The Sun.
London, England, 1850-09-04 00:00:00

THE. PALLADIUM.

A third number of thi;;;;Tridcxcellent pericdi-
cal opens most admirably with a criticism upon the
genius of Currer Bell. The writer evinces a :,übtle
appreciation of those powers of perceptivity which are
absolutely r( quisite in the novelist. His observation
upon Dickens, that his genius has been " s'rong
enough to create a literature," and upon Thackeray's
skill in painting his portraits of character, " ssith a
nicety of di,tinctive taste that makeS them infallible,"
are evidences of his ability to comprehend the re-
spective merits of the various living contributors to our
imaginative literature. The fallowing passage from
this roni
this criticism will show the style in which it is
written :

" Who is Currer Bell? is a question which has been
variously answered, and has lately, we believe, received,
in well informed quarters, a satisfactory reply. A year
or two ago we mentally solved the problem thus: Currer
Bell is a woman. Every word she utters is female. Net
femine, but female. There is a sex about it which can-
not be mistaken, even in its manliest attire. Though
she translated the manuscript of angels—every thought
neutral and every feeling cryptoganious—her voice
would betray her. Though she spoke in thunder, and
had the phrase and idiom cf Achilles, she cannot think
in a beard. Far more curious, perhaps, than anything
her pen pourtrays, is her own involuntary revelation of
the heart of woman. It is not merely improbable, but
impossible, that a man has written ' Jane Eyre.' Only
a woman's eye could see man as she sees him. The
landscape is too near to us to glow with purple light.
We cannot make a religion of man, for to us he has no
mysteries. We cannot worship the idol whose mortality
aches in all our bones. We hear no oracles—we who
have so ellen smelt the stench under the tripod. Currer
Bell is not so troubled. She thinks ot the abstraction,
man, with all the blissful ignorance of a boy's dreams
of svomar. To her, ho is a thing to be studied present,
and mused upon absent. He comes, and she owns her
master; departs, and leaves the air full of vision. She
hangs on every word of her hero, as though it were a
message from the unknown. His how d'ye dos' leave a
track of glory behind them, and his monosyllables have
an atmosphere through which they shine the very stars
of fate. For her, he cannot leave the room but on high
intent, and shuts the door after him on a world of busy
speculation. Her cars are open before he speaks, and
the unhappy monarch eats, drinks, coughs, smiles, walks,
and sits in a distressing state of unmitigated significance.
Is he sullen? It is the wrath ot Jove; the thunderous
exhalations of a universe of cares. Point not, oh mortal,
thy conducting finger, lest thou bring down the light-
nings of heaven! Is he mute? With holy awo she
listens to his silence, and gazes on the taciturn face, till
the Memnon grows musical. He is plotting empires; he
is dreaming epics; he heaves with incommunicable sor-
rows. Is be gay? She does not wonder that the whole
world looks brighter; for, for aught she knows or doubts,
he may be leagued with the powers of nature them-
selves. Alack•a• day ! But then, to her, he walks in gloty;
to us in ' one pound ten' and a dickey.' To her, the great
hero who shakes the earth ; to us, a poor Histrio,wills rotten
teeth and corns. Never since—or before—the destruction
of the cities has man looked on man with this romance
of latent love. Currer Bell, then, is a woman, and a
young woman. With a heart, when she wrote Jane
Eyre,' as yet unengaged, though perhaps not wholly un-
smitten; with experience of little more latitude than
her home-circle and native parish (though we augur that
she has been unusually fortunate in the peculiar cha-
racteristics of these), and with powers which have al-
ready drawn the best eyes i❑ England en this young
'Penthesilea mediis in millibus,'

who, if she can endure the trial of early success, will
work one of the richest fields which the world ever offered
to labour, and, hand in hand with one or two poets, may
have to carry down to posterity the ideal literature of
our day."
After this comes a review of the Parliamentary session
just completed, a second paper on "The Invasion of
Nepaul" (interesting to all those who are curious as
to the visit recently paid to England by the Nepaulese
Ambassador), and a notice of the " British Asso-
ciation," revised by Sir David Brewster. Three
more chapters are given of " The Minister of Fi-
nance," and a most eulogistic commemoration, in fact,
a sort of literary apotheosis, of Mr. William
Wordsworth. These, with other miscellaneous papers,
constitute the third number of the Palladium.

FINE ARTS.
THE ART JOURNAL,
Prominent its usual among the contents of this
elegantly illustrated periodical are the engravings
from the pictures of the Vernon Gallery. Since the
demise of the Queen Dowager the public have beet)
Nippily enabled to obtain a view of the original paint-
ings in their present position on the walls of Marl-
borough House. From the first, however, thanks to
the enterprise of the proprietors of the Art Journal,
the people at large, even the inhabitants of the provinces,
have been empowered to obtain some notion of the genius
displayed in modern art by Englishmen—empowered
so to do by this admirable series of engraved repre-
sentations. In the number for September we have
an exquisite copy by the graver Of lqr. Artlett of the
" Countess" by Sir Thomas Lawrence. Besides
this there is Mr. C,_ousens,
transcript of the " High-
land Cottage " by A. Fraser; and Mr. Bentley's
plate of "The Port of Leghorn," by Sir A. W. Cal-
cott. The latter particularly forms an exquisite
specimen of engraving. As embellishments illus-
trative of passages from the poets we find this month
Miller's sketch of the Ariel of Shakspere, and
Ilulme's representation of the Garden of the Countess
of Winchilsea. The artist's pencil in the last-men-
tioned vignette has truthfully defined those
" -- paths so lost and trees to high,
That the world may ne'er invade,
Thro' such windings and such shade,
Our unshaken liberty."
Among the miscellaneous contributions to the Art
Journal must be especially particularised a likeness of
John Burnet, accompanied by his autobiography.
Mr. Wornum, the historian of art, contributes a
charming paper on "Modern Moves" among the
artists of our generation. Perhaps the most useful
paper in the number just published is the continua-
tion of the " Dictionary of Terms in Art," and un-
questionably the most curious and interesting is the
account given of Samuel Cooper, miniature painter to
Cromwell and Charles 11., to whose brush we are in-
debted for most of the effigies preserved to us of the
great men of the days of the Commonwealth and the
Restoration.