16 DECEMBER 1837, Page 19

A third volume of the Passages from the Diary cf

a late Phy- sician, reprinted from Blackwoods Magazine, completes the series of these exciting stories. The extent of their popularity may be inferred from the fact of the two first having reached a fifth edition, in the separate form of publication, besides being trans- lated into foreign tongues. The narratives, always highly wrought, have been latterly a little overstrained ; but the actual nature of the incidents rivets the attention to the seeming facts; and that which in avowed fiction would be deemed exaggeration, is regarded as the effect of extreme euretion on the part of the relater.

The name of the author, SAMUEL. WARREN, F.R.S., though generally known, appears now for the fast time in the titlepuge, as a measure of protection ; the credit having been claimed by more than one of those literary laws who strut in borrowed plumes. In his preface, the author tells us he has long since relinquished physic, which he had followed for six years ; during which time it was that he collected his materials. Time first " passage" of the Diary—" The Early Struggles''—was effered to the editors of three leading Magazines in London, wlio successively declined it; and it was in a fit of desperation that the writer ventured to send it to BLACKWOOD, who at once detuete 1 its latent popularity. Mr. WARREN pays a well-desorvi.d tribute to tile memory of WILLIAM BLACKWOOD; to whose tact and sagacity in recog-

nizing talent, and vigour and liberality in securing it, the success of his Magazine was greatly indebted. Other periodicals boast of fashionable names—that prides itself on able " articles."