The Sun.
London, England, 1844-12-02 00:00:00

BLACK IVOOD's HAGAZINE.
In a very spirited and, to our mini, convincing
essay on the subject of the " Scottish Banking
which heads the present Number of this System"
ny
tlwveaesnhntdost
:ueer
has exe f flpoaenci
experience,
ea, f.
uf(
hst
pe-
riodical, the writer warns Government how they
ady
eh,
allr
uei sr proved
nrtonthpe:.oretelfdei
et interference
he
phsevue irtaphasolitrsel
hsiyest nnssf teetoahmtlei,
present state of matters, to rouse up a feeling in
peaceful Scotland which may, with little fanning of
the fuel, terminate inAn agitation quite as extensive
as that which at present unhappily prevails in Ireland?
It is most injudicious to overlook in such a matter the
tendency of the national Character. Scotchmen have
long memories, and although the days of hereditary
feuds have gone by, they are not the less apt to re-
member and to cherish injuries." The inference to
be drawn from the writer's argument is, it is better
to " let well alone," and
.it is to be hoped that Go-
'verament will sae the propriety of keeping this whole-
some admonition in view, and leaving Scotland to
conduct her own commercial affairs in her old accus-
tamed fashion. The " Milkman of Walworth" is a
singular story of a mast mysterious and tragic com-
plexion. The first. pore; excites some interest,
which, however, is destrotad by the preposterous ab-
surdity of the denouement; whichis in direct violation
of.all probability. The Walworth Milkman had, it
seems, originally been a Devonshire farmer, who
after paying his addresses to a neighbour's daughter,
finding that she had no property, transferred his af-
fections to her rich cousin. The rejected girl, in a
transport of rage at her lover's perfidy, immediately
murdered her rival, which so shocked the faithless
'farmer, that he instantly sold all his property in the
oountry, and retired to the neighbourhood of London,
where he purchased a milk-walk, and went his daily
morning and: evening rounds in Walworth. Mean-
time, the girl whom he had discarded discovered his
whereabout, and from that time to the hour of his
death, never ceased to dog his footsteps, accompanying
him in all his walks, just three yards behind him.
The absurdity of the milkman's permitting this into-
lerable annoyance for a series of years together with-
out once giving a hint to the police; which he might
easily have done without betraying the woman's
guilty secret-, is so evident, that it is scarcely neces-
sary to Point it out. If we except this defect, the
story is forcibly written, and keeps the reader's cu-
riosity alive, till he draws towards "the lame and im-
potent conclusion." " Edmund Burke" is a biogra-
phical and critical account, evidently by a practised
writer, of this most thoughtful and far-sighted of
modern politicians. " John Brown" is the conclusion
of a clever story illustrative of the peculiarities of col-
lege life :at Oxford. We• quote from an essay on
" Guizot," a sketch of Voltaire, Gibbon, and Hume,
in their -capacity of historians:
" Voltaire was•of great service to history, by turning
it from courts and camps to the progress of literature,
science, and the arts—to the delineation of manners,
and the preparation of anecdotes descriptive of cha-
racter ; but, notwithstanding all his talent, he never
got a glimpse of the general causes which influence
society. He gave us the history of philosophy, but not
the philosophy of-history.
" The ardent genius and pictorial eye of Gibbon ren-
dered him' an incomparable delineator of events ; and
his powerful mind made hitn seize the general and cha-
racteristic features of society and manners, as they
appear itf different parts of the world, as well as the
traits of individual greatneas. His descriptions of the
Roman empire in the zenith of its power, as it existed
in the time of Augustus—of its decline and long pro-
tracted old age, under Constantine and his successors on
the Byzantine throne=of .the 'manners of the pastoral
nations, Who, under dilferent names, and for a succession
of ages, pressed upon and at last overturned the empire—
of the Saracens; who, isssulng froth the huids-of Arabia,
with the Koran in one hand and the Cimetar in the other,
urged on their resistless course, till they were arrested
by the Atlantic on the one side, and the Indian Ocean
on the other--of the stern crusaders, who, nursed amid
the cloistered shades and castellated realms of Europe,
struggled :*ith that devastaling 'horde " when 'twas
strongest, and ruled it when 'twas wildest "—of the long
agony, silent decay, aml übizaate resurrection of the
14;,erred City—are so many imaiortal pictures. typisk
s, Lilt rut' M._ 1111. -• ••• •
Imaginative mind. But, notwunstauding this incom-
parable talent for general and characteristic description,
he had not the mind necessary !or a philosophical
analysis of the series of causes which influence human
events. He viewed religion with a jaundiced and pre-
judiced eye—the fatal bequest of his age and French
education, unworthy alike of his native candour and in-
herent strength of understanding. _He had profound
philosophic ideas, and. occasionally let them out with
admirable effect ;"but the turnof his mind was essen-
tially descriptive, and his powers were such, in that
brilliant department, that they wiled him from the less
inviting contemplation of general causes. We turn ever
his fascinating pages without wearying ; but without ever
discovering the general progress or apparent tendency of
human affairs. We look in vain for the profound reflec-
tions of %falchiavel on the permanent results of certain
political combinations or experiments. He has led us
through a mighty maze ;' but he has made no attempt
to show it ' nct without a plan.'
" Hume is commonly called a philosophical historian,
and so he is ; but he has even less than Gibbon the
power of unfolding the general causes which influence
the progress of human events. He was not, properly
speaking, a philosophic historian, but a philosopher
writing history—=and these are very different things.
The practical statesman will often make a better de-
lineator of the progress of human affairs than the phi-
losophic recluse ; for he is more
was
acquainted
with their -secret springs ; it was not in the schools,
but the forum or the palace, that Sallust, Tacitus, and
Burke, acquired their deep insight into the human heart..
flume was gifted with admirable sagacity, in politi a
economy ; and it is the good sense and depth of his
l
views on that important subject, then for the first time
_ _
brought to bear on the annals of man, that has
fchie chiefly
gained for him, and with justice, the ehara6teraLairable
phi-
losophic historian. To this may be added t
clearness and rhetorical powers with which hehe has stated
the principal arguments for and against the great
changes in the English institutions which it fell to his
lot to recount —arguments far abler than wee© either
used by, or occurred
Hume is found to, the actors by whom they were
bout • forit is seldom that a
brought a ,
in the councils of men. With equal ability, too, he
has given perm) • dical sketches of manners, customs,
and
habits, mingled with valuable details of finance, com-
merce; and prices—all elements, and most important
ones, in i the formation of philosop
hical history."

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

In the "Talleyrand Papers," which are resumed
this month, we find some biographical particulars re-
specting the notorious Madame Du I3arri, the last of
the numerous mistresses of that profligate, imbecile
Monarch, Louis XV. The career of this woman was
a singularly chequered and eventful one. In her
youth she led a life of " easy virtue" among the
stews and low gambling-houses of Paris; when
arrived at years of maturity she was introduced by an
intriguing adventurer at Court, where she was imme-
diately noticed by the King, and became the ruling
favourite, who brought forward and displaced Minis-
ters, and made peace or war with the European
Powers just as she pleased; and a few years after-
wards she was disgraced by the new Sovereign,
Louis XVI., lost her political and social influence,
and finally expired beneath the axe of the revolu•
tionary guillotine. In the Papers before us Talleyrand
is represented as saying of her—" She was a person
of small, almost diminutive stature, extremely frail and
delicate in feature, which saved her from being
vulgar; but even from the first she always wore that
peculiarly Jane look, which she owed to a youth of
dissipation and a maturity of unbounded indulgence."
In the lively essay entitled " Making Presents," the
hospitable Christmas season is thus spoken of :—" It
is no period for scant measures or for bare justice ; the
cup must overflow. The spirit of the time is un-
grudging, hospitable, generous. It is not the meal of
Enough, but the festival of Excess." Not a wearied
apothecary's boy in the kingdom but can bear testi-
mony to the truth of this last remark. The "First
Meet of the Season" is somewhat dull and common-
place, notwithstanding the straining after humour
that is visiMe throughout it. We cannot speak much
more favourably of Mrs. Trollope's continuation of
the "Robertses on their Travels." In the report of
the " Conversations with the late Mr. Beckford," a
high but not unmerited compliment is paid to the '
"IngoldsbyLegends," of which the eccentric architect
of Fonthill is said to have observed that they "were
perfect in their way." " Lights and Shades in the
Life of a Gentleman on Half-pay," are the confessions I
of an obscure, penniless adventurer, with whom an
Earl's proud and handsome daughter fell desperately
in love, to the infinite chargrin of her father, who
wreaked a terrible vengeance on the presumptuous
suitor. "Reminiscences of Talma" impress us with
a vivid idea of the powers of this consummate actor,
of whom we are told that "his fury in Othello was
terrific, electrical, the real being, not the ideal
image of the passion he depicted. The difference of
years in his characters was pourtraved, too, with
surprising
verisimilitude. The decripitude of age
and the vivacity of youth were in him equally pic-
tures of unexceptionable excellence." As a specimen
of the poetry of the New Monthly Magazine, we