and other equally reliable sources, and comprises complete lists of all the public offices, showing the age and qualifications of candidates and the persons with whom the patronage rests, the lowest salary at commencement and the highest salary to be obtained by promotion; and a selection of examination papers actually set to candidates. The introduction briefly explains the origin and progress of the examination system now applied to public appointments, and points out its advantages, as tested by actual working, both to the public and to candidates for employment in the civil service. The contents of this volume are disposed under the following general heads :1. The Civil Service Commission, its basis; 2. Departments of the Civil Service, I. in England, II. in Scotland, III. in Ireland; 3. Limits of Age and Qualifications for Candidates, I. Departments of the Public Service in England, II. in Scotland, III. in Ireland; 4. Examination Papers, I. Arithmetic, II Book-keeping, III. Composition, IV. Correspondence, V. Dictation, VI. Geography, VII. Grammar, VIII. History, IX. Languages, X. Law, XI. Mathematics, XII. Natural and Physical Science, XIII. Orthography, XIV. Préeis; 5. Salaries of the Civil Service, I. England, II. Departments of the Public Service in Scotland, III. Departments of the Public Service in Ireland; 6. List of Examiners of the Civil Service; 7. List of the Heads of the Public Departments.

The German Reading Book: consisting of German Tales, Anecdotes, Fables and Poetry, progressively arranged for Beginners; with a Complete Vocabulary at the foot of the pages, and an Appendix of German Expletires. By WOLFGANG HEINRICH JUST, German Master to the City Grammar School, and at the New College, Bristol. 12mo. pp. 182, price 3s. 6d. cloth. [Aug. 11, 1860. IN the preparation of this work, which is

intended for the use of English Students of German, the aim of the compiler has been to interest the pupil from the outset, as well as, by graduating the difficulty of the lessons, to facilitate his mastery of the language. The volume consists of a careful selection of short interesting tales and amusing anecdotes, with a few good fables and parables interspersed. The first part contains thirty short easy pieces, composed entirely without separable compound verbs. The rules relating to this class of verbs should be learnt from the grammar before the pupil proceeds to the second part, which consists of forty pieces of an easy and elementary character, but exemplifying the resources of the German language more freely. The tales of the third part, thirty in number, are somewhat more difficult in construc

tion, and consist chiefly of pictures of real life and passages of history. The fourth part contains twenty choice pieces of poetry adapted for those students who desire to commit poetry to memory as part of their course. With a view to present none but unexceptionable modes of composition and style, the entire selection has been made from well-known writers of admitted eminence. At the foot of each page is given a copious Glossary of words occurring in the lessons, with a view to save the trouble and hindrance of referring to a dictionary. An APPENDIX is added of Colloquial and Idiomatic Phrases, frequently met with in German writings, which do not admit of literal translation.

Précis de la Littérature Française depuis son origine jusqu'à nos jours. Compiled expressly for the use of Schools and Students graduating for the Competitive Examinations. By LEON CONTANSEAU, Professor of the French Language and Literature in the Royal Indian Military College, Addiscombe; Author of the "Practical Dictionary of the French and English Languages," &c. 12mo. pp. 376, price 58. cloth. [Aug. 6, 1860. A competent knowledge of the French language

and LITERATURE having been included in the course prescribed for the Government competitive examinations, the Author has been induced to prepare this work for the use of those pupils whose studies are shaped to meet the requirements of the Oxford Middle Class system. The want of a careful abstract of French literature, planned to scale but not too full for use in English schools, no professor of French and no French teacher will dispute. Many voluminous works exist on the subject; some of great value are to be found in most English libraries; but none of these works are adapted for schools. Neither could an average pupil be expected to gather from the entire collection of these French historians and critics such an exact knowledge of the circle of French literature as would enable him to answer any question put by the examiners to test his proficiency.

To meet this want, the Author has endeavoured in the present Manual to furnish a sufficiently copious history of French literature from its origin to the middle of the nineteenth century, including succinct notices of all the eminent prose writers, dramatists, and poets of France, with general remarks on their style and choice of subjects, and particulars of their influence on their own and succeeding times, accompanied by illustrative extracts from their writings. division is assigned to each century, from the thirteenth to AD. 1860 of the nineteenth, and

Α

each division is introduced by a general summary. The critical and biographical narrative of which the body of the work consists, is so arranged as to enable a student who has honestly gone through it to answer promptly any question involving a knowledge of its contents. The extracts have been chosen with an equal view to their intrinsic excellence as specimens of the respective writers, and to the use of the volume as a reading-book in classes or by self-teachers; but, in order to impart a character of freshness to the work as a collection, perhaps comparatively less known, wherever available in other respects, have been chosen in preference to specimens which have been so often reproduced as to have become hackneyed.

The summary of the rules of French versification given in the Appendix is not intended to teach the art of poetry, nor even to facilitate the composition of French verse. Its object is simply to afford such an insight into the practice of the best French poets, exemplified by the extracts contained in the text, as will enable the pupil more fully to appreciate their poetical beauties, and to recognise the delicate skill with which the difficulties of the art are avoided or overcome, as well as to answer the questions almost certain to be asked by the examiners respecting the laws of the alternation of masculine and feminine rhymes and their sequence, the prosodial rules of emphasis and cadence, the several varieties of poetical license, &c.

The typographical arrangements adopted in the Author's Abrégé de l'Histoire de France having been generally approved, are repeated in the present volume; all the more important words in each paragraph of the narrative, such as authors' names, dutes, titles of works, &c., being uniformly printed in a prominent type, which readily catches the eye when the book is used for reference, and is found serviceable when time is an object in impressing the student's memory.

Poems. By ARCHER GURNEY. New and revised Edition. Fcp. 8vo. pp. 320, price 6s. cloth. [Aug. 13, 1860.

THIS collection comprises "Voices of Earth," a Prelude, "Our Hope," "After Years,"

and "L'Envoy; "March and April Blossoms;" "Dream-World;" "Echoes of Maytide;" "Lyrics of Spring and Early Summer;" and "Narrative and Didactic Poems"— including a few not previously printed. In his Preface, the author states that most of these poems were written before he had entered holy orders; and adds that they are not arranged in the present volume in the order of their composition.

Exercises adapted to Charente's Course of French Studies, based on a system peculiarly calculated to promote a colloquial knowledge of the French Language, and containing: 1. Numbered QUESTIONS upon each corresponding paragraph of the Grammar. 2. PRONOUNCING VOCABULARIES, exhibiting the sounds and articulations of every French word.

3. PRACTICAL EXERCISES for translation into English, dictation, parsing, and recitation. 4. THEORETICAL EXERCISES for translation into French.

5. COLLOQUIAL EXERCISES for conversation. By A. A. DE CHARENTE, Professor of French in the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. 12mo. pp. 508, price 10s. 6d. cloth.

[June 25, 1860. THE French Exercises forming the second

volume of Professor Charente's Course, have been prepared with a view to carry out the system of instruction contained in the first volume, the Grammar of the Course. In point of importance, the Practical Exercises seem entitled to the first place; for, consisting entirely of French elcments, they are constructed expressly to fulfil the first essential in the teaching of a foreign tongue, viz. the training of the oral faculties to a correct and ready perception of vocal combinations different from those to which they have been used. The Exercises which follow, prepared for translation into French, are called by the author Theoretical, because it is to them that the learner will have to apply for a knowledge of the French Grammar, and also for a comparative view, through the easy channel of his own tongue, of the constructions peculiar to both idioms. The Third Series of Exercises, called Colloquial, are intended to test and to apply the knowledge of the French idiom acquired through the first and second. In carrying this into practice the learner is enabled to reproduce verbally, and almost ex tempore, with such modifications as are required by the usages of conversation, most of the matter already twice explained and illustrated. Besides these, the volume includes a Set of numbered Questions upon each paragraph of the Grammar. Thus the whole Course of Exercises comprises four distinct subjects of study, by means of which every rule may be worked out four times in four different ways. The strictly graduated character of these Exercises, which increase in difficulty as the pupil advances in progress, their copiousness, the moral tone which pervades them, the amount of varied and useful information they convey on history, literature, philosophy, science, and the arts, are advantages which, it is believed, combine

The Fall of Man or Paradise Lost of Cadmon, translated in Verse from the Anglo-Saxon: with a new metrical arrangement of the lines of part of the original text, and an Introduction on the Versification of Cædmon. By WILLIAM H. F. BOSANQUET, Esq. Post 8vo. pp. 104, price 5s. cloth. [Aug. 27, 1860. CEDMON, the Father of English Poetry, was

first a herdsman, afterwards a monk of Whitby, in Yorkshire; he died A.D. 680. His poems consist of "The Fall of Man," "The Deluge," "The Deliverance of the Israelites," and a Paraphrase of other parts of the Scriptures. Hitherto Cadmon's poems have been little known except to antiquaries, the metre not having been discovered. There is only one manuscript of the poems in existence, which is now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. It is written in continuous

lines like The translator discovered the prose. metre of Cædmon's poems a few years ago, by in. specting the manuscript. It is found to be the same as Chaucer's, but not in rhyme. The translation of the first poem is given in this volume in the heroic measure, in rhyme. The first printed edition of the poems was edited by Junius, without a translation, in 1655, the year in which Milton is supposed to have made his first sketch of "Paradise Lost," and we see in Cadmon's poem the origin of Milton's work. The translation is preceded by an introduction on the versification of Cadmon, containing a Metrical Analysis of some of the lines, and in the Appendix about 300 lines of the original Anglo-Saxon text is given, divided in verses. Cadmon's poems have been called a Paraphrase of the Scriptures, but this is not the character of a large portion of the poems; they are works of the imagination, founded doubtless upon the Scriptures. The earliest poetry of the English or Anglo-Saxons is far above the poetry of any other country of Europe at the same period, and Cædmon's "Fall of Man" is the best Anglo-Saxon poem.

Enoch: A Poem, in Three Books. By ROBERT STAFFORD, M.A. Second Edition. Fcp. 8vo. pp. 104, 38. 6d. cloth. [June 21, 1860. THIS poem follows the history of Enoch, as

given in the Bible and the Apocryphal Book called after his name. It is divided into three books: The Man-The Saint-The Prophet. In the first, a sketch is given of the domestic life of the Sons of Seth; and Enoch is represented as assailed by doubt and perplexed by the mystery of evil, from which he is only relieved by the ministry of his wife, and the thought of the promise of God. In the second, he is sent to the city of the Sons of Cain, and lives among them, vexed, like Lot in Sodom, by their unrighteous deeds-the main features of which are presented in various scenes. Their life is displayed in strong contrast with that of the Saint, whose peace and happiness are only for a moment broken by the death of his father Jared, who delegates his micsion to his son. In the third, he enters on his prophetic duties; and after an earthquake, famine, and pestilence, inflicted by God to arouse the wicked to repentance, protests against their evil ways. Then follows the account of several visions which are granted to comfort him, the materials of which are drawn from the abovenamed Apocryphal Book; and, finally, he disappears from the earth, and the day of his disappearance is kept as a festival by his posterity. The poem is interspersed with several hymns. Its main object, as depicted in the closing lines, is a moral one-viz. to kindle our aspirations, and to remind us that the whole of our life, like Enoch's, should be a protest against evil, and an upholding of good.

Of Heaven and its Wonders, and of Hell, from what have been heard and seen. By EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. Translated from the Original Latin, published in London in 1758. 8vo. pp. 376, price 58. cloth. [Aug. 28, 1860. THIS is a new translation by the late George Harrison, Esq., Barrister-at-Law, grandson of the original translator, William Cookworthy, of Plymouth, who was acquainted with Swedenborg himself. The book begins with showing who is the God of Heaven, and what constitutes heaven and heavenly happiness. As in man, individually, the body may be divided into three, the head, the trunk, and the limbs; so in the heavens, which are considered as the universal man, there is a division into three. Again, as in the human body, the whole is kept in life and order by the heart and lungs; so the heavens are described as dis

tinguished into two analogous kingdoms, called the celestial and the spiritual. The correspondence of heaven to the human form, and that of heavenly objects to earthly objects, are explained. Then follow various particulars of the state of the angels; their dwellings, employments, worship, conversation, &c.; their heavenly innocence and peace; their connexion with men on earth; the state of the Gentiles and others; of infants; of the rich and poor; of marriage, &c. An account follows of the state of man immediately after the death of the body, and lastly, an account of hell; showing that man makes his own hell, by wilfully cherishing hellish dispositions. Whatever may be his conviction with respect to the opinions of Swedenborg, the reader will find in this work much that is practically instructive and directly bearing on a moral and religious life in this world as the best preparation for the life to come.

Thou Shepherd, who the sons of Joseph leadest.” But these metres admit of many simple variations and expansions, while the "Songs of Degrees,” &c., receive a more odelike structure. The following for instance is a strophe of Psalm cxxxvii :— O Lord, our God, remember Edom's sons In Zion's evil day;

'Down, down, yea, bring her to the ground,' said they. Right blessed shall he be,

O dolorous daughter of the stern Chaldee,
Who dashes on the walls thy sucking ones,
Who that which thou hast wrought us, wreaks on thee."

The ordinary measures are retained in those psalms where the quantity of matter in most verses renders this convenient. A series of notes is added to the volume, analysing, where necessary, the argument of the several psalms, and explaining or discussing such deviations from the Authorised Version as it has seemed necessary to introduce. In the interpretation the author has carefully consulted the best versions and critical comments, and has made it his object to express the literal signification and primary historic import of each passage.

MOORE'S Lalla Rookh, with Woodcut Illustra

tions. Messrs. LONGMAN and Co. have in the press a new edition of Lalla Rookh, an Oriental Romance, by THOMAS MOORE, with numerous illustrations from original designs by John Tenniel, engraved on wood by Dalziel Brothers.-This work, which will form a single volume in small quarto, nearly ranging in size with the edition of Lord Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient Rome," illustrated by George Scharf, will be published early in October next.

A

NEW work entitled "Dædalus, or the Causes

and Principles of the Excellence of Greek Sculpture," by Mr. EDWARD FALKENER, Member of the Academy of Bologna, and of the Archæological Institutes of Rome and Berlin, will be published in October, in one volume, royal 8vo. with numerous photographic, chromo-lithographic, and xylographic illustrations, and bound in embossed covers containing two medallions from the antique. At the same time will appear a new edition of the Museum of Classical Antiquities, containing a series of thirty-five essays on ancient art, by various writers, edited by Mr. FALKENER, and illustrated with twenty-five plates and numerous woodcuts.

A
THE Auton of her clever and interesting letters,
Autobiography of Mrs. Prozzi, with a

NEW poem, entitled First and Last, will be
published in October.

has since her death in 1821 remained in the possession of the family of her late physician, Sir James Fellowes. These papers have now come into the hands of Messrs. Longman and Co., and will shortly be published. They consist of an autobiography of Mrs. Piozzi, whose anecdotes of Johnson's life are acknowledged to be among the most amusing and valuable records of the great lexicographer's habits and characteristics. This autobiography gives a rapid sketch of the leading incidents in her life down to the period of her settling in Bath. The MSS. then continue the account of Mrs. Piozzi's life, by means of a collection of letters written by her between 1815 and 1820, the year previous to her decease. These letters are principally addressed to Sir James Fellowes, and embrace an infinite variety of subjects, personal, literary, social, and retrospective, and form a curious picture of the life and literature of the time.

A

Selection of Political Ballads of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, edited and annotated by Mr W. WALKER WILKINS, will be published in October, in 2 vols. post 8vo. The admirable use made of our satirical literature by Lord Macaulay in his History of England has suggested the publication of this unique collection of Political Ballads. The two volumes will comprise characteristic specimens of the ballads published originally as broadsides between the years 1641 and 1760, namely from the great Rebellion in the reign of Charles the First to the death of George the Second. Independently of their value as literary curiosities, these ballads constitute the best popular illustrations of the history of the period, inasmuch as they exhibit not only the idiosyncracies of rulers and statesmen, but also an eventful stage in the gradual development of our social and political system. In reproducing them in their present form, the Editor has aimed at supplying a work acceptable to the general reader: admitting no pieces of an objectionable nature, he has appended a brief introduction and explanatory foot notes to each ballad, as well as determining its date, and in many instances the name of its author.

THE

Authorised English Translation.

Sea and its Living Wonders is the title of a popular work on natural history by the eminent German naturalist, Dr. GEORGE HARTWIG, which has already reached a fourth edition. An English translation, exccuted under the Author's superinten. dence, will be published in October; embellished with wood engravings, and an entirely new series of illustrations in chromo-xylography, representing the most interesting objects described in the work, from original drawings by HENRY NOEL HUMPHREYS. This work is not, strictly speaking, a translation; it is more properly a thoroughly revised and improved English ver sion, in fact a fifth edition, in which the author, by continued studies and researches on the subject, has endeavoured to keep pace with the advance of science and bring his work up to the level of the present day. The chapters, for instance, on Crustacea, Starfish, and the Geographical Distribution of Marine Animals, have been almost entirely re-written; and the chapters on Whales, Seals, Walruses, and Fishes, are enriched by many new observations and interesting particulars. The historical part of the work will also be found greatly improved. All this new matter, which enters into the structure of the work, is copyright, and cannot be introduced into any English translation of an earlier and immature edition of Dr. Hartwig's Das Leben des Meeres. It will thus be seen that this work will contain a great amount of new matter, by the author, which is not contained in the original work.

KNOWLEDGE for the Young.-A SECOND

SERIES of the Stepping-Stone to Knowledge, containing upwards of Eight Hundred Questions and Answers on Miscellaneous Subjects, adapted to the capacity of Children, will be published in October, uniform in size and price with the First Series. This little work is designed to convey general information and instruction on important miscellaneous subjects connected with every-day life and conversation, not contained in the FIRST SERIES of the Stepping-Stone to Knowledge, and including the ARTS and SCIENCES, MANUFACTURES, TRADE, COMMERCE, FOOD, WEIGHTS and MEASURES, COINS, NAVAL and MILITARY TERMS, TITLES of RANK, OFFICE, and COURTESY, &c., &c., with which it is desirable that children and young persons should be early make acquainted. Questions are stated in the simplest language, and are so constructed as to embody the chief matter of the subject, on the exact plan of the original work, of which it forms a continuation.

The

Athletic and Gymnastic Exercises is the title

a

new work, now preparing for publication, by Mr. John H. Howard. This work will contain upwards of seventy illustrations on wood, including a frontispiece representing Hercules, the border being enlivened by numerous gymnasts in their various athletic feats. In the present day, when all the world like to vary their pleasures and amusements, not only for themselves but also for those placed under their care, it would appear desirable to find some such amusement as would in itself combine recreation with all the branches of education. Now the object of the Author has been to supply such a means of recreation in the form of Gymnastics or Athletic Exercises, whereby greater freedom of the limbs and body may be attained, and the strength of not only the muscles of the arms, but also those of every other part of the body may be increased. In working out his plan, the author has aimed at making the study of Gymnastics more a kind of amusement and pleasure than of work or trouble. How the ancient Greeks and Romans exercised themselves is well known from the accounts we have of their feats of strength, &c.; yet the exercises contained in the present work (most of which the Author acquired on the Continent) will prove that strength does not alone consist in the using of the arms or legs to the greatest advantage, but that exercise should be distributed in equal proportions all over the body, and that every part of the body should partake of the benefit to be derived therefrom. In the description of the Gymnasium, Apparatus, Dress, &c., the greatest care has been used to make it as explicit as possible. All the different divisions of the subject are illustrated by various diagrams, showing fully the mode of constructing them; and the language made use of in the exercises themselves cannot fail to be understood by every one into whose hands the book may fail. The whole of the illustrations have been drawn with the greatest care, whilst the body of the gymnast has been sustained in the required position, thereby facilitating the achieving of the exercises, and likewise showing the exact method of accomplishing any peculiar feat.