The Sun.
London, England, 1842-04-11 00:00:00

recommends the expediency of our being satisfied with
just vindicating the dignity of our national character.
The prose tales are as amusing as the general run of
such Magazine articles.

THE SPORTSMAN AND THE SPORTINI

MAGAZINE.

"The Pedestrian," a continuation of a series of arti-
cles on France, in the first of these publications, contains
some interesting detaili on the manners and customs of
the people. as well as the state of manufactures in that
country. The writer calculates that of the thirty-six
thousand English resident in France not fewer than ten
thousand are employed as artificers and manufacturers.
Want of coal, however, forms a sad drawback on indus-
try, the total consumption being under one-fifth of that
of England. In Paris fuel costs twice as much as in
London, the total annual value of that consumed in the
French capital being estimated at 1,600,000/. The sport-
ing intelligence for the month is very copious. Nimrod
gives a good account of a day's hunt with the Queen's
hounds, and Prince Albert's stud —ln the Sporting Ma-
gazine there are two good sketches, with well-executed
maps, of the places of meeting of the Hunt of the Mar-
quis of Hastings in the country around Castle Donning-
ton, and of Mr. Muir's Hunt in Suffolk.

VEDDER'S POEM. Smith, Glasgow, 1842.
Mr. David Vedder, the author of this collection of
legendary, lyrical, and descriptive poems, displays
much ease and grace of versification, together with
a command of imagery that proves him to be skilled
in the resources of his art. He has attempted a
great variety of metres, and has successfully ac-
quitted himself in all. His " Ode on the Anniver-
sary of Burns" is characterised by a high strain of
generous enthusiasm ; but, generally speaking, his
odes are not his happiest performances, he is more at
home in the simple ballad, to which he imparts an
energy and feeling not unworthy of Hogg in his best
days. The volume is embellished with several spi-
rited engravidgs.

THE WARD OF THORPE-COMBS. 3 Vols.
Bentley, London, 1842.

With the single exception of her "Widow Barnaby,"
we incline to consider the " Ward of Thorpe-Combe"
the cleverest work of fiction that Mrs. Trollope has
yet produced, if only for the portrait of the demure,
intriguing, ambitious Miss Sophia Martin. There is
a vigour, and even an originality, about this character,
an adroitness in its development, and a per-
fectly con amore spirit in the manner in which
it is sustained throughout, that convince us— did
we need further assurance of the fact—that the
authoress is well read in the human heart, and takes
a pleasure in dragging into light all its latent weak-
nesses and vices. Mrs. Trollope is certainly a
powerful writer, but she is not a tolerant or an
amiable one. She has none of the bonhommie
of Sir Walter Scott—none of that sunny socia-
lity of temperament which conciliates the reader, and
imparts a generous glow to his feelings. She looks
on humanity with the stern eye of scepticism, is quick
to believe in its inherent baseness, slow to discover its
redeeming qualities. Even her humour has nothing
cordial about it, but is dry and sarcastic—a thing of
the head, not the heart. In a word, she is a Dean
Swift in petticoats, though it is but justice to add,
that she never trespasses against decorum, as was
too often the case with the author of " Gulliver's
Travels." Her present work is written with singular
force, and keeps attelition on the alert throughout.
The heroine, Miss Sophia Martin, is a young orphan,
who has been brought up under the superintendence
of a kind-hearted uncle and aunt, Major and Mrs.
Heathcote ; in her early youth she is represented as
being reserved, self-possessed, and diffident, appa-
rently, to a very unusual degree ; but a handsome for-
tune having been unexpectedly left her by an eccentric
relative, her whole woman's nature undergoes a total
change, and she becomes as bold, confident, and aspiring
as she once was—or appeared to be—the reverse.
No longer the timid, thoughtful, sycophantic depen-
dent onanother's bounty, she suddenly starts up the re-
solute, ambitious, subtle despot, hungering and thristing
for ascendancy over all who come within the sphere
of her influence, greedy of wealth, and determined of
purpose to obtain a titled husband, no matter at what
cost. Ultimately, she is deprived of the fortune that
had been left her, by the sudden return to
England of the rightful heir, who had been long
supposed dead, .and then, after a violent burst of
indignation, coolly sets her wits to work, and accepts
the hand of man of moderate independence who had
courted her on the supposition that she was still pos-
sessed of wealth, and is not made acquainted with the
fraud that has been practised on him, until the indis-
soluble knot has been tied. This character is essen-

tially dramatic, and has lost nothing of its efficiency
in Mrs. Trollope's hands. The other personages of
the story have nothing particularly noticeable about
them, but are evidently intended merely to set off,
and bring into active play the passions and peculiari-
ties of the plotting, ambitious Sophia Martin.

A REGULAR 4,DOWN EAST" SAM-
PLE OF THE LEX TALIONIS.
(From the Sporting Review.)
Among the earliest settlers in the wilds of
Salmon River, was a Vermontese, of the name
of Dobson—a large, resolute man. Returning,
one evening, from a fruitless hunt after his
vagrant cows, which, according to the custom in
new countries, had been turned into the woods,
to procure their own subsistence from the rank
herbage of the early summer ; just before emerg-
ing from the forest, upon the clearing of his
neighbour, the worthy Joseph Sleeper, he saw
a large bear descending from a lofty sycamore,
where he had been, probably, in quest of honey.
A bear ascends "a tree much more expertly
than he descends it, being obliged to come down
hindforemost. My friend Dobson did not like
to be joined, in his evening walk, by such a com-
panion; and without reflecting what he should
do with the " varmint" afterwards, ran to the
tree on the opposite side from the animal's body,
and just before he reached the ground, he seized
him by the fore-paws. Bruin growled and
gnashed his tusks; but he soon ascertained that
his paws were in the grasp of iron paws, equally
iron-strong with his own; nor could he use his
hinder paws to disembowel his antagonist, as the
manner of the bear. is, inasmuch as the trunk of
the tree was between them. But Dobson's pre-
dicament,endowed with rather the
worse yet. He could no more
itialesian the bear could assail him ;
assail
cso
aas
itml
reteiniaets,obne, asa
bear
nor could he venture to let him go—a very gra-
cious return for thus unceremoniously taking hiru
by the hand. The twilight was fast descending
into darkness, and his position was far less com-
fortable than it otherwise would have been at the
same hour, surrounded by his wife and children,
at the supper-table, to say nothing of the gloomy
prospects for the night. Still, as Joe Sleeper's
house was not far distant, he hoped to be able to
call him to his assistance ; but his lungs, although
none of the weakest, were unequal to the task;
and although he hallooed and bawled the live-
long night, making the woods and welkin ring
again, he succeeded no better than old Glen-
dower of old, in calling spirits from the vasty
deep.
It was a wearisome night for Dobson, such a
game of hold fast he had never been engaged in
before. Bruin, too, was somewhat worried, al-
though he could not describe his sensations in
English, albeit he took the regular John Bull
method of making known his dissatisfaction—
that is to say, he growled incessantly. But there
was no let go in the case, and Dobson was, there-
fore, under the necessity- of holding fast, until it
seemed, to his clenched and aching fingers, as
though the bear's paws dud his had grown to
gether.
As daylight returned, the smoke from Mr.
Sleeper's chimney began to curl up gracefully,
though rather dimly, in the distance. Dobson
again repeated his cries for succour, and his heart
was soon gladdened by the appearance of his
worthy, but inactive neighbour, who had at last
been attracted by the voice of the impatient suf-
ferer, bearing an axe on his shoulder. Dobson had
never been so much rejoiced at seeing Mr. Sleeper
before, albeit he was a very kind and estimable
neighbour.
" Why don't you make haste, Mr. Sleeper,
and not be lounging at that rate when you see a
fellow-Christian in such a kittle of fish as this ?"
c( I run ! is that you, Mr. Dobson, up a tree
there? And was it you I heard hallooing so last
night ? I guess you ought to have your lodging
for nothing, if you've stood up agin' the tree all
night."
" It's no joke, though, I can tell you, Mr.
Sleeper; if you had hold of the paws of a black
varmint all night, it strikes me you'd think
you paid dear enough for it. But if you
heard me calling for help in the , night, why
did'nt you come and see what was the trouble ?"
" Oh, I was going tired to bed, after laying up
log fence all day, and I thought I'd wait till
morninF, and come bright and airly. But if I'd
known it was you—"
" Known 'twas me ?" replied Dobson, bitterly.
" you knew 'twas somebody ,who had, flesh and
blood too good for these plaguy varmints though;
and you know there's been a smart sprinkle of
bears about the settlement all the spring!"
" Well, don't be in a huff, Tommy. It's never
too late to do good. So bold tight now, and don't
let the tarnal critter get loose, while I split his
head open."
" No, no," said Dobson. " After holding the
beast here all night, I think I ought to have the
pleasure of killing him. So you just take hold
of hispaws here, and I will take the axe and let
a streak of daylight into his skull about the
quickest.!
The proposition being a fair one, Mr. Sleeper
was too reasonable a man to object. He was no
coward either ; and he therefore stepped up to
l the tree)and: cautiously taking the bear with