The Sun.
London, England, 1829-11-02 00:00:00

Iliad, and Odyssey," is a short, sketchy, and
spirited account of the life and writings of this
first of recorded poets. The remarks, however,
on the subject of the digamma arc superfluous.
It has been as satisfactorily ascertained, as it is
ever likely to be, that the pronunciation of the
digamma was V ; the supposition of Dawes that
it was W, though once a favourite theory, has
!men long since exploded. " The March of
Mind, a Tale of Crutched-friars," sketches the
• biography of a worthy city family, who have
been ruined by too sedulous and inconsistent
an attention to literature. " King Rothschild"
is a remarkably spirited specimen of satirical
versification ; a master-hand is visible in almost
every line, though the spirit of the humour is
not altogether in accordance with our way of
thinking. " Prose by a Versifier," and vice versa,
is a clever sparkling sketch of a ramble in Lon-
don, from which we extract the following spirited
and somewhat fantastical observations :
" Londoners are never young, that is to say, morally or
mentally young—to be sure they vary in size and appear-
ance, according to the number of years which have rolled
over their heads, but they have no infancy-, or boyhood,
properly speaking. They form a permanent exception to
Locke's assertion, that there arc no innate ideas ; they are
all born with an instinctive knowledge of compound frac-
tions, and tare and trett, and can balance accaunts from
the very moment they are born : this is proved by the
extreme regularity with which they calculate the increase
of food; and proportionate it to the increase of size and
strength, invariably requiring at the hands of their attend-
ants, from day to day, the exact addition necessary, toge-
ther with a suitable allowance for waste. Many accurate
observers of city phenomena, incline, from a close consi-
deration of the foregoing circumstances, to believe in the
transmigration of souls, and maintain that a London Al-
derman never dies, but that when his frame is worn out
by a long and close application to business, including, of
course, a regular attendance at corporation festivals, where,
in obedience to the canons of the city, it is incumbent on
him to consume a certain quantity of turtle and venison,
duly and sufficiently moistened with wine ; when his
frame, I say, like an over-wrought mill, yields to the force
of attrition, arid can no longer overcome the vin inertim
of food, they affirm that his soul, like that of the Grand
Lama, seeks a new habitation ; and as the priests of that
pontiff are enabled to discover their future sovereign by
certain infallible tokens, so, it is believed, are the skilful
in such matters, able to detect the aldermanic spirit, while
lurking in its infantile disguise, chiefly, it is said, by a
certain orbicular protuberance of the abdomen, and a lam-
bent smile which overspreads the countenance, when the
name of the ward to which it last belonged is uttered in
its hearing.
After all, there is no use in denying that there is some-
thing astonishing and stupendous, in the energy and per-
severance with which the " Atari sacra fames," inspires
these same cocknies, and the gigantic, Briareus-like spirit
of exertion and industry, with which tUy urge their mul-
tifarious pursuits. From every quarter and point of the
globe, habitable and uninhabitable, from every element
and combination of nature, they have evoked, by the talis-
manic touch of wealth, whatever can gratify the craving
necessities, or soothe the still more insatiable follies of the
most luxurious and extravagant race that ever the sun
shone upon. At this instant, while my pen is tracing
these words, the swarthy Indian is braving the ferocity of
the ravenous tiger, or nimble leopard, to win from its fierce
possessor a dappled hammer-cloth for my Lord Mayor of
London. The patient diver is exploring the dim incon-
stint depths of the ocean, to wring from the maw of the
philosophical, and contemplative oyster, pale glistening
pearls, to shimmer in the light of Almack's, on the
snowy bosom of Lady Emily Mordaunt. The dusky
Arab urge his head!ong steed after the affrighted ostrich,
to snatch t lefeathers that shall wave at St. James's, or the
mountain- leaded Papuan is tumbling the bird-of-paradise
from his perfumed bower, under the invisible influence of
Mrs. Alderman Fizzle; though the scoundrel would eat
her, if he could only lay hands on her, with as little re-
morse as if she were a turtle. Tire wastes of Siberia can-
not shelter the sable—the whale cannot flounder through
the ice-bergs of the Arctic Ocean—there is no rest for the
stately elephant in the forests of India, and the unwilling
lobster must emerge from the sea-caves of Norway, and all
because a bulbous, broad-brimmed, zodiac-waisted son of
Mammon, who may be sitting, at this identical moment,
in the next box to me, for aught I know to the contrary,
will not, as the Scottish song says, " let them be."

" Affairs in General," are, as usual, vigorous
and lively comments, spiced with neat sarcasm,
and brightened by a pleasant dash of caricature
on the leading topics of the month. They greatly
enhance the interest of the number, which, if we
except its inconsiderate politics, is a capital one.