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 Pandemorium 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 Delatour, the last descendant of an
ancient and illustrious house in Languedoc. The writes
vouches for the truth of this extraordinary vision, its
precedents, and its results. It is somewhat too sustaincd
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 indulged in by
the noble historian of the " Lives of Men
of Letters 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 com-
pleted by Prince Lubanoff. All that was necessary to
be done, in the shape of critical abstract, for the purpose
introducing the extensive work of the distinguished
Russian to the great bulk of the English reading public,
had been already unexceptionably peformed in the pages
of the Athenc e um. We are the more disposed to offer
this remark, on account of the threat with ' which this
paper concludes, "ro 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
religion, moreover, that have no interest for the general
reader. " A tale of Oxford 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 pass'd ; 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 and 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 trow!
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 Vernon's 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
Twin'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, 0 my soul, to die!
Ye cold cold waters spread so brightly there,
Ye are not colder than earth's charity—
Father, no father hast thou been to me—
One sin, one shame, and all thy love of old
Hath flown for ever, ceas'd for aye to be;
My love for thee is hangeless and untold—
Wherefore thy will so stern, wherefore thy heart so cold?'
" He said, and pluug'cl where fresh and graceful fall
The many lilies with their garlands green
Upon the waters, like a coronal
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 Vernon was no more !"

THE RAILWAY REGISTER.
The present number commences with the second of
this valuable series of articles on railways in Ireland.
This article is illustrated by a map of Ireland, showing
all the railways existing or projected. The writer goes
at great length into the question of the social miseries of
Ireland, their causes, and remedies. The cause is easily
perceived ; it is the selfishness of the Irish landoeracy,
which has ever considered property arid power as every-
thing, man as nothing, and has de2;ived
hard-working man—of the ma''',:cet for his labour.
" The conclusion to be dr'nvn from all these statements is,
that there is no mark:ai for labour in Ireland, nor for the
produce of labour. It has been shown, however, that there
are ali,mdan.ce of natural products in Ireland, which, by the
application of labour, might become valuable in exchange,
and give a fair return for the labour employed upon them.
The effect of laying down a system of railways in Ireland
would be to give immediate employment to labour, in the
first instance in the necessary works of the lines themselves,
and afterwards to open free communication to the labour-
market of the world. Their effect will be to introduce civili-
sation and the abodes of peace, where landlord's cupidity
has sought to civilise by destroying the miserable abodes of
his tenants."

In this conclusion we entirely agree, and we look upon
railways as the forernners of a long career of pros-
perity to Ireland. The papers on Indian railways are
continued, and we have the first of a series of valuable
papers on metropolitan improvements. The various
railway schemes of the month are commented on, and
in various instances illustrated by maps, and altogether
the present number of the Register fully sustains the
high character which this moat useful periodical has
already acquired.

THE BANKERS' 111AGAZINE. No. XX.
This useful periodical is continued with great ability.
We cannot entirely subscribe to all the notions an-
nounced in a paper on " The Effect of Railway Calls on
the Currency and on Credit ;" but it ought to have its just
effect with the public, by disabusing their minds of the
foolish fears which have been expressed so vividly by
some of our contemporaries as to the melancholy effects
to be anticipated from the payment to the Accountant-
General of the Court of Chancery (or rather to the
Bank of England), at nearly the same time, of 20,000,0001.
sterling, or more, in the deposit of 10 per cent. on the
capital of the railway schemes to be submitted
yo the next session of Parliament. "Irish Banking
under the New Act" is also a very useful paper, drawn
up, as we are informed in an introductory note, by a
practical Irish banker of great experience and authority.

fTHE FARMER'S MAGAZINE (Old Series),
and Weekly Journal of Proceedings affecting the Agri-
cultural Ibterest.
The embellishment of this number is a portrait of
long-woolled wether sheep, bred by his Grace the
Duke of Bedford, at Oakley Farm, Bedfordshire. We
have often expressed our sense of the general utility of
this periodical, and of the practical ability and perfect
candour with which it is conducted. The present part
in every respect sustains the well-merited reputation
which the Magazine has acquired with a widely-ex-
tended community of readers. The melancholy aspect
of the potato crop gives a degree of painful, as well as
of important interest to two pages, entitled, respectively,
" the Potato Murrain," and " the Potato Disease."

THE HOUSELESS POOR.—During the last season
the Committee of the Houseless Poor voted t;tie sum of 100/.
for the fitting up of a washing and bathing apparatus for the
inmates of the Eastern Asylum, where, in the short space of
nineteen evenings, 987 individuals availed, themselves of its
advantages. On the closing of that as alum the apparatus
was placed at the disposal of an Asso'.dation for Promoting
Cleanliness amongst the Poor, which. Associatit to commenced
its operations by allowing necess,itous persona to wash and
bathe gratuitously in the building; and such ws. as the avidity
with which it had been resorted to, that the nu tuber of those
who have washed and bathed there amounts nut v, at the end
of twenty-two weeks, to 24,027. Although si small allow-
ance of soap is made to each bather, and of soa p and soda to
each washer, the expense does not quite &mat nit to threc-
halfpence a-head.
STATUE ON SIR JAMES SHAW, THE LI :TE CHAM-
BERLAIN ON TILE CITY.—It is by no means gen erally known
that a statue is about to be erected to the re temory of Sir
James Shaw, who preceded Sir William Hey gate in the
office of Chamberlain of the City of London. he statue is
to be ramie by Mr. Fillans, the sculptor, and to be placed in
Kilmarnoc k, where, we believe, Sir James She w was born.
A plaster .of Paris cast, from a
_lendid model of the statue,
was some weeks ago sent by Mr.
Fillans to the c tmmittee at
townspeople,K i 1 m ari appointedfor
approval. to carry.
eiye too
unanimously
t the fishes
d o
sphperso ofve the
f
the cast, and the sculptor is now at work on the b dock. k. The
statue is to be colossal, and to stand on a grani to
pedestal
fourteen .feet altitude.
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