The Sun.
London, England, 1828-05-01 00:00:00

THE MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

What there is in this number is good, but un•
luckily there is not enough of it. We would par-
ticularly call our readers' attention to the very
service Ale and ably digested article on " Climbing
Boys ;" it takes up the subject in a spirited and
praiseworthy manner. " Modern Italian Comedy"
is also a clever analysis of two of the most popular
comedies of Da Rossi, an author who, though little
known in England, flourished in Italy towards the
close of the last century, and was in no slight re-
pute for the whim and spirit of his dramas. " The
Adventurer's Story" is amusing, and far beyond the
usual order of magazine tales. The hero is a young
Englishman, whose love for romantic adventure
renders him the subject of a quiz at Venice by one
or two of his satirical countrymen. This is well con-
trived, but we will not mar the reader's enjoyment,
by detailing to him the plot of this farcical little
extravaganza ; he must procure the Magazine, and
judge for himself.

LONDON MAGAZINE.
Without any particular pretensions to originality,
whether in criticism, incident, or in the style and
tone of its essays, the London Magazine has this
month put forward a sensible and entertaining num-
ber. The first article, a Review of Lockhart's Life
of Burns, is penned throughout in a high and indeed
somewhat inflated strain of eulogium, towards that
first-rate Scotch poet. It calls him " the greatest
man that ever lived,"—we presume of course in
literature—a sweeping assertion which the Reviewer
will find it somewhat difficult to bear out. His de-
nunciations on the meanness of what he calls the
Scottish literati, who it appears, resolved in a body,
to cut Burns, because he overshadowed them by his
greatness, are truly extravagant, and border closely
on the grotesque.
" But though Burns was just the man who was wanting
to give a beam of glory to his country, and though he came-
at the particular time, and found an introduction to those
who had, as it were, the keeping of the country's honour,
they had the folly, the cold-blooded cruelty, to throw him
away; and however they may palter and shuffle, and
equivocate about the matter, they threw him away for
this little, and truly dirty reason—that he was of nobler
mind, and mightier powers than themselves. They may
lecture, and they may lie; but the brand is on them, and
all the labour even of their viscous tongues will never be
able to lick it off.—lt is hard that this should be the case;
and that we should write it, or read it, or certify its truth,
is gall and wormwood; but it stands upon the record, and
no pigment will hide it, no tool will scrape it, and no
detergent will bleach it away. They may build monu-
ments to their own vanity ; and they may carve upon them
what they please ; but the words that will, in the judg-
ae nsdt r o)'e
carouse,
by
' ment of every honest man, branden and blacken over the
whole,
an ungrateful country ;"—and
ll);1 4)," meet" Destroyed
make speeches—and they
who battened upon the bard in his misery, may he foremost
and loudest—and they may. thump the table at his name,
roar out his songs, quaff till they reel ; but in the midst'
of all this, " time fingers of a man's hand will come forth,
and write upon the wall' words of sorrow and of reproach,
which will be eternal as the name and the songs of the
bard. Aye, and when years and ages shall have rolled
away, when the dust shall have been gathered to the dust,
and not a tittle of the Edinburgh literati, during the ten
fatal years, from 1786 to 1796, shall lie found even in
the limbo of waste paper, the memorial and the execration
of this act of slow moral poisoning will liJe as fresh as ever.
This is strong language, and is not, unluckily,
borne out by fact. Burns on his first appearance at
Edinburgh was received, even according to Mr.
Lockhart, with enthusiasm ; Dr. Blacklock, Blair,
Dugald Stuart, Mackenzie, and a hundred others
welcomed him with open arms, and if a series of
extravaganeies on his part somewhat alienated their
good will, surely they were not to blame? Mr. Lock-
hart has recorded a curious anecdote of his insulting
behaviour towards Dr. Blair, which, if true, would

be fully sufficient to account for, if not to justify,
the conduct of the Edinburgh Literati. " The
Mystic School" is a solemn quiz on German Me.
taphvsics, whose spirit, according to the writer, has
of late transmigrated into the pages of the Edin-
burgh Review. " The Northern Frontier of Tur-
key," though by no means novel in information is,
just at this period, a useful and geographical article.
The remaining contributions are of the usual calibre,
with the exception of one, entitled " Thefts from
the Poets," which evinces some. amusing research.