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

COURT CIRCULAR.

The Earl of Haddington, and other Cabinet Minis-
ters, had an interview with Sir Robert Peel yesterday
at his official residence in Downing-street.
Mr. Wickham, Chairman of the Stamps and
Taxes, had an interview with the Chancellor of the
Exchequer yesterday, at his official residence in
Downing-street.
Dispatches from Sir Charles Bagot, Governor of
Canada, were received yesterday at the Colonial-office.
Sir George Cockburn visited Sir R. Peel yesterday.
Dispatches for the Governor of Ceylon were sent off
last evening from the Colonial-office.

MAGAZINE DAY.
BLACKWOOD' S MAGAZINE.

In his admirable notice of " Lays of Ancient
Rome," Christopher North—tor there is no mis-
taking his rapid, glowing, energetic style—does
justice, in a frank and decided spirit, to the
genius of Mr. Macaulay, both as a critic and a
poet. We are glad of this, tbr we have long
regarded this gentleman as one of the most ac-
complished spirits of the age—a sound scholar,
an eloquent and forcible reasoner, a poet of high
and rare powers of fancy, and an historical
essayist, whose sketches of character—we shall
never forget his masterly portraits of Chatham
and Carteret—are among the truest and acutest
in the language. "If Macaulay," says Christo-
pher, "be not the first of critics, who is? Then
name the poet who could have written the
ballad of the Armada, and kindled, as if by
electricity, beacons on all the brows of England,
till night grew day." The ballad in question is
certainly a magnificent one, but it has always
struck us as possessing one radical defect.
In vigour and minuteness of description it
is unrivalled ; we see the different mountains,
north, south, east, and west, blazing with the
beacon fires; we see the messengers scampering,
like so many mad devils, here, there, and every-
where, with the news of the approach of the
Spanish fleet; and we hear the drums and trum-
pets sounding to arms in all parts of the kingdom;
but we see no strong human emotion actively and
directly at work ; no gatherings of sturdy Eng-
lish masses with resolved countenances, and
strong hearts beating, as though they were one
man. Mr. Macaulay gives us the bustle, but
not the passion of the crisis, and substitutes
drums and beacon fires for the irresistible energy
of the roused English character. In the follow-
ing passage only—we quote from memory—does
he attempt anything like a portrait of human
emotion—

" With his grey head unbonnetted, the stout old
Sheriff comes,
Before him march the halberdiers, behind him sound

the drums ;
Ho, strike the flag-staff deep, Sir Knight! Ho,

scatter /lower's, fair maids !"

Now, the want of earnest sentiment here is so
obvious that none can overlook it. What busi-
ness has an English Sheriff to be prattling about
" flowers" and " fair maids" when the Spanish
fleet is hovering on the coast, and the very exist-
ence of England is at stake ? Such an allusion
is impertinent in the extreme, and would better
become a bridal or a May-day scene, than the
awful crisis of an invasion. We have hinted this
objection in no unfriendly spirit, for, on the
whole, we consider Mr. Macaulay's ballad of the
" Armada" as one of the noblest in the language.
Of his " Lays of Ancient Rome," Christopher
thus speaks :
It is a great merit of these poems, that they are
free from ambition or exaggeration. Nothing seems
overdone—no tawdry piece of finery disfigures the
simplicity of the plan that has been chosen. They
seem to have been framed with great artistical skill—'
with much self-denial, and abstinence from anything
incongruous—and with a very successful imitation of
the effects intended to be represented. Yet every
here and there images of beauty, and expressions of
feeling, are thrown out that are wholly independent
of Rome or the Romans, and that appeal to the widest
sensibilities of the human heart. In point of homeli-
ness of thought and language, there is often a bold-
ness which none but a man conscious of great powers
of writing would have ventured to show. In these
rare qualities, " The Lays of Ancient Rome" re-
semble Lockhart's " Spanish Ballads," which must
have been often ringing in Macaulay's ears, since
first he caught their inspiring music more than
twenty years ago--when, "like a burnished fly in
pride of May," he bounced through the open windows
of Knight's Quarterly Magazine. Two such volumes
all a summer's day you may seek without finding
among the works ! of " our Young Poets." People
do
not call Lockhart and Macaulay poets at all—for
both hinavperefaecr(eiuniereedto
rs
anveien,veterate habit of writing
and first-rate prose too ;
but then the genius of the one man is as different as
may be from that of the other—agreeing,
this, that each exhibits bone and muscle however,suffieient, i
ifn
equitably distributed among ten " YoPoets,"to
set them up among the "rural villages" asstrong
men, who might even occasionally exhibit in booths
as giants.
" Imaginary Conversation between Southey
' and Porson," respecting Wordsworth, is by Mr.
Walter Savage _Landon It is in his cleverest
manner, abounding in happy epigrammatic
turns, quaint similes, and critical reflections of
the most searching character. It also exhibits
much wit of thought—the best species of wit—
and great fertility and variety of illustrationthe
gathered, with apparent readiness, from
re-
motest and most out-of-the-way sources. The
author is clearly no idolator of the great
Lake Poet, but passes sentence on him with all
the austerity of a Rhadamanthus. He is mis-
taken, however, in attributing Wordsworth's pre-
sent popularity—or presumed popularity—to the
eulogistic writings of Southey. It is almost ex-
clusively owing to the eloquent criticisms of Pro-
fessor Wilson and Sergeant Talfourd, who have
never missed an opportunity of sounding the
praises of the author of the " Excursion." The
" American Notes" of Mr. Charles Dickens fur-
nish the subject of a lengthy notice, exceedingly
well written, but not sinning on the favourable
side. " Ricardo and Adam Smith" may be
useful, but it is assuredly dull and tedious; but
writers on Political Economy are seldom pre-
eminently conspicuous by their eloquence and
vivacity.