _ Ittidaf.. uer celebrated We
of the Queens
conse-
of the Zolseetnhisit splendid commencement of her " Lives
t D ofE ng-
of Scotland." The reflection
owl teetoo the re-examination of that opening
of
cation of its
illtialate, tided to assure us in this conviction.volume
Ptib• I bring recognised as an authority , and the
%side the second volume—the one
already
elpr talion--only confirms us in the opinions , 8
an
here under
t_ eased i -
the work a
antori , 1 regard to the merits of
eat co • .
naeotie !Disposition. Its contents may be briefly
the hie
Las consisting of the co.ncludi.ngthcehapters
whole of
the re' 4' of Mary of Lorraine anst
latter ernoirs of the Lady Margaret Douglas—the
ferinerW,ell kuown
kittlee
could
the
secohads thgeuCeeohunotess of Lennox,i4tnod
rthoe.
4 hook 1.,11c1c1 sUrely be more entficijnagmiens V.
dertakes to
%kit 0,1°11! like the one before us, undertakes subject than
tthe keit,: histories of the mothers, respefctively of
the un-
4°Ntiate sBs far Queen of Scots and.
Inoi,tit caord
' vaid ill a° Y reci)oradrzloiteYth. e memorable
serv` fated
perB eAfsocr ht
uanpetesrhsfptrhehlsimio'nary to the
'ear- 41Y iir the r onages those. herewseubdmointhtetdntoot,t.bbee
vastly a, 1 eadtng public will, .
-40 w be ce eoule, and every sentence in them we
ofthe sod
deserving- the very careful attention
of.. re
Curious
and.
reflective among the students
port", e recea.i
'"-er.:tel atiollitahl4 °f the United Kingdom.. embellishAos.this m.
fro .sii series
nf-i....iay published portion t
' ~..nthpieee, .-L oiographies, we have as the. engraved
rreooLt kaki: °lights, characteristic portraiitn
a-"a of Bias, 4'041 an original painting
and as a
othfeMoaori: 0,
excillieet Earl f
e , oi Morton, at Dalma
f t kars. 1. - vignette a group
the in-
inst Qua °U.orraine in the act of showing
Plthirts e•°' kavY Stuart, to Sir
ur4:,voituhea,
‘,„'42.l4teititil bkti,tit ju.st to remark, Both
of figurneesY. 'represent-
Ralph Sadler.
have been executed
:• • to ti tntstoan
i.iii skill on the part, not. only of the
.. titetcwoefk. uieuttteorf, the engraver likewise.
.APPlenedxed.
kit' or -
dad ill
onseoropaeg,ae,haatfaucsniguarailme ungrammatically
uto.
Osor' at theEtrY of Lorraine,
correctl
noillktl - close of a rather more
and °inf. the
anothera
Lttler of -Pis se that
of Margaret Douglas.
oaa
to tiler,.. ,
os toi,,NittZ,
t.y. the way, very marvellous spew.-
Asueosts..rtisoas .-Pi.y. We mention these particulars
pwahriteichultahres
44641514 (3' showing the care with
honour
40 `", we wood have entered upon a publication
of ti°,Atlie notillethc.,sat.isfied, to reflect so muc . *OIIP ,Wotk, 1:41 lierature. Revertino tbeliie twit:
tisoti 4 nere 01b°80Wever, as a literary composition,fo
h reader is
liath4:l, at the :tve that the attention o
ourthe
'elth sees hsvi ."...Y outset of the present v.oltuermeest,
ted ae,led of i.i3 levested with a peculiar interest ..,4 k log j, V hat death bed which.
Poled ary James .--t
reed 411211 ,
+.°f Lorraine to widowhood, and im-
4hVitlosibilitiao3;
ter.
(ilusd, as they proved. in. the end,
.fatal
kaa its to h u the head of his infant.d.a. u‘ gid
were
fora iscir wo, eq. she
his new burn 013"
Of 1„- his dstri--4°' the monarch almost
tone
(141-"L'irituitise interrogated the messenger
143,qter,,, '„ttle reply beinc,
, thatimmediately be-
'het' vare jr,
Bell tl° lefere we ' exclaimed
• kl nd
4 z..-0 the nee, says Miss Strickland
with
it
the wasKininagn,ae with
141,78, Rod c,r'wn of Scotland : it eame„ ~
a , " fare-
his la-m.eholy „ '.t Will pass with a lass ;
of
fen, Idow ,;(1111voque,” continues tbe biographer
the onoone. anidiarly
Vlit.lirle (‘stiitttife r('.3'.ni Poet having chosen that noun
for a),
l„. klatla Ing Which h
used in Scotland girl_ _
mt ell ,41 alas ! , etwice repeats the sorrowful
itlotihtthly ho
,‘,O express the disappointment of his
titota,hl *O,ll kis. " And so," she resumes, again
ck leptkri hinitildsa,.
.y of Pitscottie,
other, king
~ 0 his ordsa it°
With the
:Almighty God, an‘;cl, ataudrn esd6hhies
41711 ether f and his face to the wall.
ketrii, tia
his
James V., the history of -
%le% althoar/ StUart, may be said literally to corn
feon,e,°B of 8 Ugh that last and most famous of all the
thof W' Pot. triatld Was then only in her earliest in-
eotl ° lied of Mary Stuart and the history.
roe,holo ofairhe inextricably woven together during
Pith the hoor7 chequered existence of the former,
rkißow pcilfa taw hich she first drew breath in Lin-
the44alxe,°:„t° the moment of her terrible and
f
rutbie,,„ '"ott on the scaffold at the behest o
tocar,lailstao‘r' I,ivai, Queen Elizabeth. From
linthrq the' a lorrefore, that Miss Strickland
beetilin • eParture of James V., a new and
g Interest
ltorred toehed t enters into her narrative, the
.in.-
eolt, e 48 Well ° the career of one of the most ill
N'll4Blleil ss. 4 °tie of the most beautiful and 8C-
liNikte.4 kinap,'"d°,Og the more celebrated women of
hasthe
tioe„v:;ed ti;' that Princess whose fate
hteei Like 4,1 Vrnpathies of so many great poets
the
keia.tie of the
,r 1 Which she expired, Mary Stuart,
bathe4l%7 the 4.7404 Y of Schiller, the subject of some
4striO4 4 I°Vely
°!l oft bards.--th
1 bard of her
and Pathetic verses of those
t:lrd ,f 4,htr.y 8 e one the nations
saes -• nor eotiand, and the other the national
„,gt4r, 4,t ;. .
Lit4gr'
1 44°14". country Prance—Burns and
No D
,`log. deet.`; interesting to trace the sad and
4pfile,'etl whe interest of this extraordinary woman from
tied d e: and 11111 the
first development becomes per-
Aike at
of
ft
sort! 5 already perused the tale of love
~.4 , to'litA ow and splendour, as told by Lucy
Areehonotea`u to it with yet more breathless curiosity
Nil 14Rh the by the lips of Agnes Strickland
tioi:Ow fell° louse lying on our desk we
f canhr
1.,„,
eh ~., Iv the child-Queen through
dNeh to'.ltons ,
many o
We
-11tt' me effasa °I. least memorable vicissitudes.
IN 11;41 I.' Ww-...4 tande by Henry VIII. for her ab
bet'
the a 4 eery''ee those ainister endeavours foiled by
this
it kuleofed
1- 4waY with her mother to Stirling
o
ghee flat of i'elloox and I3'ithwell ;
uahi,4l to 1 her early coronation ; we hear of her
we listen t
4vriWto ; of iillehlnahOtrio ; of her marriage to the
DrecL.a France departure from Dumbarton ; of her
4, 111111.'1v to ; and of all those events which were
IN tling;
,_° he; return to the Scottish kingdom.
bc,..teeatiO4"'" lergely inPreparing the way
tit tight, Pest be
. Margaret
,at of 11111 be rrence, the memoir of
het 4tar found scarcely less interesting than
for the
la °t oftheYn of found
; so that the second instal:
titie Will be pw series of Royal Lives of Miss Strick
etato ° Pfofo"igti t° ho eminently successful in ex-
its
illiiid thB;, I:hatuetiofseietling of curiosity as to its sue.-
grati-
-4 ',lO ordin Y) we doubt not, will be
roioe anti' arY memoir—with Mary Stuart
.A 0.,,, augries Strickland as her biographer.
4 4.1,......s --_
~ to h;
,Joh, lii•C?C'D AND PROFANE. By
lilt 4 113 tr ci right Longman and Co.
the ll'illunle 171 Lict°rY re
marli;' the author of the pre-
:lfr. Ilf oet-La
14
tit
l' given to the world his estimate of
hi. ord,we
,httreste'B abilities. Regarding the late
this
titian,„R:enerrt" its Possibly the most overrated man
phis; „:ricer Must confess to having perused
t'l' APtt ftijeauP°° his writings with a feeling of very
Vre has W .-.'1412.4t. Air av Asa., t. • Wrightin has formed opinions
etr,,_, e ia„ rri
tif.4.14404a of "R
,entertai precisely coincident with those
ned our- 1 He considers the
k: Of a,„ , !nett 5n.,5.,, be veg.
NI ,-uerliities 'stied bard as a mere accumula7
km
•N with couche in the boldest language, and
t, .
1144 111.4aPpro • /114 u ofdetanhors of the most silly
talk y 0,141-late deseri,,,,in
,•-
i--1 eking of Shelley
01141,44,tii:tlbe::rottlriellizetionrpta.s-tLe'd 'aaleth each other, he
1144,13.10itif,(!1 ex'petid?ecitint f " th redundancy of
he driven to
Ns ea. .'artil sto
be himself with its p .
.all m ann,,eB.r
teesxpreasi er on be tabs
earnest-
-6' binder ve of i a . erves, with an.
isk„ an look thugnation, that "no judicious
48 P frl°l't pal
,111341 the • e
metrical ver-
the -°e'vY with tried unon the inarl
world
?tlatlllarronage
e4o°lii.t feeling Painfully fashionableconscious that
I 11'7.4,!sfurt,44:rred upon
Wordsworth was a na-
.eve hi, At there In illustration of his meaning
Nillsia readers ; nPois indulges himself, and we be-
g citletqtin'llto the bargain, with sundry very
48 Certainly than these nothing
,

could be more silly or more f,intastic. Fancy a man,
on seeing a robin in chase of a butterfly, writing—
" CJulci Father Adam open his eyes, --
And see this sight beneath the skies, ; •
He'd wish to close them again."

Fancy him addressing a sexton thus :
" Mark the spot to waits I point!
From this platform eight feet square,
Take not even a finger joint,
Andrew's whole fireside is there."
Fancy him describing one of his precious heroines in
this manner :
_She dwelt among the nntrodden ways,
Beside the springs of Dove;
A maid whom there wore none to praise, . .

And very few to love."
Fancy him, moreover, on hearing of the' death of a
brother, pouring out his sorrows in this exceedingly
natural strain :.
" Sea, ship, drowned, shipwreck, so it came,
The meek, the brave, the good, was gone;
He who hud been our living John
Was nothing bat a name."
Fancy his calling this poetry : • ....
" Such seemed this man, not all alive nor dead;
Nur all asleep—in his extreme old age."
Or this— . ,

" A human being destined to awake
To human life, or something very near
To human life."

Or this—
" Calm did he sit under the wide-spread tree
Of his old age; and yet less calm and meek,
Winningly meek or venerably calm,
Than slow and torpid."
Fancy his singing of the spring time, when-,-
" the patient primrose sits
Like a beggar in the cold;"
or employing in regard to a dead limb a simile so
very novel and exquisite as this—
"l raised, wails kneeling by his side, •,
His hand: it dropped like lead."
Fancy this man writing—
" His limbs would toss about him with delight
Like branches when strong winds the trees annoy;"
or again--
" That tall man, a giant in bulk and in height,
Not an inch of his body is free from delight;
Can keep himself still, if be would? oh, not he!
The music stirs in him like wind through a tree."
Fancy this man squatting himself down ' before a
thorn and thus musing upon it •
" There is a thorn—it looks so old,
In truth you'd find it hard to say
How it could. ever have been young, '
It looks so old and grey."
And ' then fancy him deliberately enstalled as the
Poet-Laureate of England, and worshipped as the
originator of a new era and the founder of a new
school in the annals of our national literature Really
after this it was rather too hard upon Mr. Wakley to
abuse him for asserting that he could write poetry
like this by the mile ! But that the late Mr. Words-
worth could accomplish worse things even than any
of tbose we have above particularised, it is only ne;--
cessary in proof to extract a single passagelrom Mr.
Wright's "Introduction" to his present volume.
This passage has reference to Mr. Wordsworth's
"Anecdote for Fathers," "in which," says Mr.
Wright, "be says he has a boy of five years old, with
whom he walked and talked one morning, as was his
custom, with their quiet home all full in view.'
His own musings recurred to Kilve's delightful shore,
where they had resided a year previously. 'Eilve he
thought was a favoured place,' and so is ' Liswyn
farm.' 'ln very idleness' he asked the boy whether
he preferred to be on Kilve's smooth shore,' or at
Lis wyn farm ?' At Kilve was the answer? Why ?
the boy knew not why ; and being pressed' fur a
reason, he hung down his head' and blushed with
shame,' but remained silent. Three times the in-
terrogatory was put ; when the boy raised hi& head,
and seeing a vane upon the housetop, replied
"6 At Kilve there was no weathercock
And that's the reason why.'
"Pleased with the evidence of childish sagacity, he
exclaims—

'" 0 dearest, dearest boy! my heart
For better lore would seldom yearn,
Could I but teach the hundredth part
Of what from thee I learn.'
"If the poet's admirers be sufficiently versed in
.he profound to discover the worth attached to this
revelation, they can better deal with the problematical
than I can. To me it would seem that for the sake
of bringing this child into ridicule, fifteen stanzas
were written, which, whether viewed in regard to
their meanness of diction, or poverty of idea, should
serve as well to show that he was, the veritable son of
the writer,"
Well may we find it observed of the writer of
such twaddling nonsense, corrected and uncorrected
as it was, that he exemplified in himself the truth of
the proverb "Ail sine magno vita labore dedit morta-
libus." And well may Lord Byron exclaim, in regard
to the excessively vulgar persons celebrated by Mr.
Wordsworth in his versification—such persons as
Betty Foy and Susan Gale, as Goody Blake and Harry
Gill, as Alice Fell and Peter Bell, cum ceteris
paribas-
-• Pedlars,' and 'boats,' and waggons!' Oh! ye shades
Of Pope and Dryden, are we come to this?"
Yet this is the man who is crammed down our throats
as a Poet, almost as the Poet, certainly as the Poet of
Nature--as it common sense alone would not be suf-
ficient to make us recoil before this unsurpassable dis-
play of facetious puerility and preternatural silliness.
Turning from the subject of Mr. Wright's criticism
to his own metrical productions, we must at once avow
in their regard to having experienced a very grievous
disappointment. Agreeing as we did so thoroughly
with everything ho says in his " Introduction," we
must acknowledge that we were predisposed to be
gratified with his own effusion, and in mere grati-
tude for our common sympathy, to be enabled to
yield him a full weed of commendation. Not such,
however, we regret to say have been the results of
our dispassionate perusal of his volume. We look
upon it as a curiosity, certainly—seeing that it con-
sists of love songs and such like things, not one line
of which was composed before the author had entered
on his fortieth year—but assuredly we look upon it
as nothing more remarkable in any particular. Mr.
Wright has sung of all sorts of little flowers, and all
sorts of little birds, and all sorts of little fantastic
themes of every conceivable specles. He has lines to
the " Snowdrop," and lines to the " Crocus," and
lines to the "Hyacinth," and lines to the "Daisy,"
and lines to the " Violet," and lines to the "Nar-
cissus," and lines to the "Buttercup," and lines to the
" Bluebell." He has verses on the " Sparrow,"
and on the " Eigle," and on the " Thrush," and on
the "Blackbird," • and on the " Cuckoo," and
on the " Skylark," and on the " Swift," and on the
" Skylark" again, and on the " Crow," and on the
Cuckoo" again, and on the "Swift" again, and on
other denizens of the air besides. He indites all kinds
of amatory stanzas to "Amanda," to " A Lady," to
" A Lovely,Maiden," to Lucretia," to "Her I Love,"
to "Ellen," to "A Lady S!eeping," to "A Lady dee
votedly Attached to the Person of a foolish Man,"
and to other ladies under very peculiar circumstances.
He gives us now a "Midnight Study," and now a
" Noontide Reflection," now a sonnet on a " Garden
Slug," now some lines to a "Fly," now some verses
to a "Jug," and with these a variety of other equally
attractive and bewitching lucubrations. Occasionally,
of course, he rises a trifle or so above mediocrity—a
circumstance scarcely to be wondered at even with
his extraordinary inaptitude for the production of
anything pretending to the merits of poetry, when it
is considered that the volume extends to the length
of very nearly 350 pages octavo. One of the prettiest
stanzas in the whole book is that which occurs at
page 5, where the author says, or sings, of the
snowdrop—
" Iu lightsome green it breaks the ground,
By fostering nature led;
And having faintly glanced around,
Hangs down its beauteous head."
Sometimes, but for the avowal already referred to as
discernible in the "Introduction," we should have at-
tributed the verses here presented toournpoatsi
as ,the effusions of a man past forty, but as those
rather of a stripling of a very warm and impassioned
temperament. The erotic address to " Amanda,"
for example, is sufficiently bold in its amatory en-
thusiasm to have been penned even by Little. But
then we recollect, to be sure, that no man is safe from
the darts of Cupid even though he has passed his grand
climacteric—and the Lord High Chancellor Eldon is
known to have been a customer at the forge of Gretna,
having figured before the world rather late in life as
the hero of an elopement. And then, Mr.
Wright is only just past forty;! Another little frag-
ment of his deserves mention at our hands as
containing a sort of vignette embellishment; it is,
where speaking of the cuckoo, he observes—
" The child, arrested by thy lay,
Stands listening with devoted heart,
Drops from its hand the blooming spray,
And wonders what device thou art,"
Yet agreeable though these fragments—(" Like
angel's visits few and far between")—may be, they
can scarcely compensate for such a very large assem-
blage of very indifferent versification. If anything
can expiate the guilt incurred by the latter particular,
it will be the clever and sarcastic criticism (prefixed
to the volume) upon the writings of the late Mr.
Wordsworth.

LIVERPOOL, TUESDAY.—ThQ Boston and Liverpool
Steam-ship Company's new sorely-steamer, S. S. Lewis,
Captain Cole, arrived in the Mersey this morning, from
Boston. She was towed into the river by two steam tugs.
The S. S. Lewis sailed for this port on the 4th inst. at noon,
and experienced heavy E, and N.E. winds until the morning
of the 15th, when she encountered a violent gale from the
N.E., and had the misfortune to lose her propeller, being at
the time 85 miles to the westward of Cape Clear, and 10 ,
days at sea. Oa the 16th inst. at seven P.M., 35 miles west
of Cape Clear, she passed the 'United States mail steamer
Pacific, Captain Nye, for New York. The S. S. Lewis is a
tine specimen of naval architecture. A fire occurred last night
on board the screw-steamer Genova, but it was extinguished
with slight damage. The screw steamship Mars, trading
between this port and Waterford, burst her boiler on Satur-
day ,tast, on her passage from the latter port, injury was
sugabaed by the crew and passogeri. . • • —•-