The Sun.
London, England, 1845-04-04 00:00:00

IVIAGAZENES-(CONTINUED)
AINSWORTH'S MAGAZINE.

The present number is one of the richest that has
appeared. Passing over the powerful romance, " Re-
velations of London," by the Editor, we come to an
article, entitled " Horace for the Million," which
might have passed upon us for an effusion of our
lamented friend Maginn, if there were not elsewhere
in the volume too much to remind us, that that fund
of wit and learning has been exhausted. The following
travestie of the grand ode " Integer vi'm," is worthy
of Maginn, except for its profane familiarity with the
almost divine lyric. That the reader may be as much
disposed to pull the wag's ears as we are, let us give
his doggrel as it is :
The man whose heart and purse are light,
Whom adverse fortune can't affright,
Needs no police to watch at night
llis goods and chattels.
Whether he rambles through St. Giles',
Or wanders by the two Turnstiles,
Ms time away he calmly wiles,
And fears no battles.
For instance, 'twas but t'other day,
When, wavering 'twixt the grave and gay,
Thinking of Grisi and the play,
I met a beggar.
Sturdy he was, as Russian bear,
A face that would a judge outswear,
And such a varmint head of hair,
And bullying swagger.
I did but raise my weather eye,
Without the echo of a cry—
My wig ! to see the fellow fly,
In Irish fashion.*
You would have laughed, for ten police—
Men, warranted to keep the peace,
Could not have won me much release,
With all their dash on.
Then what care I for street or alley,
Through all the lanes I fearless sally,
And scatheless still, without a pal, I
Securely tottle.
In Piccadilly, or the Park,
I take my morn or ev'ning lark ;
And when I'm tired, or it grows dark,
I tap my bottle.

The " Nelson Dispatches" is a clear and interesting
review of the hero's life and thoughts. It is worthy
of the subject. But the most novel, and, therefore, to
us, the most interesting, paper in the number is Mr.
F. Ainsworth's sketch of Zenobia's retreat on the
Euphrates. The volume concludes with some grace-
ful verses to the memory of " Laman Blanchard,"
which testify that fiction is not even a necessary ele-
ment even in poetic eulogy. In page 354 will be
found a real curiosity of literature—a Greek fable by
Kenealy—Englished, enriched, and illustrated by
Maginn. These are the verses :
On a couch of sweet roses reclining,
Fair Venus in slumber was laid,
And a robe, of the brightest star-shining,
Was thrown, her fair form to o'ershade ;
From her neck, as a swan's whitely glowing,
To her knee did the mantle extend ;
Laugh'd the zephyrs, as over her blowing,
They felt the sweet incense ascend.
Pan, his haunt in the woods ever keeping,
Was wandering, perchance, through the grove,
And as Venus alone there lay sleeping,
Stepp'd soft to the goddess of love,
And he kiss'd her sweet lips, soft and taking ;
But what more he'd have ventured to try,
We can't tell ; for sweet Venus awaking
Put all notions of love-making by.
* One leg before the other.

BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY.
The " Literary Retrospect of the Departed Great"
is by far the best article in this number. It is written
by one who evidently was well acquainted with the
best painters and sculptors of the day, and though,
perhaps, a little overcharged and somewhat romantic,
gives a real picture of Wilkie, and Lawrence, and
Northcote ; and possibly also does justice to Chantrey,
but certainly it does not tend to raise him in public
estimation. The article, however, chiefly relates to
Wilkie, and some of the anecdotes and particulars of
his life are so graphic and correct that they cannot
fail to be of use to some future biographer. The
history of the " Blind Fiddler" is interesting : it is
told by the widowed mother of the artist, in her
Doric dialect, while she was residing with her son at
Kensington, and bears all the marks of truth. In
answer to the question whether Sir David had early
displayed much talent in drawing :

" Aweel,' said she, I mind that he was aye scrawl-
ing, and scratching, I did na ken what, and he had an
idle fashion o' making likenesses and caricat•.)ores like of
all the folk as came. And there was an auld blind mon,
Willie, the fiddler, just an idle sort of a beggar-mon, that
used to come wi' his noise, and set all the women ser-
vants a jigging wi' his scratching and scraping ; and
Davie was ae taking o' this puir bodie into the hoose,
and gieing him a drap o' toddy ; and I used to cry shame
on the lad for encouraging suc lazy vagabonds about
the 'loose. Weel,' pursued the old lady, but ye mann
ken he was an ill-favoured, daft sort of a creatur, that
puir blind bodie, weel eno' in his way, but not the sort
o' folk to be along wi' Davie ; yet the lad was always
a-saying to me, " Thither, gie's a bawbie for puir blind
Willie." This,' she added with a sigh, Sir, was when
we lived at the Manse.'
"‘ A-weel, Sir, they told me—it was mony years after
the puir blind body was gane hame, Sir—that Davie had
painted a grand pictur ; and he wrote me to go to Edin-
burgh to see it ; and I went, and sure eno' there was
puir Old Willie, the very like o' him, his fiddle and a'.
I was wud wi' surprise : and there was Davie standing
a laughing at me, and saying, Mither, molly's the time
that ye ha heard that fid,lle to the toon o' the Camp-
bells are coming.'"
There is also a life of the Rev. Sydney Smith, with
a good portrait, taken some thirty years ago, detailing
the more remarkable incidents of his life, from the
time he wrote his first article for the Edinburgh
Review (the life of Parr), in the sixth story of a
house in Buccleuch-place, till he ended his career, as
Canon of St. Paul's. In the life of this admirable
writer and thorough reformer, it is curious to observe
how he changed his tone on church reform when the
cathedrals of which he was installed a defender were
_ _

attacked by Lord John Russell and the Bishop of
London. He still however admitted the necessity of
reform, but thought the department to which he be-
longed was the least liable to complaint, and that the
Bishops with their princely incomes and gorgeous
pageantry should have led the way by cutting down
their incomes and patronage to an amount befitting
the age of reform. He could not see why every suc-
cessor of Charles James should have a house in St.
James's square, a palace at Fulham, and 10,0001.
a year, nor why the domestics of Archbishop Howley
should stand with swords and bag wigs round pig
and turkey and venison, to defend, as it were, the
orthodox gastronome from the fierce Unitarian, the
fell Baptist, and all the famished children of dissent.
The other articles are much in the usual style, but
require no particular notice.

COLBURN'S NEW MONTHLY.
This is an excellent Number of this popular pe•
riodical It opens with a continuation of " Passages
in the Lives of Celebrated Statesmen of Europe.
The subject of the present paper is Baron Bulow,
with sketches of his colleagues in the great confe-
rences of 1831 and 1840. From these sketches we.
extract the following account of Count Pozze
Borgo :
" Count Pozzo di Borgo was a still more extraordinaryh.
man. The deadly feuds of his native. land drove him
from Corsica, imbued with all the headlongfeel-ings characteristic of his race. For instance, long afterwife
of leaving Corsica, he was so superstitious. that
.thr.!
of one of his most hospitable entertainers andh. intimate
friends, suspecting his foible, having urged him to come
and see a ghost in a back parlour, and having shown on
the balcony General Paoli, in the shape of her mad-cap
cousin, wrapped in a sheet and bedaubed with flour, he
swore she was a witch, and had a deadly aversion to her
and family until the last moment of his life. The trials
of those eventful times, his adventures in the many lands
he traversed in the search of fortune, smoothed the out-
ward ruggedness of his nature, and consecrated all the
fire of his character on diplomacy and ambition. I-lig
hereditary feud against the Buonapartes, likewise, all
concentrated on Napoleon,. was the cause of his fortune.:
Through Lord
.Minto he got recommended to the best
diplomatic. service—that of Russia. In this service he
acquired.not.only rank, but an immense fortune ; for his
tot:
.mt theLl
no
ufitirhss
etxi lattervn viaisii
intercession in Paris in favour of the old dynasty cif the
ranee by the allies, he
rßaesoc'?,ellievbaeoddnesfa'r
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days
a aloneoyfs F
wo,enealmluidleliotno,oafnfroihnecrs
ruling passion which had survived his youth, was de-
parting at last and yielding its place to the love of gold.
Laboriously polite, still did the hot, fierce, jealous under•
current of his nature, as well as his native shrewdness
and experience in strategy, make him a dangerous col-
league to deal with in diplomacy."
It was out of mere hatred to Bonaparte Di Borgo
brought about the restoration of 1815. It is curious
to trace the restoration, the hundred days, Waterloo,
the revolution of 1830, and all its consequences—
past, present, and to come—to a private feud between
two obscure families in the semi-barbarous island of
Corsica. Thus—
" Great events from trivial causes spring."
" 'What we're doing and what we're coming to" is a
a nart quiz upon the existing railway-share mania.
It is a lively witty article, and sparkles like a glass