The Sun.
London, England, 1826-12-28 00:00:00

THE LATE MR. DENT.

Much confusion has arisen in consequence of " Dent"
being a name common in Cumberland and Westmorland.
So fir from the late Mr. Dent being of the origin stated of
late, he is sprung from, a highly respectable family seated
near Appleby. His father, Mr. R. Dent, after being taken,
at an early age, into partnership with the house of Child,
became head partner of that Establishment, of which his
son, the, late Mr. Dent, also was head partner for a number
of years. His length of services in Parliament, his con-
tested elections, and his intimacy with all the most lead-
ing persons in the Empire, made him so well known as to
render further comment unnecessary.
_ _

It is not true that either the late Mr. Dent or his father
received any legacy whatever froni the late Mr. Child.

THE MASQUERADE.

The first Masquerade for the season was given last night at the
Argyll Rooms, and was distinguished beyond most others of the
same class, by its varied assortment of characters. The scene it-
self is not strictly speaking congenial to an English, mind : there
is too much of the " free and easy" about it ; too much of the off-
hand manner to suit the somewhat precise sobriety of our national
sensibility; last night, however, nothing transpired either in the
amusements or the disguises, that could shock even the starchest
puritanism. In point of humour, the whole concern was English
enough—that is to say, rather heavy than otherwise. There
was, for instance, a Marquis de Chaves, the present no-
torious Portuguese Insurgent, who was dressed apparently
with the strictest regard to orthodox costume but sport-
ed very few additional characteristics : indeed, his masked
representative seemed to have drawn his notions of resemblance
from the Morning Herald. Paul Pry—the eternal, tiresome,
persevering Paul Pry_(to imitate Mr. Shiell's late exuberant
deluge of epithets) was another anomalous compound of mildness
and repose, when his original demanded the penetrating proper .
ties of a Grand London Inquisitor. There was also a groupe of
female Bacchanals, peaceable enough, as British Bacchanals should
be ; and sober, as they should not be ; to say nothing of a Silenus
so classically characteristic as to look a vex), model of gentlemanly
temperature, instead of being in every respect the reverse. A
Don Quixotic, short, thick, and rosy, accompanied by a
Sancho so immoderately thin as to be almost invisible at
the duelling distance of ten paces, gave exceedingly felicitous
ideas of the original ; a couple of half-starred monks were
equally faithful to probability, while an enlightened King
Ferdinand preserved of course a miraculous resemblance to
his liberal, gifted, and supernaturally civilized original. The en-
tertainments were closed—as in duty bound—by flowing bum-
pers of Mr. Charles Wright's ciampsigu•—.4.lmhedwaiisidow.limal.ll,....g
as he hituserf-eal/i it, in a poetic puff, worthy of the Augustan
age. Can praise go higher ; assuredly not ; we must therefore
here close our notice, lest our minds, like Milton's, break down
under " the mighty theme ;" or as Mr. Wordsworth beautifully,
though unintelligibly, phrases it, " the exceeding subject."