The Sun.
London, England, 1850-07-01 00:00:00

FRASER.

" The English in the Nineteenth Century" is the
title of a prophecy of the future destinies of the An-
glo- Saxon race ; after having unsparingly exposed the
faults and the foibles of the individual Englishman, his
money-worship, his rank and title-worship, his hypo-
crisy, his love of barbarous sports, his credulity, his
inconsistency, his prejudices, the writer thus proceeds
to discourse on the English in the aggregate :
" Turn, upon the other hand, to the effect that this
peculiar compouLd islauder has produced upon the world.
Mark his aggregate in plice of his individual action.
His foibles, faults, peculiarities disappear—good, bad,
indifferent, vanish. All his characteristics blend and
form a whole which can be paralleled nowhere among
any existing people. This is no egotism, no partiality.
none of the base coin before paid to offer incense to per-
sonal a, if-love. The truth or falsehood of the point is
open to the decisii,n of the whole world. Fact, evidence,
all are clear for the use of those who choose to make use
(S them. The unaccountable. cool, proud, exclusive,
money-making, prejudiced Englishman, is lost in the
mf,gnitude of the effect produced by his united action.
It is here that he stands with his majestic front, a giant
among the inhabitants of the earth, an iadomitable craft-
lion viewed by his achievements, by his spoken lan-
guage, by his extent f dominion. History will paint
him in this light; coming nations will sketch him thus
iu fancy, perhaps after he has utterly disappeared from
own seagirt land. The individuals that hewed the
stones of the Egyptian pyramids were as diverse in cha-
racter as the Englishman, and of as little moment indi-
vidually to the work which they achieved. Those won-
derful architects live in the aggregate of their stupendous
labours. The labonrs of Englishmen will be more en-
during than the pyramids, although they may not be of
porphyry. The durability of the mightiest human ef-
forts is not linked to a decomposing material, they sub-
sist in words ever fugitive and ever perishing, but con-
tinually renewed. That which runs a race with time
cannot consist of what time annihilates."

This is followed by an article on American poetry in
which we have various specimens from the American
Poets. Of the serious poems here quoted, we consider
Boston ca
those of HaHeck far superior to those of any other ;
Longtellowa,
rwhdose. reputation has been made by the
speaking,s,
mpoeamerie, has not fulfilled the promise of
anfd Poe,, is of thr, quaint or, more
his earlier
which is our utter o
properly
the. affected school of poetry,
andhisavi aversion ; of. Poe, and his models in
young ladies
America,. we say, as
poget
f (with whom, by the
IB?')n•grol2rinsda'id of very
a) ways tem 11
sinoallthhis school are great
bye, we observe that
favourites)—
_ ~.tr ey_stutter _
" The nursery licps forth
worth
ballad
America has recently
ll Sir''lcuhaeraldesandofbuEtt,e.r."
__
exPiLerje witty satirist
byTh The legendary
Besides(e lr'udt:hkreir poet Whittier, is sutiiernne,';
es of
Longfellow ttenlel o Navdavne
advent
tr enufmas ofg
a poet
who may i eke his place by the side of Peter,Pindar,.
Thomas Ingoldsby, or Theodore 11 L.
_..00.., as their equal
—we mean James Rut.sell Lowell, of Boston, whose
" FAble for Critics" and whose " Biglow Papers"
are replete with quaiet rhymes, shrewdr satire, and
outrageously laughable puns. 11,,e shall keep a
look out for the appearance of fresh productions
from the pen of Mr. Lowell. "Leaves from the Note
Book of a Naturalist" are continued, and we have a
review of a batch of recently-published books of
travel. The neglect, and worse than neglect, of the
Commissioners of Woods and Forests, or their under-
lings, are well exposed in an article on the recent
report of the Committee of the House of Commons ;
and the cause of University reform is ably advocated
in an article tin Oxford. In an article on The Tempest
as a lyrical drama, the writer takes advantage of the
opportunity afforded him, by a review of Mr. Morris