The Sun.
London, England, 1844-04-01 00:00:00

MAGAZINE DAY.

BLACK WOOL'S MAGAZINE.
discussions inOns the House of The recent Irish "1;
Com-
mons form, as might be expected, a prominent subject
• of consideration in the present Number of this Ma-
gazieee.' The article, like most articles of a similar
nature in. Blackwood, is full of fallacious statements,
41'41.is plenteously endowed with impudence—to a
fee indeed that renders it positively amusing.
s, the writer gravely assures us that the last
(Government had just the same power to redress the
' wrongs of Ireland, as is possessed •by the present ;
• though it is notorious that the Whigs could seldom se-
cure a majority of even nine on Irish questions, while,
the Tories boast of one just ten times as nurneroui .
Again, with equal gravity, he states that " the bias
of the gentry -and of the aspiring of all ranks is
•tofwards Protestantism" contemptuously regardless
.ilh the 'well-known fact that the proportion of Ca-
olis to Protestants in the sister-country is at this
Inninent far greater than it has been for the last
141rlared Years! On the subject of the recent State
'tsar"
in Dublin • this eeckles3 Tory par-
'tsar" is not merely entheisiastic, but breaks out
par-
to such bursts of rhapeodical frenzy as would justify
tile application. 4
yee prosecut'ein as A strait-waistcoat. He describes
"the mightiest of spectacles which
hurnan.graeideur can unfold!" and adds, "the trial
was made,
reader ki ': and with what perfection of success the
de, for let us remind him that the perfec-
'ion we we 'sneak' of lay as much in the manner of the
trial as in its result—in the sanctities of abstnence,in
the in
forbearance to use any one of the many decent
ad'iatitales in the reverence for the sublime equities
a"v l' The "holy forbearance" of the Crown was
certainly exhibited in a moat unequivocal fashion, by
theißt. striking off of the ten Catholic jurors ; and, as for
the saris
sanctities of abstinence," who does not remember
eed, when,
iners?aeliaciteinivi7:l3enis "abstinence" which the Attorney-
.endicator a in his official capacity as chief
end euardian of the law, he sent a chal-
-1,1 ge tole P
-orth the,. label
- el% gibbon ! But the article is scarcely
it is re . - labour of re first to last,
refutation ; fur, from.
which Pelete with misstatements and contradictions,
3"° are put forth with a free-and-easy indifference,
once • s ° '4Y.in. the most intrepid effrontery. Horace
4, po g kef
of the first navigator as being a man
;cased in
les triple brass;" had the poet lived in these
"Ss, he would have found in the writer of these arti-
n " Ireland," an individual possessed of quite as
nnuch brass as the earliest mariner. The "Pirates of
7S!lia" is a wild melodramatic tale, whose scene is
"laid in *Venice, in the earlier part of the seventeenth
cetititrY• The " Slave Trade" is a painful document,
drawn , u
clergymanp
from. materials furnished by nn English
, who was himself on board a cruizer that
hundred and B
capturedaßrazilian slave •ship, where not less than four
•
iwere
n sevent negrces, nien, women, andchildren,
found chained together like dogs, in a cabin
• I."; I.Yth*:seven feet long, and three feet and a half
er—egh,_ Al, ettliii occurred under the vertical sun of the
5();In•u
Pmst .Iti '" Moslem Histories of Spain" we find
curious particulars respecting the Arabs of
Cordova, one of whose most eminent rhetoricians
re
leosseesed, it seems, an " ocean of language." What
qt tasure this man would have been to the Tories in
the Rouse of Commons, who so often find it neces-
nary to follow the example of their chief and talk
against time! - The " British Fleet" is a biographical
Memoir of the late Earl St. Vincent, who, though
wall
his just in his conduct towards the officers under
'is command, was not always so, for he once refused
yin
b appointment to a "favourite" Captain, because he
heen guilty of the crime of matrimony, he him-
self having perpetrated the same act not two months
befbmouseeT he biographer's description of the
fa ' battle off Cape St. Vincent is very
Spirited and graphic, and will remind the
reader of some of Southey's sketches of
naval actions in his ." Life of Nelson." The " Me-
moirs of a Statesman" fall off in interest this month.
We have far too much of the prison of St. Lazare,
and the hero's adventures therein. " Two Nights in
Southern Mexico" impress us with a very vivid notion
of the pleasures of travelling in that paradisaical re-
gicul• The writer describes himself as forming one
of a party who journied a hundred miles from Mexico
ugh a Country rarely " trodden but by native
feet,' and in the course of this agreeable expedition,
Ile w
e ehalf suffocated by fogs, bitten to within an
"as of his life by muequitoes, cuffed and clawed and
Pinched by a drove of gigantic apes, frightened out
of his wits by a thunder storm, hurled headlong from
ad his wits
- gave way beneath him, and all but
f
hfclwened in a mountain torrent which took charge o
•s ending Pleasant twe g person ! variety this for two
of°; iri travelling ! We -subjoin the author's accou
the attacks made on him by the musquitoes and
apes during his bivouac in a low valley :
a "t was somewhere about midnight when I
swi was
fwaltened by an indescribable sensation of oPPres'ito
Cr' the surrounding atmosphere. The air seemed
s„art2 longer air, but some poisonous exhalation thathad
,---",`AerlY arisen and enveloped us. From the rear of the
-"vale in which we lay, billows of dark mephitic mist
were rolling forward, surrounding' us with their baleful
Influence. It was the vomito prieto, the fever itself em-
bodied in the shape of a fog. - At tile same moment, and
while I was gasping
settle open nle, for breath, a sort of cloud seemed to
and a thousand stino.s, like red-hot
''eedleS", Were run into my hands, face, neck—intot' every
part of my limbs and body that was not triply guarded
by clothing. I instinctively stretched forth my hands
and closed them, clutching by the action hundreds of
'enormous mosquitoes, whose droning, singing noise now
almost- deafened me. The air was literally filled by a
dense swarm of these insects •
their repeated and venom 'and
•
and the agony caused by
It was a perfect plamue of Egypt'bable
stings was indescri •
mock was slung some ten
g ; I heard
tongue . Rowley, whose ham-
him
kier(l yards
mine, soon gave
from
and swearing, with a vigour ;ndandplunging, spluttering
ludicrous under energy that tvould have
matters were justany other
rnotnent ase circumstances ; but
then too serious for a laugh. At that
guish as I scree a scream of such terror and an-
.women . never heard before or since—a scream as of
evithiiiil inf
their houtofagony and extreme peril, sounded
and I (117 ntiCes of us. I sprang out of my hammock,
darted ! did sO, two white and graceful female figures
VlEt_.. or rather flew by me, shrieking—and oh !in
,: heart-reading tones—for ' Socorro ! Socorro ! Par
in
.1 Help ! help !" Close upon the heels of the
nTes, bounding and leaping along with enormous
which
and springs, came three or four dark objects,
resembled nothing earthly. The human form
:!hoe; certainly possessed ; but so hideous and horrible.
._,..u.nenatural and spectre-like was their aspect, that their
Juno it encounter in that gloomy ravine, and in the
almost darkness that surrounded us, might well have
Rowley the strongest nerves. We stood for a second,
theseste.„and myself, paralysed with astonishment at
restored'en-0 appearances ; but another piercing'scream
had either
to us our presence of mind. One of the women
white her
tripped or fallen from fatigue, and she lay a
was i,.:4eaPt upon the ground. The drapery of the other
leh tw the clutch of one of the spectres, or devils, or
rushed? ever they were, when Rowley, with a cry of horror
star forward, and struck a furious blow at the mon-
te with his muchetto. At the same time, and almost
'C'„' 'Tilt knowing how, I found myself engaged with
oTh°t4Ter of the creatures. But the contest was no equal
our : 'll vaM did we stab and strike with our machettoes ;
b • n'Tq•aennists*ere covered and defended with a hard
oorttlY hide, which our knives, although keen and
ens hall great difficulty in penetrating ; and on the
arn3 -anti we found ourselves clutched in long sinewy
nails we.re
6, ternairating in hands and fingers, of which. th,e
felt attire
a; sharp and strong as an eagle's talons. e
creature- horrible claws strike into my shoulders as the
bales
in the e, , me, and drawing me towards him, pressed
beettel hi me,
of a bear ; while his hideous half-man
hie 1 keenvisage was grinning and snarling at me, and
wiviirsgi,... W. h.ite teeth were snapping and gnashing
e. inches
.Of ray, face."
In the pilreaNTZE r. 8 MiSCELLANY. don Life ~ 414 chapters of his " Physiology of Lon-
sUbjett 4 j.u. rti Murray, while discoursing on the
justice tO the eiAnns, talees the opportunity of doing
Most original .riunortal George Robins, by far the
shouldgelllllllB
tionably of the day, and who unques-
Mr. Hurne,s „, N have
et, t)e.eupied a foremost place in
lone.
6 beeri familiar
- Spirit of the Age." We have
great master
of
the with the advertisements of this.
astonishment at the
Rt.odigality of descriptive, and have been lostfi l
invention
splendid imagery and wondtarmu.
r °ll cannot, sa .vention that characterises them.
puree out f 3's the old proverb, " make a esilk
a sovv's ear but Scott of. a George—the "Walter
of this Ueetion_eers—eis a., proof of the utter fallacy
adage,
he eau nuanuf -116 y a single flourish of his magic pen
eert, hors actnee a palace out of a pig-stye; con-
wane c-pond into a translucent lake do ted with
e "4 and, bordered with fragrant shrubs and flowers ;
of
sec."../.4.re„up a noble mansion fit "for the resideece
tiya4".e-,e P.f in a spot, where to the dull, unimagina-
tuneble3 do° matter-of-fact nothing is visible but a
1i.r...,... wn cottage, with an imperfectly developed
ra:ltemi house attached to it ! Then, mark the necro-
ie powers of his to
! With what exquisite
Ne. wed-freedom purling streams and winding rivers
flow in SMALL CAPITALS through his advertisements;
.. • 4
an.l, stately palaces rise in all the dignity of italics,
,witn.nothing wanting to reader them absolute perfec-
q_°nt but the smallest possible outlay of money! It
4_B, a . remarkable fact that " hard and soft water"
_a°,ound in all the " premises" which George. is corn-
estateed to dispose of; the rents, too, of the
e; are invariably paid with punctuality ; the
itteate is peculiarl " favourable to longevity ;"
andmoonlight falls there
Y •
, ells there with a softness and a beauty
"5.411,.en as are witnessed in no other part of Christendom.
7!' would not wish to alarm the modesty of this
fund heing—inen of genius arerdways shy and bash-
li.,_ hut. we would humbly venture to suggest it to
,le Robins that he owes it to his own fame to repub-
-Ish his advertisements in one or more volumes, in
order that remote posterity may know of what bril-
nantflights .of imaination the nineteenth century
Ras
..-
,eapable. The" "Fortunes of the Scattergood
truly" improve as they proceed, because the author
p, ore to his own resources, and less to an imita-
-o°n.ofm Dickens. The scene of the first representa-
-4 (if Mr. Glanalvon Fogg'e melodraa -at a mnor
, eatre is adroitlyeand• humourouslym
touched toff.,
;Meditations at a Kitchen Window by a Hungry
"et" is a smart, good-humoured poem, whose cha-