The Sun. — 1849-12-10 (London, England)

MAGAZINES, &C.--(CONTINUED.)  TAIT:S.  Tait's Magazine for December is full of interest. The delightful paper on " Amicitzn Shhkspeariante," is continutd, from which we quote the following beautiful and truthful remarks :  "Lorenzo, the husband of Sb) lock's daughter, Jessica, struck with admiration at her (Portia's) self-denial and disinterested generosity, exclaims, " ' Madam! although I speak it in your presence, You have a noble and a true conceit Of God-like amity.' " To this she replies:— " I never did repent for doing good, Nor shall I do now, for in companions That do converse and waste the time together, Whose souls do bear an equal yoke of love, • There must be needs a like proportion Of lineaments, of manners, and of spirit; Which makes me think that this Antonio, Being the bosom-lover of /I y lord, Must needs be like my lord. If it be so, How little is the cost I have b.stowed In purchasing this semblance of my soul From out the state of hellish cruelty 1' " There is is, and philosophy here, and a distinct verificalion of the first half of our proposition—'Friendship is based on similarity and contrast.' Portia justly reasons when she thinks that Antonio must nt cessarily resemble Bassani° in all the leading featuri s of bis character and manuers—similia similibus, noscitur a weds, are axiomatic. She, however. goes a little too fur when she includes in the series of resemblances. But she was a woman, and this is her excuse.  " Here, tr.,ain, Re see the expansive and diffusive influence of this relation. It first chains you in sa eetest bonds to a single individual, then to all be loves, and then to tha whole circle of humanity. We have no confidence in the theory of those who would have us believe that we must first embrace, in the ample folds of our affections, all the myriads of the world's population, and then, proceeding inwards by a system of concentric circles, arrive at last at the solitary central individual. No; we must b, gin at the individual, and end with the specks. Our love must be like the wavy circle produced by the projection of a stone into the calm, deep sea, which widens and extends till it loses itself amid the distant waters of the boundless waste. It may be here objected—As it is impossible that we can love as friends without first loving as worshippers of Deity; as our affections must flow to man through the medium of God; and as He is infinite; do we not thus first love the universal, and then the particular?—do we not first love the All-embracing, and then the all-embraced ? Our answer is this, that while it is perfectly true that, in order to a stable, disinterested, genuine friendship, we must first love that Being from whom all our affections spring, and to whom all our affections should return, we love Him not as many, but as one—not as multitude, but as unity—not as an abstract universal diffusion, but as a distinct personality. We love Him as an individual Being—we love Him first as the centre, then as the circumference, of the universe. Tbus, in loving primarily the Deity, we do actually proceed from the one to the many, from the simple to the complex, from unity to multitude, from the particular to the universal, from the solitary individual to the mighty class of Being." " The Double Trial," a tale of circumstantial evidence, is as its name almost indicates, a story of horr.ble but fascinating interest. A murder has been committed, a young girl is accused, found guilty, and executed. Years after a man is accused of the same crime, and also found guilty, and ultimately it is discovered that the crime had been committed by a third and unsuspected party. So much for circumstantial evidence. Mr. St. John's romantic and picturesque journey:" There and Back Again" is continued. " A Legend of Ulster," by Francis Brown, " The Position of the Colonies," " The Correspondence of General Wolfe," criticisms, and poems, till up the remaining pages of Tait.