The Sun.
London, England, 1850-06-24 00:00:00

MONDAY EVENING, JUNE 24, 1850.

LITERATURE.
!ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. Plus

traced Edition.

Vol. XI V.

This fourteenth volume brings to a conclusion the
present magnificent edition of Mr. Alison's historical
masterpiece. Embellished with five and twenty ex-
quisite engravings—portraits of those illustrious or
infamous personages whose vicissitudes of fortune
constitute the most conspicuous features of the narra-
tive—the work in its novel and complete form reflects
the highest possible honour upon its publishers, the
Messrs. Blackwood of Edinburgh. All the arts of
the typographer, the engraver, the binder, and the
paper manufacturer combined, could scarcely furnish
a more beautiful or more substantial tribute to the
rgenius of the European annalist. Having already
from month to month, in thirteen notices, celebrated
the excellence of this re• publication, we have
scarcely anything left to remark upon the com-
pletion of the undertaking beyond a brief
and simple announcement. In unison with its
every other characteristic, the index appended
to the last volume elicits our admiration by its extra-
ordinary copiousness : to it alone no less than 330
pages are dedicated, 330 pages closely printed in
alphabetical sequence, and affording in their general
arrangement every facility for reference. Together
with this advantage, morever, we must mention with
especial praise four tabular pages of singular conden-
sation, showing for every individual year, from 1792
to 1847, the precious metals annually raised and
coined in the South American and Mexican mines
the bank-notes of the Bank of England in circula-
tion ; the aggregate bank-notes of private bankers ;
the total of notes in circulation; the coin annually
issued from the Mint; the annual price of gold; the
commercial paper under discount in the Bank of
England; the exports official value, and exports
declared value; the British and Irish produce exports;
total exports official value; total imports official
value; tonnage of shipping; revenue, crime, and po-
pulation of the British empire ' • emigrants from the
United Kingdom; sums levied annually for poor and
county rates in England and Wales ; amount of poor-
rates in quarters of grain annually ; taxes imposed
net amount ; taxes repealed net amount ; national
debt in each year ; national debt in each year in
quarters of wheat at annual prices ; revenue yearly in
quarters of wheat at annual prices; money applied to
the redemption of the debt; price of wheat the quer-
ter,—all compiled from Porter's Parliamentary
Tables, Marshall's Parliamentary Tables, and other
Parliamentary sources. This compact tabular ar-
rangement of statistics alone is of surprising value and
utility—its value being enhanced by its scrupulous
caution, and its utility secured and popularised
by its clearness. A glance at the four
pages containing these numerical particulars
will repay the attention by the amount of information
afforded by it—fiscal, commercial, agricultural, mone-
tary, social, national, and otherwise. Then, again,
the masterly atlas accompanying the present library
edition of " Alison's History of Europe"—an atlas
constructed and arranged, under the direction of the
annalist himself, by Alexander Keith Johnston, and
comprising upwards of 100 engraved plans of battles,
maps of countries, or sketches of cities—imparts a
marvellous lucidity to those delineations of the strug-
gles of warfare, in the composition of which Archi-
bald Alison has scarcely ever been surpassed. As
a token of the care with which all this has been ef-
fected by the geographer, we may observe that there
are two plates of the battle of Arcole, two of Marengo,
two of Hohenlinden, two of Trafalgar, two of Eylau,
two of Essling, two of Wagram, two of Leipsic, and
two of Waterloo. One map of Europe portrays that
country as it was prior to the outbreak of the great
French revolution ; another represents it as it was
during the height of the power of the Emperor
Napoleon. All these are exquisitely coloured, each
is accompanied with the necessary explanations, and
in addition to a copious vocabulary of military and
marine terms, the atlas is embellished with a plate
explanatory of the principal military terms, these
being given in the form of a frontispiece. Of
the admirable engravings scattered through the thir-
teen preceding volumes of the letter-press—although
some of the portraits appear to us unsatisfactory,
such, for instance, as the most remarkable of all,
the one representing Napoleon as Emperor—we can-
not as a whole but speak in the highest terms of ad-
miration. Besides the likenesses of Queen Marie
Antoinette and the Empress Josephine, the beautiful
and capricious wife of Louis, and the accomplished,
fascinating, and benignant spouse of Napoleon, there
are no less than twenty-three portraits of men re-
nowned either by their genius or their enormities.
There are the amiable Louis, the volatile Mirabeau,
the audacious Danton, the infamous Marat, and the
eloquent Burke. There are the cadaverous face of
Robespierre, the daring visage of Nelson, and the
handsome countenance of Murat. Here is Moreau
immortalised by a retreat, and there the Archduke
Charles great in the midst of disaster. The aged
Suwarroff and the youthful Bonaparte, the conser-
vative Pitt and the liberal Fox, the diplomatist Cas.
tlereagh and the warrior Ney, Wellington and Met-
ternich, George 111. and Alexander, Blucher and
Tallevrand, hint each and all in the expression of
their features, the characters which moulded the age
and originated those events which distinguished it
from all others, either past or present, by their splen-
dour or their magnitude. From what we have here,
as well as on previous occasions remarked, upon
the appearance of this illustrated library edition of
the "History olEurope," it must be manifest that Mr.
Alison has found in the enterprise of his publishers, as
well as in the approval of the population, the fullest
appreciation of those great powers as an annalist
which have enabled him to add this extraordinary work
to the treasures of our historical literature.

.HARRISON AINSWORTH'S ROMANCES.
Vol. IX.—Old Saint Paul's, Vol. IL

. _ .
A ninth volume has brought the historical ro-
mance of " Old Saint Paul's" to a conclusion. Ori-
ginally published in a weekly newspaper of extensive
circulation, and since then re-produced in the form
suitable for the perusal of novel readers, this story of
the great plague and of the great fire of London has
become long since familiar to many thousands—its
terrible incidents arresting, if only from the sentiment
of horror,' the attention even of the most indifferent
For these reasons it would be only idle to comment
upon a fiction whose merits and demerits have each
been so very generally recognised. It is scarcely
possible to read the present narrative of those two
most awful catastrophes, which visited this metropolis
during the reign of the Merry Monarch, without
feeling that Mr. Ainsworth has entered in imagina-
tion almost as veritably and vividly into the estima-
tion of their terrors as though he had walked through
the blazing streets with John Evelyn, or had listened
to the scheolboy tales of the pestilence which arrested
the fanny of Daniel Defoe. Although the romance of
" Old Saint Paul's" is very far indeed from being the
most felicitous performance of our novelist, it has had
large claim at any rate to popular consideration, if
only from the circumstance of its peculiarly national
character.

THE MEDICAL GUIDE; for the use of the
Clergy, Beads of Families, Schools, and Junior
Medical Practitioners, comprising a Complete
Modern Dispensatory, ke. 4.c. By Richard
fleece, M.D., late Fellow of the Royal College of
Surgeons of London. Seventeenth Edition, with con-
siderable additions, revised and corrected by his
son, Henry Reece, M.D., Member of the Royal
College of Surgeons, ire. 41-c.
To vindicate the propriety of publishing medical
works of this nature is at they present day super-
fluous. Buchan was the first physician who ven-
tured to strip the science of medicine of its techni-
calities, and, notwithstanding the vituperation of the
" medicine men," his contemporaries, who denounced
him as a quack, his work became a household book
throughout the United Kingdom. That which
Buchan did incompletely Dr. Richard Reece did in
a perfect and complete manner, and his Medical
Guide has, ever since 1802, the year in which
the first edition was published, been the text-book
of domestic medicine wherever the English
language is read. The Medical Guide
is indebted for this supremacy in the first
place to the clear, easy, and understandable style in
which it is written, and in the next place to the great
pains that Dr. Reece and his son, who on his death
succeeded him as editor of this work, have always
taken to keep it up, an TFeau des connaissances actu-
elle:. The present edition, on which Dr. Richard
Reece was engaged until within a few days of his
death, contains bis last corrections and additions, and
is enriched with results of his forty years' experience
in most extensive practice. His son, the present
editor, Dr. Henry Reece, is the worthy son of a wor-
thy sire, and has brought the knowledge which he
acquired, as dresser to Sir B. Brodie and as clinical
clerk to Drs. Chambers and Seymour,. to bear most
effectively on the various subjects treated of in the
Medical Guide.

FATAL LEAP FROM SOUTHWARK-BRlDGE.—Yes-
terday (Sunday) morning, shortly after daybreak, a respect-
ably dressed man, between 30 and 40 years of age, paid the
usual toll to the man on duty at Southwark-bridge, and then
passed on to it, apparently fur the purpose Of crossing. lie,
however, proceeded to the centre of the bridge, when some
other persons who were also crossing saw him jump on to one
et the pier heacl9, and plunge headforemost into the river.
In his descent the unfortunate man's head struck violently
against one of the abutments, and there is no doubt that his
skull must have been completely battered in by the force of
the fall. An alarm was instantly given, and flacon, one of
the firtrnen, who was on duty at the A floating engine, put
off in the small boat, and rendered all the assistance in his
power to rescue the man, but without success, as he had disc.
appeared. Who the unfortunate man was, or what induced
him to destroy his life, is at present unknown.
PORTS OF DOVER AND FOLYESTONE.----The Com-
missioners of her Majesty's Customs have issued instruc-
tions to the officers at these ports to examine the baggage
[of passengers arriving at any hour of the night from the
coutizent.

LORD PALMERSTON AND HIS
FRIENDS.
(From the Observer.)
On Saturday, at one o'clock, a deputation, consisting
of nearly ninety Members of the House of Commons,
waited upon Lady Palmerston, at the family mansion, in
Carlton, gardens, by appointment, for the parposo of
presenting to her Ladyship a full-length portrait of Vis-
count Palmerston, with an address expressive of the high
sense they entertained of his Lordship's public and pri-
vate character.

The fact of the intended presentation of this portrait
has been repeatedly alluded to since August last, when
the subject was first mooted by a party of Members of
the Lower House, admirers of the political and private
character of Lord Palmerston. The proposition was that
a likeness of the Noble Lord should be painted by a sub-
scription of five guineas each from 100 Members of the
House of Commons. By a subsequent arrangement this
numerical restriction was extended, with a view to ac-
commodate about twenty additional Members, who were
especially anxious to be permitted to join in the testi-
monial. Mr. John Partridge, whose merits as a por
trait, painter have long been recognized by all patrons.of
art, from Ro% alty downwards, was commissioned to exe-
cute the work, which has been at length completed, to
the perfect satisfaction of the admirers of the illustrious
original, though by no means to that of the artist, owing
to the impossibility of prccuring the requisite number of
sittings—this.diffieulty arising from the multiplicity of
the Noble Viscount's engagements.
The portrait—a fall-length—represents Lord Palmer-
ston in an erect posture, attired in an evening dress, and
wearing the riband of the Order of the Bath. The
apartment in which he is standing, and which may be
supposed to be the Cabinet Council room, contains the
usual accessories pertaining to the Noble Lord's office as
Foreign Secretary, conspicuous amongst which is a bust
of his political idol and former colleague—Canning.
Without attempting any critical minutia, the picture
may be described as a characteristic and vigorous repre-
sentation of his Lordship, and in every way commensu-
rate with the celebrity of Mr. Partridge.
The members forming the deputation began to assem-
ble shortly before one o'clock, and the intelligence of the
settlement of the Greek question, just received by elec-
tric telegraph from Paris, naturally furnished a theme
for congratulatory compliment in singular accordance
with the object of their mission—a sentiment in which
the noble recipient of the testimony fully participated.
In right
.of his seniority and rank Lord James
Stuart, M.P. for the.Ayr Boroughs, was solicited to un-
dertake the office of spokesman on behalf of those pre-
sent; and the duties of that office, though devolving upon
him quite unexpectedly, his Lordship discharged in a
manner that obviated all cause of regret on the score of
his want of premeditation.
The deputation, on entering the drawing-room, ob-
served Lady Palmerston seated, and contemplating the
picture, which occupied a position in the centre of the
saloon, opposite to a portrait of her Ladyship.
Colonel Lockyer Freestun, who has officiated as ho•
norary secretary to the committee of Members entrusted
with the duty of carrying out the intention of the
subscribers, here advanced, and introduced by name se-
veral of the gentlemen forming the deputation. Lord
Palmerston entered the saloon at this moment, and
took up a position near her Ladyship.
The ceremony of introduction completed,
Colonel LOCESER FREESTUN, holding in his hand the
address, inscribed on vellum, said,—Lady Palmerston,
it is peculiarly gratifying to my feelings, to be deputed
as the secretary of this numerous body of the Members
of the House of Commons, to have the honour of pre-
senting to you, in their name, the address I hold in my
hand, accompanied by the portrait of your Noble Lord.
The Gallant Member then read the address, of which
the following is a copy :
" To the Viscountess Palmerston,
" House of Commons, June 22.

" Madame,—We, the undersigned Members of the House
of Commons, anxious to testify our high sense of Viscount
Palmerston's public and private characters, and of the inde-
pendent policy by which he has maintained the honours and
interests of this country, request your Ladyship's acceptance
of the accompanying portrait, with our warmest wishes for
the welfare of hip Lordshp and yourself,
" We have the honour to be, Madame,
"Tour faithful and obedient servants,
"Dudley Coutts Stuart "De Lacy Evans
"Andrew Armstrong " John Reynolds (Lord Mayor
"J. Mac Gregor of Dublin)
" Francis Plunket Dunne " John Williams

" F. Henry F. Berkeley
" J. B. Holohouse

"Charles 0. Grenfell
" A. Marcus Hill

"C. Tennyson D'Eyncourt "J. Brotherton
" W. Lockyer Freestun " Archibald Hastie
"W. Alexander Mackinnon " Fitzstephen French
" C. Rumbold " David Morris

Robert Grosvenor

" B. M. Wilcox

" Robert Boyle--- " William Page Wood
"William Pinney "Samuel Blackall
" George R. Brooke Pechell "J. Matheson, Lieut.-Colonel
" W. H. Stanton " Matthew Wilson
"Pe-cy Nugent "R. B. Sheridan
" James Heywood " M. T. Bass
" R. W. Grey " William Brown
" James Wyld " James Pilkington
" Robert Perfect " T. T A. Mitchell

Richard Lalor Sheil
Nugent
Henry Tufnell
0. D. J. Grac©
J. H. H. Foley
Thomas J. Buck

A. Shaft() Adair

" J. John Guest
" J. Townsend

E. I. Hutchins

J. W. Fortescue

" James Clay
" Saville C. H. Ogle
" Richard hi. Fox
"W. R. Fergusson Daries
" E. K. Tenison
. James Matheson
" John Evans

" George Moffatt
" Thomas B. Birch

" Montague Cholmeley
" J. P. Somers

" Ebrington
" W. Marshall
" James Stuart

" R. Dillon Browne

John Fortescue
W. J. Blake

" James Duke

" G. Youlett Scrope
" Richard M. Unites

" J. M Canlfeild
" liaikes Currie
" The O'Gorman Mahon

" Xl5. T. Baines
" Alex. Matheson

" c, 13. WoJL

" J. D. Dundas
" D. Jephson NorreyS
"In addition to whom, the following Members wish to
become subscribers, is grßttful acknowledgment of Lord Pal-
merston's noble and constant exertions in suppression of the
slave-trade :

"Thomas Dyke Acland.
" Robert harry Inglis.

" Edward N. Buxton.
" William Evans."

Ot the preceding nearly the whole number were pre-
sent. The following suoscribers were unavoidably ab-
sent:—The Right Hon. Fox Manic, Sir Henry Winston
Barron, Mr. Barnard, Mr. Rich, Mr. Harris, Mr. A. An-
derson, the Hon. C. P. Villiers, Mr. Nicholas Power,
Mr. Chichester Fortescue, Mr. John Abel Smith, Vis-
count Anson, Mr. Bellew, Mr. Price Loveden, Mr.
Cowan, Colonel Tynte, Mr. Bagshaw, the Lord Advo-
cate, Mr. Morris Power, Mr. Lewis Ricardo, Melier-
thaw, Mr. Scholefield, Mr. Heathcote, Viscount Enfield,
Sir Robert Price, Mr. Patrick Somers, Mr. Ross Don-
nelly Mangles, Mr. C. H. Bunbury, and Colonel Watkins.
Lord J. STUART, M.P., then addressed Lady Palmers-
ton to the following effect:—His Lordship said he could
have wished it had fallen into far abler hands than his
own to address her Ladyship on so interesting an occa-
sion. He was placed in a pecular difficulty from having
been called upon suddenly to perform a duty of which
he had not previously received the slightest inti-
mation, but ho had the less hesitation in acceding
to the request which had been made to him as he felt
sure that the large body of friends by whom he was sur-
rounded would all concur with him in the sentiments of
respect, honour, and esteem which they entertained for
Lord Palmerston. He admitted that he was perhaps not
so well able to judge of the Noble Lord's conduct in the
House of Commons as many of those gentlemen by whom
he was surrounded; but during the many years ho had
had the honour of holding a seat in that assembly, he
had always been an admirer of his Lordship, and had
ever found ample reason to re-echo the sentiments of the
address, which had so adequately recognised the " in-
dependent policy, abilities, warmheartedness, and worth"
of her Majesty's Secretary of State fur Foreign Affairs.
These feelings were not confined to those who had signed
that address—to those who had subscribed to that por-
trait; they were shared in by the Sovereign, who in hits
found an able and a conscientious adviser—and by the
people, who knew him to be a patriotic Minister, whose
leading principle throughout his political life had been
to uphold the honour and interests of this great country.
During the long period the Liberal party had been
in power, Lord Palmerston had conducted the diplomatic
affairs of Great Britain with so much credit and
so much force as to inspire the respect of his op-
ponents and the admiration of his friends. During
this period Lord Palmerston had carried on ne-
gotiations with some of the greatest statesmen in the
world, among whom it was only necessary for him
to refer to the Prince de Talleyrand and other celebrated
contemporary diplomatists. The country would never
forget the successful manner in which his Lordship had
conducted the negotiations during the French revolu-
tion in 1830, when his skill and firmness, as they must
all remember, prevented a European war and all its cala-
mitousconsequences. From that hour to the present time
his Lordship had never undertaken the guidance of any
great question involving the integrity or repute of Eng-
land iu which he had not fully vindicated the character
of Great Britain as a nation, without entailing the in-
fraction of that peace in whose maintenance the predi-
lections of the English people were so warmly enlisted.
In conclusion, the Noble Lord begged her Ladyship's
pardon for the very inadequate manner in which he had
conveyed the feelings of those Who had assembled
to do her honour by the expression of the esteem and
admiration in which they held her illustrious husband,
and by which the portrait before them would be an en-
during memorial. However inadequately he might have
performed the office that had devolved upon him, he had
received so much personal kindness from her Ladyship
that no consideration of individual embarrassment
should have deterred him from undertaking what he
should otherwise naturally have shrunk from. The
Noble Lord's address, during its delivery and conclusion,
was received with the heartiest demonstrations of
cordiality.
Lady PALMERSTON, in reply, promptly and feelingly
expressed her appreciation of so flattering a testimonial
to her husband's ,honour and character, and her lively
sense of its appropriate adaptation and value to herself,
remarking delicately, but with true feminine point and
grace, that the time chosen for such manifestation of
confidence and regard on the part of so extensive a band
of friends could but heighten to pride and gratitude the
gratification she but feebly expressed.
During this brief but Ouching response, her Lady-
ship, who was evidently much affected, was repeatedly
interrupted by the applause of the members of the depu-
tation. Lord Palmerston hiniseif was deeply moved,
and the eager interest exhibited by the members of the
household in the background contributed not a little to
the force and impressiveness of those sentiments which
the assembly bad met to convey.
The Noble Viscountess having sat down,
Lord PALMERSTON addressed the deputation as fol-
lows:—Gentlemen,—l hope you will allow me to say
that I feel quite unable adequately to express to you
the feelings with which the. circumstances of this day
' have inspired me. To receive such a flattering mark
of opproyst and esteem from §C, large • umber of

• independent Members of the popular branch of the
Legislature would at any time be a source of the
greatest pride and gratification; but at the present mo-
ment I need scarcely say tbat the compliment you have
paid the 'is peculiarly acceptable. Such marks of confi-
dence and approbation from the representatives of his
fellow-countrymen afford the strongest inducements to a
public man to use his best exertions in the performance
of the important obligations he is called upon to fulfil,
and form the noblest rewards he can look to receive. I
can assure you that this mark of your approval will but
serve to encourage me in the performance of my public
duties. With regard to my official conduct, I may say
I feel supported by the conviction on the one hand that
I have been influenced by no other motive than a re-
gard for the honour and interests of our common
country; and on the other by a belief that he who so
acts is certain to secure the good opinion and approval
of his impartial fellow-citizens. One of the first objects
of foreign policy is, as I conceive, to prott the in-
terests committed to the charge of n
the Minister, and to
afford our fellow-subjects abroad protection against in-
justice and wrong; and, on the other hand, to maintain
and preserve peace where it can be done without for-
feiture of that position to which a great and free country
is entitled in the scale of nations. These feelings have
hitherto guided me; and the kind expression of your
confidence this day, thus flatteringly conveyed, will but
stimulate me to an energetic mantenance of the principle
and policy thus approved. Gentlemen, I again thank
you for the honour you have done fee, and I beg to
assure you with all sincerity that I consider this the
proudest day of my life.
Prolonged cheering furnished a fitting finale to this
interesting scene.