The Sun.
London, England, 1828-08-26 00:00:00

GLOUCESTERSHIRE.

Capital Freehold Villa Residence, Pleasure Grounds, Pad-
docks, and Gardens, on the banks of the Wye, vis-a-vis
to Chepstow Castle and Piercefichl.
111ESSR S. BROOKS and Co. have the
honour to announce for SALE by AUCTION,
at the Auction Mart, opposite the Bank of England, on
WenNrsnAr, Aug. 27 (uulems previously Let or Sold by
Private Treaty,) the truly elegant stone-built Villa called
TUTSHILL HOUSE, seated on the summit of the ro-
mantic cliff which bounds tke Gloucestershire side of the
river Wye, and commanding an infinite variety of pic-
turesque views, including Chepstow Castle, Piercefield,
and the Wye, to its junction with the Severn ; coach.
houses, and stabling for seven horses, beautiful pleasure
grounds, flower and kitchen gardens, and paddocks, in the
wLole 15 Acres.

The Premises may be viewed and particulars bad of
Mr. Briggs, builder, and at the Beaufort Arms, Chepstow ;
and the principal inns at Gloucester, Cheltenham, Oxford,
Clifton, Bath, and Reading; of Henry Youlig, Esq.,
solicitor, Essex-street, Strand ; and of Messrs. Brooks and
Co., surveyors, 28, Old Bond-street.

On Saturday the extraordinary pheriomenon
was witnessed of three mock sues—one above, and the
others one on each side of, the resplendent haninary.

THE FOREIGN REVIEW, No. 111. LONDON, 1825.
It is a flattering sign, and one that speaks well
for the liberality of the English public, when we
see two such periodicals as the " Foreign Re-
view," and the " Foreign Quarterly Review,"
though devoted to the same subject, and ana-
lysing very frequently the same Continental pub-
lications, yet running the race of popularity with
nearly equal success,—cheered, encouraged, and
sustained during their progress, by all those who
have discernment enough to appreciate the ad-
vantages of a generous literary competition.—
Wth regard to which is the best of the two Re-
views, we will not venture an opinion : both
bring talent to their task ; both abound in intel-
ligent criticism, sound information, acute remark,
and homely practical good sense ; and both, in
praising a favourite author, are apt to run into
mysticism, and, in an overweening anxiety to do
him particular justice, to render both him and
themselves unintelligible. The article on " As-
tronomy," the first in the present number, is
lightly and pointedly penned ; it is a sketchy
history of the progress of Astronomy under the
hands of Dr. Herschel!, and those who imme-
diately preceded him, and gives the following
good account—novel, we conceive, to many of
our readers—of a gentleman who, though
scarcely yet sufficiently known, has conferred, it
seems, incalculable benefits en science :
"After the penetrating genius of Sir Isaac Newton had
pronounced ' the improvement of reflecting telescopes to be
desperate,' no slight honour must belong to the individual
who dared to hope where Newton had despaired, and who
triumphed over the difficulties which baffled the theoretical
and practical skill of the high priest of Nature. This for-
tunate individual was Mr. Chester More Hall, of More-
Hail in Essex, a name scarcely yet embalmed among the
sacred relics of science. In imitation of the divine me-
chanism of the human eye, he was led, in 1729, to the
combination of media of different refractive powers; and,
in 1733, he had actually completed several achromatic ob-
ject-glasses of flint and crown glass. No account of this
invention was published; and there can he no doubt, that
when John Dollond began his experiments, he was entirely
ignorant of the previous labours of Mr. Hall. When he
succeeded, therefore, in 1758, in the invention and con-
struction of this noble instrument, he obtained, as he justly
deserved, all the honours of a first inventor; and when he
introduced these telescopes into actual use, and made them
an object of English manufacture, in which no foreign na-
tion could compete with us, he conferred a service upon
his country of no ordinary kind. That service, however,
though it exalted the honour, and improved the revenue
of the nation, stands unappreciated and unrequited in her
annals; and, as if the great Dispenser of Justice had
frowned upon the ungrateful deed, no improvement upon
the achromatic telescope has been allowed to mark the
future progress of English science; "—it has passed into
foreign states as an article of trade, as well as an object of
glory, and the sovereigns of other lands have fondly wel-
comed into their territories what we had dishonoured and
rejected."
" The History of Italian Music and the Ly-
rical Drama," is an able analysis of a work on
those subjects, by Gregory Count Orloff, a Rus-
sian Nobleman, chiefly remarkable for his near
affinity to that Orloff who has damned himself
to " everlasting fame," as the assassin of Peter
111., and the paramour of his wife Catherine.
" The South of Italy," says the Reviewer, " was
the birth-place of modern music ;" after which he
traces its progress through " the fair cities of
Italian Greece," down to the bloody days of
Nero, when by public decree, issued immedi-
ately after his death, and occasioned by its as-
sociation with that monster, " music was de-
clared infamous, proscribed, and banished from
the city." Driven from Rome, it took up its
abode with the early Christians, and " in the
dark ages which followed, found refuge with
the last vestiges of learning and civilization in
the monasteries." In this way it slowly crept
into notice, heightened and improved, and ren-
dered acceptable now and then, by the genius
of some particular individual, till in 1529, Pa-
lestrina, a name dear to the lovers of church
music, the finest of all harmony, rose like a star
on Italy.
" This wonderful man was the creator of modern church
music, and carried to perfection the style he created ; those
who have heard one of his masses executed in the choir of
St. Peter's, by the most perfect voices in the world, have
heard what is divinest in music ; and, after listening to his
solemn and thrilling choral harmonies, they may turn to
the spot where his remains lie worthily sepulchred within
that most glorious of temples, and read on his the noble
and expressive epitaph, Palestrina musiese princeps.' He
died in 1594. Though the genius of Palestrina was wholly
consecrated to chinch music, yet, by bringing that style to
perfection—by first adapting music to the expression of a
sentiment---by his grand compositions, full of simplicity,
feeling, and imagination, which lie introduced into the reli-
gious service, he led the way to another and a different
style, which sprung up immediately after his death—the
music of the theatre."
The rest of the article details hastily, but
spiritedly, the progress of music both in church
and theatre, from the days of Palestrina down
to those of Mayer (to whom we are glad to find
justice done) and Rossini. It is replete with
amusing knowledge, and pointed with much light
miscellaneous remark. " Danish Poetry" is
chiefly to be admired for its very vigorous trans-
latious of Ingemann's epic poem entitled " Val-
dollar the Great and his Men," published in
Copenhagen towards the close of 1824. In ad-
dition, however, to this, the article possesses much
acute and concise criticism, and is well worthy
an hour's perusal. The analysis of " Goethe,"
professes to enter minutely into all the " indivi-
dual specialties" (so the Reviewer quaintly phrases
them) of the German poet's mind ; it is, how-
ever, ambitious and unintelligible. From first to
last it is unmixed praise—full of those eloquent
generalities, and pretty florid scraps of metaphor,
which, if we may believe Pope, " puzzle more
than wit." " The Sorrows of Werter", it seems
created a new era in the literature of Europe—
nothing at all resembling it had over appeared
before ; (did the Reviewer never hear of Rous-
seau, his " Eloise," and his " Confessions ?") to
prove which we are treated with an unmeaning
* There are telescopes executed by John Dollond which
we believe have not been surpassed by any since made of
English materials, and by English workmen. ➢any im-
provements have been produced, but none of them have
yet come into practical use, or have been substituted for the
( common achromatic telescope.

rhapsody about Locke, Gray, Dr. Johnson, and
some dozen others, whose introduction is as ap-
propriate as would be that of the Hottentot Venus
at a St. James's levee. Nothing is more easy than
this style of criticism, and nothing at a first glance
so difficult to detect. Those who read for mere
amusement are tickled with the dainty similies
and sounding words that every where meet the
eye ; and close the book, firmly convinced, on
the principle, "Dime ignolum pro ?nagnifico,"
that they have been reading something wondrous
fine. For ourselves we have read the analysis
of Goethe's mind, in the hope of discovering,
whether favourable or otherwise, some ideas re-
specting hint—instead of this we have been con-
fused, mystified, and astounded. What we
should like to know is the meaning of the fol-
lowing criticism on Willelhm Meister :

" It coheres so beautifully within itself; and yet we see
not whence the wondrous landscape came, or whither it is
stretching; but it hangs before us as a fairy region, hiding
its borders on this side in light sunny clouds, fading away
on that into the infinite azure : already we might almost
say, it gives us the notioa of a completed fragment."

As a specimen► of fine writing, it is passable ; as
a piece of reason, or criticism, or even common
sense, it is literally nonsense. Speaking of the
" individual specialties" of Goethe's mind, the
Re viewer remarks—
" We read Goethe for years, before we come to see
wherein the distinguishing peculiarity of his understand-
ing, of his disposition, even of his way of writing, consists."
Now really there is a great fault somewhere,
either in the poet or his critic, if we are to take
this confession for granted. An author writes,
and a reviewer reads, to but little purpose, when
the latter, after years of meditation, is unable to
comprehend the former. In the present instance,
we are inclined to throw the blame upon the
critic ; his intellect, judging from his analysis,
is somewhat muddy and obfuscated ; we fear,
therefore, he is incompetent as a testimony to
Goethe's intellect. We have little space or time
left to discuss the remaining Reviews. Enough
to say, that all are readable, and two in particu-
lar, " The Early Manners and Customs of
France," and " Modern Spanish Comedy,"
distinguished by very superior ability.

SHIPPING INTELLIGENCE.