The Sun.
London, England, 1844-10-23 00:00:00

5 LITERATURE.
IRELAND AND THE IRISH
D Jiffy, Dublin; 1844.
We have here a translation from the German of
Herr J. Venedey, who took a trip to Ireland during
the memorable " Repeal year"—as Mr. O'Connell
loves to call the year 1843-and wrote down his im-
pressions of what he saw and heard at the moment
when they were fresh in his mind. He seems to have
entertained warm feelings of sympathy for the agi-
tators, and more than once takes the opportunity of
stating that—so far as he could discern—Repeal was
a far more momentous question than it was supposed
to be, in England and on the Continent, aid that the
movement in its favour did not lay merely on the
surface, but proceeded front the very heart of Ireland.
Of course, while resident in that country, our author
made a point of getting introduced to O'Connell ;
and he relates, with considerable animation, the parti-
culars of a delightful day which he spent with the
great Liberator and hisfidus Achates, Tom Steele, at
a retired cottage on the sea-shore in the neighbour-
hood of Dublin. He visited also the Earl Roden, the
Corypheus of the Irish Orangemen, at his splendid
estate, Tollymore Park, and gives the heads of a con-
versation which he had with him on the subject of
the Repeal agitation ; of which, as may be surmised,
his Lordship was no very reverent idolater. We
quote our author's graphic sketch of the Noble Earl's
park, with whose various scenic beauties he appears to
have been quite enraptured :
" I made a circuit around the castle, and following the
noise of the waters, I soon came to a wood-stream,
which is the ornament of this park, and this park itself
is one of the finest in Ireland. I must own; that never,
either in Switzerland, nor on the Rhine, nor in the Hartz
mountains, did I see anything to equal the unparalleled
beauties, which one half hour's walk presented to my
eye, all clustered hero together. An artist might dis-
cover, in every step he took, scenes that if truly depicted
could confer immortality upon him. The flood which
played through the rocks, was one that had wantoned
with them, fur a thousand years, and had moulded them
according to its capricious fancy ; here it had scooped
them out into a deep bed • there it had formed them
into a bubbling cauldron ; further on it had fashioned
them into a cascade, and then made of them a bath, in
which a giant might lave his limbs—and these rocks 1—
white and naked in the stream ; yet when they rise
above the surface but a few feet, covering themselves
with soft moss, and wild flowers, and bold plants ; whilst
over all, and as if stooping down to- gaze upon them
were the trees springing up on every side, and crossing
their great palmy branches, as if they struggled to de-
fend that sacred spot, from one ray of the sun, which
might by its heat interfere with the temperature of the
cool bath beneath. Oh !it was beautiful !—how very
beautiful ! There are a few spots in this landscape, that
are of unparalkled loveliness. An old arched bridge forms
one point of the back-ground of the picture, and to this
there hangs a sort of iron bridge that leads under the
arch. Here the flood tumbles wild, foaming and furious
over the rocks, whilst the trees form a sort of concave
roof over the entire scene, and through this roof the
sun has but a narrow space here and there to shoot down
his rays, and send them playing amongst the waves,
whilst the trees form a sort of concave roof over the
entire scene, and through this roof, the sun has but a
narrow space here and there to shoot down his rays, and
send them playing amongst the waves, whilst the
coquettish, kissing, ever dimpling waters boldly reflect
back his beams, or send them sparkling with a thousand
variegated colours, amid the tender moss, the vivified
herbage, and the grand parti-coloured flowers. And
then around the trees, there climb up with unrestrained
strength the rebelly-green parasitical plants, giving to
the scene the perfect character of original and natural
wildness. Ah 1 when looking upon such a spot, I can
well comprehend how St. Patrick must have longed for
his own wild mountains and brooks in Ireland. They
are so wonderfully beautiful. Here indeed might be
founded a holy hermitage, such as all the rest of the
world child not equal. The scene that I now describe is
always the same, and yet but one step further and it is
changed ; a new tree—a new light—or a new shade cast
upon it, and it produces a totally different, but still
equally beautiful aspect. Here the water assumes a blue
appearance, there yellow, soon black, and then brown, and
a step further on, it is of a grass-green colour, but in all,
transparent to the very bottom I Again I say, that
whatever of beautiful scenery I have looked upon in
Switzerland, or in the Hartz, or at the Rhine, is not
equal to that which, in half an hour, I beheld in Lord
Roden's park."

OUR ISRAELITISH ORIGIN, OR BRITISH
CHRISTIANS A REMNANT OF THE TRUE
ISRAELITES; with a Reply to the Rev. E. Bicker-
steth. By J. Wilson. Nisbet, 1844.
This is rather a startling title, but there may be
more in it than meets the eye. The subject of the
lost tribes has occupied the attention of numerous
writers. Their fate is certainly mysterious, and cal-
culated to excite curiosity and give scope for conjec-
ture ; but the greater difficulty is to believe that they
have been irretrievably dispersed or destroyed, than
that they may be found in some of the remaining
nations of the earth. Many have supposed that the
red race, or American Indians, are the descendants of
the ten tribes, an opinion entertained by the Rev. Mr.
Bickersteth, and other eminent divines, but to this,
we think, there are several decisive objections; others
have indulged in different conjectures, but no
one, to our knowledge, has taken the same
original and rational 'mode of accounting for
their disappearance, and discovering their exist-
ence, as Mr. Wilson, or supported their views
with more confidence and ability. He has brought
forward many curious and striking facts, which he
maintains to be plainly coroborative of prophecy, and
he has with great ingenuity availed himself of ety-
mology to trace the descendants of Abraham and fol-
lowers of Moses in their chequered peregrinations.
He shows that the tribes which so entirely lost their
nationality were removed northward in the Assyrian
captivity, and that, increasing greatly in numbers,
they passed into Europe, and spread abroad towards
the north and west. In proof of this, he cites Scrip-
ture history very copiously, and refers to the religious
belief and Israelitish manners which lingered among
the nations of Europe. The local appellations of
Hebrew aspect are also adduced, and the immense
number of tombs, and other remains similar to th6se
in Judea, which are scattered throughout the region
north of the Kuban and along the back of
the Euxine, indicating a numerous population,
where there is now but a scanty num-
ber of inhabitants, altogether offer to our author
a convincing proof that a powerful stream of Israel-
itish emigration flowed westward. In short, the
Gothic races who broke up the Roman empire are
asserted to be the descendants of the tribes of Israel,
whose seed has been multiplied so exceedingly, ac-
cording to Divine ordination, and who, by the con-
currence of repeated prophecies, are to be ultimately
" brought from the north country and gathered from
the coasts and isles of the earth." The Europa Israel-
ites, to adopt a term, are destined, it is observed,
to re-civilise the Asiatic nations, and the English are
" the grand producers of good to man and its most
liberal distributors." Israel, or the house of Ephraim,
is not to be confounded with Judah or the Jews. In
the course of our Saviour's ministry all his movements
were to the north. "It is through Samaria," observes
our author, "that we trace the course of his journeys,
and it is round the coasts of Galilee that he went
preaching the glad tidings, and it was when in his
furthest journey in that direction on the coasts of Syro-
Phenicia that he pronounced the important words,
• I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of
Israel.' His mission promised to Israel in the north
country was more fully carried out by his apostles."
Paul, it is observed, uniformly wrote and travelled
northwards, and passed into Europe, to Rome itself,
with the intention of proceeding into Spain. " Paul
and his fellow-disciples all followed out the course
indicated by the great "shepherd of the sheep, and
that being uniformly north-westward, directs our at-
tention to our own part of the world, as being that in
which the lost sheep of Israel may be found." Pp. 60
—7O. The work is written in a forcible and unosten-
tatious style, and it displays great knowledge of an-
cient history and depth of research and original
thinking, with a zeal and earnestness well calculated
to excite the respectful attention of the reader,
although he may refuse his assent to all the points
on which Mr. Wilson has fixed his own conviction.

IMPROVEMENT IN TILE STEAM-ENGINE.—We are
informed that the greatest improvement made in the
steam-engine since the days of Watt, is now about being
patented by Mr. Samuel Moyle, of Bosvigo House, in
this county, civil engineer, which, it is said, will effect a
saving of at least 50 per cent. in the consumption of
fuel. Great as the advantage arising from this improve-
ment will be to the mining interests of this county,
equally great will it be to railroads on the atmospheric
principle, and still greater to steam navigators, who will
thereby be enabled to perform voyages twice the distance
they are now enabled to accomplish.— West Briton.
ST. ANDREW'S.—A MISTAKE.--The schooner Snow-
drop, from Stockton, coal laden, bound for Dundee, came
into our harbour on Monday morning at three o'clock,
in a manner unexpected both to the crew on board
and the people on shore. The master, guided by the
lights on the pier-head and at the corner of Mrs. Bell's
tavern, came slap into the harbour, mistaking it for the
river Tay, 'and did not know his mistake until at the
pier-head (having been there seven or eight years
before), when immediately heaving back to stop the
vessel's way, she struck upon the cross pier, displacing
several tiers of masonry ; and immediately getting clear
of that, she came right into the harbour, against one of
the fishing boats, causing a good deal of damage, and
tearing a plank out of another one. She at last got '
safely moored alongside the quay, having done no
damage to herself during her headlong career. Happily
no person was injured.—Caledonian Mercury.
SClLLY.—During the storm with which we were
visited on the 9th inst., the Mary and Eliza, Tregarthen,
master, from London, with a general cargo for Gibraltar
and Cadiz, was driven ashore, and has become a complete
wreck, the fragments of the bull being subsequently sold
for 01. 10s. The greater part of the cargo has
been
saved, but all in a damaged state, having been some tore
under water. This is the first occasion on which Capt.
Manby's apparatus has been used on the islands. Just
before dark a line was fired over the vessel, by which a
hawser was conveyed to the shore from the mast head,
over which the crew, five in number, were saved from
Perishing.—West 13riton.