The Sun.
London, England, 1850-11-12 00:00:00

THE ECLECTIC REVIEW.

The " Character and Career of Caesar," as set forth
in Mr. Merivale's " Roman Empire," is the subject
of a severe censure on the part of the Eclectic reviewer.
Wordsworth's "Prelude," on the other hand, gives
occasion for a genial eulogium on the departed Poet
Laureate. Without fully concurring in the reviewer's
estimate of the author of " the Prelude," we have been
struck with the justice of some of his observations, as,
for instance, where he says, " every great poet passes
through a fourfold state in regard to the world. First,
his peculiar qualities are ignored; secondly, they are
acknowledged ; thirdly, they are appreciated ; and
fourthly, they are canonized. Wordsworth has only
as yet reached the second stage. His merits are gene-
rally acknowledged, but generally appreciated they
are not, nor are they soon likely to be."

SIIARPE'S _LONDON MAGAZINE.
Sharpe's may now rank with the mcst interesting
of the monthly periodicals. In the November number
we find " A Sea-side Sketch," by Agnes Strickland,
which possesses a very mournful interest.
"Lewis Arundel" continues with unabated
spirit. The maxims of La Rochefoucauld, as recently
published by Messrs. Longman, are the subject of an
interesting criticism, and in addition to a variety of
other attractive articles is a beautiful plea for " Me-
mory," by E. E. M. K., founded upon that touching
aspiration which occurs in " The Haunted Man,"
" Lord keep my memory green." As a specimen of
its eloquence of style and tenderness of thought, we
quote the concluding passages of this delightful article,
evidently written from the heart, and as such appeal-
ing to the hearts of those who read it
" Lord, keep my memory green!' echoes instinctively
in the heart of the wondering child, as it looks upon the
leafless boughs of winter, and seeks in vain for the wild
flowers striped and golden,' it was wont to gather in the
merry hours of summer. It remembers them, the blue
violets—these deep eyes of the young spring first gazing
upon us so slyly--the cowslips of sunny May; and Hope
weaves a garland afresh—a garland of promise that they
shall leaf and blossom again, when warm days, and
cloudless skies, and fertilizing dews return. Lord,
keep my memory green!' trembles on the wan lips of
the weeping mourner, whether it be over the dead or the
dying those agonising drops be distilled. It wells up
there from the stricken yet disciplined heart in the half
audible appeal for strength addressed to those ears which
are never closed against us. Teach me to remember
that Thou bast promised succour to all who call upon
Theo in the day of tribulation—that this is not our
true country, that hero life is made up of meetings and
partings, and that it is only hereafter we may anticipate
the bliss of an inseparable companionship.' True, me-
mory is potent to stir the storm of natural regrets, to
rend the heart with the thought of present desolation, to
convulse the lip when its cry of endearment comes back
unanswered, to thicken the breath with a sense of suffo-
cation at the threshold of that chamber whose closed
door—

" So often on its hinge before,"

bespeaks the stillness of the sleep within, to flood the
eye with ungovernable tears by recalling the bloom, the
life, the love, the beauty, that so lately animated that
shrine of dust, and have now left it ripening for decay.
True, it is potent to awaken thus the fierce tides of
mental anguish, to prostrate our moral courage, to over-
come for the time being even our physical powers; but
how sovereign is the antidote it at the same time affords!
how specific the balm of its spiritual consolation!
" Memory is my solace,' sigh the separated in life.
They who are the victims f an untoward fate; knit to-
gether by the bonds of affection, yet divided by an ocean
of adverse circumstances to think of the absent, to keep
them shrined in the sanctuary of the mind, to call back
the tones, the smiles, the words of endearment, the
winning gentleness, the frank pleasantries, the laugh,
the glance of sweet surprise, the warm fervent pressure
of the hand, are surely privileges too dearly prized to be
relinquished without reluctance by the exiled from home:
w© say
home, because of the accepted creed that—
"'Tis home where'er the heart is."
" Memory is that sunshine we tee beaming so oft in
the face of venerable age. He is thinking of his youth!'
we say, when the smile of happy abstraction, like a
breath of summer, melts into touching softness of ex-
pression the time-worn lineaments of the hoary dreamer.
He is back with his early childhood, when the world
seemed all so good and beautiful, and men just what
their Maker first designed them to be, only a little lower
than the angels;' back with his happy school-days, when
application and ability were first coined into the gold of
knowledge; back with the merry troop who went
bounding out to play;' back with his dawning manhood,
which still is youth, when passion, kindled at the shrine
of beauty, offered up its first, its purest sacrifice, an
unsullied and devoted heart. He thinks, he ponders on
all this, and if a cloud of regret arise, it is but mo-
mentary, for though the nerve less arm, the failing eye,
over which the film of age is gathering fast, the silvered
locks, the faltering step, are all solemn evidences that
the winter of life has set in for him, memory is at hand
with her antidote; at hand with the balm of consolation.
She tells him that these are but incrustations wrought
by time on the surface, which eat not their way within;
the soul of man being impervious to all blighting in-
fluences; its dower being that of perpetual youth.
" Memory is the guardian angel even of the wicked.
How often does it step in between the intention and the
guilty deed, staying the murderous hand, whispering
admonitions long forgotten, stirring the callous heart to
a sense of good, softening, subduing, winning it! Truly
may we repeat, it is their guardian angel, though it is
doubtless these who would clamour for its destruction,
who would exclaim,' Away with it—away with: it; it
is the bane, the curse of my life!' If there be really
any existing whose graceless tongues could dare thus to
execrate aught so sacred, we cry, Pause
ere thou condemn,' and opening for them afresh
the book of the creation, bid them behold how when
God made man in the paradise of Eden, and endowed
him with will, memory, and understanding,' Be saw
that it was good.

A sturdy Welshman is on his way to town with a
glass tube full of earwigs, spiders, &c., to place it in the
tilass house in the park as the insect "Happy Family,"