The Sun.
London, England, 1845-11-07 00:00:00

What a" gradient through Avernus !
What. a curve will Hades take !
.When with joy the Shades discern us,
How Hell's terminus will shake!
How the Pandemonium Junction,
With the Central will combine,
Rattling both without compunction
Down the Tartarus incline!
Phlegethon no more need fright us,
For we've bridged its fiery way;
And the Steamer on Cocytus
Long ago has ceased to pay.
Charon—under sequestration
Does the Stygian bark resign,
Glad to find a situation
As policeman to the line.
Thoughts of penance need not haunt us ;
Who remains our sins to snub?
Pluto, Minos, Rhadamanthus,
All have joined the " Railway Club."

DOLMAN'S MAGAZINE:
. • Notre Dame des Victoires" is an impressive and
romantic story of a dream which has the effect of re-
claiming from a career of wild dissipation-and impend-
ing death Casimir Dolatour, the last descendant of an
ancient, and illustrious house in Languedoc. The writes
Touches for the truth of this. extraordinary vision, its
precedents, and its results. It is somewhat too sustained
an affair, like the dream in M. Scribe's " Victorine ;"
but, otherwise, it is picturesquely conceived and elo-
quently told. Mr. S. F. Buckingham's. " Mary• Queen
of Scots and Lord Brougham" is a very needless re-
sumption of the argument which has been raised—and
successfully—in twenty other quarters, to prove the
.bigoted fallacies that have been ihdulged in by
the .neble''' historian of the -" Lives of Men
of, Lettets in the Reign of George the Third."
Unless Mr. BUckingham innocently labours under
the delusion that the clever ex-Chancellor is an histo-
rical or polemical authority safely to be trusted,we cannot
understand, how such a writer as Mr. S. F. Buckingham
can have brought himself to suppose that he could con- .
tribute any new light, or adduce any fresh facts, to corro-
borate the ample and really able vindication of the unfor-
tunate and persecuted Mary, which has lately been coms
pleted by Prince Lubanoff. All that was necessary to '
.be done, in the shape of critical abstract, for the purpose
of introducing the extensive work, of the distinguished
Russian to`the great bulk of the English reading public,
had been already unexceptionably peforrned in the pages
of the. Athenajn. We are the more disposed to offer
this remark, on account of the threat with, which this
paper Concludes, ." To be continued." " The Countess
Clemente," by the editor, is continued ;- • and these
chapters have some good groupings and clever situa-
tions. The " Hornpipe" is a mortally long one ; and
though its "Sketch of the Scariff Mountains" is graphic
and fresh, it is disfigured by local politics, and a dash of
moreover„that have no interest for the general
readei. " A tale of (Word Life"' iS a'brief but very
_graceful poem on the untimely fate of a student—the
young .Vernon-who, having formed an unfortunate
connexion, finally destroys himself by plunging into the
Isis. Here are some exquisite pencillings of the abode,
and of some lineaments of the " frail Ellinor:"—
" A little on I pased ; and stood before
A latticed cottage, where a streamlet foams
Through cowslipp'd grassplot ; and the jalouse o'er
Hung many a rich red rose or droop'd around the door.
" Upon the casement lay a soft white hand,
Which ever arid anon was rais'd to pull
Some odorous bud that dangled from its stand;
A dazzling arm it was, right beautiful ;
And o'er it were a pair of dark eyes, full
And gleaming ;—the eloquent deep passion shone
On that wild youthful brow. The beds of- Gul
Were not more delicate than the tints thereon ;
Like rose-ting'd silvery shell, on tropic island thrown.
" Too much of dreaminess, perhaps, there lay
In the soft form and the voluptuous eyes;
The tissued robe, perhaps, was over gay—
Yet did I -gaze, and gaze in mute surprise,
Watching to catch her lips' sweet melodies.
For lips so-lovely must speak soft, I trove* !
To stand and mark such charms is little wise :
But pencill'd lashes, but enchanting brow !
In girlhood's flush, how fair, frail Ellinor, wert thou !"
A discovery of intercourse. with this fair one
ensues. He. rushes forth in all the self-abasement of con-
scious guilt:—
" How calm, how beautiful! no wild wind's rage
Had stirr'd the baby-bloom upon the trees;
But o'er the rose- clad little parsonage
Wove they their big green arms :—the odorous breeze
Bore to the near churchyard its melodies,
There where his steps above his grandame's grave
A thousand times had strayed, while round his-knee
'l'win'd the long grass, that all spring through did wave
O'er the grey burial stones that spoke Christ's power to save.
" And overhead, a woof of orange light
Was shot through the blue vestment of the sky;
And there was that deep silence of the night,
That rustling of an angel's pinions by,
That wondrous music of tranquillity
All Nature's lovers love."
The catastrophe, although it savours somewhat of too
close, but perhaps involuntary, a recollection of Milton's
Lycedas, is eminently poetical:—
" Surely this woe is far too great to bear,
Surely''twere better, omy soul, to die ! •
Ye cold cold waters spread so brightly there,.
Ye are not colder than earth's charity-7
Father, no father hest thou been to me—
One sin, one shame, and all thy love of old
Ilath flown for ever, ceas'd for aye to be; •
My love for thee is changeless and untold—
Wherefore thy will so stern, wherefore thy heart so cold?'
He said, and pluug'd where fresh and graceful fall
The many lilies with-their garlands green ' • •
Upon the waters, like a coronet
For nymph, by haunted dreamer dimly seen, •
Rushing with foam-white foot the waves between.—
The waters closed around him and before,
And stirr'd the broad-leav'd lilies; and a sheen
Of sparkling drops glitter'd each calyx o'er.
' Then slept the ruffled lake—and Version was no more
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