The Sun.
London, England, 1844-05-01 00:00:00

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

The " 111-Humorist" is an entertaining quiz on
John Bull's well-known propensity to grumble, no
matter how little cause hemay have for querulousness.
" To be abusing somebody or something the live-long
day," says the author, " is an enjoyment not to be
dispensed with by those who have once tasted it; and
the abuse highest in favour is that which comes in
our way most frequently, and affords us the greatest
number of occasions for exhibiting our spleen. We
have known a man keep a three-legged stool in his
study, for no earthly purpose but to knock his shins
against and to swear at. Upon the same principle,
many people keep cats and dogs in their houses, that
they may have something to execrate for every broken
saucer, and to cuff and kick whenever they meet it
on the stairs." Humorous as this passage is, it is still
full of truth, as every one's experience must con-
vince him. " The Robertses on their Travels" is a
sketch by Mrs. Trollops, and possesses much of her
breadth, coarseness, but, at the same time, masculine
vigour of touch. The " Gladness of May" is a pas-
toral that makes its appearance just at the right sea-
son. The versification is correct, and in places spi-
rited, but there is a little too much about " zephyrs,"
" love," and " flowers." We have a surfeit of such
sweets. In the late " Prince Talleyrand" we find
accounts of this veteran statesman's conversations
respecting the once-popular quack—and necromancer,
as he was considered at the time—Count Cagliostro,
and Voltaire, the keen, restless, and malignant ex-
pression of whose eye the Prince describes with great
exactness. These Talleyrand papers are adroitly
worked up, but we suspect that they must not be al
looked on as gospel truths. The facts related in them
must be taken cum grano salis. The " Bit of Pre-
ferment" is a bold, dashing sketch of character, by a
contributor who adopts the quaint soubriquet oiPeter
Priggins. " Deceased People whom we meet Daily"
is an exceedingly lively little essay, containing
several home-truths, expressed in a sportive vein of
raillery. In his poem on " Lachrymose Writers,"
Mr. Horace Smith, very justly denounces the folly,
the puerility, and extravagance of the writers of the
Sardonic Byronian school, whether in prose or verse.
Fortunately for the interests of our national litera-
ture this school is nearly, if not quite, extinct.
" Milicent, or Summer and Winter,'' is one of .Mrs.
Gore's entertaining fictions. It is entitled a love
story, and would have been more effective had it not
been quite so sentimental. We subjoin Mr. Kenney's
sprightly poem on " Mrs. Hope, the Fortune-teller :"
Mrs. Hope, the fortune.teller,
Call'd on me when I was young.
e you," she cried, " will be a dweller
All the great and wise among.
On your shoulders fortune thrust is—
Honours mole than I can tell"—
Mrs. Hope, to do her justice,
Really talks extremely well.
a
First, she cried, " You're devilish clever,
forFPeulsththel fameure laurels anddeck my
pocketbrpeowlf,_
Write a play and lay for ever
Billy Shakspeare on the shelf."
'Twas done—the curtain rose, I nearly
Deuce a bit, I wish sincerely
Mrs. Hope had heard the row.
Eloquence, at her suggestion,
Conscious too that I possess'd,
I, on some important question,
Soon the sovereign mob address'd.
Strange to say such storms assail'd me,
Showers of worse than hail or rain,
All my elocution fail'd me—
Mrs. Hope was out again.
Whisp'ring then my wondrous merit
Claim'd at court a leading place,
I at length contrived to ferret
First my Lord and then his Grace.
Much they said conceit to soften—
Promises they made a few—
Mrs. Hope, great people often
Humbug fools as well as you.
Oft she vow'd the sex adored me,
Conquering all where'er I chose,
Husbands, lovers, tho' they bored me,
Ne'er could such a smile oppose.
Yet I scored by wives and misses,
When I came to count my game,
Quite as many kicks as kisses—
Mrs. Hope, oh ! fie, for shame
Wedded bliss, she now reported,
I should taste serene and true ;
Trusting still, I proudly ,courted
Quite a stylish black-ey'd blue.
Though the fair could
not refuse me,
What the sort of wife she made,
If you wish to know, excuse me—
Mrs. Hope's a cursed jade.
Thus with endless tarrididdles,
Still the gipsy wins her wa •
),
Gulls us all, and fondly wheedles
Shallow pates like mine astray.
Fame and Fashion thus allure us
Lions, lords at routes to meet,
Then blue devils come to cure us—
Mrs. Hope is fairly beat.
Yet, old girl, on recollec.cks tion resent,
Why should I y
.our tri
Since I've form'd a new connexion—
That sweet modest maid, Content.
Weary now of you and blarney,
Snug with her I dwell secure,
In my little chambre garme—
Mrs. Hope, votre serviteur.

AINSWORTH'S MAGAZINE.
The intrigues and ingenious disguises by which
Mastam contrives to outwit the Duchess of Marl-
borough, and procure the restoration of Queen
Anne's favour towards him, are cleverly described in
the present chapter of the Editor's " St. James's ;"
but we must protest against one portion of this in-
cident—that, namely, in which the footman Snell,
dressed up as Masham, deceives in broad daylight,
and while standing close beside her, the latter's
inamorata, Abigail Hill. No woman who really
loved a man, and who had seen him not once but a
hundred times, could have been so deceived. "An
Ode-let to Master Izaak Walton," is a sort of pas-
toral panegyric from the pen of John Hamilton. If
poem is pleasingly
we except, here and there, some quaintnesses and
waffrietctt:nti.onsßuotf
thee expression,
of then,the old cockney fisher-
man is much too exaggerated. Isaak Walton was
by no means the meek, pure, simple creature that it
is now the fashion to represent him ; on the contrary,
he was as sly, shrewd, and oily a man as ever perhaps
existed,-and never failed, in his peculiar unobtrusive
manner, to look sharp after his own interests. " A

Few Passages on Dreams," is an agreeable, gossiping,
little essay by Mr. Charles Oilier, who alludes to
some of the most remarkable dreams recorded in
ancient history, but makes no mention of that re-
lated by Cicero —to the effect, that a man once
dreamed that a friend and neighbour was
murdered, and his body hidden in a cart which was
standing at the door of a particular house. The
dreamer started up in a fright, dressed himself, and
the instant day broke hurried to the house indicated
in his vision, and there, sure enough, found the cart,
and buried in it, beneath a heap of dung, the body
of his murdered friend. This dream is perhaps the
most remarkable on record, and Cicero expressly
states that he had it on the authority of the dreamer
himself. " There are more things in heaven and
earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philo-
sophy." In the " Elliston Papers" we find a curious
account of an epistolary squabble between the great
lessee of IDrury-lane and the still greater Edmund
Kean, when the latter first arrived in London, and
was anxious to try his fortune as a tragedian on
the boards of a metropolitan theatre. Elliston's
lofty disdain and Kean's bull-dog independence are
very amusing touches of character. " Oriana and
Vesperella" is a sort of allegorical story, the drift
of which, will not we fear, be sufficiently obvious to
magazine readers. The following graphic little poem
(a portion of which we quote) is from the pen of
Mr. Charles Mackay :
Alone, amid a million souls,
Round him the tide of people rolls ;
• But lora and desolate is he,
None heeding what his lot may be—
A drop of water in the sea. ,
'Mid all the crowds that round him swarm ;
He feels for him no heart will warm ;
There is not one that knows his name,
Or cares to ask him whence he came ;
His life or death to them the same.
The rich man's chariot passes by,
And lacqueys with a saucy eye,
From outside plush, and inward meals,
Grin at him, as the rattling wheels
Splash him all o'er, from head to heels.
He walketh on, a friendless boy,
With much of hope, with little joy ;
Elbow'd fur ever by the proud,
As if they grudged the room allow'd
To this mean mortal in the crowd.
On through the busy mass he goes,
But whither bent he scarcely knows ;
Through lane and street, and park and square,
And looks at wealth he may not share,
Though he is hungry and half bare.
For him amid these houses small—
For him amid these mansions tall,
There is not one, where he could go,
And say, " I am a child of woe,
To cheer me let the wine-cup flow."
No ; he is friendless, and alone— •
To no one are his sorrows known.
His hope, or, joy, or grief, or fear,
There is not one, would care to hear,
Or say the word, " Be thou of cheer!"
And evil thoughts will sometimes rise,
When flaunting wealth affronts his eyes ;
Envy, perchance, and discontent,
That he into this world was sent—
No good with all his evils blent.
"No good?" saith he. " Ah, surely wrong;
Fresh health and youth to me belong;
And from endurance I can learn -
Still to endure and never turn
From the high thoughts with which I burn."
And still within himself he says,
" Each man must pass his evil days—
Each man should suffer ere his prime,
If up the world's high steeps he'd climb,
Some grief to fit him for his time.
" I am not all alone nor sad,
The face of Nature makes me glad,
The breath of morn, the evening's sigh,
The contemplation of the sky,
That fills my soul with yearnings high.
" The leafy glory of the woods,
The rushing of the mountain floods,
The wind that bends the lofty tree,
The roaring of the eternal sea,—
All yield an inward joy to me.
" I find a pleasure in the sight
Of meadows green and corn-fields bright,
I find a pleasure in the lay
Of birds that hail the breaking day,
Or warble to the moonlight grey.
" If no man loves me, Nature's voioe
Is kind, and bids my heart rejoice;
The path I go, true souls have trod,
I will look upwards from the clod,
With a firm heart, and trust in God."
And thus he walketh, hour by hour,
And day by day, and gaineth power
Over himself, and worketh still,
Through storm or shine, through good or ill,
The one good purpose of his will.