The Sun.
London, England, 1850-09-07 00:00:00

frern the moment his interests were in the ascendant,
Chamier spF.aks terms of earnest and
merited admiratiol3. Nevertheless, with all hit, good
(pinions of individual men and individual events, he
remains to the very end of the second volume over-
helmed by his prevailir g sentiment of dejection.
Compared with this dejection, M. Guivit's despair is
nothing. Should the most joyous Frenchman
in existence happen to read the work we question
very much whether his hilarity would not
be extinguished under the weight of such a terrible
wet blanket. Sterne's Smellfungus was nothing to
Captain Chamier in his petulant depreciation. He
views every republican virtue through a diminishing
glasF, and every republican vice through a micro-
scope. Democracy is his bugbear, and such is his
devotion to royalty that, supposing him to have lived
under the earlier Georges, we doubt not but that, like
Uncle Toby, he would have relieved his mind on every
occasion of discomfort by whistling the refrain of
Lillibullero.

JANE EYRE. Fourth Edition. By Currer Bell.
A testimony of the genius of this brilliant novelist
is here given, very unmistakably, not only in the
circumstance of a fourth editior, but of
an edition so cheap and compact, having
been already printed of her masterpiece. Com-
pressing the three volumes cf octavo into one
uniform in size with the standard novels issued by
Mr. Colburn, the publishers of Currer Bell have ren-
dered the work more capable of being carried into the
green fields during summer days, and into the chim-
ney-corner on winter nights, besides making it, in its
diminished price, more generally accessible to the
multitude. For years no novel has appeared which
has taken so strong a hold on the popular imagina-
tion. Its originality, its vigorous and nervous style,
its brilliant talent in the colouring of character, its
enthralling and yet homely interest, its delicate and
yet masculine sensibility, have secured for it the ad-
miration of many hundreds of readers, previously
enervated in taste by the mawkish sentimentality and
frivolous mediocrity constituting the predo-
minant characteristics of the current mass of
light literature. " Jane Eyre," by its innate
power alone acquired for its author, although strictly
anonymous, a wide and almost immediate reputa-
tion. The interest inspired by the novelty of the pro-
duction was moreover stimulated by the prevalent
solicitude to strip off the mask of the mere pseudonym,
and to learn who this new writer was whose keenness
of perceptivity penetrated into the innermost recesses
of our being. Although somewhat diminished on
learning that Currer Bell is a female, that curiosity
is not satisfied, so that it tends still to invest her name
with the interest of a dubious identity. Having
shown by her second fiction, entitled " Shirley," that
her fancy, though aloe-like in beauty, was not re-
stricted to a single blossom, the author of " Jane
Eyre " has afforded her admirers additional reason
to revert to the re-perusal of her first and most re-
markable composition. There they can scarcely fail to
be again enthralled by the incidents associating together
the rough but loving (and be is said, too, in spite of
all his vices and rudeness) the loveable Fairfax Ro-
chester, the pure but stern, the ambitious butt self-
denying St. John, and the heroine of the autobio-
graphy, whose whole being thrills through every
nerve with an almost diseased sensibility. The
work, we cannot but think, is not only fascinating
but instructive ; it is not only a source of amusement
for the lovers of romance, but a study for the meta-
physician and the psychologist.

NIMROD. A Dramatic Poem.
Conceived somewhat in the lofty school of "Cain,"
the scriptural drama, or as the writer himself desig-
nates it, the " dramatic poem" of " Nimrod" reveals
a daring imagination in accordance with the gigan-
tic subject into the depths of which that imagination
has adventured. As in the veritable " mysteries" of old,
we have here mingled together celestial and terrestrial
personages, angels and archangels, spiritual and corpo-
real existences, priests and arch-priests, dialogues and
choruses, grouped together round the principal
dramatis persona, if we may venture so to style them,
Satan and Nimrod, Shaul and Nahmah, Cush and
Ludim, Abdiel and Abaddona. Most of the five acts
are penned in blank verse, always flowing and occa-
sionally vigorous. Sometimes, moreover, the drama-
tist allows his spirits and choruses to float off on the
wings of recurrent rhymes—a fluctuation of manner
peculiarly agreeable in effect, and consonant with the
mood in which such passages are written. If we
wanted to demonstrate briefly the capacity of the
author to express beautiful thoughts in exqusitely
poetic language, we should quote that " Chorus" in
the second act—
"When hovering o'er the formless void concealed
Asleep in darkness, God rebuked the night,
Creation, sudden to itself revealed,
Smiled on its Maker, and its smile was Light."
The last line is to us one of matchless beauty, and
although bearing a vivid resemblance to a simile
contained in Abraham Cowley's " Hymn to Light,"
is nevertheless of such majestic excellence as to ad-
mit of any such partial resemblance. In the sub-
joined specimen of our author's skill in the composi-
tion of blank verses it will be observed that two sen-
tences are marked by ourselves in italics, the first
painting the skies with a word, and the second in its
oddity calling to mind the metaphors of old George
Herbert. The description is that given of the ghastly
vision seen by Abaddona
" Appear as suits thee, then! I see the star
Slow rising mildly in the golden west,
Like a returning sun.—What mean the clouds
Thick rushing, curling back on either side
With scorched and shrivelled edges, while white red,
As furnace within furnace, glows the air?
What mean these tongues of flame that dart along
The crackling earth, while the vexed ocean's steam
Wells fr,,m its bubbling depths? On still—on—on
The morning sun sickens along the east
With jaundiced eye, and blackens. In the west
The star is :melting, nearing. Is the world
A fagot for the flames of angry heaven
Burs,ing and rending ail? And now that star,
With eyes ten thousand thousand, looking each
Into my soul, each finding horror there;
And behind all, the Power whose frown is death,
The death, whose being is unending pan!
Where am I? Where the world? Where hell itself?
It were a refuge from this awful sight.
And now still nearer, fiercer, burning on
It scorches through my brain; I c .nnot bear it.
Spirit, hold—hide thee; more I cannot bear."
Many other passages of equal excellence might be
culled from the pages of " Nimrod," but to the vo-
lume itself we commend all those who exult in tra-
such lofty fields of poetic speculation.