The Sun.
London, England, 1845-01-13 00:00:00

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LITERATURE.
VACA77OII7 I?A2IIBLES, 2 Volt.
Mason, London, 1545.
The author of this work has been long known to
the public as one of the most successful dramatists of
the age, whose tragedies of lon, Glencoe, and the
Athenian Captive, recently re-issued by Moxon in a
:1-1-ap duodecimo form, have, we understand, been
circulated by thousands among the operative classes
—ll striking proof of the rapid progress that education
and the refined tastes it engenders, have made among
them within the last twenty years. In the volumes
before us Mr. Sergeant Talfourd has essayed a far
less aspiring flight than in the popular productions to
whith we have just referred. Quitting the lofty
walk of the drama—though, we trust, only for a
season—he has come forth as the unambitious
chronicler of three separate continental tours which he
made in the vacations of 1841, and the two subsequent
years. The route which he took is one with which
most Englishmen are familiar, hut he has invested it
with all the charm of novelty, by the freshness and
vivacity of his style, the racy vigour of his descriptions,
and the spirit of ioonhommie and cordiality that per-
vades all his remarks. In this last respect his
volumes present a remarkable contrast to the majo-
rity of similar works with which we are acquainted;
for, however enterprising they may be, courting dif-
ficulties for the pleasure of grappling with and sur-
mounting them, Englishmen—the ungracious truth
must be told—do not, in general, make the most
agreeable travellers, more especially if they happen to
be travelling, not for scientific purposes, but merely
for amusement. In the first place, they are far too
easily put out of their way; secondly, they are im-
bued with too keen a sense of the snug comforts of
home, and take it as a sort of personal affront or
calamity if they do not meet with the same abroad ;
thirdly, they are apt to be intolerant of all usages that
differ from their own.; and fourthly, their distrustful
fancy is always bristling up, " like quills upon the
fretful porcupine," from an apprehension that, go
where they will, they are pretty sure to be "taken in
and done for," to borrow the phraseology of lodging-
houses. Then their inveterate practice of grum-
bling 1 " Think of that, Master Brook !" Without
a grievance John Bull is a fish out of water. If
he cannot find a petty misery ready made to his
hand, he feels it to be a sort or duty to invent one, and
in this respect at least, his invention never plays him
false. Sterne has divided English travellers into two
classes—those who travel " from Dan to Beersheba "
for the perverse pleasure of discovering that " all is
barren," and those—the more rational, but limited
class—who are ready to be delighted with all they see
and hear, to take human nature as. they find it, and'
not to find fault with foreign customs, simply because
they may happen to differ widely from their own.
Mr. Sergeant Talfourd is a .traveller of this last com-
plexion. Unlike Sterne's Smelifungus, he views
everything through a social, cheerful medium. Fluc-
tuating, weather—indifferent accommodations—even
the vexatious' passport system—fail to disturb the
sunny serenity of his mind. On he goes, hoping
for the best, and deriving comfort from the reflection,
that if to-day rain and fog shut out his view of the
Alps, the cloudless sun of to-morrow will enable him
to behold them in all their glory. There is an inex-
pressible charm in a book of travels penned in this
cordial, good-humoured, accommodating spirit. The
reader at once contracts a sort of personal friendship
for the author, and ever after associates his name
with the most pleasing recollections. But not only is
Mr. Talfourd a cordial, sunny-natured traveller, but
like all men endowed with high imaginative faculties,
he has a quick intuitive apprehension of the picturesque,
and nothing can surpass the mingled grandeur and
beauty of some of .his descriptions of Alpine, Italian,
and Rhenish scenery, in which we here and there
meet with touches of genuine poetry, thrown out
quite unconsciously as it were, not unworthy the
author of lon. To his credit, also, it must be
added that he has a nice conception of creature com-
forts • and. the pleasant process of good eating and
drinking goes on in his social pages quite as actively
as in the inimitable Scotch novels. Though en-
raptured of course with the Alps, our author never
forgets the highland and lowland scenery of Scotland,
which he is continually reverting to with satisfaction,
and which seems to have made an impression on his
mind greater even than that produced by the monarch
of European mountains, the snow-crowned Mount
Blanc. Every one is aware that the ascent of this
lofty eminence is a task of no slight difficulty and
some peril, but Mr. Talfourd, undeterred by the
numerous failures of those who have attempted it,
boldly resolved to set his foot on the highest ground
in Europe; and accordingly set out with a tarp
party from the inn at Chaniouni, duly furnished with
guides, porters, provisions, and all things needful for
the hazardous expedition. His account of this ascent
—of his passage across the glaciers—of his dinner on
a ledge of rock half way up—of his night's halt
among 'the snow—and his difficult transit across
an unfathomable chasm—these details are full of
the most romantic interest, and have, besides, a
dramatic force and truthful earnestness about them
that act on the reader's fancy like a spell. We regret
to be compelled to state that our author failed in his
attempt to reach the snowy summit of Mount Blanc.
He managed, however, to get within a few hundred
feet of it, and was then compelled to return, partly in
consequence of his own fast-increasing weakness, and
partly in consequence of the still greater exhaustion
of one of the snore youthful members of the party.
But though he failed in his bold enterprise, he has
still the proud consolation of reflecting that he got
nearer to Heaven than lawyer ever got before, or, we
suspect, will ever
get again; and may boast that he
is the first Queen's Sergeant who ever stood within
three hundred feet of the topmost height of Mount
Blanc We subjoin a
portion of his description of a
appeased—but
night's bivouack among the upper solitudes of this
majestic mountain :
" When the first rage of hunger was
before the tables were eaten or removed (which will not
be for some time)—the guides suggested the expediency
of arranging our dresses at once for the night and for the
ascent, by putting on the warm clothing suitable to both,
and which being once done; would enable us to start as
soon as we should be awakened for the upward march.
huge stockings were, by
A smooth ledge in the next ruck served us in turn for a
dressing-room, in which my
some magic, drawn on ; and the massive shoes which
bad been dried in the sun, resumed ; and gaiters buttoned
over the-trousers in strange fashion—in all which very
arduous accomplishments I was assisted by Julien, with
a delicate dexterity which would have done honour to a
French valet, and a mingled kindness, respect and com-
mand, like those blended in the manner of an old family
servant to a petted young master. I should have
thought the shoes, well saturated with snow,
once re-
moved, could never have been put on over the tremen-
dous stockings ; but even this last miracle of the toilet
was happily accomplished ; and I was pronounced ready
to lie down for the night and to start on the morrow, or
rather at the midnight summons. So, afters cup of weak
brandy and water, which Julien recommended and
shared, I took my pole and picked-my way over the pro.strate bodies of two young gentlemen who were already
asleep, and squeezed myself into my allotted niche, with
my. head supptirted by Jarie comfortable stone, and my
-feet pressed against the low fence edging
the shelf--:
figuring myself to myself as like an effigy on a monu-
ment. The position was in no respect, however, unplea-
sant, except in the confinement of the limbs and a very
very tolerable a couch it proved. The notion of the
slight feeling of sold ; and I was surprised to find how
ledge being a terrible place—overhanging or bordering a
frightful precipice, is entirely erroneous ; its height
above the snow on the side it fronts is not fimrnidable ;
and the bristling irregularity of the rock prevents the
slightest sense of dizziness or danger. It is far beyond
all reach of avaleuches—which are heard in the stillness
of the night thundering down the surrounding but dis-
tant precipices with no more possibility of reaching the
listener, than when he looks on the Jungfrau from the
platform of the Wengern Alp. It has been customary,
according to the published narrative of the ascent, to
erect a tent here, under which the travellers sleep ; and
Mr. Bosworth, early in the afternoon, put up an awning
against the rock and supported it by poles, under which
he proposed to sleep and to include us ;—which seemed
to justify me in applying to our position the woids orthe
the tent was laid
fated Richard—
' Here pitch our tent ; even here in Bcsworth fielslee-e
Up with my tent ; here will I lie to night ; •
Buupt
wwihthe rtehto-morrow?not answer]
WeLl all's one for that
aside, having served no purpose but associating a passage
of Shakspeare with our lot ; enough in itself to huma-
nise the desolate snows ; and its owner, with that quiet
kindness which marked his demeanour finding that one
of the young*, gentlemen needed the accommodation of
the best ledge more than himself, silently resigned it,
without the theatrical expression of Sir Philip Sidney,
and bivouacked on the second rock. We lay, therefore,
with no_ meaner covering than the heavens, on the ledge,
my son occupying the outer place, ' at his+ particular de-
sire, and, for that night only,' and I resting beside him.
He did not, however, come to bed till long after I had
taken up my station ; but was scrambling about the
rocks and breaking chicken bones with the guides, who
kept up the festivity of the evening till after sunset.
" Soon after I had thus set up my rest,' the grand
process of sun-setting began ; and solemn as have been
many sunsets to me, I never saw one—l will not sly
merely equal to this—but one resembling it ; for the dif-
ference was not in degree, but in kind. Above and
around there was not a cloud—not a speck to dim the
deepening azure 'of the sky, nor a fleecy breath of mist
wafted or lingering about the towers or domes of the
mountain. These glowed for a few minutes in deeper
rose.colour than that which appeared to clothe them at
this hour from below ; the summit, as usual, retained it
last ; and when it faded, it left them in the cold white-
ness of the dawn. Thus far—with the grandeur above
us—all passed in its usual procession of glory but while

as from a purer seat subjected enchantmelit spread
beneath us—as if from some pinnacle of heaven, the eye
were permitb d to gaze upon its bm er glories, tb,. habita-
tions and the array of angels. The first appearance of
this vision was that of a celestial city, all of sapphire,
circling a lake of azure, while far away in measureless
distance, legions of angelic hosts—shapeless as those of
Rembrandt, descending on Jacob's slumbers, but giving
like them the sense of winged glories, were ranged, while
tents and pavilions of violet and gold behind them, seemed
to bespeak a martial array. Presently these splendours
became all confused ; and then a sterner grandeur
reigned ; a scene of huge purple caverns and golden
rocks, but beside a sapphire sea studded 'with islands of
deeper gold ; and then the colours blended, and faded,
and nothing but one heap of purple clouds filled the place
of the gorgeous vision ; and I was alone with the rock,
the snow, and the stars."

MEMOIRS OF THE REIGN OF GEORGE
THE 7'HIRD. 2 Vols. Bentley, London, 1845.
Thee long-promised Memoirs, which close the
historical works of Horace Walpole, have at length
made their appearance, and will not, on the whole,
disappoint public expectation. They are printed from
a manuscript copy contained in the box of papers
which came into the possession of the late Earl of
Waldegrave, and were by him transferred to Lord
Holland, in the hope that they might have the benefit
of his editorial skill and judgment. Duties, how-
ever, official and otherwise, of a pressing character,
prevented his Lordship from executing the task, and
at his death it appeared that he had not even com-
menced it. Under these circumstances the present
Duke of Grafton, on whom, as Lord Waldegrave's
executor, the property of the Memoirs had devolved,
consulted Sir Denis Le Marchant on the subject,
who readily undertook the duty of Editor, and the
volumes .now appear under his avowed superinten-
dence. His task has been no slight one, demanding
the union of great industry with proportionate re-
search and impartiality, and he has accomplished it
in a most satisfactory manner, clearing up all the
personal and party references in the text which the
lapse of years has rendered obscure, by brief, ex-
planatory notes, and carefully pointing out to the
reader every instance in which Horace Walpole—
who had strong political predilections and antipathies
—has allowed himself to be led astray by his preju-
dices. The period of which the Memoirs treat—
namely, the first twelve years of the reign of George
the Ihird—has hitherto been comparatively little
known, notwithstanding it was one of more than
ordinary moment, being marked by such stirring
events as the rise of the American revolution, and
the Parliamentary struggle respecting general war-
rants, out of which grew 'a spirit of free, bold,
active inquiry into the prerogatives of the Crown on
the one hand, and the privileges of the pe-ple on the
other. On'this important period the Memoirs before
us shed a clear, steady light, and give us an insight
into the public and private peculiarities of George
the Third's character, the intrigues by which he was
surrounded, and the durance in which he was kept
on his first accession to the throne, which we may
vainly seek elsewhere. We always knew that he was
an obstinate, self-willed, bigoted Monarch, with as
lofty a notion of his own prerogatives as ever was
possessed by the Stuarts, but we had no idea that he
was so astute, circumspect, and, we may even add,
sagacious, as he is here represented to have been. For
the first few years of his reign, during the inglorious
ascendancy of his, favourite Minister, Lord Bute—a
man without the slightest capacity for public busi-
ness—he was kept in a state of thraldom and seclu-
sion by that statesman and his own mother, the
Princess of Wales, which is almost without parallel
in the annals of sovereignty. He was accessible to
none of his Court but at the stated hours of business
and ceremony; nor was any man but the favourite,
and the creatures with whom he had garrisoned the
palace, allowed access to him. Of that lofty states-
man and orator, Lord Chatham, the Memoirs furnish
us with many curious sketches and anecdotes, not
one of which but tends to show the vast hold he had
acquired over the public mind, notwithstanding the;
numerous errors and inconsistencies of which he win',
guilty in the course of his political career. When he
iesigned his seat in the Cabinet, in consequence of
his advice being overruled on the question of war
with Spain, not even his injudicious acceptance of a
Peerage for his wife, and a pension of three thousand
a year for three lives, could destroy his popularity
with the people. They grumbled, it is true, and re-
sented, for a time, his want of high-minded disin-
terestedness ; but they still clung to their favourite
Minister, who had gratified the national pride by
humbling France, and carrying the naval and mili-
tary glory of England to the hilfhest point ; and
when, about a month after his resignation, he dined
with royalty in the City, he was received with en-
thusiastic acclamations, "and the distinctions," says
Horace Walpole, " paid in Guildhall to Mr. Pitt, to
the total neglect of the King, bestowed all the honour
of the triumph on the former." In reference to the
peace with France and Spain, which was the occasion
of Pitt's resigning office, the Memoirs before us state
that the most unblushing corruption was had re-
course to by Fox in the House of Commons in order
to secure a majority in its favour. " The self-inte-
rest," we are told, " of each separate Member was
appealed to ; and this with so little decorum on the
part of either buyer or seller, that a shop was pub-
licly opened at the Pay-office, whither the Members
flocked, and received the wages of their venality in
bank-bills, even'to so low a sum as two hundred
pounds for their votes on the treaty. Twenty-five
thousand .pounds, as Martin, Secretary of the l'rea-
sury, afterwards owned,' were issued in one morning ;
and in a single fortnight a vast majority was pur-
chased to approve the peace I" Truly, thisis a happy
illustration of the wisdom of our ancestors—that wis-
dom of which the Tories are always vaunting, and
which they would gladly see restored among us ! In
closing our brief, hasty notice of the present portion
of these Memoirs, which terminate with the year
1767, we shall just simply state that they are
penned in that light, gossiping, anecdotical vein, of
which Horace Walpole is so consummate a master,
and blend history with biography in a very attractive
manner. As a specimen of the author's powers of
portraiture, we quote his sketches of the notorious
demagogue, John Wilkes, and his contemporary,
Churchill, the satirist :

" The Z'orth Briton proceeded, with an acrimony, a
spirit, and a licentiousness unheard of before even in this
country. The highest names, whether of statesmen or
magistrates, were printed at length, and the insinuations
went still higher. In general, favouritism was the topic,
and the partiality of the Court to the Scots. Every
obsolete anecdote, every illiberal invective, was raked up
and set forth in strong and witty colours against Scotland.
One of the first numbers was one of the most outrageous,
the theme taken from the loves of the Queen Isabella
and Mortimer. No doubt but it lay open enough to
prosecution, and the intention was to seize the author.
But on reflection it was not thought advisable to enter
on the discussion of such a subject in Westminster Hall ;
and, as the daring audaciousness of the writer promised
little decorum, it was held prudent to wait till he should
furnish a less delicate handle to vengeance : a circum-
spection that deceived and fell heavy on the author,
*ho, being advised to more caution in his compositions,
replied, he had tried the temper of the Court by the
paper on Mortimer, and found they did not dare to
touch him.
" This author, who must be so often mentioned in the
following pages, was John Wilkes, Member of Parlia-
ment for Aylesbury. He was of a plebeian family (his
father was a distiller), but 'inherited a tolerable fortune
in Buckinghamshire, and had been bred at Oxford,
where he distinguished himself by humoroui attacks, on
whatever was esteemed most holy and respectable.
Unrestrained either in his conduct or conversation, he
was allowed to have more wit than in truth he possessed ;
and, living with rakes and second-rate authors, he had
acquired tame, such as it was, in the middling sphere of
life, before his name was so much as known to the public.
His appearance as an orator had by no means conspired
to make him more noticed. Ile spoke coldly aid insi-
pidly, though with impertinence ; his manner was poor,
and his countenance horrid. When his pen, which pos-
sessed an easy impudent style, had drawn the attention
of mankind towards him, and it was asked, who this
saucy writer was ? Fame, that had adopted him, could
furnish but scurvy anecdotes of his private life. He had
married a woman of fortune, used her ill, and at last
cruelly, to extort from her the provision he had made
for her separate maintenance ; he had debauched a
maiden of family by an informal promise of marriage,
and had been guilty of other frauds and breaches of
trust. Yet the man, bitter, as he was in his political
writings, was commonly not ill-natured .or acrimonious.
Wantonness, rather than ambition or vengeance, guided
his hand ; end, though he became the martyr of the
best cause, there was nothing in his principles or morals
that led him to care under what Government be lived.
To laugh and riot and scatter firebrands, with hint was
liberty. Despotism will for ever reproach Freedom with
the profligacy of such a saint
" Associated with Wilkes in pleasure and in the com-
position of the North Briton was a clergyman named
Churchill, who stepped out of obscurity about the same
period, and was as open a contemner of decency as
Wilkes himself, but far his superior in the endowments
of his mind. Adapted to the bear-garden by his athletic
mould, Churchill had frequented no school so much as
the theatres. He had existed by the lowest drudgery of
his function, while poetry amused what leisure he could
spare, or rather what leisure he woidd enjoy ; for his
Muse, and his mistress, and his bottle were so essential
to his existence, that they engrossed all but the refuse of
his time. Yet for some years his poetry had proved as
indifferent as his sermons, till a cruel and ill-natured
satire on the actors had, in the first Having
of this reign,
handed him up to public regard. Having caught the
taste of the town, he proceeded rapidly, and in a few
more publications started forth a giant in ;lumbers,
approaching as nearly as possible to his model, Drydp,
and flinging again on the wild neck of Pegasus the reins
which Pope had held with so tight and cautious band.
Imagination, harmony, wit, satire, strenflthi fire,hey were and
sense crowded on his compositions an
welcome for him---he neither sough n
company. Careless of matter and manner,torinvited their
he added
grace to sense, or beauty to justnonsensetsonorous, even
as they came
in his way ; and he could not help
advertised beingvertised the titles of
when he was unintelligible. He
poems, but neither planned nor began them till his book.
sellers,.or his .want -of •money, forced him to thrust out
the crude but glorious sallies of kui uncorrected fancy.

I watched those receding, tints, flocks of clouds arose be-
low ; and filled up the valley of Chamouni to the brim
with tissues waving greyly, like floating shrouds. They
were then seen creeping up within the folds of the valley
beyond, till that also assumed, as far as it was revealed,
the same Spectral veil—while the top of the Br6ren, the
Aiguille.Varens, and the head of the Buet, stood out like
_tbe right
heaven-tinged
islands in that solemn sea. But beyond—in the expanse
to
thel3l4ven topOYhat glory was disclosed!
s cloudland, not to be gazed at from
below by a subject aortal, but to be looked down into