11 DECEMBER 1829, Page 11

THE REVIEWER'S TABLE.

THE publishing season of the great emporium of literature is but in its infancy, or rather not begun, and yet our table is covered with can- didates for our notice of all sizes and pretensions. It is impossible we should ever overcome a task which would be each successive week in- creasing in difficulty, did we go about it in the ordinary way of analysis and extract. We have recourse, therefore, to a briefer form of no- tice, which does not preclude us from going back to a book of more than ordinary merit, for the purpose of minute criticism, but which, when that process may be impracticable, will at leaSt inform the reader of the existence and nature of the work which our space and leisure, or the character of the publication itself, preclude us from remarking on at length. Exclusive of what we have set aside for early but more mature investigation, our table presents us at this moment with the following miscellaneous mass.

Private Memoirs of the Court of Louis Manual of General Anatomy, by A. L. I. XVIII. By a Lady. 2 vols. Earle and 11. Bollard. Translated by Family Library, No. VIII. Court and H. Storer.

Camp of Bonaparte.

Health without Physic. By an Old Phy- sician.

Dublin Temperance Society's Tracts on British Almanac for 1830.

Drunkenness, 1, 2, 3, 4. Temporis Calendarium for 1830.

Letter to the Belfast News-Letter. Companion to the Almanac for 1830.

Statement of certain effects, S:c. By a Physician.

Familiar Treatise on Nervous Affections. Third Edition.

History and Treatment of Coughs and Colds. By I. Stevenson, Iff.D. Second Edition.

Affection's Offering. Time's Telescope for 1830. Recreations in Science.

London Uni versity Magazine, Nos. 1, 2, 3. Christian Education. By E. 13iber, Ph. Dr. Rhymes on Matrimony. Succinct Account of the Ancient Egyp- tians. By Charles Richson, Master of Witicot Place Academy.

Lothian's Pocket Bible Atlas.

FRANCE is getting nearly as great a bore as Ireland. A few lively and interesting volumes, among which we are bound to mention those of Madame DUCREST, have been published on the subject of the personages that figured during the Empire ; and a few, among which was Madame CAMPAN'S, on those that figured before it. The public read these collections of gossip, and some of the public received them as valuable additions to the history of the periods of which they treated. But there must be an end of this. We have something else to attend to than endless anec- dotes of every ftgurante who happens to have come in contact during the last six-and-thirty years with a lady whose name is Olympia—who was born in 1789—who lost her mother when she was four years of age, the date of her earliest anecdote—and who was then left with nobody but her father "resting on his &ohm sword, and gazing with a look of consternation at the coffin of his wife and the prison of his king." We do not, however, mean to deny that there are many particulars detailed in the Memoirs of the Court qf Louis XVIII. that are extremely amusing—we cannot vouch for their authenticity. Perhaps we may come back on them in the way of extract. At present, we must content ourselves with noticing a laughable inter- view of the author with Louis at Hartwell. The account occurs in the first volume. She found, she says, Louis in a towering passion with the Prince Regent. whom he called "a — • of a friend ;" —for what? Because the letter of Louis to the Prince had been published in the English newspapers! The good-humour of the King was however restored on his being told by DE BOURIENNE that NAPOLEON could not spell, and that lie knew no more French than Marshal SAxE did. He was so delighted with the Emperor's igno- rance of orthography, that he made DE BOURIENNE repeat his infor- mation twice over.

The Court and Camp of Bonaparte has no great pretensions in a literary point of view. It contains few new facts and fewer spe- culations concerning the lives of the BONAPARTE Family, and the BONAPARTE Generals. But the style is pleasant, and there is a good deal of amusing gossip contained in a small space. The embellish- ments are splendid. The head of Soifer, by E. F1NDEN, from a painting by H. GREYEDON, is worthy of particular notice.

On HEALTH, and the means of keeping it, we have a multitude of treatises. On the subject of Long Life, " An Old Physician" has pub- lished a volume, of a liberal title, considering the profession of the author. It is termed Health without Physic. The book is an oleic podrida of all manner of facts and speculations, in prose and in poetry ; and might serve a vender of anecdotes for a month's cutting up. The Old Physician, who discommends physic, is no enemy to a little enjoyment,—and we like him the better for it. " We heartily recommend," quoth he, " a glass of clear spring water, to persons of gross habits of body, also occasionally after a heavy meal; but to speak of it uniformly as a beverage, our experience hitherto does not, W e confess, enable us to offer any very decided opinion. We should prefer grog,—that is, water adulterated with good ruin, brandy, or something of that 802'1." In America, a man—thanks, doubtless, to well-paid labour, and the absence of the excise—drinks five gallons of rum per annum. This, say the anti-swallow-one-drop-of-spirits-on-any-consideration-societies of America, !rives rise to all the pauperism and crime of the United States. In Ireland—thanks to ill-paid labour, and the presence of the excise—a man must be content with a gallon and a quarter of whisky, instead of five gallons of rum ; and in Ireland there is a hundred times more pauperism and fifty times more crime than in the United States. Is it necessary to draw the conclusion? And then for the physical effects of a glass of brandy and water !—Two dogs, one who had his allowance, and another who had not, were murdered in cold blood five hours after dinner, and the food in the stomach of the latter was found semi-digested, and that in the stomach of the former not digested at all—ergo, concludeth Dr. LIEDDoEs, a dram after fish is a most in- jurious practice. " Is thy servant a dog ? "—An insufferable mass of twaddle has gone abroad about drinking, of late. The present genera- tion is decidedly sober, compared with any former one. If people do drink, it is because they have too little to do, or too little to think on. Feed their minds, and employ their bodies—send every family in the community a SPECTATOR once a week, and set the cotton mills and looms once more a driving in double quick time—itnd we shall hear no more of cheap gin and its effects.

If a man were to publish a daily annual on indigestion, we feel con- fident it would sell. Three hundred and sixty-th,e volumes a year, on so interesting a subject, we do not consider by any means an over- dose. Everything that can be said or sung on the issues of over- indulgence in eating and drinking, had been said and sung a thousand times before Dr. STEVENSON wrote on acidity, bile, and treason against the sr,astrie juice ; and every sane man has long known, that to get rid of these, abstinence, and notemedicine, is requisite : but then, it is easier to swallow a pill than to refrain front venison, and the bitter- est draught may be got over if a bottle of claret may be used to \VaS11 it down. It is not prevention, but cure, that people seek in tlee-e endless treatises on health, which are so profuse:y poured forth and so eagerly bought up. Dr. STEVENSON'S little work on Nervous Disor- ders is written in a pleasant, humorous style, and will anmse his patients if it do not mend them. There is an appendix of recipes, most of them simple, and we believe judicious. Another treatise from the same pen, on Colds, though rather learned in its form, and thoueh the preventive process recommended is somewhat too coddling for our tastes, contains many appropriate and just observations.

The Manual of G(;neral Anatomy of BALE and Hoer,Aao ha been translated from the French by Mr. H. STORER. The original is a highly valuable work, and the translation appear g to be careiu!ly and accurately made.

Affection's Qffering, a hook for all seasons, is one of the least nmbi- tious of the Annuals. The wood cul s are slight, I 1:imling- plain, the contributors neither numerous nor rarc ;it vihl, .10‘vcver, serve as a present to a little boy or girl, as well as its companions of greater pre- tension. The prose and poetry are well adapted to the class of readers for whom they are intended, and some of the little sketches in both departments are happy.

'Time's Telescope may be termed a book for any season of the year, and for any year of the century. Its contents have been repeated, not * We have nu means of filling up this dreadful bleak. sixteen times (the number of years it has been published) but sixteen hundred times. There is either great want of judgment or great sparing of expense in getting up an annual volume where the same facts are again and again set down in the same words, with just so much new matter as is sufficient to distinguish the last edition from its predecessor. A correct and judicious chronicle of the occurrences of the past year would be acceptable to a large class of readers, and useful both for perusal and reference ; but what boots is to tell the public that Lord LivERPooL, St. John the Evangelist, Dr. WOLLASTON, and JOHN CHRISTIAN CURIVEN, died in December—so called from deeern, ten, and imber a shower — because there are always ten showers in December?

The Recreations of Science is a reprint, although the date is 1830, and a reprint apparently without an alteration even to suit the year. The first page speaks of the automaton chess-player as recently exhi- biting in England and Scotland, and as still exciting unalloyed interest. The compiler's notions of scientific recreation are peculiar. In page 194, we have a table of the progressive amount of the Post-Office re- venue from 1644 to 1764, by way of a specimen. glisose.avho have leisure and Means may amuse themselves in attempting to follow the instructions of the book, but they must not be disappointed if they fail of success. • The British Almanac. Temporis Calendarium. Here are two books ; the price of the one is 2s. 3d., the price of the other 2s. 6d., and the stamp on each Is. 3d. ! The information that both of them afford is intended for the whole community—for the tradesman, the mechanic, the merchant, and the noble. We do well to talk of free trade, liberal principles, and all that, and yet continue to impose, not only on political but on purely scientific publications, taxes which operate on the great mass of the people as an absolute prohibition!

The Companion to the Almanac of the Society for Useful Know- ledge, is the cheapest half-crown's worth of solid entertainment and really useful knowledge we have seen since its predecessor of last year appeared. With the Almanac itself, it will form a most valuable and interesting volume. We must point to an ingenious and learned essay on the theory of tides, by Mr. LUBBOCK, as particularly deserv- ing a careful perusal.

The London University Magazine, which is ushered in by a silly dedication to the King, is not worse than University magazines in general, nor is it better. It displays a good deal of smartness, some humour, some learning, very little knowledge of life, and very little literary tact. The writers are clever, and they are young. As speci- mens of the talent of the University, the papers in the Magazine are highly respectable ; as a vehicle in which the students may exercise their pens and their wits with much advantage to themselves, we wish well to it ; to the public it offers nothine- new, nor does it impart much novelty to what is old by its manner of treatment. It is said in the trade, that the first number of a periodical is bought by the public on account of the advertisements, the second by the booksellers because of the criticisms, the third stands on its merits. The first number of the University Magazine contains four plates, the second has one, and the third has the following apology,- " In consequence of the great proportion of small type required for the Questions, the proprietors have found it impracticable to give a plate in the present number." There is a good deal of Irish in the first and second numbers, but there is nothing equal to this.

Doctor RIDER has published a curious work on Education; in which there are mixed up with some obscure and questionable fancies a great deal of sound argument. The lectures, he tells us, were pro- nounced extempore, and afterwards written out from the notes of a friend. Some looseness of arrangement and considerable repetition might be expected under such circumstances, but there is much less of either than we have often seen in more formally-constructed trea- tises. It is, however, the fault not only of Dr. BIBER, but of all per- sons who adopt his method, that they show more dexterity in disco vering the wrong than in establishing the right—they destroy much, but they originate little. Thus, after all the objections he very inge- niously urges against the existing systems of education, he fails to fur- nish us with even an outline of one more useful and satisfactory. Still, the objections are well worthy of consideration. For the present, we particularly recommend the perusal of the 5th Lecture, in which the BELL and LANCASTER plans are criticised ; the remarks on the Hazle- wood School system, in Lecture 6th ; and on Mr. GALL'S system, or the Goldfinch system, as it is humorously termed, in Lecture 7th.

We are rather too old to sympathize in the kisses and blisses of Rhymes on Matrimony, by a Bachelor ; dedicated to the Attorney-General, in acknowledgment of the rebuke administered in his answer to the Vicar of Harrow on the Hill. We would whisper to the Bachelor, that there is a half-sensual half-sentimental cant—a cant of Don Juanism or Tom Moorishness—which is a thousand times more boring both to men of sense and men of passion than that of the Harrow Vicar. The lines to the Evening Star, which appear among the shorter poems in the end of the little volume, are pleasing.

Mr. RICHSON, of Walcot Academy, Lambeth, has compiled for his pupils a History of Ancient Egypt, divided into short paragraphs, with questions appended. The work is fairly got up, but is a great leal too long. It contains more of Egypt, a country that ceased to 3xist as an independent state some two thousand years ago, than a boy could conveniently carry in his mind of the history of England.

Among the smaller publications, we have to notice with praise one by Mr. LOTHIAN of Edinburgh,—a series of Maps for the purpose of illustrating Scripture History, of such a size that they may be bound up with the ordinary editions of the Bible. The object is praiseworthy, and the execution respectable. Such a mode of illus- tration is infinitely superior to the plates that often accompany the Sacred Volume, and that enhance nothing but the price.