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

'hare,

executioner, the same grasping, avaricious con-
duct is exhiblited, and not a single trait of

generous feeling breaks forth to enlist sym

contribute a large quota of adventurers to the new
colony, which must be now rapidly springing into
existence in the region at present lorded over by
the monopolists, but whose sway cannot be of long
duration, for it is quite certain that the sort of men
who are fast settling on Fraser's River, Vancouver's
Island, and other localities will not be so submissive
to the Company's rule as the poor, isolated, unpro-
tected people of Red River have for so long a period
perforce been. Circumstances are certainly adverse
in all directions to the Company ; in Canada we have
unanimity of feeding against the monopolists; in
England the most powerful class of all, the great
mercantile body of the empire, are actively engaged
in putting an end to their pretensions; while both
at home and in this province the force of legislation
is about to be put forth to terminate the existence
of a selfish monopoly in a legal manner.

The weather is magnificent, the hay crop is now
being fast got in, and the grain harvest has com-
menced in some localities. I am sorry to say the
news from the West is not good with regard to the
wheat ; that destructive insect the weevil is busy at
work, and in some places the wheat crop will prove
a total failure.

LITERATURE.

The Edinburgh Review. No. 219. Longman
and Co.

There is an unusual number of interesting sub-
ccts in the table of contents of the Edinburgh—
[-Jistory, Biography, Criticism, Politics, Science, are
pleasantly mingled, 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 trag:c
close of so eminent a career, all combine to invest his
delightful and valuable writings with an additional
power of attraction. The private history of the
geologist is but briefly touched upon, his early
toils being the only part alluded to, the character and
scientific value of his works, and progress of his
knowledge, being the prevailing topics. The second
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 inte►est, 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
eulosqum of his abilities as a statesman passed 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 to 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 Modica 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 Beranger" 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 Lis portraiture of
" I3lff 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 mi3take."
"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
fur 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 so much at-
tention at its first appearance in this country,
has of late years received a careful translation,
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 Hindoo superstitions peeping through it,
combine to render it a curious study- for the poet
and psychologist. In speaking of the Hindoo drama
the writer observes, " The great masters of. human
thought and language have to the Indian mad 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 a 3 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 'apx-%) 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 pages of
requires no comment or
the old Whig Quarterly,
description,

The Quarterly Review. No. 207. John Murray.
The first article that arrests the reader's attention
in the present number of the Quarterly is founded
on Mr. Hepworth Di:can'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 he mtlet have possessed a special genius for the
see. The unusual age at which he commenced his
nautical career, and his previous habits as a military
man, would scarcely ha;',? led his contemporaries to
anticipate for him a series of brilliant achievements,
which should rank him high among tno :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 Icr
the first time, at a period when Cromwell and the Parlia-
mentary chi* fs sent genesis' cn beard the fleet over the
seamen's heads, and after a revolt of part of that fleet to the
side of the Princr i f Wales, he seems to have become do-
mesticated immediately. lie took ti the water as if tliere
were something in his breed ilia• fi,ted him fur it. He con-
quered in actions against the erPtthst seamen of the day;
and, in eight short years (1649-164), he so completely esta-
blished his naval renown, that be superseded the reputatiun
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-
!erity. England, which has forgotten that Bacon waa
viscount, has forgotten that Blake was a general,: A 5 !t
merged Bacon's political in his philosophical
A me, so It
trnrged Blake's military in his naval fame. woe is no-
thing like it in our history. Here is a man, wao is spoken
f
of as a seaman, in conjunction with Drako, and Nelson,
and Cellingwood, and who on his &ilea' birth-day cannot
PoessblY have keen able to put a ship abou`, or to give the

pathy fog• the well-merited fate which is
abiut to overtake the monopolists. Our provin-
cial Government, as well as that of the United
States, Avill be obliged to represent to the Home
Government the conduct of the Hudson's Bay Com-

pang, and the danger that threatens to produce an
angry feeling, and perhaps a collision, between the
Company and the Californian and Canadian adven-
turers. The fever is not confined to the Pacific side
of the Continent ; it is now raging to some extent
throughout Canada, and as fresh information is cir-
culated, additional parties are smitten with the
disease, and will not be deterred by any considera-
tions from pulling up stakes and starting for
the golden regions. Several meetings have
been held in this city on the subject, and
parties have been organised for the purpose
of going overland to Vancouver's Island and
and Frascr's River, and no doubt the province will