The Sun.
London, England, 1858-12-21 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

New Pictures and Old Panels. By Dr Doran,
author of " Table Traits with Something on
them," " Monarchs Retired from Business," &c.
Bentley. "
Another volume from the; pen of this somewhat
whimsical, but brilliant and successful writer, is a
welcome visitor. The work before us is a general
collection of scraps and sketches, relating to artists,
authors; kings and queens of bygone days, and other
celebrities. A group of friends of all nations meet
on circle nights and discuss whatever reminiscence
of art or literature, history or travel, may present
itself to them. Occasionally a picture will prove
the subject of the evening ; the artist will tell the
club the story of its subject, and draw incidental
pictures of the time it chronicles. Many pleasant
scenes from our own English history are shown us
in this way ; many a quaint old legend bears its
part in the general entertainment ; many a group
from foreign lands, and many a .celebrity of the
middle ages take their place among the memorial
records. Thus, " A group of queens un -queened,"
tells us the fate of our English queens who resigned
the dignity of a queen dowager for a lower, but not
always a happier sphere of life. The "Portraits of
Farinelli and Pompadour," show us in impressive
contrast the honoured career of the distinguished
singer, and the dreary dissipation of the Court of
Louis XV. The sketches of the careers of Andre
Chenier, the poet of the Revolution, and of Adam
Oehlenschlager, his happier Danish contemporary,
are full of interest. The mere names of many
of the other divisions are fascinating and sugges-
tive; such as " Pictures and Painters in the Rue
St. Denis," "Pictures of England by Foreign
Sketchers," and its companion, " Foreign
Scenes drawn by English hands," or still
more attractive in their associations, " Pictures of
Old and Young Christmas," and " Pictures of
Rhine-land and its Romance." The rival portraits
of " England a Century Ago," and " Tableaux at
Paris in the Last Century" are not very inviting in
their reminiscences of either nation. Perhaps the
most striking and interesting portion of the work
is the, opening one, entitled, " A Picture in three
panels," in which, by a happy combination, are intro.
duced Oliver Goldsmith, the poor literary drudge;
J9hn Wesley. then the mere preacher •, Dr. Dodd, the
fashionable clergyman and forger; and Mrs. Bellamy,
tlie popular actress. These discordant charaeters,
with their surroundings, are skilfully broight to-
gether and vividly portrayed. Wesley, after being
made somewhat ridiculous by the furious temper
of his Xantippc, induces the whole party to
accompany him to the " New Wells" Theatre,
which he tells them is under a new and better
management. The following passage gives a
curious picture of the scene at one of the sermons
of the founder of the Wesleyans :
"At length the coach halted up to and before the house.
The building had, and it still has, a right theatrical aspect.
The doors for box, pit, and gallery still remain, still conduct
the visitor to yellow parts of the edifice—but the edifice
itself had ceased, as Wesley had intimated, to be what it
formerly had been, about five years. It was in truth a
large .‘ Methodist chapel,' and strangely enough that fact
had been forgotten by Mrs. Bellamy; was not remembered
by Dodd ; and had never been known to Goldsmith. The
publisher Griffiths, -however, who loved excitement, was
often there with the partner of his cares and house.
" The edifice was entered by Wesley and his coa-
nions. The latter did not discover its character till they
were seated, and then an imperative gesture, as he left
them, kept them in their places,—not silent, neither remon-
strant, but pleased, and curious to see the course and end
of the novel incident. Dodd, to do that reverend gentle-
man justice, was a little ashamed to find himself in a con-
venticle ; he who was not ashamed to sit in the front row of
a Theatre Royal, and whose brother' was so lively a gen-
tleman at tavern revellings. But the moment came when
no one present had eye, or thought, or feeling, or memory
for any worldly thing but the individual in the pulpit.
There, Wesley was altogether another being, resembling
only in features the visitor at Mrs. Bellamy's. From the
first moment, he spoke as one inspired, and there was not a
hearer in his presence who did not apply some portion of
the portentous message as an intimation made especially
from Heaven to himself. Griffiths was so touched with a
diatribe against meanness, that he looked at Goldsmith
and determined to pay him a trifle more liberally. Mrs.
Griffiths had a persuasion that, it did not cost much,
she would better the fare of the poor drudge. And in
the eyes of that poor drudge, worldly, fame was again
rendered so contemptible that he felt —he almost
felt, even he could despise it. Even Mr. Dodd and
his wife were seen to blush at certain passages which
seemed to strip the covering f:om the souls—at the
nakedness of which they shuddered. Mrs. Wesley
herself, in a seat apart, looked upon her husband with some-
thing like fear as bis Ithuriel's spear pointed slowly in her
direction. Finally, his eye fell with pity on the brilliant
Mrs. Bellamy. For awhile she withstood that, and even
the words that fell from the speaker's tongue. But these
were powers that could not be resisted long. As word fell
after word, like coals of fire upon her head, or pierced her
as repeated stabs from a dagger might her heart, she wept,
sobbed, shrieked ; and as glad tidings of love and salvation
descended like balm poured gently into torturing wounds,
she flung aloft her arms ap if to pray to Heaven, or to im-
plore Heaven's messenger, for fewer miseries an more pro-
mises of love. Straightway, with arms still uplifted, she
fainted—and not she alone, for before John Wesley had
closed his discourse, more than one sinner—young, old,
hopeful, or despairing—lay senseless before him, testimonies
of his wondrous power over the living soul."
Tke style of the work is vivacious and animated.
A little more refinement and polish would have
improved it, and rendered it more agreeable to the
reader of fastidious taste. Hypercriticism would
be out of place, considering the ages and epochs
treated of, but a little sharper revision would have
refined the style without destroying the vigour.
It is a volume well calculated to beguile a leisure
hour, offering amusement to the most superficial
reader, while affording those of graver tastes, en-
tertainment without frivolity.

The History of France. By Eyre Evans Crowe.
In five vols. Vol. I. Longman.

Many years ago the author of this work contri-
buted a history of France to Dr. Lardner's " Cabi-
net Cyclopedia." The limits assigned to him by
that useful work prevented him from extending his
narrative by a comprehensive and minute detail of
events. It has ever since been his aim and inten-
tion to write a history of France from the ample
original materials which "the care of the French
Government and learned bodies have collected, and
which many of their able historic philosophers have
elucidated." The first of a series of five volumes is
now offered to the public, who will, no doubt,
gladly welcome the appearance of a standard work
on a subject so interesting as the eventful history
of our continental neighbours. Mr. Crowe has
evidently bestowed much time and labour on his
work, which is written in a good and solid style,
suitable to a standard history. The earlier portion
is somewhat dry, but this is almost unavoidable,
from the nature of the subject and the disconnected
and unsettled state of the country in the earlier
ages, when the immediate successors of Charlemagne
inherited little of his ability. In another point of
view, however, these early records are not without
their importance. The author carefully traces the
rise of the French monarchical power. He shows
how the premature extinction of feudalism threw
uncontrolled power into the hands of the king
without freeing the people ; whereas in England
the authority of the barons was in the end benefi-
cial to the people, since they stood firm against the
encroachments of despotic power, and wrested from
the monarch those concessions which laid the
foundation of English liberty. Then, when in after
ages the people learned their strength, and the
progress of time and thought had fitted them to
take some part in the government of the
country, the aristocracy by degrees sunk into
their natural position, between the Crown
and the people, each class having its fair share of
influence and power. In France, on the contrary, the
nobles were crushed before the people had gained
strength or knowledge, and that• opposing barrier
removed, the tide of despotism swept unchecked
over the country. But for the premature annihi-
lation of feudalism in the thirteenth and four-
teenth centuries, France might not, onr tiiithor tells
us, have had to mourn the tardy growth of free in-
stitutions in the nineteenth. The best monarchs
of those days exerted a despotic influence. Even
Louis the Ninth only thought of governing his
subjects according to the strict patriarchal system.
In narrating the disturbances of the reign of John,
the author makes the following observations, the
truth of which must strike every reader of French
history—
" It is startling, indeed, to find how closely one epoch of
French history resembles another, and how, with an inter-
val of centuries between, similar situations re-occur with
similar causes, events, characters, catastrophes, and results.
It is impossible to contemplate or narrate the period on.,
which we are now entering without at once looking for-
ward to 1789 ; the embarrassments of the crown and the
administration, bringing to an abrupt close a Government
which had been so long absolute and uncontrolled ; the
deputies of the several orders assembled, undertaking at
once to supersede the absolute Government by taking power
into their own hands ; good and moderate men hoping to
predominate, and conduct the reform so as to save at once the
crown and the country; demagogues, at the same time,
continuing to organise and to wield the power of the lower
classes, manifested in insurrection first, in murder after-
wards ; princes of the bleed flattering and favouring the
popular passions, and trying to turn the ascendancy of
the people and the demagogues to their own account ;
nation, disgusted at these scenes of political turpitude and
folly, diverted from them by the stern necessity of providing
for the defence of the country against the foreign foe, this
necessity producing a resuscitated respect for the authority
of a sovereign, and leading the country and its opinions
back to the very same point from which they started at the
commencement of the revolution—the maintenance of
absolute power. Such is a sketch which unfortunately ap-
plies to every attempt made bythe French to establish their
national liberties, and which is as true of the events of the
fourteenth'as of those of the eighteenth century."
The conclusion of this first volume brings us down
to the death of Charles V., and the narrative will
consequently soon arrive at still more eventful pe-
riods of French history. Charles VI., his unhappy
successor, as is well known, ended his life a maniac.
He was soon after followed by Louis the Eleventh,
one of the most remarkable, though certainly one
of the least estimable, of French sovereigns, Charles