The Sun.
London, England, 1842-12-01 00:00:00

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

" More News from China" is a whimsical arti-
cle by the Editor, and consists of the correspon-
dence young scamp with his
er believe that he is moth o,t who' agraceless t
o
distin-
guishing himself by his prowess in the neigh-
bourhood of Canton, when he is in reality living
in the most dissipated manner in the Metropolis,
and presumes on the inability of his mother to
detect the local and other blunders in his Chinese
descriptions. Here is his fabricated account of a
battle with the pig-tail warriors of the Celestial
Empire :
" My own post was with a cloud of skirmishers that
was pushed forward to enfilade our artillery, while it
made a reconnaisance—but I do not pretend to de-
scribe all the manoeuvres of our army, like the moves
at a game of chess. Some eyewitnesses, I know,
profess to have seen every thing in an action, right
and left, back and front, and in the middle, as clear as
the figures of a quadrille, but which is very different
to my notion and experience of a battle. To my mind
it is more like a turn-up in London, where you are
too much engaged with your own customers to at-
tend to what goes on over the way, or at the other
end of the street, not to forget the dust and smother,
for the guns and cannons, as yet, are not obliged by
Act of Parliament to consume their own smoke. To
give a clear idea of it, just fancy yourselfin a London
fog, so thick that you can only. see your two next
files. Well, by and by, the: right-hand one, after
cutting an extraordinary caper, suddenly drops and
rolls out of sight into the fog, and when you look
rather anxiously for your left-hand man, you see
Tom Brown instead of Jack Robinson. The next
minute you throw a summerset yourself over a log or
a dead corporal, you cannot see which, and then
plunge with your head into the big drum, or perhaps
on a dismounted cannon, with a crash that makes you
see all the gaslights in London in one focus. Of
course, you're insensible for a bit till you're refreshed
with a kick or a stab, and then you revive again about
as cool and collected as a gentleman waking suddenly,
at midnight, to a storm of thunder -and lightning, a
smother of smoke, a strong smell of fire, and a burglar
or two at his bedside. All you see distinctly is some
sort of bright picked-pointed instrument within an
inch of your eye, which of course you parry off by
natural instinct, and then going to work at random,
cut and thrust right and left with your sword, or
pike, or bayonet into the darkness visible, which goes
into something soft, and comes back red and dripping.
That's to say, if
you have good luck : if not, you get
a slash or a poke yourself, from some person or w
do not profess to understand ; so
-per-
sons unknown, in your throat, or your chest, or your
stomach, or wherever you like."
The " hot Water Cure" is a strange narrative,
whose drift,
far as we can make out, a shrewd, worldly Lon-
e
don physician undertakes to cure a nervous
fashionable patient, by telling her a long story--
a most original recipe, for long stories have hi-
therto been looked upon (and most properly) as
a grievance rather than a benefit. "Phineas
Quiddy" terminates happily and satisfactorily
with the death of the dry, hard, mean, griping
man of business, just as he has attained the
acme of his ambition, and is about to be dubbed
Sir Phineas by Majesty. " Story of a Genius"
is well told, but the theme is hopelessly com-
mon-place. In the present chapter of the
Barnabys in America," we find the adventu-
rous heroine domiciliated with a Quaker family.
in Philadelphia, and preparing—by way of in-
gratiating herself' with them—to write a book
strongly denouncing negro slavery. Throughout
these chapters Mrs. Trollope indulges in the most
reckless caricature.

TAIT'S MAGAZINE.
Mrs. Gore's story of " Abednego, the Money.
Lender " is here brought to a close, and the de-
nouement is more startling than any to be found
i n Mrs. Radcliffe—that mistress of the romantic
and- the improbable—for Abednego, the usurer,
is actually converted into a gentleman, just as
if such a transformation were within the pale
of the remotest possibility ! Henceforth let no
one wonder at the Metamorphoses of Ovid.
"Specimens of Modern Romance" is a clever