The Sun.
London, England, 1844-10-01 00:00:00

AINSTVORTH'S MAGAZINE.

Mr. Ainsworth opens the present Number with a
new romance entitled the " Revelations of London,"
of which, as the two first chapters only are yet before
us, we can give no other opinion than that it promises
fairly enough. The " Prologue," as the author quaintly
calls his introductory chapter—gives an account of
the sayings and doings of a notorious conjuror who,
while looking out of his balcony on London-bridge
one fine night in the year 1599, finds, to his infinite
astonishment and disgust, a sack thrown in at
the window containing the heads of his son
and grandson; and presently afterwards is walks
his great grandson, w ho has been wounded by the
warder of the bridge in attempting to take down his
kinsmen's sconces from the poles on which they have
been stuck. This may be justly styled a family
meeting, under " very peculiar circumstances." Pass-
ing the absurdity of the incident, however, we must,
in justice, observe that the descriptions of the con-
juror's den, and of his own St. Leon-like raptures,
when he fancies he has at length succeeded in con-
cocting the Elixir of Life, which his own great grand-
son with infinite effrontery and ingratitude drinks off
before his face,—these descriptions are replete with
vigour and even fancy, and of their kind, are superior
to anything Mr. Ainsworth has lately attempted.,,
The " Notice of the Collected Works of James, a
brother novelist, is also, we presume, from the pen of
the editor, and is penned in a very generous spirit.
The " Gipsies' Tragedy" is by Mr. Downes ; it is
a Welsh story, and though it contains more than one
passage characterised by strong earnest feeling and
strength of expression, yet it is little to our taste, for
the incidents are of the most painful and repulsive na-
ture, and horrors are heaped on horrors with a harsh
munificence that at length becomes quite wearisome.
" A Leaf from my Theatrical Recollections" is a di-
verting series of professional anecdotes by Meadows,
who has told them with great unction. A " Story
of the Gentilities" is a lively little tale, worked up
gracefully out of the slenderest possible materials.
" A Few Passages on Dreams" is an ingenious at-
tempt to account for many of those fantastic visions
and night-noises which have at times perplexed even
the soundest and wisest heads. We quote a ghost-
story, together with its explanation :
" In 1807, a Baronet, now living,
schoolledyen
lto a townhavig arrived
non tll coast,
s
late h
wherea
ivjhal
ablimmoned from
father hadtiunext
(Tudi e
d
suddenly.
anusted
heirwti requestedtha the
journey,pected lo
sasn
ldich
hadis spiritsst a being
dn
the .
young
to be shown to his bedrood
m,sl
ewhereep theh his sorrow
of
wand
agi-
tation were soon lu
hurt
mnds.' Between one and two o'clock in the morning,
hei was awakened by a low, wailing sound, dirge-like (so
6
it seemed to half-slumbering senses) ; lie lifted himself
pillow and listened. It was no dream. The
moaningfhis
noise continued, and grew louder and louder.
While our youth looked about, by the gleam of a night-
lamp in his chamber, the two haves of a folding-deor
opposite him sv.ung open as if to give space for the
entrance of a ghastly pageant. - It was as startling an
announcement as that which in Spenser's Faery
Queene' was made to liritomart when, in chearelesse
night,
the yron wicket open flew,
As it with mighty levers had been tore ;
And forth yssewd, as on the ready Here
Of some theatre, a grave personao-be.'
" Having remained awhile fixed with dismal appre-
hension, the young Baronet crept out of bed, and stole
breathlessly into the adjoining room. The first object
that niet his view was a figure in white drapery, and with
a visage of the same colour as its robes. It seemed ad-
vancing towards him, face to face. Being for a moment
terrified, the youth dared not proceed ; and as he stopped,
the spectre became immoveable. But this was not all
that encountered his gaze in that grim apartment. A
coffin was there ; and on it were plumes of black fea-
thers, waving and bending as if supernaturally forced to
take part in some dreary ceremony. The lamenting
sound—the sudden swinging open of folding-doors, seem-
ingly by their own impulse—the white figure—the coffin

and bowing plumes—were all calculated to impress him
who beheld them with a belief that ghostly influence was
at work ; and had he yielded to his fear and rushed from
the place, he would have given another phantom-story
to the already existing veritable stock. But, though only
sixteen years of age, the youthful Baronet was one of
those few persons whose presence of mind rarely deserts
them. Summoning his faculties, and coolly investigating
what he saw, he ascertained that the pale spectre was a
reflection in a pier-glass (till then unperceived) of him-
self in his night-gear, which, as he moved, would of course
seem to be moving towards him ; the wailing noise was
produced by wind through partially-opened windows,
near which the corpse lay ; this wind, increasing in
strength during a gusty night, had forced open the fold-
ing-doors that had been only imperfectly and hastily se-
cured (perhaps in trepidation) when a bed was prepared
for the youth ; and the strong breeze had also given a
waving motion to the black plumes placed on his father's
coffin. Having fully ascertained these points, the young
mourner retired to his inner apartment, deliberately
bolted the folding-doors, offered up a prayer to his Maker,
and was again blessed by sleep."

FRASER'S MAGAZINE.
In a temperately written article on the " General
Policy of the Government," wherein Fraser seems to
lee doubtful whether he ought to praise or blame Mi-
nisters for the conduct they pursued during the last
session of Parliament, he insists on the expediency of
the Premier's putting a final stop to the conciliation-
system, as regards Ireland. " Let him only appear
to waver," says our monthly Contemporary, "let him
take but one step further in the way of conciliation,
towards those whom no concessions will mollify, nor any
reasoning convince, and there is an end to his Govern-
ment at once, perhaps to the monarchy." On the con-
trary,there is an end to Sir R. Peel's Government if he
does not attempt to conciliate Ireland, for recent ex-
perience must have convinced him, as it has con-
vinced many other Conservatives, that a coercive
system of policy will never be productive of
any other result than that of increasing the exas-
peration, already quite bitter enough, in the sister
country, and placing additional power in the hands
of the repeal agitators. Fraser next proceeds to eu-
logise the honesty of Government, and instances Lord
Lyndhurst and Sir James Graham as patrons of
spotless integrity. The selection is an unfortunate
one, and, to our thinking, wears an aspect of the most
refined irony. " Courses of English Reading"
contains some pleasant literary criticism and gos-
sip. The Reviewer, however, in accordance with
the tiste of the day—a taste more remark-
able for its eccentricity than its soundness—is
over-rigid in his strictures on " Johnson's Lives of
the Poets," which is a work replete with mascu-
line sense and judgment, though it may be, perhaps,
deficient In that quick and impassioned sensi-
bility which is so conspicuous a feature in the
poetical criticisms of llazlitt, Coleridge, and
Wilson. Speaking incidentally of Drvden's trans-
lation of Virgil, the Reviewer tells us that
"it is remarkable for its occasional splendour,
but it is not happily accomplished I" This is a just
observation ; the version has passages of exceeding
excellence, but, as a whole, is anything but Virgilian
in its tone. The sixth book of the " 2Eneid "
is nobly rendered ; in places, indeed, the
translator equals, if he do not surpass, his
original ; but we miss the touching pathos of the
fourth book, to which Dryden knew not how to give
effect, for he had nothing of the pathetic in his na-
ture. In reference to Pope's " Eloisa to Abelard,"
the Reviewer maintains that it is an immoral
and impious poem. This is sheer cant. The
poem is neither one nor the other, but is
unexceptional in both respects. Even John-
son, the most fastidious of moralists, says of it :
" The Epistle of Eloise to Abelard' is one of the
most happy productions of human wit; the subject
is so judiciously chosen that it would be diffi-
cult to find another which so many circumstances
concur to recommend. The heart naturally loves
truth. The adventures and misfortunes of this
illustrious pair are known from undisputed history.
Their fate does not leave the mind in hopeless
dejection, for they both found quiet and
consolation in retirement and piety. The story thus
skilfully adapted has been diligently improved by
Pope." The " State Murder" is a striking tale, trans-
lated—or rather adapted—from the French of George
Sand. " Classics of the Table" is an amusing article
on the subject of after-dinner wines. In " Roadside
Sketches" the writer explains the causes—which are
anything but flattering to our national vanity—why
he English are so generally unpopular on the
Continent. En voici :
" How they hate us, these foreigners, in Belgium as
much as in France 1 What lies they tell of us, how
gladly they would see us humiliated 1 Honest folks at
home over their port wine say, ' Ay, ay (and very good
reason they have too), national vanity, Sir, wounded—we
have beaten them so often.' My dear Sir, there is not a
greater error in the world than this. They hate you
because you are stupid, hard to please, and intolerably
insolent and air-giving. I walked with an Englishman
yesterday, who asked the way to a street, of which he
pronounced the name very badly to a little Flemish boy;
the Flemish boy did not answer, and there was my Eng-
lishman quite in a rage, shrieking in the child's ear as if
he must answer. He seemed to think that it was the
duty of the snob,' as he called him, to obey the gentle-
man. This is why we are hated—for pride. In our free
country a tradesman, a lacquey, or a waiter, will submit
to almost any given insult from a gentleman—in these
benighted lands one man is as good as another ; and pray
God it may soon be so with us ! Of all European people,
which is the nation that has the most haughtiness, the
strongest prejudices, the greatest reserve, the greatest
dulness ? I say an Englishman of the genteel classes.
An honest groom jokes and hob-nobs, and makes his way
with the kitchen-maids, for there is good social nature
in the man ; his master dare not unbend. Look at him,
how he scowls at you on entering an inn-room ; think
how you scowl yourself to meet his scowl. To-day, as
we were walking and staring about the place, a worthy
old gentleman in a carriage, seeing a pair of strangers,
took off his hat and bowed very gravely with his old
powdered head out of the window. lam sorry to say
that our first impulse was to burst out laughing—it
seemed so supremely ridiculous that a stranger should
notice and welcome another.
" As for the notion that foreigners hate us because we
have beaten them so often, my dear Sir, this is the
greatest error in the world : well-educated Frenchmen
do not believe that we have beaten them. A man was once
ready to call me out in Paris because I said that we had
beaten the French in Spain ; and here, before me, is a
French paper, with a London correspondent discoursing
about Louis Buonaparte and his jackass expedition to
Boulogne. He was received at Eglintoun, it is true,'
says the correspondent, but what do you think was the
reason ? Because the English nobility were anxious
to revenge upon his person (with some coups de lance) the
checks which the grande homme his uncle had inflicted on us
in Spain.'
" This opinion is so general among the French, that
they would laugh at you with scornful incredulity if you
ventured to assert any other. Foy's history of the
Spanish War does not, unluckily, go far enough. I have
read a French history which hardly mentions the war in
Spain, and calls the battle of Salamanca a French victory.
You know how, the other day, and in the teeth of all
evidence, the French swore to their victory of Toulouse
—and so it is with the rest ; and you may set it down
as pretty certain, Ist. That only a few people know the
real state of things in France, as to the matter in dispute
between us ; 2d. That those who do keep the truth to
themselves, and so it is as if it had never been. These
Belgians have caught up, and quite naturally, the French
tone. We are perfide Albion with them still. Here is
the Ghent paper, which declares that it is beyond a d, übt
that Louis Napoleon was sent by the English and Lord
Palmerston ; and though it states in another part of the
journal (from English authority) that the Prince had
never seen Lord Palmerston, yet the lie will remain up-
permost—the people and the editor will believe it to the
end of time."