The Sun.
London, England, 1844-11-01 00:00:00

NE IV MONTHLY MAGAZINE..

We are glad to meet with Miss Eliza Cook again,
who contributes to the Number before us a little
poem, entitled "My Old Straw Hat," in which occur
a succession of pleasing, picturesque, and familiar
images. " Scenes in Society" are laid in fashiOnable
life at the West-end, and refer to the particulars of a
murder, by the agency of poison, which was perpe-
trated on his wife by a young roue, Jack Grandison,
who was anxious to have the full and uncontrolled
possession of her fortune. The " First Meet of the
Season" is a tale of a humorous caste, by a writer who
has frequently contributed to the pages of this Maga-
zine, under the homely signature of "Peter Priggins."
The humour, though broad, is by no means of supe-
rior excellence, and reminds us, as with a difference,
of Theodore Hook. In the " Talleyrand Papers"
there is some twaddle about the celebrated necklace
affair which, it may be remembered, created such a
prodigious ferment in France, a few years previously
to the breaking out of the first revolution. Talley-
rand's account of this affair amounts to little or no-
thing, and leaves it just as great a mystery as ever.
The " Outcast" is a strange story, by the Medical
Student, of a young man, handsome, accomplished,
and well-born, whose life is yet uniformly rendered
mierable from the circumstance of his being a leper,
and his nervous anxiety to keep this visitation a se-
cret from the whole world. The scene wherein the
fatal discovery is at length made, is worked up with
considerable skill and spirit. In " Social Piracy"
there are some sketches of society in the middle grades
of life. The "Robertses on their Travels" flags terri-
bly in places, as if the author, Mrs. Trollope, was
chiefly desirous to furnish a certain amount of matter
for the Magazine without regard to its quality. We
quote Miss Cook's " Old Straw Hat," to which we
have already alluded :
Farewell, old friend, we part at last,
Fruits, flowers, and summer, all are past,
And when the beech-leaves bid adieu,
My old straw hat must vanish too.
We've been together many an hour,
In grassy dell and garden bower,
And plait and ribbon, scorch'd and torn,
Proclaim how well thou hast been worn.
We've had a time, gay, bright, and long,
So let me sing a grateful song,
And if one bay-leaf falls to me,
I'll stick it firm and fast in thee,
My old straw hat.
Thy flapping shade and flying strings,
Are worth a thousand close-tied things,
I love thy easy fitting crown,
Thrust lightly back or slouching down ;
I cannot brook a muffled ear
When lark and blackbird whistle near ;
And dearly like to meet and seek
The fresh wind with unguarded cheek.
Toss'd in a tree thou'lt bear no harm,
Flung on the sod thou'lt loose no charm ;
Like many a real friend on earth,
Rough usage only proves thy worth,
My old straw hat.
The world will gaze on those who wear
Rich snowy pearls in raven hair,
And diamonds flash bravely out,
In chesnut tresses wreathed about ;
The golden bands may twine and twirl,
Like shining snakes through each fair curl,
And soft down with imperial grace,
May bend o'er Beauty's blushing face ;
But much I doubt if brows that bear
The jewell'd clasp and plumage rare,
Or temples bound with crescent wreath,
Are half so cool as mine beneath
My old straw bat.
Minerva's helmet ! what of that ?
Thou'rt quite as good, my old straw hat ;
For I can think and muse and dream,
With poring brain and busy scheme.
I can inform my craving soul,
How wild bees work and planets roll,
And be all silent, grave and grim,
Beneath the shelter of thy brim.
The cap of Liberty ! forsooth
Thou art the thing to me in truth,
For slavish fashion ne'er can break
Into the green paths where I take
My old straw hat.

My old straw hat, my conscience tells
Thou hast been hung with Folly's bells,
Yet Folly rings a pleasant chime,
If the rogue will but " mind his time,"
And not come jingling on the way
When sober minstrels ought to play.
For oft when hearts and eyes are light,
Old Wisdom should keep out of sight.
But now the rustic bench is left,
The tree of every leaf bereft,
And merry voices, all are still,
That welcomed to the well-known hill
My old straw hat.
Farewell, old friend, thy work is done,
The misty clouds shut out the sun ;
The grapes are pluck'd, the hops are off,
The woods are stark, and I must doff
My old straw hat—but "bide a wee,"
Fair skies we've seen, but we may see
Skies full as fair as those of yore.
And then we'll wander forth once more.
Farewell, till drooping harebells blow,
And violets stud the warm hedge-row—
Farewell, till daisies deck the plain,
Farewell, till spring days come again—
My old straw hat.

AINSWORTH'S MAGAZINE.

The present portion of Mr. Ainsworth's new tale,
" The Revelations of London," commences with a
sketch of the well-known Rookery in St. Giles's,
which is full of vigour, and minute to a degree in
point of detail. In a dingy cell in the very heart of
this notorious spot—which, by the bye, has no longer
an existence—a brace of foot-pads and a dog-fancier
are represented as indulging in a carouse, and dis-
cussing between whiles the numerous pecuniary ad-
vantages by which the honourable profession of dog-
stealing is recommended. The dialogue that takes
place between these . congenial spirits is in the low
flash style of their calling—of which we have had
enough, and more than enough, in our modern
fictitious literature—but we cannot compliment Mr.
Ainsworth on the success with which he has acquitted
himself. The conversations of his ruffians want
truthfulness, and that inimitable ease which Dickens
knows so well how to impart to such subjects.
" A Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla" is in Mr.
Leigh Hunt's liveliest and most graceful manner, and.
furnishes us with some delightful gossip about bess,,
and the way in which they conduct the affairs of theii,
commonwealth. " In the morning," says 00
essayist, " the bee has probably been at the break
fast-table in the shape of honey; in the evening
she is the waxen taper ; in the summer-noon,
a voice in the garden or the window ; ili
the winter, and at all other times, we meer
with her in books. She talks Greek to us •il;
Sophocles and Theocritus ; Virgil's very best Latin;
in his Georgics ; and besides all her charming asso
ciations with the poets in general, one of the Eliza
bethan men has made a whole play out of her—at, plaal
in which the whole dramatis persome are bees! r I.<
the above passage a common-place is invested alntod
with no. ,
velAyvibnytertlTygranadceerfiunlpdescribes the resull
.fashion in which itiia
turned
of some archeological researches made by Mr. Franc
Ainsworth, among the more unfrequented districts of
Asia Minor. " Doomed to Disappointment " is
chatty little essay, in which occur one or two of mai,
home truths as occasionally delight and surprise us ie
the (paint pages of old lontaigne—the raciest t
sips, the most welcome of egotists. The " Countr:
Cratethenarrative
characters"Ne
" is an entertaining tale from the pen of Mi.
Charles Oilier. ;In the Editor's tale of " St. James's,
whiCh is fast drawing towards a close, we find an ac
count of the final quarrel between Queen Anne an'
throughoutilf a rl buh whosetau t
csoomu
tmhend a b
Walesl e ,
,consistency.
gives
u s
an
oThepi srktner
btheeen Dsuucshtaeisnseodf
subjoined desctiption of its capital, Sydney :
" George-street, it appears, is the Pall-mall of Syi
ney, and ' up and down its hot, dusty, glaring, went •
length, go the fair wives and daughters of the citizen
enjoying their daily airing.' Long strings of carriage
are to be seen traversing it, or waiting near the ' fashion
able emporiums,' that being the term in which Austrr
lion shopkeepers especially delight. No 'lady' it
Sydney (your grocers, and butchers' wives included) b.
heves in the possibility of walking ; but the ' tut"
outs,' motley enough in appearance, are often mut
wanting in well-appointed equipages; boxes are fm
quently innocent of hammerclotbs; and the horses up
generally undersized, and terribly out of proportion wl. -
the carriage behind them.
" A strong line of demarcation, as might naturally 1#:

afip ected, exists between the emancipated convicts, and
their families and descendants (although sometimes
these are the richest men in the colony) and the free
emigrants and settlers.
-‘ You may often see,' says Mrs. Meredith, a
man of immense property, whose wife and daughters
dress its the extreme of fashion and finery, rolling home
in his gay carriage from his daily avocations with face,
hands, and apparel as dirty and slovenly as any common
mechanic. And the son of a similar character has been
seen with a dozen costly rings on his coarse fingers,
and chains, and shirt-pins glistening with gems, buying
yet more expensive jewellery, yet without sock or stock-
ing to his feet, the shoes to which his spurs were at-
tached leaving a debatable ground between them and his
trousers! Spurs and shoes are, I imagine, a fashion
peculiar to this stamp of exquisites, but among them
very popular.'
" The market in Sydney is well supplied, and the dis-
play of fruit is very beautiful. This includes the pro-
duce of hot climates, especially all descriptions of
melons. The large green water-melon, rose-coloured
within, is a very favourite fruit, grows to an enormous
size, and may be seen, piled up like huge cannon-balls,
At all the fruit-shop doors, being universally admired
in this hot, thirsty climate.' Mrs. Meredith, however,
thought it insipid; and notices, as an improved method
of eating this crisp, cool, and refreshing fruit, the mix-
ing a bottle of Madeira, or sherry, with its cold, watery
palp ! We recommend this new kind of sherry cob-
bler to the Reform Club.
" .Excellent fish is to be procured at Sydney; and
Mrs. Meredith had here the good taste to prefer such to
the preserved salmon and cod from England, which are
dome served at a Sydney dinner-table. Rock-oysters
end crag-fish are also abundant and good.
" The dust is one main source of annoyance at Syd-
ney. Unless after heavy rain, it is always dusty. One
old suppose the phrase Down with the dust I'
man' have originated in the colony; but this Mrs. Mere-
dith dt,vs not mention. Flies are another nuisance; they
swarm fo every room, in tens of thousands, and blacken
the breaki;Ast or dinner table as soon as the viands ap-
pear. But ,worse than these, are the musquitoes, whose
bite, Mrs. Mei:edith, on two different occasions, describes
as being mountoinous,' and their attacks so persevering,
as to be always in•e're or less successful. These fierce as-
sailants are also aidej in their nocturnal invasions by
still worse, and ' thrice-disgusting creatures;' to say no-
thin of fleas, which seem to pervade the colony in one
universal swarm.'
" The Cumberland hunt have a tolerable pack of
hounds, and the destructive native dog, or dingo, serves
them for a fox; and this is often a bagged dog I
" There are several rival and mutually abusive papers
published in Sydney, where there also, a public li-
brary; but literature appears to be at.d.'scount; for ' the
gentlemen,' says Mrs. Meredith, ' are to L'usy, or find a
cigar more agreeable than a book; and the ladies, to
quote the remark of a witty (?) friend, 'pay more at-
tention to the adorning of their heads without, than
"

FRASER'S MAGAZINE.
Fraser is less amusing this month than usual. The
Number opens with a "Fine Day at Stratford-upon-
Avon," wherein the writer gives an account of .his
departure from London on a pilgrimage to the birtl.l-
- of our greatest dramatist. The article is some--
what of the heaviest, being chiefly taken up with dull
antiquarian details respecting Shakspeare, &c. The
" Smiths" is a passable story, and refers to sundry
passages in the lives of a family of that name who
dwelt at Brompton. It might have been curtailed
with advantage. " Prichard's Natural History of
Man" is a notice of a very able work recently pub-
lished, in the course of which the Reviewer makes a
striking extract from one of Mr. Hope's latest pro-
ductions
describing the physical and mental pecu-
liarities of a race of dwarfs who reside in ::,ome of the
islands of Polynesia, and bear the closest passible ap-
proximation to the baboon. " Military Tableaux" is
a spirited description of the achievements of the
Prussian Brandenburgh Hussars in the tremendous
campaigns of 1813 and 1814. In the essay headed
" Hints on the Modern Governess System," we meet
with some serviceable practical suggestions respecting
the education which the majority of females in the
middle classes receive now-a•days. "Scotland and
England" is a review of Mr. Kohl's recent volumes of
travels in these countries, and corrects some mistakes
into which the German tourist has fallen respecting
Edinburgh. Our readers may perhaps be pleased
with the following pleasing little poem on the subject
of the " Opening of the Royal Exchange :"
" In the heart of the City,
When Mammon lay still
In the Sleep of Night's silence,
(Htish'd Word and hush'al Will!)
When the garner'd gold rested
Untouch'd and unturn'd,
And in hard chests of iron
Man's wealth lay inurn'd!
" When London had pass'd all
His crowds to the West,
And tie Spirit of Commerce
Grew dull in its rest;
When the haunts of the merchant
No sharp echoes woke;
From the heart of the City
The flame-tempest broke.
" It rose on its grand wings
In strength and in ire,
Up, up to the red sky,
The beautiful fire!
It screamed and it crackled
In column and flake,
Till up-leaped the great city
Alive and awake!

" In the temple of Dives
The flame-monarch stood
With bright eyes of saffron
And red limbs of blood;
And as tho walls crumbled
Beneath his great tread,
The millions came round him
And shriek'd as he spread!

" Too grand and too awful,
Too vast in dismay,
In the arms of the flame-king
The gold temple lay;
As swift and as sure
Was his wreck, as the wave,
Till the reeking rQd Mammon
Lay hot in his grave!
" Old London! grand London!
Low, low in the dust
Thy proud Commerce watcheth
Her pride and her lust!
Thy tryst place of lucre
liath shrunk from the eye,
And blacken'd or bleaching
Its dead embers lie!

" What, ho! for a Phoenix
To come with new flame,
Up, up from those ashes
To beauty and fame!—
To stand on that dark spot
In glory and pride,
And call back the City
Again to its Bride!
" They bring the sharp chisel,
They hue the white stone,
They make the crane rattle,
They oil the black hone;
They rear the high scaffold,
They climb, and they run:
Lo! again a grand temple
Mounts up to the sun;
" The Temple of Dives
Once more hath its priest 4;
They will deck it with trophies,
And crown it with feasts!
To-day a grand pageant
Will honour their band
When the king-merchants crowd round
The Queen of the Land!

" Come Queen and come Consort
In pomp and in pride,—
Come nobles ! Old London
Now weds his new Bride
Fair plentiful Commerce
(Gold strewed on her way),
In his grand palace. temple
Of riches to-day !
" In wealth and in honour,
In pride and in state,
In envy and wonder,
They watch and they wait.
Now the pageant is ended
The million may roam,
And royal Old 'Mammon
Again has a Home !"

TAIT'S MAGAZINE:

Tait's political article is very brief and meagre this
month, which is not to be wondered at, when we con-
sider the present aspect of affairs. In whatever di-
rection we turn our eyes, all is dull, lifeless apathy.
Ireland—an unusual thing with her—scarcely gives a
stir to convince us that she exists ; and in England,
Chartism, Radicalism, Whiggism, and all other isms
and schisms are as dull and tranquil as the grave. In
the dearth of subjects more congenial to his tastes, our
Utilitarian friend Tait alludes to " Young England,"
which he does in a spirit highly creditable to his sense
of justice. " We cannot," he says, " in view of some
of the recent proceedings of this party, refuse
them credit for a sympathy with the people, and a
mental independence which must, ere long, produce
something very much better than has yet appeared
in their Parliamentary votes and speeches. Their late
visits to the seats of democracy and manufactures can
scarcely be interpreted as a pledge to go on withhold-
ing the working man's franchise and taxing his bread."
This is certainly a logical sequitur from the opinions
hitherto maintained byYoung-England " A Teacher's
Journal" is interesting chiefly m
. the apparent
truth and reality of its descriptions. In the criticism
entitled " Recent Poetry," justice is isdone to the
mfionsdt
ex-
quisite productions of Miss Barrett—the
thoughtful female writer of the day, We
in the present chapters of Mr. Mills'snovel, " Our
Hearth and Homestead," the following portrait of a
country razor-grinder and his dog, which wears the
appearance of having been drawn direct from life :
" In a green lane, flanked by two high and sloping
banks, on which the prickly bramble and sloe. bush I
flourished, with many a flower born to bloom unseen, a
man was industriously engaged in the humble occupa- I

tion of razor-grinding. He was old, and, if his habili-
ments and general appearance offered any evidence of '
his means and resources, poverty stricken in the extreme.
A darned, tattered, and faded soldier's coat, b reft of its
skirt, and which now, in its curtailed state came under
the denomination of a spenser, hung upon his shoulders,
and seemed as much disposed to drop from them as to
remain in its doubtful position. His legs were barely
protected from the glance of the passer-by in a pair of
trousers frayed almost to the knees, and is feet were
scarcely capable of forming a union with the soleless and
dilapidated shoes in which their owner shuffled on his
way. A worn and greasy foraging-cap placed jauntily
on one side of his head, almost as devoid of hair as the
back of his brown and bony hands, completed his unpre-
possessing costume ; but notwithstanding its lack of at-
tractions, there was an air about the wearer which gave
note that he had seen far better days, and afforded more
than a probability that he had known how battles were
lost and won. Ilis features were hard and contracted,
and his gray eye-brows sprouted in thick wiry bristles
over a pair of as bright and twinkling eyes as ever glis-
tened in human sockets. Deeply marked and wrinkled
were his cheeks ; but from his iron frame, still well-knit
with thews and sinews, it would seem that hardship and
suffering had more to do with the stamps than the sap-
consuming hand of time.
" Quickly he turned the wheel of his machine, and the
sparks flew as he held against the stone a pair of rusty
and blunt scissors which he was endeavouring to whet to
a keen edge. Now and then he stopped the bur-r-r of
his work to examine the effects of his progress in the
task, and after trying the edge of the instrument of the
sensitive and fleshy part of his dexter thumb, ho renewed
his labour.
" In the gleam of sunshine streaming on a patch of
rank grass, some three or four yards from the itinerant
sharpener of a diversity of domestic tools, a bobbed-tail,
wiry Scotch terrier squatted. It must be confessed, in
the graphic language of an eminent dealer in the canine
race, that ho looked " a varmint." More refined diction
would not convey an apt description of this constant com-
panion of the razor-grinder. Short, crisp, and staring
was each hackle upon his body, which in colour com-
bined the hue of a grimy brown and an undecided black,
not dissimilar to an impenetrable London fog. His ears
had been clipped to a sharp point, and the ornament to
his rear docked to the only joint remaining. His front
legs were uuproportionably less in length than his hind
ones, and were so immeasurably bandy, that more than
once a cat, or some such object of attack, had slipped
between them, in doubling from his evil intentions of
committing grievous bodily harm. And what was the
creature gifted with life that ho would not attack? From
a bull to a butterfly he was ever ready to tilt, and, in-
deed, run a-muck at everything that he might meet.
To growl and snap at the fleeing legs—although slow in
flight withal—of an old woman, as he trudged through a
village, gave him special gratification ; and as he re-
turned to the side of his master, who conceived a secret
pleasure at this delinquency, equal to the apparent one of
his favourite, the last remains of his tail would wag with
a demonstration of delight inadmissible of doubt. Then
to set a group of children squalling, or to fix his fangs in
the ear of a truant pig, was unsurpassable diversion; and
whenever these legitimate objects of his pleasures were
wanting, he consoled himself with the less exciting oc-
cupation of barking at vacancy with a power of incre-
dible magniture. In truth, the intervals were few and
far between when this unexampled dog was not using
his best endeavours to render himself as superlative a
nuisance as his many accomplishments rendered him
capable of."