PROGRESS OF PUBLICATION.
THE dulness of the week has only been broken by one publication of any promise—Captain C. ROCHFORT SCOTT'S Rambles in Egypt and Camila : and that arrived at too late a day to enable us to say more than that it is in two volumes, has many cuts, and is published by Mr. COLBITIIN.
In the Beauties of the Country, THOMAS MILLER has improved greatly upon " A Day in the Woods." There is less wordiness than in his first production, and little, if any, of the attempts at fine writing which disfigured it. The subject itself, too, has more reality ; and the experience of our author in his many and weari- some pilgrimages, when following his trade of basket-making, now turns to account in describing the appearances of nature at different seasons, the rural customs, sports, and superstitions, still in vogue, in remoter districts, as well as the outward forms which rural employments show in action, and the various pleasures and pursuits that the country supplies. The plan of the Beauties of the Country is at least as old as SPENSER'S Shepherd's Calendar ; and though frequently repeated since, it is too natural to tire, and too fit to be changed. After an .introduction descriptive of the country, and of the pleasures of a country life, the author divides his book into twelve chapters, cor- responding to the twelve months, not only giving to each all that his own stores can supply, but enriching his pages by quotations from the best of his predecessors in his immediate line, and varying them by snatches of appropriate verse, which display a wide range of reading and a keen sense of poetical beauty. Take it for all in all, THOMAS MILLER'S book is a capital guide to the pleasures of the country ; and, in despite of the old leaven of verboseness, may rank next to Howyrr's Book of the Seasons, whilst as regards utility it exceeds that charming work.
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