The Sun.
London, England, 1861-11-08 00:00:00

THE LATE HEAVY GALES.

We regret.to have to add to the already long
catalogue of casualties on the north-east coast dur-
ing the late fearful gales which swept those shores,
the total loss of the Yarborough, screw steamer, a
fine ship nearly 600 tons burden, while on her
passage from Grimsby to Cronstadt, and three of her
crew, who were left in the rigging ; and the truly
marvellous escape of the City of Norwich, steam-
ship, from sharing a similar fate, which, however,
sustained the serious loss of upwards of 200 head of
cattle.
Yesterday a notice was posted at Lloyd's an-
nouncing the loss of an English vessel in the Chan-
nel near Furnes, on Sunday. The crew are all
supposed to have been drowned. Four bodies have
been found. One had a silver watch and chain con-
taining the following name :—" P. Alexander,
jeweller, 21, George-street, Sunderland." Another
had also a silver watch and chain, without any
name. All had a medal with the following inscrip-
tions (on one side the bust of a king or admiral) :
"England expects every man will do his duty,"
and on the reverse, " Shipwrecked Mariners' So-
ciety." One of the bodies had a certificate from
"David Ditchburn, master of the Caspian, of
Whitby, in favour of George P. Jackson, given at
Amble, port of Shields, the 28th January, 1860."
The following initials were on their stockings :
" G. M.," " T. R.," " J. B. ;" and one of them had a
portmonnaie, with 13 pieces of foreign money.
Another fatal catastrophe is reported to have
happened in the mouth of the Bristol Channel. The
ship Solides, which arrived at Queenstown with a
cargo of sugar, from Demerara, left the former port
for Bristol on Thursday. A Bristol pilot went down
to meet, and spoke her below the Lundy Islands,
abotit eight o'clock on Friday. Owing to the
terrific sea that was running it was impossible for
him to board her, bat he directed the captain the
course to take, and that he the pilot should follow,
and board the ship when an opportunity presented
itself. Owing to the severity of the storm, heavy
rain and snow, the pilot lost sight of the
ship until daylight the following morning,
when he discovered that she had gone ashore
on a shoal called Scarweather, off the Mumbles,
and every soul belonging to her had perished. The
wreck and cargo was strewed about the coast.
Off Flamborough Head the brig Sunbeam, be-
longing to Shields, was run down by the American
ship Borodino, and we regret to add that six of the
crew of the former perished. The Sunbeam went
down in deep water. The Borodino was bound
north from the Thames.
The Union, from Grimsby to Brest, reports from
the Downs that she saw a schooner (apparently
Welsh), and advised her to get the long boat ready
for launching, and while the crew were in the act
of shortening canvas, saw her go down with all on
board. Farleigh bore north-west four miles.

The Salut Public of Lyons says •—« All Saints
Day has brought us winter this year, as a cold north wind
has set in, and been the more severely felt through coming
upon us so suddenly. It froze on Sunday throughout the
valley of the Brevenue, at Sairi-Bal, and Arbresle, Snow
also fell in abundance at St Etienne ; and on Monday
morning Lyons was visited with a fall of sleet and snow.
On Tuesday morning at seven, the thermometer was only
one degree above freezing point, haying been below it dur-
ing the iliglitt7

LITERATURE.

Sir Richard ilanzaton. _ A novel. 2 vols. Durst

and Blackett.

This is a romantic story that may serve to amuse
many who like excitement and variety in their
works of fiction. There is no particular merit in
its style, and some parts of the descriptions are
exaggerated. Still, despite these drawbacks, we
find some smart representations of character and
some likely sketches of society. The gentlemen
who Egure conspicuously in the tale are well drawn,
better than the ladies, who are too tame or too
outré. For instance, Miss Hartopp appearing at a
ball in a country house in the dress of a jockey is
far too overdrawn, and Marcia is hardly a natural
girl, with her intense feelings and her morbid sus-
ceptibility that amounted to something quite in-
comprehensible to those around her. Sir Richard
Hamilton is the most attractive and the most likely
personage met with in the book. There is some-
thing manly and noble in his demeanour that is
sure to propitiate all who come in contact with
him, and which shows to peculiar advantage by the
side of the inconsistent Mr. Gwynne, the brilliant
hero of tht London world. It is true that Sir
Richard made a great mistake in determining to
propose to Marcia, but even in that case—

"His failing leaned to virtue's side ;"
for it was from motives of generosity that he was
induced to offer her a home when she was about to
be cast on the world. Maud D'Abernon is an un-
satisfactory maiden ; she improves at last in 'some
respects, but she was too easily influenced by those
around her, and it was by a concurrence of cir-
cumstances that she at last was rendered happy,
not by the exercise of her own discretion or the
effect of her own resolution. The latter events
that are related in these pages are most melancholy
as regards some of the characters. The giddy and
vain career of Ada Delacourt is a very apt delinea-
tion of the sad descent which so many make, who,
by listening to the tempter, fall never more
to rise. One feels pity for the sorrow of
the hapless husband who trusts so implicitly the
guilty one who deceives him. He had hardly a
defined " idea" in his head, but he felt in his mind
the 'worship for honour, and
.in this he was far
above the unprincipled set who glittered in his
house, looking down upon its master as a fool, be-
cause he had not their brilliant parts and their
reckless indifference to all sober thoughts that
might set a check on their lawless lives. "The only
thing for which the little man valued himself was
his temporary guardianship of a name transmitted
to him by a long line of ancestors. In his person
was represented the head of an honourable house,
and in the imagination of the gentle civilian, his
armed ancestors were ever calling upon him to give
an account of his stewardship, and of the family
honours committed bright and unsullied to his
hands." With this prominent notion in his mind,
this ruling spirit animating his otherwise dull
being, it was a crushing blow to find that family
honour lost, the brightness of its virtue passed
away, and the glory of its spotless purity trodden
under foot by the wife whom he so loved and
trusted, The reader feels it a relief when Maud is
freed from the shackles that bound her to Mr.
Gwynne. This erratic man is described well in
some respects, but the account of his speeches in
the House of Commons is overstrainedf; all such
things should be left to the intelligence of the
reader to divine, and they always fall flat or tame
when the grand idea and the poetic illustration are
put into actual words that are not good enough,
and yet too grand for the occasion. " Milly," the
of l nurse, is a truthful, honest representation of a
race fast dying out of attached servants, who follow
through good report and evil report, in sorrow,
sickness, poverty, and trouble the one family they
have engaged to serve. There is something of
feudal fidelity, mingled with friendship, in this
resolute clinging to old associations. Consistency
and fidelity can ennoble the lowest station, and
impart a dignity to the humblest being who reflects
credit on human nature. Lady Beauxyeux is a
correct impersonation of a fashionable woman who
was so absorbed in her foolish ideas of grandeur
and gentility that she ignores all better and
worthier sentiments. It is lamentable to think
that this sketch is the prototype of very many
people who are wasting time, ruining the fortunes
of many, and indulging the worst passions in
order to gratify vanity and feed self-love. They
indeed carry out the idea of the poet in those em-
phatic words—

"And to the mercies of a moment leavo
The weighty cares of an eternal scene."

The retrospect of such lives, when measured by the
unerring test of a death-bed's reflection, must be,
indeed, dreadful, and the veriest trifler would pause
and tremble if a magic mirror held the closing
scene before the gaze, when the world's pomps are
over, the revels of fashion passed away, and all
things become changed. It was well for Maud
D'Abernon that she escaped when she did from
such an atmosphere as that of Lady Beauxyeux's
mansion. This story possesses the charm of relating
many scenes in a lively manner of giving a spark-
ling picture of some events in fashionable circles,
and of combining them with the interest of
romantic passages, and the excitement of some
startling transactions. It has the drawback of
some exaggeration, in many places, as has before
been stated, a fault which it would be well for
the author to take heed and remedy, as it spoils
the effect of some otherwise good descriptions.
On the whole " Sir Richard Hamilton" will,
doubtless, find admirers for its varied pages of
the good and ill that befell its creations of fancy,
and the light and easy style in which the nar-
rative is told will do much to make its perusal
pleasant, and its-presence attractive. It is always
a mistake to render a work of this class heavy
or dry by the insertion of any elaborate accounts
and descriptions, or the recapitulation of long
sentences and prolonged discourses. This novel
is quite adapted for the lovers of fiction, " con
amore," who take up a book to be amused, ex-
cited, interested, and employed after a fashion
but not to be too deeply engaged, and not to be
overwhelmed with abstract ideas and recondite
reflections. In such this novel is quite the thing,
and they can sit down to follow Sir Richard
Hamilton through his trials, and Maud her mis-
takes with a pleasurable excitement and a genial
interest. They will not find themselves out of
their depths with too much wisdom in the rela-
tion, but their attention will be kept up, and
their time agreeably wiled away by its scenes
and anecdotes, its pourtrayed sketches and its
vivacious style.

THIS DAY'S MARKETS.