The Sun.
London, England, 1828-07-29 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

CAPTAIN FRANKLIN'S NARRATIVE of a RECENT
EXPEDITION to the SHORES of the POLAR SEA
in 1825, 1826, and 1827.
The British navigators have been renowned
for their spirit and enterprise for more than three
hundred years, and their successful efforts have
somewhat narrowed the field of discovery ; if
those that have gone before have left to modern
adventurers the mere gleanings after their more
glorious harvest, yet they certainly have not out-
done them in zeal or in their honourable devo-
tion to this perilous service. It was natural to
suppose that the coasts of the more habitable
parts of the earth would be first explored ;
complete knowledge of this portion of the globe
has accordingly been obtained by the researches
of successive navigators, and the restless spirit
of modern discovery is now exercised on the
wintry regions and inhospitable shores of the
Polar Sea. Among those adventurers Captain
Franklin holds a distinguished place for the
zeal and intrepidity with which, in the prosecu-
tion of science, he has courted the dangerous
adventure of a journey to the Frozen Ocean,
and for the courage with which in an open boat
he has defied the perils of this boisterous ele-
ment. The present journey, though it has not
been completely successful, has yet enlarged our
knowledge of the northern shore of America ;-
and connected with the discoveries of Parry and
of Captain Beechy, who was sent out to Bell-
ring's Straits, in 1826, has left only 150 miles
of unknown land in one part, and another blank
somewhat longer, between the discoveries made
by land expeditions and those made by Captain
Parry from the Atlantic Ocean.

The account of the present journey, or rather
two journies, is chiefly interesting from its re-
sults; for there is a sameness in all the adven-
tures that occur in this bleak and desolate coun-
try, and hence the narrative of them is apt to be
rather tiresome. The object of the journey was
to explore the northern shore of America, for the
purpose of discovering whether there is any
water communication between the Atlantic and
Pacific Oceans. With this view, Captain Frank-
lin was to sail down Mackenzie's river to the
Polar sea, thence he was to coast along west-
ward in boats equipped for the purpose, until he
should meet the exploring party of Captain
Beechy, which was to come from Behring's
Straits ; and Dr. Richardson, proceeding with
another party, and by a different branch of Mae-
kenzie's river to its mouth, was to take his course
eastward, in an opposite direction from Captain
Franklin, and to explore the whole coast be-
tween Mackenzie's and Copper Mine River.
The result may be shortly told, Captain Frank-
lin continued advancing westward, amid the
perils of a doubtful and precarious navigation,
until the 17th August. He explored 391 miles
of unknown coast ; and although he did not
know it at tho time, he was not above 160 miles
from the party sent forward by Captain Beechy
from Behring's Straits ; the advanced state of the
season, and the increasing cold, the thermdmeter
being seldom above 37, compelled him to return
Dr. Richardson's party eompleted the survey
of the coast from Mackenzie's to Copper Mine
River, a distance of 863 miles, and returned by
land to Great Bear Lake, in the interior of the
continent.

In considering these discoveries we can no
longer doubt that there is a communication
along the northern shore of America between
the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans—that under an
extraordinary concurrence of favourable circum-
stances it would be practicable to penetrate from
the one to the other—but that, considering the
wintry climate of those inhospitable regions, it
is clear that this ocean can never be of the
smallest utility as a channel of intercourse. The
present work, we may add, contains a variety of
views of scenery and remarkable objects, the
most tasteful and highly finished that we ever re-
member to have seen in any similar publication.

TIIE BEAUTIES OF DON JUAN. LONDON, 1828.
It has been said—we know not with what tnith
—that a judicious manager of the Liverpool
Theatre, hoping to hit the taste of his audience,
once ordered his company to perform Hamlet—
,6 the part of Hamlet to be left out by express de-
sire." The Editor of the « Beauties of Don
Juan," with a view to gratify the devout and well-
disposed, has acted in a similar manner. He has
diligently omitted all that constitutes the charac-
ter of the poem, all those striking peculiarities
by which it stands apart from other works, as a
thing sui generic, and sobered it down to a
very exemplary so-so sort of concern. Now,
however praiseworthy this may be on the score
of morals, it is assuredly questionable in taste.
l)on Juan is not a work for the many ; it is far
too anomalous in nature ; its clap-trap common
places indeed of thought and style, scattered
every where over the surface, may be generally
read and, appreciated ; but the interior of the
poem, its strange waywardness of feeling; its
quaint, crooked, but oftentimes sublime morality;
its arch mixture of sentiment and sarcasm ; its
intimate acquaintance with the darker, and its
reluctant—we use this term advisedly—disbe-