1 ten by the author of Cavendish, who, for reasons which it is not difficult to divine, is out of humour with the Editor of the Quarterly Review, Basil Hall, the United Service Club, and the Journal named after that gallant association; also with sundry naval captains, admirals, and official Peers. It is addressed to the Lord Chancellor, and calls nicknames with fully more good will than success. The chief points it makes, is calling Mr. Lockhart Mendax, and the Quarterly the Mendacian Review. With his bitter contempt of the present editor of the Quarterly, the author of Cavendish unites great admiration for that sour servile, the late Mr. Gifford, whom he styles its "late respected leader," and classes with Pope as a guardian of literature. To the unfortunate Mrs. Trollope, who appears to be now given up by every body, turned upon-there's the unkindest cut of all by her patrician patrons of the Quarterly, the author applies his pickled rod handsomely, and with good will, under the name of Dame Turpa. Her true designation of Trollope is better. People who relish a little witty, harmless malice in a book, may find a half hour's amusement in this poem; and the notes are better than the text. Neither of them can do much harm to any body, nor should they give great offence. MORTAL LIFE, AND THE STATE OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. BY A PROTESTANT LAYMAN-This is, in many respects, a singular work. It is the composition of a man of lively imagination, who, ingeniously and interestingly, employs the realities of life and the creations of genius to illustrate abstract and curious points of speculation or belief. The subject, from its intrinsic nature, is one of absorbing interest to mortal beings; and the extent of reading, and copiousness of illustration exhibited in the treatise, will gratify those who may not be able to subscribe to all the writer's implied or expressed conclusions. other of those useful small treatises, of which the publishers have already brought out several that are excellent, in a series. It contains a great deal of information in a compendious form, and may be beneficially used as a help forward in the study of science, being perfectly correct so far as it goes. We have an idea, however, that by the time children are so far ripened in understanding as improvingly to study theories of the earth and the principles of geology, the catechetical form of instruction, so unavoidably tending to parroting, may be dispensed with. THE BOOK OF THE HUNDRED AND ONE.-This, which the name is meant to indicate, is a co-operative work. An association, or a promiscuous crowd of men of letters, formed the generous design of assisting a Parisian publisher, ruined by literary speculation. Their joint contributions appear periodically; for the work is still in progress. A selection of the best of the papers is here presented in an English dress. They are unequal, and often trivial, yet they tell us more of Parisian society and manners, than a traveller is likely to pick up, even after a tolerably long course of sight-seeing. The papers comprehend tales of manners, sketches, satires, criticism, and politics. They form agreeable half-hour reading enough; and in literary merit, are decidedly superior to our home-made, joint-stock volumes. CURRIE'S BURNS. +-Here is a new edition, in one small volume, very neat and pretty, and only requiring an accompanying microscope to make it a desirable acquisition. But young eyes or very good spectacles may supply the place of this nstrument; and, in this case, the size of the volume makes it really handy to stuff into one's pocket, sporting-bag, or portmanteau. FAMILY CLASSICAL LIBRARY.—Mr. Valpy's last issues are Sophocles and Euripides, the latter the translation of Potter, the former translated by Franklin. The work maintains its high character; the translations are the best in the language; and the reprints are cheap and correct. BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF THE WESLEY FAMILY. BY JOHN DOVE.† -Those who like a good gossip about worthy people who lived from a hundred to a hundred and fifty years ago, will find much to amuse them in the history of the ancestors of the founder of the Armenian Methodists. The chapter which is dedicated to Susanna, the admirable mother of John Wesley, will be read with considerable interest. It is at once highly SCOTTISH ANNUALS. THE CHAMELEON. instructive, and very pleasing. Second Series. -What good genius whisCATECHISM OF THE NATURAL HIS- pered to Mr Atkinson, the happy title which he has chosen for his elegant annual contri TORY OF THE EARTH.-This is an Smith and Elder, octavo, Pp. 572. Simpkin and Marshall, London. Pp. 249. Oliver and Boyd, VALPY'S SHAKSPEARE.-This elegant edition, embellished in the best taste by etchings from the paintings of Boydell's gallery, progresses in undiminished beauty of typography. The name of the editor is a guarantee for correctness of text. • Whittaker and Treacher, London, 3 vols, + Blackie and Son, Glasgow. Atkinson and Co. Glasgow. butions to polite literature, and "to the harmless gaiety of nations?" Do our readers know the powers of the Chameleon,-that of changing its hue at pleasure, (yet there are good reasons for this too,) and of assimilating its colour to suit any particular object and situation? Last year, for instance, the Chameleon came forth rich and stately in deep blue and gold. In this it appears in the forest livery, the costume of Titania's court, gold and green. The power of varying its contents is equally remarkable ;-prose and verse, gaieties and gravities, puns, and apophthegms, and effusions in that mixed mood which blends smiles with tears, and in which the author is so successful. The diversity of subjects is not more remarkable than the diversity of style. Instead of pictorial embellishment, Mr Atkinson has pressed the Muse of music into his service. Several songs, the music composed by Clarke, the words by the Author and Editor, and very neatly executed in the engraving, adorn the volume; which, reserving its literary merits, which are wonderful, for after and ampler consideration, we recommend as a most appropriate holyday gift, 66 sweets to the sweet,' and suitable ornament of a drawing-room table. In beauty of typography, size, and getting up altogether, it certainly surpasses many of the Annuals of the year. THE SUPREME IMPORTANCE OF A RIGHT MORAL TO A RIGHT ECONOMICAL STATE OF THE COMMUNITY. BY DR. CHALMERS. -This pamphlet is a supplement which Dr. Chalmers has made to his late work, "On Morals in connexion with Political Eco nomy." Its principal object is to reply to the Strictures on that work in the last Edinburgh Review. The Dr. retains all his early opinions; but the Review has modified, and, in some important points, changed its ideas since the period when they coincided entirely with his. On the points in dispute, we can not enter here; but we give the Dr. entire praise for one particular of his reply, his triumphant exposure of the fallacy of those statements in the Review, which we saw, with some surprise, copied into all the news. papers, setting forth, and exulting over the happy, and the immensely improved condition of the poor in this country. It suited the reviewer to draw such pictures of the social beatitudes of the labouring poor of Scotland; but Dr. Chalmers knows better, and we thank him for giving truths which should be told the sanction of his name. The reviewer has chosen to look only at the bright points of the picture. Dr. Chalmers has considered its shadows and its blots, as well as its light and brilliancy. LETTER OF DR. KAY ON THE STATE OF THE MANUFACTURING POOR OF MANCHESTER. Second Edition.-Dr. Kay's pamphlet, we are glad to find so early in a second edition. It contains fearful pictures of evils that must speedily work a change on the face of our society, either for weal or His expositions and warnings are timely and earnest, and may contribute to the workings of a happy change. We recommend them to yet wider attention than Wo. NO. XI.-VOL. II. they have gained; nor can the friends of humanity, and of the best interests of Great Britain, perform a better preliminary service than making the contents of this letter generally known. THE ELGIN ANNUAL, Edited by Mr Grant of the Elgin Courier. This is another of those wonderful attempts which characterize our forward age. The literary part is mostly by the Editor; and very creditable to his judgment, taste, and fancy, it is. The drawings are also by the same hand. Of these, Findhorn Suspension Bridge, and Craigellachie are truly beautiful. The other subjects are only recommended by local propriety. Several of our Scottish literati have contributed to this volume, of which the Province of Moray may well be proud. STATEMENTS RELATIVE TO THE CITY OF EDINBURGH, &c.*—The sum and substance of this pamphlet is, that the inhabitants of Edinburgh, for the great tion which our fathers founded with their love they bear to that "beautiful institublood," viz. the Established Church, should consent not only to continue the present Annuity Tax, and all the other objectionable revenues of the Clergy, but to pay an additional sum of L.6,500 annually, and to build fifteen new churches!!! We have heard of castle-building, but our church-building author seems quite as aerial as the most imaginative of these visionary architects. HOOD'S COMIC ANNUAL.-The hu mour, wit, and fancy of Mr. Hood are more alive than ever. "Time cannot wither him; nor custom stale his infinite variety." The letter from a London Serving Maid, exported by Government on a matrimonial speculation to Van Diemen's Land, The Shilling, The Fox-hunter, and twenty other pieces, are in his first style; while something about the verses on Niagara makes us regret that the author of the poem of Eugene Aram were not editor of a serious as well as of a comic annual. Why are the singlehanded annuals always so much better than the joint stock ones, even when the editors are far inferior in talent to Hood? We cannot tell; but the fact is established:-and of all co-operative systems, the literary annual is the least successful. was open to the cause of the Poles; and whoever may have neglected, if not betrayed Poland, the journalists and the people are not of the number. The literary friends of that unfortunate country would, therefore, have been in our idea, more beneficially employed, had their agency quickened and acted upon the whole press, than in establishing an organ, which, from high price and insulation, must have comparatively little effect. IRISH PERIODICALS.-Two have start. ed with the year: the Dublin University Review and the Dublin University Magazine. The former may probably be a ramification of the grand Tory scheme of getting the press, too long neglected by Tories, into Tory hands, or under Tory influence. The Tory organs have of late been filled with exhortations on this subject, and the University Magazine is among the first-fruits. NEW PUBLICATIONS. Coney's Cathedrals and Public Buildings of the Continent, 107. 10s. Batty's Views of European Cities, 47. Landseer's Sketches of Animals in the Zoo. logical Gardens, 37. 13s. 6d. Turner's Views of England and Wales, Vol. I. Williams' Vegetable World, 18mo, 4s. 6d. The Invisible Gentleman, 3 vols. 31s. 6d. American Almanack, 1833, 58. Chronological Chart of Kings of England, 10s. Bainford's Scripture Dictionary, 12mo. 2s. 6d. Waverley Album, containing 51 Engravings, 8vo, 21s. The Life of a Sailor, by a Captain in the Halyburton's Works, 8vo. 15s. Rev. C. Smith's Letters on Maternal Religion, 8vo, 7s. 6d. The Lauread, a Satirical Poem, 5s. 6d. Major Rickett's Ashantee War, 8vo, 10s. 6d. Wacousta, or the Prophecy, 3 vols. 17. 8. 6d. Hooper's Physician's Vade Mecum, 78. 6d. Edgeworth's Novels, Vol. IX. 58. 58. Valpy's Classical Library, No. 37, 4s. 6d. Ghost Hunter and his Family, 6s. Twenty-four years in the Rifle Brigade 10s. 6d. Calvin, and the Swiss Reformation, by the Rev. F. Scott, 68. Scenes in North Wales, with 36 Engravings, 4s. 6d. Annual Biography and Obituary, 1832, 15s. Causes of the French Revolution, 7s. 6d. Rev. H. Stebbing's Sermona, 12mo, 6s. Kidd's Companion to the Watering Places, 18mo, 12s. 6d. Domestic Portraiture, The Richmond Family, 8vo, 10s. 6d. Fergusson's Tour in Canada, 18mo, 6s. Stuart's Three Years in America, 2 vols. 12mo, 1. 1s. Slade's Parochial Sermons, Vol. II. 6s. Brindley's Civil Architecture, 12mo, 58. Mornings with Mamma, 2d series, 4s. 6d. Hopkins' Notions of Political Economy, By Mrs. Marcet, 4s. 6d. 1 Key to Davidson's Mathematics, 8vo, 7s. Sense and Sensibility. By Miss Austin, 6s. Dunlop's American Theatre, 2 vols. 28s. Mant's Happiness of the Blessed, 4s. 6d. Diary of a Physician, 2 vols. 12s. Buck's Theological Dictionary, 8vo, 18s. FINE ARTS. Ir there be one thing we hate more than another, it is politics; and that antipathy, it will readily be admitted, is abundantly manifested in all our numbers. Where circumstances have occurred, we have felt compelled, it is true, to discuss the topics which the events of stirring, if not troublous times, have raised; but it has been with a loathing which few can appreciate, save those whom the stern dictate of duty has goaded into actions contrary to their disposition. We know that the Magazines of Tait and Ebony are considered by many as periodicals especially political; than this, however, nothing can be sillier or further distanced from truth. The able articles, ostensibly on such matters, which now and then appear in the latter, are by shallow-pated Tories, deemed the very alpha and omega of all that is excellent and powerful in the furtherance of their great felonious cause; the blockheads! they cannot see, what to every body else is plain as a pike-staff, that they are the effusions of a decently educated brain exercising its powers on simple theses of logic; as clever illustrations, merely, of the noble and sublime art of exposing or of perverting truth, as caprice or winking cajolery happens to determine. None better knows than the writers that their object is the most untoriable in the world. The drolls are radicals to the backbone-actual ultras; radicals in principle, radicals in hope, and radicals in all the relations of political existence. Did the slavering Conservative clique possess the brains of a reflecting donkey, it would have perceived-the propositions stripped of the balderdash and tinsel of language-how cleverly the clear heads of these laughing banterers were, for its especial bamboozlement, arguing backwards; it would have seen how beautifully they were demonstrating the existence of a mare's nest, and straining their sharp wits to substantiate the veriest shadow of a shade that ever flitted before a muddled cerebrum. So, also, do many-we know it -suppose that we are desperate Whigs, either, or ultra radicals, inveterate politicians at the least-the most palpable possible of all absurdities! The dull of perception may, and do imagine, that the spirited and apparently political papers which continually appear in our pages are concocted out of sheer love of such thankless subjects: --bah we repeat that politics we enthusiastically hate. True, we desire the reign of universal liberty; chaste, sober, holy liberty: but because our bowels yearn with an exceeding great yearning for the advent of that glorious day, when all the nations of the earth, and all the tribes of man, shall be made civilized and happy, and fittel to enjoy the blessings which that divine gift (to be had for the seeking) will impart, are we to be twitted as politicians, or libellep as thick and thin partisans? Partisans we are, to a degree, we confess it; but only for a while, and only of those by whose instramentality we in our conscience think it will be most speedily, thoroughly, and for ever secured. No! It is philanthropy, not politics which urges our pen. We feel for the foolish, and compassionate their condition; and inasmuch as that we are habitually accustomed to see further into millstones than a stupid and ungrateful public, so, and therefore only, do we sometimes dirty our fingers in the mud of politics, that we may instruct, and guide, and improve, and shew them their incorrigible blockheadism in all its deformity, and teach them the ways that lead to rational happiness; howbit the task is, per se, sore, painful, and disgustingly difficult of achievement. Oh! could the Taitites of this benighted land behold with what eyebeaming delight we rush to our table strewed with the beautiful accumulations of liter ature and the fine arts-the soul-absorbing interest with which we sit ourselves down thereto -the sun shining gladness which steals glowingly first, and then brightens fervidly in our bosoms-could hear our laugh (half crow, half chuckle) of intense pleasure, as, flinging into oblivion the memory of that dreary jading journey into the wilderness of politics just accomplished, we now prepare, gloatingly, to peruse, and to contemplate, and to revel in the goodly heap of treasure on which the eye reposes-nothing human would libel us with the bare supposition that we tolerated politics. Indeed, shrewd as we are, and penetrating as is our philosophy, we are altogether unable to account how any man living, not mad, can, from love or choice, be a politician. We do not deny the fact of such an enormity; we only cannot account for its exist. ence. Well do we remember a train of excellent reasoning that passed through our minds some fifteen or eighteen moons back, which, though it would take several pages to narrate even in outline, we will merely recur to as exemplifying how easily and how disastrously the theoretical convictions of the most brilliant minded may be upset by vul gar fact. We were seated on a soft and pleasant tuft of earth in the mid-height of majestic Skiddaw, surveying the imposing grandeur of the surrounding scenery; the variform and many-tinted hills; the sparkling foliage of the trees; the blue impenetrable sky, the gorgeous clouds that slowly wandered there; and the beautiful mockery of all their pictured imagery in the bright and quiet Derwentwater beneath; and we reposed our wearied spirit in the sublime and universal silence of the spot. We thought of things mortal and immortal; of reaction, the wide earth, its magnificent mountains, its peaceful plains, its immeasurable waters; this glorious world, still fresh as from God's own hand it sprung-and then of puny man, by whom its fair surface is blemished. We thought of his wars and his struggles, his stormy passions, his busy bunglings, his deadly strifes, his hopes, ambitions, thoughts, writings, ravings; and wished that his race could, one by one, walk through this valley and on those hills, and contemplate the living splendours of nature as they shone around. We wished he were there to survey, to admire, to think "in and in," and be hushed at once into awe or nothingness by the sublimity of the scene upon which we were moralizing in eloquence supernatural. Alas! our eye fell in its roviags on a living habitation within the distance of one little mortal hop-step-and-a-jump, and upon the instant this fine-spun superstructure of thought vanished into thin air; for there dwelt our gifted and misguided Laureate, SOUTHEY, who, for aught we could say to the contrary, was at that very hour, and in the bosom of this soul-subduing solitude, up to his chin in politics and poetry, quod libels and the Quarterly tossing his polished mind on the turbulent sea of party, paltry, pitiful politics: and in the centre of all that was serene and holy, meditating upon those things, possibly, which might stir into agitation the angry wrath of swarming multitudes. Thus were we staggered into the assurance, that politicians do exist; yet still to this hour we deem it a marvel. Turn we, however, to the performance of one of our most delightful occupations-sat ing the eye and delighting the mind, with the beautiful in art, and proclaiming, with a willing and far-reaching voice, merit where merit is due. FINDEN'S GALLERY OF GRACES. *--HOW excellent a thing is competition! It may be likened to charity, which blesseth every body, [see Shakspeare, and to the sweet south, which stealeth over beds of roses, giving and taking odour [see same.] Finden's Gallery of the Graces!" What an elegant alliteration! Heath's Book of Beauty was happy as a title, but the Gallery of the Graces-Finden's Gallery!-beats the other all to nothing. P We could almost pity womankind from the very apex of our heart, and with every female from fifteen to five-and--ty, (it is * Charles Tilt. not for us to fix the climacteric) we are half disposed to condole in very sincerity of sorrow. The eyes of ungenerous man have of late become so familiarized with all that is perfect in loveliness, that no woman whose charms fail to realize the vivid beauty which every month profusely scatters about, in one or other of its varieties, and in such stirring representations, can scarcely hope in these days to captivate his fancy, or fix his wandering eye. What fastidious roysterer, be he of green nonage, or of green old age, now thinks of flirtation or incipient wedlock; meeting as he must daily meet with, damsels under ordinary circumstances, when for a round half crown his eye may luxuriate; monthly on whatever is possible in female beauty, without a thought to vex him of rashness, railing, fault, food, or fecundity. Ladies! we feel for you, because ye cannot chocse but be sad; and can well pardon the execrations which you pour with a libeal and a hearty spirit upon the head of the unhappy Findens. Yet, let us counsel ye to be calm, and listen to the language of reason rather than of wrath: They deserve not believe us! Answer us now; are they not contributing to render more admirable your semi-celestial sex, by exhibiting to the gazing admiration of a stricken, dumb foundered world, such choice, chaste, enchanting, specimens of it? And ought ye not to greet their labour with smiles and sparkling eyes, not_frowns and anger-chattering, think ye? Turn, we beseech you, to this first part of the Gallery, and gaze upon that angelic creature, that pure and holy innocent, whose "soft and serious eyes," piercing illimitable space, are fixed on visions of another world, your anger, dear ones, "How beautiful she looks!-as flowers When newly touched with heaven's dew, Upon her soul the sacred showers Of truth have fallen anew!" There she stands, -"quiet as a NunBreathless with adcration!" Marvellously lovely she is indeed; but is it not the loveliness of earth clothed in the sublimity of intense purity, which speaks to the soul and transfixes the admiration, which none but a woman can feel, and none but a woman's face express? Turn, again, to Plate 3, and dwell for awhile upon that nameless "thing to bless, All full of light and loveliness!" Hearken to Mr. Hervey, and, with willing and pleased minds, do his bidding! "Look into her laughing eyes, How beautiful amid their dew! Once more, go forward to Plate 3, and feast your eyes upon that melancholy girl resting her sweet and placid cheek upon her hand. How mild and guileless is the expression of her fair countenance ! How serene her brow! What a little world of |