The Sun.
London, England, 1845-07-28 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

KNIGHTS WEEKLY VOLUME. Nos. 54, 55

and 56.

It is now little more than twelve months since Mr.
Knight commenced the publication of his Weekly
Volume, and every pledge that he gave at the com-
mencement of his undertaking he has amply redeemed.
For a shilling a week he has supplied weekly a
volume of permanent literary value, while, for variety,
we venture to assert that in no series of publications
can there be found, within the same compass, such a
variety of matter at once instructive and entertaining.
Of the volumes at present under notice, No. 54 is
the first volume of the Cabinet Portrait Gallery of
British Worthies, and containing portraits and lives
of Henry 11., Roger Bacon, Edward 111., Wieklif,
Chaucer, and William (,f Wykeham. The life of
Roger Bacon displays great research, and from an ex-
tract given from his opu.9 Mafia, it is evident that he
was not only centuriesin advance of his own time,
but even in some respects in advance of the present.
The following is the extract to which we allude ;
Most students have no worthy exercise for their
heads, and therefore languish and stupefy upon bad
translations, which lose them both time and money.
Appearances alone rule them, and they care not what
they know, but what they are thought to know by a
senseless multitude. There are four principal stumbling
blocks in the way of arriving at knowledge—authority,
habit, appearances as they present themselves to the
vulgar eye, and concealment of ignorance combined with
ostentation of knowledge. Even if the first three could
be got over by some great effwt of reason, the fourth
remains ready. Men presume to teach before they have
learnt, and fall into so many errors, that the idle think
themselves happy in comparison ; and hence both in
science aid in common life we see a thousand falsehoods
for one truth. And this being the case, we must not
stick to what, we hear and read, but must examine most
strictly the opinions of our ancestors, that we may add
what is lacking, and correct what is erroneous, but with
all modesty and allowance. We must, with all our
strength, prefer reason to custom, and the opinions of the
wise and good to the perceptions of the vulgar ; and we
must not use the triple argument ; that is to say, this
has been laid chwn, this has been usual, this has been
common, therefore it is to be held by. For the very
opposite conclusion does much better follow from the
premises. And though the whole world be possessed,
by these causes of error, let us freely hear opinions con-
trary to established usage."
This is the germ of the philosophy of Bacon's more
celebrated namesake, and reads like a passage from
the " Novum Organutn." No. 55, is the first
volume of Mrs. Jameson's " Lives of the early
Italian Painters," and is profusely illustrated
with woodcuts; and No. 56 is an admirable critical
account of Racine, and the French Classical drama,
by Madame Blaize Bury. It is a work that every
student of French literature should read attentively,
and that every dramatic artist should study. It is
the only English work we have ever met with in
which acting is treated of as one of the fine arts.

EXTRAORDINARY WILL CASE.
One of the most prolonged arguments with respect to
;he will of a deceased wealthy baronet, has been in pro-
gress the greater part of the past week. Sir 11. Jenner
Fust has already heard three civilians out of six engaged
in the suit. The deceased was Sir G. B. De Apreece,
Bart., and though most wealthy, it appears that he lived
in a style infinitely inferior to the position in which
such wealth placed him. He had large landed pro-
perty in Essex, in Hampshire, and other counties.
His freehold property is worth from 180,0001. to
190,009/., and he left a personal estate of something
short of 25,0001. From the pleas it appears that the
baronet from his youth up was exceedingly eccentric.
The will in dispute, and which is opposed by a sister
(Mrs. Peacock) was executed at a fishmonger's shop in
the neighbourhood of Fleet-street, the parties who were
witnesses to it being entire strangers. The document, it
is true, was duly attested, but it gave the property, real
and personal, to St. George's Hospital, excepting two
legacies to the executors. The rental of the estates
amounted to 7,800/. In bar of the validity of the will in-
sanity is alleged. 'The number of witnesses examined,
and documentary evidence brought forward, is unpa-
ralleled, not less than seventy-four witnesses having
been produced and examined upon one plea. Dr. Philli-
more took two days in reading and commenting upon the
exhibits.--Dr. Jenner, who followed, also occupied two
days with his argument in support of the paper.—Her
Majesty's Advocate (Sir John Dodson) took a day and
three quarters in opposition to the paper, and as Dr,
Addams, who follows on the same side, desired not to
have his speech split in half, the Learned Judge having
intimated his intention not to sit again until the caveat
day, the arguments have necessarily been postponed. If
reliance is to be placed upon the immense mass of letters
which have been brought forward in support of the will,
unquestionably St. George's Hospital will reap a rich
harvest by the distribution. But the deceased ba-
ronet, it appears, for,years, contemplated self-destruction,
and ultimately died by his own hand. He had carefully
collated for years what he called a " Fact Book," in
which were pasted all the accounts of murders, suicides,
and dreadeul accidents. From the proof that mono-
mania upon such subjects existed in the testator's mind,
the sister of the deceased has proceeded to oppose the
will. At the time of his death, Sir G. IL De Apreece
was fifty-one years of age, the will being executed
some years before. Among the arguments brought
forward to prove insanity were, a constant fluctuation
of intention, a degree of wilfulness in character
and irritable temperament, wholly incoesistent with
what may be considered a sound state of mind, ec-
centricities the most remarkable, and incoherency of
conduct. Take, for instance, his fury at meals, sweareng
at the cook and die servants for viands },repered for Mai
and subsequently eating them. On one occasion he
threw a hare on the fire, took it off again, fmrcel the leg
il.,wn the servant's la.ck, saying it was a mouse. A vast
variety of similar eccentricities were brought forward.
But on the other side, the documentary oviCnce is pro-
duced to show capacity. The brother of the
deceased married to the widow of Sir Humphrey
Davy, and froili various communications produced
sanity is sought to be proved. It will be perceived by this
brief outline of the ease that the family of the testator is
entirely deprived of ail interest in this immense property,
and which is left, with the exceptions named, to a hos-
pital with which he was very little acquainted. Dr. Ad-
dams, it is expected, will occupy three or four days as
counsel for the next of kin, and then Dr. Harding will
follow on the same side. This will be one of the most
strongly contested will causesr ever brought forward in
the Prerogative Court. That it will be appealed against,
which ever way the Learned Judge decides, is pretty
certain. It will affird nearly as rich a harvest for the
legal profession as that gleaned out of the estate of Mr.
J. Wood, the banker of Gloucester.

Sir George Murray, Master. General of the Ord-
nance, has, we understand, appointed Mr. Thomas Clarke, of
the firm of Clarke, Fynmore, and Fladgate, to the office of
solicitor to that department, in the room of Mr. Hignett, whose
name the recent ,disclosures respecting the South-Eastern
Railway must have made very familiar to our readers.—
Observer.
FRIGHTFUL ACCIDENT.—On Friday evening, be-
tween the hours of five and six, the inhabitants of Bethnal-
green-road, near the Salmon and Ball, were thrown into a
state of the greatest alarm, in consequence of the occurrence of
the following frightful accident:—At the time stated above,
two drays, belonging to Messrs. Whitbreads, the brewers of
Chiswell-street, were returning along the Bethnal-green-road,
the drayman, a steady person, of the name of James Kirby,
having hold of the reins of the fore horse, and an acquaintance
of his, a man named David Roberta, walking at the side of
another horse, when all of a sudden one of the trains passed
along the Eastern Counties Railway, and, frightening the
horses, caused them to set off in a full gallop. Both Kirby
and Roberts were knocked down by the dray, the head of the
latter being caught by the wheels, and he was instantly ren-
dered senseless, and the other poor fellow had his thigh broken,
and was otherwise severely injured. The horses, unrestrained,
continued to dash along most furiously, until stopped by some
of the passers-by. A lad, in endeavouring to get out. of the
way, was knocked down with great violence, but fortunately
escaped uninjured. The two men were quickly removed to
the London Hospital, and very favourable hopes are entertained
of Kirby's recovery; but upon inquiry being made, at nine
o'clock last night, at the hospital, as to the state of Roberts, it
was almost impossible to tell whether he was dead or alive.
SMUGGLING.—A seizure having been made on
board a vessel recently arrived in the port of London from Jersey
and Guernsey, of a large number of paper parcels of cigars and
cheroots, which had been ingeniously concealed within a tin
casing around the interior of some empty barrels, portions of
which had been hollowed out to admit the packages within the
casing, as well as to take off the additional weight of the same ; the
Commissioners of Customs have given directions to the revenue
officers at all the ports of the United Kingdom to be apprised
thereof, and to be enjoined to use their best endeavours to detect
and prevent any smuggling which may be attempted by similar
means, taking care to acquaint the Board with any matter that
may arise fit for their cognizance. The goods in the instance
alluded to were concealed in a very ingenious and secret
manner, and nothing but a certain amount of information in
the matter furnished to, or a very great degree of acute-
ness and application on the part of, the revenue officers, could
have possibly caused the discovery.
FATAL RESULTS OF INTOXICATION.—On Friday
forenoon Mr. Wakley, M. P , held an inquest at the Prince
George of Cumberland, Frederick-street, Portland-town, on
the body of Mary Smith, aged 43, widow of a colour sergeant,
ni
naent
t t
re ay h
wret
and about to be married to a man named Hodder, a butler, out
latter,
place. It appeared that both parties, particularly the
together on Wednesday last, and as they were returning home
ant e
nesrnoser,inathfe g
sing'
to habits of intoxication. They went out
adtoeecv deceased ettdhh
the railings
b yR eg
ent
, Ins-oepfansirtskh not
.e
s3hlaccounted
fella ecileln
fieidtiin
forbstrai d
abe
distance
of twenty-six feet, fatally injured her spine, and died in about
two hours. Her intended husband was so drunk, that though
he was with deceased, he could give no explanation as to how
she got over the bridge. The coroner said he was of opinion,
though the evidence did net justify it, that deceased, rendered
desperate by the prospect of being married to a drunkard,
and being also excited by liquor at the time, threw herself
over the bridge. An open verdict, however, would be the
safest. A juror said the deceased's former husband, a colour
sergeant, Thad been reduced to the ranks for absenting himself
from his regiment to go in quest of her, who had absconded
from him, and that in consequence he died last November in
Winchester barracks of a broken heart. Verdict, " Died
from a fall, but how the fall was caused there was no evidence
to:prove."
SEVEN PERSONS POISONED.—A Correspondent at
Lutter worth informs us, that on Thursday afternoon, at Shawell, a
village in the neighbourhood, Mrs. Gilbert, four of her children,
and two servants were poisoned by eating a fruit pudding. Sur-
geons from Lutterworth were sent for, who found two of the parties
in a dangerous state, but the rest are likely to recover. By what
means the poison go tinto the pudding was not known.
A FRENCHMAN'S FATE.—During this month there
have been more prosecutions against the press in France,
more convictions, and, of course, more imprisonments and
fines. The invention of this new way of celebrating the
" fetes of July" belongs exclusively to Louis Philippe, and as
the merit of the thing is decidedly his, we hope no other
country will show a mean jealousy by imitating it. Let us
leave the French to their own way of enjoying themselves,—
Punch.