The Sun.
London, England, 1850-07-25 00:00:00

POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTION.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE ANCIENT FIERY ORDEAL
AND THE HANDLING OF RED HOT METALS.-Mr.
Pepper, the professor of chemistry at the above truly
sensible place of amusement, commenced on Monday
last his second lecture on this curious branch of
science. The lecturer observed that the fiery ordeal
was as old as the oldest times of Greece or Rome,
and was actually used in England so late as the reign
of King John ; but that, according to Sir E. Coke it
was disused and abolished in the reign of King Henry
111. The fiery ordeal was nothing but a gross im-
position from beginning to end, and depended simply
on the preparation and hardening of the cuticle,
whereby it was rendered a bad conductor of heat,
and the cutaneous nerves thus defended by the callous
and hard nature of the skin. To illustrate this prin-
ciple, a red hot ball was placed in the palm of the
hand, which had been previously covered with char-
coal, no inconvenience was experienced; the hand
also being placed in the lower part of a vessel of
water was not scalded, when the liquid boiled, in the
upper put, because of the layer of non-conducting
liquid ; and it was explained that, in course of time,
the cuticle of the hands or feet might be made to as-
sume the condition of a non-conductor, and for a ,
certain period would bear contact. with a heated sttr-
face without sustaining injury. In the more modern
instances, viz., those observed by Mons. Bortigny, of
Evreux, this exemption from heat depended on the
assumption of the spheroidal state, and Mr. Pepper
having first dipped his hands into certain liquids, was
enaVed en this principle to take out an egg from
boiling water, and also to horrify the audience by
plunging his hands into a cauldron full of red hot
lead, the last experiment being performed by first
wetting the hand with sulphurous acid, which was
kept in the liquid state in one of Master's excellent
freezing apparatus. Many persons touched Mr. Pep-
per's hand after being immersed in the red hot lead,
and found it icy cold.

DEATH OF THE PRESIDENT OF

THE UNITED STATES.
The following circular has been issued by his Ex-
cellency the American Minister tolthis Court in re-
ference to the late melancholy event :
General Zachary Taylor, President of the United
States, expired at Washington on the 9th inst., after a
very brief illness. This intelligence is too fearfully en-
tail to permit me to await its official announcement
before inviting you to join in the national sorrow.
Taught in infancy lesson: of patriotism—accustomed
in youth to the dangers of a frontier life—entering the
service of his country in early manhood—distinguishing
himself during a life of toil by succesive victories gained
under great disadvantages—had General Taylor died in
the army he would have left behind him the name of a
brave soldier, cautious in council, firm in opinion, rapid
in execution, of unquestioned integrity, humanity, and
patriotism. A higher fame was reserved to hire.
liaised to the head of one of the powerful nations of the
earth, he exhibited to the world, wider circumstances of
rare trial, a sincerity, a p:udence, and a moderation,
combined with a firmness, a sense uf justice, and a pa-
triotic devotion to the honour and true interests of his
country, which won for him an unlimited confidence at
home, and a profound respect abroad. With a consci-
ousness of the purity of his motives, he sank into death,
breathing the words, "I am prepared—l have endea-
voured to do my duty."
I invite the consuls and vice-consuls of the United
States, and all others of my countrymen in the United
Kingdom, to manifest their sympathy in this sad event,
and share in the general grief it has caused. Our
country has lost, in the hour of her nee], a great and a
good man. Let us hope that.while his memory endures
those who have the charge of our public affairs may
emulate his patriotism, his integrity, his justice, and his
self-forgetfulness; and that our countrymen generally
may strive to imitate the modest self-reliance, the purity,
and the kindness of heart which distinguished him in

private life. ABBOTT LAURENCE.
United States Legation, London, July 22, 1850.

ALLEGED ATTEMPT TO POISON

A SHIP'S CREW.

FALMOUTH, JULY 23.—Mr. William Michel, master
of the barque Esther Frances, recently arrived at this
port from Havannah, was brought up in custody at the
Town-hall yesterday, on a charge of having attempted
to poison Mr. William Shaw, a passenger, and some, if
not all, of the crew. It may be mentioned that in con-
sequence of violent acts, resulting from intemperance,
eoupled with the above serious attempt, the master was
placed in arrest by the crew about a weak after she had
left llavannah, and had been kept in his cabin the remain-
der of the voyage, the mate, Mr. Dunipace, taking charge
of the ship. On her reaching the Channel, she mada
for this port, and the captain was handed over to the
police authorities. At the proceedings before the
Mayor and other magistrates, Mr. Tilley prosecuted,
and a Mr. Green attended for the accused. The princi-
pal witness examined was Mr. Shaw, who is connected
with the Real del Monte Association, and was a passen-
ger in the vessel. He deposed to the captain being the
worse for liquor from the time of the ship leaving up to
13th of June. On the latter day ho seemed much ex-
cited. A water jug was kept in the cabin, which they
all used. On the evening of the 13,11 Mr. Shaw was in-
duced to watch the movements of the captain. He was
seen to open his medicine chest, and shortly afterwards
he was heard to pour something into the jug. He then
became more excited in his manner, and desired to have
some soup. Soup was then given him, and he cried out.
" The has done me at last." He called for ginger
and water, and directed the mate to got the water from
the dipper on the deck. Requiring more water, the mate
told the boy that he need not go on the deck for it, as
there was some in the jug. The jug was found under
his cot, and on the water being poured out, it appeared
of a milky character. He refused to take it, and told
the mate to get a bottle from the second mate which he
had previously given him. The bottle hal two labels
upon it " extract of lead" and " poison." They put
seine of the contents into a glass of water, and its taste
and arposranee was similar to that in the jug. The
crew then placed him under arrest, and on teing accused
by Mr. Shaw, he sail, " Well, if I did it, I must have
been crazy at the time, and I hope it will be forgotten."
After a patient investigation, the bench considered that
although there was a strong degree of suspicion, there
was no proof of a falunious intent, therefore the prisoner
was discharged.

THE FALLS OF NIAGARA-OVERTHROW OF THE
GREAT TABLE ROCK.—Accounts from Canada announce the
fall of the great Table Rock of the Falls of Niagara under
circumstances of much interest. We extract the following
from the Buffalo Courier of the Ist instant :—" The falling
of Table ock at Niagara Falls, on Saturday last, was an
event which has been prognosticated from time immemorial,
though the precise period at which the affair would come
or was not designated. The portion that fell was from 150
to 24'0 feet long, and from 30 to 70 feet broad, making an ir-
regular semi-circle, the general conformation of which is pro-
bably well remembered by those who have been on the spot.
It was the favourite point for observation. The noise occa-
sioned by the crash was heard at the distance of three miles,
though many in the village on the American side heard
nothing of it. It is a very fortunate circumstance that the
event took place at dinner time, when most of the visitors
were at the hotels. No lives were lost. A carriage from
"seaeair
which the horses had been detached good upon the rock, and
ab
barely timet seated
to in
getsid out. I
ant feltus the re9y was
htoe
k
g
the edge
wad,einthatid and
had not
fall before the whole immense mass was Precipitated into the
chasm below."

THE PEEL MONUMENT AT BURY, LANCASHIRE.—
On Monday evening, at a meeting of the finance committee
connected with the above object, at Bury, it was ascertained
that the total amount of the subscriptions for the intended
monument at Bury was 2,6921. 2s. 10id.

What is fame but one loud spontaneous blast from
a myriad of penny trumpets .—Eliza Cool:'s Journal.
general
MIDLAND RAILWAT.On Friday a special
meeting of proprietors was held at Derby, at the company's
station, to consider the expediency of entering into certain
arrangements with the holders of 501. shares in the said
company, for an alteration of the conditions, rights, and pri-
vileges attaching to such shares, and the preferential
dividends payable thereon. The following propositions were
submitted to the meeting :—" That the 5 per cent. dividend
on the 35/. already called on the 501. shares cease to be
payable after the 31st of December, 1850." "That 33/. 6s. Bd.
( part of :such 31/.) shall be consolid.ited into and receive
dividend rateably with the general capital stock of the com-
pany, from Jan. 1, 1851, the company guaranteeing thence-
' forth a dividend of 44 per cent. on any future calls which
may be made on the 501. shares (beyond the call now due),
and also on 11. 13s. 4d. per share, part of the 351. already
called up." " That an Act of Parliament shall be applied
for to sanction the foregoing arrangement, in which power
shall be taken for the Midland Company to pay off the
guaranteed part of the above shares, whenever they shall
think fit, at par." These propositions were carried by a
considerable majority on a show of hands; but Mr. Brancker,
of Liverpool, demanded a poll, when the result was declared
as follows :—For the motion, 7,076; against, I,2B7.—Sheilield
Times.

LITERAT URE.
CHRISTMAS-EVE AN D EASTER-DAY.
A Poem. By Rokrt Browni!w,

Any metrical effusion from the hand of the author
of "Paracelsus" is certain to secure from the critic
an attentive examination. His poetical capabilities
have been altogether so conspicivaisly exhibited in
that masterpiece of composition, that it would be im-
possible for a reviewer endowed with an ordinary
degree of discrimination to confound the genius of
Robert Browning with the merely cultivated talents
of the majority of contemporary versifiers. Not but
that the writings of Mr. Browning have repeatedly
failed to rise above the level of the surrounding me-
diocrity. Unfortunatel7 this has been too fri quently
the case among his mast recent productions. Inso-
much thit his athnirers have found themidv2s com-
pelled to revert to the earlier products of hisimagi-
nation, wheii withstanding the sneers of the captious
and the scorn of the depreciative. Failing to recog-
nize in them beauties in any degree comparable to
those crowded together in the dramatic biography of
the philosopher, the most ardent and infatuated en-
thusiasts about the mind from which " Paracelsus" had

emanated, have been reluctantly constrained to forego
the luxury of indiscriminate panegyric upon "fills
d Pomegranates." They have unwillingly confessed
that, with all their predisposition to be satisfied, they
have, in their regard, experienced for the most part a
grievous disappointment. The beautiful features of
poesy were still visible, but the light and glory of
intelligence had departed from its countenance. Of,
if perceptible, it was only at intervals, like the flashes
of sanity occasionally glimmering through the chaos
of some gorgeous hallucination. The music of the
rhythm was still audible, but, at the best, it consisted
of those intermittent harmonies of language which of
themselves constitute but an indifferent compensation

for the absence of a sustained purpose—a unity at
once clear and harmonious. At the same time it must

he averred that wlioever might presume from this
casual failure of a very refined intellect in embodying
its most copious and mobile emanationsi, that the
genius of Mr. Browning had become dwarfed and
stunted immediately after the production of " Para-
celsus" (like the exotic aloe shedding its one delicious
blossom and then withering down to a mere stalk),
would betray either a total ignorance of his writings,
or a lamentable incapacity of appreciation. For our-
selves, without in any way deteriorating from the
remarkable excellence of " Paracelsus," we would say
that its author has penned various poems yet more
forcibly demanding the commendations of aesthetic
criticism. His " Pippa Passes," of all his works our
especial favourite, presents to,the imagination of the
reader a series of pictures of voluptuous beauty and
impassioned eloquence. His " Colombo's Birthday,"
a flower in flavour racy of the soil of the Roman
peninsula, and sparkling with a radiance caught from the
Italian skies, has about it a multitude of charms invest-
ing its dramatic dialogue with irresistible attractions.
"A Blot on the 'Scutcheon," though conceived in defi-
ance of the venerable laws affecting the literary ex-
tent of tragedy, is no feeble or ineffective offering at
the shrine of Melpomene. " The Last of the Druses,"
in spite of the confusion of its structure and the en-
tanglement of its interests, possesses powerful claims
on oar admiration. While many of his minor compo-
sitions, such as the love songs in the Venetian gon-
dola, abound in passages of verbal loveliness, com-
manding the eulogiums even of the prejudiced or
indifferent. With these recollections of what the
abilities of Mr. Browning had already accomplished,
and with this cordial estimate of his genius as a poetic
contributor to our literature, we opened and perused
the volume now lying before us for consideration. With-
out circumlocution of any hind we will acknowledge
at once that we have experienced something more than
mere disappointment from its examination. We have
been pained at the violation it evinces of all the most
subtle and exquisite ordinances of wsthetics. We have
been distressed to find a lover of the pure and the beauti-
ful like Robert Browning;condescending to trifle with
the gross and the meretricious—mistaking for once,
it would seem, the fantastic for the sublime ; the
vulgar for the natural ; the grotesque for the original.
In its ulterior design the poem of " Christmas. Eve
and Easter-Day"—divided into two parts, dedicated
respectively to the Nativity and the Resurrection—is
generous and elevating. Yet these very laudable
qualities have been so overloaded with the blemishes
and indecorums already particularised that their
merit is -almost entirely obliterated. The
author wishes to render the idea of
the Incarnate Divinity an object of more
universal veneration, and he endeavours to ac-
complish this by associating the divine phantom of
the Redeemer with everything mean, debasing, and
pitiful. He desires at the close of the effusion to
enfold in his all-embracing tenderness every form
and species of worship practised under the august
name of Christianity ; and in order to arrive at this
conclusion he pertinaciously depicts these forms of
worship under aspects the most degrading, and in
colours the most ludicrous. Than this never was
there more egregious perversity of judgment. Even
the manner of the poem is as provocative of exception
as the matter, the style having, in some parts a pure
rodomontade of rhetorical fustian, and in others a

jingle of eccentric rhymes, partaking rather of the
character of doggrel than of poetry. As indicative
of the enormous mistake of the whole book, we may
observe that the scene at first selected by the poet for
description is, perhaps, the most thoroughly unpoetical
that could be chosen in the entire range of humanity
—a little Ebenezer Chapel, or a little Zion, or a little
Bethel, or whatever you may please to call it.
Granted that, the painting of this scene in words is
as wonderfully faithful and lifelike as if it had been
copied in colours by the brush of Hogarth, yet the
very vividness of the vraisemblance only renders an
object in bare idea disgusting, doubly and trebly
loathsome. We by no means despair of proving this
by quotation, though we must confess that in forcing
such extracts upon the attention of our readers we
entertain the most poignant feelings of com-
punction. Mr. Browning stands in the door-
way of the wretched edifice; the night is drizzling ;
and, in seeking that shelter, the poet finds himself in
close proximity with discomfort as well as squalor.
He describes the entrance with wonderful exactitude
even to the "scold of the crazy hinge"—as if he
wished to nauseate us prematurely by his punctilious
attention to the minutest particulars. Of the wor-
shippers who thronged into the dirty " sheepfold"
he says :-
- the most turned in yet more abruptly
From a certain squalid knot of alleys,
Where the town's bad blood once slept corruptly,
Which now the little chapel rallies
And leads into day again,—its priestliness
Lending itself to hide their beastliness
Su cleverly (thanks in part to the mason),
And putting so cheery a whitewashed face on
Those neophytes too much in lack of it,
That, where you cross the common as I did,
And meet the party thus presided,
'Mount Zion,' with Love-lane at the lack of it," &a.
Enough of this preposterous play upon words, how-
ever. Another specimen will afford a clearer
notion of the absurdities and vulgarisms, the coarse-
ness and uncomeliness of the creatures depicted in
this extraordinary production. Hear them enume-
rated as follows :

MRS. CAMP'S DOUBLE.
" -- the fat weary woman,
Panting and bewildered, down-clapping
Her umbrella with a mighty report,
Grounded it by me, wry and flapping,
A wreck of whalebones; then, with a snort,
Like a startled horse, at the interloper
Who humbly knew himself improper,
But could not shrink up small enough,
Round to the door, and in—the gruff
Hinge's invariable scold
Making your very blood run cold."
THE SLATTERN WITH THE PATTENS.
" the many tattered
Little ohl-faced, peaking sister-turned-mother
Of the sickly babe sho tried to smother
Slnachow up, with its spotted face,
From the cold, on her breast, the one warm place;
She too must stop, wring the poor suds dry
Of a draggled shawl, and add thereby
Her tribtite 'to the door-mat sopping
Already from my own clothes' dropping,
Which yet she seemed to grudge I should stand on;
Then stooping down to take off her patens,
She bore theta defiantly. in each hand one,
Planted to;lether before her breast
And its babe, as good as a lance in rest."
Then comes a horrible fellow, of whom we shall hear
more presently—
', a tali, yellow man, like the penitent thief,
With his jaw bound up in a handkerchief."
Meanwhile the poet is still screening himself from the
rain in a doorway, under a " tallow candle" in a
" cracked lauthorn." After hesitating a little he en-
ters thus elegantly in the wake of an uncleanly shoe-
maker's lad—
" With wizened face in want of soap,
And wet apron wound round his waist like a rope,
After stopping outside, for his cough was had,
To get the fit over, poor gentle creature,
And so avoid disturbing the preacher,
Passed in, I sent my elbow spihewise
At the shutti,s door, and entered likewise."
We shall not pause while Mr. Browning is expatia-
ting with a sort of indignant gusto over "the hot
smell and the human noises," or while he is indecently
rhyming
theton
with a sort of half-joke " equipt yours"
with the " Holy Scriptures ;" but come at once to
grossnesseetef
tandhe preacher'svulgarit ofs
mheondeolninetha-e
theert
congregation and on the
it is : • t 1
poetical
er. open Hera
My old fat woman purred with pleasure.
And thumb round thumb
While she, to his went twirling faster,
Maternally devoured the
periods
keeping
measure,
pastor.
The man with the handkerchief, xrchitf, untied it,
Showed us a horrible
w
Gave his eyelids yes another screwing, i
And rocked himself as
the
woman was doing.
The shoemaker's lad, discreetly choking,
Kept down his cough. 'Twas too provoking!

_ .
My gorge rose at the nonsense and stuff of it,
- • And saying, like Eve when she plucked the apple,
'I -atited a taste, ttiel new thort's enough of it,'
I flung out of the little chapel.
The nausea produced by such writing as this is
surely too perceptible to require any explicit chtini-
nition. We ourselvGs "fling out of the little
chapel," as Mr. Bromiint gracefu.4 expresses if,
quite n 3 eag.:r to escape from its " Lot•stnell and
human noistas," to the free atmosphere of heaven, fr-;
the. poet himself. Illther then under,zo a repetition
of it we would undergo the chan:-.:e of a ducking.
It has left off raining, however, and cur
author, under the clear night sky, is in a
somewhat apttr mood for poetry. Nevertheless,
he cannot as yet quite rid Linriell of his " hobby-
horsical" inclination to pen dogrel, ex gr.—
"A tune a aa burn in my head last wc(h,
Out of the thump-thump and sin-i‘k-shriek
Of the trait), as 1 came by it, up from Maachcster;
And when, next week, I take it back again,
My head will sing to the enzine's clack again,
While it only makes my neightnur's hunches stir."
Altogether his perceptions in regard to syntax
appear to be about as confused as in reference to pro-
sody. So that we find him, at page 18, saying that
God is removed from man, "as it were an hand-
breadth off." -why "an handbreadth ?" Suddenly,
however, we are swept away from all attention to
defects of composition, by a strange lunar rainbow in
the sky, and the appearance of a phantom of Christ—
clinging to whose robes the poet is conveyed through
the air to Rome and to Gottingen. At Gottingen
he listens to the lecture of a sympathiser with Strauss,
" proving " the Redeemer of mankind to be a myth and
an unreality. At Rome he witnesses the gorgeous wor-
shp of the CAtholics in the Basilica of St. Peter's.
Here it is that, drawing inspiration from his sub-
ject, Mr. Browning has penned the only noble pas-
sage in his volume. The lines italicised in the fol-
lowing quotation require no comment; their exceed-
ing beauty appealing at once to the mind and heart
of all who are capable of appreciation.
"Now I see: it is no dream:
It stands there and it does not seem;
For ever, in pictures, thus it locks,
And thus I have read of it in books,
Often in England, leagues away,
And wondered bow those fountains play,
Growing up eternally
Each to a musical water. tree.

The dark is rent, mine eye is free
To pierce the crust of the outer wall,
And I view inside, and all there, all, •
As the swarming hollow of a hive,
•
The whole Basilica alive!
Men in the chancel, body, and nave,
Men on the pillars' architrave,
Men oa the statues, men on the tombs
With popes and kings in their porphyry wombe,
All famishing in expectation
Of the main altar's consummation.
For see, for see, the rapturous moment
Approatth!s, and earth's best 'endowment
Blends with heaven's: the taper-fires
Pant up, the winding brazen spires
Heave loftier yet the baldachin;
The incense-gaspings, king kept in,
Suspire in clouds; the organ blatant
Holds his breath and grovels latent,
As if God's hushing finger grazed him,
(Like Behemoth when He praised him)
At the silver bell's shrill tinkling,
Quick cold drops of terror sprinkling
On the sudden pavement strewed
With faces of the multitude."
After that one magnificent passage we are loath to
resume our task of particularizing the blemishes of a
poem as terribly defaced with flaws as any perhaps
ever before printed from the manuscripts of a man of
intellect. We close the book, then, and our criticism
with a sensation of profound regret, lamenting that
one who can write so well should have written so
badly, tagging rhymes instead of penning poetry—
celebrating ugliness and vulgarity instead of dedicating
his powers atone to the homage of the Godlike and
the Beautiful.