620 REVIEW.-Sir E. were attached to a Chariot. Constantine, in the end, transferred them to his new Capital. It may be added to their story, that when reconveyed to Venice by the Austrian Government, in 1815, the Captain of the vessel selected for this honourable service claimed descent from the great Dandolo; and it is satisfactory to be told, that of all the works of Art restored at that time to their rightful owners, these horses suffered least injury from travelling, because they had been taken down and packed by the English. The Lion of St. Mark was less fortunate, but he has been carefully repaired." Sir Edward Seager's Narrative of his Shipwreck, and consequent Discovery of certain Islands in the Caribbean Sea; with a Detail of many extraordinary and highly interesting Events in his Life, from the year 1733 to 1749, as written in his own Diary. Edited by Miss Jane Porter. 3 vols. post 8vo. WE have heard that two men, the only inhabitants of the Eddystone Lighthouse, quarrelled, and never spoke to each other for months. The anecdote is mentioned as the most perfect known instance of sulkiness, as they could converse with no others. In the book before us, we have a specimen which better suits the human character before the Fall. We have a sort of a Mr. (and also a Mrs.) Robinson Crusoe, in reality though not in name, who live like Adam and Eve in Paradise, loving and beloved, with perfect happiness, though only by themselves, and we solemnly believe that two amiable people, however ennuyès, may live together in honeymoon style, through having no resources but in themselves. It is certain too, that persons who have the stores of a whole vessel at command, shipwrecked upon a fine uninhabited island in a tropical climate, and who are also young and healthy, may lead a very patriarchal and agreeable life, for such a circumstance attaches to the History of Pitcairn's Island, and as Necessity is the mother of Invention, so that son may turn out a very handy, bustling, and useful fellow. Such a narrative is now before us, and considering it either as a romance or a history, it does great credit to Miss Porter.* We find in it all the resources of Aladdin's Wonderful Lamp, *The phraseology, however, is not in keeping with that of the year 1734. Seager's Narrative. [VOL.CI. without any supernatural aid. It further teaches us, that in almost any situation there may be happiness where there is reason and virtue, not passion and vice; and that civilization under the former circumstance may be of speedy growth. The book is also an excellent study for missionaries, inasmuch as it teaches them their trade, and the uses of their tools, as well as inculcates a piety and philanthropy, so productive of reason, happiness, and good conduct, as to exhibit in a most attractive view the real blessedness of sound religious principles. The work being, however, composed wholly of practical details, we shall not make any extracts; only, in conclusion, observe that it is one of the best books which we ever saw for instruction in the establishment of colonies; and one that with particular singularity shows how pleasantly Adam and Eve may have lived in Paradise, at least till a Doctor was wanted-but, where there are children, old people, accidents, and epidemics, physic is an indispensable necessity. Nevertheless animals do without doctors, but they are instinctively good herbalists, and have their own pharmacopoeia. 2 Wedded Life in the Upper Ranks. The Wife and Friend, and the Married Man. vols. post 8vo. THE first story relates to a married man, who neglects his wife, which wife in consequence bestows her affections upon another, but commits no criminal act. In the end the married couple are reconciled, and, like a pair of shoes, go on wearing out together afterwards. The second refers to an opulent perbad son, who, for fear of making match, takes a woman into keeping, and subsequently marries her. It is evident that a good moral attaches to both these stories. They are also excellently told. A chief object of the writer is to account evils show that what we eventually produce good, which position, though common-place, is proved in unsuspected states of things, e.g.: "Lord Delamore was one of those persons who convert whatever is meant for their good into a source of misery and trouble. Such dispositions are advantageous to mankind in one respect, the teaching PART I.] REVIEW.-Galt's Bogle Corbet.-Morrisoniana. resignation in their more untoward fortunes to those oppressed by poverty, or any of the various ills flesh is heir to."-i. 163. Of matrimonial quarrels it is said, "The very worst state for married people is one of restraint and mutual indifference. If Lord Delamore had been always finding fault with his wife, he would have had no time to nourish his own selfish gloomy temper; and had his lady been constantly disputing with his lordship, odious as she might have thought him, she would never have had time to discover that every body else in the world was not equally detestable." Paradoxical as these reflections may appear, it is proverbial that there is no poison without its antidote, but nevertheless it is best to be in a state of having nothing to do with either poison or antidote. Bogle Corbet; or the Emigrants. By John Galt, Esq. 3 vols. post 8vo. ROMANCES and Novels have been heretofore adapted to young people with young heads on their shoulders. We rejoice to see these books so improved, as to be fitted for changing the said heads, without affecting the juvenility of the shoulders, into old ones. Esop, who makes this use of fiction, deserves the patronage of the friends of Reason. In truth, books of this character unite both flower and fruit; and as to authorship, substitute for the mere dancing-master the professor of callisthenics; not the mere teacher of show but of health. The writer before us has vigorous intellect, and if the novel shape of his work has the name and appearance of a lady's reticule, it is such a one as Hercules may be supposed to have made for Omphale. But to the texture of the work. It steps out of the usual track of my Lord A- and my Lady B—, to furnish useful knowledge about gentlemen, mercantile people, and emigration. It is one of those books of which the possibility of benefit,-if put into the hands of young people intended for the condition alluded to-is incalculable. In regard to trade, it shows us that the great secret consists in knowing how to buy cheaply and wisely, as to the prospective market; in other words, in reasonable speculation: and as to emigration, it charges Government with negligence, in not preventing the misery or disappoint 621 ment of settlers, by appointing persons on the spot, who can advise and guide them. For settlers themselves in Canada it supplies the most useful suggestions. One of these shall be our specimen : "Having investigated the different vocations of the Glasgow emigrants, I arranged that Sam should attend a blacksmith, a carpenter, and a tailor, alternately twice in each week during the winter, to acquire some knowledge of their respective trades. When the labour in the spring recommenced on my farm, he was employed on it. Sunday was regularly set apart for intellectual instruction. "Were a course of instruction similar to this instituted for intending emigrants before leaving England, the benefits would materially mitigate their situation afterwards in the forest. It may be observed on this plan, that it differs little from teaching an apprentice at home, but I conceive the distinction widely different. Apprenticeship in England instructs the novice to acquire a trade for a livelihood, but this system only furnishes aids to other pursuits; dexterity or refinement is not the main object of the study, so much as a competency of practical knowledge, which may be brought into use when requisite. It is to the settler in the woods, what the art of the accountant is to the borough artisan, auxiliary to his business.”—iii. 138. Morrisoniana, or Family Adviser of the THIS is a thick 8vo volume, consisting of a farrago in the bill-stickers', wall-chalkers' style, of the grossest humbug and rankest quackery ever seen in print, and calculated to impose only upon the lowest and most ignorant of the people. The whole composition, in which the aberrations of the human mind are as strongly marked as in any case of lunacy of "Bethlehem's noble college free," has for its sole end and meaning, to sell a quack medicine called "the Vegetable Universal Medicine," upon the force of a quantity of nonsense, ascribing all diseases to peccant humours,-the carcase of the old exploded doctrine of the humoralists raised again from the dead. Remarks on the History and Authenticity of the Autograph Originals of the Annals of the Four Masters, now deposited in the Library of the Royal Irish Academy. By Geo. Petrie, Esq. R.H.A.M.R.I.A. &c. MR. PETRIE here announces the recovery of certain annals relative to Satires, and the Beggar's Coin, a Poem. By John Richard Best, Esq. Author of Transalpine Memoirs, &c. Post 8vo. pp. 174. POETRY, like music and landscape gardening, is not a show thing, unless it has strong effect; and certain it is, that it is nevertheless written without any forethought about imagination, soul, or passion, or the power of excitement. The best poets have acted otherwise; for they were paint ers, sculptors, and musicians in words. They never made soul and feeling insipid. Byron knew this, and to his ideas alone he owes his fame. The versification was mere apparel. Under these fastidious notions we consider Mr. Best's poems to be drawing-room trifles, denoting an elegant mind, and containing passages, which deserve the sincere respect that he has acquired by his Travels, but not things written for immortality, as Poetry, though indicative of a gentleman and man of excellent taste. Thaddeus of Warsaw. By Miss Jane Porter. [Colburn's Standard Novels, No. IV.] THE influence of Novels in effecting the formation of character, upon such abstract principles of morality, wisdom, and heroism as overpower the sordid and mean motives of interest or fear, is a subject far too refined for common apprehension, and too pure for designing worldliness. [VOL. CI. which threw them into disgrace, if they attempted to degrade the whole man into a mere fattening hog (for porcus is too soft a term) de grege Epicuri; or diabolized him into a seducer. An exemplar how to form a nobleminded young man, is delineated in this novel, which has been too generally read for years to need any extract. Selections from the Works of the learned and judicious Richard Hooker. By the Rev. Henry Clissold, M.A. Minister of Stockwell Chapel, Lambeth, and Rector of Chelmondiston, Suffolk. Post 8vo. pp. 117. HOOKER is the Paley of Churchof-Englandism; and no publication could be more seasonable than this selection, because it tends to circulate that wisdom which would never have been sought in the lengthy original. To show how seasonable it is in these weathercock times, we shall extract the following passages: 21. Caution in the Alteration of Human Laws. "As for arbitrary alterations, when laws in themselves not simply bad or unmeet, are changed for better or more expedient, if the benefit of that which is newly better devised be but small, since the custom of easiness to alter and change is so evil, no doubt, but to bear a tolerable sore, is better than to venture on a dangerous remedy. "We do not deny alteration of laws to be sometimes a thing necessary; as when they are unnatural or impious, or otherwise hurtful unto the public community of men, and against that good for which human societies were instituted."—p. 13. 23. Evils not curable by law to be mitigated or endured. "In evils that cannot be removed without the manifest danger of greater to succeed in their rooms; wisdom (of necessity) must give way to necessity. All it can do in those cases is to devise how that which It must be endured may be mitigated, and the inconveniences thereof countervailed, as near as may be; that when the best things are not possible, the best may be made of those things that are."―p. 14. exercises nevertheless a most seasonable control in those countries where luxury and riches lord it; although such countries would be utterly ruined, if there was not a high feeling, The Sunday Library, or the Protestant's Manual for the Sabbath-day; a selection from eminent Divines of the Church of England, chiefly within the last half-century, by the Rev. T. F. DIBDIN, D. D.-There is no more reason why Sermons should be without sense, than that men should be without heads. Nevertheless, it is certain that a very bad taste has been introduced should be composed of unintelligible mystiinto pulpit eloquence, viz. that discourses cism or insipid declamation. Works of the kind before us, by the introduction of beautiful writing, act correctively, and also influentially, by making it pleasant to read them. Dr. Dibdin's is, generally speaking, a good selection; and we are particularly pleased with the excerpts from Messrs. Alison aud Sidney Smith, and Bishop Heber. We wish Dr. Dibdin that success which his worthy efforts and literary reputation justly merit. The Persian Adventurer; by J. B. FRAZER, Esq. Author of "Travels in Persia," &c.— Such as would be the feelings of a civilized European in elevated life, were he obliged to live among the thieves of St. Giles's, are those of many unfortunate persons who reside in various barbarous countries of the East. Life and property are played with, as if they were men on a chess-board, and if there be honour among thieves, it is rarely to be found among savages; for horrors like those of the slave-trade are or may be circumstances of every day occurrence. The use of works like this, is, that it may save many lives where travellers or armies are concerned, and it may teach others to think that the extension of our Indian empire has had results of enormous value, as concerns the good of our species. Mr. SWINDEN, in his Attempt to prove that Lord Chatham was Junius, has collated, with infinite pains, numerous coincident passages and phrases in the works of both. That there is a bias of probability in presuming Lord Chatham to have been Junius, every person will readily admit; but could not Lord Chatham have echoed Junius, or Junius Lord C. How can it be possible to prove the converse of this hypothesis?Mere internal evidence cannot therefore be satisfactory. We warmly recommend, however, Mr. Swinden's pamphlet as a valuable addition to the aggregate of evidence already collected upon this difficult subject. The usual mode of proving such dubious matters in Courts of Justice, is by external evidences, such as collation of hand-writing, and circumstances, which ultimately show that the matter must have been the act of the suspected person, and of no other. Nothing short of this will detect Junius. The Treatise on the Internal Policy of Nations, consists of positions which are not sufficiently tangible for discussion. Mr. WALKER's Interest and Discount Tal·les is a most useful manual for the countinghouse and shop. We hope that Mr. MANLEY'S Miscellaneous Pieces in Verse, will please his subscribers. Mr. ROBERTS's Welch Interpreter consists of a collection of the words and phrases in English and Welsh, absolutely necessary for travellers in that picturesque and fine part of our island; and it is the more useful, because it is most difficult to acquire the pro 623 nunciation of the language of the Principality; and if a person can read, the corresponding article in English and Welch may be handed to the natives without the annoyance of studying a language, which to any man not resident can be of no use. We have seen few pocket volumes so full of information, and so agreeable to the craft, as the Free Mason's Pocket Companion. Mr. LATROBE, in his Music of the Church, has written many things which do him credit; but we regret that his remarks are intermixed with onction and unphilosophical reasoning in the very worst taste; e. g. Satan, we are told, in p. 105, "carries off victims with the pebble of tender affections!" and the author gravely affirms, in p. 177, that little birds in the morning and evening sing psalms from devotional motives. The Rev. ANDREW IRVINE's excellent and elaborate Sermon preached at St. Botolph, Aldersgate, Aug. 29, 1830, does honour to his philanthropy, for with him (p. 25) do we hope and believe, that "a growing zeal in our duty towards God, is [when unfanatically directed] accompanied by an additional ardour in our benevolence towards man." Mr. HERAUD's Divine Humanity refers to a subject which has been discussed iterum atque iterum. We thank the Rev. Mr. RAINE, the Historian of North Durham, for his excellent Sermon relative to the Connection between National Virtue and National Prosperity. Dr. VAN OVEN's Appeal to the British Nation on behalf of the Jews, ably advocates the cause; but there are very serious difficulties. Sermons preached at the Temple Church. By the Rev. W. H. ROWLATT, M.A. Reader at the Temple, &c.-Mr. Rowlatt is a Divine who confers credit upon the station which he has the honour to fill. His congregation, composed of persons professionally students of high reason, will, we hope, duly appreciate his scientific elucidations, which often remove, from the divine law, that uncertainty which obtains in the human. There are many passages indicative of excellent ratiocination. Basil Barrington and his Friends.-The intention of this novel is to oppose a mean fellow to a fine one; and, by delineating the consequences of their respective modes of conduct, to teach us to shun the disgusting selfishness of the one, and the generous folly of the other. When novels have such an object, recommendation of them is unnecessary. When we say that this is a moral instructive novel, we feel it also justice to the author to add, that there are many 624 Miscellaneous most interesting episodes, felicitously exhibiting the peculiar follies incident to elevated station in society. The Domestic Gardener's Manual.-Scientific rules for the conduct of a practical art, may be classed with Charts, Maps, Mathematical and Chemical indicia, &c. &c. The present work abounds with these, as well as detailed instructions, and leaves us little to acquire. to The Family Cabinet Allas.-The design of this useful publication is the illustration of the historical portions of the Cabinet Cyclopædia, the Family Library, &c. It is of the same size, and is admirably adapted those popular volumes. For accompany beauty of execution this Atlas has never been surpassed; it combines astonishing clearness and accuracy with a minuteness we should have scarcely deemed practicable on such a scale. The price is not simply moderate but cheap, and the work is richly deserving the highest praise and the most extensive patronage. There are many ideas, and a happy command of versification, in Mr. MICHELL'S Siege of Constantinople, which we much respect. The Familiar Summary of the Law of Bills of Exchange, Promissory Notes, and The Laws relating to Benefit Societies and Savings Banks (numbers of the Familiar Law Adviser), have the character of all such books, namely, that they prevent scrapes. We recommend to the attention of all those whom it may concern, the Report on two proposed lines of Railway between Perran, Perth, and Truro, in the County of Cornwall, by FRANCIS WHISHAW and RICHARD THOMAS, Civil Engineers. The Anti-Slavery Reporters (No. 77, 78) give us a long topographical account of a Golden Age which obtains in Hayti. Mr. Robert Owen, the apostle of gregariousness, "declares that he seeks in his theory of human happiness and prosperity the attainment of no greater felicity for mankind, than he found possessed by the inhabitants of Hayti" (see p. 192). In p. 216 an opinion is accordingly given in favour of entire emancipation of the slaves; "for they would immediately and peaceably settle down into free labourers!" Are such writers in their senses? The Practical Book-keeper has exposed, in his "Examination of the English System of Balancing Books, by EDW. T. JONES,' errors to which the system of the latter author is obnoxious, and which it will become all commercial persons to notice. We wish however that the Strictures had been couched in more temperate language. We approve of M. MELLET's Synopsis of French Grammar. The Rev. J. KENRICK'S Abridgment of Zumpt's Latin Grammar, may advantageously be studied, even by those who have arrived to puberty in the language. PINNOCK'S Comprehensive Grammar of Ancient Geography and History, is an uncommonly elegant and useful school-book. Mr. MAIR's Introduction to the Latin Syntax, is an improvement upon Clarke, which is a sure guide to writing bad Latin ; but we have no such fault to find with the book before us. In p. 126 we think that there is an error, viz. the use of ut instead of the accusative before the infinitive. The distinction is this. Ut is used when in order that, or on purpose that, may be applied to the phrase, but with very rare exceptions, not otherwise. Dr. STOCKER'S Persian Wars of Herodotus, is an excellent school and college book. The Notes are erudite and instructive. The Harmonicon continues to merit the patronage of the musical world. The numbers before us contain some interesting communications, a copious review of New Music, and each seven or eight pieces of Vocal or Instrumental Music. In the number for June are a beautiful Chorus and Duet from Spohr's Oratorio of "The Last Judgment," and a spirited song "The Pole's Adieu," by Miss S. Collier. We have also before us a supplementary number containing wellchosen selections from the favourite opera of Azor and Zemiar, by Louis Spohr. The Arrow and the Rose, with other Poems. By WILLIAM KENNEDY.-Good poetry and the gout are in this respect alike; both make us feel them. "Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn," resemble in this respect, joints that swell, and toes that twinge. Mr. Kennedy is not an insipid poet; and we can truly say, that if he can make us dance for pleasure, he does not make us jump for pain. Witness his spiritstirring song, entitled "Lady Mary," from which we extract the first strophe: "The fire of my bosom was flickering away, Like the sun's latest beam on a chill winter day; When dawned on my vision a daughter of light, A Queen of creation surpassingly bright The star of my soul-Lady Mary. There are precision and energy in Mr. DEAKIN'S Deliverance of Switzerland, a Dramatic Poem. Agrippa Posthumus, a Tragedy, and other Poems, by the late MATTHEW WEAVER, Esq. denote a writer who has considerable and versatile fluency of diction. |
