The Sun.
London, England, 1868-04-01 00:00:00

MAGAZINE-DAY.

BLACKWOOD.—The contents of Maya for April
are more than usually attractive. Leading off with
a brilliant and scholarly paper upon Horace—to
which we shall immediately revert after we have
numbered up the titles of the other articles in
this current number of Ebony for April—a paper
in which the causes of his popularity are with the
subtlest appreciation of the few rare demerits, no
less than of the many (in another sense) far rarer
excellencies of the peerless lyrist, are exquisitely de-
fined, Blackwood comprises within the compass of
this instalment for April half a dozen more or
less remarkable contributions. Irrespectively,
that is to say, of another of those comical
effusions in verse, penned, or we are very much
mistaken, by the fugitive metrical satirist who has
recently dubbed himself " An Old Contributor."
This new Song, with an old-fashioned refrain
(" Derry Down" to wit) has relation, by the way, to
" The New Nostrum for Ireland." Reverting to
the other—the prose contributions to Blackwood for
April—there is, to begin with, another, the seventh
part of the current serial story, " Linda Tressel."
There is another, the second, Historical Sketch of
the Reign of George 11. —this time a sketch of
The Minister." There is in this number, also,
a paper that all the readers of Blackwood will
turn to with melancholy yet pleasurable emotion,
the paper relating, we mean, to the career, the gifts,
and the various literary achievements of one among
the most brilliant of the Blackwood writers, the Poet
of the " Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers," the hu-
morous Beaumont, to the Fletcher of Theodore
Martin, in the fabrication of those comical Ballads
of Bon Gualtier, the joint translator with Theodore
Martin of the Poems of Giithe, the author of
" Norman Sinclair," in one word—Aytoun I
Here, again, is Cornelius O'Dowd—meaniug, in
other and plainer terms, Charles Lever, at his best,
at his very best, not simply in mufti, but in his
dressing-gown and slippers. Besides all this—there
is, a delightful paper on " Charles Kean and the
Modern Stage." And-- to wind up with—there is a
slashing " political," hammering right and left at
MacCallum More and the Leader of the Opposition,
at Mr. Bright and Earl Russell, at Mr. Maguire, and
at Mr. Horsman, as well as at others whose names
it were unnecessary here to particularize—this clos-
ing contribution to the number being significantly
entitled " The Battle for Place." As lifting us out
of the din of party contests, however, the opening
paper of the number possesses for ourselves
a far superior attraction, and, to some
passing consideration of its contents, therefore, we
here gladly revert. It is all the more noticeable,
moreover, as a contribution to Blackwood, by
reason of its being, avowedly, only the prelude or
precursor to other and kindred contributions from
the same hand. " Horace : the Causes of his
Popularity," as we have already said, is its title.
But,itnme liately beneath that title, are these words
—" To be followed by specimens of a new transla-
tion of his Odes "—a promise reiterated by the
writer at the close of his remarks, where he observes
—" Some translations of the Odes, composed upon
this principle, will be given iu a subsequent number.''
if only the metrical versions, thus promised, be in
any way worthy of the critic's capacity as that is
evidenced throughout this charming contribution in
commemoration of Horace, but more especially in
commemoration of his Odes—it is to be hoped that
we may have not merely " Some" of them, but All of
them—at last—in some degree adequately trans-
lated. Setting forth with the remark that Horace
remains unexcelled in that special gift of genius,
which critics define by the name of " charm"
—this latest and certainly not least among
the critics of Horace refers delightfully to those
fragments of his verse that all of us know by heart,
as perpetually " applying themselves to varieties of
incident and circumstance with the felicitous supple-
ness of proverbs." By implication—later on—he de-
fines the perfection of the Horatian Odes to their
" concentrating the rays of poetry into the com-
pactness and solidity of imperishable gems."
Horace himself—now Epicurean, now Stoic—he
defines elsewhere as the poet of Eclecticism.
He speaks of him as having won for himself what
has never been conceded to any other poet—the
cheerful and willing admiration of men of the world.
He regards him as peerless among all lyrical poets,
as the representative of civilisation. A fact which
the critic attributes less to the easy good nature of
his philosophy or the liveliness of his wit, than to
that indefinable air of good breeding which is among
all Horace's attributes—his especially. It is in re-
lation to this that the writer in Blackwood speaks of
him afterwards as commanding supreme rank in that
high class of gentlemen—thoroughbred authors.
Added to all which, as is here well said, be enjoys in
all civilised countries, and in all civilised times
",that degree of personal affection which few writers
have the happiness to inspire." Altogether this
graceful paper on Horace is a charming morsel of
scholarly criticism, and one that awakens in our
mind an eagerly anticipative zest for the promised
translations.

SAINT PAULS.--The Editor's story about " Phineas
Finn" advances pleasantly enough, so far as the
reader's satisfaction is concerned. The Hero of the
tale, however, all but breaks down in his maiden
speech in the House, and Lord Chiltern comes to
grief, with a broken collar bone and a few fractured
ribs, while out hunting. The number is otherwise
remarkable, for inasmuch as it contains, for the
first time, a second illustration—another of Thomas's
admirable sketches, one devoted here to the embel-
lishment of "All for Greed." Among the miscellane-
ous papers there is a notice of " Spiritual Wives,"
in the which, to employ a slang plume of the day,
a slating is administered to the author of " New
America."

It is authentically asserted that the Emperor
Francis Joseph conferred, on the 27th, at Pesth, with
Prince Auersperg and Ritter von Earner respecting the
marriage law. His Majesty is also said to have demanded
the opinion of the Hungarian Ministry on the question.
the Emperor's decision is still in abeyance.
According to a telegraphic despatch received at
Vienna, the propositions submitted to the Papal See by
- the Austrian Ambassador, Count Crivelli, with reference
to the revision of the Concordat, have been met on all and
:very point with a decided non possumus.
FATAL WRECK.—The brig Selina, of Cardiff, with
silver ore and coal, was wrecked inside a group of danger-
ous rocks known as the Stags, about a mile from the
Lizard Lighthouses, on Friday night. Cries for assistance
were heard, and the lifeboat was promptly put out. Two
men were found clinging to a spar, and were saved. The
rest of the crew had perished when the vessel went down.
THE LUTON MURDERER.—At 8 o'clock yester-
day morning William Worsley was hanged in front of the
county gaol Bedford, in presence of about 1,000 people, for
the murder of William Bradbury, at Lutho.
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