The Sun.
London, England, 1829-08-31 00:00:00

THE MARKETS.-(THIS DAY).

CORN-EXCHANGE.

The arrivals of last week were very good of foreign
Corn, but short of English. There was not much Flour
This morning the fresh supplies consist chiefly of
New Wheat and Pease from Essex and Kent, mostly in
tender condition. The top price of Flour not having ad-
vanced, the Wheat trade in consequence has been very
dull to-day, prime dry parcels obtain last quotations,
other aorta of Old are 25., and New samples 4s. per quar-
ter lower than this day se'nnight. Barley remains unal-
tered, notwithstanding the unfavourable reports of this
(10p.,i Beans maintain the terms of this day se'nnight.
'ease of both sorts arc unaltered in value. There is not
much doing in the Oat trade ; prime parcels are rather
dearer, but other kinds remain as last quoted. New
Rapeseed is scarce, and sells at 281. to 311. per last.

PRICES ON BOARD OF SHIP.
Wheat, Red (1829) sos. 70s. Beans, Small (new)... —s. —s.
"'"A-......White"(1829) 528. 765.
,____."""'—'' Red (1§28) ... 525. 565. Tick (new)....335. tss.
-----. Fine '.:l‘4s. 61s • (old) .... —s —s.
..------ Superfine.. 68s. '72s. Harrow (new) 375. 40s.
--------White (1828). 555. 665.
-------- Fine 7os. Its. Brank 225. 248.
-----•--- Superfine.. 765. 80s. Oats, Feed 15s.
s. 255.
—----- Foreign free 48s. 808. New
RYe ........................ 30s. 31s. Poland 16s. 28s.
Barley , ................ ... 265. :30s. New

---_,. Pine 3os. 323.
---- Superfine
Malt
"~ rine
Pease, Grey
----- Maple
---- White
—.---... Boilers

- Potatoe
New

- Scotch
- Irish..
Flour Town

(per sac
mds
th Cowl'

- Nor
Bran

~..225. 28s,
s. —s.
..... 295. 345.
Is. 18s 265.
:k) GOs 655.
.... 50s. 6s.
try 465. 555.
.... 9s. 10s.

LITERATURE.

CAIN THE WANDERER, AND OTHER POEMS.

LoNnoN, 1829.

This, beyond all comparison, is the finest
poem that has been published since the days of
Byron. For loftiness of conception, boldness
and magnificence of imagery, depth of feeling,
variety, and extent of thought, we should be
puzzled to find its equal, except among the sub-
limer productions of the author of " Childe Ha-
rold." The writer has selected a subject, to which
his original and splendid powers of mind are every
way competent. In the characters of Lucifer, and
more particularly of Cain, he has developed a
faculty of imagination which will delight and
astonish even those who are familiar with the awful
grandeur of" Heaven and Earth." His " Cain"
is in itself a master-piece. It is the impersonation
of a bold restless spirit, at war with itself, im-
patient of control, wretched from the very refine-
ment and exuberance of its feeling, panting to
become acquainted with the mysteries of its
own nature, and to penetrate those of the un-
known world, to monopolize all intellect, to be
" the observed of all observers" and to mate
with the superior powers themselves on terms of
the strictest equality. Such a character, it will
at once be seen, is admirably suited to the pur-
poses of poetry, and accordingly the author has
availed himself, to the very fullest extent, of its
capabilities. The common notion of Cain, as a
mere vulgar, envious, Thurtell-like murderer,
he has altogether abandoned ; he has in-
vested him instead with the noblest and
the loftiest attributes, and drawn the ma-
terials of his errors from the very excess of
his feelings and his imagination. To the fallen
Archangel he has rendered equal justice, and
without servilely adhering to the Miltonic or
scriptural notion of him, has developed a cha-
racter in accordance generally with received opi-
nion, but for the filling up and completion of
which he is indebted solely to himself. The
scenery of his drama is worthy of its characters.
The world in a state of deluge—the abyss of
space—the boundless waste stretching out in-
terminably on either side the forbidden Eden—
the gorgeous realms of Pandemonium—the
Paradise of the spirit Heilel, in whose person
the power of imagination is embodied, and
which constitutes one of the most effective alle-
gories we ever remember to have read ; these
are the scenes to which the author of " Cain"
has introduced us, boldly, graphically, and with
an obvious and conclusive meaning, as befits a
poet and a metaphysician. His drama opens
with a dialogue between Lucifer and the Arch-
angel Michael, in which the unbending character
and restless discontent of the former are pour-
trayed with appropriate vigour :

" Can man be happy thus? regret, remorse,
Fear, which is bate disguised, shall still be his;
Hopes, and joys checked which would have given him bliss
(The only natural bliss for which he sighs,
Loving and being loved), are to his eyes
Things interdicted, sins which draw away
His thoughts of heaven : if yielded, what remains

But that satiety, to which active pains
Are heaven ; to feel how, day by day,
The mind sinks with a sense of its decay,
Hopeless as powerless, its last energy
To watch, and curse its impotence and die ;
To see the forms of its idolatry
Lifeless and cold, and she to whom were poured
All the young heart's fresh feelings, when it is
Pure as a fountain in its loneliness!

No longer then adored
As a superior being ; but changed and faded :
And by possession from that shrine degraded,
Which should have hallowed her—yet still live o n,
Clinging to life, with all life's feelings gone,
Till Time, slow withering, gives again to the worm
All he once loved so well: if he stand firm

And quench all gentle impulse till his heart
Corrodes to clay, of which it is a part,
Still is the award the same—the same weak breath
Of pain and suffering, closed at last in death."

The reader will not fail to observe the great
truth and spirit of the expression " fear, which
is hate disguised." The next scene introduces
us to Cain and Ada. The former details to his
wife the particulars of a frightful dream, from
which he has but just awakened :

" I stood upon the heath :
I' the distance stretched our father's tent ; before me
The spot where Abel—it was night but starless :

. -
I looked back to the pleasant home I had left,
- - • •

I heard the evening hymn, and my heart swelled
With half-forgotten memories ! I envied
..... .

Their quiet happiness ; I felt that I
Might have been happy ! when methought I heard
The voice of Abel calling me as wont.
I turned and saw—

ADA.
Whom ?

CAIN.
Him, the Fallen One !
I gazed and stood in fascination fixed :
I could not move away, I felt his power.
I knew, as from instant prescience, he was
The inspirer of my thoughts, which but for him
Perchance had never been ; that he stood there
The ruler of my destiny. I saw
He was inferior to One; for the pride,
And sullen majesty on his dark brow showed
He was not what he would be ; he seemed shorn
Of the lightning splendours he might once have walked in,
But, like the sun, he drew towards him more
In his setting glory ! His vast wings were furled :
But intense light from his grand presence shone,
Making the darkness visible; one hand
He stretched towards me motioning me on :
The other uplifted pointed into space
Which, as the clouds rolled surging back, I saw
Sparkling with distant worlds."
In reply to this dream, followed up as it is
by sentiments wild, lawless, and energetic in
their nature, the author puts the following
touching apostrophe into the mouth of Ada.
Its contrast to the stern sullenness of Cain's
mind is not its least recommendation :
" Feel'st thou no joy, no quiet happiness,
No soothing sense of satisfaction in
Loving and being loved ? Is there no weight
Removed from the heart in knowing there is one
To share all, bear all with thee? to soothe grief,
Yea, to so soften away its human pain
By a superior love, the cup so temper
With words of consolation and sweet hope,
That e'en its very bitterness shall seem sweet,
Forgotten in the love that offers it."

On quitting Ada, who overcome by his re-
fusal to unite longer his destiny with her's, falls
senseless at his feet, Cain pours out his whole
soul in an invocation to the Deity, fraught
with the utmost grandeur of sentiment and
poetry, but wanting in what has been usually
termed Christian submissiveness. Of course he
is unheard, and just at this crisis of his fate
Lucifer stands before him. The colloquy that
ensues between them is sublime in the extreme.

The following is a specimen, it is finely illwstra.
Live of Lucifer's scriptural character :

" I was like thee, as reverent and as happy.
I rose as from a vision, yet it was not,
For I was what I am : still is a consciousness
Within me of existence indistinct,
Where ONE was whom as worshipped—even I;
But I was as fir ro,oved from them, say as the sun
From the ant-hill which it warms. I sate upon
My glorious throne, and when I saw them kneeling
To Him, the Unseen One, I believed, and knelt,
And prayed to be raised and know him—but in vain.
I rose, and stretched my wings through space, the infinite
Lay open before me, but He was not there :
A quickening Power was forming, changing round me,
But the Visible Energy was unbeheld !
I called—l asked but for a sign, as thou :
Doubt then arose, and pride ; they looked up to me,
As second but to One, and where was He ?
I raised my voice, and one half heaven heard me :
They girt me round with seraphim, and knelt
Lowly in adoration, hailing me
The God of Gods ! Then came a change—a struggle—
An agony—which thou, if told, couldst not
Shape forth, or conceive—l stood a separate king,
In separate space—Lord everywhere but there.
Thence, star by star, have I contended 'gainst
This invisible God, or Destiny, in
A strife of hate which cannot end, until
One or both of us he annihilate !"

Cain's account of his early feelings is detailed
with equal force and beauty :7

" I stood alone from boyhood, formed as the rest
In outer lineament, but else as separate
As earth from heaven. The hues and beautiful forms
And life and joyousness of passing things
Gladdened me not as once ; I felt imprisoned,
And wandered restlessly from place to place,
As though to 'scape from self; a void was in
My heart, which love, not even Ada's, though
So loved, could satisfy. But when night came,
And all familiar things were hidden, and darkness
Brought the mystery I loved, then by the rock
Or cavern, or on the mountain's height I stood,
And was happy, because alone, and my heart opened
Which ached with its fulness. I looked up to those
Mysterious Lights, those ever-living Fires,
That through the firmament's floating depths roll on
In awful silence, or in melody
Heard but by Him who made them ! Then, then only,
My all unbounded spirit had its range !
I saw what I could look upon for ever.
All—even the thirst for knowledge was forgot,
It was enough to stand abstracted there,
And blend my being with their eternity !
I stood by the dark trees, my eyes fixed on
Those lighted heavens, with half-stilled breath and motion,
Fearful to break the silence, or the voice
I had wound myself to hear, till from the sounds
Of night I shaped it calling—it was phantasy !
I knelt down then in the love and adoration
Of a full heart, all open to its God !
I called Him through the hollow abyss of Night !
From the cave, from the wreck of a crushed world I called
To Him, the Maker and Destroyer, for
A sign—a word, to tell me what I was,
And for what end created ? if I should
Live again and know him, or might know him now
But to fulfil my being in adoring him !
I bent my brow to the damp earth, and listened—
Oh, how I listened for an answer—but
It came not—the leaf fell lightly down by me—
But through the void of earth and hollow air
All was death-like silence, broken only
By myself-startling voice !"

In pursuance of his ambitious desires, Lucifer
takes Cain to see the wonders of the upper and
lower hemispheres ; in the latter of which
worlds, he points out to him the graves of the
Preadamite conquerors and their descendants,
which draws forth the Wanderer's tenderest feel-
ings :

" Alas ! to think of what they were and are !
How my heart yearns to them, my fellow men !
To think they lived, thought, felt, enjoyed like me;
Perchance their very errings but the fulness
Of a too o'erflowing heart, which could not check
The tide that bore it on. And they who shared
Life with them, and gave its most unearthly joys,
Woman, the fond, the beautiful, gone too,
Like a vision, and her fine sense of love and being,
Shrinking from aught save most refined delight,
Reduced to this !"

In his
.opinions on the subject of those (win
mysteries, life and death, Lucifer embodies not
a few of the Lucretian doctrines, whic*, how-
ever, arc interpolated with propriety, and seem
naturally to form " part and parcel " of the
speaker's mind. In the scene entitled The
Void of Space," occurs the following splendid
passage :

CAIN.
" 0 what a mass of living lights ! 0 thou
Bright star-dewed wilderness of ether !
Thou black and vaulted infinite around me,
Lit up with waving Fires! Where do you lead?
To the throne of the Almighty, step by step,
In scaling which dread track the angels fell
Headlong? Or are ye gods in yourselves, fulfilling
With choral hymn and mystic wheel the secrets
Of his ineffable will ? Or are ye worlds
As beautiful and fading as wreathed flowers !
For ye seem scattered so in the profuseness
Of love, to wither there and die ? Oh, no !
Ye are, ye look immortal ! ye were not
Made to shine thus and perish, making him mourn
Who made ye, and none could look on ye and be
Your Destroyer.

LUCIFER.
Thou shalt see their inner state,
Then judge if it be happier thin thine own.

CAIN (not heeding him.)
Oh, that I were the Maker of them all !
Oh, that I were a god ! a being unknowing
Or time or grief or change ! that I might sit
Throned 'midst this infinity of starry worlds,
Of all their wonders, men, or gods, and climes,
Magnificent Creator ! making all
Happy, and worshipped as I gave them happiness!
What else should emanate from a god ? Oh that I
Could comprehend ye! No ! this sick heart aches
With longings never to be satisfied. Thou Spirit !
Here let me die—l cannot wreak in words
The vastness of my great conceptions !"

The " World in Deluge," with which the
sixth scene opens, is one of the sublimest pic-
tures in ancient or modern poetry. With the
exception of Byron's " Heaven and Earth," and
Milton's earlier books in " Paradise Lost," we
know not where to find its equal in our lan-
guage :