The Sun. — 1840-03-02 (London, England)

BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY. TOM lneoldsby, the richest and oiliest of humourists, has furnished the present Number of the Miscellany with one of its choicest articles, in the shape of a Poem entitled the " Bagman's Dog," which, to say nothing of its droll imagery, and the singular ingenuity of its rhymes, contains one or two touches of description, characterised by such earnest feeling, as convinces us that, were he to turn his attention that way, he would show to advantage in stern, impassioned narrative. HiB portrait of the old French smuggler creeping up stairs, knife in hand, to the chamber of his victim, with a view to murder him, has a ghastly reality about it, that chills one blood. We will give, in preference, however a specimen of Tom's livelier manner The Sea! the Sea 1 the open Seal— That is the place where we all viish to be, Rolling about on it merrily l" So all sing and say, By night and by day, In the boudoir, the street, at the concert, and play, In a sort of coxcombical roundelay; You may roam through the City, transversely or straight, From Whitcchapel turnpike to Cumberland gate, And-every young Lady who thrums a guitar, Ev'ty mustaehio'd Shopnian who smokes a cigar, With affected devotion, Promulgates his notion, Of being a Reeer" and child of the 0cean"....... Whate'er their age, sex, or condition may be, They all of them long for the " Wide, Witte, Sea," But, however they doat, Only set them afloat In any craft bigger at all tle..n a boat, Talo, the.ii dohs to 'lie Nore, Aid u'll see that ilefore The NVe,s• i" they " Woyage" in has half mode her way Between Sh 11-Ness Point and the pier at Herne Bay, Let the wind meet the tide in the sightegt degree. They'll be all of them heartily sick of " the Sea." " Guy Fawkes" improves in interest as it proceeds In the chapters before us we have a spirited sketch of a chase across that dreary and dangerous swamp, Chat Moss, over the details of which Ainsworth lingers, as though he loved his task The incidental allu•ious to those mos,-lights, the ivies fatui, whicn are introduced with much skill in this sketch, are lifted up above the level fl :ts of prose, and rise to the poetic. The Hlied Girl of Castel Cuille" is an old French 'Pend, sweetly and unaffectedly versified. It is from the pen of Lady G,orgiana Fullerton. " I zaak Walton and his Friends" is somewhat too lavish of its paw, Pries on this inveterateaegler, whose well known Pastoral hy no means deserses tedieuedtal eulogies which it to now the fa•mon to bestow. on it. Doubties-, there ere many grac,.ful Wean sketches in the " Complete Angler," but, as a whose. the work is tame and languid ; and its simplicity often degenerates into the mere drivel °C a good-natured old twaddler. Besides, there is an air of quiet, methodical self-complacency about it—a sort of simpering egotism—that rather offends than attracts. If it were not for " Maud the pretty Milkmaid," and the delightful allusion toy the cuckoo who " lives in the dead hollow of the hill," the honk would be intolerable. We doubt much whether old Izaak was the simple, single-hearted being that his admirers represent him to have been. On the contrary, we sus' Peet that he was a shrewd, sly fellow, with a good deal o f the worldy sagacity of the tradesman about him, who took care to select for his associates those who could advance his interests, and administer to his self ove ; who had the tact to pet a bishop's sister for his wife, a young man of rank and fashion for his son-in-law, and God knows how many prelates for his friends and 'eulogists ! Now your unsophisticated, simple-minded men— especially if they happen to be of low Origin—seldom make connexions like these. It is worldly tact and