The Sun.
London, England, 1844-06-03 00:00:00

And, indeed, throughout my life, that, my first bent, has
ever directed me. My brothers, who were so very
stupid, and therefore fit for nothing, were early placed in
the world, and indicated the truth of the parental opinion,
by making their fortunes. They were dull blockheads,
according to my father, and so became men of wealth
and influence by the very force of their insensibility.
Now I, who was brimfull of genius, was to do every-
thing by some extraordinary hocus pocus dreamt of by
my parents, but of which I, indeed, had not the remotest
knowledge. Leave Jack alone,' would still be my
father's cry, ' he'll make his way in the world—how can
it be otherwise ?ho has such wit Well, after spend-
ing my little patrimony—and in its happy mode of out-
lay I may be permitted to observe I showed a genius for
ten thousand a year—and after losing some twelvemonth
or two at bo-peep with bailiffs, you will judge of my
destitution when I tell you that I found myself reduced
to pen and ink. Oh, my friends! there is a condition
for the human animal. Consider the outcast. The
maker of matches has a business ; nay, he is the pos-
sessorla a mystery. When he has made his matches.
there they are—tangible wood and brimstone ; their
merits open to the eye of cook and housemaid. Con-
scious of the excellence of his ware, the matchmaker
may higgle gallantly for his price ; matches are things
wanted in the commerce of life ; it is no difficult task to
recommend their utility to the world, alive as it is to the
worth of firelight. But books! their worth is a matter
of fancy, say of weakness, to the weaker part of man-
kind ; they have no standard value, none, at their birth.
Hence, the unknown maker of a book—l speak especi-
ally of the time when I first sinned in ink—is a sort of
gipsy in the social scale ; a picturesque vagabond, who
somehow or the other contrives to live on the sunny
side of the statutes, but is nevertheless vehemently sus-
pected of all sorts of larceny by respectable householders.
Shall I ever forget the uneasiness, the look of distrust
from my landlady, when first the alarming truth fell
upon her, that her three-pair room sheltered an author
—or rather, an author in the shell, for as then I had
hatched nothing, but was only sitting upon foolscap ?
Good soul! in a flutter of concern, she told me that that
very room had been tenanted, for three long years, by an
honest journeyman tailor, whose rent was regular as the
Saturday ' • she looked at me from head to heel, and said
she hoped that all was right; though I could perceive
that she spoke in the very forlornness of the feeling.
And, after all, the woman had truth upon her side. Her
tenant tailor had an allowed business; was a recognised
necessity by fallen man; wasmoreover one of a worship-
' ful guild; an artificer whose cunning administered to
human pride; whose handiwork was all-in •all to worldly
triumphs. For instance, what would be a coronation
without a tailor? What would be man, left to nothing
more than sheepskins and parrots'plumes? Hence, the
woman, in her strong sense of the decencies of life, ac-
knowledged the vital use of the labourer of the needle;
hence, when she learned. that I only dealt in pen and
ink, she looked upon me as a sort of vagabond conjuror;
a white wizard, whose very money—if ever she saw it—
might be of doubtful origin. Shillings got out of an
inkstand, she could hardly look upon as good mint coin:
and for this reason she could not comprehend how any
man, by mere pen, ink, and paper, could give value re-
ceived for the ready cash. Now the tailor's work was
plain: a pair of breeches wag a tangible thing; and
spoke as it were common sense to the common sense of
man and womankind. But authorship! Alas! how small
to the breeches was a tale in verse!"

THE SCOTT MONUMENT.
TO THE EDITOR OF TILE SUN.
" Exegit motumentum rere perennius."
Sim I regret to learn from the Committee that there is
still a deficit, in the sum required to finish Sir Walter Scott's
monument, of something less than 1,0001. This ought not
to be. The structure has been for a considerable time in
progress, but its completion is delayed for want of sufficient
funds. It is a sad reflection that, after a lapse of nearly
twelve years from the decease of this illustrious man, the
structure is still unfinished. Without wishing to cast any
reflections on the nobility and gentry of the " Modern
Athens," I really think they have been somewhat dilatory,
and have meted him out but tardy justice in offering up their
tribute of admiration at the shrine 'or his genius. They
ought most decidedly to have led the van. Let it be remem-
bered that it was his birthplace, where the first dawning
of his genius displayed itself as a tale-teller, when the ap-
plause of his companions was his recompense for disgrace and
punishment. It was his chief residence during his life for a
certain part of the year, where he underwent the toil and
drudgery of the law, and where he frequently
" Penn'd a stanza, when he should engross."
It was the place where many of his poetical pieces were
written, and not a few of that splendid file of historical fic-
tions that have conferred on all the monuments of his coun-
try a more than classic immortality. He. has celebrated their
city in more than one of his poems and romances, and has
made it the chief scene of one of the finest of his fictions in
the " Tales of my Landlord—The Heart of Mid-Lothian."
He also designates it the "
.Queen of the North ;" and in that
beautiful apostrophe, in canto iv., stanza 30, of " Marmion,"
he exclaims with enthusiasm—.
" Mine own romantic town !"

From these associations alone, the " Modern Athenians
owe him a deep debt of gratitude, which, as I before observed,
they have been rather tardy in acknowledging, and I should
. have. thought that a much larger sum might have been sub-
scribed con (more in a much shorter space of time. The
capital of the West exhibited • a promptitude worthy of a
great commercial city, a statue having been erected to his
memory many years ago in Glasgow, which he has for ever
celebrated in his " Rob RoY." • It is not
,my intention to
enter into a dissertation on the merits of the author of
" Waverley," either as a poet or a novelist ; but as one who is
sensible of the great benefits which his works have conferred
on Scotland at large, I cannot retrain from offering my
humble tribute of admiration to the Northern Magician. I
earnestly hope that the admirers of Scott, now in Edina, who
have not yet contributed, will exonerate themselves from the
stigma of tardiness by immediately subscribing towards the
completion of this National Monument to his memory.
Your most obedient servant,
C. P. J.

5, Westmoreland-street, Portland-place, May 29.

THE ITALIAN OPERA.

Il Barbiere de Sivigla was repeated on Saturday night
to a house equally crowded as on the Thursday, but still
more fashionably filled than on that occasion. The other
entertainments were La Vivandiere and the ballet of
Alma; the former interposed between the acts of the
opera. The audience sat out both, and remained until
the termination of the performances.

Among the distinguished personages present were—
The Queen Dowager, attended by Earl Howe ; the Duke
and Duchess of Cambridge, attended by Baron Knese-
beck and Col: Stevenson ; the Duchess of Gloucester;
the Dukes of Leeds and Montrose ; the Duchesses of
Leeds and Montrose ; the Marquises of Ailesbury and
Huntly ; the Marehionesies of Ailesbury, Conyngham,
and Wellesley ; Earls Shelburne and Pembroke ; Coun-
tesses of Westmeath, Sefton, and G1et4.7,a1l ; Viscounts
Castlereagh and Ranelagh ; Count Esterllazy ; Lords
Trimlestone, Kenmare, Emlyn, Altamont, and Sandys ;
Ladies Trimlestone, Kenmare, Joddrell, Wombwell, E.
Thynne, Eleanor Balfour, Shuckburh, and Seymour
Sirs P. Joddrell, Loftus, Otway, C. Kent, Robert Wilmot
Horton, A. Clifton, H. Webb, H. Meux, and H.
; Honourables Mr. Yorke, Mrs. Yorke, Mrs.
Dawson Darner, Mr. Baring, Mr. Standish, Mr. Vord, &e.