The Sun.
London, England, 1828-04-15 00:00:00

IMPERIAL P.kRLIAIIIENT.

HOUSE OF COMMONS, AzRH. 14.
The requisite number of Members not appearing at fzu_
o'clock this day, the SPEAKER adjourned the Hnu•e.

LITERATURE.

. ,MEMORIALSook OrFiciSilliyAKmSePriEAts RNNE.
h.atLezdron s 1118e:ses4.
it may meet with. It is a collection of critical
opinions on the merits of our great dramatist
in every department of his intellect, from the
pen of the ablest writers of the age. No li-
brary should be without it. Messrs. Coleridge,
Jeffery, Schlegel, Campbell, Lamb, (a great name
as a commentator on the Elizabethan dramatists)
Godwin, Gifford, Lessing, Warton, Mackenzie,
Cumberland, Goethe, Sir Walter Scott, Dryden,
all these illustrious authorities are pressed into
the service of the present volume, and render it by
far the most copious illustration of the genius of
Shakspeare that we have yet seen. But why,
among these celebrated (some of them immortal
names) is Doctor Johnson forgotten ? Why
do we not see his masterly treatise in-
serted the very first in the book : if only
for the sake of that exquisitely felicitous
passage, " the stream of time which is con
tinually washing the more dissoluble fabrics of
other poets, passes without injury by the ada-
mant of Shakspeare ?" Why, too, do we not see
Farmer's Dissertations on his Learning ; this
surely was worth consideration ? But Doctor
Drake (tire editor of the present volume) ap-
pears to have had an eye to Shakspeare rather
as a poet than as a man of the world ; if so, tire
omission of such criticisms as those by Johnson
and Farmer was not so much to be wondered at.
inasmuch as the nature of their intellect led themQ
to consider the great dramatist as a writer why)
understood life, not as one who excelled all
others in the wild and fervid splendour of big
imagination. Johnson, in particular, thought
first-rate in every thing that regarded the worlti
—or appealed to common-sense—and moral ro-
flection—was somewhat limited and defective in
the range of his own fancy ; and consequently
ill-
calculated to appreciate its excess in others.
We have spoken with respect of this vol:nne
is a compilation ; but must qualify the praise,
when we come to consider the original portico
of it, that is, the cursory criticisms by Doctor
Drake himself. They are really—the truth must
out—intolerable trash. The concluding essay
is especially remarkable for the number of it
respectable common places, conveyed in 61
guage such as a precocious fifth form boy would
adopt in his Monday morning theme. The
Doctor talks of Shakspeare's historical, frmalr,
humorous, &c. characters. Pray, where lies
the difference between them ? Are not Doli
Tear-sheet and Hostess Quickly both htilnor=.
ous and females ? Is not Queen Catherine his-
torical, and a female ? The whole sentence is
nothing more than what is called " a distinction
without a difference." There are other speci-
mens of absurdity, which we have neither time
nor space to point out, enough to say that then
are short ; and that this is the chief reconunend•
ation of the original portion of the volume.

THE LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCII.
Written by Himself.—London, 1828
This is an imitation, and in some respects a
very successful one—of the quaintest parts of
Gait's Scotch novels. It is not unlike the
" Annals of the Parish," though the plan
more enlarged, and the arrangement more con-
iiised. But there are few things in modern
literature to equal, or even come near, the entire
simplicity of those delightful annals. The pre-
•;ent volume possesses considerable variety a
style and sentiment. There are passages oc
power, and not a few of very passable humour
so that the book, as a whole, is well worth peru-
sal. To a Southern reader, however, it will
appear too fall of Scotticisms.

When the Great Seal was brought to JAMES,
i•om Biro , his MAJESTY is reported tin have exclaimed
—"Now, by my smile, I am pained at the heart where to
bestow this ; for, as to my lawyer,,, I
thinks they be all
knaves!"
I HON I A DE.---The iron works in and round
Glasgow, are continuing to manufactuie with their usual
activity, the castings being favoured by the fine weather.
The demand for iron to execute internal improvements .r-
-less than formerly, owing to the founderies haying now
very few orders for boilers and machinery for steam boats;
but there is a pretty steady demand for the Irish aed
English founderies; the Scottish pig iron, when mixed
with the Welsh and Staffordshire iron, being found to
make a better composition for the manufacture of cylin-
power-I0 oat
cylin-
der's, ice. The price of the best iron remains at the former
proprietors do not consialer is
rate of 5/. 10s. to ht. a ton. The stock on hand is not
considered large.__ Scotsman.
Nos.. 40 warps are selling
factoriesTltA continue
so . brisk
.-?../k S,O
orders that flow in upon them ; and having no more pieces
on hand, those merchants who give orders for perhaps 3000
recent rise of one
sGt:llOa:itN6Vt.h.---IveyefTteasline:_erthr execute: INe,ne,iudt:i.t2.li
or ;store pieces, have to be content withi so many pieces:4
fortnight till the order is completed. )ower-loorn cloth is.
tettleohjeardciirs‘pi:Taai6,l,c;iedebilaot olttbnie.:'l t I which,
is selling a
15126. a lb.
; loco.
slling at 7s. 2d. it;
slaealetgal
yardsalll I '
ifi anptslte.gl je:6loalod)tnp''t I li
to
7s. 3d. ; 1 locr Jo. do. is selling at 7s. .sd. to 7s. 6d., .is -
wete, . weavers in generz) ears, .
from Ms. to 20s. a fall'atif.Lt. They weave in that period.
from 24 to 28 pieces of cloth, at ti:il a piece. If they pro-
' • common welled. Fe
(lore less than .2-t pieces a fortnight, ley
t lose the pre.nrimu
of a halfpenny a piece, which is a strong. stimulus to kee
' up p
Journal.
ofprovision: at the Broomielaw TheB4° quantity..
G1Q3.90u,
have, for the last two weeks, been larger than at 311 V
period for a considerable time past. Several vessels, loaded
with potatoes, have bee, lying.
in the harbour every day,
from Ireland anti the coast. They are selling at 9s. Gil.
a-boll; I
"Ilt they seem to be small in size. It is said that
several vessels have visited the English market with this
commodity, but found it impossible to dispose of them, and
were of course under the necessity of returning and putting
into the Scottish ports. The arrivals of grain have also
been considerable; but from the circumstance of the city
being already in a manner inundated with all the varieties
of grain, the import of that article must necessarily be
more limited in future, becoming, as it will, a perfect drug
in the market. There is another article, the import of
which has been carried on to such an unlimited extent that
it is hardly possible to conceive of its being attended with
any degree of profit,—viz. the importation of ego from
Ireland. Hardly any conception can he formed of the
number of eggs landed on the quay at every return of tire.
Irish boats : they are mostly yearock's eggs, and are sold
at ss. a hundred, and frequently below that price. Seve-
ral vessels have also arrived, laden with cotton, during the
two last weeks.-- Chugoze Chronicle.