The Sun.
London, England, 1845-08-02 00:00:00

MAGAZINES-(CONTINUED.)
COLBURN'S NEW MONTHLY.

Mr. Harrison Ainsworth has secured the services of a
powerful staff of contributors to the New Monthly.
.Among them are Captain Marryatt, who gives the first of
a mind extracts from the log of a privateer's-man a
hundred years ago, and Mr. G. P. R. James, who has,
in thepresent number, commenced a new novel, entitled
" Beauchamp," from which we give the following exqui-
site passage, which it would require the pencil of a
Gainsborough to adequately illustrate :
" Nevertheless, we know that every now and then, in May,
comes in a warm and summer-like day, bright, and soft, and
beautiful, full of a tempered sunshine, appearing after the cold
days of winter, like joy succeeding sorrow, and entendered by
the memories of the past, such was the sort of day upon which
the traveller we have spoken of rode on upon his way through
a very fair and smiling country. The season had been some-
what early in its expansion ; the weather had been unusually
mild in March ; frequent and heavy showers bad succeeded in
April, and pouring through the veins of the earth the bountiful
libation of the sky, had warmed the bosom of our common
mother to a rich and lovely glow. The trees were all out in
leaf, but yet not sufficiently unclosed to have lost the rich
variety of hues, displayed by the early buds. The colouring
would have been almost that of autumn, so bright and manifold
were the tints upon the wood, had it not been for a certain
tenderness of aspect which spoke of youth and not decay. There
was the oak in its red and brown, here and there mingled with
the verdant hue of summer, but beside it waved the beech, with
its long arms robed in the gentlest and the softest green, the
ash pointed its taper fingers in the direction where the wind
was going, and the larch lifted up its graceful spire, fringed
with its grass like filaments, while its beautiful cones, full of
their coral studs, afforded ornaments, that Queens might be
proud to wear. The fields were spangled with a thousand
flowers, and every bank and hedge was jewelled with vegetable
stars; not only the pale violet, and the yellow primrose, but
the purple columbine and the white hawthorn, even the odo-
rous-breathed cowslip, the wild geranium, and a long list be-
side, were all spreading their beauty in the evening, air, and
glittering with the drops of a shower not long passed by.
Overhead, too, the sky was full of radiance, warm yet soft,
deep in the azure, yet tinted with the evening light, as if the
sunbeams were the threads of a crimson woof woven in with
the blue warp of the sky."
Leigh Hunt, too, has joined the corps of the New
Monthly, and has this month given us a quaint version of
old Chaucer's delightful tale of " Death and the Ruffians."
Mr. Ainsworth himselfcontinues his " Revelations of Lon-
don," and Mr. Francis Ainsworth continues his interest-
ing series of papers on the rivers and cities of Babylonia.
The " Robertses on their Travels" are as amusing as
ever, and the gentleman on half-pay gives a most laughter-
moving account of the adventures which befel him in
consequence of his advertising for a wife. We have a
kindly notice of poor Barham (Thomas Ingoldsby),
from the pen of his intimate friend Mr. Hughes, and
Dudley Costello gives U 3 two spirit-stirring chapters of
a tale, entitled the Fortune of France or the Hotel de
Cluney, a scene of which is laid in Paris at the com-
mencement of the reign of Francis I. Peter Priggins
gives us a most amusing and Theodore-Hook-like
sketch of society, entitled the Fox in the Well. Peter,
however, must look to his laurels ; the author of Jacob
Omnium, the Merchant Prince, is fast treading on bis
heels. This is a good number of the New Monthly
and contains greater variety than many of its prede-
cessors. We could wish, however, that some of the
long works were brought to a conclusion, and that the
space devoted to them were occupied by light maga-
zine tales , complete in themselves, such as were wont in
days of yore to gladden the hearts of the readers of the
New Monthly. We like not the system of conti-
nuations.

AINSWORTH'S MAGAZINE.
" Caesar Borgia," an historical romance by the author
of " Whitefriars," in the three first chapters carries with
it the promise of a powerful and interesting treatment.
There is no epoch of the Middle Ages more fraught
with stirring incident and picturesque situation. The
rise of the family of Rodrigo Borgia (Alexander VI.);
the p ewer of the Papal throne whilst he filled it ; the
ambition, the luxury, the crimes, the fortunes, and the
downfal of the execrable Alexander and his monster
son, Duke Caesar, as they have come down to us, are, all
of them, on a gigantic and marvellous scale. The story
opens at Rome, in the commencement of the far-famed
jubilee year, 1500. " The Man who makes Bargains"
(by Russel Graham) and " Working the Oracle" are two
capital papers, the latter reminding us strongly of the
graphic sketching of James Smith. Mr. James's
," Ehrenstein" advances a chapter or two, and the
number closes with the following beautiful stanzas by
Mrs. Ponsonby