The Sun.
London, England, 1866-03-16 00:00:00

saw it yet, and with a smile thanked his Maker that he saw
it then also—especially then.
The person who thus passed our hero was more than six
feet in height. He was fair in complexion. Hie hair was
light auburn, and large locks of it fell, with a natural wave
and return, upon his neck. His head was bare. His dress
was the long flowing robe of the Jews, girdled at the
waist, and, as Paulus afterwards fancied, the colour of it
was red. He was in the bloom of life. Our hero could see,
as this person passed, that Ho was the very perfection of
health, beauty, vigour, elegance, and of all the faculties of
physical humanity ; and even the odd, and strange, and
wild, and somewhat mysterious thought flashed through
Paulus's mind :
"My God," thought he, "if there were a new Adam to
be created, to be the natural, or rather the supernatural,
king of the human race, would not his appearance surely
be as the appearance and the bearing of this person ?"
And the person who passed was moreover thin, and a
little emaciated. And He would have seemed wan, only
that the most delicate, faint blood-colour mantled in His
cheeks. And He looked at the hero Paulus, with the look
of Him out of whose hand none hath power to take those
whom He picks from a vast concourse and elects. And
Paulus felt glad, and calm, and without anxiety for the
future, and free from all bitterness for the past, and firm,
yet grave ; and when his mind went actually forth to look
upon the things that were around it, he saw nothing but
the face and the glance.
And now I come to the strangest particular of all.
Paulus felt that this beautiful and vigorous new Adam, fit
to be the natural and even supernatural kiag of the world
was ono who never could have laughed, and probably had
never smiled. But no smile was so sweet as His gravity. And
Paulus remembered another extraordinary and unparal-
leled circumstance : it was this—those beautiful and be-
nignant eyes were so full of terror, that it seemed they
could scarcely hold in an equal degree any other expres-
sion in them except that which shone therein with what
seemed to Paulus a celestial and divine lustre ; I mean,
first, love, and next unconquerable, and everlasting, and
victorious courage. As though there was a work to do,
which none but He (from the creation to the day of doom)
could over accomplish—a dreadful work, a work unspeak-
able in shame, and in pain, and in horror, and yet a work
entirely indispensable, and the most important and real and
momentous that Ito.a. cy.ar Awd. the sub-
ject or hero of this tale, Paulus, wondered how in the
same look and eyes, and in a single glance of them, two
things so opposite as ineffable terror and yet God-like
adorable courage could be combined.

But, nevertheless, they were both there ; and with this
mighty and mysterious mental combination, Paulus also
saw a sweetness so inexpressibly awful that, at once (and
as if he had heard words formed within his own heart), the
reflection arose within him : "How much more terrible

would be the wrath of the lamb than the rage of the
lion!"

And the figure of this person passed onward, and was
hidden from poor Paulus beyond the olive groves.
Because of the nature and bearing of this most re-
markable passage of all in the work now under re-
view, we have purposely and, as will be readily
understood, not very surprisingly, reversed the
natural order of things when treating of its contents,
by thus giving the foregoing extract at once as our
earliest quotation from " Dion and the Sibyls."
Doing so among other reasons because, as it seems to
us, it affords the very readiest clue of all to the
significance, the aim, the purpose of the whole
book. For the work as a whole, by the way,
it here occurs to us that the very aptest
motto might have been culled from the clos-
ing verse of the opening stanza of the " Dies
Ire." By no more than the change of a single
name that verse would have indicated to a nicety
the significance alike of the narrative and of its title.
Relating, in fact, as the narrative does, immediately
before its conclusion, to that earlier dies irce—

referred to by our author himself (ii. 340) as
" the most awful day the world has known," that
" over memorable and tremendous Friday"—the
device thus suggested for inscription upon the title-
page might have run--
" Testa Dion cum Sibylla."

Dionysius the Athenian—the Dion of the title and

of the tale—meaning that early convert of Saint

Paul, the Saint Denis of France, the first Arch-
bishop of Paris, ho whose preaching-place among
the Gauls was on the spot now consecrated during
many centuries as the site of the Cathedral of
Notre Dame, Dionysius of the Areopagus, Dionysius
the last of the great Greek philosophers. Whatever
erudition has been scattered through the pages of
these two volumes by their author—and there is
much at uncertain intervals that he has lavished upon
them beyond a doubt—it is only fair to him that
we should add, while thus referring to it, that it is
never dragged in, so to speak, by the head and
shoulders, out of any mere ostentation of scholarship.
It is always apropos or, otherwise expressed, it is
always directly to the purpose then more immediately
in hand, in the way of furnishing to the context
a clear, and elegant, and in many cases an absolutely
conclusive elucidation. A happier instance of this
could hardly be adduced than that afforded by the
portion of the narrative having especial reference to
that mysterious sibylline acrostic beginning—
" ISpcocrL te Xecov KpL.:mos ovActow Or' co-at"—

the mystical acrostic identified by Lactantius with
the one discussed by Cicero before, the birth of our
Lord—the acrostic translated by St. Augustine, and
commented upon by Origen, by Eusebius, by Natalia
Alexander, and by a crowd of others ! The most
renowned and awe-inspiring prophetic acrostic
surely that was ever penned—penned (this one)
by the Sybils long before the Birth at Bethlehem,
discussed, as has been but just now remarked long
before then by Marcus Tullius Cicero. That
acrostic the initial letters of which " spell our
blessed Lord's two names all down the lines like a
golden fringe," as the author of " Dion" says
here very beautifully—
" liprovr Xptcrros eeov Yu's, acorrip—"
the mystical verses of this acrostic relating in the
body of the text, dimly and briefly, it may be,
but, when coupled with the initial letters thus
spelling out the Holy Designation, very distinctly
and very prophetically, the Life and Death of the
Redeemer of Mankind.

Nothing superfluous is here introduced—nothing
is said but what is, in the fullest meaning of the
words, thrice-welcome to the reader as luminously
illustrative of the force and significance of the mo-
mentous subject touched upon so delicately yet so
firmly with a hand of loving veneration. Scarcely
anywhere can we detect the author in error in his
lore—once only to our remembrance, at this moment,
on glancing back retrospectively. It is where, in
his powerful description of the formidable aspect of
Tiberius, the man in purple-black raiment, the man
with the brick-dust coloured complexion, is spoken
of as small-eyed instead of, as Suetonius Tranquillus
describes him, with eyes proportioned to his huge
bulk and lofty stature. All the stranger, this mo-
mentary slip of the pen is, coming from one who, so
to speak, seems in a manner saturated, through and
through, with the anecdotal data of the biographer
of the Twelve Emperors. Turning, however, from
this romance of "Dion and the Sibyls," to the author
of it himself, thus does he prepare the way for his
narrative by a sort of personal exordium
I have no technical, norprofessional, nor doctorial claims
of any kind to advance," he says. "I am not a recluse, nor
yet a strange, odd sort of person. lam no preacher, nor
teacher, nor lecturer, nor projector, nor promoter, nor
agent, nor missionary, nor martyr, nor saint, nor censor.
I have pursued honour, not wholly in vain, in some corn-
mon, open arenas. I have taken my part—and I suppose
it is not over yet—in the battles of life. On certain occa-
sions I hare struggled victoriously against very consider-
able odds. Better, abler, more gifted men have succumbed
around me, and I have trembled for myself when I saw
them sink. Inferiority shuddered to witness all their
strength, vigour, genius, and courage overwhelmed at its
side. Some famous men have teen, and are, my friends,
and some great men, both in the true and the false sense of
the epithet, I have seen, known, anti studied. I have mixed
with many classes in various and large communities ; have
sojourned in four continekts ; have conversed in the lan-
guages of those whose ideas reflected, contradicted, or
enlarged my own ; have watched the rage of modern busi-
ness with infectious suspense and sympathy; and amidst
the monuments, the arts, the traditions, and the literatures,
where so much human passion and human intelligence
have spent their noblest toil, have experienced my share of
emotion. 1 have erred, and suffered, and blundered; en-
countered checks, and afterwards looked back upon them ;
received directions and given directions. I have striven
and been beaten ; have strived and prevailed ; have missed
my turn and had my turn. I have known both kinds of
disappointment, that of failure and that which better de-
serves the namo—l mean the disappointment of success.
"Now, lam not a superior person ;'
Iwish I was. I am
no reprover of others, Officially or officiously. In fine, I
am anything you may please to conclude, except traitor,
•
coward, or liar. I would much rather be something better ;
but such as we are, we are. _ .

"And now," says he, by way of close to this strang
Preface, " And now:while you pass, will you listen to me,
friend, for a while ?"

Whereupon, there followB, immediately after

this fashion, the real commencement of the narra-

tive :

It was a fair evening in autumn, towards the end of the
year eleven of our Lord. Augustus Caesar was a white-
haired, olive-complexioned, and somewhat frail-featured,
though stately man of more than seventy-three. At the
beginning of the century in which this is written, the face
of the first Napoleon recalled to the minds of antiquaries
and students of numismatic remains the lineaments en-
graved upon the extant coins of Augustus. Indeed, at this
moment, there is in the Vatican a beautiful marble bust in
excellent preservation, representing one of these two em-
perors, as he was while yet young ; and this bust almost
invariably produces a curious effect upon the stranger who
contemplates it for the first time. " That is Certainly a
beautiful artistic work," he says, " but the likeness is
hardly perfect."
"Likeness of whom ?" replies some Italian friend. "Of
the emperor," says the stranger. " Sicuro ! But which
emperor ?" asks the Italian, smiling. "Of course, the
first," says the visitor, "not this one." "But that repre-
sents Augustus Omar, not Napoleon Bonaparte," is .the
answer. Whereupon the stranger who, a moment before,
had very justly pronounced the resemblance to Bonaparte
to be hardly perfect, exclaims not less justly, What an
amazing likeness to Napoleon 1 That sort of admiring sur-
prise is intelligible. Had the bust been designed as an
image of the great modern conqueror, there had been some-
thing to censure. But the work which, at one and the same
time, delineates the second Caesar, and yet now after 1800
years recalls to mind the first Napoleon, has become a
curious monument indeed.
The second Roman emperor, however, had not a fore-
head so broad and commanding nor so marble smooth as
Naploeon's, and the whole countenance, at the time when
our narrative begins, offered a more decisively aquiline
curve, with more numerous and much thinner lines about
the mouth. Still, oven at the age which he had then
reached—in year eleven of our Lord—he showed traces of
that amazing beauty which had enchanted the whole classic
world in the days of his youth. Three years more, and
his reign and life were to go down in a groat, broad, calm,
treacherous sunset together.
How in that broad sunset the grand old Sybarite
Emperor passed away like a stage-player on the
final closing of the curtain upon his performance, is
no more than just faintly hinted at in the text—the
second emsar exclaiming as in a death cry to those
who were assembled around his couch, "If all be
well, lift up your voices with joy in resounding
plaudits to the actor's honour," meaning to his own
—'EL Si ray Ixet KaXios (these were his words) rip
ratyvica &ire xpOrov, Kai ravrer vµeir µfrit xapas
Kruricrare. Long before his disappearance in Death,
however, Augustus Caesar passes almost wholly
from our ken in the unfolding of the later inci-
dents of the plot of this narrative, so that a mere
casual mention at last of his final exit is perfectly
in keeping with the due arrangement of the pro-
portions of the story as a work of art. The invo-
lutions of the winding plot of the tale here told,
we shall not venture merely to number up and,

as we number them up, dully to epitomise. Let
the romancist have the full benefit of the varying
and (not unfrequently) the long-sustained interest

he contrives to awaken in regard to the linking
together, turn by turn, of the salient incidents of
his chequered narrative. The mastering of the ter-
rible and gigantic horse Sejanus, for example, or
that earlier parrying of the wondrous blow aimed
at Paulus by the eunuch Lygdus, or the extrication of
the pay of the legions of Germanicus from the toils
of the scum of the Suburra, or the baulking of Plan-
cina's deadly device for the poisoning of Paulus
with the drugged potion, the baulking of that
deadly device by the last of the Sibyls at the very
moment when Paulus is raising the chalice with the
" leprous distillment" to his lips, or, the extrication,
again, of Agatha from the jaws of death, or of far, far
worse than death, at the latest moment, by fire and
by sword, by the mighty arm of Thellus, and by the
mightier fraternal love of Paulus, and by the serried
ranks of the Praetorian Guard marshalled at the
beck of the puissant finger of the chief minister
Sejanus. The epoch in which the story opens is
thus radiantly pencilled with a few easy and rapid
touches, indicating the writer's familiarity with the
age of which he treats, lit up as that whole epoch
is by the golden sheen of its immortal literature :
Ovid had just been sent into exile at Temesvar in Tur-
key—then called Tomos in Scythia. Cornelius Nepos was
ending his days in the personal privacy and literary noto-
riety in which he had lived. Virgil had been dead a whole
generation ; so had Tibullus ; Catullus half a century ;
Propertius some twenty years; Horace and Maecenas about
as long. The grateful master of the curiosa filicitas ver-
Lorain had followed in three weeks to—not the grave in-
deed, but the urn—the patron whom ho had i►umorLaliaod
in the first of his Odes, the first of his Epodes, the first of
his Satires, and the first of his Epistles; and the mighty
sovereign upon whose youthful court those three charac-
ters—a wise, mild, clement, yet firm minister, a glorious
Epic poet, and an unsurpassed lyrist—have reflected so
much and such enduring lustre, had faithfully and unceas-
ingly lamented their irreparable loss. Lucius Varius was
the fashionable poet, the laureate of the day ; and, Maecenas
being removed, Tiberius sought to govern indirectly, as
minister, all those matters which he did not control directly
and immediately, as one of the two Caesars whom Augus-
tus had appointed. Volleius Paterculus, the cavalry
colonel, or military tribune (chiliarch), a prosperous and
accomplished patrician, was beginning to shine at once in
letters and at the court. The grandson of Livia, grandson
also of Augustus by his marriage with her, but really
grand-nephew of that emperor—we moan the son of
Antonia, the celebrated Germanicus, second and more
worthy bearer of that surname—a youth full of fire and
genius, and tingling with noble blood—was preparing to
atone for the disgraces, and to repair the disasters which
Quintilius Yarns, one year before, amidst the uncleared
forests of Germany, had brought upon the imperial arms
and the Roman name. Germanicus, indeed, was about to
fulfil the more important part of a celebrated classic injunc-
tion ; he was going to do things worthy to be written,

" while the supple courtier of all Caesars, Paterculus, was
endeavouring to write something worthy to be read."
Strabo had not long before commenced his system of geo-
graphy, which, for about thirty years yet to come, was to
engage his attention and dictate his travels. Livy, of the
" Pictured Page," who doubtless may be called, next to
Tacitus, the most eloquent, without being set down as
quite the most credulous of classic historians —I venture to
say so, pace Niebuhr—was over 86 years of age, but scarcely
looked 60. Ho was even then thoroughly and universally
appreciated. No man living had received more genuine
marks of honour—not even the emperor. His hundred and
forty-two books of Roman History had filled the known
world with his praises, a glory which length of days
allowed him fully to enjoy. Modern readers appreciate
and admire the thirty-five books which alone are left, and
linger over the beauties, quasi stellis, with which they shine.
Yet who knows but these may bo among the poorest pro-
ductions of Livy's genius ? A very simple sum in arith-
metic would satisfy an actuary that we must have lost the
most valuable emanations of the Paduan's great mind.
Given a salvage of five-and-thirty out of a hundred and
forty-two, and yet the whole of this wreck, so marvellous
in beauty! surely that which is gone for ever must have
included much that is equal, probably something far supe-
rior, to what time has spared.

As superbly indicative of the rhetorical power pos-
sessed by the pen of our novelist, we are tempted
here to give yet one other extract from his pages,
one affording the reader what we cannot but regard
as a very noble taste indeed of the writer's quality.
It is a passage descriptive of the apparition of the
demons to the haggard and wondering eyes of
Plancina, the evil-hearted wife of Cneius Piso—

"Some forms were like the human, with red fire in the
veins instead of blood, and white fire in the bones instead
of marrow ; eyes they possessed that had no comfort in
thorn. They had the air of being utterly without interest
in anything, only that their eyes were filled with fear ; yet
it seemed to me with knowledge, too : unspeakable fear,
immense knowledge: wells and pools they appeared, full
of fear and knowledge. When they glanced upon you,
there were pale rays of hatred strangely combined with an
expression of indifference, fear, knowledge, and hatred.
If you looked at the eyes, when they looked not at
ycu, you saw nothing but an expression of fear and
knowledge ; but when they did look at you, you
saw fear, knowledge, and hatred, too. All these faces
mocked without smiling, and scoffed without enjoyment.
Something, I thought, was dripping down the wan cheeks,
and there was a look of fixed surprise long ago, of long-
past astonishment—the trace left, and the feeling gone.
The emotion of boundless amazement had once been there ;
the signs of it were left all over the countenance, but, if I
may so speak, petrified— an immedicable scar, an ineffaceable
vestige. The character of the countenance was that of a
dead astonishment—the astonishment was dead ; it was no
longer an Active sentiment. it had been some boundless
wonder ; the greatest which that creature had over experi-
enced, and the event which had caused it had apparently
been the most serious which that being had over known."
Apart from any more highly elaborated descrip-
tive passages such as these, there are little
incidental phrases, moreover, of infinite grace
and beauty scattered with a lavish hand
all through the two volumes—such phrases,
let us say, as that descriptive of the
arcaded impluvium of the Mamurran Palace, with
its central:fountain " smitten into a sorcery of
tints, as it shed into a large basin of green marble
the drooping sheaf of waters, of which the materials
were perpetually changing, and the form and
outlines perfectly maintained or instantly and per-

petually renewed." Altogether the impression left
behind it by the work, as we close the two volumes and
lay them by for after reference, is more than simply
favourable. It is more even, we would say, than
merely satisfying. It is elevating and ennobling.
Towards its close, we often read it with pro-
found emotion through a brimming haze of tears.
Finally, we would yet further say of this romance
of " Dion and the Sibyls" that it is not so much
a remarkable addition to the plentiful store of
fiction constituting the charm and treasurer of our
circulating libraries, it is—what but a very few
indeed among the countless volumes passing through
those circulating libraries ever chance to be—a
contribution to literature. As such we hail its ap-
pearance with peculiar satisfaction, according
henceforth an honourable place to Mr. Keon among
the ranks of our more highly cultivated writers of
imagination.

LA TEST INTELLIGENCE.

(REUTER'S TELEGRAMS.)

SPAIN.
MADRID, MARCH 15.
The Novedades of to-day states that the Minister
of Finance has concluded an arrangement with
Messrs. Rothschild for a loan of 80,000,000 reals,
guaranteed by hypothecated notes.

AUSTRIA.

VIENNA, MARCH 16.

The postal treaty, concluded on the 9th of
February last between Austria and Russia, was
promulgated to-day.
The Convention with Mexico in reference to re-
cruiting in Austria for thy Austrian Volunteer
corp in Mexico, was signed yesterday by Count
Mensdorff and the Mexican Minister.

OUTWARD CALCUTTA AND CHINA
MAILS.

MALTA, MARCH 15.

The Syria, from Southampton, on the 4th inst.,
arrived here on the 13th at 8 a.m., and left at
6 p.m. for Alexandria.

The Pera, from Marseilles on the 12th inst.,
arrived at 11 p.m. on the 14th, and left at 6 a.m.
on the 15th for Alexandria.

TEE WEST INDIA MAILS.
SOUTHAMPTON, MARCH 16.

The Royal Mail Company's steamship Seine,
with the above mails, has arrived here. She brings
53 passengers, $240,695 in specie, ani 1,648 pack-
ages of cargo, chiefly consisting of cochineal, bark,
coffee, cotton, and cocoa.
The Seine left St. Thomas on the 2d inst. She
experienced fine weather throughout. On the 15th
she spoke the British vessel Salsette. The Tas-
manian, with the outward mails of the 17th ult.,
arrived at St. Thomas, all well, on the 2nd inst.
The news of the offensive and defensive alliance
of Peru with Chili against Spaiu was received at
Valparaiso with much enthusiasm.
Trade at Valparaiso was paralysed, but shipping
business at all the other ports was active.
Admiral Denman, the British commander-in-
chief on the west coast of America, arrived at Val-
paraiso in the ship Sutlej.
Charters in Chili were numerous, and the rates
were advancing.

Exchange on London, 47d. to 481 d. Bar copper
per quintal, $l7 50c.
Tranquillity prevailed in Peru. The entire coun-
try was unanimous in favour of General Prado, who
was introducing reforms daily for the country's
good. Business was dull and money scarce, provi-
sions, &c., bringing exorbitant prices. Exchange,
90 days, had fallen to 3521 per dollar.
Ecuador had allied itself to Peru and Chili, and
a declaration of war was signed at Quinto on the
30th by the Minister of the three Republics.
The Chinese labourers engaged upon the Chincha
Islands had risen en masse and attempted to murder
all placed in charge of them. Several were brutally
murdered before the rebellion could be put down.
Twenty-six of the Chinamen were shot.
Sugar-making at Jamaica has commenced. The
crop is expected to be much larger than that of last
year. In general the peasantry on the estates are
working well. Business is dull. Pimento scarce.
Native corn abundant. Rum, 33d. to 36d. proof
18. Sugar, 15s. to 20s. Exchange, 1i prem. 60
days.
At Demerara produce is in little demand.
weather wet. Freights on London and Liver-
pool, 2s.

The manufacture of sugar is progressing—qua-
lity good. Cotton crop encouraging. Weather
fine.

At Grenada the wet weather had retarded opera-
tions on the estates. The health of the island was
good.

Cholera still lingered at Guadaloupe.

Sugar making had commenced at Martinique.
The weather was wet. The harbour was full of
shipping waiting for produce. Business was dull.
The weather at Barbadoes was fine, and the
estates were busy. The sugar crop promises to
reach 50,000 hogsheads.

At Trinidad the weather was unsettled, and crop
operations progressed slowly.

JAMAICA.
(Per the Seine.)
KINGSTON, JAN. 24.

The Royal Commission has been sitting daily
hearing the evidence of all brought before them as
to the cause of the disturbance and the means em-

ployed for its suppression.

The proceedings have been watched by Messrs.
Gorrie, Payne, and Phillips on behalf of Dr. Under-
hill, Mrs. Gordon, and other sufferers ; and by Mr.
G. AV. Walcot on behalf of Governor Eyre.

The Commission has been most studious in the
prosecution of their work, finding many witnesses
in the Bath district. Commissioner Gurney went
to Morant Bay and Stony Gut to take evidence
there. It has been proved that during martial law
several women were flogged at St. Thomas-in-the-
East.

All the political prisoners, tried by the Special
Commission for seditious language and writing,
have been guilty and sentences of from 20 days to
12 months' imprisonment have been pronounced.
Mr. Levien, proprietor of the County Union, has
been sentenced to imprisonment for 12 months for
libellous articles against the Government.

The Colonial Standard feels assured that the re-
port of the Royal Commission will completely vin-
dicate Governor Eyre and the military and naval
authorities for the course adopted towards the
rebels in St. Thomas-in-the-East, and that the evi-
dence produced proves an organised insurrection in
that locality, whilst the attempts made to bolster up
charges of cruelty on the part of the soldiers and
sailors have completely broken down.

Mr. Eyre continues to receive addresses expres-
sive of sympathy and approbation from the various
bodies in the island. Major O'Connor also receives
his share of public sympathy.
The Morning Journal says that there is no altera-
tion from the good order ,which prevailed at the
departure of the last mail.

" Abundant testimony bas been produced before
the commission proving tho crueltico practised by