The Sun.
London, England, 1860-03-28 00:00:00

And under that stiff toga of the dead
Wets heard the ringing of the Rotatin tread."
The third and concluding portion of the Poem—
beginning with a graceful memento of Canning and
his followers—brings the survey down to a period
almost immediately contemporary. The orator-
poet whose hand has traced this volume, while
proclaiming his determination to avoid any reference
whatever to those more immediately around him,
has nevertheless not only indulged his more genial,
in some instances his more magnanimous sympa-
thies, by blurting out cordial tributes of admiration
for the nobler qualities apparent in great Parlia-
mentary veterans still happily surviving—political
celebrities like Brougham and Lyndhurst, and
Russell and Palmerston—he hay: proffered kindlier
evidence still of his appreciation of a few others,
chiefly legal notabilities, of a later generation,
eminent lawyers and debaters, like Cairns and
NThiteside. _His, indeed, is no sardonic tempera-
ment, owning allegiance to the refrigerating rule
whose motto is briefly nil adinirari ! He, at least,
among our more eminent writers is no sarcastic
depreciator of his own times and of his own con-
temporaries. With Lord Byron ho might say
derisively—
" The good old times ? All times when old are good I"
He scorns the notion in truth, so thoroughly, that
there is any essential pre-eminence in antiquity,
that there is any latent atom of truth in the cold
and contemptuous 7-d eeyiryta that we find.
him towards the close of his task exclaiming in
terms of generous exultation—
" Still in the Senate, whatsoe'er we lack,
It is not genius ;—call old giants back,
And men now living might as tall appear,
Judged by our sous, not us,—we stand too near I "
Beginning, as we have said, with a graphic and
graceful delineation of Canning and his followers,
the final book or canto of " St. Stephen's" runs
sinuously through an extraordinary diversity of
themes, introducing us to an astounding variety of
historic individualities. The lesser celebrities com-
prise amongst their number Ward and Grant, Frere
and Horne. Back to our ken once more comes Sir
Francis Burdett, " breech'd and top-booted "

" That tall pro-Adam of our trouser'd race 1"

Hither again, with " airy tread," Tierney " lounges
into debate "

" Ono hand politely pointing out your crime,
Tho other—in his pocket all the time 1 "

Yonder move with patriotic stateliness, across the
mystic proscenium, the imperial Grey and procon-
sular Wellesley. There also are revived to view
" mysterious Castlereagh" (a sketch characterised
by masterly touches of most subtle discrimination)
—and that acknowledged chief among the " mil-
lionaires of mind," Sir James Mackintosh. Here is
Shiel, the dazzling " Kean" of debate, and Lord.
Althorpe, as we might term him, its more equable
walking-gentleman. Passing tributes are offered.
to the laborious Hume and the " mellifluous "
Follett—to the chivalrous Bentinck and the " de-
liberate" Huskisson. There is under the quiet and
delicious humour of the following passage a depth
of pathos in the literal truth of its conclusion

" Few, who at ease their Members' speeches read,
Guess the hard life of members who succeed ;
Pass by the waste of youthful golden days,
And the dread failure of the first essays—
Grant that the earlier steeps and sloughs are past,
And Fame's broad highway stretches smooth at last;
Grant the success, and now behold the pains ;
Eleven to three—Committee upon Drains !
From three to five—self-commune and a chop ;
From five to dawn, a bill to pass or stop ;
Which, stopt or pass'd, leaves England much the same.
Alas for genius staked in such a game !
When as the guerdon' in the grasp appears
' Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred sliears.' "
Conspicuois among the more brilliant descrip-
tions here given of our greater orators are those
relating to the gorgeous Macaulay and the impas-
sioned Plunkett. But—as almost facile prinoepe
even among these colossi of modern oratory, facile
princeps in the true Demosthenic character—
Daniel O'Connell claims in a manner pre-eminently
the writer's applauding recognition. Instance—.
the following:—
"Once to my sight the giant thus was given,
Wall'd by wide air, and roof d by boundless heaven;
Beneath his feet the human ocean lay,
And wave on wave flowed into space away. •
Methought no clarion could have sent its sound
Even to the centre of the hosts around ;
And as I thought rose the sonorous swell,
As from some church-tower swings the silvery bell.
Aloft and clear, from airy tide to tide,
It glided, easy as a bird may glide ;
To the last verge of that vast audience sent,
It played with each wild passion as s'c went ;
Now stirred the uproar, now the murmur still'd,
And sobs or laughter answered as it will'd.
" Then did I know what spells of infinite choice,
To rouse or lull, has the sweet human voice;
Then did I seem to seize the sudden clue
To the grand troublous Life Antique—to view
Under the rock stand of Demosthenes,
Mutable Athens heave her noisy seas."
Vividly do we ourselves bear in mind a scene in one
sense precisely similar—when, in the very zenith
Of
powers, we listened to him
speaking, the responding " sobs and
e o'onn
laughter of his
l's
listened fame
a t and
d
auditors, in the Old Corn Eg'
change of Dublin, afterwards called (by an absurd
misnomer) the far-famed Hall of Conciliation. In the
course of the singularly and especially admirable
portraiture of Viscount Melbourne adorning the
earlier pages of this crowning instalment of " St.
Stephen's," we light unexpectedly and somewhat
bewildered upon the only sentence in the whole of
the poem which really appears to us to be in one
sense obscure, and. even, be it said, enigmatical.
It is where, after describing the exterior character
of Lamb, the poet writes :
" Such was the man, in part, to outward show ;
Another man lay coiled from sight below—
And mystics tell us that this fleshly form
Enfolds a subtler which escapes the worm;
And is the true onc, which the Maker's breath
Quickened from dust, and privileged from death."
" Mystics ?" Nay, surely, is not this the one ineffable
truth which alone renders the mystery of life
endurable—is not this the one sacred, benignant,
and consolatory belief of our common Christianity ?
Gladly would we see this phrase modified, or pas-
sage expunged, in the immediately ensuing edition
of " St. Stephen's." But—to close our extracts noif
with one fragment from what we have already
designated, as to our thinking, the noblest among
these superb oratorical and poetical delineations—,
let us pause for a moment in turning over the con-
cluding pages of the volume, to the end that we
may indulge at once ourselves and our readers with
a parting quotation. Take, then, the one here sub.
joined :

" The more his reasonings, in their watchful range,
Seem'd guarding outlets for prudential change,
The more scared followers groan'd, Can we confide
The more the Public hail'd the common guide.
It liked his wealth—the wealthy want not place;
It liked his birth—trade has its pride of race ;
It liked his sober yet imposing mien;
It liked his lit?, in which no flaw was seen ;
And thus to his, as a judicial mind,
The general cause the general trust consign'd ;
From the vex'd Bar Opinion snatch'd its chief,
Wrench'd from his hands each client's partial brief,
And raised the counsel of a special plea
Into the judge, whose voice was a decree.
And, in return, his conscience more and more
Revised each cause it had sustain'd before,
Till all old questions merged afresh in one,
Should, for the good of England, this be done ?
If so, of all men I must do it !—why ?
Because none else could so succeed as I I'
"To me, who seek to analyse, not judge,
Exempt alike from favour and from grudge—
To me, so clearly, when with care defined,
Stands force excused his conscience-weighted mind,
That where I doubt his course, I dare not blame ;
I too am English, and my share I claim
Of our joint heirloom in his English name."
With the melody of that rhetorical passage yet
ringing in our memory, we close the book and
bring our comments to a conclusion. " St. Stephen's"
is unquestionably, may be pronounced unhesitat-
ingly, a brilliant and twofold success—a success
both literary and political. It will take its place
upon the national bookshelves as a classic at once
poetic and Parliamentary. It is the dream of
Horace at length realised—
" Nec magis expressi vultus per ahenea signs,
Quam per vatis opus mores animique virorum
Clarorum apparent."*

London, at a Glance. An Illustrated Atlas of

London. Thomas Hodson.
Great pains has evidently been bestowed on this
production, the object of which is, as stated in the
introduction, to enable strangers to find their will
with greater facility than is practicable by reference
to a sheet map, the extent of London being such
that to residents it is a matter of no inconsiderable
difficulty to solve the great problem. So write
the author. But if his object is to be of service to the
stranger, that individual may well exclaim " Saie
me from my friends." The map of London hal/
been divided into 36 sections, to which is added e
key map ; also a sheet index, and various contt.i4
vances to direct the stranger, in which map and 'i'
h
which corner to look for the street he is is search
of; ; but when he has mastered the principle of on:
struction, and discovered his map and his street,.
he is as far from the object of his search as v_ec
for the maps are cut out with a happy disregerclber
the cardinal points ; one faces the South,' it se
S.W., and so on all round the compass; an 'the
there is no directing arrow to show the volt of
wind blows, the principal drawback to this 8%1
maps is that it is necessary to know the
_locality
w.
before they are comprehensible—which said The
back would be considerable to a strang.er;
info
idea is, however, a good one, and had tla
been divided in a more orderly and i!lt! Plan
manner, with due regard to north and south, the
might have been of service.

' Epist. Lib. ii. i. 245.