The Sun.
London, England, 1857-05-19 00:00:00

THE GULF STREAM'.

" There is "a river in the ocean. In the severest
droughts it never fair, and in the mightiest goods it
never overflows. Its banks and its bottom are of cold
water, while its current is of warm. The Gulf of
Mexico 'is its fountain, and its mouth is in the Arctic
Seas. It is the Gulf-stream. There is in the world no
other such majestic flow of waters. Its current is more
rapid than the Mississippi or the Amazon, and its
volume more than a thousand times greater. Its waterd
as far out from the Gulf as the Carolina coasts, are of
an indigo blue. They are so distinctly marked, that
this line of junction with the common sea-water may be
traced by the eye. Often one-half of the vessel may be
perceived floating in Gulf-stream water, while the other
half is in common water of the sea ; so sharp is the line
and such the want of affinity between these waters ; and
such, too, the reluctance, so to speak, on the part of
those of the Gulf-stream to mingle with the common
water of the sea."

Kaye's " Life of Malcolm " is next reviewed
—the review itself constituting an epitomised
biography. Boeresco's " Roumania" being directly
afrer selected by another contributor, as a peg upon
which to hang an instructive geographical disqui-
sition. " The Festal Letter of Athanasius*—ex-
atnined. in a subsequent article, prepare the way
rather oddly for a scrutiny of some very different
epistles indeed, the Familiar Letters of Boswell.
These latter being very generally and more ten-
derly handled in a contribution, enticingly headed
" Boswell and Boswelliana." It seems to us rather
strange, by the way—when we find the writer of
this exceedingly clever and entertaining paper
cavilling thus at the errors disfiguring the work
he is reviewing
The Letters are well edited on the whole, although
marks of haste (in consequence of the sudden change of
editorship) are occasionally discernible. Thus 'Duke of
Bolton' is printed Duke of Breton' (p. 329.) : 'down-
right Shippen" downright Skipper' (p. 182.): and ' The
Cub' (the title of Boswell's first production) is frequently
printed The Club. To the list of Boswell's works (In-
trod. pp. xli. xiii.) should be added his Second Letter to
the People of Scotland. Temple's Essays, supposed
(op. 239. n. 251. n,) to hr lost or missing, have been dig:
covered in the University Library at Cambridge ; an°,
his Essay on Dr. Johnson (the unknown publication
mentioned p. 405. n.) is in the British Museum. • We
see no reason for stating in the introductory remarks
prefixed to each section of the correspondence, what 19
contained in the letters ; and perhaps some of those re-
marks might be advantageously compressed in a C()I"
rested edition, which, we take for granted, will speedily
appear."
And yet this self same reviewer, so keenly alive t:
the blunders of another, himself in the very 31.'1,
article talks of " The Triumphs of Temple," inT.,
stead of " The Triumphs of Temper"—and
sequently after having mentioned that Boswell
was born in 1740, talks of his describing, ins
studies " in a letter dated December,
1748' well
stead of December, 1758 ! Thus making 10s e,
cut to he (by this preposterous blunder) ?, Pot
cocious law student of some eight years old
to speak profanely it is the Mote and the 15ea of
One other article alone in the current numberri
the Edinburgh yet remains to be partict_llapine-
It is an interesting chapter upon the "The Dl
tanti Society"—a literary gossip which 'il 4 its
found to repay the reader forb the labolar
perusal