The Sun.
London, England, 1859-12-12 00:00:00

NEW 11USIC.

The Flower Queen. Vase a deux Temps. By.
Frederic de Bernhardt.
Bouton de Rose Quadrilles. By Frederic de Bern-
hardt.

Evans and Co., 77, Baker-street, Portman-square.
Monsieur Frederic de Bernhardt, the composer
of these two very charming productions, has not
only evidenced throughout them both his mastery
of the science of musical composition, but ho has
revealed in each that rarest gift of all for the
musician—the gift of melody. This is particularly
observable in the " Valse a deux temps," though it
is noticeable also in a lesser degree in parts of the
graceful Rosebud Quadrilles. Danced to, as the
Flower Queen Waltz will doubtless be, during the
present and coming season in many a ball-room of
Mayfair and Belgravia, the delicate melody which
is its theme will haunt the memory of many a light-
footed sylph in crinoline long after she has ceased
her gyrations to its harmonious measure. The
composer's success, here, in dance-music, is such to
our thinking, is so daintily refreshing in originality,
that we shall hope to have an opportunity of recog-
nising M. de Bernhardt's ability as a melodist in
the production of a ballad or love-song, a branch
of his high art in which we conceive him to be
naturally qualified to excel—estimating his qualifi-
cations, though we do at the present moment, merely
through the graceful medium of this " Flower
Queen Waltz" and these " Bouton de Rose Quad-
rilles." A rivederla !

LITE.RATUR.E.

Life in Spain. By Walter Thornbury, author o,
" Art and Nature," Ste. 2 vols. Smith and
Elder.
Two volumes of travels in such a romantic
locality, sketohed by the brilliant and facile pen of
the author of " Shakespeare's England,' " Art and
Nature," and many another contribution to the
literature of the day, will probably attract many
readers. The work consists of a series of papers
which orignally appeared in " Household Words,"
enlarged and added to. While we can trace some
of the diffuseness and carelessness of style to which
such a. method of writing naturally gives rise, we
can discover more vivacity and entertainment than
are often encountered in more serious and solid re-
cords. The volumes are lively, varied, and full of
animation, telling the author's impressions in a free
careless manner, as though he were giving, viva
vote, on his return, an account of his adventures to
some enquiring friend. He troubles himself but
little about the intrigues of the Court or the cabals
of the politician, the errors of the Government or
the state of the national finances. All such subjects
he leaves in silence and obscurity, at once merciful
to his late hosts and to his English reader. He
would not be a trustworthy teller of travellers' tales,
however, if he returned from Spain without glean-
ing anything about the two national institutions
of the Inquisition and the bull fight. Accordingly,
wehave a thrilling account of the one, drawn from a
rare old Spanish volume, the work of one of the
sufferers ; and a vivid picture of the other, taken
from the writer's own experience. The verdict
pronounced on both is one which most of us will
subscribe to—that the Inquisition is a compound of
tyranny, bigotry, and cruelty, diametrically op-
posed to the great principles of Christianity ; and
the bull fight a ferocious and barbarous sport, de-
teriorating to the national character of the people
who so frequently witness it. The visit to the
Spanish wine merchant is amusingly told, and tells
some truths very disagreeable to the purchasers
of cheap sherry :
" In Xeres there were five hundred thousand arrobas of
wine—thirty of which went to a bota (butt)—made an-
nually. This made thirty-four thousand butts, nine thou-
sand of which were of first quality. Sherry is too strong
and too dear for Spaniards, and too feverish for the climate.
The best is, in Xeres, a dollar a bottle. The best in the
bodega is worth from fifty to eighty guineas a butt ; and
after insurance, freight, and sale charges, it stands the im-
porter in from one hundred to one hundred and thirty
guineas before it reaches his cellar (say) in Belgrave-
square.
" ' How many gallons in the butt, Don Sanchez ?'
" ' About one hundred and twelve. This will bottle into
about fifty-two dozen, and the duty is five shillings and six-
pence the gallon. So you may form your own opinion
about cheap London sherries, which are generally ver
' curious' indeed—mere doctors' draughts, in fact, made up
according to certain swindling prescriptions.'
" Here was a blow for my old friend Binns, who opens a
bottle of forty-eight shilling sherry with the air of an anti-
quarian unswathing a mummy Pharaoh. Thought I, the
next time the deluded man points to the oily stickiness of
his glass, I will leap up, seize him by the white cravat, and
say in a hollow voice :
Binns I you are the victim of a life-long delusion
that stuff you drink, you think is the juice of Spanish
grapes, plucked by men playing guitars, and smoking
cigars ; you call it, in poetical moments, bottled sunlight,
gunfire, and so on—bah (after the manner of Napoleon)
it is only a chemical compound made up of drugs and Infu-
sion% like Daffy's elixir or James's powder. It is cooked
up with boiled, treacly wine, and brandy. It is a compound
mixed with a dozen barrels, and made to order for a parti-
cular market. If the vines of Xeres grew till they got
black in the face, Binns, they could not yield wine like your
forty-eight shilling sherry.'
"The Don laughed, and said that certainly the sherry
wine district was very small; not more than twelve miles
square. Therefore, it could not yield honest wine enough
even for half London. The sherry grape grew only on cer-
tain low, chalky hills, where, the earth being light-coloured,
is not so much burnt—did not chap and split so much by the
sun, as darker and heavier soils do. A. mile beyond these
hills, tho grapes deteriorate. The older the plants the
bettor, but the fewer the grapes."
Another amusing chapter is that on Spanish pro-
verbs. We subjoin the introductory passage :
" The Spanish proverbs, the floating literature of Spain,
handed down by verbal tradition, smell of garlic and orange
peel, and are as profoundly national as the English nauti-
cal song or the Welsh triad.
" They aro shot at you, or stabbed into you, or pelted at
you, at every tavern door and at every table d'hote. They
are the grace for the sour gaspacho and the unsavoury salt
cod-fish (bacalao). They are the Spaniard's shield and stil-
lotto. They aro the wisdom of the age before books, and as
Spain changes no more than China, they are the wisdom of
the present day. They aro to the cigarette-smoker and
melon-eater what quotations are to the club man, and to the
debater in Parliament whom country gentlemen always
cheer when he quotes Horace—thinking it Greek, and to
show they understand him. To many who do not think at
all they supply the place of books altogether, and aro the
traditional Corpus Juris of traditional wisdom bequeathed
them by their ancestors, who did think. It might bo a
question, indeed, worth the theorist-spinner's while to trace
the effect of these floating proverbs on a race to which they
serve as creeds, statutes, and guides of life; of which they
express the mode of thought, and, at the same time, influence
and direct it—moulding andbeing moulded. In these pro-
verbs we find every phase of the Spanish mind exemplified
--its ' pundonor,' its punctiliousness, its intolerable and
mean pride, its burning fever for revenge, its hardness, that
we call cruelty, its love of ease and pleasure, its unprogres-
siveness, and its ardent religious instinct which degenerates
to superstition. For all those pleasant national vices that
brought their own special scourges, these proverbs have
warning or encouragement. Their kindlier feelings, too,
donot pass uninstanced. Proverbs with men are the small
change of wit ; but with the Spaniard they aro too often his
whole mental capital. By an apt quotation a good memory
can always appears genius in Spain ; and proverb-writers
being all anonymous when living and forgotten when dead,
there is no indictment in the High Court of Plagiarism
against the appropriator who lets off his mental fireworl with-
out saying that he purchased it, but yet was not the maker.
When a man in England is witty we suppose the wit is his
own; but when a Spaniard is witty in rolling diligence or
in striving steamboat., you may be almost sure it is the
proverb of some contemporary of Cervantes, dead these two
hundred years, that tickles your diaphragm, and which you
swallow with a smile like a French sweetmeat. It acts as
a sort of mental snuff, pleasantly irritates, and leaves yon
refreshed. A man must be very mentally dyspeptic, indeed,
who cannot:digest a proverb without inconvenience or strug-
gle. If a Spaniard sees you smiling at a Spanish street•
group rather overdoing the bowing, as Spaniards sometimes
will, he will say in a rhyme, ' A civil tongue is not expen-
sive, and it is very profitable.' As the old Italians of Ma-
chiavelli's time used to say : It is a good outlay to spoil a
hat ,with often taking it off.' You feel at once that you have
heard a shrewd proverb intended to explain to worldly
people the courtesy of a proud race."
The chapter on Spanish Ballads is decidedly infe•
rior to some of the others. It disappoints the reader,
who might have expected better things from the
author of " The Songs of the Cavaliers and Round-
heads," and the illustrations must certainly be of a
very different quality from the originals if the latter
have endured for so many centuries. But of the
author's prose there is little reason to complain. It is
true he gives us sometimes a more prominent impres-
sion of himself and his own doings than of the places
or people he is describing. Still the freshness and
vividness of the style will be pleasant to the reader
who is wearied with dry details and guide-books.
Occasionally the writer passes into a graver style,
and the chapter on the Spain of Cervantes is an
example of this manner. After remarking, as
none can fail to do, on the sudden and complete
decay of the Spanish power, he says :
" Andnow we know Spain only as a sluggard's garden of
a country, where men dance a good deal, stab a good deal,
and do a good deal on the guitar; and from which we get
sherry (some of it), our nuts, oranges, melons, and chesnuts.
We turn up our noses when we tak of it, and lament, with
insolent pity, its undeveloped resources, its bigoted religious
queen, its pride, its laziness, and its hopeless poverty.
•' It might make the thoughtful man weep to take now
ftohresamkaepn osfeaSr
titns,
rannd ineldoookttaietsi,tsitcshoskinegdg-utsp
hpeople, harbours
and
ople,eager
only for vice and folly, slow to work, and swift to stab. To
away
mines
todeser
unheeded,ts,
itst
ports unused ; the very limbs of this great country festering
s
ps eaes tintsrepslaciannskoerfiPtigaritoidtoiseni o ulbarrenness,derin tass sro-
from the trunk ; the land that could produce all the trea-
sures of east and west, the wheat of Europe, the rice of
Asia, the sugar cane of Scuth America, the palm tree of
Africa, now lying the dustheap of the nations ; the beggared,
despised, neglected, sightless country, ready, like a sick
sheep, to be torn in pieces by the first eagle that pounces on
it from the peak of the Pyrenees."
We must not omit to mention the tinted illustra-
tions, which add largely to the attractions of these
pleasant volumes .

MODEL OF THE PROPOSRD 311.4 R
AND Rzinir A IS IN SMITHFIELD.
full

---,--
An elaborate model, with ground plans a...
information, in respect to the proposed d
poultry, and vegetable markets, pre for erection
pared by the
City's architect, W. B. Bunning, Esq.,
upon the north side of Smithfield, in connnectingec the
tion
with a subterranean line of railway cono
same with the New Cattle-market, Copenhaorth-
gen
North-
fields, and the existing termini of the Gd
oreat N
rail-
ern,
room, at
ern, North-Western, Great Western, anther
ways, is now placed in No. 1 Committee-
Guildhall, where on Saturday last it was
viewed
by several members of the Corporation.
The committee have given directions fo
to-day
r the
model and plans to be shown during
(Monday), and the two following days to mew"
bens of the Corporation, the Associated Society
of Meat Salesmen, to ward or parochial com
mittees, or any other bodies of gentlemen who may
desire to inspect it ; and we are instructed to state
that upon application to the City architect, at his
ttne
thatdu purpose. offices in Guildhall, that gentleman will at all
for i
during the above term, make arrogements
That portion of the model (which is in the form
of a parallelogram, about five feet in length bY
eighteen inches deep, and of corresponding area of
represents a space of ground embracing all
area °
150,000 superficial feet, surrounded on all sides by
a roadway, 60 feet wide (with a double frontago
of 625 feet by 240 feet), intended form arket por"
poses only, occupies in plan the north side CharterLlane, Smithfield, bounded on the east by
house-street, on the west by King-street, and °,.11
the north by St. John-street and Cowcrosstreo.
The entrance from the south, or Lone,ff:lnee" frol;
tage, is by a wide thoroughfare leading to t
northern side, facing St. John-street, d there
we.sti
are other entrances at the east and,
ends. The market thus proposed would meat,
a sufficient number of shops for the sale of 10,1'1
the internal fittings to be arranged subsequently,
" as the model," the City solicitor has pointedly eraD"
served, ~ may be considered rather as the illustioi
tion of a principle than the definition of a detail a
plan." The learned gentleman has further state •
" that it is not impossible that practical men Ini:eld
discover some objection to the princele in
at
in the plan," and it is certain, tins, t
id
such parties " would see many details which Wel.
require alteration even if the principle were at"
proved by them." 0
Independently of the proposed market;ilsoen,
" proper," the City architect has prepared, in c 0„
nexion with it, if deemed desirable, plans for bring
ts:
ing into the basement of the market lines of ra.ti_i tu..
be united with certain trunk lines, and with hoc!
politian Cattle Market at Copenha
proposed lino communicating with the New l‘oe ea
Pfor
saces are left above the market standings and
the admission of light from the glass roel,lg' are
places of ingress to and egress from the trains
noes
provided at separate doors from the market 00100
in Charterhouse-street and West-street. These
lead to or from the staircases, by which West-street.
it is proposed to " lift" the meat, Copenhagen-fields.
may be approached and quitted. For the railways,
end masse to the level of the market-place, eLitlg.
raulic power, provision for several such lifts ii;ira
shown in different parts of the model. AI, e the
feature, also shown, is a superstructure above and
market, suggested for the purpose railways'eeeivin;hi
.warehousing goods brought by the
receptacles la
it is proposed to " hoist" into these foci,
the same manner as the vans containing
A Sothic
sions. The elevation is in the pointeL- rape.
Sze., and the trucks
sTtyle, and is of neat but substantial appea.roilas
the architect estimates at £235,000,
The cost of the proper market's site and. the
sum actually paid by the Corporation dual'
and
last 40 years, for ground which is noW ocansheep,
market for
,sheep,
which was formerly occupied as a
&c. cost fer
and. the
. Mr. Bunning further estimates that the „cola
both market sites and railways, cuttings, c' -oar
reach .E 280,000 • and with the proposed onzeris szco,
bent structures for warehouses, goods, etati9nro' /id.
£376,000, leaving the railway companies ti Pro Baa
the sum of £139,000 for their accorn
for the use of the markets. Independently
hhfount,
hmodel, there is also a ground plan of the
fneedet'Ail°
ood surrounding the proposed site,. 1/1 to v..°
being furnished of its anticipated eontlgegeture.
ea 0
several streets adjacent to the prots,
—______—_-----_-'---------ry Toiaja
,j. 1 PALACE FOR TFIE (701011°''-
)ry I OF SETVERS•irodationo,_
t. •

tmoshpoeeFmeenteit;ani timethe
public
has
reportedora long been amused
a__too
by
conference of this august
apart
gaearsmt
ffaorzuoenmda
counsels were divided, and their proceelle-leerlrg
even and so the altercations which arose Toon
tallvheo
straift businesstahnaednbdoohapirrnaor;asatsinii
oeonniatitect
cfraoumsesof difference the removal of the &Pay, 000'
the old site of Greek-street was str°l4.l sok
tested. Mr. Leslie, with a small rainoritY, if and
dered the office commodious and good ne ougud orom,
urgedthat, having a good solid house' all4ooo,
almost as large as that chasm in Spring•P'
it would be unnecessary prodigality to cligngei the
Such is in fact the case; but the tastes ° 000 f
ogentlemen commissioners, most of whom 911 oitls
now in
rhave been tradesmen, aspired to a pas
Ad.
m. other great national departments, such es ,tuefejots
Offices, iralty, the Treasury, the Home and -r°lo." 011
&c., with which the proposed strlic'
The house
of being grouped. ;on the
wen
EosutsaeteoT
itthloeokEsatrol
trite i/I:ircdtitinagdetii:r4l:oooo,
Croand forms one of the lustrous circlet t' occurs to
around the Mall and Parade. Now, itl de'
many who know how very many Geverlinleutsht 014
into
are dislocated and divided, some -, air
Lance
hired houses, others at an inconvenieTnow
ance from the active centre—that the Pl°1;0010
permanent Bureau of some
openthe
at Spring-gardens wicket ought to b° r a
one or °the
theeAses public departments so disointed. roll
sg e
foror theall
theol d
requirementshous e in Greek-
of sttiri ee e
st,e
wi
aig:en. et 0113:i
mlar
yvaluable neighbourhood, to enlarge
very
; besides there is scope enough in tP"'„isko
or
i-fint,
additions to the old building—if additions b°
burin
mening—but much more business is done by 9O
in the City in premises of smaller Oten," opi,
even less commodious. Such wane Mr. Leslie.% of
nion,
mentary or Cabinet connections,
Sewers, and as it is clear that t Commissrioriir
as at present constituted, have no extra'
it does seeln:',,v in
London
that the very finest available positivo of
on should be so prostituted, and unit arsn he
at least £lO,OOO should also be lavished ;Or
purposel of dedicating a temple to it was
es'
It is pretty well understood, who it was ' 001 f
_posed_ 0 the heedless waste of £30,000 (or SOlositi
ty: in below
figures
it—the L_rls, 00), in one of the six contraets for theh cor
tdraiatnage.
satili If the men who sanctioned one eer
are
sob
thine, were not above their business, they
:nil: wag ; 0 or,
although tradesmen they ought to have some trade
—resthaneyd
aaereennuonttscivinli
inendilferent
have signalised themselves in walks far ~,irroingr
from their avocations—one, notably' in '" roof
anotherwh in architecture, and so forth ; but
Hop
ose greatest celebrity has been for 41001°.n tbo
inter se, and for making gigantic roistako 11,. to
expenditure of public money, ought net sureodthe
be further intrusted, either in deterinining4l,°o eor
sanitaryst works of a great metropolis, or in 1-0001-
mridietion of a pavilion for their own private it 4, it
thoeiration and glorification ; more particalarvitb•
whimies and mistakes are set deign '
public cost.
inig Plot
It ma be ibe here remarked that the li.ll-1 „t, bs
inmaquestion might, in the hands of Govertune_%or
row and
of inappreciable value ; at present it los.;01
that and
elongated towards the park frontle 'oest
the construction is occasioned by t f nolo.
hideous,_ the most out of place, and the Mott to wit,
the
all buildings piled on public grarld°
heTstables of the late Carlton Palace- ,! „,, ostatef
This • •
site, if thrown into the Fitzbara'nb- 0004
nwiould form the most 'utilitarian, the in 1,00,
_ ent, and the most beautiful position in ,nli_a feet
don ; it is open to the park for several hundrciee,sod
t —to the passage of Spring-gardens on one f‘ifect ia.
o Carlton-terrace on the other--and if P,,eiround,
sulation, combined with open frontage n"A".,,altri
hwere required, then the range of old anrtabie•
ouses extending from Charing-.cross to tbeoPaerste
mew entrance might be obtained at 14 rribeyon4
cost. Such a consummation would fen! ling ill
comparison the finest site for a public bolding
London: 0 to
; the tiros
Before G '
a othism is peroctrated, .s 11,00
look after , ve
the right appro-priation of ca id,
public sites, and unless some attention he psi
;pore than hitherto, to opportunities like tu,obel
ihi there is little hope for the iinProvenient or - .
s ment of our city. disgrace
A long time back we alluded to the disgro toy,
old tiled stables which disfigure the gall at tilietea
of the Admiralty—another fling at that neg of
property of the Crown in this 003 localitlf
not be out of place.—Building News.

_______----,..........•""".......-
MONUMENT TO MOZART AT VIEN.._.---
v 4 The 1138°1'0
morial to this great composer which has beei.i. erected_....ooj.e
memory by the inhabitants of Authorities,Vaw in)ig.,l:o` otitiot
Monday in the presence of the ,„101'C'Oroo Yo
Hans Gassier,
and an immense assemblage. 1. P
foliated let
was preceded by a short choral performance, _ „ tot ,
speech by the burgomaster, and succeeded. v., goo.
.'
musical display. Tho monument consists 0! `ccoserlf:',
Mozart, around which are grouped symbolical a
rrovifillir ri'•
amongs which is a mournful muse looldng sot holdsrl
wards the
nscri• The names of the ge“teB il'icll
works are inscribed on foliage which the rill's° 01.0, Oro--
left hand. Four candelabra ornament the wee'
also boars several inscriptions. ,
to s.

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