The Sun. — 1836-04-01 (London, England)

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.—CoIburn. There is more than the usual variety in this Number, which contains, among other amusing articles, one of the most amusing we have met with for some time. It is entitled a " Letter from the Chimpanzee," in which that interesting and respectable individual recounts some of his recent adventures in a style of piquant sarcasm. We take for granted that Mr. Theodore Hook is the author of this delightful paper ; first, from its political bearing ; secondly, from the arch and easy humour that pervades it. We quote an extract from this little jeux d'esprit : " I am sure you will forgive my devoting a few lines of my address to you, to the memory of my poor mother, who lost her life in endeavouring to secure her child's liberty. She was an excellent parent, and if not so well educated as myself, one of the most amiable of Troglodytes—she was mild, gentle, amiable, four feet six inches high, and a pattern for  her sex. " Her, Sir, the worthy gentlemen who were anxious to se cure me for the advancement of knowledge in natural history, shot. I never shall forget that hour. Devotedly attached to me, she endeavoured to carry me as fast as she could to a little place we had about a mile from where we met the men who afterwards became my masters ; and when they fired at her in order to make her stop, she threw me behind her, and faced our enemies, who, finding her too swift of foot for them, fired again, and shot her in the breast. Her piercing cries still wring in my cars. I did not then know what a gun was, nor did she, and in hopes to extract the deadly ball which had taken effect, my wretched parent, while clasping me with one hand, aggravated her misery by tearing open the wound with the other. One of the scientific gentlemen, however, was kind enough, with the humanity and consideration that become a Christian and a philosopher, to knock her respected brains out with the butt end of his gun, and seize me by the legs,—l being at that time, as one of your dramatists writes, " young and sore afraid,"—and thrust me into a sack which an attendant zoologist kindly held ready to secure me. " My father I never knew ; he deserted my mother very soon after I was born. She described him to me as a very fine creature distantly connected with the Pongo family, but of a roving, restless disposition. I have heard—how true it is I cannot say —that he is still alive, and, having gone to North America, is now a member of Congress in the United States ; others tell me that he is astipendiary magistrate in Jamaica ; while some gentle:nen, whom I have seen since I have been here, assure me that he died in England, ambassador from the Queen of Portugal to the Court of St. James's. Of course lam unable to decide, but this I know, that from all I have heard of his natural talents, and from all I see of the power of education, as well as the very little intellect required to go a great way, he may, for all I know, have been a lord chancellor or a cabinet minister, although, not having a tail to recommend him, I do not presume to say he ever arrived at such dignities. " Well, Sir, after I had seen the last of my poor mother—l was spared the misery of beholding her death, by the urbane attention of the scientific gentleman who poked me into the bag—l was carried about one hundred and twenty miles to the coast. Perhaps, Sir, you never travelled so far in a sack. It was the longest excursion I had ever made, and although I duly appreciated the tenderness and humanity of my mother's murderers, I can assure you nothing in a hot climate can be more disagreeable. Everything, as the Trogs say, " must have an end ;" so had my journey ; and I assure you when my masters delivered me over to the care of Captain Wood, I felt more happy than under the circumstances I could have been expected to feel." The " Romance of Law" is evidently the production of one skilled in the technicalities of the profession. It is a useful paper, but something dry, which, however, is necessarily consequent on the nature of the subject. " Letters from the South" are a continuation of Mr. Campbell's Algerine Papers, and contain one highly interesting passage—that, we mean, where the author talks of the coral insect, and the formation of coral islands.