The Sun.
London, England, 1828-05-08 00:00:00

SMITHFIELD.

X. s. X. s. a. X. s.
Lowland Mead. Hay 3 0103 15 Clov. Hay generally 4 10 toy 10
Upland Ditto 315 415 Do. extra tine 0 0 515
ye-grass Hay 315 415 Oat Straw llO 112
New Meadow Hay 0 0 0 0 Wheat Ditto.... 112 IHI
Supply good, trade dull, and prices basely as last quoted.

- - - ---
PARLIAMENTARY PROCEEDINGS.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.
NOTICES OF MOTIONS FOR THIS DAY.

. Sir Francis Burdett--Consideration of the Petition of the

Roman Catholics of Ireland.
.. Mr. Brougham—Consideration of the Petition of the Ro-
man Catholics of Ireland, complaining of their exclu
sion from Parliament.
3. Mr. Sugden—Bill to alter and amend Act 47 Geo. 3,
c. 74, to facilitate the payment of the Debts of Traders.
4. Sir Henry Parnell—Bill for the further improvement
of the Liverpool and Holyhead Mail Road.
5. Dr. Phillimore—To extend the powers given by 1 and
2 Geo. 4, c. 76, to the Deputy Warden of the
Cinque Ports.
ORDERS OF TIIE DAY FOR THIS DAY.
1. Crown Solicitors Bill—Committee.
2. Law of Evidence Bill—Report.
3. Customary Tenure Bill—Committee.

NOTICES GIVEN YESTERDAY.
Friday, May 9.

. - .
Mr. Leycester-1n Committee on the Bankrupt Laws
Amendment Bill, to propose an Amendment in the
35th Clause.

Monday, May 12.

Mr. Lumley—ln ease the East Retford DiNfranehiseinent
Bill is not proceeded with, to move that a New Writ
be issued for the Election of two Members for that
Borough. _ _ _

Thursday, May 15.
Mr. Sugden—Copy of the Commission appointing the
Commissioners for inquiring into Charities.

LINNZAN SOCIETY.--At a Meeting held on
Tuesday evening, the Lord Bishop of BATH and WEr.t,s,
and the Right Hon. Earl BROWNLOW, were ballotted for,
and elected Fellows. Dr. GOODENOUGH, Dr. FITTEN, and
Mr. BENNErr were elected Auditors. An interesting
communication on the mamillary organs of the kangaroo
was read. The Secretary announced, that at the ensuing
Anniversary Meeting, a proposition would be made to pur-
chase the valuable collection of Sir .1. SMITH, their late
lamented President.

Again has it been the painful duty of the
public journals to record the death of another gentleman,
by the running away of the horses in a Bristol coach,
while several individuals were more or less injured by the
melancholy accident. Should any of the latter sue tl.
Proprietors for damages, they must expect to pay dearly
for their negligence and inattention to the public safety.
We would ask, why was not that coach equipped with
Lieutenant Cooi's Patent Life Preserver, which has
been so long tried and well proved, even to a stage
coach ? To our knowledge it was running to a Brighton
coach so long ago as December last, and is now running to
the same coach (the Royal Patriot), from the Bolt-in-
Tun, Fleet-street. The respectable Proprietor, Mr. GRAY,
had been. proving the adaptation of the invention to the
end proposed, by pulling up four fine horses from full
speed eight or ten times, in Portland-place, just before we
inspected the coach thus rendered truly safe, on Friday
last, and we sincerely hope the Public will show its satis-
faction at his laudable desire to study its security, at an
expense to hisaself, by giving his Brighton Patriot that
decided preference which his conduct so justly merits.

The Right Hon. the Ex-Master of the Mint
is among our arrivals; we are sorry to say he is not look-
ing well.—Brighton Gazette.
Our brother M- broke into the candid
ejaculation of " I have al►uoa, forgot my Latin !" " Why
don't you forget it quite," exclaimed ARNOLD, " for your
Latin is better forgot than remembered ?"—Nett Monthly
Magazine.

We understand that there is likely to be some
interruption to the fustian trade, in consequence of a simul-
taneous demand by all the master dyers of a very con-
siderable advance in the price of dying : to which the
manufacturers are not disposed to accede. We believe the
journeymen dyers are also endeavouring to obtain an advance
of wages; and there was yesterday a very numerous meet-
ing of them behind All Saints' Church, Chorlton-row,
with the view of completing the union which at p►esent
exists amongst them.—Manchester Mercury.

On Saturday night, some miscreant decoyed
an unfortunate girl into the Leen-yard, Red Lion-street,
where be grosely ill-used her, and, after tearing her pockets
away, threw her over a wall into a receptacle for filth,
where, upon giving an alarm, she was found standisg up
to her middle, and nearly suffocated. All the money she
bad was Is. 6d. which the thief missed, as the girl kept it
in her mouth.— Arottin9hani Mercury.

,
Yesterday morning, oetween two and three
o'clock, the warehouses attached to the extensive wharfage
of Messrs. JONES, HULL, and Co., Cornfactors, in Dale-
street, Old Wapping, were destroyed by fire. The damage
done is very great, but the property was fully insured.
During the conflagration a clump of bricks at the rear of
the premises fell with a loud crash, and crushed two men
so dreadfully, that they were carried to the hospital in a
hopeless state.

A man in Lathoin, in the employ of Lord
SIELUERSDALE, a few weeks ago, sold his child, a floe
girl, about eight years of age, to a party of itinerant tinkers
or gipsics, for three guineas ; with which money his wife,
it is said, bought a new cloak and I,ounei:. The affair
coming to the ears of the steward, he, very properly
threatened to appeal to the law if he did not immediately
bring her back. This he attempted, but it was too late,
for they had decamped. The man was, in consequence,
taken before a Magistrate, and committed to take his trial
for so unfeeling an act—Liverpool Mercury.

EATING A NOISE.—A few nights ago, one of
our townsmen having been solacing himself with a pipe
and pot, was returning home in a state of beatitude. On
entering Silver-street, however, his pleasing reveries were
all at once dispersed by a rude shock, which he received
from a keelman moving in a different direction. This was
not to be borne, and a war of words, followed by symptoms
of fistic prepar,nion, shewed the belligerent intentions of
the opponents. But, instead of shewing
_right the keel-
man shmed his tusks, with which he fastened on the un-
fortunate toper's nasal organ, and chewed away most un-
mercifully. The sufferer roared Out for the watch, by
whose assistance the cannibal was at length choked off;
yet not without having committed " Mat burglary" on the
luckless nose in question, and leaving the marks of his
grinders in the adjacent territories.—Hull Packet.
There are several species of the vulture in
South Africa ; but the most common is the large light
coloured vulture,
Egyptians.
hyaenas the office of carrion scavengers ; and the prompti-
tude with which they discover and devour every dead car-
casePerenopterus, one of the sacred birds of
the ancient These fowls divide with the
is truly surprising. They also instinctively follow
any band of hunters, or party of men travelling, espe-
cially in solitary places ; wheeling in circles high in
the air, ready to pounce down on any game that
may be shot and not instantly secured, or the carcase
of any ox or other animal that may perish on the road.
I have seen a large ox so dexterously handled by a flock of
these voracious fowls, that in the course of three or four
hours not a morsel except the bones and the skin (which
they had contrived to disincarnate almost entire) remained
for the hyaenas. In a field of battle in South America, no
one ever buries the dead : the birds and beasts of prey re-
lieve the living of that trouble. Even the bones, except
a few of the less manageable parts, find a sepulchre in the
veracious maw of the liywna,—Note to Prinyle's Poems,

LITERATURE.

THE PRIMA DONNA :-A TALE OF TO-DAY.
LONDON, 1628.

' This is as arrant a specimen of book-making, as
we have ever had the ill-luck to wade through.
We have in vain endeavoured to detect a glimpse of
talent, or even of common sense, in its pages; every
thing in the shape of intellect has been most dili-
gently omitted, and its place usurped by what Sheri-
dan aptly calls " the tinsel of French sentiment."
We need scarcely inform our readers, that Maddle.
Sontag is the heroine of this precious farrago, and is
supposed,while attached to the Leipsic theatre, to have
accidentally met with a young stranger—beautiful of
course, and in disguise—who fell at one comprehen-
sive glance violently and incurably in love with her.:
To this part of the story we do not in the least ob-
ject—having always steadily maintained an opinion
that ten minutes is fully sufficient for all purposes of
a rational and becoming courtship—bat we do protest
most decidedly against that ungenerous spirit which
panders to the worst appetites of the public—its
love of scandal, its relish for personalities, and mixes
up the reigning favourites of the day with a tissue
of extravagant fictions, borrowed from Continental
Newspapers. The plot of the " Prima Donna" is
to the following effect. A stranger named Linden
arrives at Leipsic on the very evening when Made-
moiselle Sontag (Rosignuola, as she is affectedly
termed) is to perform at the Theatre. As a matter
of course, the stranger goes to see her, and next day

attends at her Levee, when he at once, without the
slightest ceremony, vows that he cannot live with-
out her. She hints in reply, that she is equally
combustible ; upon which they both begin talk-
ing about Goethe, Schiller, Milton, and Dante,—
(pretty conversation this for two lovers the
first time of meeting)—after this they pro-
ceed to business, she looks at him "with an ex-
pression of confidence beaming from her eyes" (a
periphrastic mode of saying that she stares) and he
very properly taking the hint, "imprints the first
kiss of love on her unresisting lips." Unluckily
however, a Lord Rainbow, an English nobleman,
whose prototype exists neither in nature nor art,
interferes with the Prima Donna's affections, and
being detected by Linden in the very act of " doing
the agreeable" is kicked down stairs, much to the
surprise, and we may naturally conclude, dissatisfac-
tion of his Lordship. For this the English nobleman
challenges the German stranger ; and accordingly
they both meet in a wood near Leipsic, where, how-
ever, the morning's recreation is interrupted by a
file of soldiers, who carry off both parties to the
watch-house—we beg pardon, to a guard-house at
the further end of the town. And now comes the
upshot of the business. The German stranger is
discovered to be no stranger at all, but the real
uw-
doubted son of Duke Christian, who, after the usual
exhibition of parental passion, consents to hie son's
union with Mademoiselle Sontag, provided that she
remai❑ unsullied after a two years' exposure to the
temptations or Berlin, Paris, and London. The
ordeal of the first two she passes unharmed; nor do
we think that she is likely to suffer much from any
extraordinary fascinations that she may meet with
behind the scenes at the Opera. The novel, however,
anticipates this conclusion—the season is represented
as having passed—the period of temptation con-
cluded—virtue triumphant and fidelity rewarded.
In a word, Mademoiselle Sontag is converted, by
the apt interposition of a Parson, into the Princess
Linden, and "declared the acknowledged participa-
tor of a Regal Crown."
So ends this trash, which is kept in admi-
rable countenance by the style in which it is writ-
ten.
Every page presents us with some novel
absurdity in thought or diction. The mind of
a great man, for instance, is turned into an elephant's
trunk, after the following poetic fashion. " The
mind of a great man is like the trunk of an elephant,
which can tear a huge tree from its rooted founda-
tion and toss it into the air, or sportively pick up a
feather as it float: in the passing breeze." We dare
say Mr. Brougham's mind will be much gratified by
this discovery. Speaking of the hero's face, the
author says, that the heroine could discern "in his
languishing dark eye the history of passionate feel-
ings subdued, though still cherished,' which is as
much as to say that a man is dead though still alive;
and reminds us of a certain theatrical critic of the
(lay, who discovered in Mademoiselle Sontag's nose
indications of considerable intelligence. Alluding
to a person who is astonished at the use of some
word or other, our novelist exclaims, " had he met a
basilisk he could not have stared more wofully than
he did at that monosyllable." A man staring at
a monosyllable ! What a picture for Cruickshank
After Prince Linden had given the "Prima Donna"
-his first kiss, we are informed that " a new vista
was expanded before his mental eye, and he luxu-
riated in its flowery prospect"—a most miraculous
effect of a kiss. Further on, the author says "La
Rosignuola was the key which had unwound all the
melody of Linden's feelings, and he revelled in their
joyous birth. His whole existence, the past, pre-
sent, and hereafter, was comprehended in that word.
He took lodgings between her house and the theatre."

Is not this last sentence a delicious sample of the
bathos ? Mademoiselle Sontag bad unlocked the
cup-board door in which Prince Linden's holiday
feelings, together with his holiday clothes, were
kept, therefore—he took lodgings between her house
and the theatre. Speaking of a somewhat un-
ceremonious proposal that the shrinking and sen-
timental Prince had just made to the " Prima
Donna," the novelist moralizes in the following
strait', which possesses every merit, but that of
meaning The truth struck its deadly fangs into
her soul, but the venom flt:d from its pure surface, as
the night-damp that weighs on the flower melts at
the first virgin beam of the sun." There arc a hun-
dred similar absurdities in this trashy volume, such
as—" the thunder of approaching eternity"—" the
city divinely perceptible in the vague twilight of the
past evening and the coining day"—(what can this
'wean?)—" the hymn of the watchman spread a
mysterious feeling in the breast as it ascended
towards the skies" (quere the hymn or the watch-
man)—which nothing but a consideration for the
reader's patience prevents us from noticing at full
length. The book, in short, is manifestly a make
up—the patch-work of some brazen scribbler—a
worthy member of that select squad of whom Swift
has spoken in his "Tale of a Tub," when he says,
that " from the circumstance of their being born
without brains they make excellent sentimental
novelists."

Yesterday Prince GEORGE paid a visit to the
Court of King's Bench, and having made his bow to the
Judge retired.
MODERN FAMILIARITY WITH ROMF'..---
There was a time (and it is not very long ago, for it was
in our younger days, and we are not yet very old), when
to have been at Rome, and to have trodden on the ruins of
the seven-billed city.--to have beheld, as HOBBES expresses
it with quaint sublimity, " the ghost of the deceased
Replan 14]1•-pire sitting throne(' upon the grave themof,"
implied a sort of distinction to a man—and far more to a
woman. To have had occular demonstration of the
Coliseum and the Palatine, and to have commanded our
coachman to drive to " the Capitol !" or " to cross the
Tiber!" (which Madame de STAF.L reckons not among
the least of a traveller's pleasures), was indeed something
extraordinary. Ilut how times are changed ! People mi-
grate to Italy, as once to Devonshire, for change of
air ; and think no more of crossing the Alps than of
rattling down to Brighton. Rome, the mother of Christen-
dom, the queen of the pagan world, has had her magnifi-
cent desolation invaded by troops of semi-barbarous idlers—
has become as common ground as Bath or Cheltenham.
Young lawyers go there to lounge away the vacation, and
read HoancE—and young ladies to spend the Christnias
holidays, and take lsons in singing ; Mr. llinciNs, and
Alis• WIGGINS, and the nine Miss SimmoNs's, talk as
familiarly of the Coliseum and the Pantheon as maids of
thirteen do of puppydogs ; and the imperial City, divested
of every' charm borrowed from memory and imagination,
history and poetry, has truly fallen in reputation ; being
regarded in a point of view totally different from that which
existed fifty years ago.—(From the introduction to a notice
of nil Ans a Rome, in the last number of the Fore*
Reviea, and Continental Miscellany.)