The Sun.
London, England, 1828-01-01 00:00:00

MAGAZINE DAY•

Leith a new year we again v'relcome the ap-
pearance of these periodiqals, which afford so
much delight and varied entertainment, blended
with so much i:astruetion. The Ma,qazines of
the present day are a striking exemplihcation of
the " march of mind," and the progress of libe-
ral opinion. The genius of education now per-
vades every class—even the beggar boy can read
the sign. post by the road side, and bend his
weary way to the busy haunts of men, where he
may one day, with the noble spirit of emulation,
t spire to wealth or celebrity. The decided im-
provement in the literature of the present day is
evidently owing to the increasing enlightenment
of the public mind, which infuses energy into
those from whose genius it demands a gra-
tification commensurate to its wants. 1f know-
ledge be power, the more it is diffused abroad,
the more powerful, and consequently more
happy, will be the condition of the people.
On this principle we wish hearty success to
the Magazines, and, in short, to every publica-
tion having for its object the dissemination of
sound knowledge, liberal ideas, and enlightened
principles.

BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.
The present number contains •..irmric good arti-
cles, and one very bad one—we mean of course,
politically bad—and that is entitled the Battle
of Navartn, but as we have thnroughly dis-
cussed its topics in another place, we shall not
trample un " the fallen." The article on
" Christmas Dreams," and that on " Christmas
Presents," are well adapted to their particular
purpose, but possess nothing extraordinary. The
" Bachelor's Christmas" appears as dull as his
lonely fireside at this season of convivial joy.
Indeed it is when all the rest of the world can-
gregate to be happy, that the Bachelor feels he
does not belong to the community. His hopes
are entombed in the chamber of regret.
" lie bath no friesds—cr if that name they men,
'Tis for his substance—when the shadow's gone !
His menijs wait—and act their tutored part,-...
But none may share the burden of his heart
When sickness sinks him on the conch of Wee,
No tender partner soothes affliction's throe :
No heaven-sent pledges of connubial bliss
Weep o'er his bed, and give the parting kiss !
No prayer, unbought, shall wish his soul to rest—
He lived unenvied—and he dies nnbtest!
Resigns that being which he 1:61 in vain—
An useless link in Nature's social chain."

The article on " The Causes of the, decline
of the British Drama" is not sufficiently prac-
tical, and floes not enter into the teal merits of
the case. We could say much upon this ques-
,ion, but time and space both conspire to pre-
vent us to-day. If dramatic poetry be the first—
the highest species of composition, how degrad-
ing to our national pride—how gelling must it be
5.3 our national genius to behold its decay ! But the
Ghost of Hamlet must not revisit the moonlight
glimpses of modern delicacy, and affected refine-
ment of taste. Even Shakespeare--idolized in
his ,rave—would endat!ger his own immortality
by re-appearing to give a corrected edition of
w orks, that shock, while they enchain admi-
ration, by the witching mastery of his genius—
' Glancing from Earth to Heaven, from:Heaven toEartb.
In all the boundless license of enraptured ima-
gination. " Notes of a Journey in the King-
dom of Kerry," is a very pleasing article, which
derives additional merit, from the unassuming
pretensions of its gifted author. The other ar-
ticles may be despatched in a line—they partake
too much of the spirit of the season, to be relished
by any except those who have dipped in the
Nodes, till their senses ran riot in the anticipa-
tion of another howl.—Waiter—.l say, waiter !
" New Year's a coming, Sir."
The following is the most poetical passage in
the number, and the best_ in " Christmas
Dreams" :

" Let not the Time be computed by the lights and sha-
dows of the years, but by the innumerable array of vi-
sionary thoughts, that kept deploying, as if from one eter-
nity to another—now in dark sullen masses, uow in long
array, frightened, as if with spear points and standards,
aad moving along through chasm, abyss, and forest, and
over the summits of the highest mountains, to the sound
of etherial music, now warlike and tempestuous—now, as
`from flutes and oft recorders,' accompanying, nut 'mans
of victory, but lizmats of 'etace. That Life, too, seems,
now that it is gone, to Lave been of a thousand years. Is
it gone ? Its skirts are yet hovering on the horizon—and
is there yet another Life destined for us? That Life which
we fear to face,—Age, Old Age! Four dreams within a
dream, ae then we may awake in Heaven !"

:s.'4EW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
The most curious and important feature in
the present number of this Magazine, is decidedly
Mr. Leigh Hunt's Recollections of his late friend
and patron Lord Byron. We have not yet seen
he volume, but, from the specimens here given,
conclude that it is more to be commended for
is style than its charity. In something less than
fourteen pages (for the extracts do not exceed
this) we are taught to believe that Lord Byron
possessed every petty fault and folly that even a
puny retail cockney shop-keeper in Cheapside
or Houndsditch would be ashamed—from their
very insignificance—to acknowledge. Mr. Hunt
—making good use of his time and his mate-
rials—has provsaf, or endeavoured to prove—iu
these fourteen pages, that his friend was a coward,
a coxconfo, a man destitute of common honesty,
(never paying his debts but on compulsion) a
heartless egotist—mean—waspish—jealous —en-
vious and malignant. If he even amused him-
self with humming a tune, " it was" says Mr.
Hunt, " done in a swaggering style, though in
a voice at once small and veiled :" if he hap-
pened by chance to hold his pocket-hand-
7:erchief in his hand, it was " in order that
his jewelled fingers might lie imbedded on it as
in a picture." " I doubt ;reatly whether he
was a man of courage." 1 bis is disingenuous
in Mr. Hunt. Surely his
m .
determination to re-
main to the last moment Missolonghi, and
perish under its walls sooner than yield, argued
something akin to bravery. Besides, no other
than a man of courage, would have been a tra-
veller (frequently alone) in such countries, as his
Lordship visited, while yet a youth. But even
had he put forth no very striking claims to this
quality, the common courtesy of a gentleman al-
ways takes for granted the existence of courage
in another, until its existence be disproved. When
they rode out for the first time together, Mr.
Hunt pretty broadly hints that Lord Byron was
vexed because he rode so well, and told him so
in a tone of manifest chagrin. This, to say the
least of it, is improbable. " Lord Byron," adds
Mr. Hunt, " had no conversation." This is li
the very remark that his Lordship communicated
to Mr. Murray, respecting his biographer. Envy?
probably has some share in this splenetic opinion::
for it is not likely that the author of the finest
tonversational—if we may use such a term 4
poem in the language, could himself be veil
deficient in that respect. " Lord Byron,
pursues Mr. Hunt, " was superstitious," but
we will not even allow this to be genuine'
as if he was "thereby afraid of conced
ing a point in favour of his late friend. " A
the highest pictures in Lord Byron's poetry," h 4

remarks " were imitations " (is Heaven and
Earth,' with all its simple yet awful imagery ;
one of the noblest poems that the !Inman imagi-
nation strung to its loftiest moods ever yet put
forth—is this an imitation ?ifit be so, it is
like Milton, an imitation of the Divinity !) so in
the smallest of his personal superstitions he was
maintained by something not, his own." His
biographer goes on to state, that " the love of
money, even the gratitude he evinced when it
was saved him, had not taught him the only
virtue upon which lovers of money usually found
their claims to a. good Fonstiatetton ; lie did not
like payinc, n 'debt, and would undergo pestering
and pursuit to avoid it." We really cannot and
gill not believe this of a man who sacrificed so
much to the Greeks. HiS Of his title Mr.
Hunt. put faith on every opportune occasion ;
he remarks, in addition, that his Lordship
was an ill-read man, (he certainly had not
studied in the corti-ey school, whether
of politieSMorals—or religion)—and that
he disliked Sandys' Ovid-, because it re-
minded him of his marriage-day. He was
also, it seema, jealous of Mr; dint, because he
could lay '`d Itre piano, " knew nothing of the
Fine. Arts, (whence conic the eloquent criticisms
in Childe Harold, 4th canto), pronounced Reu-
bens a dauber," and, in faet., did emery thing that
was likely l.ii bring him down to the level of the
most degraded, abject, heartless, and contemptible
creature upon earth. There are some people
(the majority of whom are to be found in the
list of what is Called " intimate friends") who
have extraordinary keenness and sagacity in
hunting out the defects of their acquaintance,
There is no putting such men off the scent ;
they will track a fault through all the " High-
ways and Bye-ways„ in which it may lie
couched, drag it forth into open day, and
make the most of their shrewdness as sports-
men. By some singular obliquity these
men can never espy a redeeming trait in
their friends': they are peculiarly blind to their
good qualities, and accordingly Mr. Hunt, whom
we are sorry to see taking his place among these
worthies, finds out (in solitary atonement for the
monstrous mass of abuse heaped upon the de-
parted poet and patriot, who sang and died in
the cause of freedom) that Lord Byron, when
half drunk, was very agreeable, and admired his
(Mr. Hunt's) conversation so much, that he re-
fused to let him leave him. " Then," says Mr.
Flout, with no slight self.complaeency, "he was
the proper natural Byron, as he ought to have
been." In speaking thus of our biographer, it
is but right to say, that we judge only from four-
teen pages of his volume; possibly the remainder
may contain a salvo—if so, we have then wily to
regret that some determined enemy of Mr.
Hunt's should have thought it worth while to
condense all the bitter venom of the volume in
one single number of a Magazine, to which Mr.
Hunt, we understand, is himself a chief contri-
butor. Of the remaining articles we have not
much to say : the review of the " Red Royer"
is spirited and judicious, and has an opinion of
its own (this is a noVelty with modern periodical
strictures.) " Letters from the Levant" are
eloquent, and true apparently to nature ; and
" Table Talk Abroad" a pleasant, gossipping,
and rambling miscellany. We subjoin an ex-
tract

" You have seen Pitt, you say?"
" Yes;-and, in the first and only instance, shortly pre-
Timis to his death. I was in the Court of Exchequer, as
he passed through it to join the other Ministers and Judges
in the Exchequer Chamber, whence they were to proceed
to the ancient ceremony of pricking for sheriffs. The
appearance of national affairs was then most gloomy, and
the public mind greatly disturbed. A crowd had assem-
bled for the purpose of beholding him, and it was with
diffieulty that the officers in attendance could preserve a
pileup for the Premier. He entered alone, hat in hand ;
hut so sooner were his ears assailed with the cries of dis-
approbation, which broke forth from the mob on his ap.
rearance, than, with somewhat of an air of defiance and
of scorn, he placed it on his head, and firmly regarding
those who on either side of him manifested their dis-
pleasure, calmly and slowly pursued his way. His face I
thought singularly inexpressive of the high talent he pos-
sessed—not like his great father's. At times, and only at
times, a few and not deeply-marked lines between the
eye-brows gave sign, and (if considered) strong and
effective sign, of powerful genius and deep reflection.
Haughtiness appeared to me the prevalent character of his
features, mingled with the spirit of ' high resolve,' of
firmness and endurance. I❑ proceeding through St.
James's Park to his office in Downing-street one day on
foot, he was recognised by the crowd, which had front some
other cause been attracted thither, anti be was accompa.
nied with all the honours of mobility to the place of his
destination ; but vain were the efforts of popular fury and
clamour to arouse his indignation. He went upon his way
unmoved; and gradually the noise subsided, until, as he
reached his house, there was sufficient silence to enable
him to he heard ;—there, bowing to the populace with
ironical courtesy and respect, he begged leave to return
them his thanks for the honour of the public escort which
they bad condescended to afford him.'
" His late Majesty having asked him if he had never
thought of marriage ; I have never yet had time, Sire,'
was the characteristic and laconic reply of the Minister."