The Sun.
London, England, 1850-01-02 00:00:00

ELIZA COOK'S JOURNAL.

Having advanced into a second volume, the fair
editress of this popular publication evinces yet more
and more her capacity to cater to the literary appetites
of the multitude, and in doing so she consults invari-
ably their improvement as well as their happiness. Her
contributors have manifestly imbibed from her genius
that genial and elevating spirit which directs its every
energy to the assuagement of the spasms of
prejudice and the dissipation of the blindness of
ignorance. Almost every article in the two
last numbers published, Numbers VII. and VIII., for
November and December, is marked by that twofold
aspiration. The pervading merit of the Journal is
that of intelligence, its most conspicuous charm that
of a bewitching and ameliorative benevolence. Prose
and poetry, tale and essay, serial and paragraph, are
all alike characterized by a desire to better the
heart as well as to develope the intellect of the reader.
The cause of the whole periodical is the cause of
social advancement. The text upon which it
enlarges hebdomadally is comprised in a single
word—humanity. It is that which peculiarly
imparts to Eliza C'ook's Journal its easily
recognised and universally understood attrac-
tion. Seven or eight lyrical effusions from the
hand of Eliza Cook herself are all invested with this
preeminent excellence. Their chiming stanzas can-
not be perused without that exquisite sensa-
tion, half physical, half intellectual, which
is the inevitable delight resulting from sounds
"most musical." Her hand in touching the chord of
her lyre causes one or other of the chords of our
heart to vibrate with it in unison—as the resonance
of any particular note of the human voice in
a room where there is a harp, a piano, or
any stringed instrument, causes the corre-
sponding wire of that instrument to thrill with
a sympathetic vibration. So with the authoress of
" Melaia," and the editress of this popular Journal—
her voice can wake an answer in any heart not ossi-
fied by selfishness. And her recent efforts as a song-
stress have in one or two instances fully equalled any
of her earlier ventures into the aerial realms of
imagination. This circumstance of itself would be
sufficient to secure the popularity of the publication
now under review, even it it chanced to be other-
wise undeserving of public patronage. Such, how-
ever, is assuredly not the case with Eliza Cook's
Journal a miscellany conducted with an
ability commensurate, in a great measure,
with the entrepreneur's reputation. Aware that in
similar melanges of literature the principal advan-
tage is that of an agreeable variety, the contents of
the weekly magaoine before us are blended with an
eye to contrast and piquancy ; from which
attention to the general arrangement it happens
that, while resembling each other in intention,
every number differs from its predecessor in having
some peculiar and distinguishing characteristic.
The last part issued for the month of December
is, perhaps, of all the eight yet published, the
gentlest, wisest, best. As a propitious augury, then,
we regard it—an augury promising good fortune to
the periodical—and with this conviction we close our
allusions to the journal, wishing Eliza Cook a happy
new year for herself and a God-speed for her en-
terprise.

THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL
By the Rev. Messrs. Conybeare and Howson.

Part I.
A novel and beautiful idea is here being carried
out under the joint superintendence of the gentlemen
above-mentioned. With the assistance of the geo-
graphic knowledge of the latter, the biblical scholar-
ship of the former, and the general intelligence of both
combined, we shall have acquired, on the completion
of the present serial, an ample biography of perhaps
the greatest and noblest man that ever trod the globe.
The romantic history, the extraordinary vicissitudes,
the miraculous conversion, the burning and matchless
eloquence of Saul of Tarsus, will invest his
memory, even when viewing him in his merely
human and uninspired capacity, with a glory of pecu-
liar and absorbing fascination. Hence, for a multi-
tude of reasons, it will be with particular interest
that we shall watch the development of a design so
elevated and bewitching as the one here commenced.
This being only the initial number, the text is, of
course, little more than purely introductory ; and the
opening engravings are restricted to a representation
of Damascus, another of Ephesus, and a vignette
illustrative of Tarsus. With the aid of the
brilliant and truthful pencil of W. H. Bartlett, the
work cannot fail to be superbly embellished
throughout.

THE NAUTICAL MAGAZINE.
In the current number of this useful and favourite
organ of the naval profession will be found, as waled,
a variety of contributions of indisputable value and
excellence. From its pages we extract the following
interesting announcement :