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

T E

from the moment his interests were in the ascendant,
Captain Chamier speaks in terms of earnest and
rneried Neverthehss, with all his good
opinions cf individual men and individual events, he
remains to the vtry end of the second volume over-
w Mined b; his •pre sentiment of dejection.
Corniiired with this dejection, M. Guizot's despair is
nothing. Should the most joyous Frcnchintru
in cxieterce- happen to read the work we question
very much whether his hilarity would not
be extini,.nished under the weight of such a terrible
wet blur:ker. Sterue's Smttllfungus was nothing to
Captain Charnier in his petulant depreciation. He
views every republican virtue through a diminishing
glass, 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
Lillibutlero.

JANE EYRE. Fourth Edition. By Currer Bell.
A testiii,ony of the genies i f this brilliant novelist
is here given, very unmistakably, nut 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 vo!umes cf octavo into one
unif,irm in size with the standard novels issued by,
Mr. Ciiiburn, 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, mere 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 sgain enthralled by the incidents associating together
the rough but loving (and be it said, too, in spite of
all his vices and rudeness) the loveable Fairfax Ro-
chester, the pure but stern, the ambitious but 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 cf old George
Herbert. The description is that given of the ghastly
vision seen by Abaddona :
" Appear as suits thee, Oen! I see the btu.
Slow rising mildly in the golden west,
L'ke a returning sun.—W hat me .n the clouds
Thick rusting, curling back on either side
With scorched and shrivelled edges, while white red,
As furnace wiihin 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 ;no; nisg sun sickens along the cast
With jaundiced eye., and blackens. In the west
The star is swelling, nearing. Is the world
A figot for the flames of angry heaven
Jill-sting and rending all? 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 p dri!
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 cannot 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-
versing such lofty fields of poetic speculation.

TILE COMEDY OF DANTE. Translated by
Patrick Bannerman.
After the elegant and vigorous translation by Cary
of the Divine Comedy, it appears to us to be not only
rash but superfluous to attempt another English ver-
sion—more especially if the latter proves, on perusal,
to be very careless in its versification. This emphatic
dispraise we must in all truthfulness accord to the
labours of Mr. Patrick Bannerman—a circumstance
which we cannot but regret, seeing that those labours
have necessarily been voluminous. Hell, Purgatory,
and Paradise are alike flAwed in this respect by the
slovenly manner of the rhythm, by the frequent
neglect of all rhyme whatever, and by the occasional
(and because occasional, the jolting) introduction of
the triple rhy mes, such favourites with Dryden.
Either let us have the triple rhymes throughout—and
that would be eminently effective and in accordance
with the melodious original, as sung by the inspired
lips of Dante Alighieri—or no triple rhymes at all.
As the fittest ti ken of the utter incapacity of Mr.
Bannerman to supplant his distinguished and accom-
plished predecessor, we give his version of the opening
cuito of "Hell" :
" Half through our mortal life, myself I found
In a dark forest's wil I and rugged ground,
Where the right way was lost in shaggy wood,
A rude and savage woodland solitude.
The very thought still robs me of my breath,
And memory counts it little less than death:
Of good to treat, discovered in the wood,
I'll tell of other things I understood.
When the true way was list, the path forsook,
Of sleep so deep that moment I partook
That bow I entered 1 can scarce relate,
So dull the slumber and so dead its weight.
But when the mountain's feet my steps drew near
That closed the vale that filled my heart with fear,
Upward I looked, and saw its shoulders bright,
Already with that planet's rays of light
That guides all others through each path aright.
The fear was then subsiding into rest
That shook the placid depth within my breast,
All the night long so saddened and perplexed.
Like one who breathless issued from the waves
Turns to the waters he no longer braves,
My spirit, that still flies, turns back to see
The pass that living man ne'er trod but me.
My weary frame once more r( freshed, I paced
The way along the cle:ert ridge, and tractd—
The hinclincst footstep ever deepest placed."
That, we take it will be amply sufficient to justify
the language of dt preciation in w hich we have been
compelled to characterise the latorious performance
of Mr. Bannerman.

TIIE LAST of the ABENCERRAGES. With
()gar Poems. By Thomas Roscoe.
That legend of voluptuous Granada which Mr.
Roscoe has selected as the theme of his present grace-
ful etfavion had its attractions for the refined and cul-
tivated mind of Chateaubriand. It has been cele-
brated moreover already in our prose literature by
the genius of Sir Bulwer Lytton, in whose elegant
romance of " Leila" are depicted in brilliant colours
the fall of Abdallah and the triumph of Ferdinand.
The consummation of the ever memorable conquest
of Granada by the armies of Isabella, in a deed
of assas-inatiun, is thus vividly depicted by theverses
of Mr. Roscoe :
" Wreathe, wreathe for me my myrtle crown,
I come, my love—my sword, farewell;
S vIL et, lov'd laud's hopes—all, ail thine own,
Thy angel guards my spirit well:

lam with thce now!' The banli'd cf heaven,

Who clove the heart of Love in twain,
And could not hope to be forgit en,
rihfn gave the h'o- d r d again.
All fearless bitaua'd tf:al. princely- brow,
Scorn on the lip; in heart the vow
That bGre the spirit to its shrine,
And gave for human love divine.
Thrice from th' ensanguiu'd fount that head
Rebounded, like the battle-in ad;
Flasb'd the bright eye, ere quencit'd its light;
The proud lip curl'd, Disdain's delight;
Back rubh'd the blood-At:W.l alavcs io dread,
And the scar'd murderer muttering fivd.
The blood-cry rose! Granada weeps
The flower of all her chit alry ;
Ilcr fame departs—her empire sleeps,
Faith, Hope, Lave, Joy all tremt,hrg fly.
Oh, dark aten'd that deed of deati !
Red Vengeance bar'd her arm;
Through court, camp, pla'n and hill, tie breath
Of hmtle woke th' alarm.

'Tis night once more! strange terrors low'r
O'er mosque, and palace-hall, and tower;
Cras'd song and dance—the ' Sisters" Hall
Is da k—saloons deserted all;
From those bright gardens' myrtle bowers,
For ever speed Love's, Jo)'ss hours;
And o'er tti' Alhumbrs's tower-girt pride
The Afrites gather, Ghouls deride.
F►erce sounds of hate, toil, jeer or wail,
T►ll silenco brood, and :ba,lows pale,
As spectres lilt—murmurs the air,
Though still the leaves as love's despair."
After this celebration of the " Last of the Aben-
cerroges" comes a tale of English industry and sel:-
dependence, entitled "Bertha ; or, IVnat makes the
Hero ?" More romantic subjects, however, still ea•
ercise the sway of fascination over the taste of Mr.
Roscoe; for we find him further on, in the volume
cbaunting the glories of "King Alfred" with all the
gusto of Joseph Cottle, and offering up a song of re-
collection to the " Last Moments of Andrea Zur-
baran," the celebrated Spanish painter. A great
variety of miscellaneous pew, written apparently
at different times, like fugitive pieces, make up the
residue of the volume which is dedicated in grateful
terms to the Prime Minister of England.

COURT CIRCULAR.
BALMORAL, SEPT. 4.

His Royal Highness went out shooting to-day, ac-
companied by the Prince of Leiningen, and attended
by Lieut.- Colonel Hon. C. B. Phipps and Lieut.-
Colonel Hon. Alexander Gordon. _ _

Her Majesty drove out in an open carriage in the
afternoon.

The younger members of the Royal Family took
walking exercise during the day.
Sir George Grey left Balmoral this morning for
Northumberland.
The Earl of Carlisle arrived at Balmoral this
evening.

Dispatches were sent off yesterday evening from the
Colonial• office, for the Governor of Canada, and also
for the Governors of the other North American Co •
lonier.