The Sun.
London, England, 1842-11-02 00:00:00

DUBLIN UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE.

Mr. Lever continues his military reminiscences
under the title of " Jack Hinton, the Guards-
man," with unabated vigour, and in one of his
present chapters gives a hasty, but graphic bird's-
eye sketch of the field of Vittoria, immediately
subsequent to the battle, and when the. French
were in full retreat. The consternation :and con-
fusion pervading the town, the abrupt rushing in
of stragglers from the bloody field, the incessant
clatter of baggage-waggons, the hollow rumbling
of the artillery, and the galloping of the carts
crowded with wounded soldiers ;—all these de-
tails are touched off with evident ease and ra-
pidity, and bear the strong impress of truth.
Izaac Walton forms the subject of an'essaY, en-
titled " An Hour's Talk," wherein the literary
character of thiS smooth, shrewd eookileY angler
is greatly over-estimated. We have never been
able to perceive the exquisite beauty of the
" Complete Angler;" it has two or three pleas-
ing pastoral passages of a milk-and-water nature;
but it is wholly deficient in manly
force, and
thought, and sentiment. As for the cairn, cheer-
ful air of repose that pervades it, and which has
been so much insisted on, it has always appeared
to us to be little better than sheer insipidity—the
natural fruit of a drowsy and limited intellect.
Walton's best productions are his biographies,
and of these the cleverest and most animated is
the life of Doctor Donne. " Recollections' of a
Poetic Childhood" exhibits here and there some
bright gleams of fancy ; the versification, too, is
polished, and not too much elaborated. The
" Monk and the Devil" is a humorous poem of
the Tngoldsby school. Froth the " Memoir and
Remains of Charles Wolfe," we learn that this
delightful poet, the author of that fine ode on the
burial of Sir John Moore—which one Mackin-
tosh, a Scotch schoolmaster, bad the impudence to
claim as his own the other day—died in the year
1822, at the early age of twenty-two. Had he lived,
he would most likely have v,Tiamong the laurelled bards of the day, for his
poems were full of promise. on a foremost rank
are two of nis
earliest, each of which, in its way, is exquisitely
beautiful:—

SONG.
AIR—" Gramachree.”
If I had thought thou could'st have died,
I might not weep for thee •
But I forgot, when by thy side,
That thou could'st mortal be ;
It never through my mind had past,
The time would e'er be o'er,
And I on thee should look my last,
And thou should'st smile no more !
And still upon that face I look,
And think 'twill smile again ;
And still the thought I win not brook,
That I must look in vain ;
But when I speak—thou dost not say,
What thou ne'er left St unsaid,
And now I feel, as well I may,
If Sweet Mary ! thou art dead !
thouill N
e'en as thou art,
And where thy smiles have been !
I
While e'en thy chill bleak corse I have,
still
ilmight e
oNI 'do
al nd
press
and all
allthy
serene,
stay,i
y silent heart,
Thou seemest still my own,
But there I lay thee in thy grave—
And I am now alone!
I do not think, where'er thou art,

Thou hast forgotten me ;
And I perhaps, may sooth this heart,
In thinking too of thee ;
Yet there was round thee such a dawn
Of light ne'er seen before, t.
As fancy never could have drawn
$l.
And never can restore!
• IL

SONG. .?1,4
Oh, my love has an eye of the softest blue, •
Yet it was not that that won me ;
Buta ‘ai
sthatlittle
that
brighhtas undonedrop fro
mme . her soul w there.
I might have pass'd that lovely cheek,
Nor, perchance, my heart have left me ;
But the sensitive blush that came trembling there,
Of my heart it for ever bereft me.
I might have forgotten that red, red lip__
Yet how from that thought to sever ?
But there was -a smile from the sun-shine within,
And that smile I'll remember for ever.
Think not 'tis nothing but lifeless clay,
The elegant form that haunts me ;
'Tis the gracefully delicate mind that moves •
In every step, that enchants me.
Let me not hear the nightingale sing,
Though I once in its notes delighted;
The feeling and mind that comes whispering forth,
Has left me no music beside it.
Who could blame had I loved that face,
E'er my eye could twice explore her ;
Yet, it is for the fairy intelligence there,
And her warm—warm heart I adore her.

MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
Mr. Cyrus Redding contributes a clever sketch
of national character to this Number, under the
title of "Later Characteristics of John Bull."
The sketch is not quite so flattering, perhaps, as
honest John—who has a
high notion of his own
worth—could desire, still it is a very fair like-

ness. " Ihr lust of gain," says the author,
" sucks up the joy of John Bull's heart like a
s2onge ; a little money is akin to poverty, and
poverty is baseness; the furrows of anxiety are
graven deeply in his brow, and he rarely smiles
from the heart. Walk down Cheapside, regard
his humanity there, and along the larger tho-
roughfares; what is the nominative case to his
verb ?—gain—gain without stint—gain to the last
heave of expiring nature !" •` Life is a Dream"
is i translation from the Spanish of Calderon.
We cannot vouch for the accuracy of the version
—not having the good fortune to understand the
original language•—but we may at least bare tes-
timony to its spirit, and the free and easy march
of its blank verse. The reflections on the " Cha-
racter of Hamlet" are ingenious, and show that
the writer has attentively studied his subject.