The Sun.
London, England, 1858-08-04 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

The Edinburgh Review. -So. 219. Longman
and re'a.
There is an unusual ',lumber of interesting sub-
jects in the table of Contents of the Edinburgh--
History, Biography, Criticism, Politics, Science, are
pleasantly minglesl, and the result is a very attractive
number. The life and genius of Hugh Miller well
deserves a prominent notice in a Scottish periodical.
The early difficulties of the student, the wonderful
advance of the " journeyman mason" to the first
rank among the scientific men of his day, the tragic
close or so eminent a career, all combine to invest his
delightful and valuable writings with an additional
power of af:craction. The private history of the
geologist is but briefly touched upon, his early
toils be;,ng the only part alluded to, the character and
scier!,,ific value of his works, and progress of his
krsowledge, being the prevailing topics. The second
r part of a lengthened criticism on "M. Thiers' His-
tory of the Consulate and the Empire " will attract
the political and historical reader. It treats, with
deserving consideration, a work of undoubted histo-
rical importance and unquestionable ability, what-
ever the opinions it promulgates, or the principles
it upholds. An article on
." Canning's Literary
Remains" is full of interest, and gives nume-
rous extracts from his contributions to the
poetry of the Anti-Jacobin. The writer opens
his essay by remarking that Canning has never been
fairly appreciated by his countrymen. The warm
eulogium of his abilities as a statesman passel by the
Edinburgh Reviewer of the present day is in strik-
ing contrast to the attacks of "Peter Plymley." The
wit and satire of these famous verses have furnished
sarcasms for many succeeding politicians. The
brilliancy of his wit and humour have induced
many to consider these his chief gifts,
and this impression the writer of the
article before us strives to remove, and while ren-
dering full importance to his capacities for gue-
rilla warfare, to show he was as fitted t command
regular pitched battles, or to sustain unshaken the as-
saults of his opponent. " The Health of the Army"
is the title of a paper on Medical Sanitary Reform.
It is observed that " the lamentably objective regu-
lations of the British Army in regard to the preser-
vation of health, under which all the mischiefs ex-
posed in the Commissioners' report have" grown up,
are attributable in a great degree to the fact that
they were made at a time when sanitary ser-
vice was well understood. Surely one of
the first results of an advancement in
scientific knowledge should be the application of
its improved principles to places immediately under
control and discipline." Those who are interested in
the condition of the soldier will find this paper re-
pay perusal. " The Posthumous Memoirs and
Songs of Deranger" form the subject of an article
which presents us with nothing very new or striking.
A criticism on Mr. Froude's recent volumes, while
rendering full justice to his ability and the grace of
his style, very justly attacks his portraiture of
" Bluff King Hal." The extravagance of Mr.
Froude's defence defeats his ingenuity. Not content
with softening down the harsh lines, and putting the
most favourable construction on his acts, he reverses
the decisions of posterity, and honours the condemned
prisoner with not only a full acquittal, but high
eulogiums of his moral and social character. The
critic, alternately employing reason and irony, shows
the injustice of Mr. Froude's arguments, and while
making allowance for the age and the circumstances,
cannot accept as a hero the murderer of Sir Thomas
More and Anne Boleyn. Mr. Fronde says that "it
would have been well for Henry VIII., if he had
lived in a world in which women could have been
dispensed with, so ill in,all his relations with them
he succeeded. With men he could speak the right
word—he could do the right thing ; with women
he seemed under the fatal necessity of mistake."
"It would have been well," replies the
critic, "for Sir John Paul, and his partners,
if they could have lived in a world where
trust securities could have been dispensed with, so
ill in all their relations with that description of pro-
perty did they succeed. It would have been well
for the late Mr. Palmer if' he could have lived in a
world without a Mr. Cooke, so unsuccessful was he
in all his relations with that unfortunate gentleman.
It would be well for pickpockets if they lived in a
world where there were no pockets to pick. It
would be well for us all if we lived where the mis-
takes to which we happen to be peculiarly liable
could not possibly be committed." The Indian
drama of " Sacontala," which attracted to much at-
tention at its first appearance in this country,
has of late years received a careful tr inslation,
which is discussed in an interesting paper. The
wild and characteristic nature of the• singular old
legend, the beauty of the images and the dark, mys-
terious 'Endo° superstitions peeping through it,
combine to render it a curious study for the poet
and psychologist. In speaking of the "Undo° di ama
the writer observes, " The great masters of: humannan
thought and language have to the Indian mind lived
in vain ; it has run through its solitary cycle, and
worked out its own weary problem alone ; yet India
has a literature of poetry and philosophy which
reaches back to the earliest times, older than Troy
and the Iliad, perhaps as old as the Pentateuch itself.
There were Indian poets before Homer had harped
his first song; there were Indian thinkers and philo-
sophers before Thales called water the 'apxil of all
things ; and though this succession of writers has
now dwindled down to idle poetasters and pedantic
grammarians, it has never ceased from those earliest
ages down even to the present day."
The number contains several other articles, and
concludes with a paper entitled "Earl Grey on
Parliamentary Government," which, in the paws of
the old Whig Quarterly, requires no comment or
description.

The Quarterly Review. No. 207. John Murray.
Tip- ar-el that arrc:::ts attcLtiuu
tu the present number of the Quarterly is founded
on Mr. Hepworth Dixon's Life of Admiral Blake.
It gives a succinct and interesting summary of the
career of the great seaman, of whom it is justly said
that be must have possesied a special genius for the
sea. The unusual age at which he commenced his
nautical career, and his previous habits as a military
man, would scarcely have led his contemporaries to
anticipate for him a series of brilliant achievements,
which should rank him high among the naval heroes
of his country.
" A man of this stamp had the kind of disposition which
then, as ever, resembled the true nautical English charac-
ter. So that when he at fifty years of age, went afloat for
the first. time, at a period when Cromwell and the Parlia-
mentary chiefs sent 'generals' on board the fleet over the
seamen's heads, and after a revolt of part of that fleet to the
side of the Plince of Wales, he seems to have become do-
mesticated immediately. He took to the water as if there
wale something in his breed !hat fitted him for it. He con-
quered in actions against the areatest seamen of the day;
acd, in eight short years (1649-1637), he so completely esta-
blished his naval renown, that he superseded the reputation
which had first raised him, the honour derived from
Bristol, Lyme, Taunton, and a dozen fields of battle, and
sunk his title of General, in that of Admiral, for all pos-
terity. England, which has forgotten that Bacon waa a
aiscount, has forgotten that Blake was a general. As it
merged Bacon's po!itical in his philosophical fame,
so it
merged Blake's military in his naval fame. There is no-
thing like it in our history. Here is a man, who is spoken
of a; a seaman, in conjunction with Drake, and Nelson,
and Collingwood, and w ho.on hi; Meth bit th-dayeannot
posseWy have keen able to put g sbip About, or to give the

ionrtdeelrlisa
whilet
otuh
se
whocrewkwere The
eefinregsetbotpsEainlgs.i.ell tniasysyc=ely
think of the roars of laughter pwith which' the wesquadron
would hail the news that Sir Colin Campbell had been a-
pointed to the Royal Albert. To understand Blake's suc-
cess, we must at ribute to him not only an inike;re t •
for the sea, but au essential affinity with the n genius
character of
seamen, which caused his crew to recognise ib
spirit, and cordially exert their efforts to assist tzt!abTother
task. For it is perfectly certain that, at first, him
in
his
mustb have
been under great disadvantages. He must have pendent on captains, lieutenants., or masters for theeen d?'
wboia
seamanship of the very ship in which he sailed. In no ordinary man would be considered likely to benurf'dAYl Arst-
rate seaman who should enter the service as late as twa and genius, like everything else, must submit t 'entyl
0 certain
fundamental' natural laws."
The struggles of Van Tromp and Blake, the death
of the stout old Dutchman in his ce:oin from
musket ball, and the death of Blake kirraseif a fey years later, also in his vessel, just at the ship was
entering Plymouth Sound, arr 4 full of in-
terest, and those who have r,ot met with Mr.
Dixon's able work, will find 4/11 this article fuller
details of the brief and glorious career of the
great Admiral, than ordf,nary histories present.
Mr. Buckle's "History
,of Civilisation" receives a
severe analysis. It is te, be re-
and research displayr; gretted that the ability
d by this author should be
marred by the falsity and dogmatism of his principles
of reasoning. "Iran Bridges" is the title of an in-
teresting paper wilie.la recounts the various inventions
anti improvement,,, from the first ez.periment across
the Severn to, 'the latest development of the pre-
sumpti of modern science—Mr. Boyd's project of'
bridge !ic,r,:iss the Channel from Shakspeare's Cliff
to Cape r.4rinez. Speaking of the wonderful variety
of use
.a 1 purposes to which this metal is applied, the
writer quotes the saying of Francis Horner after
: in .petting a steel manufactory, that "Iron is not only
'.he soul of every other manufacture, but the main-
spring of civilised society ;" and the still more em-
phatic assertion of John Locke, " that notwith-
standing man's advamement in knowledge, We
should, were the use of iron lost among us,
be in a few ages reduced to the wants and
ignorance of the ancient savage Americans, so that
he who first made known the use of that contemptible
mineral may be truly styled the father of arts and
author of plenty." This somewhat startling asseve-
ration does not appear so extravagant when we take
into consideration the multifarious purposes for
which iron is indispensable.
"The superiority of this metal over all others consists in
the vast number of purposes to which it can be advantt:ge-
ously applied, and the various modifications of which it is
susceptible in the process of manufacture. There is no other
[metal whieh could be so worked up as to serve equally well
for a needle and as shot for a ninety-eight-pounder gun ;
as a surgeon's lancet and a five-ton Naystnyth-tilt hammer;
as the spring of a watch the size of a shilling, and the hull
of a Leviathan steamship; and which is alike indispensable
in the construction of a pair of scissors and an electric tele-
graph, a steel pen and a railroad, a mariner's compass, and a
tubular bridge. The iron machines of our manufacturers are
driven by the iron steam-engines of Watt, and their products
are distributed over iron railroads by the iron locomotives of
Stephenson. Intelligence is telegraphed to and from the
ends of the earth by means of the iron wire. Our Crystal
Palac:s are built of glass framed in iron. We have iron
roofs, iron houses, iron churches, iron bedsteads, iron light-
houses, iron ships, iron palaces, and iron bridges. In short,
we now seem to be in the very midst of M. Worsaae's ' Iron
Age.'"

The life of Wycliffe is one little known, and scarcely
likely to be more so. It is remarked, in the inte-
resting article on this subject, that many who have
exercised the largest influence on the minds of their
fellows have left little behind them but a name.
The very personality of Homer is disputed.
In modern days, how meagre is the biography
of Shakespeare ! " Wycliffe, the patriarch of the
Reformation, has been compared to the voice
of one crying in :the wilderness' a voice, and
nothing more—a mighty agency which is
known only in its effects." The brief memoir of his
career, and the extracts given from his writings, will
attract many who have never met with any details
of the life and labours of this herald of the Reforma-
tion. " A paper on Shipwrecks" gives some curious
and instructive details of the losses at sea, and on
the coast, the supposed causes, and the avoidable
dangers. "An Essay on the British Museum" Ivill
be attractive to the studious. An article on the

absorbing topic of the day, "The Condition and
Future of India," is written with ability and impar-
tiality.

THE ARMY.

The following gratifying circular was put in orders yes-
terday at Portsmouth garrison, and promulgated through-
out the district :

" The Major-General has much pleasure in making
known to the garrison that be has received the commands
of her Majesty, through his Royal Highness the Com-
mander-in-Chief, to express to the officers and soldiers com-
posing it her approbation of the appearance and movements
of their respective regiments this day, and also her satisfac-
tion at the arrangements which were made for her recep-
tion. The Major-General cannot conclude without return-
ing his thanks to Colonel Wright for his exertions in
making the necessary arrangements."
On Friday Lieutenant-General Lord Seaton, accempa-
Died by his staff, inspected the sth Royal Irish Lancers and
the other troops in the garrison at Newbridge, with whose
fine appearance he was greatly. pleased. -The sth Lancers
(new regiment) number 700 men, but as yet they are not
mounted cr fully equipped. On Saturday orders were
issued for volunteers for the Enniskillen Dragoons, who,
preerratory to their departure for India, are to be augmented
to 791 men of all ranks. The neeirtent the announcement
was made by Colonel Sullivan 800 of the sth Lancers stepped
out of the ranks and offered to volunteer. Fifty men only
being required, this number was selected, and on the same
evening they left, in charge of an officer of the sth Lancers,
fir Brighton, to join the head-quarters of the Enniskill,ns.
The entire battalion of the Royal Marines station, d at
Woolwich was yesterday morning peracled in the barrack-
square, in command of Colonel Tatton Brown, the com-
mandant, with closed gates, to hear the promulgation of the
sentence of a general court-martial, held on Monday, the
9.6 th ult., fur the trial of Patrick Swollen, a private of
the 4th :company, Woolwich division, for acts of gross
insubordination, and threatening to murder his command-
ing officer, Captain Kennedy. The evidence was gleaned
i principally from the information of a Mr. Brown, a scrip-
ture reader, who happened to be at the prisoner's quarters
about three weeks ago, when the prisoner entered in a very
excited state, and drawing a bayonet which he had concealed
about his person, said that he bad been loitering about for
two hours in the Charlton-enad in the hopes of meeting his
captain, and vowing that if he had fallen in with him he
would have taken his life. Mr. Brown without delay pro-
ceeded to the Royal Marine Barracks and reported the facts
to the adjutant on duty. The prisoner, whose character is
noted as " bad," and who had on a former occasion while
serving on board ship made use of a similar threat towards
his cotnmanding officer, was accordingly arrested and con-
fined in one of the cells. The general court-martial, under
the presidency of Lit u'enant-Colonel Congdoo, R.M., tak-
ing a lenient view of the ease, awarded the prisoner four
years' penal servitude. It appears that the prisoner, who
is a married man, had noutished a feeling of vengeance
against his cap ain for some suppesed undue severity in de-
pt ivieg his wife of the coinpany's weekly washing, and had
gone about with a deteimivation of putting his terrib'e
threat in:o execution. Captain Kennedy returned to
barracks by aeother route, and thus deprived the in-
tended murderer of his victim. Six companies of the Royal
Antrim Rifles, in command of Colonel the Marquis of
Donegal, occupying quarters in the west -sqvare of the
Artillery Barracks, colivicb, yesterday spread canvas
at the Green-bill encampment, near the Artillery schools.
The removal of the troops is rendered necessary, now that
the whole of the Royal Horse Artillery have lift the
garrison, to enable the lincineer3 to commence the
tong-pr..je
tted arrangements for building an additional
story to that range of the barrack, which is to take place
without further delay. The A and K troops, in command
of Major Ward and Major Le Mesurier Tupper, commeeTed
an organised course of gun practice, firing shot and shell at
a target on the Sands at Shoehuryness, on Monday, which
is to be continutd da ly, the weather permitting, until their
return to Woolwich.
Yesterday the following draughts belonging to the East
India Company's gepnts at Chatham left that garrisonand
proceeded to Gravesenl, where they embarked on board
Genghis Khan fur Kurrachee, fur tee purpose of reinfod r
the service companies of their respective regiments 'serc,la
in India,—viz.:—Nine men of the 7th Royal Fusrvil
Catain George A. Ryan, Ensign William 11. Ralstoniliid
10 men of the 70th Regiment ; 14 men of the 81st ( loyal
Lincoln Volunteers) Regiment; and Eesign J. Knox and
70 men of the 94th Regiment. The Harkaway, which has
been taken up by the East India Company for the convey-
ance of reinforcements to Calcutta, will embark her troops
at Gravesend to-morrow, and the Barham, for Madras',
will embark the reinforcements proceeding in that vessel on
Saturday next, at Gravesend.
A party of 15 non-commissioned officers belonging to the
East India Company's Sappers and Miners, having com-
pleted a course of instruction in sapping and wining and
fortification at the Royal Engineers' establishment, t ha-
thane, left Brompton Barracks yesterday and proceede to
Warley, for the purpose of etnbarking ler India.-