The Sun.
London, England, 1829-12-04 00:00:00

THE KEEPSAKE.

No annual boasts a more aristocratic list of
contributors than the Keepsake. Lords, M.P.'s,
and Right lions., are sown thick as mushrooms
in its pages. The time, however, is gone by,
when a Coronet was sufficient to shield a poem
from insignificance. "No exalted stanza" now
" teems with thought," merely because a "Lord"
penned " the happy lines." The case is alto-
gether reversed. The fact of a " Lord" indit-
ing a book, is nearly, if not quite enough, to
justify a supposition that it must be a dull one,
We should be unjust to the Peerage, were we
to assert that the majority of those who figure
in the Keepsake, do not keep up their old or-
thodox character for insipidity. With the ex-
ceptions of Lord Morpeth—who is a highly-
gifted young man—of Lord Holland—who is
to be respected, not so much because he
is a Lord, as because he is an accom-
plished scholar, a gentleman, and a man
of the world—of the Hon. Mr. Liddell,
whose stately " Ode to an Eagle" has something
of Pindaric grandeur about it—with the excep-
tion of these three intelligent writers, the Peer-
age cuts but a sorry figure in the " Keepsake."
Nor does the House of Commons show off to
much better advantage. R. Bernal, M. P., and
the Right Hon. Agar Ellis, another M. P., and
the Right Hon. Charles Phipps, a third M. P.,
contribute a certain portion of versa and prose
which is anything but " useful or ornamental?'
The former gentleman, in his tale of the " De-
lusion of Three Days," has presented us with
a tame " various reading" of an anecdote which
we remember to have perused some years since,
in a little daily periodical, entitled the " De-
jeune," where an enthusiastic young man
was represented to have fallen. in love with
a young lady,. whom he was, only pre-
vented from espousing by the timely disco-
very that she had a—wooden leg. Mr. Ber-
nal, however, has given her a cork one, which
is the only difference between the two tales. Of
the Right Hon. Charles Phipps's verses, " On
looking on the Sea," we h'av-e merely to state that
the author looks on this inspiring element with
as much apparent indifference as if he were look-
ing on a horse-end ; and Mr. Agar Ellis's
" Stanzas" we must dispatch with the remark
that they differ only from prose, in the circum-
stance of the last syllable of the first line, jing-
ling with the last syllable of the secowl, and so
on. Not, however, in this spirit, must we speak
of Lord Byron's " Letters to Several Friends,"
which are replete with whim, sarcasm, liveliness,
and sagacity, expressed in pointed language,
and with a fearless generous candour that charac-
terised all that this magnificent author ever did or
said. Sir W. Scott's Tragedy too, though not
worthy of him, is still to be mentioned with re-
spect, as being the earliest production of one of
the most versatile genuises the world ever saw.
Among the untitled contributors to the
" Keepsake," we find the names of Theodore
Hook, the Author of " Anastasius," the Au.
thoress of " Frankenstein," and the Editor of
the " Literary Gazette." The last of these
writers has contributed a Poem, entitled " The
Time that was and is ;" which is chaste, elegant,.
and tender. Mr. Hope's metaphysical Essay,
on " Self-love, Selfishness:, '&e.," is worthy the
author of that matchless tale, " Anastasius ;"
and Mrs. Shelley's prose story, illustrative of
Virginia Water, is full of high-toned romantic
sensibility. .Of the embellishments we have be-
fore spoken at length, and in the terms of admi-
ration that they deserve.

QUARTERLY 11.EVIEW, No. LXXXII. LONDON, 1829.

With the exception of the Finance' Com-
mittee—which we have already alluded to in
various departments of our Paper—there are few
articles of any novelty or, moment in the present
number. The analysis of the " Life and Ser-
vices of Captain Philip Beaver"—a book with
which the public are by this time sufficiently
familiar—is interesting and well written, but
sadly too long. " Remains of Lucretia David-
son," a young American girl, who from an early
period evinced infinite genius, equalled only by
the instinctiveness and hazardous delicacy of
her frame, is a delightful article, though the im-
pression it leaves on the mind is somewhat
painful. " The Memoirs of Miss Davidson,"
by an American gentleman, named Morse, are
fit companions for those of Kirke White, to
whom Southey has long since clone ample jus-
tice. Both these interesting young people
evinced the most decided marks of a high, if
not the highest, order of talent, coupled, how-
ever, with restless enthusiasm for learning, and
an unbounded sensitiveness of character, which
proved equally their destruction. Though the
review of Lucretia Davidson's Memoirs occupies
only a few pages, yet it is filled with traits of
nature highly creditable to the lady's heart and
head. Her piety was only equalled by her ge-
nius, and ber genius by the affection and gra-

titude for her friends and relations. her foul-
ness for writing poetry by sun-set, to the wild
breathings of an Eolian harp, which she would
place in her window, and to which she would
listen for hours, are highly interesting and cha-
racteristic traits. We have no space to dwell
on the remaining articles, which we the less re-
gret as the subjects on which they treat have for
the most part been long familiar to the public.