The Sun.
London, England, 1844-07-01 00:00:00

NE IV MOATHLY MAGAZINE.

Mr. Cyrus Redding's " Recollections of the Author
of Vathek" are here brought to a conclusion, and will
leave a favourable impression on the reader's mind of
the frankness and bonhornmie of the eccentric octo-
genarian. Mr. Beckford appears to have exhibited
little reason in conversation, but gave his opinion of
the numerous great men with whom be had come in
contact in the course of his protracted career, with the
utmost candour. Of the first Lord Chatham he said—
" He was much too high-minded for George the
Third, who was a man of coarse feelings. High-
minded noblemen are not royal favourites." The
Chatham Correspondence, published within the last
five or six years, proves that his Lordship was not
quite so high-minded as Mr. Beckford represents him
to have been. Witen it suited his purpose to do so, he
could fawn on royalty as readily as even a Newcastle ;
and some of his letters to George the Third are
penned in the most abject styli of flattery. Yet,
compared with his contemporaries, and keeping in
mind the despicable character of the age in which he
lived, Chatham was certainly a high-minded states-
man. He had a more generous, unhesitating confi-
dence in his countrymen than any Minister has ever
shown before or since his time; and had he not, like
Palteney, committed the grievous blunder of ackept-
ing a peerage, which, for many a long year, weighed
heavily on his popularity, he might have kept the
King in a state of all but vassalage up to the period
when he retired from public life. With all his faults,
remembering also his egregious, his almost purile va-
nity, and love of dramatic effect, we must confess
to a hearty admiration of Lord Chatham.
For five years of his meteoric career, he
showed himself the loftiest, most energetic, and most
triumphant statesman that England ever produced,
and centuries may elapse ere she will be able to pro-
duce his equal. The " Perfidious Engineer" is a
slight sketchy story, told not without a certain degree
of easy humour, and turning upon the causeless
jealousy of a lean old woman, as dry as a chip, who
has married the engineer of a railway, and mistakes
the steam-boat Adelaide, which he is constantly
praising, for a female rival of that name. The late
Haynes Bailey would have worked up a lively farce
out of such materials. " Lights and Shades " are
from the pen of Mr. Maxwell, and furnish us with
some entertaining anecdotes, bordering on the extra-
vagant, respecting Irish duels, in the glorious old times
when these affairs were of daily occurence in Ireland,
and a nephew, from some real or fancied cause of
offence, would not hesitate an instant in calling out
his uncle and winging him. There can he no mis-
taking the author of the " Robertses on their Travels"
which displays all that coarse, worldly manner for
which Mrs. Trollope is so remarkable. We miss,
however, much of that broad humour which amused
us in her tale of the Barnabys. " Faults on both
Sides" is an ingenious essay, in which a common-
place axiom is treated with no more deference than it
deserves. In the " Talleyrand Papers "we find here
and there an interesting incident, but the present
chapter is much too long and wire-drawn. 6' Old
Cries" are gracefully versified by Miss Eliza Cook,
who possesses much of that sweetness and faci-
lity of versification which are so conspicuous in the
poems of the late Mrs. Maclean. The " Libelled
Benefactor" is a poetical allegory in Horace Smith's
best manner. We subjoin it for our readers' amuse-
ment :--

They warn'd me, by all that affection could urge,
To repel his advances and fly from his sight ;
They call'd him a fiend, a destroyer, a scourge,
And whisper'd his name with a shudder of fright.
They said that disease went as herald before,
While sorrow and severance follow'd his track,
They besought me if ever I came to his door,
Not a moment to pause, but turn instantly back.
" His breath," they exclaimed—" is a pestilence foul,
His aspect more hate ful than language can tell,
His touch is pollution—no Gorgon or Ghoul,
In appearance and deeds is more loathsome, and fell."
Such stern prohibitions, descriptions so dire,
By which the most dauntless might well be dismay'd,
In me only awaken'd a deeper desire,
To gaze on the monster so darkly portray'd.
I sought him—l saw him—he stood by a marsh,
Where henbane and hemlock with poppies entwined ;
He was pale, he was grave, but no feature was harsh,
His eye was serene, his expression was kind.
" This stigmatised being," I cried in surprise,
" Wears a face most benignant ; but looks are not
facts ;
Physiognomy often abuses our eyes,
I'll follow his footsteps, and judge•by his acts."
There came from a cottage a cry of alarm,
. .

An infant was writhing in agimies sore,
His hand rock'd the cradle, its touch was a charm,

The babe felt asleep—all its anguish was o'er.
He reach'd a proud mansion where' worn by the woe
Of-consumption, a beauty lay -wither'd in bed, _
Her pulse he cmppress'd with his fingers, and lo I
The complaint, of long years in a moment had fled I
He paused where he heard the disconsolate moan
Of a widow, with manifold miseries crush'd ;
Where a pauper was left in his sickness to groan,—
Both were healed at his sight, and their sorrows were
. hush'd.
He sped where a king, sorely smitten with age,
,In vain sought relief from-the pangs he endured.

"I come,' said the strangely" your woes to assuage :"
He spoke, and the monarch was instantly cured.
Astounded by deeds. which appeared to bespeak
In the fiend a benevolent friend to mankind,

From liimielf I resolvedi solution to seek

Of the strange contradiction that puzzi'd my mind.
" Chase, mystical being !" I cried, " this suspense ;
How cornea- it thou'rt blacken'd by every tongue,
When in truth, thou'rt the champion, the hope, the de-
fence, -
Of the king and the beggar, the old and the young ?"
" Thou hest witness'd," he answered (his voice and his
. face
Were all that is musical, bland, and benign)
" Not a tithe of the blessings I shed on the race,
Who my form and my attributes daily malign.
" All distinctions of fortune, of birth, of degree,
Dis4pear, where my levelling.banner I wave ;
From his desolate dungeon the captive .I free ;
His fetters I strike from the suffering slave.
And when, from their stormy probation on earth,
The just and the righteous in peace I dismiss,-
I give them a new and a more glorious birth,
In regions of pure and perennial bliss."
" Let me bless thee," I cried, " for thy missions of love ;
Oh say to what name shall I fashion my breath ?"
" The Angel of Life is my title above ;
But short-sighted mortals have christened me Death !"