The Sun.
London, England, 1861-12-03 00:00:00

_The
.11'eto Monthly Magazine.

A lengthened paper on " The French in Austral-
asia and Polynesia" takes a survey of our neigh-
bours' qualifications as colonists. Mrs. Wood's
new story continues to be one of the prominent
features of the number, and the third instalment
maintains the interest. The two fair rivals, Char-
lotte Pain and Maria Hastings, are well contrasted,
although neither of them are equal in attractions to
the promised bride of Thomas Godolphin, introduced
to us in the last part. The "shadow" did not ap-
pear without cause, as the old baronet is taken
suddenly and dangerously ill. We regret that an
authoress of such, undoubted ability, one too, who
has the facility of investing common things with
interest, should continue to lend her tales a fictitious
excitement by ministering to the morbid love of the
supernatural or the horrible which is unfortunately
so common. " Sir Nathaniel " recals to the reader's
recollection Amyot, a Frenchman, who distin-
guished himself by translating Plutarch into his
native tongue in the sixteenth century. The
"Notes" are this month more interesting than
usual, for the writer gives a sketch of his sub-
ject's life, which shows the strangest vicissitudes.
His parents were of the lowest and poorest class,
yet, thanks to his own industry and merit, and
to the favour shown to men of letters by Francis
I. and his sister Marguerite de Valois, the "poor
scholar" of Paris, whose mother supplied him
with one loaf weeAly, rose to be Grand Almoner
of France, Bishop of Auxerre, King's Librarian,
and Privy Councillor. The story comes to a
melancholy end however, for malice having
accused him of participating in the mur-
der of the Guises, his downfall was rapid.
At the age of seventy-five, poor Amyot was an out-
cast, flying for his-life, pathetically declaring him-
self to be " the -most afflicted and ruined poor
priest in France." " Granville de Vigne" proceeds
with interest, although the fashionable Timons and
their impulsive and talkative heroines preserve a
wonderful sameness in their style of conversation.
We have the continuation of the " History of the
French Army," which is rapidly approaching a
most eventful epoch, and also a paper
on " Scientific and Geographical Progress in
France," making no less than three articles on
French subjects. The brilliant and original series
Of Stereoscopic Glimpses" are terminated this month
with the charming verses which follow :
L'ENVOI TO " STEREOSCOPIC GLIMPSES."
BY W. CHARLES KENT.
As a tear from the heart-fount stealing,
As a sigh from the inner soul,
All the depths of a love revealing,
In a life of its grave-won goal :
So fall on thine ear, 0 dearest I
With the sound as of curfew chime—
Love's own truth in each tone thou hearest—
The last echo of my rhyme!
Every pulse of my rhythmic numbers,
Like the throbbing at thy breast,
When down the heaven of thy slumbers
Float the visions of thy rest :
Every thought that Hinnies my pages,
Liko the st,r-gleams of alien skies,
Better, yea I than the lore of sages,
The light of thy gentle eyes!
For to me, ah I to me far dearer
Than the grand Aonian maids
Of the laurel'd hill (though clearer
Their sunset glory fades
Than our own red evening's splendour),
The sweet influence of a wife-
-01 that Home Muse who can render
Half divine this human life.
A sweet influence like the night dew,
Turning the earth to flowers,
And filling the grass with cowslips,
And with gems the briary bowers,
With the gems of bud and berry,
With th dog-rose and the haw,
With scarlet and pink and cherry,
Lighting the greenwood Shaw.
For whatever visual glories,
Like the bluebells on the lea,
Scattered through my sylvan stories,
Lure the reader like the bee,
By the same serene relation
Clouds rain blossoms from above,
Owe their lowly revelation
To the Nephele of thy love.
Are my thoughts the merest king-moths,
Floating by on wings of gloom—
Gloom of fragile gold and purple—
Thine the radiance, thine the bloom.•
Do they fall as tear-drops glimmer
O'er the gai lands of a bier,
Thine theirfi. ful diamond shimmer,
Where diaphonously clear.
Or, like fragrance aromatic
From the censer of my verse,
Do they rise in coils erratic,
Thine the fire those thoughts rehearse.
Silvery from this censer lowly,
Let their soaring reaths then shine
What they breathe o'er Earth mine wholely,
What towards Heaven less mine than thine.
There are two brief but agreeable papers on the

Natural Hibtory of Ceylon," and " Bishop Doyle's
Life and Correspondence," and acme clever stanzas
by Nicholas Michell, entitled " The Bridge of
Commerce,"

Bentley's Miscellany.
The clever and amusing, though somewhat super-
ficial writer, who assumes the pseudonym of
Ouida, coutinues his entertaining narrative of the
troubles of a Chaperone. A new and more attrac-
tive debutante falls to Lady Marabout's share in
this number, and Flora Montobeir is one of
" Ouida's regular unorthodox young ladies who
are quite ready to discuss French, Italian, and
German literature with any gentlemen of their
acquaintance, and are very fond of discoursing on
the relative merits of men and women, but who
would scarcely be quite soacceptable in real life as
they are in the pages of fiction. An article on
" The Discount Rate of the Bank of France" wil
attract the financier. Monkshood takes for his
topic " High Respectability" and its various sati-
rists from Pope's day to our own. We have, ac-
cording to annual custom in Bentley's, a review
of the German Almanacs for the forthcoming
year, with many amusing extracts. A paper
on Boston, under the head of the " American
Athens," will attract readers at the present time,
and a view of the Letters of Juuius under a comic
aspect possesses at least the charm of novelty. Fre-
derick Marshall's articles on "Population and Trade
in France" have already attracted considerable at-
tention, and the present one, on the important
subject of the silk trade, will well repay perusal.
Major Chambre takes a review of the campaign of
the Royal Neapolitan Army, in which he gives un-
called-for praise to the justly dethroned king, and
Dudley Costello continues his story of " Crooked
Usage" in its accustomed lively strain.

kcaunders and Otley's Literary Budget.
This periodical maintains its high character for
information on all subjects connected with litera-
ture. It is written throughout in a superior man-
ner. All the new publications of any note are
criticised at length, and thus the reader is rendered
au courant with the general events of the
day in the amusing, exciting, or satirical, as
the case may be, articles here met with
Mere are some long papers at the commencement
which take up the authors of any eel, brity who
have appeared recently, and give a resume of their
works in smart and often vigorous writing, and
thus those who wish to be quite informed of all that
appertains to literature in the widest sense of that
comprehensive title, will find this new serial an
indispensable addition to their libraries. Some of
the strictures on Mr. Thackeray are most just, as
the following :
The " Four Georges" is indeed a most delightful vo-
lume. And we only wish that Mr. Thackeray, when he
has finished the " Adventures of Philip," will leave the
novelist's department in the Cornhill to Mr. Trollope, and
devote his own leisure to the preparation of a new set of
essays. He has done both the literature and the fashion of
the last century, why should he not give us the literature
of the I'm-Reform period ? He would have the Anti-
Jacobin, and the Rolliad, the John Bull, and the Examiner,
and the " Waverley Novels" and " Don Juan," and plenty
of other fine subjects. Or if he does not do this, we hope,
for his own sake, he will devote himself heartily to his
duties as editor, and keep out some of the rubbish of which
all his friends in England, Ireland, and Scotland are unani.
mously complaining.

" Society and Poetry" is another admirable sketch,
and serves to illustrate some important truths in
affairs of taste and judgment. "Poetry" is ably de-
scribed as " a sort of glorified prose, the spirit of just
prose made perfect." It is said " before any man fplt
tempted to resent this he might perhaps ask him-
self whether he would not put the noblest prose
below the noblest poetry. No one doubts that the
worst poetry is more detestable than the worst prose
and the acknowledged reason of this is, that the bad
verse is more ambitious than the bad prose ambi-
tion of what ? Surely of the superior title and
honours of poetry." Further on it is said in
reference to a want of appreciation of poetry that
the man who does not love poetry may
be somewhat ashamed of himself, and if
there be any moral element in his apathy, he
is a little despicable. We are no more justified in
affecting carelessness about a glorious mental exhi-
bition than about any physical splendour." It is
also said, in pursuance of the subject in this elo-
quent passage relative to the supreme advantages
of poetry, that " it somehow or other seems to brace
a man for the business of life, with which it never
interferes, and to refresh him after its close. It
dignifies and refines his affections, sweetens his
manners, gives elegance to his domestic habits,
and spiritualises every action of his life, even
those which are necessarily coarse and mate-
rial. It adorns without enervating his reli-
gion, giving grace to his prayers andfire to his
i
praises, and teaching him to worship n the pas-
sion and the beauty of holiness. In one word, it
can be made the beautifier and intensifier of the
nobler elements that are in us, permeating all of
them but absorbing none." This Serial can
be recommended to the general reader as
one of great interest and information, and
it is to • be hoped that a success conso-
nant with its deserts may await this enter-
prising attempt in the field of literature. It is
always gratifying to find the first numbers of a new
publication replete with varied, vivacious, and
vigorous writing, animated with a zealous industry
and fired with an ambitious spirit.