The Sun.
London, England, 1845-03-04 00:00:00

MAGAZINES--(CON TINUED

HOOD'S MAGAZINE.
No magazine presents such a list of contributors as
this. It includes this month Mr. W. Savage Landor,
Robert Browning, Monckton /Alines, M.P., F. 0.
Ward, Alfred Whitehead, and Richard Howitt. We
regret to learn that the editor himself, to whom the
public is indebted for so much amusement, is again
laid on a bed of sickneis. An exquisite portrait of
Mr. Hood is given, and the brief article by which it is
accompanied, says,—
" We can hardly congratulate our readers on present-
ing them, this month, with an effigy of Thomas Hood's
outward features, instead of that portraiture of his mind,
and those traces of his kindly heart, which he has been
wont, with his own pen, to draw in these pages. And
we lament still more that we must add a regret to the
disappointment of our readers, by communicating to
them the sad tidings that the aching original of that pic-
tured brow is again laid low by dangerous illness—again
scarred (to borrow an expression of his own) " by the
crooked autograph of pain." Through many a previous
paroxysm of his malady, when life and death hung trem-
Win in the balance, Mr. Hood has worked on steadily
for our instruction and amusement ; throwing, often,
into a humorous chapter, or impassioned poem, the power
which was needed to restore exhausted nature. During
the last month, however, his physical strength has com-
pletely given way : and, almost as much through inca-
pacity of his hand to hold the pen, as of his brain for
any length of time to guide it, he has at last been com-
pelled to desist from composition. Tbose in whom
admiration of the writer has induced also a friendly
feeling towards the man, will have some consolation in
learning that amidst his sufferings, which have been
severe, his cheerful philosophy has never failed him ;
but that around his sick bed, as in his writings,
and in his life, he has known how to lighten the melan-
choly of those around him, and to mingle laughter with
their tears. We have thought it due to our readers and
to the public thus briefly to make known that Mr. Hood
is more seriously ill than even he has ever been before;
avoiding to express any hopes or forebodings of our own,
or prejudge the uncertain issues of life and death."
Every one will sympathise with the sufferer, and
hope still that he may be restored to health. The
portrait here given is a very fine one, taken from a
bust by Davis, and engraved by Heath. The number
itself is one of the best we have seen of this periodical.
Mr. Landor has contributed an "Imaginary Con-
versation" between Dante and Beatrice. Robert
Browning has given us a quaint poem, " The Tomb
at St. Praxed's. It is the soliloquy of an old bishop
of the middle ages, who on the point of death dwells
with a fantastic intensity on the splendour of his
monument; his love of the arts, his remorse for past
sins, his hatred of " old Gandolf "—a rival churchman,
we presume—are blended together with a skilful
hand. Mr. Monckton Milnes's contributions are a
paper on Continental Railroads and a translation of a
short poem from the German of Hervegh. The
"Phantoms and Realities of a Star-light Night" is a
powerfully written sketch ; it opens with a hit at
certain critics which, though it exaggerates of course,
is not without a spice of truth :
" Can you come to Antigone to-night ?" said I, thrust-
ing my head into the sub-editor's room at a Weekly
Newspaper office.
" How much does it want to the time ?"
" An hour and a quarter."
" Well, I have eighteen new books to look into and
notice. If I get done in time I'll go with you."
" Sharp work," said I.
" Not particularly. They are short paragraphs; only
a column and a half altogether."
" But the reading ?"
" You don't think seriously we read books ?"
" How the deuce, then, do you form your opinion of
them?"

" We cut 'em open—and smell the paper knife."
This will not be the case, at all events, with Hood's,
for this month it cannot be taken up without being
read. We extract from Mr. Monckton Milnes's paper
the following sensible remarks on the railroad to
Venice, with respect to which we have some little of
the sentimental twaddle the writer alludes to :

" The railroads in Italy are only just begun; and the
beginning is the chain that binds together the great
cities of Lombardy, and links the islands of Venice to
the mainland. This last circumstance has been regarded
with dismay by others than the mere sentimental tra-
veller: it has been said that the peculiar beauty of that
great city, • which was neither infant nor stripling,
which God took b, the hand and taught to walk by it-
self the first hour, is past for ever ; and that, in fact,
Venice will lose all its charm for the stranger. This
will probably turn out a very unfounded fear: for the
great bridge. which stretches from Niestre to Venice, be-
sides being in itself a most beautiful object, and a very
characteristic approach to the Queen of the Waters,
meets the back of the city at a point little known to any
except residents in Venice, and does not in the least
interfere with the noted public buildings, or any of the
glories of the great canal. As a mere matter of taste,
it may indeed be more agreeable to many minds to see
Venice in a process of solemn decay, than under
the influence of a gradual recovery from desolation and
poverty ; but there is little reason to believe that the •
material advantages Venice will derive from her rail-
roads will in any great degree alter the appearance of
that part of the town where most of its architectural
beauties are concentrated ; nor will Venice be less like
its ancient self because its harbour is bristling with
masts, and its piazzas crowded with merchants: the
commercial restoration of Venice is all in its old spirit—
it is essentially a place of traffic, and every thing that,
like the railroad, tends to fill it with business and enrich
it with merchandise, is but a continuation of the work
of the Dandolos and Moncenigos. Had the railroad not
been continued into Venice, a large warehousing and
mercantile town would have arisen at the terminus, and
Venice would have derived no advantage from what now
promises to be the cause of a renewal of its pristine
wealth, and thus of the preservation of its monumental
splendour."

THE LONDON JOURNAL AND REPERTORY
OF ARTS, SCIENCES, AND MANUFAC-
__ _

TURES.

This very useful Journal contains the specifica-
tions of all patents recently granted in England and
America. Full reports of patent cases recently ad-
judicated on in courts of law, a continuation of the
transactions of the Institution of Civil Engineers,
containing a report of a most interesting discussicn
on slips in railway embankments. It contains, more-
over, a list of Irish, Scotch, and English Patents. To
the scientific inventor this Journal must be of the
greatest utility.