The Sun.
London, England, 1842-03-01 00:00:00

BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY.

The variety of matter in this month's Miscellany,
which alternates most agreeably between the grave
and the gay, proves that it has lost nothing by its
change of Editorship. Neither is there any filling
off in the illustrations, which are more lively and
numerous than they have been for some time past.
Alfred Crowquill contributes two highly humorous
plates illustrative of the " Philosophy of Physic," one
of which, under the quaint title of "Two Pumps Con-
sulting," represents a fat physician with a bald, hciad,
and spectacles on nose, engaged in learned conference
with a pump, on which are stuck a doctor's Is ;g and
hat, while the handle does duty as an arm. Of the

two medical professors, the pump looks by far the
most sagacious, though there is an air of dignified,
goose-like gravity about his companion, by no means
to be despised. We verily believe that half the secret
of a physician's success consists in a grave and formal
phiz. No patient ever encourages a sprightly-i isaged
doctor. Such a biped is an impertinence—a solecism
—in a sick-room. If we must have an M.D. by our
bed-side, with a watch in one hand, while with the
other he fumbles about for our pulse, we prefer one
who looks its solemn as if he had just come from the
funeral of one of -his patients. Another illustration

represents Death poking his grim, fleshless counten-
ance out of a moVar, evidently More to the annoyance
than the surprise of an apothecary, who accordingly
aims a vicious blow at. his skull with a pestle. The
sarcastic leer on the face of the gaunt phantom is very
archly pourteayed. Of the article which these plates.
illustrate, we cannot speak so favourably. It is, in
truth, a flippant, common-place affair, stuffed full of
excruciating puns, which it is clear that the writer
lo,stakes for wit. and humour. The theme, thowoi
not novel, was a tempting one, but it has been marred
in the treatment. The " Harmonious Owls" is a spi-
rited quiz on singing clubs, introduced by some pithy,
pertinent remarks on the system of clubs in general.
The satire is justly applied, awl is remarkable for its
breadth and freedom. The " Enthusiast at Shak-
spere's Tomb"—a Shaksperian enthusiast, by the
bye, is apt to lie an awful bore, and most supei
acquainted with his author—is an account of a visit
paid last year to Stratford-on-A,von. The descrip-
tion is. and graphic, and the sentiment not exag-
gerated. 'the illustration, representing the interior of
an old-fashioned .chamber is as picturesque as the best of
Cattermole's plates in " Master llumphrey's Clock."
" Valentine's Day"- is a pleasant, seasonable subject,
pleasantly hit off. Ladies r.lways write well about St.
Valentine—their pet 'Saint—we need not wonder
therefore, that Miss Carey has a3quitted herself sue •
cessfully. But the Penny. Postman is the man to
write most feelingly, if not complimentarily, on this
topic, bending, as he does,' from morning till night,
beneath a load of delicate embarrassments. " Rambling
Reflections on St. Valentine" from his pen would be a
great ' treat. In the present chapters of " Richard
Savage," we are introduced to the acquaintance of
Sir Richard Steele, whose conversation is characteris-
tic enough. The scene of his quarrel with Savage ,s
among,the best, because the most natural, incident ; in
the story. "Tommy Doddy" is a passable 'account of
a Lord .illavor's Pageant in the year 1G33. "Aunt
Sarah's Ghost" is one of those supernaturpl traditions
which we all affect to laugh at, but all read with avi-
dity. The description of the phantom is very ghastly
and bewildering. "OH Green, Offley's Regular
Customer"—a sketch introduced by- an admirable hal f-
length portrait of the hero, by Leech—represents to
the life one of those
,gross,. animal voluptuaries who
may occasionally be met with in London taverns,
and who have about as much intelligence and sensibi-
lity as the turtle and venison on which they make such
desperate assaults. Old Green, says his biographer,
lived but to eat and drink, and when his appetite
failed him, he committed suicide. Of the "Philosophy
of Physic" we have already spoken. . " The Old Fa-
miliar Strain," though it,cannot bOast. of much vigour
or originality, is. yet • agreeably, versified, after the
liaynes Bayly fashion. We subjoin it acaordinglv

Sing me that cld familiar strain
Which touched my her -•t in boyhood's years,
Bo'bre its chords were jarred by pain,
_ Before its hopes wer? dimmed by tears. • •
Time has fled fast since first I heard
Its music from those lips of thine ;
But well remcmher2d is each word:

Ss sing once more, oh, Mary mine,
The old familiar :train.
Thine eyes have their soft radiance kept,
That won my heat in life's you:1 sprin,
And o'er thy teauty Time Lath swept
Gently, wjth light and charmed wing.
Unaltered is thy graceful form,
Thy trusting heart is still the same,
Keeling those true affections warm
As when, bef re I dreamt of fame,
You sang me that old strain.
Yes, sing l—a 3 in those golden hturs
When life, and love, and hope were young,_
When fancy s rowel our path with flowers,_
Oh ! sing the strain that then you sung !
Your voice may have a sadder tone
Than made sweet music in that time,
Ere grief or trials we had knoviln,
When first yol sang in youthful prime
That old familiar strain.
Methinks that on thy p'acid brow.
So lightly tcuehei by furrowing years,
Since first we plighted love's fond vow_.
Thought's graver ehaduw now appears ;
But yet if in thy very mirth
Remembrance of cur Dead will come,
Strong ti s yet bind thee to the ear;h—
So breathe ones mo-c within our home
The old familiar strain.

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
Mr. Poole here continues his piquant story of
"Phineas (-biddy," and shows himself in every chap-
ter a shrewd and caustic observer of the every-day
world about us. We relish Ms tale the more, that it
is not pitched in too high a key, but represents He as
it really is. Much of the dialogue is dramatic enough
for comedy, and the descriptions are invariably spi-
rited, without being overcharged in the colouring.
" A Sketch on the Road" (which we subjoin) is by
Mr. Hood, as the peculiar tu• a of observation will at
once show :—" It is a I Tat to see Prudery get
into an omnibus. Of course she rejects the hand
that is held out to her by male Civility. It might
give 'her a squeeze. Neither does she take the
first vacant place ; but looks out for a seat,
if possible, between an innocent little girl, and an
old woman. In the mean time the Omnibus moves
on. Prudery totters—makes a snatch at Civility's
nose—or his neck—or anywhere—and missing her
hold, rebounds to the other side of the vehicle, and
plumps down in a strange gentleman's lap. True
Modesty would have escaped all these indecorums!'
The particulars, which are detailed with infinite
gravity, of the "Life and Writings of that remark-
able Child, the late Miss Mprgaret Daw," fol.n an
amusing quiz on precocious genuises. We must con-
fess to an innate distrust of all precocious genuises.
In seven cases out 'of ten they end in confirmed
blockheadism. Is it not a little singular that in this
article; as also in another in the present Number, the
memorable couplet written by a young London pick-
pocket on the walls of Newgate—as was duly stated
in the Police Reports of the day—are twice quoted,
and twice quoted erroneously. The following is the
correct version :

Him as prip vot is'nt his'n,
Ven he's cotched, vill go to pris'n.
Never had poetic couplet so many commentators as
the above ! It has been honourably noticed by Oliver
Yorke, by Christopher North, and most of the ima-
ginative spirits of the day ; yet all have quoted it
erroneously, and it is with a justifiable critical pride
that we now (for the second time) give the true read-
ing. But, alas, for the destiny of genius ! We have
every reason to believe that the author of this immor-
tal distich is now wearing away the cheerless hours,
with a chain round both legs, in the unimaginative re-
gions, of Botany Bay ! lie was transported—yon
true poet is very apt to be transported—for making a.
mistake with a gentleman's watch and seals in
the Strand—no very flagrant offence, for great
geniuses are proverbial for their absence of
mind, and are not to be tried by the laws of
ordinary humanity ! " Graduates and Under-
,Graduates" furnish us with whimsical details of
certain fishing excursions on the Thames and ,else-
where. "Recollections of Eton," will be read with
pleasure by every Etonian. They are genuine and
heart-felt reminiscences. " A Record of the Police
Office" is an affecting anecdote told with an earnest-
ness and simplicity worthy of Dickens. The
" Schoolmistress" is a highly humourons journttl of
a pedantic schoolmistress's excursion to the Continent.
We quote a portion of her prudish and characteristic
letter to a young pupil :
For yourj amusement and improvement I did hope to com-
pose a ournpl of our continental progress, with such references
to Guthrie and the School Atlas as might enable you to trace
our course on the map of Europe. But unexpected vicissitudes
of mind and body have totally incapacitated me for the pleasing
task. Some social evening hereafter I may entertain our little
juvenile circle with my locomotive miseries and disac.Trecables ;
but at present my nerves and feelings are too discomposed for
the correct flow of an epistolary correspondence. Indeed,
from from the Tower-stairs to Rotterdam I have been in one
universal tremour and perpetual blush. Such shocking scenes
and positions, that make one ask twenty times a day, is this de-
corum ?—can this be manners ?--an this be morals ? But I
must not anticipate. Suffice it., that as regards foreign travel-
ling it is my painful conviction, founded on personal experience,
that a woman of delicacy or refinement cannot go out of Eng-
land without going out of herself !
The very first step from an open boat up the windy shipside
is an alarm to modesty, exposed as one is to the ofli,!ious but
odious attentions of the Tritons of the Thames. Nor is the
steamboat itself a sphere for the preservation of self respect. If
there is any feature on which the British female justly • prides
herself, it is a correct and lady-like carriage. that particular
I quite coincide with Mrs. Chapone, Mrs. lir-malt More, and
other writers on the subject. But how—let me ask—how is a
dignified deportment to be maintained when one has to skip
and straaidle over cables, ropes, and other nautical hors (Pawl-re
—to scramble up and down impracticable stairs, and to clam-
ber into inaccessible beds ! Not to name thin sudden losing
one's centre of gravity, and falling in all sorts of unstudied at-
titudes on a sloppy and slippery deck. An accident that I may
say reduces the elegant and the awkward female to the same
level. You will be concerned therefore to learn that poor Miss
Ruth had a fall, and in an unbecoming posture particularly dis-
tressing—namely, by losing her footing on the cabin flight,
and coining down with a destructive launch into the steward's
pantry.
For my own part, it has never happened to me within my
remembrance, to make a false step, or to miss a stP;r ; there is
a certain guarded carriage that preserves one from such spraw-
ling denouemens—but of course what the bard calls "the
poetry of motion," is not to be preserved amidst the extem-
pore rollings of an ungovernable ship. Indeed, within the last
twenty-four hourst,lhave had to perfoi.n feats of agility more
fit for a monkey than one of my own sex and species. Par
example —getting down from a bed as high as the copybook-
cupboard, and, what really is awfel, with the sensation of grop-
ing about with your feet and legs for a floor that seems to
have no earthly existence. I may add, the cabin-door left
ajar, and exposing Sou to the gaze of an obtrusive cabin-boy,
as lie is called, but quite big enough for a man. Oh, je cc •
jamais !