The Sun.
London, England, 1850-10-03 00:00:00

MAGAZINES, &c.--(CON TIN UED.)

FBAS ER.

In the first chapter of the " Age cf Veneer," the
writer runs amuck at journalists, at what he calls
out-of-door Parliaments, at political economy, and
more especially at statistics, the very mention of
which makes him rabid. We can make great allow-
ances for a gentleman in that state, and certainly
consider it but natural that a Protectionist should
bate statistics, which have proved to demonstration
how utterly groundless are alike his hopes and his
fears; but he ought at least to keep probability in
view, and in his long list of the primes for which
statistics have to answer he should, at all events, not
so far commit himself as to assert that "statistics draw
the mind away from the contemplation of facts."
What, we should like to know, is the study of
statistics but the study of facts ? The concluding
advice of the writer to his friends, the Protectionists, is
admirable; he tells them "they make a sad business of it
whenever they meddle with statistics that they only
damage themselves, and that they had better alto-
gether abstain from dealitz with matters with which
they have no concern." It would be well for " the
country gentlemen" if they would follow this advice,
and content themselves with an increasing faith in
their idol protection, for they may rely on it that
whenever they attempt to argue the question of pro-
tection, or to give a reason for the faith that is in
them, they " only damage themselves," The
Naturalist continues his pleasant leaves from his Note-
book, and gives us much entertaining information on
the habits of reptiles of the tortoise tribe, aLd the
New Yorker furnishes us with another of his ad-
mirable sketches of American society. The article
on " Public Nurseries" should be read by every
philanthropist, it is the history of the working of an
attempt to introduce into England those valuable
institutions known in France as Creches. " The
Foreign Prince" is an account of the career of a foreign
swindler who has entrapped an English girl of re-
spectable family into a marriage, and who ultimately
absconds, leaving her a widowed wife, with no means
of obtaining a divorce. The story is well told. An
officer of the Royal Artillery gives us an admirable
account of a visit to the mammoth cave of Kentucky,
which extends into the bowels of the earth for a dis-
tance of six or seven miles, and which is one of the
wonders of the new world. We have besides these
articles able reviews of the clever but snobbish book
of Madame Blaze De Bury on Germany, of Mr. Baillie
Cochrane's " Young Italy," and of Mr. Miller's and
Professor Sedgwick's recently published exposures of
the errors of the author of " Vestiges of Creation."

THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. No. CVI

A more miscellaneous and, consequently, a more
entertaining number of this popular periodical we
cannot call to our recollection. The October instal-
ment of the double quarterly, fur 1850, shows very
conspicuously the good results of uniting together
the Foreign Quarterly and the Westminster Review,
publications which, diametrically opposite in cha-
racter, have, nevertheless, now for some considerable
time blended their contrasting qualities most admi-
rably, thereby producing a very agreeable diversity. As
an opening productior, of a rather eccentric kind,
we have a critical paper on the " Hindoo Drama," a
subject first revealed to the scrutiny of the European
scholar by the industry and erudition of Sir William
Jones, the oriental Mezzofanti. After this, a popular
essay on the "Natural Systems of Botany" treats
exoterically a hitherto somewhat too esoteric theme,
that of plants and flowers, called by Professor Long-
fellow, with such exquisite and beautiful truthfulness,
the " revelation" of the love of God, blossoms
"All woven in gorgeous tissues,
Flaunting gaily in the golden light!"
An excellent argument is afforded to the cause
of the Financial Reformers, in the consideration
of those " Consular Establishments" which
constitute the text of the subsequent contribu-
tion. Further on, one of the reviewers pays his meed
of admiration to the music, the wisdom, the pathos,
and the verbal splendour lavished upon each of the

131 poems "In Memoriam," by Alfred Tennyson.
Most of his elegiac celebrations of nature are judici-
ously selected for quotation. An inquiry into the
influence of the " County Courts Extension " is fol-
lowed by a vindication of. William Fenn from the asper-
sions cast upon him by Thomas Babington Ma-
caulay. An effective and useful " Summary of the
Session" is in its turn succeeded by a very learned
article on " Septenary Institutions." In this
well-digested disquisition the writer bas torn out the
very root of the sophisms advanced in support of their
fanatical arguments by those most superstitious reli-
gionists the Sabbatarians. Referring to the most
classic and the most modern systems of calendars, as
contrasted with the greatest of all—the Gregorian—
the reviewer maintains that provision has not, as
pretended, been invariably made f.ir the institution
of' a day of rest periodically. In testimony
of his argument's correctness, he points to the
division of the ancient Greek months into decades
—called menos istamenou (the beginning of the
month), menus mesountcs (the middle of the month),
and menos phinontos (the end of the month). This
system of decades was of late years adopted by the
French after the first revolution. Then it was that
the year was divided by the Gallicans into twelve
months, of thirty days each, with five sacred days at
the close of the year, dedicated to V rtue, Genius,
Labour, Opinion, and Reward—the Bis-extile being
appropriated every fourth year to the renewal
of the eath of Liberty. Simil r to and
yet unlike the Greeks, the Romans partitioned
their months, not in regular decades, but in three
irregular intervals, named after three fixed epochs in
each month—the middle days of each month being
called ides from the obsolete verb iduare, to divide ;
the first days of the month being termed the halends,
from calo, to call, or summons the people to a reli-
gious ceremony ; and the nine days before the ides
being designated the nones from an obvious deriva-
tion. For both the decades of the Greeks and the
halends, nones and ides of the Romans were sub-
sequently substituted the day of the sun, the
moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn,
dies Solis, dies Lunce, dies Mortis, dies Atercurii, dies
Jovis, dies Veneris, and dies Saturni ; subsequently
changed into the Saxon Son-daeg, Moon-daeg, Tuis-
deeg, Woden's-daeg, Thor's- daeg, Friga's-daeg, and
Seterne's daeg. So that the modern system of the
seventh day, the Sunday, so far from being a divine
and scriptural, is a pagan and idolatrous institution.
The writer of this remarkable and learned contribu-

tion brings his observations to a close by looking
forward to the time when the weapons of supersti-
tion shall be turned against itself by universal con-
sent, and when men shall for ever disarm those who
would fain " crush the human mind under the wheels
of the modern Juggernaut of conventional idolatry."
Among the most striking criticisms in the notices of
foreign literature will be observed a review of Eugene
Sue's novel, " Les Mysteres du Peuple," and another
of Lamartine's tragedy, Toussaint Louverture. The
latter author is convicted by the reviewer of the high
crime of penning a bad and faulty drama. In select-
ing the Black Liberator for his hero, M. de Lamar •
tine evidently desired to gratify his intense hatred to
the Emperor Napoleon. Besides the contributions
already particularised, the Westminster and Foreign
Quarterly are embellished with a variety of contribu-
tions and intelligent criticisms upon books and bro-
chures of a very miscellaneous character.