The Sun.
London, England, 1844-07-01 00:00:00

BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY.

Mrs. Gore—the indefatigable, versatile Mrs. Gore,
who appears to throw off a drama and a novel with
equal facility—contributes to the present Miscellany
a play in three acts, under the title of the " King of
the Cobblers."T here are many energetic passages in
this play, but the plot is not very skilfully conducted;
and there is too much talking and too little action.
The authoress knows how to pourtray character
with effect, and is eminently happy in dialogue,
but she possesses a very slender portion of the
constructive faculty, whether as a dramatist or a no-
velist. Albert Smith's " Fortunes of the Scattergood
Family" contains, this month, a diverting scene—
namely, the pic-nic party at Gravesend, where Joe
Jollit, a desperate amateur of practical jokes, plays off
a hoax worthy of the inventive powers of Theodore
Hook himself. The "Murder of the Duke d'Eng-
hien" is an attempt to elucidate the mystery that
hangs over this transaction ; the attempt, however, is
fruitless, and the matter still remains as obscure as
ever. The advocates of the Bourbons have raised a
terrible outcry about this act, which certainly reflects
no credit on the memory of Napoleon, though it is b
no means of so atrocious a dye as the secret murder
of poor Toussaint; but we do not find that their ex-
quisite sense of justice, honour, and humanity, has
ever induced them to reprobate the attack which some
of their agents made on the First Consul's life, by
means of the infernal machine. " Eton Scenes
and Eton Men" is a series of personal recol-
lections of his school-boy days—those days
which Gibbon so much disliked to look
hack upon—by the author of the Puseyite novel,
" Doctor Hook well." Among other sketches, we
have one of the late Mr. Praed, an accomplished wit
and scholar, and the rival of Macaulay at the Cam-
bridge Union, with whom he divided the suffrages of
this once celebrated Debating Society. " A Ramble
through Styria," is by Mr. Fynes Clinton. The
purely descriptive portions of this tour are the best.
"An Odd Dog" is a highly dramatic story of an
earnest, tragic complexion, whose scene is laid in
Spain. The present portion of Mr. hfurray's " Phy-
siology of London Life," is devoted to a sketch of the
House of Commons, and of the manner in which
bu=iness is conducted in that spotless Reuse. The
description of Hon. Members passing through the
lobby and being way laid by one or more of their
constituents anxious for a snug berth for themselves
or their sons, is true to the letter ; and not less so,
is the account ( f the way in which the Premier replies
to an inconvenient question put by some Member of
the Opposition. " Though replying," says our
author, "he takes care not to answer unless he has
nothing to sly. In that case he appears communi-
cative enough, and although his responses are occa-
sionally full of mystification, his style is clear and
whatever the matter of his reply ma be, the manner
never fails." We add Mr. Murray's portrait of Sir
R. Peel:—

" By the time the presentation of petitions is concluded
it may be halt-past five o'clock, the hour at which the
Prime Minister usually enters the House. You observe that
tall man, one arm on his bleabt. the other concealed

Mr. Cyrus Redding's " Recollections of the Author
of Vathek" are here brought to a conclusion, and will
leave a favourable impression on the reader's mind of
the frankness and bonhommie of the eccentric octo-
genarian. Mr. Beckford appears to have exhibited
little reserve in conversation, but gave his opinion of
the numerous great men with whom he had come in
contact in the course of his protracted career, with the
utmost candour. Of the first Lord Chatham he said—
" He was much too high-minded for George the
Third, who was a man of coarse feelings. High-
minded noblemen are not royal favourites." The
Chatham Correspondence, published within the last
five or six years, proves that his Lordship was not
quite so high-minded as Mr. Beckford represents him
to have been. When it suited his purpose to do so, he
could fawn on royalty as readily as even a Newcastle ;
and some of his letters to George the Third are
penned in the most abject style of flattery. Yet,
compared with his contemporaries, and keeping in
mind the despicable character of the age in which he
lived, Chatham was certainly a high-minded states li
-
man. He had a more generous, unhesitating confi-
dence in his countrymen than any Minister has ever
shown before or since his time; and had he not, like
Palteney, committed the grievous blunder of accept-
ing a peerage, which, for many a long year, weighed
heavily on his popularity, he might have kept the
King in a state of all but vassalage up to the period
when he retired from public life. With all his faults,
remembering also his egregious, his almost puerile va-
nity and love of dramatic effect, we must confess
to a hearty admiration of Lord Chatham.
For five years of his meteoric career he
showed himself the loftiest, most energetic, and most
triumphant statesman that England ever produced,
and centuries may elapse ere she will be able to pro-
duce his equal. The " Perfidious Engineer" is a
slight sketchy story, told not without a certain degree
of easy humour, and turning upon the causeless
jealousy of a lean old woman, as dry as a chip, who
has married the engineer of a railway, and mistakes
the steam-boat Adelaide, which he is constantly
praising, for a female rival of that name. The late
Haynes Bailey would have worked up a lively farce
out of such materials. " Lights and Shades " are
from the pen of Mr. Maxwell, and furnish us with
some entertaining anecdotes, bordering on the extra-
vagant, respecting Irish duels, in the glorious old times
when these affairs were of daily occurence in Ireland,
and a nephew, from some real or fancied cause of
offence, would not hesitate an instant in calling out
his uncle and winging him. There can he no mis-
taking the author of the " Robertses on their Travels"
which displays all that coarse, worldly manner for
which Mrs. Trollope is so remarkable. We miss,
however, much of that broad humour which amused
us in her tale of the Barnabys. " Faults on both
Sides" is an ingenious essay, in which a common-
place axiom is treated with no more deference than it
deserves. In the " Talleyrand Papers" we find here
and there an interesting incident, but the present
chapter is much too long and wire-drawn. " Old
Cries" are gracefully versified by Miss Eliza Cook,
who possesses much of that sweetness and faci-
lity of versification which are so conspicuous in the
poems of the late Mrs. Maclean. The " Libelled
Benefactor" is a poetical allegory in Horace Smith's
best manner. We subjoin it for our readers' amuse-
ment :

They warn'd me, by all that affection could urge,
To repel his advances and fly from his sight ;
They call'd him a fiend, a destroyer, a scourge,
And whisper'd his name with a shudder of fright.
They said that disease went as herald before,
While sorrow and severance follow'd his track,

They besought me if ever I came to his door,
Not a moment to pause, but turn instantly back.
" His breath," they exclaimed—" is a pestilence foul,
His aspect more hatt•ful than language can tell,
His touch is pollution—no Gorgon or Ghoul,
In appearance and deeds is more loathsome, and fell."
Such stern prohibitions, descriptions so dire,
By which the most dauntless might well be dismay'd,
In me only awaken'd a deeper desire,
To gaze on the monster so darkly portray'd.
I sought him—l saw him—he stood by a marsh,
Where henbane and hemlock with poppies entwined ;
He was pale, he was grave, but no feature was harsh,
His eye was serene, his expression was kind.
" This stigmatised being," I cried in surprise,
" Wears a face most benignant ; but looks are not
facts ;
Physiognomy often abuses our eyes,
I'll follow his footsteps, and judge by his acts."

There came from a cottage a cry of alarm,
An infant was writhing in agonies sore,
His hand rock'd the cradle, its touch was a charm,

The babe fell asleep—all its anguish was o'er.
He reach'd a proud mansion where, worn by the woe
Of consumption, a beauty lay wither'd in bed,
Her pulse he compress'd with his fingers, and lo !
The complaint of long years in a moment had fled !
He paused where he heard the disconsolate moan
Of a widow, with manifold miseries crush'd ;
Where a pauper was left in his sickness to groan,—
Both were healed at his sight, and their sorrows were
hush'd.
He sped where a king, sorely smitten with age,
In vain sought relief from the pangs he endured.
" I come," said the stranger, " your woes to assuage :"
He spoke, and the monarch was instantly cured.
Astounded by deeds which appeared to bespeak
In the fiend a benevolent friend to mankind,
From himself I resolved a solution to seek