The Sun.
London, England, 1850-11-14 00:00:00

with each other and with Madame de Lamartine.
Finding that the poor dressmaker had herself written
verses, the bard of " Jocelyn " induces her to submit
to him some of her poetic manuscripts. In recount-
ing this circumstance the author deliberately avows to
the world that he has " given up writing poetry."
Happily, however, if his voice no longer sings to us
in versification, his hand is still industrious in pen-
ning prose stories which appeal at once to the
heart and the imagination. Aware, from what
he had already seen and heard, that Reins
Garde had abilities unmarred by imitation (which by
the way, he terms rather happily " that Mephisto-
pheles of prematurely budding genius"), and allured,
moreover, by her possession of that "gift of gifts, the
gift of a tearful voice,'" lie prolongs his argument
with the dressmaker, and out of it springs the notion
of writing a literature, or, at any rate, inaugurating
a literature for the people as above indicated. Hence
comes " Genevieve." in it the novelist has recounted,
in simple and touching strains, " the history of a ser-
vant girl," and what renders the narrative more than
ever attractive is the circumstance that Genevieve is
no other than an old favourite, that being the real
name of Martha, the good servant of the priest
Jocelyn ! Martha, or as we must now call
her, Genevieve recounts her own story to M. de
Lamartine when he is seated in the kitchen
of the old vicarage house at Valneige, one evening
shortly after the death of his inestimable friend the
Abbe D— (Jocelyn); and now, after many years
have elapsed, Lamartine calls the touching story of
her life to mind, and tells it exquisitely from his
youthful recollections. The narrative itself, like its
subject, is of the simplest character, as homespun as
the russet garb of a peasant. The incidents are few
and, for the most part, unromantic. Yet in spite of
all the tale cannot be read without emotion, and its
interest in many parts becomes absolutely enthralling.
The childhood of poor little Genevieve, when she
attends on her bed-ridden mother, the linen bleacher;
the death of her mother, and afterwards of her
father, the glazier ; the love passages with Cyprien ;
the growth of Genevieve's sister, sioette ; the ap-
pearance and diaanceara, ce of Septime, the quarter-
master; the wanderings and ultimately the arrival,
of Genevieve 10 toe at tble of Cyprien,—all these
things are described with a minute and vivid parti-
cularity. Afterwards, in the " Episode," we watch
the incidents, which lead at length to the discovery of
Josette's little child, Bastien, with an interest that is
only appeased when we close the book, leaving him
under the pear-tree, still tended by his adopted
parents Jean and Luce, and watched tenderly by his
aunt, the long-suffering and amiable Genevieve.
Altogether the volume is a simple but beautiful
effusion, worthy of realising the hope of its illustrious
author, the hope of leading the way to the produc-
tion of a wholesome and really popular literature.

THE COMIC ALMANACS' for 1851. By George
Cruikshank.

Rigdum Funnidos having long resigned his magic
sceptre to the hands of the facetious Henry Mayhew,
we still find that modern Master of the Revels pre-
siding over the vagaries of our eccentric annual—
" The quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles"
of the Comic Almanach. George Cruikahank, the droll
and inexhaustible, figures, of course, as the principal
caricaturist, and H. G. Hine, the quaintest and oddest
of his disciples, contributes a swarm of those little
black Scaramouches which are the funniest emana-
tions of Impland. The piece de resistance is, as
usual, the frontispiece, from the hand of Cniikshank,
representing this year the " Probable Effects of Over-
Female Emigration ; or, Importing the Fair Sex
from the Savage Islands, in consequence of Exporting
all our own to Australia !" Although there is a fund
of the most grotesque humour in almost every line of
the etching, we turn from it after a hurried glance
with some satisfaction—seeing that it presents
to us nothing more agreeable than one mass
of ugliness. Some of the subsequent illus-
trations from the same pencil are infinitely
preferable, and, to our mind, more unques-
tionably laughable. Instance this the sketch given
in one pat of the " Fellows of the Zoological So-
ciety," with two jolly old curmudgeons of Hippopo-
tami, a couple of very beau-like lions, monkeys
equipped as " miniature specimens of humanity," and
(most preposterous of all) a pelican meditating, with a
hat on its head—all drawn as Cruik,hank could
alone draw them. " Taking the Census" appears to
us a rather extravagant absurdity, the humour of
which we can nowhere perceive. One of the best
pictorial contributions is that of " The Sick British
Lion and the French Quack Monkey." It affords a
capital opportunity for a sarcasm at the expense of
M. Ledru Rollin and his very ridiculous book about
the Decadence d Anglettrre. " Modern Ballooning"
excellently well lashes that monstrous folly
begun by M. Poitevin. The aeronaut is repre-
sented as a donkey soaring up on the hack of
a horse. Two most elaborate drawings by Cruik-
shank portray, one an " Alarming Sacrifice" at a
linendraper's," and another the uncomfortable results
of " Over-population." As the oddest possible spe-
cimen to he selected from the literary comicalities of
the " Almanack," we present to our readers the fol-
lowing