The Sun.
London, England, 1832-10-01 00:00:00

VISIT OF THE FRENCH OFFICERS TO

THE ARSENAL.

Ever since the arrival of the French corvette at Spit-
head, the officers of that yes el have taken occasional op-
portunities of visiting the Arsenal, and it is only justice to
state that no unworthy principle o' national jealousy has
prevented the authorities here from affording them every
po-sible facility. In fact, the orders of the Admiralty are
in perfect unison with the feelings of the parties to whom
they are addressed ; and there appears to he a sort of in-
genuous, stubborn, John Bull pride influencing their
minds--a pride that exults in a pre-eminence which no
nation except England can ever hope to attain. The
Warden of the Arsenal, Lieutenant Marshal!, a gallant
officer, who has lost a leg in the service, and ought to
have been promoted long since, is frequently polite enough
to attend in person when visiters are going round, and,
with the true spirit of a Briton, be feels gratified in the dis-
play of British power, as exemplified in the first navaldepot
of the universe. Having in the course of this day joined a
party under his auspices, I was conducted over every part
of the vast establishment; and at every step I took there
was something to excite my surprise and admiration.
Two or three French officers, who were admitted at the
same time, appeared lost in astonishment. It would
seem that they could not possibly have anticipated such a
combination of boundless resources, and wonderful inge-
nuity in the adaptation of them, as now presented itself
to their view. In fact the scene is almost incredible. The
names of Watt and of Brunel claim pre-eminent distinc-
tion here. A small steam-engine, of Watt's design, gives
practical power to the genius of Brunel through countless
intricacies of art. The manner in which the block
work is executed is an absolute phenomenon of me-
chanism. A rough piece of timber is in an instant cut
through with a circular saw, and, after going through u
variety of processes, in as many minutes becomes ready
for the rope to the hand of the sailor. Some idea may be
formed of the advantage which the naval service derives
from this new invention when I state that 250 blocks
may now with ease be struck off in one day, while not
more than 15 could be made under the old system of ma-
nual operation. In fact this is the very triumph of ma-
chinery.
Just as we were taking our departure, the shipwright
who built the Neptune, and who prides himself on having
committed to the ocean the largest BritislPvessel that has
ever floated, presented me with the following estimate of
her dimensions. It will be perceived that she is unrivalled
in vastness.

ee
Length on lower deck F2ll5t. 8 In.
Ditto of keel l9O 6
Ditto of keel for tonnage
Breadth for ditto

Ditto moulded 53 103 i
Ditto to outside of wale 55 6%
hold

Depth in hold
Burden in tons, '2,705 70-94ths
Extreme length aloft 24t 6
Ditto height, forward 56 6
Ditto, ditto, midships 5l 0
Ditto, ditto, abaft
Half-past Five o'clock, p.m.
The French corvette "triune (or Ariadne) has this
moment sailed from Spithead for Cherbourg. I am in-
formed that she carries with her despatches directing the
other vessels of the squadron to Come to this port imme-
diately ; and the general impression now is that the obsti-
i•acy of William of Nassau will be broken down by bombs,
if remonstrance should still prove unavailing'. All the
firers here belonging to the expedition bold themselves
is readiness to sail at a moment's notice.

MAGAZINE DAY.

NE W MONTHLY MA GAZINE.
We quote Mr. Bulwer's remarks on the
" Death of Sir Walter Scott ;" in the first place,
because it forms the most correct estimate we
have yet met with of his intellect ; secondly,
because it is penned in a fine, generous, feeling,
eloquent spirit. We scarce know which to ad-
mire most, the head or the heart of its writer.
It is worth a thousand elaborate eulogies.
Journal of Conversations with Lord Byron"
are far better this month than they have yet
been. We have been much struck with the
arrogant impertinence of this Byronian remark.
The man who could utter such stuff had evi-
dently read the Scotch Novels to but little ad-
vantage. " Byron often talks of Napoleon, of
whom he is a great admirer, and says, that what
he most likes in his character was his want of
sympathy, which proved his knowledge of hu-
man nature, as those only could possess sympathy
who were in happy ignorance of it." Of the
other articles, we must content ourselves with
saying, that they are well worth reading, espe-
cially the reminiscences of Shelley. The number
is an excellent one.
" The blow is struck—the lyre is shattered—the mnsic
is hushed at length. The greatest—the most various—
the most commanding genius of modern times has left us to
seek for that successor to his renown which, in all proba-
bility, a remote generation alone will furnish forth. It is
true that we have been long prepared for the event—it
does not fall upon us suddenly—leaf after leaf was stripped
from that noble tree before it was felled to the earth at
last ;—our sympathy in his decay has softened to us the
sorrow for his death. It is not now our intention to trace
the character or to enumerate the works of the great man
whose career is run ;—to every eye that reads—every ear
that hears--every heart that remembers, this much, at
least, of his character is already known,—that he had all
the exuberance of genius, and none of its excesses; that 1 e
was at once equitable and generous—that his heart was
ever open to charity—that his life has probably been short-
ened by his scrupulous regard for justice. His career was
one splendid refutation of the popular fallacy, that genius
has of necessity vices—that its light must be meteoric—
and its courses wayward and uncontrolled. He has left
mankind two great lessons,—we scarcely know which is
the most valuable. He has taught us bow much delight
one human being can confer upon the world ;—he has
taught us also that the imagination may aspire to the
wildest flights without wandering into error. Of whom
else among our great list of names—the heir-looms of our
nation—can we say that he has left us everything to ad-
mire, and nothing to forgive?
" It is in four different paths of intellectual eminence
that Sir Walter Scott has won his fame; as a poet, a
biographer, an historian, and a novelist. It is not now a
time (with the great man's clay scarce cold) to enter into
the niceties of critical discussion. We cannot now weigh,
and sift, and compare. We feel too deeply at this moment
to reason well—but we ourselves would incline to consider
him greatest as a poet. Whether it be that to our earliest
recollections he was most endeared by those mighty lap
which called from antiquity all its noblest spirit, and
breathed a life and nature into that literature, which was
then languishing under the drowsiness of eternal imitation,
and the trappings of a false and Gallic artificiality of school,
at once burthensome and frivolous ;—whatever be the
cause of our differing from the world iu general on this
point, certain it is, that we think him even greater as
a poet than a novelist —and were it possible that time
could wither up the into rest of the world in either, we think
that tie prose of Waved: y might suffer before the verse of
Marmion. Never, indeed. has there been a poet so
thoroughly Homeric as Sc..tt—the battle—the feast—the
council—the gu r.iiroona at Stirling—the dying warrior
at Flodden—the fierce Bertram speeding up the aisle—ill
are Homeric ;—all live—move—breathe and burn—alike
poetry, hlit alike li'e ! There is thi,, difference, too,
marked and prominetr—between his verse and his prose ;
—the first is emphatic dly the verse of Scott—the latter
(we mean in its stye) may he the prose of any one—the
striking originality, the daring boldness, the astonishing
vigour of the style, in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, arc
lost in the Antiquary and Guy Mannering.
" Scott may be said, in prose, to have no style. There
are those, we know, who cell this very absence of style a
tree it--o e not dispute it: if it be so, Scott is the
first. great prose writer fi om Bacon to Gibbon,—nay, from
flerodotu, in Grei.k, to Paul Courier, in French—who
his laid claim to it. For our own part, we think him
great, in spite of the want of style, and not because of it.
As a biographer, he has been unfortunate in his subjects :
the two roost important of the various lives lie has either
delineated or sketched—that of Dryden and that of Swift
—are men, to whose inexpiable baseness genius could
neither give the dignity of virtue nor the interest of error.
Nor, perhaps, if we may presume to say so, was the bent
of the biographer's mind that of the JUDGE : he had more
of the spirit of veneration than that of inquiry. And in
his estimate, both of men and of books, his reasoning
seldom sa-isfies us so much as his enthusiasm charms. Ile
was born not to compose criticisms, but to create critics ;
and the lessons be would draw from the lives and genius
of other men,—the poet—the romancer—the critic—the
philosopher of future ages—will deduce from his own.
" As an historian, we confess that we prize him more
highly- than as a biographer: it is true that the same
faults are apparent in both, but there is in the grand
History of Napiilenn more scope for redeeming beauties.
His great, his unrivalled, excellence in description is heie
brought into full and ample display : his battles are vivid
with colours which no other historian ever could command

And all the errors of the history still leave scenes and
touches of unrivalled majesty to the book.
" As a novelist, Scott has been blamed for not impart-
ing a more useful moral to his fictions, and for dwelling
with too inconsiderate an interest on the chivalric illusions
of the past. To charges of this nature all writers are
liable. Mankind are divided into two classes ; and he
who belongs to the one will ever incur the reproach of not
seeing through the medium of the other. Certain it is,
that we, with utterly different notions on political truths
from the great writer who ia no more, might feel some
r. Bret—some natural p,in—that that cause which we
believe the hest, was not honoured by his advocacy ; but
when we reflect on the real influence of his works, we are
satisfied they have been directed to the noblest ends, and
have embraced the largest circle of human interests. We
do net speak of the delight he has poured forth over the
earth—of the lonely hours he has charmed—of the sad
he arts he has beguiled—of the beauty and the music
which he has summoned to a world where all travail and
none repose : this, indeed, is something—this, indeed, is a
moral—this, indeed, has been a benefit to mankind. And
this is a new corroborant of one among the noblest of in.
tellectual truths,—viz. that the books which please, are
always books that, in one sense, benefit ; and that the
work which is largely and permanently popular—which
sways, moulds, and softens the universal heart—cannot
appeal to vulgar and unworthy passions (such appeals are
never widely or long triumphant); the delight it occasions
is a proof of tl.e moral it inspires.
" But this power to charm aad to beguile is not that
moral excellence to which we refer. Scott has been the
first great genius—Fielding alone excepted—who invited
oor thorough and uncondescending sympathy to the wide
mass of the human family—who has stricken (for in this
artificial world it requires an effort) into our hearts a love
and a respect for those chosen from the people. Shak-

speare has not done this—Shakepeare paints the follies of
the mob with a strong and unfriendly hand. Where, in

Shakspeare, is there—a
Jeanie Dean; ? Take up which

you will of those numerous works which have appeared,
from " Waverley" to the " Chronicles of the Cannon-
gate,"—open where you please, you will find portraits
from the people—and your interest keeping watch beside
the poor man's hearth. Not, in Scott, as they were in
the dramatists of our language, are the peasant, the arti-
ficer, the farmer, dragged on the stage merely to be laughed
at for their brogue, and made to seem ridiculous becauie
they are useful.
" He paints them, it is true, in their natural language,
but the language is subservient to the character; he does

not bow the man to the phrase, but the phrase to the man.
. . . .

Neither does he flatter on the one banil, as he does not

slight on the other. Unlike the maudlin pastoralists of
France, he contents himself with the simple truth—he
contrasts the dark shadows of Meg Alerrilie,s or of Edie
Oehiltree, with the holy and pure lights that redeem and
sanctify them—he gives us the poor, even to the gipsey
and the beggar, as they really are—contented, if our inte-
rest is excited, and knowing that nature is sufficient to
excite it. From the palaces of kings—from tie tents of
warriors, he comes—equally at home with man in all

aspects—to the cotter's hearth ;--he bids us turn from the
pomp of the Plamagenets to bow the knee to the poor
Jew's daughter—he makes us sicke❑ at the hollowness of
the Royal Rothsay, to sympathize with the honest love of

Hugh the smith. No, never was there one—not even
Burns himself—who forced us more intimately to acknow-
ledge, or more deeply to feel, that
" The rank is but the guinea stamp,
The man's the gowd, for a' that."
" And is this being, to whom intellect taught philan-
thropy, to he judged by ordinary rul.s ?—are we to guage
and mete his capacities of good, by the common measure we
apply to common men ?—No ! there was in him a large
and catholic sympathy with all classes, all tempers, all
conditions of men ; and this it was that redeemed his
noble works from all the taint of party, and all the leaven
of sectarianism ; this it was that made him, if the Tory
in principle, the all-embracing leader in practice. Gon-
pare with what he has done for the people—in painting
the people,—the works of poets called Liberal by the doc-
ttinaries—compare the writings of Scott with those of
Byron—which have really tended the most to bind us to
the poor ?—The first has touched the homely strings of our
real heart—the other has written, fine vague stanzas about
freedom. Lara, the Corsair, Childe Harolde, Don Juan,
these are the works—we will not say of the misanthrope
—at least of the aristocrat. Are Scott's so ? Yet Byron
was a Liberal, and Scott a Tory. Alas, the sympathy
with humanity is the true republicanism of a writer
of fiction. Liberal and Tory arc words which signify
nothing out of the sphere of the politics of the day. Who
shall we select from the Liberal poets of our age who has
bouad us to the people like Scott—Shelley, with his
metaphysical refinings?—Moore, with his elaborate flori-
dity of patriotism ?—No ! we feel at once that Nature
aught Scott more of friendship with all mankind, than the
philosophy of the one or the fancy of the other. Out of
print, Scott might belong to a party—in print, mankind
belonged to him. Toryism, which is another name for
the spirit of monopoly, forsook him at that point where
his inquiries into human nature began. He is not, then,
we apprehend, justly liable to the charge of wanting a
sound moral—even a great political moral—(and political
morals are the greatest of all)—in the general tenor of
works which have compelled the highest classes to examine
and respect the lowest. In this, with far less learning,
far less abstract philosophy, than Fielding, he is only ex-
ceeded by him in one character—(and that, indeed, the
most admirJale in English fiction)—the character of Par-
son Adams. Jeanie Deans is worth a thousand such as
Fanny Andrews. Fielding, Le Sage, and Cervantes are
the only three writers, since the world began, with whom,
as a novelist, he can be compared. And perhaps be excels
them, as Voltaire excelled all the writers of his nation, not
by the superior merits of one work, but by tho brilliant
aggregate of many. Tom Jones, Gil Blas, Don Quixote,
are, without doubt, greater, much greater, productions
than Waverley; but the authors of Tom Jones, Gil Blas,
and even of Don Quixote, have not manifested the same
fertile and mighty genius as the author of the Waverley
Novels.

" And that genius—seemingly so inexhaustible—is
quenched at length ! We can be charmed no mare—the
eloquent tongue is mute—the master's wand is broken up
—the right hand bath forgot its cunning—the cord that
is loosened was indeed of silver—and the bowl that is
broken at the dark well was of gold beyond all price.
'• Death, of late, has been busy amongst the great men of
earth—the mighty landmarks of the last age, one after
one, have been removed :—Cuvier, Mackintosh, Bentham,
Goethe, and now Scott—there is something, as it were,
mysterious and solemn in the disappearance of so many
lights of the age, within so short an interval of each other;
—and happening, as it does, at a period when the old ele-
ments of society are shaken to the centre, it might have
seemed to ancient superstition as if the world were pre-
paring itself for an unexperienced era, and the removal of
the chiefs of the past time betokened the advent of a new
order of mind suited to the new disposition of events.
" When a great man dies, he leaves a chasm which eter-
nity cannot fill. Others succeed to h:s fame—but never
to the exact place which he held in the world's eye ;—they
may be greater than the one we have lost—but they are
not he. Shakspeare built not his throne on the same site
as Homer—nor Scott on that whence Shakspeare looked
down upon the universe. 'llse gap which Scott leaves in
the world is the token of the space he filled in the homage
of his times. A hundred ages hence our posterity will still
see that wide interval untenanted—a vast and mi.:loy eri
in the intellectual world, which will prove how spacious
were the city and the temple, whose summit has reached
to Heaven.'

THE AUTHOR OF EUGENE AnAm.'

PLACKW 0 0 D'S MAGAZINE.

Blackwood is unusually bountiful this month,
and indulges us with a double number, both of
which contain contributions of superior merit.
" The Pursuits of Politics " is a satirical poem,

slashing at every thing and every body indiscri-
minately, and accompanied by running notes and
comments from the versatile pen of O'lloherty.
The prose, we think, of this olla podrida
is superior to the poetry. " The Republican

Exiles " is one of the most spirit-stirring narra-
tives we ever read. Not a page in this singu-
larly effective composition but teems with in-
terest. The escape of Pichegru and other
French democrats, who rendered themselves ob-
noxious to the Directory, from the Indian
fortress, whither they were banished from Paris,
reminds us of the dramatic narrative of Hassan's
escape in Hopes' magnificent romance of Anas-
tasius. We quote a specimen

" The French Directory, in the year 1797, had fully
exhibited the folly of government by men suddenly raised
to power by popular clarntiur. Pretended philosophers,
they committed every blunder of bad politicians; and pom-
pous rulers of Republicans, they exhibited all the negli-
gence, profligacy, and peculation that calumny had ever at-
tributed to kings. France grew weary of the Directory,
but it was less because she saw their absurdities, than be-
cause she was weary of hearing their names. A govern-
ment which had lasted above a year was not the govern-
ment for the grande nation. She longed for a change, if
it were to a cabinet of dancing-dogs, and the Five arec-
tors began to tremble for their dignities.
" The government consisted of a mockery of the British

legislature ; a Council of Elders meagerly corresponded to
our House of Lords, and a Council of Five Hundred to our
House of Commons. Their Five Directors it would be an
insult to royalty to compare to the honoured authority of a
British King. The divisions of faction in those bodies of
triflers and profligates, rendered all deliberation a bur-
lesque; but they menaced the power of the Directors, and,
to secure that power, their Five Majesties of the Luxem-
bourg, as the Parisians had learned to call them in scorn,
determined to make a "New Constitution." To this the
preliminary was the illegal and tyrannical seizure of every
man who might be formidable to them in the two Houses.
To strengthen their hands in this act of the most furious
despotism, they brought troops into Paris, headed by Na-
polean's Lieutenant, Augereau ; they held a correspon-
dence with Napoleon, who, like an independent sovereign,
or a new Caesar, promised to cross the Rubicon to their
assistance ; and they commenced, with congenial activity,
the corruption of the two guards of the Councils. For,
in this day of virtue and freedom, nothing was done with
out the soldier, and all deliberation was carried on under
the protection of the bayonet.
" At three in the morning of the day appointed for the
New Revolution, a signal cannon was fired. Augereau
instantly marched his troops to the doors of the two
Houses. Cannon were pointed at the entrance of the
Council of Elders, to blow to the moon any politician
foolish enough to talk of laws or liberty. Troops were
posted in all the avenue-, and the Council was placed in
the midst of a force of twelve thousand regenerators, with
muskets on their shoulders. The guard at the doors of
the Council of Five Hundred still kept the gates shut;
arid the members, who had already assembled to know
whether they were to be hanged, sabred, or shot—such are
the alternatives of a government of the free—were suffered
to remain in their happy pre-eminence for exactly an hour
and a half from the time of the extinction of their brother
branch of legislation. But, at the end of this time, the
blow fell duly. An officer made his appearance in the
hall, informing them, that he was going to lock the doors,
and carry the keys to the Directory. 11Iurmurings arose,
the last expiring indignation of men who had brought
their unhappy and innocent King to the block. The offi-
cer was a personage of few words. Ile recommended it
to them, to look to their own satcty, in the event of
delay: and, finding that they still murmured, he locked
the doors, and carried the tale to his masters.
" The next process was to nullify the go irds of the tin o
Housee. Augereau walked at the head of a gang of the
ruffianism of the Revolution, Santerre, Trenek, the widow
Rousin, drew(' a l'Ainazone—for the ladies are every-
thing in France at all times—and others, who had noto-
riouslyslaves! called out, Vice la Repub-
liquegeneral system of embracing, walked
a'wellehe(olylae corps in his train, and sent the few
, c.btoheientriarreelg.
away with
obnoxious officers to prison. The treatment of Ramel,
the commandant of the guard, a general officer, who had
flourished in many a revolutionary page, was characteristic
of the time. Augereau ordered him under arrest, with a
tolerably distinct menace that he should be shot. The

captain .general murmured; Augereau gave him a rapid
lesson on the value of submission--the rabble, both soldiers
and moh, were instantly suffered to take him into their
hands. He was knocked down, his sword broken, his
clothes were torn, he was dragged along the streets, and
on the point of being murdered ; a sergeant whom he had
put in arrest for some offence a few drys before, to .k this
opportunity to discharge his arrears of justice. He drew
his sabre, made a rush at the unlucky general, and would
have plunged the weapon in his body. But Augereau,
who probably thought that this mode of managing mili-
tary officers might be turned into a precedent, or who may
have wished for a more public exhibition of blood, with
his own hand dragged the assassin back, comforting the
crowd, however, with the promise, that they should have
their indulgence at no distant date. Let him alone,' ex-
claimed the little General, ' I promise you he shall be shot
to-morrow!'

" The luckless officer was sent without delay to the
Temple, and there, bruised, bleeding, and half-naked, was
thrown into one of the rooms which had held the late
King. Ha, ha,' laughed the gaoler, here is another of
them. Show the gentleman into the "Chamber of Opi-
nions."' The General was not left long alone. In a
couple of hours, the victorious drums were heard outside,
the gates were thrown open, and a group of the arrested
members of the Council, with Pichegru, its president at
their Lead, entered. Another group followed in the course
of the day, headed by Ladebat, president of the Council of
Elders, and all were alike flung into the apartments which
had witnessed the last melancholy hours of their unfortu-
nate Sovereigns. Never was there a history which the
finger of retributive justice wrote in deeper characters of
fire and blood, than the history of this furious, guilty, wo-
ful Revolution."

" Torn Cringle's Log" is amusing, but not
so much so as some of the former numbers we
have met with of this desultory nouvellette.
" The English Martyrs " is an eloquent dramatic
sketch by Mrs. Hemans. " Antonio di
Carara " is a forced, extravagant tale, full of
startling improbabilities.

PART 11.

" The Cmsars" is an historical sketch thrown
off at random, but written with considerable
power. " Foreign Affairs" is, like all its prede-
cessors in this flagrant ultra periodical, a vehe-
ment diatribe on every thing approaching to
liberalism in politics. According to the writer,
ruin hangs over Europe—the world, which
nothing can avert but the restoration of the
Tories to office. The writer says, " the French
themselves are now heartily ashamed of the events
of July." This is a notorious untruth. The
French are as proud as ever of their glorious re-
volution—decidedly the most glorious in their
long chivalrous annals ; but they are ashamed of
the paltry way in which its good effects have
been frittered away and sacrificed to the selfish,
personal interests of Louis Philippe. " The
Cyclops of Euripides" is a capital translation,
but more animated than faithful.