The Sun. — 1863-07-27 (London, England)

LITERATURE.  Martin Pole. By John Saunders, author of "Abe Drake's Wife." Two vols. Tinsley Brothers.  In these volumes are contained some half-a dozen tales of thrilling interest, knit together after the manner of the famous thousand-and-one tales of Scheherezade—and for this reason. The mother of Martin Pole, shortly before his birth, had refused to give alms to an insolent gipsy woman, and the gipsy, indignant at the lady's haughty pride, had uttered a curse upon her and her unborn child, which was to take Effect the day he should be twenty-one. The mother becomes a victim to superstitious dread and dies, leaving to her son the sad inheritance of a terrible apprehension. How the fatal day arrives, and how the half-brother, coveting the estates, does all in his power to augment the nervous horror of the victim, is the subject of some very dramatic scenes, Meanwhile, old Matthew Mucklethrift, a faithful servant of the family, comes to the rescue with a group of story-tellers, who excite the doomed men's attention and for a time divert his agonised gaze from following the hours of the clock. Three stories in the collection are by Mr. Saunders' daughter, who seems to inherit her father's genius. The longest story in the collection, and certainly one of the best, is " The Plague Stone of Aberford." This is from Mr. Saunders' own pen, and the earlier chapters, in which tittle Constance Chorley with tascinated horror sees her father making preparations to set fire to his house, are full of breathless interest. Mr. Saunders possesses the rare power of enthralling his reader's attention, and happi'y he always exercises that power fur good.  South American Sketches : or, A Visit to Rio Janeiro, the Organ Mountains, La Plata, and the Parana. By 'Thomas Woodbine Hinchliff, M.A., F.R.G.S., author of " Summer Months among the Alps." One vol., pp. 414. Longman. " In visiting South America," says Mr. Hinchliff, " I had the satisfaction of fulfilling a loag-cherishen desire. As a schoolboy I had wandered in imagination among the forests of Brazil, my fancy had been fired by Sir Francis Head's description of the Pampas; and I had latterly conceived an eager wish to compare the Andes with the Alps." In pursuing his expedition he was, therefore, ani• mated by the most pleasurable anticipations, and those anticipations appear to have been realised by his experiences. The exquisite scenery of the Organ Mountains, he believes, can hardly be surpassed throughout the world. " The grandeur of the forests, the infinite variety of ferns and flowers and fruits, the beauty of the birds and insects, and the sublimity of the scenery, all exceeded my bright expectations." In his wanderings in Buenos Ayres in the Recoleta or buryingground he came upon the following extraordinary epitaph : I found on a tall obelisk the most concise and terrible inscription lam acquainted with. It was this :—"Don Francisco Alvarez, asesinado por sus amigos, 1828." "Assassinated by his frieads I" Struck by this extraurdinary epitaph, I made inquiries about the subject of it, and found that a party of young men from good families of the place were in the habit of gambling together, till Alvarez won heavily from all the others. They determined to pay their debts by getting rid of their creditor, and enticing him to a lonely place they deliberately murdered him , they put his dead body in a coach that was ready, and threw it down a well in the neighbourhood. They had laid their plans so that detection seemed impossible ; but by an extraordinary chance there wag a witness to the crime, who denounced them. Great efforts were made by family influence to save them, but in vain; they were executed, and the brother of the murdered man erected the obelisk to his memory. Don Francisco might certainly have joined in the aspiration " Save me from my friends !" As another specimen of the interesting information collected in this volume, w. quote the following marvellous example of patient perseverance. Mr. Hinchliff hag already some time back published the substance of the account, but not the full particulars :